The Mysteries of Harris Burdick

You already know Chris Van Allsburg's art and prose from Jumanji, Zathura, The Polar Express and several other gorgeous children's books.   His illustrations are full of wonder and possibility.   The Mysteries of Harris Burdick was published in 1984, but I had not seen it until my pal, Willie Thornton, recommended that I hunt it down a couple years back.   Better yet, check out an entire site based on the book .
In this book, each of Allsburg's exquisite one page black and white illustrations is titled and paired with one simple line.   For example, in the picture "Under the Rug" a man holds a dining room chair over his head poised to smash a lump beneath his living room carpet.   The caption is, "Two weeks passed and it happened again."

Now, there is a portfolio version of the book available.   You get the captioned artwork on large sheets to hang in your classroom.   Yes!

Make the book fit your students' needs, but let me tell you how I use it.   I read the whole book aloud to the class, but I choose six of the pictures that I think kids have a good chance at tackling.   I number the pictures.   A student comes up and rolls the die to see which prompt the class will receive.   It's a nice touch to add more mystery to this assignment in keeping with the mood of the book.   Students may use the caption to either start or end their tale.

Selfishly, for this activity I relish reading 25 interpretations of the same piece of art.   Generously, I allow students to write a second story on the picture of their choice.

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: Fourteen Amazing Authors Tell the Tales comes out right before Halloween.   Oooooooooo.    Scary.   I mean it.   Please, don't show this book to your precious writers until after they've written their stories.   There's nothing worse than an expert intruding on your creative head space and tap dancing all over your vulnerabilities while you are trying to call up your own magic.

If you are an art teacher, it could be fun to work this activity backwards with your students.   Keep the book hidden, give students the titles and captions and see what they create before revealing Van Allsburg's interpretation.

Thank you to Christopher Newport University's Teacher Preparation Program for donating a copy of the portfolio edition to my new classroom!

Potluck Bob

Oh to have Bob Dylan's complete lyrics for a textbook!   His extensive song catalog could keep students well-fed indefinitely.   This is a quick, fun exercise that pairs Dylan's often elusive writing with the mystery of chance.  

You will need some of Mr. D's lyrics on hand.   I recommend http://www.bobdylan.com/songs.   If you open a word processing document, you may alt+tab between the lyrics and the document to cut and paste intriguing lines.   Print the lyrics out with enough white space to cut them apart.   Place them inside a container that allows students to reach in and pull out a slip of Bobness without peeking.

These Boblines now become the opening lines of your students' creative writing.   Here are three examples:

"Girls like birds flying away"
"I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it."
"Well, I’ve spent my time with the fortune-telling kind."

Okay, four.   I've always wanted this curious line to open a story, "Jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule."

Imagine the beautiful stories waiting to bloom right inside your classroom walls.  

And there's always that kid who asks the same question when you are requesting fiction, but he just wants to be certain, "Can we make this up?"

"Yes.   Yes, you should."

Here's Dylan's song "Forever Young" that he wrote for his son Jakob... if you are itching to hear some Dylan right about now.

Writing About Place

The most effective graphic organizer I have found to help students write about place comes from Wisconsin.   More specifically, from Wisconsin's super-amazing-blow-your-mind cartoonist and author LYNDA BARRY.   I had to shout it.   I had to.   I did.

I first fell in love with the mind of Lynda Barry while reading One!Hundred!Demons!  If I could travel back in time to 13, I would take a million copies of that book with me and stash them in every part of the landscape of my life that found me needing courage.   Like I said before, she's an artist.   The coolest kind of artist because she explains how to paint your own demons with instructions at the back of the book.

When I heard that Barry was releasing a book on writing, I was excited and curious.   I was pretty sure that it wouldn't be like anything I'd seen before.   It wasn't.   It's a series of collages that combine found objects with her original work.   It's an invitation to peek inside the darkest corners of her creative head space.   It's eye candy that resonates and plucks at the memories that you have been collecting all of your life.  It is What It Is.

The graphic organizer, "Stay Inside the Image,"  is basically like this.   Imagine that you have a small circle at the middle of your paper.   You are in that circle in a fixed position.   Now, picture that circle as being on the center of an X.   It would help if you draw this.   The X will create four sections: in front of me, behind me, to my right and to my left.   Finally, at the top of the paper is the "above me" section and at the bottom is "beneath me."

Students fill in this graphic organizer with details.   They don't need to use complete sentences.   Writers should choose a familiar place outside of the classroom and situate themselves in the image.  

