BABY!!!

Hi Girls,
This is Finn, Erik's nephew (and my nephew-to-be). Isn't he the cutest thing ever?!?

Life updates!

Hi Ladies,
It's been a big week! I'm super pumped about running the whole 5k on Thanksgiving. It felt really good (okay not for 1 minute afterwards, but I'll ignore that part!) We're in the midst of our first snow that will stick around a while. Dodge and I have been relaxing and bumming around the house all weekend which is so nice! A guy who I went on a date with last week (not really interested, but I'm waiting to see if we ease into it after 3 or 4 dates) got last minute tickets to see Wicked - front row! It was amazing!
The guy who I like and told you about - Mark - is going to take me tailgating and to the Vikings/Bears game today. It'll be a late night (game starts at 7:30) but it should be a lot of fun!
Here are some long overdue photos of my humble abode and my new furry friend. Dodge has been so fantastic. He doesn't seem bothered at all about his surgeries and was super playful when I got him home from the vet! My friend Sarah R. (old college roommate) came over and he just cuddled with her for hours. He is a very good host!

Our Blog

Hey girls,
So, I changed the color scheme for our blog - what do you think?
I also want to encourage you both to keep blogging! I know it can get hard with school going to keep up with it, and I struggle with finding time, too, but I think it would be great if we can all keep adding posts to stay in touch that much better :)
I also wanted to let you know that each time you write a post, you can also give it a label so that things of similar categories are grouped together. You can see on the main page some of the labels I already started. Feel free to group your post in one of these categories if it fits or make your own!
Ciao,
Andrea

5K baby!

So, I need your moral support here! I'm trying to get psychologically ready for my first 5K race that will be this weekend in the form of the Susan Komen Breast Cancer Race for a Cure held in good old Bangor, Maine. I'm doing it with my friend Becky from school, also an English teacher, but I'm somewhat scared about how I can run for that long! I know you have done it before, Jenn. Any words of advice???

Portland

Here's a photo from the evening in Portland we had last Friday. Heather surprised Adrian for his 30th birthday with a three-hour harbor cruise...only around 100 of his friends and family were there :) It was such a blast!

This dress, which you helped me find long ago at H&M, Vienna, received many compliments. So, thank you for helping me look classy!

Hope you both are doing well and enjoying the start of your school year!

The Brain Trust

Well ladies, back we go to school school school. Let the fun begin. I'm actually really excited to go back through the posts we did earlier about cool teaching ideas and actually use them. We should think up a few more to share as we do some new things. I'm working on my Heroes class so Andrea, I'll definitely have some mythology stuff to shoot your way. Can you send me the Heroes assignment? Jenn, if you have Catcher in the Rye materials I could definitely make good use of them!

New wheels

We bought a replacement for the Audi station wagon yesterday. It's a 2006 Subaru Outback - do you like it? I'm psyched about it! It's all black and has tons of room in the back for transporting dogs, groceries, etc. It is also officially, even at 2 years old, the newest car we've ever purchased :) I guess the only downfall is adding a car payment to our month bills...

Hedda!

Did either of you see this week's Project Runway episode? The designers had to design an outfit for a drag queen, and one of them was Hedda Lettuce! Do you remember her from the show we saw when we went to P-Town? I thought that was kind of cool to see :)

Island Life

We just came home from an amazing weekend on Duck Island, about 30 minutes off the coast of Acadia National Park! Adrian & Heather took us to the house they had rented for the week. It was a weekend of seeing seals, hiking on the rocky shore, eating delicious food, riding the crazy waves, and relaxing on this gorgeous island. This house was the only one on the island, making it quite the experience!

Adrian drives his boat while Tyler and I relax in the sun.










This was the beautiful view we awoke to on Sunday





Here is the house on Duck Island

The house I'm buying!

