#TeachersWrite Day Four

Day Four Lesson/Prompt

     Lorraine scrubs the pan stuck with rice with extreme focus like she's an eye doctor doing cataract surgery. To this day, she still always burns rice into the bottom of the pan. Using her forearm to wipe the summer heat from her forehead, she glances out the small window that sits over the stainless steel sink. Squinting her eyes, she tries to make out what seems to be a shadow in the backyard, but it’s too dark. “Ben, when are you going to fix the flood light outside?”

     “What Lorraine?” Cal calls over the television blaring commercials.

     “The flood light! When will you finally fix it? It’s been months.” 

     “It’s on my honey do list!” Ben shouts.

     Lorraine sighs just as the sliding glass door shatters to pieces. A large rock lands on the tile floor. “BEN!” screams Lorraine as she ducks and runs out of the kitchen. 

     

     Ben races towards the kitchen and almost collides with Lorraine. Ben grabs her and puts her behind himself as the continue into the bathroom that sits just off the kitchen.

     “Ben, call the police, ” Lorraine forces out from deep within her shaking body.

     “Shhhh, I’ll take care of it. Just stay in here and be quiet,” Ben says as he closes over the bathroom door. 

     Ben sees the rock lying under the small, circular kitchen table.  He notices that it has a white paper attached to it under a rubber band. He looks out the gaping hole of the door into the backyard, but he can’t see a thing. He mutters frustration to himself about not fixing the floodlight earlier. He plucks the note from the rock. It is typed and says:

“Once you’re in, you can never leave. 

Next time, we won’t miss your wife’s head.”

#TeachersWrite Day Three

Day Three Prompt/Lesson

Main Characters of my work-in-progess story entitled The Letter:

Benjamin (Ben):  integrity to wife; pressure; love; wants what's best; hard worker; sincere; sorry; in over my head; bad decision; regret; will make it right; tough decisions; felt she was better off without me; wants to apologize; wants daughter part of his life; fishing is my life; don't know how to do anything else; quit school;


Lorraine:  in love; naive; disappointed; how could he have done this; trust issues; hates dishonesty; learns to be independent and strong; my high school sweetheart; small town girl; work in diner; okay with being home with kid(s); being Ben's wife is all I want and living my life with him;


Sarah:  independent; caring; sweet; helpful; loves parents deeply; trust; college bound; wants a better life than parents; looks at the good side of everyone and everything; feels blessed for all her parents have given her; appreciative; sticks up for herself especially with men; not a feminist but believes in girl power;

#TeachersWrite Day Two

Day Two Lesson/Prompt

Having a family member move away especially when your a kid is very difficult.  I thought about how I felt when that happened to me and did my best to put the emotions I had into this scene even though it's with adults.

“You must go,” Benjamin whispers into his wife’s ear as they stand in front of the Peter Pan bus terminal in Providence.

As the dark clouds hovering above release its torrential rainfall, tears run down Lorraine’s face.  Press against Ben's chest, her entire body shakes with the fear of the unknown and the raw fall wind.  Her vocal cords refuse to work.  There are so many words she wants to say.  So many things they have yet to do.  She knows it isn't safe for her to stay.  Benjamin had gotten himself in over his head this time.  When he told her he was getting his own fishing boat because he didn’t want to work under any man, her instincts told her that it wasn’t the right decision.  And now because of it, she is standing here saying goodbye to her true love and the father of their soon-to-be child.

            “You must go, now,” Ben whispers again.  This time he pushes her body away from him and towards the waiting green bus. 

            All Lorraine can do is shake her head in agreement and walk towards the open door.  As she climbs the first step, Ben places her silver metal suitcase into the bottom storage area of the bus. 

            Lorraine spins her head over her shoulder.  "BEN!"

            Ben runs to her and hugs her at her waist while she leans down into him.  “It’s okay.  I’ll be okay.  You’ll be okay.   I’ll come for you when it’s safe.”

As they kiss, they lose all aspects of time and place until the bus driver speaks. “I’m sorry, but we need to leave.”

Lorraine lets go of Ben and climbs the rest of the stairs.  While standing in the rain, Ben’s eyes follow her through each window until she arrives at her seat.  Looking out of the window, she wipes away her tears and savors every aspect of his face and body for she knows she will never see him again.

#TeachersWrite Day One

Day One Lesson/Prompt

Galilee (Point Judith), Rhode Island Description Take 1 
(Excerpt from story I'm working on entitled The Letter)

From the steering wheel of Cal’s lobster boat, nautical dawn has allowed us to faintly see the stone wall entrance to Point Judith. Cal promises that going past the Coast Guard base right near the docks is easier than what we just did.  As we quietly glide past their hub, a wave of relief begins to rush through my veins as I realize that we are almost home free.  It may have been nerve wrecking at the moment the barrels dropped, but now it feels like I made it worse than it was.  A thousand dollars for this instead of three days at sea and not seeing my wife is a good deal to me. 

