there has been so much swirling in my head as i prepare for a new year. how do i take the successful moments of last year and build on them (Iraqi refugee event; stereotype poems, stories, reflections; Pedro, Greek/Roman myspace projects)? which units need a lot of work (Egypt/Meso, Greece/Rome)? how do i integrate more direct instruction of concrete reading and writing skills? where does computer literacy and college summit fit in?
here's some ideas that are currently marinating:
- independent reading time - 3 days a week, freewrite - 2 days a week
- strengthen format of writing workshop - workshop every 3-4 weeks
- reading discussion groups - The Reluctant God, Tales of the Sufis, ABC, Pedro
- annotated bibliography for books read, to carry throughout BKHS
- habits of mind/work
- classroom procedures/notebooks
- rigid AIM office hours
- monthly communication with parents (newsletters)
- setting up an email account with every student
- extra credit for joining and posting on LPS
- stereotypes - theme of last year. theme of this year? connecting thread?
then there's the more concrete structure of my units. 6 six-week units allows me to cover what i need with regard to connection to global, and it also creates a solid framework so that i can integrate computer programs into the final product. there is enough time to have major reading/analyzing activities, a polished writing product and gain experience with a computer skill, demonstrating their ability to use the program in their final draft of their writing product.
i need to re-draft my syllabus and re-think day 1. creating community contracts, ice-breaker, scavenger hunt around the room (aww, i remember that Michael Jackson was in my scavenger hunt last year... sad). i REALLY want to put out the intro to 9th grade zine this year, and i REALLY want to give them a "Day 1 Survival Guide" as a model, so that's what i'm going to try to work on next week... along with the Detroit DVD. gray and i have really made it something special.
as one more personal project, i'm also going to publish a poetry chapbook this fall. i've accomplished almost everything on my 2009 top ten (to-do list!) and i would like the world to see some of my writing. much of it follows me into the same ravines i've always written from, but again, it could be a good model for students who wish to do the same with their work. and i do crave the warm photocopies of a fresh zine pressed against you... there is nothing like that sense of satisfaction.
wish me luck as a get the teaching itch back... as if it ever left.
xo
lo
Friday, August 14, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
You already snow... LPS took Detroit by storm!
Detroit was live!! The Live Poets Society kicked butt and took names (and aimflows) at the Allied Media Conference last week!
For all of the planning that we did to make this trip happen, for everything I envisioned it to be, I never imagined it would work out as well as it did. We had such a great trip on a thousand different levels, and the unique personalities of each young person mixed with the personalities of the chaperones was an accidental alchemy that made for an incredibly exciting week.
Here's a preview of one of our many hilarious moments. The kids had been singing this one particular, explicit R & B song the entire trip and this video was what happened when we asked them to sing something, anything else. Enjoy Mary!
As you can see, we had mad fun. Check out more of our photos and videos on http://livepoetssocietybx.ning.com. From the 12-hour sing-along on the way there, to the surprise U.S. Muziq performance at the D-Tension open mic, to being celebrities of the conference due to their zeal, to all the inside jokes and belly laughs, impromptu performances, nail night, push-up contests, bball games and flame-wars, to the more serious work we did (conferencing with the MAC students via video and conference call, our spectacular workshop at the AMC, and the US vs. South Africa freestyle we participated in)... I will never forget this trip, and no one who went will, either. The students were begging to stay longer, and I watched them network with other youth like pros. It was so overwhelmingly successful that they were immediately trying to think about fundraising ideas and ways to improve for next year. We WILL be back at the AMC, you already snow!
I'm so proud of my students. They really went above and beyond my expectations, whether they were speaking to someone at the conference, graciously thanking the person responsible for our housing accommodations, or chatting with my grandmother. They got to meet practically my entire family, and see my city, which was so special to me. I am so grateful to everyone who had a hand in supporting this project and bringing one of my dreams to fruition. The Live Poets Society is taking off and I'm so excited to see where it will take us!
Much love,
Lo
For all of the planning that we did to make this trip happen, for everything I envisioned it to be, I never imagined it would work out as well as it did. We had such a great trip on a thousand different levels, and the unique personalities of each young person mixed with the personalities of the chaperones was an accidental alchemy that made for an incredibly exciting week.
