So.
I have 357 words so far. I've taken a third person omniscient perspective so far, which surprises me, but maybe after a day of teaching followed by students in my room at lunch, an evaluation post-observation conference, and students in my room after school, squeezing in 357 words isn't half bad before picking up the kids by 4:00. It was fun, anyway.
I'm completely exhausted by Halloween this year. (Photos... coming soon. I want to blog about each of our costumes a little.) Last year, working on National Boards, I bought both of the kids their costumes, and I didn't dress up, and neither did Rich. This year, we made all three costumes (Rich was in Phoenix). And then, Tuesday night after my two doctors' appointments and a book club meeting, the kids insisted we hadn't carved pumpkins AGH! So we did that on Tuesday. Then I finished costumes until 11:45.
Making the costumes together was so much fun, though, and they turned out awesome. Well, mine (Athena) and G's(Steamboat Willie) were awesome, L's (princess vampire) was fantastical... wild... out of control. A bit like Bertha Rochester from Jane Eyre, or at least how I imagine her to be. It did not turn out the right profile/ silhouette, but she did look pretty awesome walking down the street at night with yards of poorly-tailored tulle and organza streaming behind her.
Turns out our new neighborhood is a pretty sweet trick-or-treat spot compared to what I would have guessed.
Today I woke up with a sore throat, and then read Stephen King for three hours out loud to my juniors. and then the remainder went as above. I'm pooped.
Oh, and G needs a Civil War sailor uniform for his book report tomorrow. He has to speak from the perspective of the narrator in Avi's Iron Thunder, a character who, as a young teenager, sails and fights on the Monitor. Pretty cool... better get to it.
Onward.
I have 357 words so far. I've taken a third person omniscient perspective so far, which surprises me, but maybe after a day of teaching followed by students in my room at lunch, an evaluation post-observation conference, and students in my room after school, squeezing in 357 words isn't half bad before picking up the kids by 4:00. It was fun, anyway.
I'm completely exhausted by Halloween this year. (Photos... coming soon. I want to blog about each of our costumes a little.) Last year, working on National Boards, I bought both of the kids their costumes, and I didn't dress up, and neither did Rich. This year, we made all three costumes (Rich was in Phoenix). And then, Tuesday night after my two doctors' appointments and a book club meeting, the kids insisted we hadn't carved pumpkins AGH! So we did that on Tuesday. Then I finished costumes until 11:45.
Making the costumes together was so much fun, though, and they turned out awesome. Well, mine (Athena) and G's(Steamboat Willie) were awesome, L's (princess vampire) was fantastical... wild... out of control. A bit like Bertha Rochester from Jane Eyre, or at least how I imagine her to be. It did not turn out the right profile/ silhouette, but she did look pretty awesome walking down the street at night with yards of poorly-tailored tulle and organza streaming behind her.
Turns out our new neighborhood is a pretty sweet trick-or-treat spot compared to what I would have guessed.
Today I woke up with a sore throat, and then read Stephen King for three hours out loud to my juniors. and then the remainder went as above. I'm pooped.
Oh, and G needs a Civil War sailor uniform for his book report tomorrow. He has to speak from the perspective of the narrator in Avi's Iron Thunder, a character who, as a young teenager, sails and fights on the Monitor. Pretty cool... better get to it.
Onward.
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| I added this photo, obviously, later that evening... |
I think I'd like to be a kid again, but I'd be a different kind of kid than I actually was. How cool it would be to absorb myself in a book like G's Avi book and pretend to be someone I am not for a day. Or even a few minutes. We need more such projects for our HS students, but we need to be able to indulge ourselves in such pursuits, too. I just wish there were enough time not only to create, administer, and grade all we do with our students, but also to sit down beside them and dig into the projects with them and create our own. I want to be a Civil War sailor, too. /whimper
ReplyDeletep.s. check out the post again. I added a photo.
DeleteMe, too. I got to feel a little of that last year writing NaNoWriMo alongside my students. It's what motivates me to try to do it again this year alongside them. Ken Robinson's book really gave me a language to explain/justify why these types of wide open, free projects ARE important for our students and for us as educators, for me as a parent, too. I am trying to do more of creating a culture of creativity-- and NaNoWriMo (and the Greek Mixer, and the other kinds of projects you are talking about) help to do that. NaNoWriMo provides a wealth of generative strategies and imaginative immersions. :) "Generative strategy." I like it.
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