            Just past the little white shack of the Coast Guard base, Cal bears left towards the Great Salt Pond.  Before twilight is over, we have to quickly off load the barrels and store them in the grey shack.  From the start of the main wall where visitors wave to the passing boats, these shanties are one after another.  They go around the corner as far as the eye can see.  Many of them are grey from the weathering of the salt air.  We approach one that has a crack in one small pane in the window to the left of the door.  A burly man exits the door and goes on to the dock.  Cal approaches the dock as I grab the rope at the bow and toss it up to the burly man on the dock.  He wraps and ties it around the post while I run to the stern.  I grab the rope, jump up, and tie it up.  Cal cuts the engine and goes towards the hidden barrels.  The burly man puts the ramp down into the boat.  We go back in and begin to roll the barrels up the ramp and into the shack. 

            We continue on for fifteen minutes with no one speaking.  Everyone moves as if it is a dance that we have been doing for years.  Cal brings the last barrel into the shack as I put the ramp back on the dock and start up the engine.  Cal releases the ropes and hops in and takes his position at the helm.  We head over to Champlin’s restaurant to drop off the few pots of lobsters we collected.  The money they pay us is a drop in the bucket compared to the payday we already received.  I can see it bulging from Cal’s pocket of blue Dickies. 

Hear Details

• swishing of minimum wake waves entering port
• low hum of practically idling diesel engine
• absence of seagulls noises 
• rolling sound of blue plastic barrels on metal ramp
• creaks in the old dock as barrels and people move along it

Smell Details

• salt water
• diesel gas
• old fish gut smells wafting from nearby boats and boat deck
• sweat mixed with salt on cotton clothes

Taste Details

• salt water mist on lips
• gas fumes from slight wind blowing them into face/mouth

Feel Details

• steady movement of boat gliding through flat calm bay water
• smooth plastic of barrel
• pounding of heart in chest
• salt water on skin 
• stiffness of clothes due to the salt water

Galilee (Point Judith), Rhode Island Description Take 2 

        From the sea-misted metal steering wheel of Cal’s lobster boat, nautical dawn allows us to faintly see the white spray of seawater crashing against the stone wall entrance to Galilee. Cal promises that going past the little white shack of the Coast Guard base right near the docks is easier than what we just did.  As we quietly glide through the smooth bay water and past their hub, a wave of relief begins to rush through my veins as I realize that we are almost home free.  It may have been a nerve-racking experience at the moment the barrels dropped into the boat, but now it feels like I made it feel worse than it was.  A thousand dollars for a few early morning hours instead of living at sea for three days and not seeing my new bride is a better deal to me. 

         With the low hum of the engine, we pass the Coast Guard base.  Cal bears left towards the Great Salt Pond.   From the start of the main wall where visitors wave to the people on passing Block Island ferries, there are tiny one room shanties one after another.  They go around the corner as far as the eye can see.  Many of them are now grey-shingled siding from the weathering of the salt air.  We approach one that has a crack in one pane in the eight pane window to the left of its door.  A burly man exits the door and goes onto the dock.  The boat approaches the dock as I grab the rope at the bow and toss it up to the burly man.  He wraps it around the post while I run to the stern.  I grab the rope, toss it around the post and tie it up.  Cal cuts the diesel engine and goes towards the hidden barrels behind the lobster pots.  The burly man puts the metal ramp down into the boat.  We begin to roll the barrels up the ramp trying to keep the squeaks and scratching of the metal dock to a minimum.  One by one, we glide the barrels up the ramp and onto the dock that begins to creak and sway under all the weight.  

      We continue on for fifteen minutes with no one speaking.  Everyone moves as if it is a dance that we have been doing for years.  Cal brings the last barrel into the shack as I put the ramp back on the dock.  I start up the engine with its diesel smoke immediately wafting about me.  Cal releases the ropes and hops in to take his position at the helm.   

      The breeze of seagulls circling close to our heads begins to draw attention to us as we head over to Champlin’s restaurant to drop off the lobsters we harvested.  We pull up to their cement dock which is covered in so much seagull droppings that is seems to have been painted white.  I slide the orange plastic buckets onto the dock.  The worker, who came out at the sound of soft purring of our idling engine, grabs the buckets by their white handles and tosses the lobsters out onto the metal belt.  He inspects the sizes and moves them down the line to the scale.  "What a great early catch.  Guess you wanted to get in ahead of the others," he said as he continues inspecting bucket by bucket.  

      "It's always great to be ahead of the game," Cal replies.  He hands Cal our payment in cash.  The money they pay us is a drop in the bucket compared to the payday we already received.  I can see it bulging from Cal’s pocket of his blue Dickies. 

Why is this story worth telling?

I am writing this story to show the unending bond between parent and child and the forgiveness we all seek from past errors that were a learning experience yet effected others deeply.

