The Literate Teacher's Manifesto

Days 6-7 of this 30 day poetry challenge have run together for me. I started writing this piece yesterday, inspired by the moment in the morning when I arrive at school and enter the classroom, but it wasn't until today's prompt of writing about a superpower lit the spark of inspiration that this piece really came together. It's not really about a superhero, or even a superpower, just a woefully underfunded teacher facing a powerful foe. Once More Into the Breach So it begins, daily. Early morning light slanting across the ground illuminates yesterday's shrapnel, the detritus of our daily struggle. Across camp, weary officers stand on line at the canteen, armed with copies, checklists, and coffee. Back on the field, I inspect my armory and munitions. My weapons aren't the newest. Most of them, I bought myself. The Department insists we should "eliminate waste," fight more conservatively, ration our meager supplies. I don't think t...

Today's prompt was to write a poem inspired by something you've learned. It is 9:25 pm, and I am just now sitting down for the first moment of free time I've found today, if you don't count the 5 minutes during 2nd period that I sat down to read over a few poems in search of a theme collection. It's been a busy day, and my brain isn't wanting to settle to write. I've learned that foggy brain becomes a more frequent occurrence during the spring. I spent quite a bit of time today reflecting on the experience my kids have had with inquiry circles. It was clear from their responses on the K-W-L chart we completed in class today that they are frustrated with my vague instructions. Learning for learning's sake doesn't have a stopping point. It's not something you can do the minimum on, and spend the rest of the time fiddling around on Youtube or playing a game. I've learned that students don't understand the point of learning if it...

I didn't get a chance to post my poem for yesterday. I was too busy watching the Tarheels win the NCAA Championship! Sorry, I digress. So I am posting both of my poems for Days 3-4 now. Day 3's prompt was a string of words that had to be strung together to form a poem. I chose set #8: rise, stage, cries, thunder, stone, path, purple. Untitled At the end of each day, as the sun draws the purple curtains of night across the stage of the sky, I rise. Bird cries fade into silence  as my feet pound the thunder of my passing. Breathe in, breathe out. The path unspools before me and  behind me, my footsteps unremarked by sleeping stones.    Day 4's prompt was haiku. I am so bad at writing haiku. It's not a form that I have ever found to be a good fit for my thought process. As such, my offering for today is just not very good, but at least I have one, and I rather like that it came out very open to interpretation. Self-Esteem Nak...

Today's prompt was to make a list. I tried several different ones, but couldn't get my favorite shoes out of my head. (I know, right...what's that about?) So I started making lists about my shoes, and here's what I ended up with. 6 Meditations on My Favorite Shoes  You were the most expensive shoes I've ever bought. I paid $150 for you; a steal because you were an end-of-season markdown from $300, but still an uncomfortable amount for this bargain shopper. You were worth every penny. I found you slouching quietly in the top corner of the  clearance rack--misplaced-- and in the wrong size section. You were a 9 in a forest of 13's. I felt an immediate kinship. Your buttery suede only gets better with age: at the beginning of every fall, I pull you down  from the shelves and stroke your furry brown skin as though I'm touching you for the first time all over again. You make every outfit look pulled together. You dre...

My Facebook friend Sarah Donovan is running a poetry challenge on her blog over at  Ethical ELA . I was pretty inspired by the idea, and I had been playing with the idea of doing a poetry challenge for April, so I will be spending the next 30 (ish) days posting a poem each day. Hopefully most will be original creations, but I may share some favorites as well. I even bought a great new composition book to host my scribbled sloppy copies (yay for new office supplies). Such a pretty cover... I ❤ composition books So without further ado... Here's Day One. The Best Part of Me My husband Calls me stubborn. I prefer tenacious. I get it honest. My great-grandparents built the beginnings of a farm in 1902 for seven hundred dollars. It was an astronomical expense. "You'll never pay it off," people said. "You're going to fail." In 2012  we celebrated the 110-year anniversary of their "failure": Mountain View Farm, ...

Growing up in North Carolina, it was understood that as soon as the Super Bowl was over, we began the countdown to March Madness (which was more important than football anyway). If you are not a follower of college basketball, you might not be aware that North Carolina is a hotbed of college rivalries, most notably between the Duke Blue Devils, the UNC-Chapel Hill Tarheels, and the NC State University Wolfpack.  My family is mixed--my dad's sister attended Chapel Hill, my mom's brother went to NC State, and we even have a few Duke fans mixed in (though  most don't admit to it)-- and the NCAA tournament was a sacred cow in my home growing up. There was to be no changing of the channel from Sweet Sixteen to Final Four! Fast forward to 2017. I hadn't cared about or watched basketball in years, but early in January some friends invited my husband and me to go to Chapel Hill and watch the Tarheels take on the Wolfpack, and it only took one game to tumble us both right do...

Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match Find me a find, Catch me a catch. Matchmaker, matchmaker, look through your book, And make me a perfect match! Yesterday was Valentine's Day. I have little regard for this holiday, and would just as soon ignore the tacky and garish trappings of Pepto-Bismol pink that festoon the aisles of every store during this season, but if you've ever been in a middle school on Valentine's Day, you know it's impossible to pretend it's not happening. The hormonal soup the average 8th grade brain stews in on a daily basis gets turned up to a rolling boil in the week leading up to the holiday, and by 2:15 on 2/14, education seems a lost cause. This year, Valentine's Day got me thinking about my role as a matchmaker. It's kind of what I do. I'm not sure that my algorithm is as sophisticated as Match.com, but at this point in the year I am pretty confident in my matchmaking capabilities. In first period, I know that I can ma...