Slice of Life: Finding Words that Fit

January 13, 2015March 1, 2015 Catherine Flynn13 Comments

I’ve been knitting for about 15 years or so. Hats, scarves, mittens; you name it, I knit it. I love the sense of accomplishment I get from creating something soft and warm out of beautiful yarn. I don’t tackle patterns with a lot of technical stitches or color patterns, but I can adapt patterns and usually knit my way out of any messes I might get myself into.

So I was pretty frustrated over the weekend when the hat I’d spent a couple of hours knitting didn’t fit. I reread the pattern to make sure I hadn’t missed a step, but I hadn’t. The hat just didn’t fit.

What to do? I really didn’t want to tear the whole thing out, although there was no pressure to finish this hat. I decided to try making the ribbing longer, but that didn’t work.

Now I’d spent about four hours on this hat. My irritation was mounting. I knew it was time to put this project aside for a while before I made a decision about tearing everything out and starting over.

I stewed over the hat through dinner and while I cleaned the kitchen. I thought about the pattern, the yarn, adding on to the ribbing. All of these choices were guided by my knowledge and experience. I’ve spent years reading magazines, studying patterns, and talking to expert knitters. I’ve played with different weights and textures of yarn. Yet this seemingly simple hat pattern got the best of me. This fact was frustrating, but not the end of the world. I’ll tear the hat out and try again. Maybe I’ll adjust the pattern so it will fit, or maybe I’ll use a different pattern altogether. I have lots of options.

This whole experience got me thinking about what we expect of our students when we ask them to write. We expect them to make decisions about words and structures, details and sentence length. I know we think we’re supporting them and giving them the practice they need, but are we? Or has the pressure we feel to get everything done by yesterday caused us to make decisions we know aren’t in the best interest of our students?

Have we given them the time they need to pore over books, to study how authors put sentences together, and really talked with them about the power of our words? Or have we judged every word choice and sentence structure? Have we made them change their words to conform to our vision of what their writing should be like?

These questions are really a reminder to myself. I know the conditions kids need to grow and succeed. But I also need to remember what it feels like to have a vision that’s just out of reach. It may be that I need a cheerleader with an encouraging word to keep me going. Or maybe I just need time to figure it out. And that’s what kids need. They need time, lots of time, to play and experiment until they find the right combination of words that are the perfect fit for them.

Thank you to Stacey, Tara, Dana, Betsy, Anna, and Beth for this space for teachers and others to share their stories each Tuesday. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

Poetry Friday: How I Discovered Poetry

January 9, 2015 Catherine Flynn11 Comments

Discovery #1 (First in a series in honor of my OLW for 2015: discover.)

How do you decide on which poem to share on Fridays? Does a poem you’ve read during the week resonate so much that it must be shared? Do you write an original poem based on an event or an emotion from the previous week? If you’re like me, the answer is yes and yes. In other words, it depends. But what about those weeks when nothing strikes you, or life in general is so hectic you haven’t had time to sit down and write much of anything that’s worthy of sharing? When this happens to me, as it often does, I head over to Anita Silvey’s excellent blog, The Children’s Book-a-Day Almanac. In a sidebar, Anita offers tidbits such as this: “It’s Bubble Bath Day.” (Now there’s a topic for a poem!) By checking Anita’s blog on Wednesday (you can skip ahead to see what’s coming up), I discovered that today is Connecticut’s birthday. My home state was admitted to the United States on this date in 1788.

Not knowing any poems about Connecticut off the top of my head, I Googled “poems about Connecticut” and quickly learned that Wallace Stevens was an insurance executive who lived in Hartford (surely I knew this and had just forgotten), and that Marilyn Nelson is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Connecticut and was our state’s Poet Laureate from 2001-2006. How had I missed that!?

I have been a fan of Marilyn Nelson’s poetry from many years. Miss Crandall’s Boarding School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color, (Wordsong, 2007) cowritten with Elizabeth Alexander, describes an important piece of Connecticut history and is part of our eighth grade’s Civil Rights unit. A Wreath For Emmett Till (Houghton Mifflin, 2005), Nelson’s haunting, magnificent book-length crown sonnet about the murder of Till in 1955 is also included in this unit. On a previous Poetry Friday, I shared Sweethearts of Rhythm (Dial, 2009) the story of “the first integrated all-women swing band in the world.”

