Teach Writing Right

My fellow educators...

I've been working on a new plan for this school year...one that lets me post classroom evidence regularly without sucking too much time from my crazy, busy life.

And so...this year, I will be focusing on Pinterest, and I invite you to follow me there.  As my students do exceptional work or as I post a new lesson or teacher model, I will be posting them to Pinterest this year, not to Blogger.

Here is a link to my pinterest account, which you can easily follow me at:  http://pinterest.com/source/corbettharrison.com/  I will also be encouraging my students to follow me so that they can see when their work is chosen and posted as an exemplar.

Finally, working on a new lesson based on my favorite video from the summer: "Titanium" by David Guetta and sung by Sia.  I made my first metaphor of the week (for Monday...when I see my new kiddos) based on this video, which I am creating a lesson around.

Please...come follow me on Pinterest!

--Corbett

Dena and I spend our summers creating new resources to enhance our use of writer's notebooks and writer's workshop.  Last year, we created our Writer's Notebook Monthly Bingo Cards.  This year, we are ambitiously working on two new products: 1) Sacred Writing Time PowerPoint Inspirations and 2) Writer's Notebook/Workshop Menus.

Our SWT Powerpoint slide for August 31

Our daily ten minutes of Sacred Writing Time is essential to our weekly writer's workshop day; in both our classrooms, the first ten minutes is guaranteed quiet writing time when students can explore new ideas or continue writing about previously-started ideas.  The students' job is to come to class with an idea that--in the last twenty-three hours--has made them think, and they are to write that idea down (in paragraph form) so that they can remember it when we begin a new writer's workshop piece.  Most of our kids--by the halfway point of the year--become very good at coming in with their own ideas for SWT, but there are those students who need to be prompted.  We are developing this new set of daily prompts to give students without an independent writing topic something interesting to respond to.  There will be a different slide for every day of the week between August 15 and June 15.  Click here to access the 17 slides we made for August. 

Our "Italian Menu" of Writing Ideas

Our Bingo cards provide a lot of topics and interesting structures for Writer's Notebooks, but we wanted a new tool that would also help our students pre-write over multiple days in their notebooks on singular ideas for writer's workshop.  We both believe that when pre-writing takes multiple days before a student begins a draft, the draft will be much better.  Our new set of nine workshop/notebook menus provide both fun topics and structured suggestions for students who need to strengthen the thinking and lengthen the time spent developing an idea for a draft.  Here is access to the Italian-themed menu; each menu will figuratively focus on food from a different culture. 

Sorry to gush about my lovely students again, but I received an e-mail from one of my students two days after school was out that explained how I needed to go back and check my mailbox on campus.  I did this yesterday, and I found a great t-shirt and card from two of my used-to-be sixth grade girls who are now my seventh graders.

My new custom-made shirt!

Here's the back-story, if you care to know: six weeks ago, my sixth graders and I had an overnight field trip up to the pine trees 80 miles from here.  I had known  Hannah--one of my sixth graders--loved to watch/identify birds because of her writer's notebook, but I didn't know her friend Mimi had picked up on the habit too.  Hannah and I had talked about birds early on in the school year, and when we left the bus six weeks back and I saw a bluejay, I challenged Hannah to a 24-hour "bird-off."  Who could spot and identify the most birds during our stay in the pine trees, that was the challenge.  Mimi overheard, and it became the two of them against me.

At the end of our first afternoon, I was one bird ahead.  I woke up early the next morning, and doubled my number of spottings before breakfast, which I knew would irk the two ladies I was competing against.  There was one noisy little sparrow, however, I could not identify that morning.  There are too many sparrow types, and this one I found was so loud, but I had no idea which type he was.  Luckily, I have an Audubon application on my iPhone, and amazingly, it played for me the exact same song I was hearing from this little fellow in the pine tree: a chipping sparrow, a totally new bird for me.  After breakfast, I told my two ladies about the birds I had spotted that morning (without the iPhone's help), but then I broached the subject that I had used my phone to learn a totally different bird for my list.  I had thought they'd be impressed that such a piece of technology existed, but oh dear, I was wrong.  They deemed me a "cheater" and pretty much called off the contest.

In insisted I was using technology to better my knowledge, but they (both great little actresses) let me have it for "cheating" them out of the possibility of winning the contest.  When we were back in school, they made a sign for my chair with a chipping sparrow on it; the bird was calling me a cheater in the sign. They made signs for their desks that read, "Only non-cheaters can sit here."