So, I've found the house! My offer was accepted yesterday and the inspection is Monday morning, with a closing date set for Sept. 26th! I'm so excited! It's had the same owners since 1960 (built in 1949) and when the parents passed away recently, the daughter who is a real estate agent redid up the whole place. The roof, siding, lawn, kitchen, bathroom, appliances and garage were all redone in the last few months. It's in NE (a 5 minute drive from downtown and just 20 minutes to work). I drove around the neighborhood in the evening and in the middle of the night on Thursday and all seems quiet and good. Of course my mom is nervous about me having a house with a detached garage - she wanted me to get a condo with attached parking so there were people around, but nothing was just right. The front and back yards are both fenced in and really well lit so I'm not worried. It's a two bedroom with hardwood floors and is really close to some very cool spots in NE!

Fun with Cars

Here's a photo of the back end of my car, sans blinker & brake light :)

Titles

Hey ladies - Here's an interesting activity I read about in this month's English Journal. It is a lesson that helps students see how titles can affect a reader's perspective of a work of literature. It sounds interesting and I think I might use it :)

Link: "The Importance of Titles: From Big Blank Space to Small Good Thing"

Comment Philosophy

I've been reading an article today by Nancy Sommers titled "Responding to Student Writing" published in College Composition and Communication. I found it quite enlightening because the errors that she found teachers make in responding to student essays are errors that I feel I make all the time! I don't know about you, but one of the most challenging parts of being an English teacher, I feel, is making the assessment of writing meaningful for both me and the student. I feel that sometimes I make comments just to make comments and that they're often not really the most amazing pieces of advice I could be giving students.

So, here are some snippets from her article that I found interesting:

"We read (student papers) with our preconceptions and preoccupations, expecting to find errors, and the result is that we find errors and misread our students' texts. We find what we look for; instead of reading and responding to the meaning of a text, we correct our students' writing. We need to reverse this approach. Instead of finding errors or showing students how to patch up parts of their texts, we need to sabotage our students' conviction that the drafts they have written are complete and coherent. Our comments need to offer students revision tasks of a different order of complexity and sophistication from the ones that they themselves identify, by forcing students back into the chaos, back to the point where they are shaping and restructuring their meaning."

She also said this:

"What is said in the comments and what is done in the classroom mutually reinforce each other." We should be giving "comments which will provide an inherent reason for students to revise."

So, after reading this article, it did make me want to evaluate how I evaluate and really come up with an awesome plan of action for this year! One strategy that I've always wanted to actually do but have been too lazy to enact is to have students keep an Error Log. This would be a place where after every writing they do, they write the original sentence, fix it, and identify what type of mistake they made. I think this would help make writing more individualized.

I also think that I will try to do more conferencing and do more drafts of essays so that students see a quality piece of writing does take revision.

I know that many teachers now are using rubrics as the sole place where students can get teacher feedback, but I really think this is a backwards approach. It does seem like teachers need to get much more individualized than rubrics allow.

What do you both think? Any ideas and strategies that you find work??

Our Pottery--Finally!

Ipicked up our pottery several weeks ago, but I've been so lazy with uploading my pictures that I just now did it. Here are the fruits of our labor. The photos do not do your work justice. Once you see them in person you both will see how attractive they came out. You both created gorgeous pieces. I can't wait to see you both to give them to you!

Painting

Yesterday was house projects day on Essex Street! Tyler successfully strung cable up to our living room on the first floor & installed a cable panel; I painted the first coat of paint on my office walls. The color is so exciting! It's amazing how bland white can be and how wonderful new color is. Click on this link to see the new color. Click through the palette until you find "Buckland Blue" - it's number "HC-151". I don't think the color palette on Benjamin Moore's site quite does it justice - it's really more of a blue-charcoal color. I'll post a picture of my office later this summer once it's in better shape :)

Furniture!

Our furniture arrived today! What do you ladies think? We're pleased with it - this isn't the arrangement it will be in but due to my sister's things taking up the other half of the room, we can't arrange it yet.
Do you have any thoughts on curtains that would look good in this room?

Oh Mamma!

You girls will certainly enjoy Mamma Mia! if you haven't already seen it yourself this weekend. We just came home from a viewing at the theater in Orono. I absolutely loved Meryl Streep in this film - she looks so young and has such a great voice. Pierce Brosnan, while looking quite handsome, was a bit of a letdown in terms of his singing. I never did see the musical... did either of you? Partly I think I enjoyed the film b/c the ABBA songs were so much fun to sing along to.

