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Bomer, Notebooks, and Strategic Assignments

  Bomer, Notebooks, and Strategic Assignments In Chapter 11 of Building Adolescent Literacy in Today’s English Classrooms , Randy Bomer lists a handful of useful perspectives to inspire meaningful writer’s notebook entries. Two, in particular, stood out to me: “Starting with Little, Nearby Things” and “Asking ‘How Am I Feeling?’ and Then ‘When Was Another Time I felt This Same Way.’”   Starting with Little, Nearby Things I like this one. I’m a victim of the greatest plague known to mankind: writer’s block. When I want to write, I cannot. When I cannot write, I have my ideas. While Bomer’s latter-mentioned “Thinking Towards Writing” helps with this issue, I want to address the very specific predicament of wanting to write about something entirely new to oneself but having no new ideas when sitting to write. The “Starting with Little, Nearby Things” strategy involves the writer looking around and taking in her surroundings. There is a small, over-watered succulent on the...

Fore! (A Slice of Life)

  Seventeen holes down, one more hole to go. Only four times I’d embarrassed myself so far. An easy Par 1 hole. Second-to-last place was going to be mine.   I approached the hole. It was your average finisher on a mini-golf course. One ramp leading into a tiny hole inside a dragon’s mouth. With the right combination of power and precision, excellent golfers can squeeze between his gapped-teeth and win themselves another round of torture on the house. With the wrong combination, the ball lands in the vault that signifies the end of your $10 mini-golfing spree.     Hit the ball already. Don’t break a window.   Josh and St. John voice their confidence with jeers. I don’t let it go to my head. I take a deep breath and square my shoulders. I lift my left foot, then my right foot, then my left foot. I am centered. I am in control. I am the pre-accident Tiger Woods of mini-golf.   You’ll never take second-to-last place from me.   Ashley ...

Book, Head, and Heart for Jerry Craft's New Kid

  Book, Head, and Heart for Jerry Craft's  New Kid Before I go into my Book, Head, and Heart analysis for Jerry Craft’s New Kid , I want to take a moment to talk about how much I appreciate this reading strategy. A lot of kids treat reading as a box to check on a list of nonsensical homework assignments. They don’t realize that reading can both be important and fun. BHH gives them the chance to tackle books from another angle—instead of reading for completion, they are asked to read in a way that makes their pre-existing opinions important while also leaving room for new opinions to take hold. I will definitely be using this in my classroom.   That being said, here is my BHH for New Kid .   BOOK: This story is about Jordan . There isn’t all that much plot, but the book doesn’t need a long and complicated plot full of twists and turns. It’s more of a character study on a young, African-American boy and his experiences in an upper-class, predominately white ...

Reading as Thinking

  Reading as Thinking When I’m reading, I don’t really “see a movie.” I also don’t see still images. I see flashes—blurbs of events that pop in and out of my mind. They’re almost gif-like. I see these short clips of character actions intercut with scenery that loop a couple of times before fading away. But this only happens if I see anything at all—sometimes I’m simply absorbing the sound of the words and the meaning of the dialogue. In these moments, I’m enjoying the story and how the writing sounds in my head. Some sentences just sound amazing—they have cool rhythms. Sometimes, the dialogue is so poignant that it echoes a few times in my mind. This is the extent of my ‘hearing’ when I’m reading. I don’t hear the birds chirping or the creek gurgling. I don’t feel the wind. I’m much more invested in the story and the characters’ actions than the sights and the sounds. Details like characters’ appearances don’t really stick with me, but their actions do. I separate person from per...

Some Questions to Explore Reading Lives

  Some Questions to Explore Reading Lives How does your current book travel around with you? What exact part of your backpack, pocket, purse, or whatever is involved? To my personal shame as a graduated English major, my book travels around in my front pocket. No, it isn’t a pocket Gospel of John, Constitution, Communist Manifesto, or an unpaid parking ticket. It’s a Google Pixel 4a that I purchased from www.BestBuy.com for $330. Before you judge me, I’m not allowed to have a backpack at work. It clutters the common area too much. I could leave it in my car, but I’m not going to spend a single minute of my break trekking back and forth across a parking lot. I read on my phone. Next question.   What are the regular sections of your day? What little reading appointments might be possible in there? On days I work, I have time to read during my breakfast before I leave for work and during my lunch break. Other than that, I must wait until I get home in the evening. ...

A Slice of Life

  A Slice of Life Grabbing my phone from the lock-off closet, I knew I had exactly forty-three hours of free time and nothing to do. After wasting seven minutes checking every social media account I had, I went to talk to Sam. What do you want to do? I don’t know, what do you want to do? Are we really going to Jungle Book this? Sam laughed. Mike walked up. What do you guys want to do today? Sam and I looked at each other and awaited the inevitable second round of Jungle Book-ing. We don’t know. Good. I’m going to hike Mount Yona with Rachel. Care to join us? What time are you leaving? Four. We’re spending the night up there. Bring stuff. Sam and I nodded. Both of us had some camping stuff, but not enough. We headed to Walmart and bought a pocketknife, a flint and steel, eight water bottles, some canvas, and a spool of good rope. We went back to campus. To save money on food, we raided the leftover Chick-fil-a catering bags. It was 3:45. We checked the weathe...

Literacy in my Second Secondary School

  Literacy in my Second Secondary School My literacy journey began when I was homeschooled. This section of my journey is a blur—summers, semesters, and winter breaks all ran together and it’s a bit of a jumbled mess. I remember enjoying the books I read, though I remember few of their titles or when I read them. Most of my reading was pleasure reading—I fell in love with the Lord of the Rings and kept re-reading them.   Because of the gaps in my memory of this period, I consider 9 th grade to be the true start of my scholastic literacy. My parents decided homeschooling had played its final part in my life and transitioned me into a charter school where I took my English, Spanish, and Math classes. Spanish and Math were fine—I did well but didn’t particularly enjoy them.   This character school, however, was where I realized I loved English.   Ms. Catherine Supplee was by far the most impactful educator in my secondary experience. She balanced fun and ...