Moving In Time

Today I taught my group of writers the art of moving in time to help the reader understand the meaning of the piece (idea from Raising the Quality of Narrative Writing by Calkins). However, I used a fabulous text Sweet, Sweet Memory. I also timelined the book to show how the piece moved from the present to the past and to the future at different points.

Lesson Plan

My writer's are wrapping their third small moment by "Putting Said to Bed" tomorrow and then going through the final stages of writing onto publishing. Once again I have nothing but wonderful things to say about this process. When my piece is finished I will post here.

Memoir Monday~My Motherhood~

Note to the reader: My class and I are working on our memoir unit. This is my first draft. We talked all about the different forms to memoir and our big goal is to show meaning through our mental pictures. The section that is a flashback about Emma's Diagnosis was from a small moment I wrote earlier in the year. I was really able to explain how difficult I thought this was to write with my students. When they saw my reaction while reading it I think they understood how much this means to me. We talked about the defining moments of our lives and how it has to be the right time to put them down on paper. Some moments are ready and some are not.

*******

My Motherhood

By: Lynnelle

Motherhood seems so easy when you watch from the outside. Each day I “take care” of kids, but I never expected my journey of motherhood to change me so much. At first, the desire to be a mom was so strong my heart would ache to the point I thought my eyes would dry from all the tears that fell, each time I found out another couple’s baby was on the way.

I remember the day I found out I was going to be a mom. Excitement does not begin to express the way I felt. I called everyone to tell about our baby that was to be born on July 4th. Little did I know that her arrival would rock our universe.

Throughout my teaching career I believe that my life has been touched in some way by my students. I also feel that it is important that all children receive the best in education. Many people believe that I only advocate for children because my own child has a disability—but this was a strong piece of heart long before my girls arrived. As a teacher it is my responsibility to speak for a child when he or she is unable to make their voice heard.

My life did change after having Emma. The moment I heard her feeble cry and “it’s a girl” my heart danced with joy. Then my heart actually seemed to stop after we received her medical diagnosis.

******

Dr. Saddiqui and his messengers entered my room quietly. He came over to me. “I’m sorry, but we believe your daughter has Down syndrome,” he stated. “We are performing genetic testing and will have the results by Friday,” he continued. As the entourage left the room my mind swarmed with many confusing, racing thoughts. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening! Not my daughter! This only happens to other people! My silent room was filled with emotional chaos. Outside my room the buzzing of the nurses continued, while the doctor’s voice echoed in my ears. I kept replaying the scene: genetic testing, no eye contact from the doctor, and I knew he was right. Emma had Down syndrome. Tears flowed down my cheeks in furious streaks and my temper flared!

“There is nothing wrong with Emma! How can they even think that? I exploded. I could feel the protective instinct envelop my child even though I had only been a mother for 24 hours.
How can this be happening? How can I possibly wait 3 days to find out? What do I do? Well, I waited. I prayed. I visited my tiny baby. And I waited.

On Friday, the hospital social worker called and asked us to come up to the conference room. My heart was thumping in my chest as I walked into the elevator and then into the room. On the table sat a box of tissues. My heart sank. I gasped. My heart began to break into tiny pieces. My sobs could be heard own the hall.

“Shh…you don’t even know the results,” said the social worker.

I wanted to scream what!!! This is my child we’re talking about! Instead I quietly replied, “True, but I don’t believe the news is what we want to hear.” I pointed to the tissue box and sat down.
A rush of activity caught my attention. Dr. Saddiqui entered the room with an unfamiliar doctor. She was very animated and it was obvious she was talking about my daughter. She turned and smiled at us. Then it seemed the whole world came crashing down around me. While I tried to stop my sobs and tears, Dr. Moghadan tried to explain what it meant when she told us Emma had Mosaic Down syndrome. But, it seemed that someone had pressed the mute button. I could not speak; I could not hear her words. My mind was rushing with many different thoughts. Will she be “normal?” Will she fall in love? Will she walk or talk?

Dr. Moghadan’s words changed me. I was no longer a “new parent,” but a parent of a special needs child. Not only did her words change me, but they changed others. People went from saying, “Congratulations” to “I’m sorry,” as if someone had died. However, I learned a lot about my self that day. I would gladly sacrifice my life to prevent my child from being hurt.
For me motherhood isn’t about just being a mom. It is recognizing that we don’t know where our life journey will take us. If our path takes us on way that seems unexpected we must embrace it; learn from it.

