If This Isn't Nice... Magic.

I almost gave up on MAGIC this year. My One Little Word for 2020 just didn't seem appropriate with the way the world is right now. I mean, how can you look for the MAGIC around you when you can't leave your house!

Almost. Not quite.


An unexpected invitation to chat with writing friends led to
                         an unexpected writing group,
                                                 which led to an unexpected joy of finding more old writing friends
                                                                           and blogging with them again.

And that got me thinking about all the other MAGIC in my life because of writing. 

• TeachWrite I joined them a while back and loved the people, but really thought about leaving the group until...
• #100daysofnotebooking Joining this group kickstarted my writing again. We're now on day 102! And this lead me to...
• The TeachWrite pop-ups on Zoom.
• This helped me keep connected to people (because this quarantining stuff is hard!)

Writing has been a lifeline this last month!

Video Chats have also been MAGIC. I don't know who figured out the Jetson's way of communicating, but it has also been a blessing. I'm able to keep in contact with family and feel like we're (almost) together. 

Really, Who doesn't love a happy hour video chat?

We "see" the boys and their families at least once a week. The grandkids have Snapchat and House Party and Kids Messenger, so we hear from them even without their parents.

And there is nothing better than the sweet goodnights I'm getting from one of the youngest.

We are probably keeping in closer contact with others now than we were before! But it's one habit that won't go away when the quarantine is over!

5 Pics/1 Story: A Collaborative Effort

You know me and Twitter.  I love it. Follow great people. Try new ideas I find there.
That's what this post is about. It's full of links, so I hope you have the patience to check them out!

Two Iowa educators, Erin Olson and Leslie Pralle Keehn, who now work for one of the education agencies in our state, have started a Connecting Creativity Series. I'll let you check it out. There is a new activity every month, and I use these as a way to connect my students to students in other parts of the state.

This month's "assignment" is a 5 Photo Story. This one excited me because my Creative Writing students and I already do this in collaboration with our art teacher and her digital camera class.  This post will share how we go about creating this activity and even meet some common core standards!

STEP 1A (and beyond. Will try to have her write about what she does in class)
@Artteach13 talks with her students about telling stories with pictures. They need to take pictures to give a setting, characters, mood, etc.  They get about a week to take pictures. Once they have their pictures taken, they upload them to a google doc with numbered folders. @Artteach13 grades their photos separately from the story (although WHEN we are allowed to have our digital storytelling class, this will be one grade)

Meanwhile, over in Creative Writing....

STEP 1CW

This is the beginning of our fiction writing unit, so we spend a couple of days writing group stories from picture prompts I found on Pinterest (where else?):

My students have fun with these little writing "episodes" and there is no pressure. We share them out in class and talk about what it takes to write a story from a picture.

On Day 2 or 3, I send them to my website to work through tutorials on creating 5 Pic Stories. It includes sending them to a site dedicated to 5 Card Flickr Stories. On this site they can pick five pictures and write a practice story of their own. They also have the ability to share their story, so I have them email me the link. This is not a graded activity, but it is an expectation.

By this time, the digital camera class photos are uploaded to the google doc. My students have two more things to do: Read/look through @Artteach13's and my mentor text and watch the tutorial on using tackkboard. We post our stories to tackk, and the video shows them how to do it. (Our hashtag this year: #CHS5Photos14 Look for it after Monday.  Last year's photo stories are here)

My students have several class periods to draft/share/conference before their deadline. At first, they look at the pictures and think they can't possibly come up with a story. But you know what? Once they stare at them for awhile, talk about them for awhile, move them around for awhile, a story pops into their heads. And they write.

This is a fun collaborative project for our two classes. Do we have kids who don't get pictures done on time? Yep. Kids who don't get story done on time? Yep. But because they are collaborating with peers, no one wants to be that kid who doesn't do the work. It all gets done!

Our students (and ourselves, actually) are always surprised at how the stories turn out. The photographers had a story in mind when they took the pictures, but the writers can arrange the pictures however they want. Our kids have created some amazing stories. I hope you'll try this fun activity in your own class, either on your own or in collaboration with another.

#Write2Connect

Here I sit, wrapped in my cuddly blanket, coffee in hand, Chloe beside me, thinking about writing, thinking about all the ways it appears in my life. It's the National Day on Writing (school edition) and it seems only natural that I write.

I write about my writing periodically.

I've written about what I write and why I write  and again, what I write.

I've written when I don't have anything to write about.

I've written about tough stuff.

At times I've written about the ugly times in a writing class, but usually I write about the fun stuff.

I reflect on what writer's need and more specifically, what boy writer's need.

And sometimes, I let Chloe write.

But as I said in a previous post, "And, now, I'm back. Writing for me. Writing because I can't imagine not writing. Writing about life so the world (well, mostly the grandkids) knows I was here. Writing so others know I cared."  

What has kept me writing this blog is the connections I have made. Wonderful readers who take the time to comment, who take the time to share with me. It's amazing the friends I have throughout the world just because of this little blog. And some, even drive hours to come and visit me (and my classroom). What could have been weird and awkward, wasn't. It felt like meeting with a long lost friend because we knew each other through our blogs.

I don't only connect through the blog. My Facebook feed is slowly turning into more than a game space. Connections I have made through my blog have become friends. Many groups and teachers have pages now where ideas are shared freely. Twitter and several Twitter chats also connect me to other teachers and their amazing ideas. 

In fact, it was through Twitter connections that a new writing project for my students came to be. We are now sharing our blogs with some high school students from two other high schools in other parts of the state. So far, we've read and commented on each others, but I think all the teachers involved have more in mind as we head through the school year. My freshmen also commented on the blogs of some third graders in our district one Monday, just for fun. 

Today, I will plead with my Creative Writing students to tweet out links to their digital storytelling projects. As I watched their videos last night, I laughed and cried and gasped aloud at the amazing things they shared. Some were so personal, I hurt for them. But I also cheered at their amazing spirits and their courage to continue on another day. Some shared stories of family members who impact their daily lives. Love came through those stories. They need to know their stories matter and those stories need to be shared. 

So we will talk about connecting with the world.

Because that's what writing can do.