We're in the weeds now kiddo!

A colleague of mine once referred to No Child Left Behind as No Teacher Left Standing.  We laughed - later we cried - and now, speaking just for myself here, we are just plain depressed.It matters not how diligent an educator is about keeping up with research and data, the stream of new initiatives is never ending.  My professional interest in developing curriculum notwithstanding, absorbing the Common Core standards in BOTH English Language Arts and Mathematics, locating resources for teaching - resources that are high quality and (with a nod to my own personal finances, free) are very seldom available, all takes time.Instructional planning takes thought and consideration. This often means inventing something from the ground up, something tailored to help meet the needs of very diverse learners. I don't mind that part as much as I mind getting the curriculum guides a weekend before I actually need to teach the unit.I work with some terrifically talented grade level colleagues who willingly share - thank goodness!  We often meet on our own time and collaborate. If one of us finds something, we share with the others.  How lucky I am to work in such an environment.Because what is happening in education now is putting such stress on teachers, that frustrations and emotions are nearly always at the surface.  And that feeling that we are all "in the weeds" just will not go away. 

A small moment

It is a reward unlike any monetary bonus or plaque. I can't speak for other educators, but I live for the moment when there is that small, fleeting glimmer that there has been a connection between students and teacher.At this time in the school year, I am still sorting out student learning styles and personalities. Still trying to figure out how to engage some students or get out of the way of others.I noticed one of my more quiet second language learners, one who hardly engages in eye contact, trying to avoid any engagement with me for several days. As part of interactive read-aloud, we had been working on verbal stems for acceptable (and polite! Politician take note!) discourse - "I agree with ____ because.....", "I disagree with ____ because....", "In addition to what ____ said, I think...."). This activity may sound stilted to you, but for my students who don't really speak in sentences - second language or not - it is a critical building block for oral language, socially acceptable expression of opinions, and written language.So yesterday, as we "discussed" the plot of Kevin Henkes Julius, Baby of the World, I put my new friend on the spot. At first she did what many second language learners do - she shook her head no, she averted her eyes, and she locked her lips down. Those of you who know me, will know that wasn't going to fly.So gently, I fed her the stem.... and after 2 or 3 cajoling nudges, out came the most wonderful contribution to our discussion! And with that, a small glimmer of a smile previously hidden from me. The moment was so brief that I wasn't sure I had caught it. But for this one student, it seemed to convey, a new confidence and a connection to not only me, but to the safety of our classroom group.And that is exactly why I love teaching!

The Beginnings, Again

This past Thursday - our last day of school with students - was bump up day.  And once again, for about the 28th time in my life, I started building a community with a group of 8-year olds.They look like an interesting group. Definitely some wigglers, some barometer kids, as the Sisters call them.  I've seen some of their second grade assessment data already and heard from a couple of their now-former teachers about social and learning issues to be aware of.Yet for the half-hour that we were together, I can see the possibilities of the community of learners that will become 3-207 starting August 28th.One of the best aspects of teaching is this cycle, this changeover and chance to do things again - with luck, even better this time around. I know I never get tired of the excitement of a fresh beginning, of the serendipitous opportunities that will lie ahead.This week we started a new building cycle again. Our future together is a gigantic unknown - exciting to think about and a bit scary at the same time.We begin. Again.

The End of a Year

"My" babies are ready to fly to coop. In just 2 days my third graders will bump up to fourth grade.  We're both nervous I think: they of the unknown, me of  fear that the preparations we've made for this day haven't been enough.It has been a privilege to work with these kids.  At times challenging and other times a cakewalk, we started the year as strangers and little-by-little have grown into familiarity.For some, all I can provide is a temporary haven. School should be a safe place, far removed from domestic issues like hunger or poverty or violence.  That has not always been true for all of my children this year, and when the ugliness of  socioeconomic traumas become apparent, words fail. A hug, a quiet word. The ache and worry that this child has been left behind to float through whatever safety net our society provides is overpowering.There have been good times. Last week we looked at a text and the depth of the students' discussion was simply amazing. After a year of hammering students to do something more than retell the facts or plots of a story, it was an exquisite, if momentary high.  They can do it, they can cross over to a real literate life.This week, our last together, has been spent remembering some of the fun and some of the hard work that has been part of our time together. I am not looking forward to the last day with the kids this year; I know it will be a bittersweet day. A day when we all celebrate making it to that 180th day, but also a day when our paths diverge.