*****

After Emma’s diagnosis I received the poem Welcome to Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley. It expressed in words I could not articulate about how my life changed.

Welcome To Holland

by Emily Perl Kingsley

©1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...... When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland." "Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place. So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It’s just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Now when I see tulips I am not just reminded of Spring and the rebirth of the flowers, trees and the smell of freshly cut grass, but the change to my life. My pace. My children’s pace. Don’t just endure hardships, but chose to grow.

As a mother and a teacher, my desire to impact others by helping them see the world and others in a different way burns deeply in my heart. I don’t know if my life story will change others, but hopefully the way I choose to treat others through my actions will plant a seed for other people to join me in my heart’s desire.

Memoir

Today I introduced Memoir to my kids and it went great. We read two stories, The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant and What You Know First by Patricia Maclachlan. We talked about what is in our own notebooks. My students know what it is mine so together we looked through it and came up with 3 Life Themes. Then students looked into their notebooks and came up with their own themes. Tomorrow we are going to look at 3 different chapters of Knots on my Yo-Yo String by Jerry Spinelli. Our focus is to look at why people write memoir before we begin writing our own.

My 3 Themes that appear most often in my notebook are

1)My family-my daughters and days from my childhood
2)Remembering who I am-thoughts I have about myself and how I am growing
3)When my eldest daughter received the diagnosis-Mosaic Down syndrome

Brain Overload

Today our school had an opportunity to listen to Constance Foland a literacy consultant in New York and New Jersey schools. It was magnificent. Invigorating. Listening to her, I felt as if I needed to holler "amen!" every now and then. It was extremely affirming that the practices I have implemented in the last 4 years are exactly what is best for kids. However, I also left with ways to improve upon my current workshop practices. I loved the conferring and assessing session. I feel this is my area of weakness even though it has improved from last year. I love that we were able to look at a piece of real text by children authors and discuss what we would do if we were conferring with the writer. It created insight and the realization that even as teachers we see the piece through different lenses. I began to wonder do I only use one lens or do I make sure the way I look at my student's work is balanced? I left with Ponderings...when you leave with these you know it was a good professional development day

Memoir Monday~The News

**This piece was written with my students and revised with them as we began our journey to "revising to be better writers" series.**

Dr. Saddiqui and his messengers entered my room quietly. He came over to me. “I’m sorry, but we believe your daughter has Down syndrome,” he stated. “We are performing genetic testing and will have the results by Friday,” he continued. As the entourage left the room my mind swarmed with many confusing, racing thoughts. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening! Not my daughter! This only happens to other people! My silent room was filled with emotional chaos. Outside my room the buzzing of the nurses continued, while the doctor’s voice echoed in my ears. I kept replaying the scene: genetic testing, no eye contact from the doctor, and I knew he was right. Emma had Down syndrome. Tears flowed down my cheeks in furious streaks and my temper flared!

“There is nothing wrong with Emma! How can they even think that? I exploded. I could feel the protective instinct envelop my child even though I had only been a mother for 24 hours.

How can this be happening? How can I possibly wait 3 days to find out? What do I do? Well, I waited. I prayed. I visited my tiny baby. And I waited.

On Friday, the hospital social worker called and asked us to come up to the conference room. My heart was thumping in my chest as I walked into the elevator and then into the room. On the table sat a box of tissues. My heart sank. I gasped. My heart began to break into tiny pieces. My sobs could be heard own the hall.

“Shh…you don’t even know the results,” said the social worker.

I wanted to scream what!!! This is my child we’re talking about! Instead I quietly replied, “True, but I don’t believe the news is what we want to hear.” I pointed to the tissue box and sat down.

A rush of activity caught my attention. Dr. Saddiqui entered the room with an unfamiliar doctor. She was very animated and it was obvious she was talking about my daughter. She turned and smiled at us. Then it seemed the whole world came crashing down around me. While I tried to stop my sobs and tears, Dr. Moghadan tried to explain what it meant when she told us Emma had Mosaic Down syndrome. But, it seemed that someone had pressed the mute button. I could not speak; I could not hear her words. My mind was rushing with many different thoughts. Will she be “normal?” Will she fall in love? Will she walk or talk?

