Literary Magazine

Ursa Major will be called Terra Incognita this year. So excited. I think there are some real possibilities for this theme.

Falling Snow

Quiet solitude
Inner whispers of the cold
Blocking out the day

To Alan

Faded Memories

To my Brother Alan

I think that the holidays are the times that we miss him most

The auburn hair all out of control
The way he would saunter in a room and own it
The way he seemed to know where he was going

I always get a feeling of anger when I think of all those times that we missed because you aren't here anymore.

I want a brother
I want a sister in law
I want nieces and nephews that could have existed but lost out on life's lottery

Christmases would have been  so noisy so full of fun if you were here. Our family seems so small because of all those people who never quite made it into our lives.

I see other family pictures at Christmas, and wish we could have all that chaos and crowded space.

Ours seems quiet in comparison.

My mother never has been the same. In her subconscious mind, I think she has been trying to blame someone for years.
I am usually the brunt of her anger as though she is angry that I am alive while he isn't.

I know that isn't true, but sometimes, my irrational mind feels that way.

Therapy should have been in our minds to help us all, but it is too late for that now.

You were 24. You would have been 52 now.. That's a long time. Most of the time, I'm okay.

But during the holidays, I have more time to reflect, and remember. Merry Christmas, Alan.

Writing Exercise

Short Stories: Truly, Madly, Deeply [April 24, 2013] - Writing.Com

Intros

Your Lesson's First Five Minutes: Make Them Grand | Edutopia

Contest

One Teen Story - Contest

Student Progress

http://ictevangelist.com/progress-in-my-classroom/

Figuring It Out

1 thing I noticed about my creative writing students is that they seem to do so much better under so much more focused when you're sitting in front of the laptop vs writing on paper. They can't seem to find a place they seem to get easily distracted and I don't get as much work done.

I'm going to attempt to continue to let them have the laptop to see if I can get those back into the classroom.

It's not going to be an easy feat because of all the SOL testing going on.

On the English side, I think a student are as ready as they are going to be for the English writing SOL happens in a couple of days.

We watched an interesting video today to talk about introductions I hope it helps them.

On the Trail

Today we had the electricity in the cafeteria in the creative writing studio really great about talking to kids about joining creative writing. Because I had to go around and write down the names of the kids that are interested Annapolis the kids so I can contact and give letters to.  I haven't done this before I'm really excited about the idea. I think I have about 100 names.
English is started the Fireside Poets and they got into the group to annotate a poetry. They were actually working hard today talking to each other and talking about words and what they meant. I was a mazed. I think a presentation is going to be interesting as well because we're using YouTube to do some of the work.

Writing Help

Apps for Students | Dysgraphia & Writing Difficulties - NCLD

Students Work Hard

Gazette » 10 Reasons to Work Hard in School

Week Twenty-Halfway There!

Well here it is midterm week. School is half over; we have half way more to go. Midterm week has to be 1 of my favorite weeks of the year. I love it we don't have so much work to do,  but the students are working extra hard. Getting out at 11:30 everyday is also a nice benefit.
I also enjoy the fact that we're going to be moving into romanticism next term. This has to be 1 of my favorite units of all American literature. The row is really exciting because we're finally getting into literature that mean something. I mean the other literature did mean something but this is the actual real imaginary made up fiction literature like a Devil and Tom Walker.
I did like teaching the Revolutionary Period. This year that was a lot of fun and I think that I mix it up enough that I was interested it, and I was able to get the kids interested in it.
I want to get the kids involved in the Fireside Poets again this year by learning about them together. I want them to present the poems to the class so that we can all benefit from the learning experience. This will be a lead into Socratic Circles that we do later on this year.

Creative Writing will be starting a children's literature pretty soon. We have been invited to read the children's books to an elementary school

Week 19 The Long and Sad Road

This link it seems to be all about it administration. Bureaucracy  just won't seem to stop there's more and more stuff coming down the pipe and getting thrown in our direction. Everyone seems to want to micro management control every aspect of our teaching not really understanding that we ourselves are professionals and know what we're doing. Administration needs to do administrative things and they also need to protect us from from the things we don't need to worry about. That's just not happening. It seems that they want to control every aspect of our lives and they also want to criticize everything that we seem to be doing even though we know we're doing it right. We're demoralized. We're tired. We're  stressed, and this is not a good working environment don't like the fact that I come in to school every morning not really liking being there anymore.