The Book

I woke up and finished The Hunger Games first thing. I loved that book. The ending was a "to be continued" kind of ending, but that didn't even bother me that much. If you haven't read Hunger Games, you should.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is the chosen read for our town's One Book One Bloomington program. I got to about p. 135 and then stopped because it was boring me. But there's an article in today's rag about how great it is. Maybe I should give it another try? But it's overdue, so that could be complicated. Plus, I gave it a good amount of my time already. I'll decide about this later.

This afternoon I headed over to a daffodil exhibit. It was a in a small room at the local garden center. Some tables were set up with vases of daffs in them. There are a LOT of different kinds of daffodils. I was feeling pretty pleased with this little field trip of mine, but then I got home and my brother in law posted a picture on facebook of his trip to a tulip festival. His photos showed tulips going every which way for about a bazillion miles. That would be a great thing to see.

The Book

Woohoo, I'm blogging about an actual book! Don't know why blogging about a book should seem better than any of the other texts I've blogged about (schedules, power points or news articles), but I do have some pride about nearly finishing a book. (Maybe I'll blog later about how literacy can be kind of snooty sometimes).

Anyway, I wanted to finish Hunger Games today so I could blog the accomplishment this very day, but I still have about 60 pages. Hunger Games. I wouldn't really call it a Young Adult novel because I know elems that would like it. I know a lot of grown people who would like it as well. I will probably make a podcast about it as soon as I finish it. For now, I'll post some questions I am having about the ending and then maybe I'll podcast the answers.

1. Will Katniss win the game? 2. Will Peeta live? 3. Will something happen to change the ruling class society? 4. What will happen to Gale?

Those are my major questions right now. I thank JW and GPM for recommending this book.

The Schedule

The clipboard with the schedule on it was carried for hours today. It was written upon and

chatted about and retyped. It spent the whole day with me. I read and discussed it dozens of times. With dozens of people. My "to do" list grew longer and longer as each hour passed and I spent time on the schedule but on nothing else. I think in the end most people liked it. It's hard to make everyone happy about a schedule, but that's what I try to do.

When I got home this evening I was pleased to see that our new netflix flix had arrived. As you undoubtedly know, I just got netflix very recently. I picked up the red envelope and ripped it in half to get at the dvd. That's when I remembered that the red envelope is the container for returning the dvd and that ripping it in half could be called an error. Husbandman was not supportive when I showed him what I had done. When I told him I felt badly about destroying the netflix envelope, he basically said, "Yeah, that's a big problem. Why'd you do that?"

Why can't people support me? Is that asking so much?

The Topic

Today was the big presentation. It went fine. Sadly 3 of my

most fantastic slides didn't save so they were blank. "Drat," I said, with good humor as

I tried to explain the content of the missing slides to all the principals and the superintendent.

It's still bugging me, so many hours later. When I got back to the compound, a second grader asked me to listen to her read, so we went out to the hallway while she read Frindle. Frindle is a truly great book about a group of kids who invent the word frindle, but their teacher doesn't want them to say the word, so it gets more and more popular. Probably all of you know about this book already, and I only read 4 pages of Frindle today, but that's all I've got, basically. I wish I could have read the 3 missing slides, but it just didn't work out.

The Site

National Poetry Month is a pretty good month. And this blogger here has a cool thing going where he shares an UNPUBLISHED poem by a PUBLISHED poet each day. It's v. delightful and today's poem is lovely.

I just got home from work. I've been working on a power point about RtI for 2 days straight. It is done. I hope the presentation goes well tomorrow.

The Praise

Literacy stories have not been a big part of my day. Mostly I've been working on a power point because we have to give a chat to some principals this week about our school's RtI program. I'm nowhere near done with it.
I was getting a bit nervous about not blogging today when I remembered a third grader saying to me, "My teacher read that paper that had your name and we liked it."
So I gave her a hug and moved on when later an adult came up to me and said, "How's it feel to be a master teacher, huh???"
"Well, I guess pretty good," I responded, unsure. That's when she told me that a teacher pal had referred to me in a news article (See link below). So after dinner I decided to find the article. I read it and was so pleased to read a nice compliment about me. I called Husbandman over to read the compliment portion of the article. "This is what I'm going to blog about!" I announced cheerfully."
"You're going to blog about an article in which someone praises you?"
"Absolutely I am," I answered.
"Where's the shame?" he asked, which makes no sense at all to me.
IDSnews.com | Bird nesting site in jeopardy

The Gift

I just got home from work at 10:15 pm. I sure am glad teachers have such awesome hours. I worked 6 hours at the compound yesterday, which was Sunday btw. Yep, teachers have a way cushy job!

Okay, time to get focused here.

I've been reading my computer screen for the past 5 hours, but I did have a fine reading experience today, which I shall now tell you about thusly. I read Granddaddy's Gift to the third grade podcasting group. You're thinking, "Hey tell us more." Okay I will. It's about a guy who wants to register to vote in Mississippi but he has to take a literacy test about the U.S. Constitution in order to register because of his skin color, so he studies and takes the test but when he goes to celebrate with people at his church, his church has been burned down. But the church burning backfires because it gives others the courage to study for the test in order to register to vote. The third grade peeps were enthralled with this book and their teacher said, "We need more books like this, they were captivated." I'm going to try to gather books and texts that have to do with literacy and law.

Butler and Duke are tied, btw.

