Create an animal that uses features from two or three other animals.
Would it fly? Hop?
Does it have claws or talons?
Can it eat both berries and other small animals?
Does it live in both the desert and forest?
Let your imagination run wild!
Archive for January, 2006
Good News
One of the pleasures of teaching teens is that they go off into the world in a relatively short amount of time and then come back to tell you how your teaching did or didn’t make a difference in their lives.
Just the other day, after running at the YMCA, I ran into “Sara.” She took many of my writing classes and I even had the joy of privately tutoring her for awhile. Sara has always used writing to express her ideas, even as a young child trying to sort out whether or not the geological record supported an old or young earth theory. As a teen, she enjoyed fantasy so much, she embarked on writing her own novel and I got to read her first draft.
So there she was, in her red T-shirt holding the lifeguard floatie when she spotted me. “Mrs. Bogart?”
“Sara? Oh my goodness. How are you? Did you go off to college?”
“As a matter of fact yes. I am at the Art Institute downtown.”
“That’s marvelous! You were always so good at drawing.”
“But that’s not all. I was accepted into the Honor’s Writing program.”
She beamed.
I beamed.
We didn’t need to say any more.
We both knew that our work together had just been rubber stamped with “ya done good.” I’m so proud of Sara. And she seemed proud of me, too.
Tuesday Teatime: Poetry Confusion Time
Since we REALLY want the Brown Betty teapot, we went all out on Poetry Teatime. We had a theme — hat night (it is always so hard to find just the right time to wear a tiara), candles, homemade Christmas cookies, and poetry. Asherel read me the following poem by Robert Creeley:
For Love– I would
split open your head and put
a candle in
behind the eyes.
Love is dead in us
if we forget
the virtues of an amulet
and quick surprise.
I am normally good at this, but Julie, quite frankly , we have NO IDEA what this poem means. Do you? Does anyone? Please help.
A Brave and Confused Writer
Martin Luther King Jr’s Birthday
We’re celebrating by going to the Freedom Center today here in Cincinnati. We have a museum devoted to the Underground Railroad and the history of slavery.
Here’s MLK Jr’s letter from the Birmingham jail to read with your kids (if you find it appropriate).
Friday Freewrite: wishing not to
I wish I didn’t have to…..
