Revisiting my OLW – Confident

As the 2019-2020 school year begins, I took time today to reread my OLW reflectioin HERE. It’s August now. As I look back to January, I find myself being pushed by this word.

“You can do this. Just be confident,” I repeated as I pressed SEND to submit my renewal documents for National Boards.

“You can do this. Just be confident,” I moaned while peering up at the 10-story high stone Mayan ruin in front of me begging to be climbed while on vacation.

“You can do this. Just be confident,” I decided as I began using the Noom app (and smile today, 12 weeks later and 12 pounds down. But more importantly, understanding my triggers better.)

“You can do this. Just be confident,” I point out as I shopped for the ingredients for the healthy recipes I chose to create for my dinner guests.

“You can do this. Just be confident,” I whispered under my breathe as I prepared to lead Professional Development on Reading and Writing Workshop for my district’s principals and reading teachers.

“You can do this. Just be confident.” I know I will repeat these seven words to myself throughout September. I am on staff at Dorothy Hamm Middle School, the brand new Middle School in my district. So many unknowns ahead. Yet, we have Dorothy as our model. She spoke up to end the practice of segregation in her neighborhood school in 1959. I’ll be working, 60 years later, on the site of the first school in the whole state of Virginia to be integrated, walking the same halls as her child did with confidence.

My OLW – confident – is serving me well this year.
How’s it going with you?

Mayan Ruins

After purchasing our entrance tickets, I headed down the path. The thick jungle vegetation on each side of the path helped me to understand how archeologist only recently uncovered this ancient civilization. Now uncovered, I enjoyed my adventurous day at El Balam, located on the Yucatan Pennisula of Mexico.

First, I climbed the pyramid successfully. I followed Brian’s tip to diagonially walk up the steep incline. Perfect tip! I happily reached the top, turned to take in the view and immediately signed. Why? Because staight-ahead was another pyrimid. But this one was at least twice as tall. Here I thought I had accomplished the hardest climbing feat of the day only to discover that this climb was just a warm-up.

Determined, I followed Brian up the larger ruin. Step right, step right, step right. Then step left, step left step left. I kept my eyes down, watching my feet and avoided looking straight up, worried that doing so would cause me to panic and instead just stop and sit down. Finally, after many diagonal turns and many, many steps, I was at the top! To prove it, we asked a fellow climber to snap our photo despite our sweatiness.

Later in the day, I read more about Ek Balam. It’s name means “Black Jaguar”, hence all artisans selling jaguar wooden carvings. The climb = 96ft or 8 stories high. The town dates back to 600BC and it’s civilization thrived from 770 AD-900 AD and was last used in 1600AD…just 7 years before Jamestown was founded in my state of Virginia.

Walking around an ancient city is interesting. So much to wonder. So much to imagine. I wonder who lived there. I wonder about their jobs. I wonder what the women did and how they were treated. I wonder about the kids and if they went to school. I wonder what they eat. I wonder what they hunted. (I guess janguars!) I wonder if they took time for a vacation.

I do know that they most likely cooled off in the nearby Xcanche cenote just as I did after my walking tour. A perfect way to cool off after a hot day of exploring.

 

 

Summertime, Writingtime!

I love summertime….this summer, I have time to write.

Yesterday, a teacher hosted another teacher and me. She had just returned from attending the Heinemann Boothbay Literacy Institute (on my bucketlist) and offered to simulate some of what she did with us.

First, we did 2 Quickwrites using Linda Rief’s book, The Quickwrite Handbook. Here is what I wrote in 2 minutes after listening to my friend read Getting It Right by Kevin Carey (You can hear Garrison Keiller hear it hear on Dec. 14, 2016’s The Writer’s Almanac).

I used the prompt, “Borrow any line, letting the line lead your thinking as you write.”

I was never the smartest kid in the room. I was more the B+ student, dutifully compliant but not a natural. Grace was a natural. She read aloud with such expression when it was her turn during Round-Robin Reading. David was a natural. His science fair projects were so smart. Both had smart parents, assisting. I had loving parents but parents who did school just as well as I did. Now I am paid to read-aloud to students. I am quite good at it. As a teacher, I notice the Graces and the Davids and mostly the Sallys.

I’ll admit, that I had Linda’s book and skimmed it but hadn’t tried any of the exercises. However, with my friend’s guidance, I now see the power of reading another’s writing and then letting my pencil quickly write off of it. 

Then my friend showed us the Watercolors she made at Boothbay. She had paint sets and cups of water and 4×6 watercolor paper and black thin sharpies and some shells. And for the next hour, we painted! First, shells. Then copied an image from my phone of flowers.

So lucky to have a friend who values turn-around PD!
So lucky to have time to write in the summer!

