The Sap is Flowing!

Actually, it’s been flowing for a while now. We’re about ready to pull our taps from the two sugar maples in our yard because quite honestly we’re just tuckered out. Days and nights of boiling sap have filled our pantry with 2 gallons of syrup. That’s a lot of sap! Precisely, 640 gallons to be exact. We had to finally switch from our usual method of boiling on an outside propane burner (was getting a wee bit expensive) and switched to an open fire which proved to be easier than we thought and may end up being our method of choice for future seasons. Needless to say, this has been a banner season. Hopefully, this saves some local farms who struggled through last year’s tough season. Sweet stuff!

Virtual Travel

“Equal parts lighthearted jaunt and in-depth journey, this intimately documented trip around the world has one goal: to bring you along for the ride.“  Got the winter blues?  Jump on board this virtual around the world journey LongJaunt at the Boston Globe with three of my former high school students.  They’re in Mexico now and off through Central America next and on to Brazil.  The photos are fabulous; the writing is inviting!  I see great possibilities for the classroom with this this project: study of people, places and culture, the genre of travel writing, and the study of history.  I could see a classroom blog using this as a model as kids write about their own travels or their sense of place called home.  If you end up using Longjaunt let me know, and I’ll pass it along to the boys.  They’ll probably write about it!  And since they’re financing the trip themselves and only being paid by the number of hits on the site–click away and pass the word.  Happy travels!

Blogs by Common Craft

So, here it is, the movie you’ve been waiting for:  Blogs by CommonCraft. 
Download and watch it here.  Gotta love these guys, but this only begins to touch the surface of the power of blogging on which many of us have reflected.  To me it’s so much more than about sharing news.  It’s about sharing thinking, ideas and learning–creating a collaborative learning community.

Book Review

Head on over to Just One More Book to hear the podcast review of The Goat in the Rug I submitted to them and they published! Why don’t you try recording your own book review and send it over to the folks at Just One More Book and see what happens.

Body & Community Power

Our family is nearing the end of week 3 of being a one-car family, since the used Ford Escort my husband has been driving around finally bit the dust. It’s been a good kick in the butt for us to finally make better use of our own body power and public means of transportation.

Here’s what we discovered or reminded ourselves we can do:

Walk to work (1/2 hour each way)

Walk to the bus and take the bus to work (about 2 hours each way)

Walk to the bus stop and take the bus to tutoring, orthodontist appointments and other events in town (about 1/2 hour each way)

Carpool with others either half way, then took the bus, or others went out of their way to drop us off

Schedule meetings at home

Ride our bikes (a bit tricky during this time of year when the sun is down by 4 pm & the heavy traffic on our road)

Schedule meetings in the city my husband works and coordinated them with drop off or pick up times and drive tog.

Give up attending activities.

It’s been good for us. It takes more time, but sometimes that’s a good thing. And, we hope to continue to use public transportation and our own body power a bit more than we used to even after tomorrow when it looks like we’ll be purchasing our second Toyota Corolla. Wish is was a Prius, but when both cars die in the same year that just doesn’t fit in the budget. So, thanks to everyone who kicked in to help.

Walk on!

Lookybook

Check out the amazing new website Lookybook which allows you to access an entire picture book online. An article over at Publishers Weekly discusses this new site. Their archive is somewhat limited at the moment, but it’s new and will grow! I think this will be a boon to picture book sales (good for authors and illustrators), but I’m also a bit concerned that it will take even more business away from local book stores (booh!), since I think that this is one reason folks still go into book stores–to see hardcover copies of picture books before deciding to purchase. However, it does look like the folks over at Lookybook are trying to also partner up with Booksense to serve the online independent book stores. Smart! But, consider heading over to your local bookstore online (Find them by visiting Booksense and typing in your zipcode; it’s as simple as using Amazon.) once you find a book on Lookybook you wish to purchase. Thanks to folks over at the New England Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (NESCBWI) listserve that I belong to for bringing this to our attention. NESCBWI is a local site of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). I can see how this site will become a huge resource to teachers as they are always looking for new and old picture books to use in their classroom instruction.

Read like a writer!

While in NYC last week for the National Writing Project Annual Meeting, I had the opportunity to meet with one of my old high school students who is now attending NYU Law School and working part time at The Door, whose mission is “to empower young people to reach their potential by providing comprehensive youth development services in a diverse and caring environment.” Sounds cool. I hope to visit next time I’m in NYC.

Well, it turns out my old student has written a picture book. And it’s good–real good. But, it needs some work. So, as I started to craft a response to her writing, I thought I’d share some of it here. Here are some basic ideas I’ve learned through my own writing process (as I work on my own middle grade novel) and from others at writing conferences such as SCBWI and from scouring many blogs and websites of authors, agents and editors (see some of them in my blogroll).

First, read like a writer! Read your favorite books in the genre you’re writing! In this case, picture books. Then, read the books you aren’t reading, but everyone else is. But don’t just read as a reader, read as a writer. Ask yourself, how does this begin? How does it end? How is language used? How does each word count? And how many words and pages is the typical picture book? What sends my hair on end? Whatever you may be having trouble with, ask that question of ten good books!