Here's a preview of one of our many hilarious moments. The kids had been singing this one particular, explicit R & B song the entire trip and this video was what happened when we asked them to sing something, anything else. Enjoy Mary!
As you can see, we had mad fun. Check out more of our photos and videos on http://livepoetssocietybx.ning.com. From the 12-hour sing-along on the way there, to the surprise U.S. Muziq performance at the D-Tension open mic, to being celebrities of the conference due to their zeal, to all the inside jokes and belly laughs, impromptu performances, nail night, push-up contests, bball games and flame-wars, to the more serious work we did (conferencing with the MAC students via video and conference call, our spectacular workshop at the AMC, and the US vs. South Africa freestyle we participated in)... I will never forget this trip, and no one who went will, either. The students were begging to stay longer, and I watched them network with other youth like pros. It was so overwhelmingly successful that they were immediately trying to think about fundraising ideas and ways to improve for next year. We WILL be back at the AMC, you already snow!
I'm so proud of my students. They really went above and beyond my expectations, whether they were speaking to someone at the conference, graciously thanking the person responsible for our housing accommodations, or chatting with my grandmother. They got to meet practically my entire family, and see my city, which was so special to me. I am so grateful to everyone who had a hand in supporting this project and bringing one of my dreams to fruition. The Live Poets Society is taking off and I'm so excited to see where it will take us!
Much love,
Lo
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Why Detroit?
(a mission statement in-progress for my Detroit trip with students... your feedback is welcome, please go check out our Ning! Address below)
Hey there,
So, as I'm on AIM with one of my Detroit project super-stars, emailing someone about our lodging, and working on updating the Ning we started, I'm feeling the tangible taste of this adventure. Backing up a bit, this is a trip that I conceived in my head before I ever taught at BK. I have attended the Allied Media Conference in Detroit for a few years now, and also the first ever conference, then called the Bowling Green Zine Conference, in 1999 on the campus of BGSU, in Ohio. I have self-published my own writing for nearly 11 years through "zines", or independently published mini-magazines of poetry, personal essays and imagery (usually collaged and photocopied, distributed by independent distributors and by me). I found my voice through this publishing and still cherish the connections I made with other writers and artists across the world. I have a strong bias in the power of self-made media to transform the lives of youth -- I lived this transformation and became a conscious activist and teacher because of it.
This conference is a phenomenal place where activists meet up, share their work, and build communities of folks working on media production from a grassroots, social-justice angle. In Detroit in particular, they're looking to build an alternate economy that does not rely on the floundering auto industry, but is rooted in technology and the future. Teaching youth media-making skills allows them to find their own voices, and broadcast their thoughts. Whether by radio show, song, poem, photograph, film, music video, zine, art installation, graf piece... giving my students the tools to be able to make their creativity into a product will benefit their lives after high school, that can help connect them to a career that they love and can prosper in -- this is my goal. To help them understand that media-making is empowering AND can take them places.
Broadcasting is just the beginning, though. Having an exchange of thoughts and ideas that is constant, way past the conference this summer, that becomes a part of the school culture, and their writing process. Connecting with our incredibly inspiring art teacher to have this continue as an online component of a literary/art mag, making this project a truly student-run production, and Detroit an annual trip. Integrating this into my classroom, making technology and media-making a part of what I teach -- changing the shape of the ELA classroom to really focus on what communication looks like now. These are some larger goals we're working on.
Check out our fledgling site -- which will begin its chrysalis this week as the students begin to work on it...
And also check the Allied Media Conference -- we're SOOO looking forward to the opportunity to be in Detroit.
www.alliedmediaconference.org
Wish us luck!
-Lauren
Hey there,
So, as I'm on AIM with one of my Detroit project super-stars, emailing someone about our lodging, and working on updating the Ning we started, I'm feeling the tangible taste of this adventure. Backing up a bit, this is a trip that I conceived in my head before I ever taught at BK. I have attended the Allied Media Conference in Detroit for a few years now, and also the first ever conference, then called the Bowling Green Zine Conference, in 1999 on the campus of BGSU, in Ohio. I have self-published my own writing for nearly 11 years through "zines", or independently published mini-magazines of poetry, personal essays and imagery (usually collaged and photocopied, distributed by independent distributors and by me). I found my voice through this publishing and still cherish the connections I made with other writers and artists across the world. I have a strong bias in the power of self-made media to transform the lives of youth -- I lived this transformation and became a conscious activist and teacher because of it.