Have you ever tried Quickwrites? Do you ever watercolor?
I now recommend both!

 

Keep Cup

My Writing Club (two lovely writers who participate in the March Writing Challenge as PencilOnMyBackPorch and WordJourneys) met last Wednesday and one brought along Georgia Heard’s book Writing Toward Home.

We descided to all try this exercise: Pick one word. A noun. Something concrete. Write two pages with this word in mind. Afterwards, in the margin, write the links to this word.

I picked the object that I now carry with me – my Keep Cup . Here’s where the prompt took me….

For Mother’s day, my girls had my present delivered to me. They must have been conversing across the miles and I recall Anne sending me a text a week prior asking about my favorie color. I recall my reply was “green, blue and purple but I guess blue if I can only pick one.”

As I opened the small package, I found a glass cup the size of a Starbuck’s grande drink inside and a blue plastic removable lid. I immediaely sent the girls a thank you text. Anne’s reply was, “Use it at Starbucks and be sure to ask for the reuseable-cup discount.” This made me smile as I held this small but thoughtful present called a Keep Cup. The girls know me and my routine well.

Now, I routinely carry my Keep Cup with me when I head to Starbucks in the morning. “Grande black iced tea, no sweetener,” I announce and $2.95 appears on the register. Then the minuse ten cents (-.10) appears. I smile and think how the girls’ gift is the gift that keeps on saving!

Last week and over a month since Mother’s Day, I drove and parked at my neighborhood Starbucks and realized I forgot the Keep Cup. Not wanting to return to my old habit, I actually drove back home to retrieve my Keep Cup. Each Starbuck’s purchase is one less plastic cup and one less straw added to a landfill. One small, very small gesture to reduce by reusing.

(My writing began to wander to the girls’ gift to their dad for Father’s Day…a comparision but after a paragraph, it seemed off-topic so I stopped and wrote this next…)

Reduce. Recycle. Reuse. Gestures needed for my planet. My girls are conscious of the need for such gestures. I wonder if it is doing anything at all. I am reminded of the story of the hummingbird (which PencilOnMyBackPorch shared with me last Earth Day – view video here). The hummingbird, though so small, tries to put out the fire. Action. Thanks to my girls, I’ve made it a habit to routine;y use my Keep Cup. Action.

After 2 pages, I write these links in the margin: gift, new routine, gift is saving me $, different dad gift – off topic, being sustainable

NOTE: I enjoyed this exercise. I see now that this writing could be a seed for many more stories. I really enjoyed doing this exercise in the company of my writing club. While I wrote about my Keep Cup, one picked the noun, fireplace and the other picked the noun bra. So fun to listen to their ponderings related to their chosen noun!

Do you ever “prompt write”? Maybe something to try.
Now I’m heading to Starbucks with my Keep Cup!!

My Teaching by the numbers

It’s the last day of another school year.

I counted it up and I have taught…
…for a total of 28 years.
…Middle School for 2 years.
…Elementary School for 26 years.
…at 9 schools.
…in 4 districts.
…Pre-K for 1 year.
…Kindergarten for 6 years.
…3rd graders for 3 years.
…4th graders for 5 years.
…5th graders for 1 year.
…6th graders for 2 years.
As the classroom teacher for 18 years, I…
…guided about 600 students. (That first Kinder class would be 38 years old now!)
As Reading Specialist for 10 years, I…
…guided about 6,000 students.
…supported about 300 teachers.

Now I have packed up 26 boxes to be delivered to my 10th school.
I will use the enclosed (90% books) to teach next year,
…my 29th year.
…in my 19th classroom.
…with my 3rd year of 6th graders.

I am looking forward to the next 74 days.
Time to rest, relax, read, write and reflect before the 2019-2020 school year begin!

Kinders vs. 6th graders

I started my teaching career as a Kindergarten teacher in 1986. Now, 33 years later, I’ve promoted myself to 6th grade. This last week of school as I watch my 6th graders, age 11 and 12, they don’t seem so different than those 5 and 6 year tikes from years ago. I’m beginning to wonder what is age-appropriate.

I recall Kinders as being so joyful…until they aren’t and then they cry and/or hit. Somehow when a child’s height reaches 4 feet, tears aren’t acceptable and hands are to stay to themselves. Yet impulsive middle schoolers can forget this rule and forget their iPad and their tote bag and their library book and they never, ever seem to have a pencil.

I wonder if I enable middle schoolers’ behaviors. This year I constantly bought boxes of pencils at Staples. Why? I guess it is more important to me for my students to spend their time reading and writing and discussing and I never want the lack of supplies to get in the way of their participation and creativity. I never expected kinders to hold onto their supplies. The community table held the scissors and pencils and glue, all available when needed. Yet, just five years later, being responsible for your own tools somehow became a rule?

