back on track

As of this morning, I was about 1000 words behind on my novel. Now I'm caught up! I used some class time to write, and my students were very cooperative by working on their own novels. I also showed them clips of Stephenie Meyer's Oprah interviews about her writing process and, of course, the Twilight series. Yes, I admit I was feeding the anticipation of the movie release of "New Moon" but also sharing writing inspiration from another writer. (OK, she's a very famous writer, and we're not famous, but we're still writers.)

I haven't mentioned lately my "academic push-in" to an 8th grade inclusion ELA class. My role is essentially in "instructional support" capacity, and the class already has two other teachers - the ELA teacher and the inclusion teacher. We've become quite the co-teaching team! I've been able to provide some direct instruction and materials for a classroom novel unit (The Giver) and the corresponding writing prompt (personal narrative). I firmly believe the key to our collaboration is absolute trust among the 3 of us - of course trust that we have the students' best interests in mind, but ALSO trust that we have each other's best interests in mind.

I'm still reading Brisingr, no lie. More than halfway through, but not by much.

1784 words

... written! I'm on track, 200 words per day, to reach 6000 by November 30 for NaNoWriMo. Yay! My students are having fun writing their novels. Almost all of them are reaching daily word count goals. Some are surpassing their goals, which leads me to think I should set the standard higher next time. (Definitely higher next year when they're in 8th grade.)

The only downer has been one student (yeah, there's gotta be one) who's testing the outer limits of what's appropriate for school. The bright side of that problem is another student giving me the solution - give a movie rating! So I'm going to tell my classes tomorrow - keep it PG.

happy nanowrimo 2009

Above: My bewitching kid and her black (toy) cat brewing a potion...

NaNoWriMo is ON! I know my word count goal is small (6000 or twice the highest student word count, whichever is higher), but I made my daily goal today YAY ME! (291 written)

The non-writing news is that I borrowed from the public library seasons 1 and some of 2 DVDs of "Gossip Girl" (TV show, based on novels) and have thoroughly overloaded my brain by watching them. I think I'm done obsessing, and now will just follow the current season 3 in a normal, weekly manner.

Last but not least, I borrowed Brisingr (book 3 of Eragon series) again. I really hope to push through and finish it this time.

Almost ready for NaNoWriMo

One week left to prepare with students - the Young Writers Program web site is very helpful, especially the middle school "young novelist workbook" that has many terrific brainstorming activities (to develop characters, conflict, plot, setting, etc.). Example: Some students have expressed bewilderment, concern, despair, outrage, etc. at my pronouncements about NaNoWriMo, but they diligently filled out the character questionnaires in the workbook, and a few looked up from their workbooks to whisper, "this is fun!" I've found the workbook useful for ME and have recommended it to at least two adults who plan to participate in the full NaNoWriMo program (50,000 words oh yeah!!!). Did I mention already that I've assigned 3000 as the word count goal for my students, and my own goal is TWICE the highest word count achieved by any student? Yep.

Another fun feature that has piqued student interest and, dare I say, excitement, about writing is the "Dare Machine" on the Young Writers Program web site homepage. Each click on the "DARE ME" button generates a new writing challenge. Examples: "We dare you to have some of your characters stage a jewel heist." "We dare you to include a reference to the Periodical Table of Elements in each of your chapters." "We dare you to include a bucket of raw fish, an ice cream maker, and a creepy basement in the next page of your novel."

Happy writing to you all!

PS - I just read good middle school novel by Western New York writer Mick Cochrane, The Girl Who Threw Butterflies. I met Professor Cochrane at local bookstore book signing last June - super nice guy, just as he was described by my friend H who was his student at Canisius College.

suzanne collins please finish the third book!!!

I'm absolutely obsessed with The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, can you tell? I screamed at the end of Catching Fire - how could she leave me hanging like that?!?!?!

young writers

Regardless of the craziness at work, the switching of teaching assignments, the really random bizarre bits of life and personality, I'm excited to write with my students for the Young Writers Program of NaNoWriMo! I'm going to wrap up poetry unit in the next 2 weeks and give some brainstorming/prewriting (for NaNoWriMo) homework (from the very extensive and excellent workbook from the web site). Before November starts, we'll be familiar with basic character and plot development, conflict, and setting, all story elements that are part of the 7th grade ELA curriculum.

One happy surprise is that even though I didn't plan to include my 8th grade remedial students (small group, only 9 students total, 2 sections) in the writing project, some of them really wanted to do it when they learned about it (and a few were horrified at the idea). So I am including everyone! As a challenge to all of us, I plan to set my word count at twice the highest student word count. (Their minimum is 3000.)

So if this is truly my rollercoaster year of crazy, then I might as well have fun!

A whole month, really?

Sunrise view when I left my house in the morning for work about 3 weeks ago.

So yeah, a whole month without a post. It was busy! And mostly great and some really excellent, until yesterday when I had the rug pulled out from under me. I spent the first 4 weeks of school learning to juggle different teaching assignments and really enjoying them all. Some of my assignments are being changed, and that's really all I have to say about it.

Highlights of the past month:

• teaching one class of ELA 7, writing poetry now, and Young Writers Program of NaNoWriMo in November!
• Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale, absolutely wonderful story and teenage female protagonist, expanded retelling of a Grimm's fairy tale, set in ancient Mongolia - you MUST read it!

visualization

I'm standing in front of my classroom door on the second floor, facing the staircase that hundreds of young teenage kids climb up. I take a deep breath, smile, and the bus drivers open their doors at 8:00. I hear the clamor, the exclamations, the footsteps, and the sneaker squeaks on the polished floor before I can see them, and then I do see them.

Shining faces, smiles, bright eyes, braces, glasses, tans, t-shirts, jeans, sneakers, dresses, backpacks, totes, buzz cuts, shaggy curls, pressed straight, brown, blonde, black, purple, orange, red, yellow, pink, white, grey.

That's my moment. The first moment of the school year happens this Wednesday.

playing tourist

My friend A who lives in NYC visited us the past 3 days - we toured locally famous sights and eats! Niagara Falls (both Canadian and US sides, Maid of the Mist boat tour pic above), Botanical Gardens (that's me staring up Palm Dome of greenhouse gardens), The Original Pancake House (baked apple pancakes), The Melting Pot (fondue), some shopping ... I felt like I was on vacation!

Back to reality - I hope to check in at school day after tomorrow to set up the room. My goal is clean and simple this year. I'm only going to use the small classroom that is my "home" to teach about 20 students who need extra help with reading/writing; I'll be using other classrooms for other classes.

Did I mention that I re-read Deathly Hallows after watching Half-Blood Prince movie last Friday? Then I re-read Chamber of Secrets, even though I wanted to start with Sorcerer's Stone, but my husband is actually reading SS for the very first time. I started to re-read Prisoner of Azkaban, but my friend's visit put that on hold. Guess what I'm gonna do now? Happy summer reading and any other last minute summer indulgences to you all!

2 weeks left and more metaphors from Harry Potter

That's me at the Erie County Fair yesterday. I was pack mule mom, hanging out in this pic with a bloomin' onion while my daughter and her friend rode rides and more rides.

Last night I took husband to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie in IMAX theater (the first, like, 13 minutes were in 3D!) - sooooooo awesome!!! I started re-reading Deathly Hallows last night and finished this afternoon. I had forgotten so much from that book and the previous books - I truly enjoyed this re-read and think I need to restart the series from book 1.

HP metaphors ... endless, right? My favorite is still the impossible task that you undertake and persevere to accomplish, drawing from love, loyalty, friendship, whatever you have to keep you going.