Escargot Mail (Without the Garlic)

Focusing on our Make Cycle 2 and #CLMOOC theme of gratitude and reciprocation...

In the typically phenomenal fashion of #CLMOOC, Sarah Honeychurch helped to inspire Karen Fasimpaur who inspired lots of others-to embrace the beauty of snail mail. 

Karen's Postcard Project took wings and kept its legs (mixing metaphors) throughout the year, often giving those who were participating in it an emotional lift when they most needed it. 

I love this project.  All winter long, I added cards to my kitchen walls and cabinets. Just seeing the connections made real - with concrete, hands-on objects - helped me through the gray, cold winter. In the spring, I finally installed a stainless steel postcard display in my house. The postcards are here to stay!

At the beginning of summer, inspired by the thought-provoking cards I had gotten from others, I decided to try some interactive postcards.  I got one set on which a person can doodle and another set which gives creative ways to interact via the postcards. The last set is aptly called "Everything is Connected."

I love to draw, so I sent out some with doodles already on them.

I also sent out some with "missions" on them, like this one I sent to Kevin Hodgson:

and this one I sent to Scott Glass:

I got some non-CLMOOC-ers involved, too, because I knew they would love the interconnectedness of it all.

There's something uplifting about interacting on such a concrete yet heartfelt level. Someone took the time to make something, buy a stamp, and mail it out. Online interactions are great, and rewarding, but the feeling of Escargot Mail is just different for me. 

I am grateful to those of you who took the time to send me postcards and those who were willing to receive or play with my interactive postcards. (And sometimes the Postcard Project was more like a gifting project...)

This project wants and needs you! It has no beginning or end, and you are just on time. Want to join us?

You don't have to be an artist, just willing to connect via escargot mail!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Snail_on_railing.jpg

Yours in connectedness,

Susan

@eatcherveggies

via GIPHY

See also:
http://chrisguillebeau.com/postcards-in-the-mail/ and this http://leftysmudges.com/)

Feedback Welcome: Choose Your Own Adventure Projects

If you would like to view and give feedback on the students' projects, there is a link at the bottom. We would love your feedback!

Our middle schoolers in ELA have spent term 2 working on Choose Your Own Adventure Stories using Google Slides.

In many settings, this might have been a two or three week project. But in ours, it took every bit of the term to manage the completion of a handful of hero stories. Several students did not complete the project at all.

One of our biggest challenges was simply getting students to write about heroes with positive values. We work at an alternative school, and our students tend to focus on less-than-heroic values...which was part of why we chose this project. One of the most interesting things was the way they projected themselves into their characters:

• "Max is a troubled teen with a difficult history as a child but tries to overcome what he saw the night his mother and father vanished."

• "This character’s name is Hot Head. He has a problem and it is his temper. He has had three important events in his life.The first was he gets annoyed at little things. This made him a big fat meany. The second was he kidnaps kids and that caused him to be a criminal. The last important event was he’s a bully. This made him decide to push away people that tried to help."

If you look at the projects, you will see we had mixed success,with some instances of plagiarism of ideas, some projects in need of editing, and some students who were less than inspired. But there are a few nuggets of inspiration and creativity, a few students who truly embraced the project, and many students who learned a lot about technology and what it means to be a positive hero.

You can comment on my document or in the comment section below.

Sarcastic Teacher Invites You to Time Travel With CCSS

Welcome to the new world of education, with Time Travel included at no extra charge.

Below you will find the Suggested Unit Map for week one of 7th Grade English.  This plan was created by our district as a way to implement the Common Core State Standards.​

Please note that day 1 = first day of school for students.  Yes, in fact, I do mean the first day they come back from summer vacation.

Each class is 45 minutes long. You might be thinking, "But we never actually have 45 minutes to teach in a period."  Please refer to the notes from your PD sessions in order to work this out.

On the left of this chart is the Suggested Unit Map.

On the right and highlighted are some comments added by your tour guide.

You are reading it correctly.  The first day of school, we should be able to organize a gallery walk in each class based on homework completed over the summer and brought to school, post pictures for it, have the gallery walk, create a group definition of truth, discuss and define perception and reality, do a close-read of a short story, complete a plot diagram, clean up the room so that the next class can have their fresh new gallery walk, and maybe even teach phrases/clauses and Greek/Latin affixes and roots.

Perhaps you are thinking, "But what about classroom procedures and getting to know my students?" And that is an "ok" and "normal" thought.  But just put those thoughts away. Eventually you will find that those types of ideas get repressed almost automatically.  This usually takes 2-3 years. Hang in there. We appreciate all you do.

Your Professional Development this August will consist of Time Compression and Time Travel strategies.  Scaffolding will include small leaps of faith, suspension of disbelief, earwigs and wormholes, as well as watching Back to the Future in reverse.

In our day 2 lesson, we have an objective that is not included in the lesson.  One positive is that we are given time to revisit yesterday's close read. Except that we probably never got to it because we ran out of time. In day 2 it is also assumed that students can jump right in and craft a brief objective summary and generate a theme statement.  

You might be thinking, "But on day 2, I will probably be doing most of what I was supposed to do on Day 1."

You might be thinking, "But they are 12 years old."

Please refer to the notes from your PD sessions in order to work this out.

Day 3.  We have a new reading assignment. The theme statements and summaries we did on day 2 (but probably didn't get to) are not discussed. [Maybe that is for the best.] The poem is said to be in Subtext, but sadly, the link says that the account expired. The subtext video does still work, for what it's worth. Next, our curriculum asks us to analyze word choice, but this lesson simply has us identifying imagery. Not the same skill.  

To summarize, on day 3 we have read a poem and answered Close Reading questions, collaborated to complete a Venn diagram, and worked on phrases/clauses and Greek/Latin affixes and roots. It is possible that at this point, you might also be finishing what was planned for Day 1.

It is possible that at this point, you might also be finishing what was planned for Day 1.

I don't think additional commentary is needed.

You may be thinking, "Wait! I am going to start out the year already days behind schedule, and that will be compounded all year and I will never catch up." Just put those thoughts out of your head.

If you do have continuing concerns, please watch Looper, Interstellar and/or Source Code prior to your August inservices. You could also read this article which will help you to understand why most teachers necessarily and pragmatically develop anxiety disorders.

If you are confused or worried, please refer to the instructional model below:

You might be thinking, "I am not sure that I can fit all of this in, even with Time Compression technology." 

It is possible that at this point, you might also be finishing what was planned for Day 1.

Together Everyone Achieves More. TEAM.

**Note: These are district-level concerns and do not reflect at all on the school where I work.  Fortunately, we have an awesome administration. Unfortunately not everyone is so lucky.

Can't Talk Now Boss Fight or Go Rogue - My Week's Twitter Games

Inspired by experiences like this and this, I have always wanted to try to create a Twitter Choose Your Own Adventure .  This week gave  me a good chance to try it out on a small scale.  I backward mapped it and then put it out there.  It didn't work as well as I had hoped, but I am not sure how I could have made it work better. Probably used numbers: 1 of 6, or studied better.  I should have studied, actually, rather then thinking I knew how to do it!  

My second Twitter game attempt was also a bit of an experiment.  I put out tweets asking for people to join four different games (TV Photo Search, Truth or Dare, Tag, and Marco Polo):

The one that got picked up was Marco Polo, and it turned out to be quite fun!

It was interesting as folks tried to figure out the rules (there weren't any). 

Here is the Storify version.