Aggressive garlic

I was cleaning up my kitchen this morning and was accosted by a little package of garlic sauce. I wanted to break up a pizza box to fit it i the trash so I stomped on it, totally forgetting about the little garlic dip they threw in there. It became an experiment in projectiles when I instantly realized what the popping sound was, as garlic sauce managed to shoot all the way up my pj pants and hit my knickers. Needless to say, I was in the shower pretty quick while everything got thrown in the wash. So gross!

Snip, Snip...

Hi Girls,
The kittens both had their neutering surgeries yesterday. They were so cute, but crazy in the car. We usually put them in their carrier together, but since they were sore the vet. separated them into different carriers for the ride home. Our second carrier is a soft bag that double zippers on top and it was very poorly constructed. Well, as soon as I put them in the car they started crying because they weren't together. Then, the second I merged onto the busy highway, Boo totally escaped from his bag and was running around the car. Of course Tango was completely pissed that his brother was out and he was still in lock-up, so he was wailing even louder. Luckily the next exit wasn't too far and when I pulled off I was able to get them both into the hard carrier together. Now we're supposed to make sure they don't run, jump, or play for the next five days...yeah right! Did Tyler have as hard a time keeping you under control after your surgery, Andrea? :) JK

Most Successful?

Hello ladies - What would you say was your most successful assignment/project you gave your students this last year? Take some time to think about it, and then post a description so that we can get some great ideas for the upcoming year :)

Teeth

Hey ladies - Say a prayer (or whatever form of good wishes you like) for me tomorrow -- I am having all 4 wisdom teeth pulled :(

Help Me Choose!

Ok Girls, here are the two dresses. The one on the left is from a bridal shop and there's a close-up of the same dress beneath it. The dress on the right is from David's and the pic above it is the back of it. Please give me your totally honest feed-back as to which you like better and why. Remember that the lighting wasn't great, so try to look
closely at the dresses themselves and how they look on me. Thanks!!!!

Wedding Dresses!

Today I went dress shopping and I found TWO dresses that I really like. I'm totally confused about which to pick. My sister has pictures of both (with me in them), so I'll send those soon. I need your honest advise about which to pick. Both are really beautiful and below my initial budget (what a miracle), so now I just have to decide which fits me best. I'll put the pics up soon and please help me pick!

A question for you

So, one of my adolescent lit. assignments is to consider: what are the top 5
problems teens face? I'm curious about what you think and I'm supposed to get others' opinions.

My first thoughts are:
1. desire to fit a body image
2. grades
3. struggle for more freedoms
4. peer pressure to drink/do drugs
5. pressures about sex

Would you have something different? Would you rank these differently?

Vonnegut and Vienna

While gathering research today for my try at teaching creative writing this fall, I stumbled upon this quote from Kurt Vonnegut. I think you'll appreciate it, Vienna:

"The writing style which is most natural for you is bound to echo the speech you heard when a child. English was Conrad's third language, and much that seems piquant in his use of English was no doubt colored by his first language, which was Polish. And lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English spoken there is so amusing and musical."

This is an excerpt from "How to Write with Style" by Vonnegut.

Crafty Things...

I'm super-psyched to see how our painting projects turned out! Jenn - were you able to get them yet from that pottery place we visited last weekend? Is there any way to post a photo of all of them for us to see?

The pottery activity made me think of crafty things to do, and this past week I did candle making with my college roommate, Amy. It was fun (even though it was like 90 degrees when we decided to boil hot wax) and they came out looking quite beautiful! If you want to know how, let me know.

The never-ending saga

Since I haven't been meeting new people of late, I've decided to give the internet another crack at finding someone interesting in the area. I signed up for a new site yesterday and I've found some interesting people to talk to, but of course that's not nearly as interesting as the bad ones...

"u r nice hottie en i like to treat u like a laded (yeah, "laded")

"nice plumage gorgeous! we should go out some time"

"can i b ur roomate?"