Nelson’s latest book, How I Discovered Poetry, was published last year to universal acclaim and is on many short lists for the upcoming ALA awards. The images Nelson crafts in these poems are stunning and startling. In one poem, she states that “Our leaves/become feathers./With wings we wave good-bye to our cousins.” Another poem is about a birthday party until the very end when, “a jet/made a sonic boom/like a hammer on an iron curtain.”

In the title poem, Nelson captures that moment when she first glimpsed “the power of words.”

How I Discovered Poetry

It was like soul-kissing, the way the words

filled my mouth as Mrs. Purdy read from her desk.

All the other kids zoned an hour ahead to 3:15,

but Mrs. Purdy and I wandered lonely as clouds borne

by a breeze off Mount Parnassus…

Read the entire poem here.

You can also listen to Ms. Nelson read the poem, as well as several other poems from this lovely book, in an interview that aired last winter on NPR.

Happy Birthday, Connecticut! How lucky we are to count Marilyn Nelson as a citizen of our state!

Be sure to visit Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference to discover more wonderful poetry.

Slice of Life: One Little Word

January 6, 2015January 7, 2015 Catherine Flynn8 Comments

Does procrastinate have an antonym? If it does, that should be my OLW. Because although I’ve been thinking about my “one little word” for at least a week, and have made several attempts to write about a choice today, here it is 11:30 on Tuesday night and I’m still on the fence about my decision. (Maybe decisiveness should be my word.)

Choosing just one word seems like it should be such a simple task. Maybe part of my hesitation comes from the fact that last year’s word, balance, wasn’t such a great choice. I often felt like one of those circus performers who balance plates on the end of a pole while riding a unicycle. Except in my case the plates were just about to drop and I was going to fall off the unicycle any minute. Why I never crashed is beyond me.

Yet last year was also one of accomplishment and adventure. I’m excited to find out what 2015 has in store, both personally and professionally. And so I’m choosing discover as my OLW for this year.

One thing I love about this word is that it implies or incorporates words I considered. For example, I rejected curious because it seemed like more of a personality trait than a guiding mantra, yet it’s essential when making discoveries.

I have a number of goals I’d like to accomplish this year, goals I’ll have to strive towards. Strive didn’t make the cut, however, because when I looked it up I found that it had many negative connotations. Which isn’t really surprising when you remember the fact that strive and strife are derived from the same word. Conflict is not what I was looking for. Aspire was a contender, as was persistence.

Search is another word I considered. I decided against this word because it sounds like you know what you’re searching for, whereas discoveries usually take you by surprise. This element of finding the unexpected was important to me. Over the past year, many of my happiest and most memorable moments occurred when I was specifically not striving or persisting or aspiring. I was just being in the moment, paying attention to the world around me. In her book Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit states that “the random, the unscreened, allows you to find what you don’t know you are looking for…”

I’ll keep you posted about what I discover, both in and out of the classroom.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

January 5, 2015 Catherine Flynn7 Comments

The Turtle of Oman, by poet Naomi Shihab Nye is a beautiful, quiet book about a young Omani boy and his family as they prepare to move to the United States, where his parents will attend graduate school.

516M4hIB1eL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_ — The Turtle of Oman by Naomi Shihab Nye (Greenwillow, 2014)

Aref is bereft at the thought of leaving his home, his friends, and most of all, his grandfather, Sidi. Aref and Sidi are “a Team of Two,” who, “even when they weren’t doing anything special… pretended they were.”

As Aref’s mother is busy packing and preparing their house for cousins to live in for the three years they’ll be gone, she has little time to comfort Aref, who puts off packing and frets about life in the United States. But Sidi, who “always had time for Aref,” takes him on several adventures. These outings distract Aref from his sadness over leaving his “only, number, one, super-duper, authentic, absolutely personal place.”

