It's 8:30. The only one who's missing is Reese, but wait, his lunch box is here.
Announcements by Anne and Jaime (and others who have something to say)
- Quickwrite copy reminder.
- Someone will always be here at 7:30.
- Book talk--Spark the Brain, Ignite the Pen
- Goering tells us again that the graduate school is still making progress and that it's always like this...Cycle of Incompetence. Anne mentions having "violent dreams of storming the grad school."
- Jaime says to Danielle "Fellows' choice is...a fellows' choice."
- Reese finally shows up.
Sharla says Mike will do a snake write on Mon. 7th.
Next activity, Anne gives review of her demo evaluations from yesterday and says with surprise, "These are really good."
Somehow we all begin to discuss the fact that Step Up to Writing Sucks!
Chris approaches the chair and says to Mike, "Mike is a hot pepper today... But I can't talk about Mike being a hot pepper until the court proceedings are over."
He continues on to read the preface of his up and coming book, Finding Common Ground. This is where I get the idea to create a blog.
My favorite parts are, "flat chested women are not my type." and "I
have been taken by the Bigfoot, Bigfeets, Bigfoots."
Cindy gets up to do her reading of the Public Log. She has written a parody of "Sam I Am" and dedicated it to Sam Totten. WOW and it's really good. She's really putting the pressure on for me to come up with something good...Damn.
Next, it's time for a quickwrite with Kelly! We create fictional stories using random words that we came up with from the alphabet. This activity shows us how sentence variety can be challenging for everyone and that it must be practiced in order to improve one's writing ability. Thanks Kelly!
"Too much teacher talk," Goering says as he introduces his demonstration. We are doing Socractic Circles. Yay! I love this stuff...seriously. I think it is very interesting to observe other people interacting, especially when they are as crazy as Group 1. lol.
First group:
- fired up about the lack of cited resources
- Mike scored on the 3rd grade level on the SAT
- Erin wishes she was a nice person
Second group (better of the two):
- polite and well-mannered
- listens to each other
- apparently, we need to be more aggressive
That's when I hear Kelly say something worth writing down..."I've been teaching for 10 years and I feel like a piece of s*%#!"
(Hilarious)
We all go our separate ways to our response groups. My group helps me with an idea. They are supportive and helpful--I can tell our group is going to be kick ass.
We go to lunch and then return to participate in Jaime's demonstration:
Defending an Outrageous Opinion
Where we learn that...
- Smoking is good for you.
- Tube tops should be worn by people over 500 lbs.
- Trans fats are healthy.
- Never wear your seat belt.
- Make sure to always say hello to strangers.
- Yellow snow is good for you.
- Thongs are for your feet and your butt.
- Run with scissors.
- Goering insists that babies should always be breastfed.
Obviously these are all the opposite of what "everybody knows" and are going to be difficult to defend, but Jaime shows us how. She gives us numerous models and a strategic way to legitimize even the most ridiculous opinions. Now, we have a wonderful way to teach and model persuasive writing. Thanks Jaime!
Jaime also shares a few examples of Letters From a Nutt by Ted L. Nancy (intro by Jerry Seinfeld). Hilarious!
And this concludes Day 2 of the writing project. If you would like to become a contributing author to this blog, please create an username on http://www.blogspot.com/ and I will gladly add you as an author. EVERYONE SHOULD DO IT. Please email me at amccutch1@gmail.com
Please send all donations to:
ScottandReese@DeadSexySmokers.com
DanielleandCindy@welovehitchhikers.com
1 comment:
This is cool, This group of teacher writers are amazing, wow I think we are all pedling to keep up with each other, Good God man don't fall asleep you'll miss two years worth of teaching/writing tricks. Big Mike
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