Apparently no one has discovered the beauty of the shift key and they think they can impress an English teacher by making up their own bloody language! Several of the profile pictures could possibly be their mugshots. Seriously, several of them look dangerous and yet somehow they think they'll find a lady (laded) friend! I promise to keep you updated as I know you lovely settle couples live for this stuff!

Wall*E

Hi Girls,
Erik and I just saw Wall*E and it was great. A very entertaining movie, but also kinda dark for a G-rated film. If you're looking for a cute matinée, I recommend this one. However, I don't think it was as fun or lighthearted as Ratatouille. Enjoy!

Rubistar

Hey Girls,
You've both probably heard about rubistar.com, but I totally had forgotten about it until the end of the year and then remembered it when I needed a presentation and project rubric. This site is great because it has preexisting rubrics, but you can also create your own criteria for the rubric and it will put it into the format and boxes and everything.

Love to blog!

Hi girls! This is great. We can chat and toss around ideas and everything. Wow, I feel totally tech. savvy! More blogs to come!

Mmmm Salmon

New marinade for you all to try - it's in this month's Cooking Light, and Tyler and I found it to be quite tasty last night.

Maple Grilled Salmon
1/4 cp rice wine vinegar
3 TBSP maple syrup
2 TBSP fresh orange juice
4 (6 oz) salmon fillets, skinned
Cooking spray
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1. Combine first 3 ingredients in a large zip-top plastic bag; add fish. Seal and marinate in refrigerator for 3 hours.
2. Preheat grill or grill pan to medium-high heat.
3. Remove fish from bag, reserving the marinade. Pour marinade into a small saucepan; bring to a boil. Cook until reduced to 2 TBSP (about 5 minutes).
4. Place fish on grill rack or pan coated w/cooking spray; grill 4 minutes on each side or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork. Baste occasionally with marinade (this was a key thing to make it taste really great!). Remove fish from grill; sprinkle with salt & pepper.

Per serving: 270 calories; 10.6 g fat (good fat!); 31.1 g protein; 11 g. carbs; 0.1 g fiber

Rambow!

Just got home from a supremely cute movie, Son of Rambow.

It is about this young boy named Will whose family is part of an extreme religious group called The Brethren. At school his differences from the other kids really stand out as he has to leave the room when they watch movies, etc. He connects with another outcast, Lee Carter, who has access to video equipment. Together they embark on making their own Rambo-esque film based on a story Will creates. I would definitely recommend watching it if you get the opportunity!

NCTE - Texas?

Me again... So, in the mail today was a note about the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) annual convention, which is in San Antonio, TX this year in late November. I was just thinking, how fun would it be if we all met up there for the weekend and learned more about new English practices! Check out their website for more info.

If we were serious about it, I imagine that we could probably get our schools to cover the cost for the trip & registration. It runs from Thur. 10/20 - Sun. 10/23, but we could always just go for Friday and Saturday, and then leave on Sunday.

Ciao!

Podcasts

06-30-2008

If you're interested in learning more about podcasts, check out Grammar Girl's podcasts. I think this website shows how a podcast could be used in a classroom. Her podcasts are quite short (most under 5 minutes) and provide interesting examples to help students learn a concept in a short amount of time.

As far as justification for using podcasts, here's a quote from material provided during our seminar on podcasts:
"Podcasting is a dynamic and engaging communication medium for both consuming digital audio content as well as producing it yourself. In the 21st century, students need to be engaged not only in intentional and reflective practices of multimedia CONSUMPTION, but also in the process of multimedia PRODUCTION. Podcasting has inherent benefits for student motivation (given the existence of a global, authentic audience) and communication skill development. If you want your students to become better writers, authors, and communicators, then they need to be podcasting." (Source: http://www.speedofcreativity.org/resources/podcast-resources/)

Another site that was kind of interesting, that we looked at during the seminar, was from a local high school that used it for Shakespeare study. Check out the Skowhegan H.S. Julius Caesar podcasts. They did a dramatic reading & analysis of a speech from Julius Caesar - some of them are really interesting! And, I can see how kids might actually be more thoughtful about their choices and analysis versus doing a traditional presentation.

Let me know what you think!