All-Write - Around and Around

Time for Tuesday's Slice of Life Sharing at Two Writing Teachers
       Thanks to Stacey, Tara, Dana, Betsy, Anna and Beth and to the bloggers who share. It's a pleasure to read your writing. 
        I really celebrated last Saturday about my trip to All-Write last week, but only shared the verbs, not the incredible experience every.single.minute. Even the hotel room provided a respite before going out again with friends to talk about education. What an inspiration to be there at the start of summer when we read and talk and tweet and plan--for next year! Remember that these are my words, my takeaways. Others may bring differing ideas, the speakers may have intended different messages. This is Day One!

Pictures and Why They're Here:

Ruth Ayres gave an amazing keynote address, starting, as is her mantra, with a story. She spoke of her children and the challenges they, with the family, face. Yet, Ruth, through much thought and advice, finally figured out that there was hope in Celebration With GRIT!  My Takeaway: Instead of working in our lives for ourselves, for our students, seeing what is NOT right, look for the nugget that is right, and CELEBRATE! It may be dusted with grit, but it is worthy. She referenced the beautiful "Man In The Arena" quote from a speech by Teddy Roosevelt, which you can find here. And shared "You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them" by Maya Angelou. I believe I do this in my own life, but perhaps forget when I'm teaching some students that I also can look through that grit & find the celebration!

Stephanie Harvey, so, so easy to listen to her words. Here are some I recorded: "the more complex the text, the more thinking must be complex." "We teach kids to think so they can acquire & use knowledge." Stephanie expressed much displeasure about the structured use of lexile levels, and spent quite a bit of time emphasizing the importance of teaching the skills of inference well. "What's NOT there makes the text so complex." She also emphasized teaching the difference between complex and simple problems, and the need for lots of practice. One example was to purchase toy kaleidoscopes and using the terminology "exploring the kaleidoscopic nature of complex problems", including knowledge of the stake holders, using system thinking. It was a good double session! One final recommendation: The Art of Slow Reading by Tom Newkirk!

The session about favorite picture books is not to be missed. I saw Mary Helen Gensch and Tammy Shultz give their talk last year, and it was just as good this time. They shared so many picture books and the list too. I don't have a link, but will try to see if there is one.

I managed to capture this Nerdy Book Club group "after" Colby Sharp's session. What an enthusiastic presenter Colby is! It was a lovely end to the conference day. He spoke of the importance of connections, with students, online blogging and tweeting, the world! For future info: a new app is coming this fall, helping students write and share. Here's the name:
write about.com

After the sessions, Elsie & I had a little adventure driving around town and found these delightful art pieces downtown. They are indeed 3-D versions of famous scenes. We didn't see them all, only about seven, but heard later that there were fourteen of them, and it's a traveling exhibit. One final stop was for a cold, cold drink at a local ice cream shop-yum!

The evening ended with dinner with Barry Lane. He's created a cd of songs about school, and shared many of his "other" songs about teaching and teachers. I was amazed at his energy and bravado. I managed to win a copy of a sample cd (More Than A Number-Songs for Sane Schools) with song titles like "Save Our Schools Hallelujah" and "Superficialunrealistirigorisattrocious". Also (big chuckle) "Your Data Doesn't Matta". 

           Talking in between sessions and late into the evening with those I loved seeing again and those I met for the first time was just wonderful. If you can go to a conference like this, or NCTE, IRA, NerdCamp, etc., it is worth the energizing for your teaching. Thanks to all who shared with me. It was a pleasure!