Aref and his family have a tradition of playing “Discovering Something New Everyday.” They make lists, recording their discoveries: “In your notebook, you wrote down new ideas or even scraps of new information. Nothing was too small.” Each family member constructs lists in their own way, and about topics that interest them. Sidi (who doesn’t make lists; Aref writes down his lists) specializes in geographic information, Aref’s “specialized in animals, his favorite topic.”

Through these lists and Sidi’s and Aref’s adventures, readers learn much about daily life in Oman. Nye’s ability to depict Aref, an ordinary boy, in this exotic location where life is familiar yet so different, seems effortless. Her prose is lyrical throughout, and lines like “your thoughts made falcon moves, dipping and rippling, swooping back into your brain to land,” add depth to Aref’s personality.

In an interview with Roger Sutton, Nye explains that she became interested in Oman as a child after seeing a National Geographic story about the country. She also talks about her longing for a time when people had “less stuff, less clutter, less things in a day, but better relationships with those things. I wanted there to be some sense of that with Aref and Sidi.”

The slow art of The Turtle of Oman is a lovely addition to realistic middle grade fiction. It is an ideal read aloud and will introduce students to a part of the world and a culture they may know little about through the story of a boy they will instantly recognize.

Don’t forget to visit Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers to find out what other people have been reading lately. Thanks, Jen and Kellee, for hosting!

Poetry Friday: I Dwell in Possibility

January 2, 2015 Catherine Flynn12 Comments

I dwell in Possibility—

A fairer House than Prose—

More numerous of Windows—

Superior—for Doors—

Of Chambers as the Cedars—

Impregnable of Eye—

And for an Everlasting Roof

The Gambrels of the Sky—

Of Visitors—the fairest—

For Occupation—This—

The spreading wide my narrow Hands

To gather Paradise—

Emily Dickinson

B6RjEeoIMAAGEoi — Photo taken by me in the parking lot of the grocery store one morning last September.

This poem seems appropriate for a new year, when anything and everything seems possible. I’m looking forward to sharing a year filled with poetry (and prose!) with all of you. Happy New Year!

Please be sure to visit Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect for the first Poetry Friday Round Up of 2015.

SOL: At the Library

December 30, 2014 Catherine Flynn8 Comments

“Our childhood experience of the world is a deep well that we keep turning to again and again in writing.”

Joyce Sidman

Isn’t it funny how some memories lie buried for months or even years, then suddenly two or three things happen all at once to remind you of some long-forgotten event or person? A visit to the library yesterday started me thinking about going there as a child. Then, this morning, there was a story on NPR about the important role libraries play in helping parents and caregivers develop their children’s early literacy skills, and more memories came flooding back.

I actually don’t remember going to the library before Kindergarten. But I do have very fond memories of the library once I started school, even though our school didn’t have it’s own library. We had something better.

Every week, each class would walk 100 yards or so to the town library next door. There we were greeted by Mrs. Rothschild, a tiny woman with a white bun wrapped tightly on the top of her head. We quickly settled into one of the three or four red-cushioned window seats, or found a spot on a narrow wooden bench. Then Mrs. Rothschild began to read.

She read Where the Wild Things Are and The Little House. As we grew older, she introduced us to Pippi Longstocking and Ramona the Pest. I loved being transported out of our tiny town to the wide world beyond, all while sitting in the cozy children’s room in the basement of the library.

This painting, by John Clymer, was part of the children’s room for as long as I could remember. I confess there were a few times when this cat making tracks through the snow was more interesting to me than Mrs. Rothschild’s read aloud. Where was he going? Where had he been? Was he carrying a mouse home? Where was that house, anyway?

When Mrs. Rothschild was finished reading, we searched the shelves for books to check out for the week. I loved Charlotte’s Web, and was always searching for stories about animals. (Hence the interest in the cat?)

So I was pleasantly surprised to see it hanging over the main circulation desk when I walked into the library yesterday. I immediately thought of Mrs. Rothschild, and the stories she read to us, all those years ago.

Saturday Evening Post cover by John Clymer, 1956 — Saturday Evening Post cover by Bridgewater resident John Clymer, 1956. Burnham School is on the lower left, Burnham Library is the stone building in the center.