A Different Take on Math Daily Five

I started working on this a couple of years ago when I first was exposed to the Daily Five and Literacy CAFE.  Gail and Joan - the Sisters - have since published a different Math Daily Five. I've continued with this version because it seems to work for my students - many are not strong mathematicians so revisiting Power Standards and anticipating the gaps we normally see in number sense and operations makes the most sense.The structure for teaching the Math Daily Five - using the 10 steps to independence, carving out conferencing times, expectations for student and teacher during work times - all of these are the same. For my students it is important to think in terms of practice with strategy games, math facts (as well as analog clock reading), solving a multi-step problem, and using the available technology for mathematical exploration.So this year, I've begun to compile a list of activities that complement the Massachusetts Common Core framework and continue to allow my students to practice meaningfully while I am working with and conferring with students needing intervention help.So here is my take on applying the Daily Five.Daily Five Math Board

Raising Rigor in Readers' Notebooks

I used to look with envy at those spiffy Readers' Notebooks available through a nationally known publisher.  In fact I envied them so much, I figured out how to customize a similar notebook for my students to use.And while they seemed to work pretty well, I've come to realize that maybe the beautifully GBC-bound notebooks and forms I'd created were not all that.Asking my students to write a weekly response in the form of a letter to which I would write back produced writing about reading. But what I mostly got was a retelling (plot) or even worse, an "I like this book...." without a "because".I'm reading Aimee Buckner's Notebook Connections and discovering something about what has passed for a reader's response in my classroom. Because my students were so wrapped up in writing a letter to the teacher - and maybe even in getting it done over revealing something they were thinking - the thoughts about reading and literacy were pretty much on the surface.I want my students to learn to do more than that! Upping the rigor of a response means that I will need to teach students to first notice their thinking and then record it.  And then dive deeper into what the author chooses to do when writing; it's all interconnected.So I'm no longer envying teachers who can purchase those fancy Readers' Notebooks for kids. I want to raise the rigor on what students write in reading responses. I want them to think in depth about a text and wonder. I want them to notice an author's craft and how it impacts a reader.What I am thinking about for next year is a much more simple tool for holding ideas than the fill-in the form I've grown comfortable with over the last 2 years.  Students need a space to record a year's growth in becoming literate, a place to keep track of genres and kinds of books (given the opportunity, some of my kids would only read Arthur books!), and a place to record and notice not only their own thoughts as they read but how an author crafts writing.It's a tall order with many opportunities for missteps on my part. By breaking down the Readers' Notebook to what is essential, I hope for depth in thinking. A spiral notebook and some self-sticking tabs should do the trick. 

Revisiting Notebooks

Having read Notebook Know-How (Aimee Buckner) this spring; I've moved on the another of her books, Notebook Connections. Know-How is to writing as the Connections book is to Reading. What I am discovering though is that they both are interconnected - as they should be.At this time of year, many of us start thinking about what we need in place on Day 1 of the next school year.  Last year, by this time, I had a very elaborate, custom-designed Readers' Notebook all mapped out and in the copier. That Notebook had many of the elements of the fancy Fountas Pinnell Readers' Notebooks and some of the elements that Beth Newingham uses with her Third Grade Class.What I've come to through reading Notebook Connections and seeing what was tedious, is that much of what I have in the current notebook needs to be revised or maybe even removed.  My students are fairly consistent in completing the daily book log that is part of their current notebook. We both refer to the Color Conference (book level) page and the Goals page. Each week we write back and forth to each other about reading.  But there seems to be lots that is not in use and some places where the Readers' Notebook is not effective.I think I still need something more structured than Ms. Buckner's notebooks so I will keep the basic structure of a separate dedicated notebook for reading. But as I read more of Aimee's book, I want to create something that is going to be more authentic and clearly connects what my students read to what they will write. I want to move my students past retellings to deeper thinkings about texts, so I will make the shift from a Dear Mrs. Bisson response to students actually recording their reaction to parts of texts or strategic reading.While I am savoring each day with my current students, I am looking forward to a new year with new faces and new challenges. And getting excited about trying new strategies for learners.

