SOL: Choose Kind

October 13, 2015 Catherine Flynn10 Comments

“When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind.”
Dr Wayne W. Dyer

I was reminded of this famous precept last Friday evening at the airport. My son and I were flying to Phoenix for my daughter-in-law’s memorial service. I arrived at Michael’s apartment in plenty of time for our 8:10 flight, and by 5:00 we were standing on the curb waiting for the car he had ordered.

We waited. Michael called the car company and they assured him that the car was “minutes away.” We waited. No car. He called again.

“What! They’re not there yet? I’m sending another one,” the dispatcher said.

Another 15 minutes. Now we were worried. We waited five more minutes and knew we couldn’t wait any longer. We got in my car and headed for the Belt Parkway. At 6:00. On a Friday evening. Before a long weekend. Traffic was moving at a snail’s pace.

While Michael was driving, I was on my phone looking for other flights in case we missed ours. Nothing. There were no other flights leaving from anywhere in the New York area that would get us to Phoenix in time for the service. Finally we decided that I would drop Michael off at the terminal so at least he would make the flight.

After I dropped him off, I parked in JetBlue’s short-term parking garage. The trek from this garage to the terminal is a long one, and I ran as fast as I could. By 7:40, sweating and out of breath, I got to the check in counter. I explained to the man that I had given my credit card to my son so he could get his boarding pass and could he please help me. He gave a cursory glance to his computer and said, “You’re late. Check in is closed.”

I tried to be calm and said, “I know I’m late, but I have to get on that plane.”

“You’re too late.” With that he turned from me to another customer.

Frantic, I ran to the other end of the terminal, hoping to get a different answer from a different person. With the clock ticking, I explained the situation once again. This time, the woman very calmly picked up the phone, then started typing. I held my breath as she continued to talk to the person at the gate. Within minutes, I had a boarding pass in my hand and she was walking me to the part of security where late arrivals are moved to the head of the line.

I think I thanked her at least 20 times during our short walk. People in line ahead of me with later flights let me go ahead of them, and I got through security in record time.

Running once again, I arrived at the empty gate at 8:00. The attendants there assured me the plane wasn’t leaving without me and I didn’t have to run. The flight attendant on the plane took my suitcase, stowed it for me, then showed me to my seat.

The look on my son’s face when he saw me walking down the aisle was full of amazement and relief. Because I was so late, my seat had been changed, so I couldn’t sit next to him. But that was okay. We were both on the plane.

After all that, we ended up being delayed. They were still refueling and stowing the checked baggage after I was in my seat. We made it to Phoenix and the memorial service was lovely. But I would have been devastated if I hadn’t been there to support my son through yet another very difficult day.

I’m not sure why the first person I talked to was so unwilling to help me. In the end, it doesn’t really matter. I’m just grateful that someone was willing to help me. And I hope the next time someone asks him for help, he’ll do the right thing, and choose kind.

Thank you to Stacey, Tara, Dana, Betsy, Anna, Beth, Kathleen, and Deb 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.

Slice of Life: A Day at Teachers College

October 6, 2015 Catherine Flynn5 Comments

Four days of conferences in three different locations in one week sounds like too much, doesn’t it? But I did it, and survived! From a day at Teachers College with six colleagues for a day-long immersion into the Writing Units of Study to the Connecticut Reading Conference with Peter Johnston, Lester Laminack, Christine Hertz, Mary Howard, and Linda Hoyt, my brain felt like it was ready to explode as I drove home Friday afternoon. But in a good way!

Our day at Teachers College was a huge success. I spent the day with my two first grade colleagues learning more about writing workshop in K-2 from the amazing Shanna Schwartz, while four teachers from our school spent the day learning about 3-5 writing workshop with Lucy Calkins. Needless to say, we had plenty to talk about on the drive home.

3-5 teachers loved meeting Lucy Calkins.

I took nine (!) pages of notes, so I’m not going to attempt to distill them all into one post. Rather, here are a few of my key takeaways.

“Writing Workshop Bill of Writers”
“We apprentice children in the life of a writer”

All children have the right to…

Time to write
Units based in authentic genres
Knowledge of conventions
Skills and strategies for writing
Understanding of the writing process
Collaboration

In other words, our students deserve nothing less than to do “what real writers do in a writing life.”

Shanna stressed the importance of collaboration and feedback, and I love this idea: “Our best writing is the writing we work on on our own and with feedback from others. Feedback is a gift.”

On revision, Shanna had this to say: “Revision is a complement we give our best work.” Isn’t that a wonderful idea?

The importance of read alouds and mentor texts was also emphasized: “A writer can’t write what they haven’t heard or read.” and “Read alouds help readers/writers think about what writing can sound like.”

