The Planning Quilt

This week during our character education time, my partner teacher introduced an activity to the students that captured my attention. It's a way of articulating your plans or goals for the future in the form of a quilt. Using colored paper squares, she had them start with the center of the "quilt."

"What are your goals for the next two weeks, before school ends for the year?"she began. That square gets glued in the center of the page. Four contrasting color squares go around the first square, connection at the corners. These are four summer goals. Four more squares of the first color can fit in the spaces and contain goals for next school year.

This is similar to the paper quilt

I started thinking about what my quilt would contain. I would have a jammed-packed center square for everything in the next two weeks - grading papers, finishing projects, doing report cards, and fitting in those fun end-of-year things that kids love - the extra recess, the movie, an artsy project. 

For my summer squares, I would have one devoted to writing every day. One would have to be house projects, as we had a little flood in the lower-level family room and now need a new floor, sump pump, and, not related to the flood, furnace. I never spend enough time outside in our brief Chicago summer, so maybe that would be the third square. The fourth would be reading - biographies, novels, nonfiction... 

Plans for next year will have to wait. Summer is upon us to be embraced.

Mourning a friend

Yesterday I got the news that a college classmate of mine had passed away. I hadn't seen him since graduation. Somehow you think the friends of your youth are always there, hovering on the outskirts of your life. Until they aren't.

In college he was part of my group of friends. We played in a woodwind quintet together for all four years. We ate lots of our meals together in the dorm. A group of about six or eight of us would go out for ice cream occasionally. It was a small school so we were in quite a few classes together.

After graduation, I moved to Chicago to go to grad school. He stayed on an extra year to get a masters, then moved home to Syracuse. This was 40 years ago when the way you stayed in touch with your friends was by writing letters and maybe the occasional phone call. Lots of friends fell by the wayside as letters went unanswered in our busy lives.

I went to my 16th class reunion (it's a small school so they lumped 15, 16 and 17 together) and reconnected with a number of classmates, but he wasn't there. I heard that he was teaching music in the Syracuse schools.

When social media became popular with the general population, I looked for him, but he wasn't a social media type.

Then yesterday another classmate emailed me that he had seen, on Facebook, that our friend had passed away after a battle with cancer. I read online that he had had a long career teaching music in Syracuse, that he was a beloved and inspiring teacher, married with two sons. Our classmates remember him as being kind, never one to put himself forward, great sense of humor, and a wonderful collaborative musician. Former students praised his patience, kindness, and dedication to his students. He inspired others to be their best.

A full life, a beautiful life.

First Day of Teaching Poetry

What is poetry?
--It rhymes. Well, not always.
--It's about something.
It has a theme?
--Yes.
--It doesn't tell a story,
Well, it can tell a story.
--It has, like, a da-duh, da-da to it.
Meter, or rhythm. Yes, sometimes it has meter.
--It's verse.
It can be in verses.
--It has lines. Like, not like a paragraph.
Yes, that's an important part of writing poetry, thinking about where you will break it into lines.
--It uses figurative language, like onomatopoeia and metaphors.
Yes, that's another important part of poetry.
Poetry can show a scene, or paint a mood or feeling, or even tell a story. But it's different than prose.

Poetry is a slippery, shimmering fish
Darting about
Confusing us
Causing a laugh
Bringing a tear
A pang of recognition

Reflections on a Month of Slicing

It's the last day of the March Challenge and I can't believe how quickly it has gone by. This is my second year. Last year I sometimes found it hard to write each day. I loved getting comments from people -- feedback is so valuable -- and I loved reading other people's blogs. At the end of the the month, I was energized and confident and ready to write more, but I was also happy I didn't have to write every day any more.

Finding the Two Writing Teachers community was one of the most valuable parts of my first year. I have continued reading their posts and have used some of the ideas in my teaching. This year I decided to join the Welcome Wagon in addition to blogging every day. I was a little nervous about the commitment, but it turned out to be one of the most fun parts of the challenge this year. The Welcome Wagon volunteers are assigned to several 1st year bloggers, to comment on their blog posts every day. I so enjoyed following the same people through the month - I felt like I actually knew them. I was awed by the talented writers, the touching and funny stories, and other people's daily lives. I hope to join the Welcome Wagon again next year!

I've been reading other bloggers last day reflections and pretty much everyone says the same thing -- I wrote some good posts but I also wrote some posts that were not so great. Me, too! I know that's an important part of being a writer. If you wait to write only good stuff, you'll never write anything. But what I learned this year is that I'm happiest with my writing when I challenge myself. I wrote a few poems this year. Poetry is more challenging for me. I was also inspired by another blogger, Diane at https://dianeandlynne.wordpress.com, to step up my storytelling. I tend to tell stories as a narrative, but her stories were so alive, with dialogue and descriptions, that I tried it myself. Again following her example, my best effort (in my own opinion) was a story from my childhood, Best Friends, Mud, and Grandma.

I hope to keep up with the Tuesday Slicing and I'll definitely be back next March!