What Is It That You Do Again?

Teaching is simultaneously instilling in a child the belief that she can accomplish anything she wants while admonishing her for producing shoddy work.

As I read these words in a blogpost by Dennis Hong, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Here in less than 25 words is what we do every day, every year in our classrooms regardless of grade level.This week, I found these words to be of a particular truth. There are many stories of perseverance and of failure in every classroom of an urban school such as the one in which I work. One child may flourish despite the traumatic challenges in his life, while another cannot function.My challenge - the one I take most seriously - is to lift the curtain so that kids can see it doesn't have to be. That yes indeed, they can graduate high school - some days it is indeed just that basic.In my white, middle-class upbringing, it was always assumed each of us would go to college and go on to a career. We would make our contributions to society. There was not doubt in anyone's mind that we were going to do this regardless of any obstacles. I have had third grade students tell me they weren't sure finishing high school was something they cared about. How sad is it that a child in this day feels that a high school diploma is OPTIONAL? That, to me is unacceptable thinking. So yes indeed, for me teaching is about instilling not only the belief that a student can accomplish anything she wants, but also to show that there are many possibilities.Shoddy work. I catch myself on this often. Giving kids a bye on quality work is not doing anyone a favor. Education - and homework - is frequently not a priority for some families, and while I understand why, I feel a need to redirect children - without denigrating parents - to make it one. Tricky? Sure.  Worth it? Definitely.To be a teacher is a series of what seem to be contradictions. In Teach Like a Champion, Doug Lemov says

Teachers must be both: caring, funny, warm, concerned, and nurturing – and strict, by the book, relentless, and sometimes inflexible. Teachers send the message to students that having high expectations is part of caring for and respecting someone.

Isn't that the truth?

A (Non)-Writer Discovers Notebooks

A while ago, our Literacy Coach began talking to us about revisiting notebooks as a means to developing writers and authors.  I'm possibly the last person in education to discover Aimee Buckner and Notebook Know-How, but I am so glad I have made that connection.Not being a writer myself or at least not a disciplined one, I found notebooks and their use just one more thing to do with kids. Our school-wide writing calendars, focused on responses and one new genre of writing every two months was quite time-consuming. I couldn't imagine when we would fit in using notebooks.And then I read this

-- we shouldn't write for significance, but rather that we should write as a habit. Sometimes we'll write something significant and sometimes we won't. It's the act of writing -- the practice of generating text and building fluency--that leads writers to significance.

Wow! Did those words speak to me! What I had been doing "wrong" all this time, both as a non-writer and a teacher of writing, was expecting each morsel to be significant. The notebook is a place to practice, to try out, to experiment. Not only in writing, but in any endeavor, a learner needs a safe place to practice without worry as to the significance of the outcome.This is a discovery that I can relate to. As an amateur photographer, I've been reticent to take my camera with me because I would not have anything worthwhile to show for it.My students are starting to use notebooks now. And while they are not yet a habit, we are learning together to find a safe place to experiment with some of the strategies that professional writers and authors use.We are learning to be learners through our experimentation.

Essential Teacher and the One Best System

At our faculty meeting this afternoon, we spent some time trying to break down what are the essential characteristics for teachers in this small urban, multi-cultural environment. For most of those around me, with whom I could turn and talk, skill at curriculum was not an over-arching factor. Most of the teachers around me mentioned qualities such as "diligence", "empathy", "creativity".... in fact, the list started to sound like the seven virtues.What is important for a teacher to be effective? Can that quality be distilled and replicated? I wonder about that. People who have heard me get on my soapbox know it aggravates the heck out of me that in current educational discourse, there is an assumption that our students are widgets - all the same raw material to be turned into a finished product without fail.Sorry. I teach living breathing humans whose day-to-day experiences are as varied as the number of children crossing the classroom threshold daily.  And while I want to make our classroom an environment bursting with thought and learning, sometimes all I can provide for a child is safety - a place away from the buffeting of daily traumas.Is anyone measuring how successful that was?Diagnosing what children need, for me that is an essential quality. While my vocation is not usually life or death (or is it?),  I think is essential for a teacher to be able to diagnose what a student needs, academically and emotionally,  and provide for those needs. That's what I aspire to do and to varying degrees, there is some success to be celebrated here.Recent surveys decry the drop in teacher satisfaction with their careers; headlines lament that many teachers leave this career within five years. People burn out from the constant bashing that we teachers don't do enough, that our "products" are defective.Can educational effectiveness be condensed so that it can be replicated over and over? Is there one best system? I believe I know how I would answer; how about you?

