Footfalls

Below is the second poem I'm sharing to celebrate National Poetry Month.  Enjoy.

Can’t hear the

Footfalls in the sand,

Ever shifting,

Ever changing,

How to trust where they go.

Not knowing

Where they lead to

or from?

Soft steps taken.

Going forward,

Going back?

The heat increases

To stay or to go

Spinning,

spinning

moving round and round.

Beads rolling

from forehead to cheek.

Which way, or not, to go?

The sun blinds,

First step taken,

Swirling sand.

Anxious apprehension.

To find a way along?

Faith in better conditions,

Never trusting self,

Eyes shut, remain.

Sun scorching,

Wilt and wither,

Sand piles high.

Crawl left,

Crawl right,

Which way to go?

Motionless

with shifty eyes

Drowning in tears.

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If you have written your own poetry, if you are inspired by a particular poem, or if this post has generated some thoughts of your own, please share in the comments. I would appreciate hearing about them.

Celebrating National Poetry Month

Whenever I have requested students to write a poem as a means to process and react as a part of their learning, I am usually confronted with dread (except for a few). But far more often than not, the students produce powerful work and are proud of it.

Knowing that writing poetry is a risk for my middle school students, I'm making my own leap. I have sporadically written some poetry - usually for myself. The number of people I have shared it with does not even fill one hand's digits.

To celebrate poetry this month, I've decided to expose myself and share some of my poems.  Well, I'll start with one anyway....

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The bead trickles

down the nose as the head bends low.

Body struggling with exertion

against the rocky incline,

droplets splash silently,

unacknowledged,

to the ground.

Jagged peak interjecting

in a glorious field of blue,

satisfaction spreads across

the visage and throughout

aching muscles.

The precipice,

once so far away,

now in view,

will be deposited as the culmination

of time,

effort,

emotion.

Finally ascended,

to see the gratifying view,

but all that is expected

has changed.

The mountain’s climb

has just been a

hill’s hike.

Looking out from a

new vantage point,

just in the foothills

of a range of peaks,

one precariously

perched more daunting

after the next,

and the next,

and the next,.....

Not a single hill,

Not even a single mountain,

But a range to conquer.

Great distance already traversed,

accomplishments,

of moments ago

swept into memory,

as preparations are made

to relentlessly pursue

that next peak.

And while preparing,

steps already taken,

beads of pride and

determination

already forming on the brow,

as the body impels

ever further,

ever farther

across the

timeless journey,

just begun,

Knowing that

its inception

has appropriately sharpened,

and honed,

like stone against steel

so that success resides

on the next bluff,

and the next,

and the next,.....

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If you have written your own poetry, if you are inspired by a particular poem, or if this post has generated some thoughts of your own, please share in the comments. I would appreciate hearing about them.

Celebrating Pi Day with Geography

On March 14th of every year, our school, like many, celebrate Pi Day.

Signs were posted around the school to celebrate pi (and Albert Einstein’s birthday - we even had a look-alike contest). Teachers throughout the school did different activities that involved circles, diameters, radii, and pi. The event is a nice way to build community throughout the building.

In the 7th grade geography class, students worked with continent’s population.  After quickly drawing circles to represent their perceptions of each continent’s comparative population, students found the actual populations.  They then worked with diameter, radius, and area to draw appropriate circles to represent population.  

When arranged in their appropriate spots in relationship to one another on the globe, the students had a simple cartogram.

Displaying the population data in this visual manner made a great learning opportunity for the students.  They remarked how Asia’s great size compared to the other continents was striking - they knew it would be the largest, but not by that much.  They were also surprised that Australia was so small and that Africa was as large as it was.

A simple activity to help celebrate Pi Day, and math, allowed students the opportunity to gain new-found understandings to better understand the world.

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If your students took part in some engaging Pi Day activities, or if this post has generated some thoughts of your own, please share in the comments. I would appreciate hearing about them.

Engage Your Students in Writing

Do you want your students to write effortlessly?