You can model the exercise by using your classroom to fill in a grid that you have drawn on your white board.   What's above you?   Well, the ceiling, right?   Be more specific.   Square, white drop ceiling tiles with pock marks. New water damage stains over the teacher's desk.   Old stains that have been repaired and restained over the student computer.   Fluorescent tube lighting.   Black wires at the front of the room that hook to a mounted television.   Black wires that the back of the room that power the document camera.   In the center of the room is a small, beaded silver star ornament with a nickle-sized red heart at its center.

When it's time to incorporate a setting into a story, there's a balance between overburdening your prose with unnecessary details and losing your anchor completely which results in characters becoming "talking heads."   Remember that this is a prewriting exercise to access a place.   When this activity is shaped into a narrative, all of your details will not make the final cut.   This is also a great activity to help students start a fictional story, but it's easier for me to get students started with this new technique if we first base it on a real place that they have experienced firsthand.

Visit Salon.com's Lynda Barry archive!  

Talk is the Exercise Ground

If you recognize the title of this post, you know it's not mine.   It's one of the chapter titles for Natalie Goldberg's how-to classic Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within.   (http://amzn.com/1590307941)   Now, I have to admit that I don't recall doing a whole lot of talking after the class was given a writing topic when I was a student.  

What I have noticed as a teacher is that often student talk bubbles up when I assign a new prompt.   In the first few minutes, it's usually a direct discussion regarding the new activity.   If you let it go on too far past that point, it derails into unrelated subjects.   I've been wondering how to capitalize on teens' innate desire to talk, talk, talk and be heard.

Goldberg's chapter focuses on the talk that occurs spontaneously in life.   The stories we swap over and over.   I haven't thought of the best way to get this type of conversation going in the classroom with 8th graders.   At their young ages, I know that they have some stories to tell, but they probably haven't been in those social situations where the spotlight turns to them and they polish the same gem of a story time and again with each retelling.   I think that I am going to link this approach with a technique from another great how-to book that focuses specifically on teens.

Nancie Atwell has a simple, effective prewriting activity in her book Lessons That Change Writers.   (http://amzn.com/0867095067)   Orient your paper/ notebook to landscape, draw a big heart, write down everything and everyone you love.   These become part of your writing territories.  

I modified it slightly to get a variety of topics.   Students label 3 larger portions of the heart with People, Places and Things.   In the bottom of the heart we leave a small spot for Ideas.   And, yes, you may list your sweet little doggie in the "People" column if you want to, Tina.  This is something I do at the beginning of the year, so students have somewhere to go for free writes if they are experiencing writer's block.

 Although this is a prewriting activity, I think if I added another step, I might be able to help students zero in on the juiciest parts of their heart map.   What if I gave them time to think-pair-share one of their topics before they start writing?   If they are unable to mine for anything interesting to say, perhaps they would switch topics before they continue prewriting.   On the other hand, if they light up the room with their passion for the subject and enchant their audience with an engaging narrative...   Well, if they are writers, they will know that they are on the right track.

Thanks to the lovely Susan Pongratz and charming Kaplan family for restoring Nancie Atwell books to my classroom.

Turning it In

If you will be a brand new teacher this year, don't forget to read Harry K. Wong's The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher.   Often it's the thought of their first days that make new teachers the most nervous.   The first week of school also sets the tone for the year.   Sure, you'll make some mistakes.   Just make a mental note about what didn't work, so you'll remember next year.   Relax a little.   And...congratulations on getting hired!

Anyhow, read the book for all of the great, practical advice.   My favorite time saver is designating a place for students to turn in completed work.   My students use plastic in-boxes labeled by class period.   Depending on the number of classes I teach, I also have a matching out-box.   (I taught 6 classes this year, so I did not have a plastic tower of 12 trays.   It's back to block this year, so I will be able to use 6 total.)

These boxes live on a table close to the computer I use for entering grades.   There is also space on a nearby wooden chair for their spiral journals, should I ask for the entire notebooks to be turned in.   These locations are at the back of the room, along with the electric pencil sharpener, trashcan and other student supplies.  

Why the back of the room?   Every year you will have a few students who love a parade.   Well, they love their parade.   Any trip to get out of their seat is prolonged and includes side conversations, slothlike movements to complete the intended task...which frequently involves searching for that "missing" pencil for five minutes that they are currently sharpening for three minutes while blocking traffic and instruction.   The back of the room cuts down on some of this behavior.   Also, students should use the trash can at the beginning or end of class...unless they are ill and need an emergency receptacle pronto.