Second, read your own writing like a reader. Forget that it is your writing. Where do you stumble with your own writing? Where does your mind wander? What are your favorite parts? Does your hair stand on end?

To do these two things best, it’s worth the investment to answer these two questions for yourself if you haven’t already: Who is your audience? And what’s your one purpose? I’m all for finding multiple purposes for everything I do, thus getting a bit more bang for my buck. But with writing–find that one purpose and stick to it. If you’re writing does more than one thing at once–then it’s probably very good! But let it happen; don’t force it.

For specific information on writing picture books, check out this article on the Purple Crayon by Harold Underwood. Or for information on just about every topic when it comes to writing and publishing, check out one of my favorite online resources, Author! Author!

And if you’re interested in some great interviews with picture book authors check ones like this one with Mo Willems at Just One More Book.

Hey, and write a lot, but don’t beat yourself up about those times you don’t get to write–unless, of course, you’re under contract, have a deadline to meet, or feel the need to be published before you’re eighty! Ha!

An Evening with Lisa Delpit

My week ended with a lecture/discussion by Lisa Delpit held at Hampshire College on Thursday night.  It meant giving up my writing group for the week, but this kind of work is so important to me.  I’m currently reading Delpit’s books, Other People’s Children and The Skin That We Speak for my work with Project Outreach with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project (WMWP).

Lisa spoke most directly to the young college students about what research says about students of color in the college environment.  Although students of color often enter college with higher academic levels than their white counterparts, they perform below their white counterparts once in college.  She also spoke about the phenomena of students of color “disidentifying” with academic achievement as a result of feeling “invisible” and feeling their voice is not “heard.”  She told a poignant story of her own daughter who went to a private school in Maine where students were encouraged to participant in the leadership and decision making of the school.  During a phone conference with her advisor, the advisor told Delpit that her daughter needed to come to a faculty meeting and contribute which she hadn’t yet done.  When Delpit spoke to her daughter, her daughter said, “Mom, I’ve been to three meetings.”  And I’m invisible.  Delpit told several stories about her own daughter and others whom she has worked with throughout the years.  I think it was these stories that most invited the students to contribute their own in the question and answer period that followed.  I was most struck and moved by the voice of a young African American man who shared his struggles moving between the two worlds of Hampshire and the Bronx.  Although I’ve witnessed this struggle with my own students and with young people who left the Navajo Indian Reservation and went off to college and I’ve read about it–I haven’t heard anyone articulate it so meaningfully as this young man did.  Delpit’s response was that it took her a long time to learn how to bring home what she was learning in academia to her home culture in a language that respected and honored the people and vise versa,  bringing to academia the knowledge and voices of her home culture in a way that they could hear and respect them.  The struggle was worth it.

Delpit also shared information about Bob Moses’ Algebra Project which I heard Moses speak about at UMass last year.   It’s a powerful program from a powerful man.  It was interesting how moved people were last year after this presentation.  An email list was sent around and someone on the UMass faculty took the responsibility of bringing folks together to discuss the possibility of bringing folks together to make this happen.  I put my name on that list.  I haven’t heard anything yet.  It’s been almost a year.

“No race possesses the monoply of beauty, of intelligence, of force, and there is a place for all at the rendez-vous of victory.” Edward Said

“Without struggle, there can be no progress.”
Frederick Douglass

My Week in a Sentence

Although the Reflective Teacher is taking a break from blogging, my friend and colleague, Kevin has taken over facilitating this great project. This week, after some online prompting from Kevin, I tried my hand at podcasting my sentence. Check it out below and later this week (hopefully) over at Kevin’s Meandering Mind. Although I’ve podcasted before, this was the first time I’ve done so through podcast people. Check out my site here and make one of your own. Come on! You can do it!

Podcast

Happy Podcasting! And hope to see some of you in NYC next week for the National Writing Project Annual Meeting. I’ll be presenting all day on Thursday. In the morning for a jam-packed room of 75–and presently closed to others (Sorry we could only fit so many people in one room!), I’ll be presenting with some folks from the Mid-Ohio Writing Project on Creating your Web Presence and in the afternoon with colleagues from my own site (including Kevin) and colleagues from the Western PA Writing Project site on Building Leadership and Sustaining a Site. Should all be fun!

Just One More Book

Ok, so here’s my current favorite website about books!  Andrea and Mark over at Just One More Book post a thrice-weekly podcast celebrating children’s books and literacy out of their favorite coffee shop someplace in Canada.  Great interviews (Esme Raji Codell, Mo Willems & Jack Pretlusky to name a few), reviews and good old book talk!  Great concept, and I love the web design.  Kudos to Snowyday design–gorgeous!  You can even submit your own podcast review for their listener imput show.  I may just have to try it!

If I was really techy, I’d imbed their promo podcast right here and let you listen!