Many people read to me throughout my childhood and helped me become the reader I am today. Thank you, Mrs. Rothschild, for being one of them.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

December 29, 2014 Catherine Flynn7 Comments

I haven’t written an IMWAYR post in months, but one of my goals for the new year is to blog more often, so I’m starting early with this post.

Telephone (Chronicle Books, 2014) by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jen Corace

I was a little late to the Mac Barnett party, but I’ve been a devoted fan ever since I discovered Extra Yarn (Blazer + Bray, 2012). Having been on something of a bird kick this year, when I saw Telephone at my local bookstore, I grabbed it.

Barnett’s simple text and Corace’s illustrations work together to evoke a bygone era when kids played outside until it was time for dinner. The avian world on the telephone wire above echoes the human world below where kids are outside reading, running, and climbing. The story begins with Peter’s mother’s simple request, “Tell Peter: Fly home for dinner.” The young cardinal she asks is toting a baseball bat and hears what he wants to hear— “Tell Peter: Hit pop flies and homers.” The birds along the wire continue to mangle this message until it is unrecognizable. Meanwhile, back in the human neighborhood, kids are waving goodbye as they get called inside. Finally, a zany, high-strung bird turns to an unflappable owl and tells him an outrageous mishmash of all the previous messages. The owl gives the other bird a sidelong glance, then calmly turns to Peter and tells him to “fly home for dinner.”

Corace’s illustrations are full of fine comic touches that add depth to the birds’ personalities: a distressed looking turkey is “too high on this wire,” and a rock-loving wren is decked out with star-shaped glasses and electric guitar.

Kids will love this book just for the pure silliness of it, but they’ll also love playing their own game of telephone. The witty word play also makes Telephone a terrific mentor text. Kids could have fun playing with rhymes, near rhymes, and synonyms to create their own version of Telephone.

Don’t forget to visit Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers to find out what other people have been reading lately. Thanks, Jen and Kellee, for hosting!

Slice of Life: Holiday Baking

December 23, 2014 Catherine Flynn5 Comments

The pumpkin bread you baked for me

was gone within a day.

But the love you put into

measuring the sugar,

cracking the eggs,

stirring the pumpkin,

sifting the flour,

greasing the pan,

checking the time,

and wrapping the loaf

will stay with me

for months to come.

Baking breads, pies, and cookies for the holidays is a huge part of my family’s holiday tradition. Both of my grandmothers were excellent bakers and each had special holiday recipes we looked forward to. My father’s mother, my nana, baked delicious spritz cookies and decorated them with colored sugar and silver balls. She always had a plate of them ready for us by the kitchen door when we arrived on Christmas day.

My mother’s mother baked pies: apple and pumpkin and mincemeat. We lived next door to her when I was growing up and I was often at her house to watch or, when I was old enough, to lend a hand. This was years before Pillsbury pie crusts, so my grandmother’s crusts were always homemade with Crisco. There was always extra dough and she made delicious little crescent-shaped treats filled with raisins, cinnamon and butter. I don’t remember if she called them anything, but I’ve since seen a similar use of leftover dough called a pinwheel.

After college, I began my own baking traditions, which I’ve added to over the years. Candy cane cookies (sugar cookie dough dyed red and green with food coloring, then twisted into candy cane shapes) is a universal favorite, as are “Kiss” cookies, chocolate cookie dough wrapped around a Hershey’s Kiss, then dusted with confectioners sugar.

Each year I try to make at least one new type of cookie, but this year I haven’t had time. A jelly-filled sugar cookie recipe keeps popping up on Facebook and I may make that tomorrow. Tonight I’m writing this while making traditional Toll House cookies to take to my son on Thursday.

Baking is one of my favorite holiday traditions. Some years I’m able to bake with my sister or daughter-in-law; other years, I’m in the kitchen with my favorite Christmas albums for company. But whether I have company or am on my own, I look forward to continuing for years to come. I wish I could share a loaf of pumpkin bread and a cookie or two with all of you!

Wishing you all a joyous holiday!

Poetry Friday: The Coming of Light

December 19, 2014 Catherine Flynn5 Comments

The Coming of Light

by Mark Strand

Even this late it happens:

the coming of love, the coming of light.