Jon Corippo shared 8 pARTS grammar at BLC15 last summer, and I was intrigued.

The basic idea is to get students to produce rich writing by having them practice often with highly stimulating images as the prompt.

Let me tell you...my students were tremendously engaged. They not only took to writing like they were writers, but they also were having fun - almost like they wanted to write.

I started with a picture of kids being mischievous that Corippo had shared (see it here). The students saw it projected on the board as they came in, and it immediately conjured conversation. I then had them recall the eight basic parts of speech and used the poem (linked here) to refresh any rusty recollections.

Then, the fun began.

Prompted by the image, students shared their ideas as I filled in this template:

• caveman sentence (grunts included)
• three verbs - and associated adverbs
• three nouns - and associated adjectives
• pronouns
• conjunctions
• prepositions
• interjections

Some struggled to participate accurately. But, hey, that’s what we were doing this for. They got the clarification they needed - especially about adverbs.

After we completed the template together, they wrote. And they wrote, and they wrote. Not one student struggled to begin or follow through. I was amazed at how they took to the writing.

And the results were spectacular. The writing was much more descriptive and rich than I was used to from my students. (There were some punctuation errors….but one step at a time.) They were using the parts of speech correctly, and their writing was more dynamic.  One example follows:

Charles and his acquaintance Bobby crudely redecorate his living room with the thick, white paint. Bobby was at Charles’ house and they were bored, so they decided to have a little fun. All of a sudden Charles’ mom burst into the room and shouted, “Golly!”

Charles looked up from the paint he was now spreading on the small television as terror crossed his face. He was in big trouble. Charles’ mom looked at the room in shock and thought to herself about how the children were being annoying and messy like the presidential candidates she was listening to on the radio just before. She quickly took out her phone and snapped a picture to put on Instagram where she now had a whopping 23 followers! She then walked over to the boys to begin scolding them when she slipped on the still wet paint and face-planted onto the floor. The boys took this as a cue to run out of sight of the angry woman.

The key, clearly, is finding highly engaging media to stimulate their writing.  In addition, the expectation for writing is only a paragraph, so students are getting a quick burst of practice.  By doing it often enough, I can see that students will become better writers.

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If you have used @jcorippo ‘s  8 pARTS grammar to enhance students learning or, if this post has generated some thoughts of your own, please share in the comments. I would appreciate hearing about them.

Student Created Content: Infographics

Technology in the classroom is best used when blended in as a tool that enhances learning. To that end I decided to expose my students to infographics.  They had had a little experience viewing them to gather information, and I let them loose to create their own.

Usually, students start to put together their “projects” prior to being well versed in the topic.  They love to incorporate colors, images, and fonts. Knowing that all products depend on the information and understanding the students have, and to prevent them from being distracted by the glitz of making the product, I didn’t even let them in on the fact they would be creating infographics until I felt comfortable with their information and understanding.

I broke the information gathering, processing, and synthesizing into steps and did check-ins along the way. This ensured that students were on track with their understanding.

Students loaded the Piktochart app onto the classroom Chromebooks and accessed it with their school accounts.  Trusting the students to figure the program out and to support one another, I told them they would be familiar with most of the tools in Piktochart. The only features I demonstrated to the students was how to add another block to extend the infographic and how to copy a block so they could repeat a design.  I also told them to let me know if they needed help.

The students were largely independent and problem solved individually and with their neighbors. I guided them whenever they ran into a roadblock.

Students were very successful creating attractive and effective infographics.  They enjoyed the blending of words, images, graphics, and colors. They had to consider effective design to balance these features in an organized and appealing manner. When questioned by a colleague visiting to see them in action, students explained how they envisioned how they could create infographics in his class and others.

Producing infographics is a creative and engaging process for students which emphasizes technology as a productivity tool, can demonstrate student understanding, and has students practice real-life skills.

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If you have used infographics to enhance students learning or, if this post has generated some thoughts of your own, please share in the comments. I would appreciate hearing about them.