Ten top reasons to revise by Geri

Top 10 reasons to Revise  by Geri Hagler

10.       To make it look like I’m working

9.         Because my teacher told me I had to

8.         To fix my mistakes

7.         To say what I know

6.         To include what I think

5.         To add what I feel

4.         To develop organization and fluency

3.         To be purposeful in my meaning

2.         To illuminate myself

1.         To connect with my reader

What She Could Do poem by Geri

What She Could Do

 by Geri Hagler (my step-mom/best friend Renee’)

Accepts us all

with love and no judgments

brings peace, squelches

arguments. Smiles

with calm and largess

teaches humility.

Sews what we need,

costumes, bordered

shirts – coats

smiling from within.

Sings the 60’s folk songs

Simon & Garfunkel, rhyme

in harmony. Be the gentle

willow or oak of reason.  Give

freely.  Advise truthfully. Saves me

with her patient heart.

Linda Rief blog by Geri

Writing class Blog: “What’s Right with Writing” by Linda Rief      by Geri Hagler

“Writing today is not a frill for the few, but an essential skill for the many.” – The National Commission on Writing in America’s Schools and Colleges

“What have we learned about writing and the teaching of writing.”

According to Rief, “writing is thinking…writing lets us communicate what we know and helps us think of things we didn’t know we knew until we began writing. Writing is one way of communicating our understandings and misunderstanding of ourselves and the world……. We learn to write by reading extensively and writing for real audiences.  We need to give students ample opportunities to write on a continuous basis.  They need choices about topics and genres… Writers need constructive response….Evaluation of writing should highlight the strengths of process, content, and conventions, and give the write the tools and techniques to strengthen the weaknesses” (p. 33) “Writer need places to collect their ideas…teachers need to know their students well… writing is reading and when students write they are engaged in…the process of critical thinking”(p. 34)

“Why does writing matter?

Riefsays,”….if we want children to become adults who are articulate, literate, and thoughtful citizens…, they must learn to think deeply and widely,” which is achieved through reading and writing in several different modalities (p. 35). Also, “….writing is about using our imagination, our understandings, our questions, our creativity, our feelings, our humanity to work through our thinking about ourselves, about others, about the world in which we live” (p.35).

“The Writing-Drawing Connection”

Students use drawing to find writing (p.35-37)

“What do our students need to help them write well?”

Rief says that what students need to help them write well is time, choices, models, and response.  Students need time to consider their topics, to write and then rewrite and to get feedback while they are writing – write less, but write longer.  Students need to care about what they are writing about and to be part of the topic choices.  Students need good models of writing, which include literature in the styles of writing that is expected from them.  Students need conferences  and to get constructive comments to help the writer grow and move forward with their writing  (p. 37).

“What stands in the way of powerful writing instruction?”

According to Rief (p.37-38), what gets in the way of good writing instruction is testing, testing, testing and lack of tools.  Also mentioned were scripted (canned) lessons mandated for all students by all teachers at the same time, which does not account for multiple intelligences or differentiated instruction.  Rief says that another problem is the lack of professional development that focuses on writing, so teachers don’t know the best practices for teaching and implementing writing instruction. (p.38)

Life gets in the way

Suicide by Cop by Geri Hagler

Report: Deputies arrive,

male subject armed,

pointing gun,

officer: “Drop the gun!”

officer thinking, “Please drop the gun,

I don’t want to shoot this guy, I don’t want to shoot this guy.”

officer: “Drop the gun, drop the gun, drop the gun!”

male subject: silent

male subject thinking: “Shoot me for Christ sake!

Why doesn’t this idiot just shoot me.  I’ll show everyone,

They’ll be sorry, it’s all their fault.”

male subject: stepped toward the deputy and raised his….

officer shoots,

the witnesses: the woman screams,

the six year old is paralyzed, mouth and eyes opened beyond wide

in a silence – so much violence

Letter to the officer

Dear officer involved in this shooting,

                I am so sorry that you had this experience. My worry is that you will hesitate

the next time

and you cannot,

please be assured you did the right thing, nothing you could have done differently,

how do I know?