You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,

stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,

sending up warm bouquets of air.

Read the rest of the poem here.

photo credit: johan wieland via photopin cc

Wishing you all love and light and joy this holiday season!

Be sure to visit Buffy Silverman at Buffy’s Blog for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

Slice of Life: Close “Reading” in Kindergarten

December 16, 2014May 9, 2016 Catherine Flynn11 Comments

Be curious always! For knowledge will not acquire you; you must acquire it.

~ Sudie Back ~

It’s hard to believe NCTE was almost a month ago! Amidst the chaos of the holidays, I’ve been reading books snagged in the Exhibition Hall (thank you, publishers!), reviewing my notes, and sharing the wealth of knowledge I gained from the terrific sessions I attended.

I was lucky to get into Chris Lehman, Kate Roberts, and Kristi Mraz’s standing-room-only session, CLOSE READING AND THE LITTLE ONES: HOW IT’S DIFFERENT (AND INCREDIBLY FUN AND EFFECTIVE) IN EARLY ELEMENTARY GRADES. With their characteristic blend of common sense and humor, these three inspiring educators shared routines K-3 teachers can use to capitalize on the natural curiosity of kids.

Chris, Kate, and Kristi pointed out that close reading in these early grades is akin to close study, or observation, “something that little ones are doing already.” Giving students opportunities to engage in close observation accomplishes many goals that support young learners, including opportunities to talk to others about their ideas. It also encourages students to “open up” their thinking through “meaningful, enjoyable experiences”

Close reading is only one part of “a balanced diet of reading instruction” that should

serve a specific purpose
focus on details in high success texts
allow kids to discover new meaning through carefully looking at details

Adapting the paradigm for middle and high school readers Chris and Kate laid out in their book Falling In Love With Close Reading (Heinemann, 2013) for young readers resulted in this structure, or instructional routine, which should be repeated so often that it becomes a habit, which leads to independence.

Kristi, Kate, and Chris emphasized that this close reading isn’t about teaching kids how to read, nor should everything be read closely. Rather, this routine is about “teaching kids a way of looking at a text or an image or an object so they can develop ideas about it.

This makes so much sense! I was excited to get back to school to share this thinking with my wonderful Kindergarten colleagues. Using Kristi, Chris, and Kate’s ideas about “close looking,” we designed an object study that coordinated with the Kindergarten’s current unit on the animal kingdom AND laid the foundation for daily close observation. As Kristi so wisely pointed out, “If you want to do strong work in reading, you have have to do strong work in other places.”

So we began by closely observing seashells. I modeled the cycle by looking closely at a shell, pointing to its surface and saying something about the color. Then I thought more about the color, and added more details about the variations of color on the shell. The kids couldn’t wait to get their hands on a shell to observe with their partners.

Soon the room was filled with the hum of the children’s voices. They talked about the colors and the shapes and the textures. They noticed that some shells had bumps on the outside and others had spikes. They ran their hands along the smooth surface on the mouth of the shell and wondered why the texture was so different from the top of the shell. And they talked about the sounds they heard when they held the shells to their ears.

When we came back together so the kids could share their findings, it was clear they had developed some “big ideas” through their observations. Several children mentioned protection and camouflage when they talked about the colors of the shells or how hard they were. They all wanted to spend more time with the shells, comparing them and “getting to know [them] better.”

This is work we will return to daily. There are countless opportunities for close observation throughout the day, opportunities for kids to look at the world and say “Wow!”

Thank you, Chris, Kate, and Kristi, for sharing your insights and pushing me as a teacher! Thank you to Stacey, Tara, Dana, Betsy, Anna, and Beth for this space for teachers and others to share their stories each Tuesday. Be sure to visit Two Writing Teachers to read more Slice of Life posts.

Reading to the Core

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Author: Catherine Flynn

Slice of Life: Finding Words that Fit

Poetry Friday: How I Discovered Poetry

Slice of Life: One Little Word

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Poetry Friday: I Dwell in Possibility

SOL: At the Library

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Slice of Life: Holiday Baking

Poetry Friday: The Coming of Light

Slice of Life: Close “Reading” in Kindergarten