Jewell Parker Rhodes: A True Gem

I met Jewell Parker Rhodes at the NCTE expo hall in November.  I had read her first YA novel, The Ninth Ward, and loved it.  Her publisher was giving away advance copies of her new book, Sugar.  So I grabbed a copy, gathered my courage, and approached Jewell (I will forever classify myself as shy).  She immediately put me at ease with her huge smile and enthusiastic greeting.  She happily signed her book and we struck up a conversation about how much kids at my school loved The Ninth Ward and how I looked forward to sharing Sugar with them.  Jewell beamed and explained that her greatest hope was that children would enjoy her work.  I told her I'd share the book with our students and suggested that she could talk with them about it.

I walked away from that table thinking about how nice she was to talk with me, but I couldn't imagine that she would actually talk with our students once they had a chance to read the book.  This is a BUSY woman we are talking about.  You can read all about her on her website or her blog.

I think I read the whole book before I returned from the conference and knew our students would love it.  One of our 4th grade sections began reading it as a read-aloud, and, as predicted, they loved it. 
So... I sent an email to Jewell--a busy professor and working author--who emailed me back the same day!  After quite a few email exchanges we chose a date for the Skype.  The students prepared by illustrating passages from the book, discussing what they liked about the book, and writing questions to ask and comments to share. 

The Skype...

At 2:00 on Monday (11:00 in Arizona) we began the Skype.  Jewell began by reading a few pages from Sugar, and she explained that she'd never read this book out loud to a group--we were her first audience!  The book is set in Louisiana on a sugar plantation during Reconstruction. All of the former slaves who did not leave when they were freed remained to work on the plantation.  The protagonist, Sugar, a young girl whose mother died on the plantation, longs for freedom and adventure. She strikes up an unlikely friendship with Billy, the son of the plantation owner, and together they set off to explore "far away places" on the river.  Their friendship, needless to say, is a dangerous secret. Sugar also pursues a friendship with the Chinese laborers who come to work on the plantation to increase productivity.  

Each student in the class had a chance to ask a question or make a comment to Jewell about her book. We learned about how long it takes her to write a book, how she researches her stories, how she feels about her characters, and most excitingly, what she's working on now.  She asked the kids for suggestions about her new characters, Madison and Bear.  She welcomed their ideas and told us she'd put a dedication to Flint Hill Students in the new book! She also promised to send each student an autographed copy of Sugar and a copy of The Ninth Ward.

Thank you, thank you, Jewell Parker Rhodes for an unforgettable experience!

What Made My "Collector" Child Eager to Clean Out Her Room

Earlier today I suggested to my first-grade daughter that she should go through her toys to see if there was anything she didn't want anymore.

Nope.

Buoyed by the promise of an imminent snowday, I try again several hours later. But this time, I change my tactic. While Marley is in the kitchen having dessert, I go up to her room and take all of her stuffed animals. Not to worry--I'm not evil. I line them all up in the hall and callher upstairs with this invitation: "There's a yard sale going on up here. Come get your wallet."

"Really?" She runs up the stairs and finds me in her room.

I am ready with instructions. I tell her, "Go shopping in the hall. Buy whatever you want. Bring me your items when you are ready and I'll ring you up."

She dashes downstairs to get a shopping bag, and on her way back up she tells her big sister that we're having a yard sale in the hall.

I wish I'd taken a picture of that part of the sale as Marley shopped through a hall filled with her own stuffed animals. I wish I'd taken a picture of Morgan following behind her, browsing the items Marley had chosen not to buy.

I did take pictures of the next phase of the sale...the same process but with all of her other items--everything but the plush ones!

By the time the sale was over, Marley had repurchased many of her belongings, but we'd also filled two bags with unwanted items and moved a few things to Morgan's room. It was a fun way to get her to go through her things and give her room a much-needed dusting!

Do-Over

This morning our faculty got together during a two-hour delay to continue our "assessment work."  We met in the gym and watched a video overview of our middle school's Rube Goldberg challenge from last month.  After the video and a brief reflection from the middle school director, we were asked if we had any questions.  One person made a comment. 

It wasn't me. 

But I thought about raising my hand.  I thought about asking questions.  Why didn't I?  Probably because it felt awkward to pose challenging, ruckus-raising questions from the gym bleachers in front of the whole faculty.  Now I wish I had.

So I'm using my blog as a do-over.  If I could turn back time (sorry Cher) and ask the questions that were bubbling in my mind, here's what they would have been:

1. This year we devoted two days to the Rube Goldberg challenge in middle school.  The idea began as a two-week J-Term and was reduced to two days.  Next year, will we take the first two weeks of January, as was originally proposed, to provide the time and space for a new challenge for our middle school students and faculty?   If so, who is leading it?  What will it look like?  What do the kids need and want?
2. We have seen the success of the Day of Play in the lower school and the Rube Goldberg challenge in the middle school.  How will we provide a similar experience for our upper school students?
3. And the big dog daddy of a question:  How do we move from pockets of innovation to full-scale educational overhaul.  In other words, how do we make our school different?  (I probably would not have really asked these questions, but it is the one that drives me every day as a parent and an educator).