Last week as my last period students worked, the bell rang and all the students herded through the door. Then I looked around the empty room. Chairs not pushed in, lone markers and pencils scattered under desk. I recall when my own children were this age and so involved in their work, creating a 3-D model for science or cooking chocolate chip cookies on the weekend, they too would place so much effort into their work and leave a mess. I often acted as the street cleaner after the parade, cleaning up after them. I was proud of their product and the energy spent creating. Yet, maybe I enabled them. Not sure. Not sure what is age appropriate.

I do know I like being around Kinders and 6th graders and all creative people.

At Safeway

Last Monday I took part in a Corwin Webinar with my favorite TCRWP Staff Developer, Colleen Cruz. She was sharing info about her new books on reading and writing reciprocity. During the webinar, Colleen asked us to write for 1 minute, a small moment. I had just been at the grocery store so I wrote this:

     She takes another tiem out of her bag. The customer in front of me but behind her sighs and squeezes back past me to leave this line and move to another.
“What’s it now?” she asks.
“You need $4.06,” the cashier announces.
     “Let me help,”  I announce.

Looking back at this, I think not bad for 1 minute of writing. But today, I have a few minutes, so I return to it to try to elaborate. My goal is to include action and emotion.

I’m in line because yesterday while doing the weekly grocery shopping, I forgot to get the orange juice and the taco shells. I even had a list yesterday but I somehow I forgot these two items. One for tonights dinner and the other for breakfast all week long. And now I am third in line at Safeway.

As I place my 2 items on the conveyer belt, I begin to notice the customer at the front of the line. She takes another item out of her bag and hands it back to the cashier. He scans and punches buttons on the register. The customer in front of me but behind her lets out a loud sigh and apruptly squeezes back past me to leave this line and move to another.

“What’s it now?” she asks.

“You need $4.06,” the cashier announces.

I take a step fowards and announce, “Let me help. How much do you need?”

The cashier repeats, “$4.06.”

“What’s it with that item, too?” I ask motioning to the box of popsicles he had just deducted from her bill.

He scans the box and $10.42 appears on the electronic screen. I insert my credit card.

“Thank you,” she says to me. “How can I repay you?”

“Just help someone one day soon. We all need to help each other out,” I tell her.

** These 2 exercises were fun. I enjoyed seeing what I could write in a minute. Then enjoyed stretching it out. My goal was to add action and emotion. Do you think I reached this goal??

 

ABC Book of Starbucks – 1st draft!

We took our state test last week but still have 2 weeks of school….so final project time!

My middle schoolers brainstormed their passions by jotting down where they spend time, at home, in the neighborhood, on vacation, doing a hobbie, and with a pet.

My middle schoolers chose to either share their passion in one of these forms:
* an Ignite speech for a 6th grade audience
* an ABC book for a Pre-school / Kindergarten audience
* a graphic comic book for a 1st grade audience

My passion brainstorm list looks like this: reading, cooking, swimming, writing at Starbucks, snorkeling, France, quilting.

I realized as I brainstormed that I spend a lot of time at the Starbucks in my town. I go there mostly to write before school or on a Saturday morning. I decided to try to write my ABCs of Starbucks. Here’s my draft!

A	I scan my smartphone starbuck’s app.
B	I ask the barista for banana bread.
C	Starbucks is my favorite coffeehouse.
D	Chocolate milk is a drink I order.
E	Starbucks is a good place to eat
F	Starbucks is a good place to sit and talk to friends by the fireplace.
G	I order a grande size.
H	I order grande hot chocolate, no whip.
I	I order grande ice tea, no sweetener.
J	JUST the treat to sip in my reuseable Keep Cup.
K	I take out my computer out of my keepsack.
L	I type away as lively music plays softly.
M	Some days I eat a muffin.
N	nibble – nibble – reflect and type.
O	Some days I eat oatmeal.
P	or a cake pop.
Q	Some day I sit quietly and think,
R	by the roaring fire.
S	Some days I order a strawberry frappuccino.
T	Some days I order a turkey bacon egg white sandwich.
U	Upstairs seating is my favorite.
V	Some days I order venti size.
W	Each visit I write.
X	Then I eXit.
Y	Sometime taking a yummy treat home with me.
Z	At the end of the day, I dream of writng and eating and sipping at Starbucks….zzz….sleep tight!

Ok…this may seem like a silly ABC book but it is still a draft…I have until next Friday to revise, edit and published. An end of year project to highlight our passions as we end 6th grade.

Speech before Final Play Performance

I stood on my MS stage on Sunday afternoon before the matinee and made this speech:

My name is Sally Donnelly.
I teach Reading 6 here at Swanson MS.
Last year I was new here and volunteered to help Ms. Caldwell and she named me Production Manager.

