school the write way

hey girl

great to hear the energy that CRACKLES on your facebook posts about your passion!

here are a few ideas i had about how schools should be done...

School, the Write way

to write you need to be able to think

making thinkers is the mission of the school

we are trying to do school the right way

YOU are the co-signer on this check that is your education

YOU are the reason these teachers come into school each day

YOU get what you put into it

if you half step you get a substandard education

if you try to get by on smiles and lies and BS then thats on you

thats why, those of us who know, get into this game

to help you learn about yourself we must teach you to express yourself in writing

thats why you are here

someone wrote a law that said that kids cant have jobs

someone else wrote a law about mandatory education

YOU were lucky enough to wind up here in this place wsurrounded by a true learnig community

we are going to get to know one another really good by the end of the year

my job is to remove your barrriers to education

first we have to find them

if you cant write, thats where we will start, thats easy

you need to write a page a day in your journal on the topic of the day

topics taken from the great thinkers of our time

topics from history

if you think you have a great topic of the day then go ahead and write about it and drop it in the suggestion box and thank you for helping us find another great thought that we can reflect on

if you go in DAY one EXPECTING a page a day then thats a great starting point.....

make it clear that they can stay as long as they want after school to finish it

that you have a team of tutor volunteers, writing specialists, cheerleaders, librarians in training and custodians who care about writing if you are still in the school at 6 oclock when they come in to start cleaning the rooms

school the write way.........

our school is a community of writers

some of us just havent found out voice yet

we are here to help you find your voice

your writing voice

it happens one page at a time

and once it is written you have preformed a magic act

if you can say it, you can write it

stop talking and start producing

tell it to the paper

talk to the journal

your list of complaints about how unfair we are to make you learn how to express YOURSELF will be read

AND this ^^^^^^^ is where the wheels fall off because this ^^^^ is where the kids start to lose the faith is someone isnt reading every journal every day

because the kids love the feedback

the kids love the little notes you write to them on the bottom of their notebooks

it becomes a dialog, another way of connecting, a really neat way to get to know what your kids are really thinking about

and isnt that the best way to generate interesting, engaging lessons?

so maybe until everyone gets the hang of it and gets into the habit of being a dynamite RELA person they need a little coaching and encouragement

im thinking every homeroom teacher in the building in a room reading over their kids journals and getting it done, maybe over coffee and a healthy breakfast of yogurt and fresh fruit, whole grain goodies

first you have to get them reading and writing and communicating and then you can bring in the NUTRITRITION PIECE

which we need to talk about

which stilll needs thinking done about the direction and the resources and what not......

im sure that there is a way to get every homeroom teacher in the building interested in doing writing, maybe theres a way to give them some credit for professional development for every prep they use or coming in early to read journals in the library or something

keep a log of the times they are in the building, before hours

and tell them (informally of course) that they can miss a professional development day when they reach a certain number of hours

because this is what real professional develpment is, interacting with their kids on paper

i did this naturally from day one in my student teaching

started writing little notes back to kids

using a highlighter or colored pencils or fancy pens

theres a lot of really neat ways to interact with the kids without LOOKING AT THEM OR SMELLING THEM, just relaxing with thier words on your terms.....sharing a sentence or two with them...asking them do they really mean this?

Workshop # 1 Journaling

School the Write way introduction

Philosophy?

The Socratic Method

Everybody writes-

The DANGER of journals- mandatory reporting- the law- the student/teacher relationship

Journal bling- this is when the teacher highlights something in yellow in that they want to share with the class at some point. the kids know that when they get a yellow stipe of highlighter, or whatever color.... this is something that youd like permission to use with the class/school and if they give permission.... i would also suggest that as the instructional leader in the building you have a special highlighter that you use... you can make a show of sitting with a different classroom each day and reading and writing a few notes about how the journalling is going, read a few journals at random(with their permission of course) share some thoughts with them.... you show them what a reflective practitioner of her caft looks like. that means nothing is more important than journalling time so get here early of sit in the cafeteria until you get your page done.... your writing assignment is your preclass work.....

take as long as you need to writing it but you are still responsible for your classwork when you eventually get there....

HA! wow it's great to talk shit about how to be a great teacher again!

Thankyou for stirring it up from my teacher self. i havent been feeding my

teacher self that much because i had no audience.....

thanks! THANKS! THANK YOU!

here's the way the movie about you opens..... you hand each kid a journal as they enter the school look every kid in the eye and welcome them to your school! tell them the rules from the jump. are you ready to do school the write way? i remember looking you in the eye and you saying you were ready!!!!!

who knows, its a fun idea

ill send you more ideas when i get them, like about the class library piece

that i mentioned briefly above. that should be a thing where every class

has a library by oct 1st if not before

a great school, in my opinion would have D.E.A.R. time

every kid always has a book to read at all times. its a school rule.

at random times everybody in the school drops everything and reads

there used to be a book bank that would be a great trip to get free books

ill be grabbing every book i can get my hands on too... ill look for some resources

to support your mission.... i went there twice with both schools i taught at

ill write up some ideas about a fun field trip there and maybe chaperone! HA!

i have a couple other ideas too.....

but this is enough to start with

let me know what you think about it....