You can't change who they are, so please use these students when appropriate to pass papers back to their rightful owners, assist you with handing out photocopies, books, etc.   In short, give them teacher-approved time to let everyone stare at them for a portion of class.  

If you want students to collect the papers by rows before turning them in, have the children pass their papers to the person behind them until all papers arrive at the back of the room.   Passing papers forwards is much more chaotic and just asks for someone to be cracked in the back of the head.   This is another sensible process I learned from Mr. Wong.

Why is having a predictable place for completed student work so important?   Well, when you are able to steal a few minutes to grade papers while your students are working independently, you really don't want to be interrupted again and again with a student asking where to turn something in and/or adding it to your current stack of papers.   There's never enough time for grading, and you will just have to cobble minutes together here and there.  

Timely feedback, especially when it comes to student writing, is important.  Don't collect more papers than you can grade in a few days.   Combine a couple of small assignments for one grade in the grade book.   Touch the papers as few times as possible.   Think of other ways to simplify the task of grading while still being fair to students.

And, yes, there will be at least one student in every class who will still ask you from September to June, "Where do I turn this in?"   One's better than 20!

Thanks to Christopher Newport University's Student Virginia Education Association President Rebecca Capel and her fellow chapter members for purchasing organizational classroom supplies, so I can hit the ground running.

Keeping It Straight

If you are a teacher, you probably have multiple sets of Bananagrams and Scrabble...or other games with tiles.   Here's how you can keep your sets separate.   You will need zippered mesh pencil bags, spray paint, newspaper/ cardboard and a dry day...the less wind, the better.

First, determine how many colors of spray paint you will need.   It doesn't take much paint, so whatever leftovers you have from other projects will be more than enough.   Of course, you can keep one set of tiles "nekkid."   If you have gathered your Scrabble games from second hand scores, the game board will indicate how many of each letter you should have.   (Usually a student in your classroom will be happy to sort these for you if you plan ahead.)

Place the tiles face down on cardboard, shirt boxes, newspaper...whatever's handy.   Spray the tiles in a sweeping motion.   Let them dry.   Spray a second coat if you are a perfectionist.   This is totally optional.

Once the tiles are dry, return the Bananagram pieces to their zippered fruit cases.   Put the Scrabble bits in the zippered pencil cases.

When you have massive Scrabble tournaments and tiles start hitting the floor, it's easy for students to match them up to the right set.   Also, you and your conscientious custodian will continue to find hidden tiles days later, so using see-through mesh bags will make it simple for you to find their places as well.

Another use of the paint is for identifying class sets of pens/markers that you expect to be returned to you.   A little bit of paint will make it obvious to the borrower that the office supplies belong to the teacher's class set.

Thanks to my former public school classmates Susan Traner, Amanda Upson and Stacy Hunt for providing my students with new Scrabble and Bananagrams games.   Eastern Virginia Writing Project's faculty member Susan Pongratz also chipped in with Bananagrams!

Do you really need to ask for the wild rumpus to start?

Where the Wild Things Are is as full of as much magic as you remember.   Maurice Sendak's illustrations are marvellous.   What you may have missed during earlier reads is his genius use of white space.   This is something that was pointed out to me at the 2009 Eastern Virginia Writing Project by teacher Michelle Crotteau.   Notice how the white pages are taken over by color as Max goes deeper and deeper into his imagination.   That's symbolism-- which isn't always easy to teach to 8th graders.

An activity that Ms. Crotteau connected to this children's book involves using an adjective word list.   The word list included adjectives to describe appearance, color, disposition with both positive and negative connotations.   Students can choose words from the list to describe Max and the Wild Things.   It's something that I have students do individually first.  

Then, I ask them to consult with the other students in their row before adding a few of their adjectives to the white board.   The white board is clean with the exception of the words "Max" and "Wild Things."   Students love writing on the board, and it isn't long until the board is covered.   This is the wild rumpus part of the lesson.  

As a class, we question adjectives that don't seem to fit, and the student who suggested the word defends his/ her choice.   99% of the time the students have logical reasons for what may first seem like an ill-fitting descriptor.  

Here's an example of a personality word list that includes adjectives with both positive and negative connotations.  
Follow this link over to American Masters (PBS) for more information about Mr. Sendak.
Thank you to Christopher Newport University's Spring 2011 children's literature class for donating their copies of Wild Things to my new classroom!   Thanks also to Michelle Crotteau for bringing me more copies of her comprehensive adjective lists.