2 posts tagged “teaching”
its got novelty value
i love paint strips
i don't know why, they have ... whimsical names and they are bright or muted, they are colorful either way
i always want to create some purpose for amassing them - so i did!
the students will be given a card, and they have to learn and brainstorm about each word on the card
then write a story or poem using the words in their writing ... for example
on a strip with greens the names of the colos listed are
Landslide / Enchanted Forest / Pacific Pines / Woodland Mystery / Sea Drops / White Mantle
does that not spell ... fairies or a fairy tale or something silky and mystery and taking place traveling through woods to the sea? if i just wind up making these up myself it might be enough for me.
another example
Quiet Stillness / Strawberry Crush / Pink Tiger / Pinwheel / Pink Parfait / Pure Pink
okay so there was a lot of PINK but lets say I make some rules, like repeated words can be dropped... what if you have...
Quiet Stillness /Strawberry Crush / Tiger / Pinwheel / Parfait / Pure
oh my. zoos or circuses come to mind. parks? deserts. pure? i mean this one is a little more fragmented but what about a character, who wakes early before work to be alone at the zoo where they sell parfaits.... :o) Where they enjoy the purity of the animals sleep... the quiet stillness of the silence and the helpless animals sleeping... before needing to sell the Strawberry Crush and Parfaits to the pinwheel-wiedling youth and see-through-you grown ups trudging along through the lush scenery?
maybe the writer in me is looking for anything, something, anything! to get the juices flowing and get writing again. maybe i am overtired. maybe it will work in the classroom. i don't know. i won't know till i try, i suppose!
I leave you with... .
Silence / Goodnight Moon / Wish Upon A Star / Storytime / Blue Bow
*love*
Vanessa
Name:
Aim: How do I use my notes to write about my name?
Do Now: Copy the board notes for today’s work.
HW: Complete any unfinished work on your "name story" today.
You can make your story a poem or use paragraphs. Due tomorrow!
My Name: Vanessa Douglas (first draft)
underline what reminds you of the original version by Cisneros
In English my name means “butterfly” I know this because all of the baby name books I saw before said so. They always said “buterfly.” But one day in my twenties a book told the truth. My name was invented by a writer, for his close friend. He took both of her names and married them together into a new name, a prettier name. Vanessa means transformation. Vanessa means taking moments of pain, moments of confusion, moments that don’t look like they’ll ever be good for anything. It means creating something more beautiful with those moments. It means change, it means pain, it means healing.
My father met my mother in a store. She thought he was cute but there was another woman who thought so too. When my mother asked, the other girl wouldn’t tell my mother what my father’s name was, so she found out for herself. That’s how we started chasing my father. I wasn’t even born yet but I was chasing my father somewhere in the glimmer of my mother’s eye.
After being born I had no name for a week. Baby, baby girl, fathers’ day gift. I was just there until the day my father went to the unemployment office. He was standing in line when he met a beautiful woman named Vanessa. He came home with my name. He didn’t explain that he’d met a woman named Vanessa in the unemployment office line - just that he found the name for the baby girl, that it was Vanessa, that it was me. Later I wonder if he called that woman, my name-mother. My father was never faithful. He wandered, he dreamed of a past where his guitar still worked, when the bills didn’t get paid but no one cried about it. He wanted to live in a home the children stayed drawling and cute - when they did not grow and learn to ask questions, learn to look you in the eye,
My father also gave me his last name, Douglas. Douglas pain, problems. His Scottish, drunken name means Blood River. It means battle, darkness, ugliness. Douglas means going away, getting lost on the way home. Going home to someone elses’ family. Douglas means taking something terrible and turning it beautiful. Like sunrise washing the world in bright. Like waking up in a new city with money in your pocket.
Vanessa means braiding the past into the future and both get stronger and help you hang on today. Vanessa means change which hurts, but God never leaves you behind. Vanessa means every day can be new again, even the ones that seem to have gone terribly wrong.
Help me edit the story I told. Underline the parts you think I should keep.
