I Have Observed I'm Ready to Start Blogging Again

Looks like I'm back from my blogging hiatus.  School has begun in earnest and tons of time and energy is going in that direction. Yet, I felt the need to check in here.

This year I am teaching purely 7th grade. This is a big change -- the last time I taught one grade level was the 2009-10 school year.  I have intensive readers and I have got to say, I am loving it.  

In the classroom we have been spending a lot of time setting up our reader and writer's notebooks.  The writer's notebooks are decorated and covered with contact paper. The students have taken complete ownership, from my observation.

And that is what this blog is about -- observation.  This summer I taught myself to slow down and pay attention, and I'm glad to say that I am remembering what I learned this summer and am continuing to apply it.

My return to writing started today when I was driving to a yoga class. I began to make mental notes on things I observed, and then wrote them down as soon as I got to my destination.

Driving to Yoga Class Labor Day 2014

The town is quiet

A dusty white pony dips his head to graze at the fence by the side of the road

Dry palm fronds sway slightly as they lean over in the late summer heat

"God bless the broken road" plays on country radio

Royal palm tree trunks create shadow stripes along MacGregor Boulevard

I miss my turn-off to my usual parking lot

The road I'm on has a farmers stand with a sign that says "Georgia Peaches"

I realize I have found a better place to park

A shady spot

The mid-morning air hangs heavy

Now some gentle movements

For balance, clarity,

And even deeper awareness

*

This is the kind of thing I started training my students to do last Friday.

I started by asking them to make observations of the classroom, and then observation of themselves. We then proceeded into a listening observation. Each time they were expected to write specific things about what they saw and heard. The listening exercise included me playing my Tibetan singing bowl. One class got into an extended conversation afterward about lucid dreams and deja vu, all brought to mind by the sound of the bowl. It so happened that by 7th period my principal was in observing my class, and she loved it, too.

Then we moved to the poem "Observer" by Naomi Shahib Nye. This poem is about observing the world. 

I watch how others things travel
to get an idea how I might move.
A cloud sweeps by silently,
gathering other clouds.
A doodlebug curls in his effort to get there.
A horse snorts before stepping forward.
A caterpillar inches across the kitchen floor.
When I carry him outside on a leaf,
I imagine someone doing that to me.
Would I scream?

In the heart of the day
nothing moves.
No one is going anywhere
or coming back.
The blue glass on the table
lets light pass through.
Something shines
but nothing moves.
I watch that too.

We picked it apart a bit as we sat in our gathering place for the lesson, and then I sent them back to their seats to think about creatures and things from nature they have observed-- how a pet snake moves, what a butterfly does, how a tree moves in the wind. During fifth period we had some tech support people come in to fix up something on the smart board. I told the students to observe them and make some notes about what they were doing. 

I think the word for how I've been operating is "emergent."  

Finally, we got to the Marty Stuart song, "Observations of a Crow."  

We listened to the song and followed along with the lyrics. Miracle upon miracle, I did not have one complaint about it being "country."  In fact, my one student, who can do a mean moonwalk, was nearly dancing along as he sang.  We talked about all the things the crow was observing, and that in his dialogue the crow made up some words. They then had to write from the perspective of the creature or a thing--what does that creature or thing observe about the human world? What does it see as it goes through its day?  They were advised to write in first person to make this come alive.

It was a relaxing and easy lesson, and got them writing and collecting ideas in their Writers Notebooks.  The students aren't writing as specifically as they need to, but we have a beginning, a foundation to get us started.  We'll see what emerges from here.