Anyway, it became our joke for the last six weeks of school; I was quietly thrilled to see that Hannah wrote her final expository essay on the chipping sparrow.  When I said, "See how my cheating inspired a new topic to research for you," she jokingly turned her back on me and walked away with a "Humphhh."

In my mailbox--two days after the end of school--I found the pictured chipping sparrow t-shirt with the sweetest thank you card from these two ladies.  I wanted them to see me in my "cheater's t-shirt," so I am proudly posting this picture.

Thanks, Hannah and Mimi!  Can't wait to begin your year as "Sev-ies."  I shall wear the shirt on special occasions.


--Mr. Harrison

Throughout the now-past school year, I kept having such a hard time choosing my "Mr. Stick of the Week" awards (because I was seeing so many great pages in my kids' notebooks).  I give those awards to select students based on their writer's notebooks during my monthly checks; I just love it when a short piece of writing is decorated with a clever use of Mr Stick--our notebooks' margin mascot.

When, in April, one of my students suggested we should have a "Mr. Stick of the Year" award, I wholeheartedly agreed.  I'm not big into class competitions, but my students are.  So I decided that, instead of a monthly writer's notebook extra credit challenge for May, we would have an extra credit contest: The Mr. Stick of Year Award!

I created this contest page at my website, which shared rules and gave suggestions as to what might make a new writer's notebook page stand out so that it might be deemed a "winner."  At our middle school, our kids are put into core teams for the three years they spend with us; our school has seven different teams of students, and when they told us we could name out own team, our kids chose "Team Phoenix" as our name.  I was thrilled to find--while serendipitously searching on e-Bay--a Boy Scout patrol patch that actually showed a stick man on fire--perfect for a Phoenix Stickman ribbon.

With rules and awards in place, we were open for business, and my kids spent the month of May creating multiple entries that they felt might make them deserving of one of the three ribbons I would be awarding on June 1st.  I warned students they would only be allowed to nominate one of their entries into the contest, encouraging students who were creating many entries to select their very best idea and spend some extra time on it.  Though this contest was completely optional, on May 31st I had over 60% of my students enter the contest.  Using my rubric from my rules page, I was able to narrow the search down to the twenty best looking pages, and my wife then helped me choose the three winners and the nine honorable mentions.

The winner (25 extra credit points!) was one of my graduating 8th graders--bass-playing Chris--who borrowed the "How To Be [insert character name here]" poetry format we had used as part of my World War Novel Unit, and Chris composed a charming poem called "How to Be Chris":

click image to enlarge it

Second place (15 extra credit points) went to a sixth grader, the amazing Mimi, who created a two-page notebook spread that shared the highlights of her entire year as a member of Team Phoenix--from the first day of school to her playing a large role in our school musical:

click image to enlarge

And third place (10 extra credit points) went to a seventh grader--Andrea--who decided to offer a two-pages of Mr. Stick sharing advice on how to keep a great writer's notebook.  My wife and I both loved her simple but effective use of Post-it Notes to make the page stand out:

Click image to enlarge

There were also 9 honorable mentions which are featured at the webpage where I've housed the rules.  I've already purchased three more "Flaming Stickman" patches for next year's contest.


Can't wait to show these winners when I introduce Mr. Stick to my new sixth graders next year.  Ah yes, the value of having student-made models to inspire future success.


--Corbett

I have such wonderful students, many with generous parents.  At the end of the year, I humbly accept  thank-you cards, many that have Starbucks gift cards and movie passes, and I also love the home-baked goods I receive from those students whom I know I can trust.  I am so grateful and lucky to have students who care enough to make these gestures to me.  I am.

However...I try to always tell the kids that if you make something to show your thanks, it's just a better strategy than buying something.  Most adults would rather have something that comes from your hands and your brains than from your wallets; I can keep and treasure and show-off to others handmade gifts much longer than I can keep a plastic Starbucks card.  I really stress this lesson during December and February, when we are doing different poetry lessons, which include a "tribute poem" as one of those lessons.  "Make something--like a poem--and give it to someone you love or admire for any upcoming holiday," I always say, "and they will be so happy with your gesture."

I didn't receive any poems at the end of the year this year (which was fine--as I had received plenty this Winter).  I did, however, receive one of the sweetest, hand-made gifts I have ever received.  I just have to share it with you.