This conference is a phenomenal place where activists meet up, share their work, and build communities of folks working on media production from a grassroots, social-justice angle. In Detroit in particular, they're looking to build an alternate economy that does not rely on the floundering auto industry, but is rooted in technology and the future. Teaching youth media-making skills allows them to find their own voices, and broadcast their thoughts. Whether by radio show, song, poem, photograph, film, music video, zine, art installation, graf piece... giving my students the tools to be able to make their creativity into a product will benefit their lives after high school, that can help connect them to a career that they love and can prosper in -- this is my goal. To help them understand that media-making is empowering AND can take them places.
Broadcasting is just the beginning, though. Having an exchange of thoughts and ideas that is constant, way past the conference this summer, that becomes a part of the school culture, and their writing process. Connecting with our incredibly inspiring art teacher to have this continue as an online component of a literary/art mag, making this project a truly student-run production, and Detroit an annual trip. Integrating this into my classroom, making technology and media-making a part of what I teach -- changing the shape of the ELA classroom to really focus on what communication looks like now. These are some larger goals we're working on.
Check out our fledgling site -- which will begin its chrysalis this week as the students begin to work on it...
And also check the Allied Media Conference -- we're SOOO looking forward to the opportunity to be in Detroit.
www.alliedmediaconference.org
Wish us luck!
-Lauren
Friday, June 12, 2009
getting around firewalls...
hmm, so interesting when i'm asking my students for the newest proxy servers... and when i can't pull this video off of the website on which it lives, and into keepvid.com, so that i may save it to my desktop. let's see if this works...
(more to come next week, when i am done teaching. i smell reflections!)
(more to come next week, when i am done teaching. i smell reflections!)
| Chappelle's Show | ||||
| The Racial Draft | ||||
| ||||
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Speed-dating and the Quest for tha D.
Hey ya'll,
So, the end of the year has not allowed me to keep you up to date. We rocked our way through Greece and Rome, working on independent research projects about a god/goddess in the pantheon. Then, each student "became" their god/goddess and created a myspace profile, which highlighted the research they found and got them to make connections between the stories by thinking about which other gods/goddesses would be on their top 8. They also got to try and figure out a playlist for their god/goddess and focus on a theme/mood that fit their personality, it was an awesome project -- I'll post some student work when I get a moment.
Then, we speed-dated! Yup, that's right. Call me crazy (and lots of ppl did), but I was looking for a way for the kids to role play and really work on their memorization skills and also learn something about some of the other gods and goddesses, so I came up with a speed-dating lesson where they tried to find a match with another god, based on what they knew about their personalities from the myths. What they learned: greek gods/goddesses are all somehow related to one another, Zeus slept with everyone and had a hard time at speed-dating because the goddesses all knew his game, Aphrodite and Eros both got questioned about why they were speed-dating A TON (because shouldn't the GOD and GODDESS of LOVE have an easy time finding love?!? not so much, i said), and Artemis is a lesbian, or at least that's the inference that they made about her preference.
Now, as the year ends, I'm turning my attention to the D, and tryin to get my students there. We've been doing some grassroots fundraising -- bake sales, student-helpers in teachers' classrooms (the students get paid and donate their "salary" to the project), letter campaigns, but the reality is that we need lots of money in a short amount of time. Here comes the dilemma... even though I can't really afford it, should I cover the cost of the trip to ensure that it happens? My heart and soul is invested in this, but in my first year of teaching, I realize that I needed to start fundraising in September in order to fully do this right. Hindsight is 20/20, but this trip is still ahead of us...
I'm hosting a fundraiser on May 30th (NYC folks, get in touch!) and am hoping that one of the 4 grants I wrote this winter will come through to take care of a chunk of it. The kids have really gotten themselves motivated to take charge of a fundraising project (each student has a fundraising goal and had to design and implement a project on their own... though I assisted in trying to make those projects happen), and are beginning to put together the content of their "zine". We did a Garage Band workshop with Beat Mining Productions' CEO/Producer Roamy Fils-Aime, and are trying to work other media into our expressions as we speak.
I really hope this trip happens. My students are great. They keep telling me "Miss, we got this." It's amazing how sometimes a meeting with them when I'm stressed and exhausted will completely rejuvenate me.