The Birthday

Sunday's a big literacy day around these parts because Husbandman goes out and brings back the NYTimes, the paper of record. We get coffee, curl up on the couch. After a cursory look at the front articles, we work on the crossword puzzle in the magazine. We almost always finish the Sunday puzzle and then we work on the reading. I like to read the magazine first. The q and a page with Deborah Solomon. Love that. Love the piece where people talk about the odds and ends in their house. I love the last page called "lives," because the stories are fairly extreme. I always read the piece about doctors trying to diagnose some odd health problem. I wish my kids would be doctors so that I could advise them when they're diagnosing.

Then I move on to Frank Rich, letters to the editor, and then the vows story. Then I move over to the front section, and then the book review. I usually end with all the blurbs about all the people getting married. My best reading today was from the magazine. Roman Vishniak, photographer, didn't exactly follow the code of journalistic ethics when he photographed Jewish people in Poland before WWII. He made up captions for the photos that were not true. But he was an excellent photographer who left some great pix behind. We can see those pix in 2012. Not sure where. But let's track them down. And let's go see them together. Because we're all in this together.

The Otter

Today I started Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. But I'm going to blog about something I read yesterday at the compound. I'm going to blog this as a dramatic sketch because it shows how literacy can be totally full of pathos from time to time.

Characters:

Keith, second grade peep

Leeway, Literacy Partner

Evan, third grader.

Carla, 3rd grader.

Shana and 6 other second graders.

Setting: A school hallway. A literacy partner is sitting on the floor surrounded by second graders. The kiddos are supposed to read and write about sea otters. Keith is having trouble.

Leeway: Keith, did you read this? (holding up a short text about sea otters)

Keith: No. I can't read it.

Leeway: Would you like me to read it to you? Then you can write 3 sentences about sea otters?

Keith remains silent.

Leeway: Why don't I read it to you then? (She reads with gusto and verve). "Sea otters have very thick fur. Sea otters live in cold water. Their fur helps keep them warm. Sea otters use their paws to clean their fur. Sea otters use their paws to get sticks and dirt out of their fur." So, what did you learn about sea otters, Keith?

Keith: (Shrugs) Nothing.

Leeway: Nothing? Nothing about their thick fur or how they use their paws to keep clean?

Keith: I don't know.

Leeway: Want me to read it again? Listen carefully this time and try to remember one thing about sea otters that you can write about.

Leeway reads the text again, with gusto and verve. As she finishes, she holds it up to Keith.

Leeway: Look at this cool picture of this sea otter cleaning its fur. What do you think you should write, Keith?

Keith: Nothing.

Leeway: Why don't we talk to your friends here to see what they're writing---

Evan, a third grader bursts out of the boy's bathroom.

Evan: (Very animated) There's poop on the floor in here. And in the urinal!

Leeway: Just go downstairs and explain this to Mr. D., Evan. Go quickly and don't interrupt the second graders. Everyone's doing a great job writing about sea otters.

Evan runs down the hall.

Leeway: Okay, Where were we? Shana, What are you writing about?

Carla, another third grader walks by, on her way back from the library.

Keith: Hey Carla! There's poop in the boy's bathroom. It's on the floor and in the urinal.

Carla: Gross. (Keeps walking).

Leeway: (silent for a few seconds, staring at Keith) Wow! Keith! You remembered a lot about the POOP! That was amazing! You remembered 2 details! You remembered that there was poop on the floor and in the urinal! You did such a great job talking about the poop, but when we talked about sea otters (leeway holds up the sea otter text), you didn't remember even one thing. That's really something how you can remember everything about the POOP, but not even one thing about the SEA OTTER!

Shana: Can you please stop saying "poop" so much?

Leeway: Maybe I can. What do you say Keith? Do you think you can get to work now and write something about the sea otter?

Keith picks up his pencil and starts writing, just as the hallway fills with second and third graders rushing out to recess.

The Taser

Wow! This blogging challenge has started off with a bang. I love this blogging challenge very much so far.

I learned in our local rag that police officers tasered a 10 year old in a nearby town and this incident is being investigated. The police chief said that the taser "is not really meant for ten year olds." That word "really" really makes this quote. It makes me feel that the chief is not really convinced that the taser is really inappropriate for use on children.

I think tasers are a little bit funny and I sometimes pretend my cell phone is a taser and then I thrust it into the neck of Husbandman or one of the offspring while making a buzzing sound.

But really, I would never taser a 10 year old because I know for a fact a taser is not meant to be used on a child.

The Poem

Busy day here at leeway. I read a lot of dorky little things today. In the morning, the newspaper said someone gave 500,000$ to our school system, but it's an estate gift, so we get 25,000$ a year from that. And the second grade peeps needed help with their common assessment so I read about polar bear fur and sea otter fur a bunch of times. Did you know that polar bears don't have fur on their noses or under their feet? Well, yes, I think we all know that. I read a bunch of third grade letters to other third graders in our town, asking them to listen to our podcast. After school, I read a power point full of photos about artful learning to a committee of people who are restructuring our school.

After reading a menu, I headed over to good pal Menosky's house to pick up a large bag of candy. She suggested I read some poetry tonight by Billy Collins. I came home and started leafing through Ballistics to find a short poem. I ended up reading a bunch of poems and especially loving the title poem. "Ballistics" is a poem about looking at a photo of a bullet being shot through a book.

Many novels sprang to mind

including those of Raymond Chandler
where an extra bullet would hardly be noticed.

A perfect thing to read on this first day of the reading blog challenge.