Del--one my seventh grade girls--stealthily placed this homemade paper box on my desk some time during the final week of school.  It looked like this:

When the yellow lid came off, the box unfolded to show eight different "memory panels"--shared memories from the school year that involved the two of us.


There were two layers of images and memories.  Here are the first four; each image represents a story that Del and I (and perhaps a few other students) share from our time together.  Most of these are thoughts that we laughed about when she put them in her writer's notebook.


And here is the second layer of images:


I think my favorite panel is this one, which shows Del (in her Team Phoenix mascot outfit, which she made out of construction paper for assemblies; each interdisciplinary team at our school adopts a team name, and we are 'Team Phoenix.')  Another student had made me a crown of fire to wear at assemblies, and we laughed when we saw each other entering the assembly that day!  Here is a close-up of that panel:



Thank you, Del.  You are an amazing student, and the extra care and thought you put into this homemade gift means the world to your silly ol' teacher.  I only hope I can figure out a way to preserve this fragile gift so that I can enjoy it for years to come.   Perhaps photographing it in this way is the first step in doing so!

--Mr. Harrison

P.S. I love this picture of you from our end-of-year slide-show in your mascot outfit.  Next year, let's obtain a picture of me with my crown of flames, okay?  :-)

Ah yes, the end of the school year; everything comes crashing together in the same two weeks, and things like "Teach Writing Right" blogs are neglected.  My apologies.

So that I have it on record for next year, I wanted to make sure I posted the final "Metaphor of the Week" from the two weeks of school.  Next year, I plan to create the first three metaphors of the week, then have a coffee can up front where students can write inspirational metaphors that--if chosen--will become my extra credit "Metaphor of the Week."  I am thinking I will also be "hiring" an artistic student (I've got two in mind) to come in at lunch every week on Friday to write out and illustrate the metaphor of the week instead of me doing it!

In short, the students really liked the "Metaphor of the Week" program, but I want it to be completely student-centered next year.

Anyway, here's is the final metaphor of the week for this past school year.  It came from one of my sweetest 7th graders--Jessica.  I really liked how it built two metaphors based on opposite abstract nouns: truth and lies.  I hope other students are inspired to build metaphors next year based on contradictory abstractions!

Looking forward to a bright new year of student metaphors starting in August!  If you wish to have access to any of my "metaphors of the week" from the 2011-12 school year, click here!

--Corbett

...was totally amazing.  Admittedly, I was a bit cynical when I was told the trip would be happening, and that I would be chaperoning and that it would be overnight!  Mostly, I hated the idea of writing two days' worth of sub plans for my seventh and eighth graders who stayed back in town.

Upon arriving at camp, I completely changed my tune.  It was a fantastic experience that I would not have missed.  My kids showed great teamwork skills, they displayed a level of maturity that--when compared to the other schools' sixth graders who attended--was so clearly evident, and they had a blast.

Waiting patiently for their next team activity!

The experience gave them so much to write about in their writer's notebooks that that's all we did Friday.  While they worked on their writing, I composed the following poem about those nine sixth-grade gentlemen whom I shared my cabin with.  As the adult, I had my own door-less room in that tiny cabin, and I could hear every whisper they exchanged.  Sixth grade boys are delightful when they gossip and share secrets, especially when they think I can't hear them because I'm reading a book just 15 yards from the .  The "Cabin Oath" they swore to obey as they agreed shared their secrets was one of the cutest things I've ever eavesdropped on.  When they saw my poem was called "The Cabin Oath," their little eyes widened so much, and they looked terrified when they realized I'd heard their quiet chatting of the night before.

As you can see from my poem below, they had nothing to worry about; I am a good secret keeper.  I'm not sure if this poem is still in draft form, or if it needs a few more revisions.  I'm going to let it "gestate" for a week (which I always encourage my kids to do too between our weekly writing workshops!) and decide if there needs to be another draft.  Here's what I have so far though.

"The Cabin Oath" by Mr. Harrison

Crazy, busy, end-of-year activities abound at my school.   Yours too?  I have numerous posts to make-up for this weekend since last weekend was all about grading papers.

Last week, we celebrated Sydney's metaphor about springtime; she is one of my eighth graders, and I'm struck at how they are really applying both good "showing" skills and sentence fluency tricks (Which we've been practicing with!) to these metaphors they are writing for this weekly extra credit contest in my classroom. 