#TeachersWrite

A Tweet in last week's feed has made me even more excited about this summer.  I was setting a goal for myself to get back to writing and finishing some of my stories.  For three summers, I attended a local writing conference with local authors.  It was an amazing experience which helped me learn more about what goes in to writing a story.  I also was part of a writer's group that broke apart once I stopped attending due having a child.

Now that a few years have passed and the constant desire to finish the stories I started and to get the new ones out from my brain, I've decided to write this summer.

Once I saw the tweet about #TeachersWrite, I knew this was the push that would help me with my goal.  It's free to join and has many authors giving advice and feedback.  It is in it's third year.  I wish I knew about it back then.

Jen, Teach Mentor Texts, blogged about its first day tomorrow and asks "Why are you writing this summer?"

My Reasons:
1.  3 incomplete manuscripts
2.  A love of reading
3.  A love of language
4.  A love of writing to create worlds that others love to be in
5.  A desire to learn more about writing and techniques from my first hand experience in order to share my learning with my students

Join me and all the others who have signed up at #TeachersWrite

Funtastic End of the Year

Every year, I have students write letters to next year students and grade me on a report card.  I wanted this exciting year to end with a "WOW" so I started my search on TPT (teacherspayteachers.com) for anything that was free.  I found many great ideas.  The first one I used was The Final Countdown.  I used it as a brainstorm for the letter to their locker pal who is the student who gets their locker next year.  I will tape their letters in the lockers before the new students are assigned their lockers.  I had student make a summer bucket list bookmark of all the things they hoped to do in the next two months.

I find that having my students grading me throughout the year and at the end gives me amazing feedback on how to improve next year.  This year I used SurveyMonkey.  I've used this website for years and love it so I don't know why I never thought to use it for this before.  As students wrote their letters, I had students complete the survey using the computer area in my classroom.

On our second to the last day, I decided to do a Minute to Win It competition.  On YouTube, you can get all the blueprints from the show, but I decided to use the written ones from Tonya's Treats for Teachers.  If you use YouTube and you have a Mac, you can download the blueprints and put them all together as one video.  I plan to make this during the summer for next year.  I chose 7 out of 25 games from the written ones.  I was able to get all the supplies for under $30 for four classes.  

All year I've wanted to do a lip sync battle like Jimmy Fallon! I borrowed a microphone and stand from the chorus teacher.  I showed the clip of Jimmy Fallon and Paul Rudd competing. I had students write down their favorite one to two songs so that we had a playlist for the day.  I put the song titles on strips of paper for students to randomly pick out.  I made the playlist using Grooveshark and listened to the songs to double check that they were appropriate for school.

To really get the students pumped, the co-teacher and I battled each other.  We cheated by choosing our songs.  I did Bust a Move by Young MC.  When it came time to bust a move, I danced like Elaine from Seinfield.  The co-teacher did the snowman song from Frozen since she has all the songs memorized thanks to her three-year-old daughter's infatuation with the movie.

As students left at the final dismissal bell of the year, I gave them all one of these to make a "Kool" treat for themselves.

Animal Research Infographics

In order to make research exciting for students, they were able to choose the animal they wanted to learn more about.  Students choices were limited to the animal books in our library, but we have a huge amount of books.  

To make the research easier, I had students use a gathering grid.  To have more than enough room to write, each student was given a file folder.  On the front, I stapled the directions for the Piktochart part of the project.  The back was for words that students didn't know and needed to define.  With each class, we decided what the most important questions were to guide our research.  the grid on the inside has the guiding questions on the left, the sources used on the top, and inside each box students jotted down their notes.

I found Piktochart to be the most user-friendly and had the most options for the creation.  I made all the students accounts ahead of time.  I highly suggest you getting a gmail account if you don't have one especially if you work with students under 14.  With gmail, you can sign up and create emails that all go back to your main account without students having to have emails.  To make the accounts, you use your gmail account name and +(a number).  For example, mrscurt+1@gmail.com.  I made all the passwords the same.  Piktochart only asked for a username, email, and password.  I made the username the email account so that I could copy and paste to make the accounts faster.  In order to understand how the site works, I researched about vultures and made my own infographic.  I showed my example to students so that I could explain my thought process when I made it and what it should look like.

Students had to use a book, a specialized encyclopedia, and at least one web site.  Once they gathered their facts and pictures, students logged into Piktochart.  I had students choose the infographic tab and the make your own choice.  The most important parts students need to use on the web site were the text boxes, uploading pictures, changing background, graphics, and knowing how to add another block.

I was amazed at what the students created.  The second student (Jackals) was homebound due to a broken foot and through Edmodo and Piktochart, she was able to still participate in class and do the project.

Tree Kangaroos:  https://magic.piktochart.com/output/2093029-tree-kangaroo#

Jackals:  https://magic.piktochart.com/output/2138642-jackals

If you decide to do this project and need help or have questions, don't hesitate to ask for help in the comments.  The most important thing is to have fun while learning!