Shanna also talked about the importance of beginning the year with narrative writing. She explained that narrative is the “first way we exist in the world” and that “when we meet people, we tell them our story.” Shanna reminded us that “story is the first kind of reading we do.” Finally, she pointed out that “story is the building block of every other kind of writing…small stories are often included in informational and opinion writing.”

When conferring with children, Shanna suggested we begin by saying, “Tell me about what your working on in this story.” After listening to the writer’s response, “think about what will make this writer stronger and more independent.” She also urged us to “give compliments that are productive by noticing a behavior and tell them the effect that behavior” has on their writing. This type of praise will “encourage them to do it again,” and thus help them become more independent. Independence is the goal, after all.

If there was any common thread to all I learned last week, the idea of independent learners is it. As Lucy Calkins wrote in A Guide to the Reading Workshop: Primary Grades (Heinemann, 2015), “the goal…is not only to teach kids to read [and write], but to help them grow up to be people who value reading [and writing].

By the way, look who got a shout-out:

Pretty good company, don’t you think?

Poetry Friday: “October”

October 1, 2015 Catherine Flynn8 Comments

In honor of my favorite month!

“October”
by John Updike

The month is amber,

Gold, and brown.

Blue ghosts of smoke

Float through the town.

Great V’s of geese

Honk overhead,

And maples turn

A fiery red.

Frost bites the lawn.

The stars are slits

In a black cat’s eye

Before she spits.

At last, small witches,

Goblins, hags,

And pirates armed

With paper bags,

Their costumes hinged

On safety pins,

Go haunt a night

Of pumpkin grins.

I found my copy of this book at a library book sale years ago, and it was immediately a favorite. Updike’s verses capture the essence of each month in terms children can still relate to, fifty years later. Maria Papova has written about this book and Trina Schart Hyman’s 1999 illustrations on Brain Pickings. There are also poems for several different months included in Papova’s post.

Please be sure to visit Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe for the Poetry Friday Round Up.

Poetry Friday: Channeling Eve Merriam

September 18, 2015June 28, 2018 Catherine Flynn9 Comments

Reply to the Question:
“How Can You Become a Poet?”
(After Eve Merriam)

Sit by a crackling fire
under a star-filled sky,
the air alive
with the song of crickets
and tree frogs
thrumming and trilling

idgit idgit
idgit idgit
idgit idgit

Let their music seep
into your soul.

Study the flames,
leaping and licking
at a teepee of logs,
illuminating the night.

Be dazzled
by sparks,
orange fireflies
dancing and swirling,
tracing a glowing trail
as they race toward the heavens.

Poets often talk about finding the right form as being the key to unlocking a poem. This is true for this draft. I jotted notes and images for this poem two weeks ago. Since then, I’ve been carrying them around with me, talking myself through different combinations of words and order of lines, but nothing satisfied me. Then, as I was looking for another poem in Mary Ann Hoberman’s outstanding collection, The Tree That Time Built, I came across Eve Merriam’s
“Reply to the Question: ‘How Can You Become a Poet?’” I immediately recognized Merriam’s free verse examination of a leaf as a potential model for my campfire images. The original, which you can read on many websites and blogs, is focused on a single object, whereas I’m trying to capture an experience. Here is a link to Heidi Mordhorst’s post about how Merriam’s poem nicely illustrates the connection between poetry and science.

Indrajit Das [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) or CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons — Indrajit Das [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) or CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Please be sure to visit Michelle at Today’s Little Ditty for the Poetry Friday Round Up.

Poetry Friday: Keith Urban & Where I’m From

September 10, 2015 Catherine Flynn10 Comments

In August I was lucky to attend a Reading Institute at Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. This week-long institute is reinvigorating and energizing, and my brain is always bursting with ideas when I leave.

The staff developers at TCRWP do a terrific job of incorporating songs, videos, and other digital texts into their lessons to both engage students and broaden their horizons. I don’t watch much TV or listen to popular music on a regular basis, so I’m often out of the loop on what kids are watching and listening to. But after leaving New York, I was inspired to change the station on my way to work and listen to a country music radio station. Keith Urban’s new song, “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16” (written by Shane McAnally, Ross Copperman, and Josh Osborne) was playing. I was drawn in by the melody right away, and the lyrics really intrigued me.

I’m a 45 spinning on an old Victrola
I’m a two strike swinger, I’m a Pepsi cola
I’m a blue jean quarterback saying “I love you” to the prom queen in a Chevy…

Read the rest of the lyrics here.

Then my teacher brain kicked in and all sorts of possibilities for sharing this song with older students started swirling in my brain. The song evokes a bygone era and offers endless opportunities for building knowledge about the culture of mid-twentieth century America.

