Playing in the Big League

Two weeks at Teachers College was well worth it's weight in gold.  I feel like I learned more about teaching reading and writing, (specifically to 2nd graders), in these 10 days than I have in all my 21 years teaching, (well, I did walk in with a solid foundation to layer upon).  Reading and writing have been cut open and broken down into specific teaching strategies delivered in a structured, yet flexible manner, that provide continual active engagement and differentiated instruction.  I'm inspired to totally revamp my curriculum.  My 100 page notebook is filled with hot tips.  I'm really glad my Cotsen mentor/coach will be there to help me pull it all together! Get ready Y ;)

And then there were the after hours activities...  also exhilarating...  How much fun can you have in nyc for 2 weeks?!!

Small and large group topics: Non-fiction book intros, vocab, envisioning, monitoring for meaning.

Staff developer, reading and writing instruction author, coaching mentor extraordinaire, and the leader of my large group, 2nd grade section, Amanda Hartman.  I tried to rub off some of her talent.

The grand closing  was filled with readings, role-playing, poetry, and elucidations on what it means to be a reader.  It felt sad that it was over.

Back to the future...

From the John Lennon Strawberry Fields

 memorial in Central Park

Over the Moon

Quotes:  In the future, how we educate our children may prove to be more important than how much we teach them.  (Thomas Friedman) 

80% of Guided Reading is giving appropriate book intros.

Here's a look inside of the walled and gated Columbia campus proper.  The Low Memorial library was built in Roman classical style.  Columbia is the 5th oldest institution of higher learning in the US.  

Small Group and Large group topics:

Reading Cueing Systems and Analysis, Shared Reading, Book Clubs, Small Group Work, Character Study, Strategy Lessons

I loved the closing session with comprehension expert, Kylene Beers.  She detailed 7 "clues" for readers to notice and take note of when looking for themes in a text:

Turning point 

Lesson of contradictions

Again and again 

Tough questions

Lesson of the elder

Memory lane

Last line of the chapter

I'm starting to think that I really could have written The Da Vinci Code.

Maybe I'll start with a simpler story line about studying in nyc for two weeks, but including all the clues:

Turning point - being asked for directions

Lesson of contradictions - I want to do to the homework...

Again and again - repeated cannoli consumption

Tough questions - Cuban or Thai tonight?

Lesson of the elder - If there is a bathroom on the premises, use it.

Memory lane - What stop do we get off at?

Last line of the chapter - It is so great that we are here, getting to do this!  We are so lucky!

(Note: these aren't exactly the kinds of clues Kylene Beers laid out as examples - just a twisted angle.   I really do find the detailed dissection of reading and writing fascinating.)

We went for Cuban drinks and plantain and empanada appetizers on a reco from SC. Although the establishment was called Cafe Con Leche, their speciality beverages had little to do with coffee.  The coconut mojitos were the perfect Thursday evening ticket.

We were determined to take the bull by the horns and get to bed at a respectable hour, however the moon was high in the sky by the time we got back home.

The Beat Goes On

Classroom with a view.

Small and large group topics: 

mini-lessons and Teaching Points 

conferencing and the Research-Decide-Teach structure, 

reading cueing systems -meaning, structural, visual, comprehension strategies

My closing session was Creating Communities of Practice Across K-2 Classrooms: Inquiry As a Way of Life

Quotes and summarizations:

"Inquiry" is academic jargon for wondering.  Support students to be life-long wonderers.  

The hard work comes in the musing, wondering is the easy part.  Stay with the wonderings instead of letting them vanish.

I had been waiting patiently for a second round of cannoli and capuccino and finally all of our ducks lined up to make the venture.  My mouth watered.

We continued on to have dinner at Lil' Frankie's then covered most of the rest of our downtown bases: Greenwich Village, West Village, Chinatown, Little Italy, East Village, back to Greenwich Village (A LOT of walking).

In Chinatown we were quietly and aggressively offered bootleg DVDs and knock-off Gucci and Prada bags.  At a fruit stand I stocked up on cherries, lychees, and blueberries that were also priced for the black market.  I hoped the fruit was real - it was.

I was ready to accept that I had had my final nyc cannoli and I was pleased with my memory of it, when, on the way back to the subway K needed to use the Ladies and, well, one decision lead to another, and there we were back in the cannoli shop.  Yes!  Still five cannoli left in the case!  We could get them to go!  And eat them tomorrow!  My mouth watered, again.  However, once they were carefully wrapped and bagged we spotted the New York style cheesecake and we knew that it wouldn't travel well...    