Though last year I was new here, I was not new to the Swanson Drama Department because my 2 girls, now age 30 and 27, participated in the Swanson plays and as a parent back then I saw how much is learned by being invloved in theater.

My daughters learned skills I still see them using successfullly in their work and life.

• They confidently communicate – sometimes loudly like an actor on stage or sometimes quietly like the stage crew.
• They are able to be flexible, aware that things change quickly and things don’t always go as expected.
• They are so creative, sometimes in their body movements, facial and vocal expressions and in their visual design of things learned by helping with the stage sets.
• They can think quickly on their feet because they learned how to improvise.
• MOST of all, they take pride in collaborating, doing their one part well so the whole project succeeds.

In the story you are about to watch, the main character, ELLE, is searching for LOVE. Lucky for her, she has 3 important communities offering support – the Delta Nu girls, the Harvard Law students and a suberb and wise hair stylist.

As you watch this amazing cast and crew under:

• the direction of Ms. Caldwell
• vocal direction of Josie Walker
• movement direction of Mr. White
• tech and set direction of Ms. India
• and costume design by Ms. Judy

KNOW that the arts is a wonderful community, in my opinion, to attach yourself to and I am so thankful I joined this community.

I encourage all parents to nudge their child to take a drama, voice, or movement course in MS or HS. It is not a wasted elective. When my own youger daughter got into UVA and said she was majoring in Drama, I was so proud because I knew all the skills she’d learn in that community would serve her well for life and so far it has!

I’m so glad I volunteeered to help last year and this year because I have found just what Elle is serching for in the Swanson Drama community.

In closing, to all the parents with a child in the show, last night’s email from me was my last to you (I promise) but know you are still my community so please stay in touch! It has been a priviledge to work with you and your child.

Now back to Ms Caldwell to get this amazing show started!!

**NOTE: I awoke Sunday morning thinking how I had the opportunity to take the stage for a moment as a leader in the production. I jotted down this speech…it felt like it wrote itself. I am glad I decided to be an upstander and stand up for the arts! The arts, in my opinion, an important part of learning, yet never graded on a state test. By being on stage, I also got a huge appreciation for the actors….that spotlight is bright and that audience is large.

 

 

I did it!

Since this was year 6 for me, I knew I could write for 31 days, post and read at least 3 others and leave a comment, daily for each day in March. But as I reflect back on this month, I am celebrating all I did:

• I added a Featured Image to each post: I learned this from a great online class I took this summer by Cult of Pedegogy  finding my image using Pixabay , as suggested in the course.
• I added hyperlinks to direct the readers to another place to go related to my topic (see examples in last bullet point!)
• I added Tags, something I started last year. Now on the right-side of my blog, a word cloud appears. A glance at it now shows the topics I write lots about include my daughters, Anne and Bridgit, along with books, my home, reading, writing, TCRWP, travel, and my OLW (one little word).
• On the 28th of this month, a fellow slicer and colleague taught me how to make a slideshow in wordpress. First I pick the +Add dropdown menu, then choose Media, then pick 3 or more photos, then press Continue. A new screen appear. Pick Layout Dropdown menu. Scroll down and pick SLIDESHOW and insert. Magically, wordpress inserts those images as a slideshow! (Must choose 3 or more images to have slideshow option in layout). For example, I just snagged an image of the blog headers of all my friends in the DC/Arlington, VA area that I know sliced and who I have been reading with month. Now here are those images in a slideshow:

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• As I look through the 30 posts I made this month, I notice:
  • 8 poems
  • 9 true small moments
  • 9 school stories
  • 6 related to porfessional development
  • 2 family stories
  • 1 basketball story
  • 1 about an Orange Slicer Party
  • 1 about the PLACE I like to write
  • 2 about time
• As I reflect, I know I spent more time trying to craft my stories and when I got this comment yesterday, it became my favorite because I had really worked to set up a contrast:
• As I reflect, I am amazed at how much went on in my personal and school life this month and yet, I still took time to write. It was hard. But it is a routine I am glad I embraced six years ago. It is also one I am fine to now just post  weekly on Tuesdays! (And to be honest, maybe I’ll start my Tuesday posts after Spring Break! )
• As I reflect, I give a special thank you to TwoWritingTeachers who include Stacy, Betsy, Beth, Deb, Kathleen, Kelsey, Lanny, and Melanie. The community of writers you create is one I feel honored to be a part of. March is my now favorite month!
• APRIL 11 – If you are in the DC area, come to my SLICER celebration! Orange Party at my house at 4:30pm. (Leave your contact info in a comment and I’ll send you the address) Wear ORANGE and/or bring an orange inspired snack to share! I plan to make an Aperol Spritz Pitcher.