Holla at me if you have fundraising ideas, or wanna learn more about the work we're doing.
xo
Lo
So, the end of the year has not allowed me to keep you up to date. We rocked our way through Greece and Rome, working on independent research projects about a god/goddess in the pantheon. Then, each student "became" their god/goddess and created a myspace profile, which highlighted the research they found and got them to make connections between the stories by thinking about which other gods/goddesses would be on their top 8. They also got to try and figure out a playlist for their god/goddess and focus on a theme/mood that fit their personality, it was an awesome project -- I'll post some student work when I get a moment.
Then, we speed-dated! Yup, that's right. Call me crazy (and lots of ppl did), but I was looking for a way for the kids to role play and really work on their memorization skills and also learn something about some of the other gods and goddesses, so I came up with a speed-dating lesson where they tried to find a match with another god, based on what they knew about their personalities from the myths. What they learned: greek gods/goddesses are all somehow related to one another, Zeus slept with everyone and had a hard time at speed-dating because the goddesses all knew his game, Aphrodite and Eros both got questioned about why they were speed-dating A TON (because shouldn't the GOD and GODDESS of LOVE have an easy time finding love?!? not so much, i said), and Artemis is a lesbian, or at least that's the inference that they made about her preference.
Now, as the year ends, I'm turning my attention to the D, and tryin to get my students there. We've been doing some grassroots fundraising -- bake sales, student-helpers in teachers' classrooms (the students get paid and donate their "salary" to the project), letter campaigns, but the reality is that we need lots of money in a short amount of time. Here comes the dilemma... even though I can't really afford it, should I cover the cost of the trip to ensure that it happens? My heart and soul is invested in this, but in my first year of teaching, I realize that I needed to start fundraising in September in order to fully do this right. Hindsight is 20/20, but this trip is still ahead of us...
I'm hosting a fundraiser on May 30th (NYC folks, get in touch!) and am hoping that one of the 4 grants I wrote this winter will come through to take care of a chunk of it. The kids have really gotten themselves motivated to take charge of a fundraising project (each student has a fundraising goal and had to design and implement a project on their own... though I assisted in trying to make those projects happen), and are beginning to put together the content of their "zine". We did a Garage Band workshop with Beat Mining Productions' CEO/Producer Roamy Fils-Aime, and are trying to work other media into our expressions as we speak.
I really hope this trip happens. My students are great. They keep telling me "Miss, we got this." It's amazing how sometimes a meeting with them when I'm stressed and exhausted will completely rejuvenate me.
Holla at me if you have fundraising ideas, or wanna learn more about the work we're doing.
xo
Lo
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
This talk is a few years old, and I think Seadragon (or an offshoot of the technology, anyway) is part of the operating system for the iphone, if I'm not mistaken, but lately I've been thinking about the implications of everyone being digitally connected, and then someone on an educators community I'm on posted this. Check out Goble's ning, called "Making Curriculum Pop" here: , but seriously... as he demos this in the video below... just pause and think about images being able to talk to one another like this... and have data attached to them. how a random digital photo you take in new york city can provide you so much information when you get it online... hmm. Just food for thought. My brain has been full of so many things lately, so it's been nice, while on spring break, to ponder possibilities.
xo
Lo
xo
Lo
Saturday, April 4, 2009
viva la lolo
i have been trying to just breathe. it has been simultaneously the best and most challenging year of my life. i don't know if i'll ever recover from this year, or how to measure my growth. i just know that i've been growing exponentially in my ways of understanding the world, and in my ability to maneuver through my days unphased. i am galvanizing myself right now, building armor out of an intense love and wearing it to protect myself. to cover others. to win.
for the first time in my life, i feel like i am always winning. it is humbling, because none of this is about me. it is about you. i write to me a lot, but this is the time to turn it outwards, to expose it. i don't need an audience for my writing, because i have one in my daily life. except here is the thing: the biggest thing i've learned this year is how to listen.
xo
lo
for the first time in my life, i feel like i am always winning. it is humbling, because none of this is about me. it is about you. i write to me a lot, but this is the time to turn it outwards, to expose it. i don't need an audience for my writing, because i have one in my daily life. except here is the thing: the biggest thing i've learned this year is how to listen.
xo
lo
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)