Guillermo, a seventh grader in the same class as Sydney, applied those same skills to his metaphor about life, which I was really impressed by.  Guillermo's metaphor will be seen by all my students starting Monday morning.

Enjoy the two metaphors below!

Sydney's metaphor

Gil's metaphor

--Corbett

My older brother Andy's birthday is this week, and I felt we needed an odd metaphor to celebrate the event. Not that he's odd, but not that he's normal either; none of us Harrisons are all that normal, which is a good quality, I feel.

I decided to take a metaphor of the week--in honor of all that--from one of my favorite non-normal students--Jordan, who is in seventh grade.  Jordan is an incredible young man who can amazingly build anything out of a piece of construction paper.  He tried to start an Origami Club this year, but no one else seemed interested.  I told him that--based on his amazing creations this year (his stereo-optic viewing box for one of his essays, his pet construction paper Phoenix that actually flaps its wings, etc.) that we will make sure his club "flies" next year.  I told him he could make a fortune selling fellow students replicas of his Phoenix; it's quite incredible.

Anyway, Jordan, you are this week's "Metaphor of the Week" winner, and I love the weirdness of your metaphor.  You explore things with such interesting perspectives, and I am proud your metaphor shows that.  Good work, my young writer and friend.

--Mr. Harrrison

Our March Writer's Notebook Bingo Cards "Center-Square Lesson" was entitled "Rhyming Slogans Across the Curriculum."  I quickly discovered which of my students rhyme easily and which students can hardly rhyme to save their lives.  All in all, it was a fun month though...even for those who struggled.

I just published ten fun examples from (mostly) my seventh grader's notebooks.  I'm not sure why the sixth and eighth graders' pages were so "less than stellar," but they were.  I've challenged them to outshine every seventh grader with April's notebook challenge.

Please feel free to visit my Rhyming Slogans Across the Curriculum Student Samples Page to see the wonderful work my students do.  Next year, to have my notebook and ten pages from these students to show next year's students...well, I can hardly wait to teach this lesson again next spring; the more samples you have to share, I have found, the better off the lesson is.  I believe this whole-heartedly.

Here is one of my favorite samples, from my wonderful student, Wonje:

--Corbett

I really appreciate my student helpers.  On Friday before Spring Break, I handed Matt--my 4th period student aide--the pen and said, "Give me an original spring metaphor to think about as soon as they walk in next Monday.  The metaphor of the week belongs to you."

Matt created his metaphor out of two abstract nouns (spring and joy), which I always think is harder to do; I always shoot for an abstract and a concrete noun myself.  Here is his metaphor:

I had a few vocal students complain that the metaphor was made up of two abstract nouns, which means I must have taught them pretty well, if you ask me.  In defense of this metaphor, however, I will cite the fact that my daffodils and my hyacinths barely lasted ten days this year before it snowed on them and froze them until next year.

Thanks, Matt.

--Mr. Harrison

I like to save voice as the final trait of the year we look at.  I find Springtime to be a time when students start catching the "lazy worker fever," and I have to brag that I have great voice lessons: fun and engaging.

We have been enjoying Voice as our "Trait of the Month" since right before Spring Break.  The students were mostly appreciative, I think, of my wife's famous J. Peterman Voice Lesson, which I did on a Smartboard for the first time this year.

My classroom trait bulletin board & poster set.

I feel a little ripped off by Spring Break in Nevada once again, I'll admit...the weather rarely cooperates; we had a really beautiful day on Easter, but then the weather slowly fell apart after that.  Still, we risked having the two Westies shaved down in total anticipation that it has to become warmer ASAP.

I honor my sixth grader--Jacie's--metaphor of the week that inspired us to stay sane in the week that led up to Easter weekend.

I hope my students are excited about coming back!

Had a rough couple of weeks with my newly-diagnosed diabetic dog, Pudge.  I told my students--during the time he was at the vet and we weren't sure he was going to live or see again after finding him in a diabetic coma--that I wanted to write only good memories about him in my notebook--that I wasn't ready to write sad things.

Anyway, I ended up revising my entire "Song Parody" lesson online based on two pages I recently added to my own notebook.  Not surprising, one of the new pages is a song parody about my wife and I having to give him twice-daily insulin shots and blood tests.