I feel better now.

Next month, in the gym, I will ask my questions.

Remember to Notice the Good...and Climb the Stairs

Today I happened to have an hour unexpectedly become free in my schedule. For a moment I considered going back to my office to check email or work on lesson plans, but I decided to head to the third floor to the land of fifth and sixth grade. Thank goodness I made that choice.

I saw Writing Workshop in fifth grade in its purest, most beautiful form--the students all hard at work on their fiction pieces while the teachers moved around the room having individual conferences.

I also saw sixth grade readers using Glogster to create "posters" to defend their choices for Impact Awards. They were thinking critically about their books and writing precisely about them.

And across the hall I found a different group of sixth graders creating roller coasters, all of them engaged and all of them able to explain what they were building and what they were learning.

Thank you, Third Floor teachers, for these gifts. They were well with the climb.

Rube Goldberg Challenge

Our middle school students came back to school on Thursday to a surprise:  no classes for two days!  Instead, they would work in teams (assigned) to create their own ten-step Rube Goldberg "machines." They would all end their machines with the popping of a balloon.  Cheers went up around the auditorium followed by a steady hum of middle school voices as they headed out to begin their adventure.

I greeted my two groups in the commons area and provided them with the instructions.  The immediately began to plan, explore the materials, and test out ideas.

For two days the kids did not go to class (except for music at the end of the day).  Instead they learned on the job.  They learned about teamwork, planning, revision, and overcoming frustration in a fruitful way.  They found that they were having fun AND learning.

My favorite question of the two days:  Will we do this again next year?

See a successful run here!

Creative Writing and Literature Masters Program Complete!

I am just waiting to receive my final grade in my last class and have my program portfolio approved, but all of that is out of my hands!

To celebrate, I thought I'd post a bit of my work (just poetry for now) from the program. 

Enjoy!

5:18 A.M

Emily Dickinson beckoned me to my window

with a tattooed moonprint

on the carpet below the sill,

six-paned and lovely.

And I saw, through Emily’s eyes,

one neighbor’s light dancing through red sheers,

one sedan gliding down the road.

She brought me to my window to find this poem.

She showed me how to see what there is to see

when no one is supposed to be looking.

Poem

All these years of hips and thighs and muscle and instinct,

my body delivered my girls with the reflex of knowing.

You, though, kicked and fought with angry heels

your path artificial, not of my flesh.

My girls arrived with shrill cries of life.

You sulked into the world broken, insolent.

Daughters borne of me

A poem born in me. 

Blood and ink

both.

Manic

Morning

slides out of her cracked shell

so sweet

and urgent and

Jackson Pollock fills the sky

with drips and splashes

of to-do lists only half-formed

in my mind.

There is still time,

I tell the birds.

So sing, even though

it’s early and you are chirping

more loudly than my alarm clock

that will never be set as long as you

keep chirping

the morning news

starts even earlier now

because the breaking news ticker

scrolled all night so there

must be something to report first and fast.

Each morning the same

routine, procedure, schedule.

What began as beautiful becomes

a metronome of must

go and do and get

until day bends toward evening

and there is only the threat of

tomorrow to lull me to sleepy

haze of dreaming of the

magnificent morning.

For Esperanza

Outside the petunias in a pot

will blossom when the soil’s richness

can grow dollars instead of flowers.

Inside I write words forward and backward

and upside down, just like I lived them. 

I never type them,

the whack of the keys like gunshots. 

You cried when I left, but not the kind of crying that cracks

your heart into so many pieces that you

can never find them all. 

Your crying was the song of a hungry kitten.

I will not be gone forever. 

Only until my petunias have blossomed.

I will have legs that carry me back and away,

filled solid with dirt and words and blood and love. 

Home to complete the circle

and away to begin my own.

Straight Lines

This morning I was rereading Georgia Heard and Jennifer McDonough's A Place for Wonder:  Reading and Writing Nonfiction in the Primary Grades when I was stopped short by this beautiful poem.  It captures what I believe so movingly:

All the kindergarteners
walk to recess and back
in a perfectly straight line
no words between them.
They must stifle their small voices,
their laughter, they must
stop the little skip in their walk,
they must line up
at the water fountain
straight, and in perfect form,
like the brick wall behind them.
One of their own given the job
of informer--guard of quiet,
soldier of stillness.
If they talk
or make a sound
they will lose their stars.
Little soldiers marching to and from
pretend
their hair sweaty
from escaping dinosaurs
their hearts full of loving the world
and all they want to do
is shout it out
at the top of their lungs.
When they walk back to class
they must quietly
fold their pretends into pockets,
must dam the river of words,
ones they're just learning
new words that hold the power
to light the skies, and if they don't
a star is taken away.
One star
by one star
until night grows dark and heavy
while they learn to think carefully
before skipping,
before making a wish.

I believe childhood is too precious to press into straight lines.  Thank you Georgia and Jennifer for confirming that.