Cleaning House

Since I have 12 hours of work time ahead of me today - it's supposed to be conferences, but I only have four parents signed up and no signs of walk ins. The first parent isn't set to show up until 3:30.

So to keep myself busy, I've started cleaning my room. I'm focusing on my closet and cupboards. Boy what a mess. I've got stuff in there from three years ago. But it's interesting seeing all the different stuff that has accumulated.

Here's an example -

One of my best assignments is an idea I stole from Bill Roorbach's "Writing Life Stories." I use when students are moving from descriptive essays to narratives. The assignment calls for them to draw a 'childhood map.' This could be their old neighborhood, their farm, a cross section of their home, a cross section of their apartment building - or whatever. The point is to get their brain thinking of narratives that occurred in these places. As students devise their maps, I have them keep a list of at least ten ideas for essays. Then they choose one to develop into an essay. The kids love it, and it works.

I found about 50 maps piled on top of a filing cabinet, so I was tossing them out and found one very interesting map on the bottom. The student's list of 10 things to write about was on back of his map. Here it is --

1. How my cousin and I finally had the courage to go to Union cemetery.
2. The start of when my barn burned down.
3. When my dad finally considered to stop smoking and start working out, which didn't happen.
4. When I had the craziest party at my house. Trust me there is never alcohol involved in my parties. Never.
5. When I was alone with my two best friends and my girlfriend tries to see if we could break the laws of gravity and jump off the balcony and land on my dad's couch.
6. Trying to burn my ex-girlfriend's letter in my room and nearly burned the house down.
7. When my dad started to flirt with one of my girlfriends just to make me mad.
8. The time when I stayed up all night with my cousin and slept all day.
9. Running away from my dad because he was threatening to run me over with his Dodge.
10. Baby sitting my sort of brother, Andy, who really wasn't my brother.

Now that is a list. Plenty of interesting narratives to be explored there.

What lives my students lead. I need to remember that.