I believe in teachers keeping writer's notebooks to show their students.  My students were very much inspired by my two new pages over the past few weeks.  Here's one of them:

Hello, teaching friends...sometimes we educators are simply swallowed by a tsunami of deadlines.  In March, it was the end of our grading period, I was enrolled in a two-credit night class,  and our students all presented their final projects (in the evening to panels of community judges), and those three things stole every free moment that I had to work on any of my websites.

So...I was and am behind; however, I have no grading to do this weekend, and I am catching up starting with this post!

Here are the last three weeks' worth of "winning" metaphors that my students submitted into my classroom's "Metaphor of the Week" contest.  My students write them and submit them, we choose a winner, and then my great student aide (Matt) illustrates them.  It's turned into a fine process and is a new way to offer legitimate extra credit points to students who are taking ideas we've discussed to an extra place.  I have a lot of students writing about the weekly metaphors in their writer's notebooks, I have also noticed.

So three weeks ago, the "Metaphor of the Week" prize went to seventh grader Ian.  I pointed out to the class that this really wasn't a a true metaphor, but I liked the statement's positive sentiment, and I like the implied metaphor about life having storms that we weather.  Thanks to Ian; I hope he inspires some of our kids to head out into the spring rains in April and dance their hearts out!

Two weeks ago, another seventh grade boy--Jared--submitted the following metaphor, which I felt was an appropriate one to end our unit on Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.


And finally, last week, Nate became my first sixth grader to submit a "winning" metaphor to this classroom process.  Although it's supposed to be "Mr. Stick's Metaphor of the Week," I allowed Matt (my aide) to go a little-less-stick and more-Seuss-ian with the accompanying drawing.  If that unique creature doesn't remind you of a Star-belly Sneetch, then you obviously don't know that book!


After this week, we have our Spring Break.  I have a challenge on my Edmodo classroom site right now to create a spring-themed metaphor for this upcoming week.  I am betting that the next metaphor I'll be posting will be somehow spring-inspired.

Expect more posts this weekend!  I have a lot of student samples "back-logged" and two new lessons to post.

--Corbett

A great lesson is never truly finished.  As with a piece of writing, revision can always improve something--even if it's a pretty good lesson.  I learned that this last month.

I have taken one of my favorite lessons--Extended Metaphors Across the Curriculum--and added some new elements to it, which made my teaching of it better this last month.

One major change I made was that I taught a good friend's lesson (Holly Esposito) the week before I began my writer's notebook lesson.  Her "Four Metaphor Poetry Lesson" (with its use of Mem Fox's Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge) set my kids' brain in the right direction to do so much better with their notebook's metaphors.  This was the best set of metaphors I have ever received in my students' notebooks.  I totally appreciate Holly's lesson as a means of priming my kids' thinking, and I will always use her lesson the week before I introduce the lesson in the future.

I invite you to check out the new version of my Extended Metaphors Across the Curriculum lesson, which features new images of my students' notebooks after these changes.

Always remember...a good lesson (like a good piece of writing) can become better with a thoughtful revision.

We're finishing Flowers for Algernon this week, and my seventh graders will begin working on projects that explore this book's themes.  Two weeks ago, we had a metaphor about knowledge, then a metaphor about ignorance, then a metaphor about confusion.  I am hoping these three metaphors help my seventh graders arrive at some interesting discussion points that will lead to some discoveries of interesting themes about Charley Gordon.

Anyway....on her birthday...my seventh grader--Wonje--had her metaphor chosen as the "Mr. Stick Metaphor of the Week" last Friday.  I finally had a chance to post it today.  Enjoy!

Good work (as usual), Wonje!

Another Flowers for Algernon-inspired "Metaphor of the Week," I suspect.  We had a great book-club discussion last week on what group of people was happiest in life: below-average intellectuals, average intellectuals, or above-average intellectuals.

Anyway, here is 7th grader Gwen's metaphor for ignorance.  I suspect it will add to our discussion this week too!

Have a great week!

--Corbett

Thanks to 7th grader Mitchel (for writing it!) and 8th grader Matt (for illustrating it on my whiteboard!), I have a metaphor of the week in honor of Charley Gordon, main character in Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon, which my 7th graders are currently reading.

The version of the book begins with the following quote from Plato, which we've been using as our "jumping off spot" every time we have had a class discussion about the story's progress.  I chose Mitchel's metaphor this week because it will help us speak one more time about this quote: 

"Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eye are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other..." Plato, The Republic

Thanks again, Mitchel and Matt!  Have a great week, everyone.  "Meta-Force be with you, students and teachers!"