That was my brother.

I used to think that if I gave him all the love I had….”There’s just not enough love in the world,”

sang Don Henley on the stereo and I nodded, just not enough.

Every single one of us have second guessed and thought, what should we have done,

what could be have done?  Every single one of us has battled with guilt and tried, and tried,

and tried and

he burned every one of us over and over and over.

At the news, flash

Oh, his poor son, his poor daughters,

Oh, those poor witnesses,

Oh, I’m so glad my father and my mother are dead,

this would have killed them,

Oh my God, I’m not feeling bad

Oh no, the poor officer

Dear officer involved in this shooting,

                I do not blame you. I am so sorry.

Sincerely,

older sister

Using literature & wordless books to jump into writing

Here is a website listing wordless books. Here are titles of books and ideas to go with them. Here are three other ideas about how to use literature to jump start writing by Geri Hagler

Using wordless book as a jump into writing

http://www.acpl.lib.in.us/children/wordless.html

A Boy, A Dog and a Frog     by Mercer Mayer

Tuesday                                 by David Wiesner

April Fools                             Fernando Krahn

Using literature as a jump into writing

·         After reading The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs, discuss other fairy tales that have a clear protagonist and antagonist; choose a different fairy tale to write in the point of view of the antagonist.  Hansel and Gretel

·         After reading Sam, Bangs and Moonshine, have the kids write about a time they lied and what effect that caused (cause and effect; consequences)

·         After reading Oh, the Thinks You can Think! have them write about all the things they think about, serious, sad, angry, happy, scary, confusing things or things they just want to know about

·         Discuss the elements of fairy tales and what we expect to read from traditional fairy tales, read The Paper Bag Princess, Sleeping Ugly, or The King’s Equal. Discuss how these stories were not traditional. Have them write their own fairy tale focusing on setting, antagonist, protagonist, problem, solution and moral.

·         After reading, Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing, have students choose A-Z animals, mammals, reptiles, birds, fish or forest animals, ocean animals or just 10 animals (not already mentioned) to write their own reasons animals should not wear clothing

·         After reading The Stupids Stories, discuss the element of irony that make these stories funny.  Have them write actions that would be ironic.

·         After reading, The Teacher From the Black Lagoon, have the students describe their own ideas of what makes a teacher a monster, what makes a teacher bad or good

·         Read Donovan’s Word Jar, and have the students create a class collection of great words

·         Read The Dot &the Line: a romance in lower mathematics. Have the students write a love story or poem between geometric shapes or numbers, with a focus on puns, homophone play on words and meanings

·         Read Ruth Heller’s books on parts of speech (in poetry form)  and have them write and illustrate their own parts of speech book

Other writing ideas:

Vote-a-story: choose a wordless book, or fairy tale to rewrite from a different point of view and build the story by having your class vote on each aspect from the title, beginning, setting, characters, plot, and end.  Ask for ideas for each aspect, writing down about five ideas, then have the students put their heads down so no one can see, and have them vote on which idea to choose. I really like this activity, but it takes time. Assign a student to write down the final choices.  Once the story is done, I take the voted choices and divide the story into as many parts/pages as I  have students. I give each student a line to be written on a blank sheet and have them illustrate their line.

Picture story:  Either you or the students cut out pictures from magazines.  1) Give each student a picture to write about, or 2) Place a different picture with a sheet of lined paper on each desk and have student rotate every one minute to a different picture.  Students write about the picture, but must add on to what the person before them wrote until everyone has gone around to every picture.  Then we pass the picture and the stories around to read.

Comic strip: Cut out a comic strip from the newspaper and white out the words, make copies for each person, or make an over head and have the students write their own caption for that cartoon