I became buds with my celeb du jour, the chef and owner of the cannoli shop.  He told us that his cafe was the oldest operating cafe in NYC.

A reminder not to let that cannoli sit around for too long.

Dessert and Pastry Disclaimer

Dearest Loved Ones,

Please do not embarrass yourselves by immediately looking at our waistlines upon return.  

We walk a lot here.  

A lot.

And everyone knows that a lot of walking requires a lot of fortification.

Fondly,

The Pedestrian Taste Test Team

We're Off to See the Wizard

Another morning keynote from reading and writing guru Lucy Calkins.  She showered us with more incantations and inspiration to work magic in our schools.

I have to say it again, it is incredible to be amongst over 1300 colleagues each morning who are truly into improving their craft.  Later in the day, there is nothing like sitting amongst 100 other 2nd grade teachers at my large group section and enthusiastically trading tips and insights on the teaching of reading and embracing the powers held within the TC style.

Incantations and Potions from Lucy:

-You are the conversations that you are in.  When talking to

 a student you bring with you all that conversations that you have had.  You are carrying all [the people you have ever interacted with] on your shoulders.

-The reason you have a conversation is to change your mind, to think new things, to come to a new understanding.

-You can predict ways to intervene with people to help them move forward.

-Create the classroom we believe in and invite kids to role-play in it.

-One teacher along with one principal can turn a school around.

In reality, before listening to our mega-mentor this morning I followed the yellow, okay - gray, brick road for another lovely morning run.   

Dorothy, Toto, and Toto's cousin relocated in retirement.

 Sometimes I go by Grant's Tomb.

After standing in the cancellation line for around an hour, we scored tix to Wicked!  It was great.  It was a BIG show - lots of cool lighting, big, elaborate stage settings, creative and colorful costumes, characters that moved through the air and disappeared or transformed on stage.  I really didn't know what it was going to be about, except that there was a witch involved and if you don't want to know anything about the plot cover your ears

here.  It was a fun, fantasy story line, that contained ties to the Wizard of Oz.  Alright, I'm just going to spill it here, especially since I'm studying how readers relate to a  text this week - 

it unfolded the background story and relationships between several characters in the W of O.  You can uncover your ears now.

Having only had time for a rushed dinner of take-out pub burgers, sitting on the ground right outside the theater we decided to sample the latest in frozen yogurt concoctions, pink berry yogurt. It has

the tanginess goodness of real yogurt, it was yummy, and I think it is good for you.

Bookworms Unite

Round two.  This week we are doing Reader's Workshop.  DR flew the coop yesterday.  And then there were three.

Clearly I have turned a corner in familiarity with the 'hood.   I was asked for directions three times today AND I could give them.  No one asked me for directions last week.  Thank goodness.

I've developing my nyc shtick:  I walk fast, I drink coffee for lunch, when it might rain I carry an umbrella and wear flip flops (quick drying), I know when it's okay to safely cross on a red, I text in hallways and read on the subway.  I still instinctively try to make eye contact when I pass someone on the street, but they're weaning me of it since no one responds in 

kind, (ask someone for help and that's another story - they're all over it).

The badges that afford me access to all the good stuff.

Keynote by Maurice Sykes, Exec. Dir. of Early Childhood Learning Institute at U of D.C.

He spoke of habits of mind, inconvenient truths, qualities necessary to be a good teacher and acts of courage.

Quotes and summarizations:

It's in the doing.  The essence of something is in the doing.  

You can't be burned out if you were never on fire.

Rekindle.

The 3 B's of speakers:

Be interesting.

Be brief.

Be seated.

The 3 I's of best audiences:

Intelligent

Inattentive

Intoxicated

Small group and large section focused on building your reading life, the Accountable Talk Read Aloud, Reading Workshop and balancing methods of instruction and The Rally Cry - getting students energy up, gathering enthusiasm.

Off to my gym.

It's just down the steps, where my fellow coeds are ambling out.

Catching up and getting down to brass tacks with S at dinner.

Walking the Runway

We knew where to get the most scrumptious sticky bun.  As well as one outrageously yummy and huge chocolate peanut butter cookie that we carted all over this island and used as emergency rations when needed. 

I've learned that Eagle Eye K has a special knack for finding places that we are looking

for, (she is

 also able to read an entire menu, in detail, before I even lay it flat on the table).  She can spot the grocery store, coffee house, bank, "real" deli, whatever, from  a distance when we are walking down the street.  Today she sighted some white tents about a half mile down the road and said, "There's a farmer's market.  Let's go!"  We went.  It was "whimsical" and "wacky" flea market. Crafts, clothes, lots of jewerly, household furnishings, Heidi Klum and her entourage of body guards, children and nannies.  Finally, a celeb sighting.  We can check that off the list.

