This piece is modeled after Michael Salinger’s “How to walk around the block” from Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s Poems Are Teachers: How Studying Poetry Strengthens Writing in All Genres under the invitation, “Give Directions” from “Writers Structure Texts.” In order to draft this poem, I looked specifically at how Michael Salinger structures his piece: […]
National Poetry Month: 1/30: “Soot (Black) and Spit Blues”
For National Poetry Month, I am going to attempt to follow the models presented in Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s Poems are Teachers: How Studying Poetry Strengthens Writing in All Genres (Heinemann 2017). Further, at Amy’s site, The Poem Farm, Amy has committed to write thirty poems on the subject of Orion, the constellation. According to her […]
“In the Echo Chamber”
In the echo chamber, you are an audience of one with the voices that keep bouncing off the walls. And they are not alone. They speak in chorus with the ones inside of your head. That thing you wish you had said, that thing you wish you didn’t. That moment when the room should have […]
“I Am a Veteran and I Will Continue to Use My Military Training in the Classroom”
Receiving the Joint Task Force Achievement Medal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: 1993 There’s been a lot of talk lately about the number of veterans of the Armed Forces who are now classroom teachers and their ability to thwart or stop an attack on our buildings, our classrooms, and our students. There is disagreement within the […]
“this is why today we will stop calling them ‘bullet points,”
why we will stop—today—calling them “bullet points” for we know now all too well about a bullet’s point a bullet’s path a bullet’s purpose these are the names these are the numbers their not-yet-written stories become a national statistic they crawl under desks to hide only to become a crawl […]
Summer Drumming: “Sun Totem #1” and the Kent State University Shootings of 1970
“To Know Something Then is to Know Something New” This is a different kind of post as it is the personal narrative sample from my multi-genre project I am doing with my students in Room 407 this spring. The idea behind the piece for those students who have this piece as part of their project’s […]
“An Open Letter to Matt De La Pena and Loren Long (with Gratitude and Love)”
Dear Matt and Loren: I know that you are probably looking for feedback from readers four to eight years old. As the under-ten blog community is relatively small, perhaps you won’t mind some appreciation from a reader. . .forty-eight. As a secondary classroom teacher who shares picture books with older readers, I could open with […]
“From Reflecting and Rejecting to Ringing In and Rallying In”
When is too soon to write about anything that has had such a profound effect upon one’s self that nothing done prior to the event makes sense or has any sort of value? This is what Room 407 looked like when we first moved in. It was a blank canvas for us to move into […]
Move from “Here”: Off the Curb and Into the Cross Walk
“If you have faith as small as a Mustard Seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20 Nestled in the knobs of Floyd County is a special resale shop […]
First Day of the Y.E.A.R and First Day F.E.A.R.
I have not changed classrooms. This is a picture of Room 407 in the Spring of 2011 before we would move in for the 2011-2012 school year. This year will mark our sixth year in this classroom. And our seventh group. I came to the realization that my practice has now been divided right down […]