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Showing posts from April, 2016

Spring, Silliness, and Sixth Graders!

Spring is here. It may not feel like it, with many days at such cool temperatures, but it's arrived at middle school. Students are squirrelly and distracted. It can be exciting and frustrating at the same time. I've decided to celebrate and enjoy it.  Here are some examples from my classroom... A sixth grader "reading" during independent reading time. Oh how they love to be silly! Here's a copy of a status of the class form.   Everyday I take status of the class. This is when they report the book they are reading and the page they are on. I often have to prompt them to tell me the page number. On Friday as I prompting a student, "Page?" the boy sitting in front looks around and around and wonders, "Ms. Haseltine, who is Page?!?!" Block 1/5 celebrated our time with our amazing teacher cadet, Miss Gaetjen! We wrote goodbye stickies to her. We took selfies.   We said thank you. We gave hugs. Sixth graders ...

Chasing My Dream

I'm doing it. I'm chasing my dream. I've always wanted to run writing retreats and workshops for people, but I've always been too scared to do anything about it...until now. I don't know what's changed...maybe I've changed. I'm not allowing the fear to stop me anymore. I've started Selah Writing Retreats.  The past couple of weeks I've been getting the business end in order. I thought I would hate that...I don't. It's scary, but I am surprising myself with how efficient I am. Yesterday I went to a bank to set up a bank account. The woman I met with was kind and helpful and so enthusiastic about my dream. My website is set up. I've done lots of work on it. I hope you stop by and let me know what you think. It's  selahwritingretreats.com . Balancing creative with business has been challenging but fun. Creating the website, getting a federal tax id, making business cards, planning dates... My favorite voxer group is called Butt Ki...

Swirling Words

Words are swirling everywhere, like a violent tornado. Words move and jump and don't stay still. I try to capture and arrange them into something meaningful. I fail. How do I calm this...quiet the words... make beauty from this chaos? I stop. Listen. What do the words want me to know? What are they trying to tell me? Listen... Listen... Listen... Today my job is to Listen to what the words reveal to me...and not to mold them to my message. Listen to the swirling words. Thank you to Stacey, Betsy, Dana, Tara, Beth, Anna, Kathleen & Deb for this amazing platform to write and share writing! What a wonderful community you've created! I'm honored to be part of it. Join us at Two Writing Teachers .

Show Up

I don't feel like writing today but here I am, I show up I've missed many days I feel like I've failed, still I show up I've learned that life is messy, unexpected, hard, and beautiful... and the only thing I must do is thisā€¦ I show up. Sharing an original poem everyday in the month of April. Happy National Poetry Month!

How Poetry FOUND Me Today!

I was struggling to write poetry this morning. I didn't want to. I wanted to give up and stop...and then I got to school.  I was greeted with Amy saying, "I need you to read this. I need a good ending. It needs...something. What do you think?" I read her poem, "Sky"  and we brainstormed some ideas. I suggested repeating the first line at the end. She scrunched up her face. I love a writer who is really the boss of her own writing. I asked her what she wanted her reader to feel as the poem ended. She said, "Not too happy, but not too sad." I suggested a few lines and she came up with her own (which was better than any of my suggestions)! This encounter was followed by a found poem written by Isabel from lines in the book she's reading, Sure Signs of Crazy . Isabel borrowed lines from the book and arranged them into a powerful poem. You can read it here . I shared the poem with the amazing Karen Harrington , the author of Sure Signs of Crazy, on ...

Sixth Grade: We Are Writers

We are writing daily in sixth grade. I am so proud of my students. They show up everyday. They write. They share their writing. They live like writers too.  Yesterday, I challenged my students to live like writers and listen for good lines at lunch. When they came back from lunch, one student wrote a hilarious slice of life about a mini-food fight. My favorite line, "I look up and there is a dangerous smile on her face." My favorite part of this experience is how this student was laughing while she was writing her slice. She kept cracking up. She is living like a writer. She is paying attention and using everyday experiences in her writing! I got to see the words of Robert Frost come to life in front of me!  We are currently practicing our weekly slice of life blogging while we are continuing with our poetry writing. I have more than twenty students who are participating in our poetry challenge. These students show up everyday and write and post a poem.  Next we...

Catching Up...Again

Sharing an original poem everyday in the month of April. Happy National Poetry Month! I spent Sunday (well, much of the weekend, cleaning and organizing). I didn't post a poem, but here's my Sunday poem, today!  All day cleaning... Music eases the boredom and monotony of cleaning. Singing like Iā€™m on the Broadway stage makes the time zoom and suddenly Iā€™m done and everything is clean. My second poem is a haiku for Monday, calling for some sunshine... Rainy Mondays are slower and itā€™s hard to start Sunshine! Where are you?

Introverting Today

Thank you to Ruth Ayres for providing this space to share our celebrations. Please join us and share your own! Today I celebrate the luxury I have to "introvert". These past few weeks have felt  non-stop...no quiet. These weeks have been filled with lots of good things, but I'm yearning for some introverting time. This weekend is my quiet time. I'll breathe. I'll walk. I'll eat. I'll rest. I'll do. I'll be... all in quiet This sounds heavenly to me. Enjoy your weekend and remember to take some time to care for yourself. I'm reminded of what I learned from flying on airplanes...

One Day, Two Poems

Sharing an original poem everyday in the month of April. Happy National Poetry Month! He just walked inā€¦ the front door just like everyone else Shouldnā€™t poets have a special entrance? A yellow brick roadā€¦ A red carpetā€¦ A secret passage... Shouldnā€™t there be fanfare?   Trumpetsā€¦ Red carpetā€¦ People cheeringā€¦ Instead he quietly walks in the front door like you like me. Poets deserve swanky entrances with lots of Pomp and Circumstance like a King or a Queenā€¦ Because poets make magic from words, they make words dance cry shout laugh They make words enchanted. My Magical Power Every morning we wait for announcements, so we can begin our day. I confessā€¦ my impatience! I want to start, so I refuse to wait. As soon as I start to speak, itā€™s magic! Every. Single. Time. The announcements begin, at that exact moment when I begin to speak. My students laugh, every...

Reflecting on Classroom Slice of Life Challenge

Now that March is finished, it's time to reflect on our experience as writers. Iā€™ve unofficially participated in the classroom challenge for the past few years, but this year was the first year we jumped in with both feet! All of my sixth graders are writers and bloggers, but twenty-four decided to say, ā€œYES!ā€ to the invitation to slice daily in the month of March. Six slicers finished. Writing everyday is hard. Writers know that. Writing during weekends is harder. Writing during spring break is almost impossible. These six students conquered all of these goals. (One wrote her spring break posts from around the world in Pakistan.) They call themselves writers now...but thatā€™s not the best part. The best part is the connections we made. All seventy-five of my sixth graders commented on student blogs. We commented on the blogs of our fellow classmates. We found Mrs. Victorā€™s third grade students in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We found Mrs. Spillaneā€™s high school students in ...