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art I was first drawn to the Modern Design Collection where I got to ogle the groovy modern chairs made of steel, foam tubes, cotton webbing, wood and cane and my fav, a metallic green polyester resin with polyurethane lacquer, lounge

 chair reminiscent of the Star Trek emblem.  I think the chairs were appealing partially because it had been so long since I used one.  Then, in keeping with the theme of the day, I did the catwalk through the Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion exhibit that focused "fashion models' ability to embody the idealized aesthetic of an entire generation", (don't quote me here).

Model as Muse worked it by displaying model history, magazine layouts, model 

bios, actual clothing representative of the different decades from the 1940's to 2000's? - formal satins and velvets, Twiggy, plastic sequin and chain dresses, the first jersey wool, topless, one piece in 1964, (that's right, nothing covering the 2 on top - scandalous), pragmatic, independent sweaters and trousers, disco, Brooke's Calvins, grunge, the return to glamour, Lauren, Jerry, Iman, Cindy, Claudia...

Sitting on a 150,000 year old rock in Central Park.  Our new friend, a horticulturist, explained us that Central Park is at the center of Manhattan and that all of Manhattan sits on rock foundation called schist.

Snapping turtles, eager for a handout at their watering hole in Central Park.

Sipping teachers, eager for a handout at their watering hole, Tarvern on the Green

K, striking a pose with supermodel, Kong.  King Kong.

Quote of the day:

It's okay to be sad, but not so sad that you are down.

Patrick, bartender at Tavern on the Green

The World is Our Oyster

Saturday and I could sleep in.  Ahh... 10:30...  The proper way to start a holiday.

DR and I went to the Museum of Natural History and did some time with the dinos

 and bones.  

I kept asking myself, "Is that real?"

We swashbuckled past the picnicers in Central Park...

...to meet K and L for a traditional 4th of July dinner of cocktails and cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery at the Rockefeller Plaza Rink Bar.  

Inside 30Rock L got on line in the appropriate cue to go the appropriate floor where

 her imaginary office awaits.  Actually we spent a bit of time in the lobby hobnobbing with the doorman and security to try and get access to the top for viewing the fireworks.  No dice.

Then we eventually boogied on down...

 to some anonymous corner where we were packed ourselves in like sardines to see 

the Macy's

 fireworks over the Hudson River.

A Spoonful of Sugar...

mojito,

mojito,

citrus vodka shot.

martini,

licorice,

a round of frozen choc.

That pretty much sums up the end of Friday

 night.  The final day of Writers Workshop and we were helping the medicine go down.

When traveling as a quad, there is often a lot of coordination that occurs to get all parties to the same location at the same time.  A libation or two is often a necessity while

 waiting to intersect with your companions.  

And then, of course there are some targeted treats and  libations, like a trip to the sweets shop and the frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity 3 (google for more movie/tv significance).

Friday is celebration day at Writers Workshop.  Each participant shares a small mo

ment piece that they have been working on all week and recieves feedback, (compliments only at this point), on their use of different craft moves.  In some sections the pieces

were read to partners, and in others, like mine, we put our pieces on our desks with a comment sheet and then browsed the room reading other pieces and leaving specific words of encouragement.  There was time for more instruction too - revising, editing, spelling and mechanics, management, and developing units of study...

The keynote speaker was by Carmen Agra Deedy, storyteller extraordinaire

 and author of Gift of the Masai - the true story of how nomadic Masai people gave NYC the sacred gift of 14 cows after 911.  The lesson behind it all - big needs little, (Aesop's lion with the thorn in his paw).  Well, there was a lot more to it than that, but that is the short version. 

At the closing session 8 people read their small moment pieces to the full house.  They were all beautifully written, often tugging at your heartstrings.  One hilarious piece was about the adolescent pride and foolishness of a guy who took on a dare to put paperclips in th

e electrical  outlets of a high school classroom to prove that they didn't work.  It was a belly-aching riot!  And needed after many of the other tear jerkers we listened to.

Quotes and summarization from Lucy Calkins at the closing: 

-Time is all we really have so be mindful of it and how you spend it.  With who and 

where and how you use it.  We are here for a short amount of time and then it's gone.

(it's not a new concept but she said it so eloquently, -I can't do it justice here just wanted to reinforce and refresh the sentiment.  

The throngs of "students" leaving the Friday keynote, on their way to morning sessions.

mojito,

mojito,

citrus vodka shot.

martini,

licorice,

a round of frozen choc.