When Halloween comes to life

The first time we took our young children to the Halloween celebration at the Chicago Botanic Gardens:

Follow the meandering stream of families from the parking lot to the food station for doughnuts and cider. Thus fortified, we started on the Friendly Walk.

There were two "walks," a friendly walk where you got to meet the Care Bears and Sesame Street characters and a scary walk. Obviously with a four-year-old, we chose the Friendly Walk.

After greeting a giant pink Care Bear, we somehow veered off the correct path. We walked up a few decorative stairs that led to a series of large water lily containers set into the terrace. Without warning the Creature from the Black Lagoon sprang out of the nearest water lily container and grabbed the nearest ankle, which was our four-year old, Jamie. She screamed and waved her hands wildly. The Creature disappeared beneath the water, as she continued wailing.

Before we could recover from the shock, Frankenstein appeared, lumbering down the path toward us, hands extended. Jamie began screaming again, truly terrified. In an act of kindness, Frankenstein stopped his lumbering, bent down to her and said, "I'm not really a monster. I'm wearing a costume. Don't be afraid." Jamie was only partly convinced, but she did begin to regain her composure.

The rest of our Halloween adventure went smoothly - a hayride, not-scary storytime, pumpkin decorating.

The second time we took our children to the Halloween celebration at the Chicago Botanic Gardens:

Jamie informed up that she was a big girl now and wanted to go on the Scary Walk. Since none of the rest of us were scared by the previous scary walk, we said okay.

This year it was raining and the entire Scary Walk was located in one courtyard that had overhangs so everyone could stay dry, more or less. Well, Jamie began to lose it almost immediately, with all those scary characters so close together, but the topper was the Screamer, the character dressed like Death in a black robe, carrying a scythe, and wearing the scary mask of the white, screaming face. She began screaming.

The Screamer, though, was not going to drop out of character. He came after Ben, our eight-year-old son, who took it in the Halloween spirit and even tried to threaten the Screamer back. Then he came toward Jamie, who ran from one to another of us, trying to hide behind us. "Mommy! Daddy! Ben! Help!!"

I admit it, I was laughing, even as I felt for her.

She really loved Halloween - I believe she still does, and she tried several times to go to "haunted houses" with her friends, who always had to rescue her mid-house. I think that nowadays she sticks to parties at Halloween.

"Reader, I married him"

"Reader, I married him."

We love these characters

The plucky heroine
Jane, Jo, Elizabeth
Courageous, ingenious, loyal

The bereft orphan
Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, David Balfour
Innocent, ingenious, and finally, wealthy

The saintly girl who dies
Beth March, Helen Burns, Little Nell
Sacrificing for others, fading away
Consumption perhaps, or scarlet fever

The meandering plots
Twists, turns
Poverty
Unexpected relations, sudden wealth

Happy ending
tinged with
melancholy
for the
saintly, departed girl

Commentary: I wanted to write an appreciation of those classic novels by Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Louisa May Alcott, and even Robert Louis Stevenson, but flavored with a bit of peppery amusement. I love these stories, I love that everyone seems to end of related to each other in Dickens, and that all the impoverished orphans find their families, who turn out to be wealthy! I don't think the poem is done yet. It needs to sit for a while.

Last Day of Spring Break and a Visit to the Art Institute

Today is the last day of my spring break. Tomorrow it's back to school. We had been talking about going into Chicago to see the Van Gogh show at the Art Institute, and with one day left, this was the day.

We took the train, catching the 10:32. It was a full train by our station, and there were quite a few more stops after we got on. Lots of moms with school-age children. It seems that this was the first day of spring break for many. Once downtown, we began walking across the Loop to Michigan Avenue, where the Art Institute is located. It was a breezy spring day, but cold enough to require a jacket.

The Van Gogh show is "Van Gogh's Bedrooms," and it is popular - the line to get into the museum was out the door and down the steps. We are members and got to bypass the long line. After checking our coats, we turned out attention to finding the gallery with the show. My son studied the map of the museum while discussing the likely spots with my husband. Then I saw the large sign pointing us to the Van Gogh Bedrooms. "Look!" I said, "It's that way!" Then I laughed and said, "Just like in Star Trek 4." Both of them got it instantly - Kirk and Spock are back in the time in the late 20th century looking for humpback whales. Spock is applying scientific thinking and deduction as to where whales might be found, when Kirk spies a poster advertising the Cetacean Institute, where two humpback whales are on view. My son even quoted more dialogue. A nerdy moment.

The show was crowded, but really interesting. There is only one bedroom, but Van Gogh painted it three times and each painting is slightly different. The show includes a timeline of his life, showing the 37 places Van Gogh lived in his 37 years, many paintings, not just the three bedroom paintings, and a video showing how high tech detective work has discovered what the original colors were probably like. I also liked the "Night Cafe" where a video surveyed the films, books, cartoons, and so on that have featured Van Gogh, both seriously and in fun. Altogether, an excellent art show.

By the time we left the museum, after lunch and a quick visit to the 16th century to look for Caravaggio, we walked back to the train station and traveled home. We are all tired and somewhat sore now from a lot walking and looking. It was a great way to end spring break.