--Corbett

Our fourth week of LOVE metaphors to prime ourselves for Valentine's Day this Tuesday.  I've been trying to convince my students that writing a poem to your potential Valentine is the best technique for showing your love or interest in someone; certainly better than a Hallmark card or some fattening chocolate!  I believe I have a number of them planning to do this, and I believe these metaphors of the week have helped them understand poetic elements!

My Start & Stop Poems, which we started last week, have proved a good format for these Valentine's Day poems, especially for those of my kids who need more poetic structure.

Anyway, below is this week's "Mr. Stick Metaphor of the Week."  This is the third week that my students have been the contributors for these metaphors; thanks to Kendall (one of my sixth graders) for this metaphor. And this is the first week that I have turned the writing and illustration of these metaphors to my student aide, 8th grader Matt!

It's a good feeling to be able to turn over classroom responsibilities like these over to my students!


Have a great week!

--Corbett

After spending December and January "boning up" on our ORGANIZATION skills, I've officially switched my trait of the month.  We are now studying SENTENCE FLUENCY skills to use in our next two Writer's Workshop papers.

My classroom trait bulletin board & poster set.

We have also been studying/writing poetry to improve our ability to write sentences that have rhythmic sound to them; in particular, I have used my friend Holly's Four-Metaphor Poetry lesson (from WritingFix) and a brand new variation of my "Start & Stop Poems," which is part of my classroom set of Bingo Cards.


Check back soon!  I will be developing a few more sentence fluency activities that I will post, along with some new student samples.

My second student-contributed Metaphor of the week is now featured!  Thanks, to my seventh-grader, Emily!  Emily actually draws Mr. Stick better than I do (as evidenced here -- the ABC list is Emily's!), so I may have her change my drawing!

After next week, we will start moving to abstract nouns that are NOT love.  :-)

--Corbett

Only had a few students take me up on January's ANAGRAM CHALLENGE for their writer's notebook.  They loved the mentor text so much, but only a few went online to explore their own anagrams.

This month the challenge is based on creating ORIGINAL SUPERHEROES, and I already have numerous students well under way with the first half of the task.

Check out this book at Amazon by clicking here.

If I were to rate this month's Superhero lesson against my other lessons, I think this one is pretty strong based on two of my seven elements.  The mentor text (Superhero ABC's) is wonderful, and I found a bonus way to use it this last week during 7th grade enrichment, which piqued their interest in the writing assignment more.  We actually diagrammed four or five sentences from the book when I spotted they needed a review of diagramming.


Secondly, my teacher model from my own notebook really grabbed their attention; this lesson has two different notebook pages to create, and it was the first one that seized them.  I am hoping the second one does the same.  Not sure what it is about superheroes that grabs my kiddos' attention, but it does. 

--Corbett

All right.  I am back.  Finals are over, which pretty much exhausted me this year, and we are back and running writer's workshop in class again.

I told my students that around Valentine's Day, they would be responsible for writing the "Metaphor of the Week" for the rest of the school year.  I explained that I wanted the first few ones to be about LOVE, in honor of the February Holiday!

To inspire them, I created the following metaphor about love.  Zach--one of my eighth graders--informed me that my scientific knowledge was flawed.  Instead of steel, according to Zach, I should have said "iron." 

I am pleased to say that our first student-contributed "Metaphor of the Week" was posted Monday, and this Monday a new one will go up!  My kids are totally jazzed that they are now in charge of this responsibility.  I will continue to do the art; they will provide the inspiration.

Elijah--an eighth grader--contributed this metaphor:


I'll be posting some new lessons I have finalized tomorrow.  Off to make dinner now!

--Corbett

Yikes!  Where did holiday break go?  Spending the weekend assessing writer's notebooks, portfolio pieces, and preparing final exam tasks.  I truly enjoyed NOT doing any of these things the past 14 days, but I have to get serious over the next two days.

I put my first Metaphor of the Week for 2012 before vacating the classroom December 23rd.  It's photographed, and I assume it's still on my whiteboard ready for Monday morning...will probably check Sunday morning when I drop off these baskets of Writer's Notebooks cluttering my living room.

More posts coming this weekend!  Back in the saddle again!

--Corbett