Dr. Moghadan’s words changed me. I was no longer a “new parent,” but a parent of a special needs child. Not only did her words change me, but they changed others. People went from saying, “Congratulations” to “I’m sorry,” as if someone had died.

However, I learned a lot about my self that day. I would gladly sacrifice my life to prevent my child from being hurt. Now four years later, I see and experience the love of my daughter~who does talk, who does walk, and “woves” me.

Big Picture Series-It's a Matter of Choice

Today Ruth discusses the importance of choice in the Writer's Workshop and I love how she describes her journey to this element of the Workshop in her room. I think all teachers struggle with choice. Such as how much choice? When I was talking with other colleagues about the aspect of choice in the WW I was keenly aware that each of us were on the same, but different journey.

I tend to allow choice within genre. For example, students choose what they want to write within the unit of study of personal narrative, essay writing, memoir, etc. However, some teachers allow not only choice of topic, but choice of genre. So, the mini-lesson of the day may or may not apply to the student, but all are expected to then apply it when they try that genre of writing.

I have not nor have I thought of this before. This absolutely amazed me because I still have not let go of somethings. Now granted 5th graders are expected to have mastered the art of essay writing by Feb. due to state mandated testing and that is probably what drives my avoidance of letting go, but I do wonder like Ruth..could I do it? Could I handle all the different genres that may be written at one time in a room of 30? What about the students who need the black and white of the writing process? Food for thought....thanks, Ruth!

Thesis Statements

Tomorrow I am teaching Session 6 from Book 3 of Breathing Life Into Essays. It is a very simple lesson on narrowing your focus into a thesis statement to prepare for drafting an essay...basically asking yourself "What is it I am trying to say?"

As I looked through my own entries for the personal essay, I wrote many meaningless entries. At the time it seemed significant, but now a few weeks later they aren't inspiring. Which I am sure some of my students will feel tomorrow. So I went back and looked at my small moment entries from earlier in the year. My last published piece with my students was about the day I found out my daughter has Down syndrome. Many entries are about my experience whether positive or negative with the community. So I tried Amy Buckner's Try 10 strategy from her book Notebook Know-How. Here goes.

1. Don't view people by what you think you know, but what you actually know.
2. Disability does not mean retarded.
3. Having a child who is considered disabled changed by life in many ways.
4. Normalcy is never achieved in our lifetime.
5. Everyone should be treated fairly, regardless of any difference the world may or may not see.
6. Disability does not mean impossibility.
7. People who live with a disability are truly amazing people.
8. Disabled is a word that can break the heart of parents, but it is a reality in many people's lives.
9. Children living with a disability should not be mistreated.
10. When we look at others we should look at their heart and soul.

I keep asking myself how do I sum what I am trying to say in one sentence...#2 seems so harsh, but in reality I have had people ask me, "How retarded is she?" So that is where that came from. Each one of my thesis statements could take me in many different directions. I think really when I explain this tomorrow I should focus on the Big Picture...what do you want to tell your reader? Which direction do you want to go? I want my reader to realize that when they see my child Down syndrome should not be the first thing they see, but a beautiful 4 year old child.

Back to School

Back to school we go tomorrow! We are currently working on an action research project as a grade level. This is one that I am extremely excited about. We have 5 sections of LA/SS teachers at our site. 2.5 of us are taking the Lucy Calkins route for writing test prep and 2.5 of us are taking the more formal 5 paragraph song and dance routine for writing test prep. I am on the Lucy side of things and I am writing the daily lesson plans from Book 3: Breathing Life into Essays. I am using Lucy's Lessons as a guide and adding my own "isms" in it. We have been meeting weekly to discuss how it is going in the classroom. We started Dec. 1, but missed almost a week due to ice before the holidays.

I am so excited about this process. So far the students are responding very well to the essay process. They understand that there are different genres of writing and this is a new genre. At the same we (the 2.5 using Lucy's WW) will be trying Katherine Bomer's ideas from her latest book, Writing a Life. I am very excited about the process we are trying because writing takes place daily in my classroom. However, we also have to get the students ready for a test. So, this provides them with authentic writing and test prep. So this week my students will be writing thesis statements and framing our essays. Cheers to a great writing journey!