I was also reminded of George Ella Lyon’s poem, “Where I’m From.” Popular in writing workshops as a mentor poem, many teachers begin the school year with this poem as a way to learn about their students and build community. Pairing Urban’s rendition of “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16” with Lyon’s poem is a sure way to inspire young poets to pen their own poetic memoir.

“Where I’m From”
by George Ella Lyon

I am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
I am from the dirt under the back porch.
(Black, glistening,
it tasted like beets.)
I am from the forsythia bush
the Dutch elm
whose long-gone limbs I remember
as if they were my own.

Read the rest of the poem here.

Be sure to visit Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge for the Poetry Friday Round Up.

Slice of Life: Stitching a Life Back Together

September 8, 2015 Catherine Flynn22 Comments

Separation
by W. S. Merwin

“Your absence has gone through me
Like a thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.”

The last official weekend of summer was bittersweet. My son was home, and we had company all weekend. Our days were filled with hiking, swimming, and napping. Our evenings began with suppers outside by candlelight and ended long past midnight around our fire pit. There were moments of laughter, but more moments of tears, as the loss of his dear, beautiful Julia is still a fresh wound. His heartbreak is palpable and visible in his face. But as we sat by the fire Friday night, I could feel his relief to be in our backyard, surrounded by his family and friends. I, too, felt a sense of peace start to return. This line, from “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” by William Butler Yeats, came to me:

“And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping
slow.”

“Dropping slow” seemed to me exactly the way to describe the process of trying to stitch your heart and life back together without all the pieces. He’ll be putting his heart back together for years to come; maybe for the rest of his life. I’ll be there to help him with each stitch.

This slice was difficult to write. It feels much too personal for a blog that is supposed to be about teaching reading and writing. And yet, a slice is “a simple way to practice what we ask of students—to write…a small sliver of your ordinary life.” I am grateful to be part of this community and to have a place to share this writing, which seems so far removed from my original mission, but which was so necessary for me to write.

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: Musée Des Beaux Arts

September 3, 2015 Catherine Flynn4 Comments

Musée Des Beaux Arts
by W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking
dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1526/1530–1569) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Please visit Linda at Teacher Dance for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

Poetry Friday: Missing You

August 27, 2015 Catherine Flynn15 Comments

Missing you,
the star
at the center of their universe,
the cats wander the apartment,
their orbit thrown off kilter
by your sudden departure.

They sniff the rug,
the sofa cushions
wondering,
“Where is she?”
“Did she sit here a minute ago?”

They wrap around my legs,
seeking, searching.
They nibble at their food,
lap up water with their rough,
pink tongues that long to kiss
your beautiful face,
then meander back to the bedroom,
hoping to find you
waiting there,
where you belong.

Thank you, everyone, for your all your kind words and understanding last week. My daughter-in-law Julia was a beautiful woman who will be dearly missed by everyone who knew her.

julia-alex-bklyn 2 — Julia Bean 1982-2015

Please visit Sylvia at Poetry for Children for the Poetry Friday Roundup.

The Poetry Friday Round Up

August 20, 2015January 17, 2019 Catherine Flynn48 Comments

The Poetry Friday Round Up is here today, but I hope you’ll all forgive me and let the comments serve as the round-up. We had a sudden death in our family yesterday, and I am distraught. I promise next time I host I will be in a more festive spirit.

Lead
by Mary Oliver

Here is a story
to break your heart.
Are you willing?
This winter
the loons came to our harbor
and died, one by one,
of nothing we could see.
A friend told me
of one on the shore
that lifted its head and opened
the elegant beak and cried out
in the long, sweet savoring of its life
which, if you have heard it,
you know is a sacred thing.,
and for which, if you have not heard it,
you had better hurry to where
they still sing.

Read the rest of the poem here.

Slice of Life: A New Reality

August 18, 2015 Catherine Flynn10 Comments

Do you remember having a magic slate when you were a kid? You know, those cardboard tablets with a gray film over a waxy black background that you could draw and/or write on with a stylus. Then you lifted the film and everything was erased and you could start over.

I feel like my summer has had that gray film over it. The illness of a dear family member has colored my every waking moment. I wish I could lift the film and erase the events of the past six weeks. But life isn’t a magic slate. This is our new reality, and we are dealing with it one day at a time.

It has been a challenge for me to write during this time. I’ve had a hard time concentrating, and haven’t written anything I felt was worth sharing. But I’ve missed this community. So although this is a short slice, I just wanted to say hello to you all, and let you know I haven’t forgotten you. I hope you all have a good start to the school year.

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