Thank you Dr. Seuss

Sometimes, though not that often lately, we have fun.Lots of schools mark Dr. Seuss' birthday with Read Across America celebrations.  Even though it was low key, we did too!Our special visitor and guest reader was my husband, Adrien. We dug up a book that loosely connects to his career as a photographer, Snowflake Bentley. Bentley was an avid photographer of snowflakes and his collection of glass negatives and resulting prints is still fascinating. Adrien always brings his camera when he visits, and the kids enjoy hamming it up for the professional photographer. Before he left, he was asked several times if he wouldgo with us on our spring field trip to the Boott Mills.Sometimes our influence on children is so subtle that it nearly goes unnoticed.But today, in the midst of all the fun, I knew Adrien had knocked it out of the park when I looked around my room. There were all of my kiddos who normally need to be cajoled into wearing their glasses - wearing their spectacles mid-nose. Just like their "Mr. Bisson".So thank you Dr. Seuss. Thank you for giving us a fabulous excuse to have a bit of fun today. And to Adrien.... thank you for voluntarily being a role model for my kids. Now how about that field trip date?

Daily Five Math, Common Core and Investigations

That's right, I am incorporating all three of these things in one classroom.  I've been a fan of the Daily Five and Literacy CAFE for a couple of years. Last year, I started to use the structure of the Daily Five in mathematics.  I did this for a couple of reasons - first and foremost is that I hate segmenting curriculum areas into compartments.  If something works well in one area, it should work well in another.  And it does.Admittedly, I have adapted D5 to suit my own needs as a teacher and the needs of my students.  This year has been a little tricky. The Common Core implementation ALONG SIDE continued attention to the 2004 Mathematics Framework makes me feel like I'm straddling a fairly fast moving river as the water level rises.This week - school vacation week here in Massachusetts - I spent some time getting my bearings again for what universal or landmark games I can rotate in and out of the Daily Five.  Here's what my current list looks like (this is on wikispaces, feel free to join in).

"Nobody Got Up Early in The Morning and Could Draw Perfectly..."

Christopher Myers is an author that I've grown to admire. One of his stories, "Wings", is included in the basal readers we're provided with. For me, this is one of the best pieces of children's literature ever: the illustrations, the premise, the themes.... sometimes I think this text belongs in the hands of the adults more than the children!One of my passions in teaching is to teach my students that they are smart, that they can learn. Convincing kids that they are capable learners is hard work, but with all due respect to those test writers lurking out there, it is the most important thing that I teach.Sometimes I am not quite sure my students believe me - and why should they? After all I grew up in a white middle class family and socio-economic situations were so much different than most of my students.  Still, we keep trying to meet on that common ground.Christopher eloquently speaks about the portrayals our students see of success; how our students don't always see or know what it takes to be successful.

Nobody got up early in the morning and could draw perfectly.

Check out this video  on Reading Rockets to hear, in Christopher's own words, the valuable lessons our kids need. Advance to the clip labeled Hard Work to hear Christopher speak about effort in whatever you do.

Writers' Notebooks Revisited

Struggling with teaching writing is nothing new for me. I myself struggle with writing - the process, the ideas, the whole of it I'm afraid. And here's an admission (omission?) of guilt: I have never kept a writers' notebook.Our district is committed to implementing Units of Study by Lucy Calkins - whose ideas I do admire and respect. In my struggles to incorporate "Lucy" into "Amy" interpretations of what I'm doing and what to do next are frequently garbled. I need to make sense out of this in my own way.One of the things I've struggled with the past few months is Writers' Notebooks. Originally I tried to get kids to jot down ideas - observations or snippets of a storyline that might be turned into something more significant at a later time. Lately, I've been teaching students a the strategies that Lucy Calkins outlines for generating narrative writing ideas.Being more direct in teaching strategies for ideas seemed to be working. Kids were recording ideas and then focusing the idea for later development. Everything seemed to be humming. Or was it really? The transfer from notebook to draft was not very seamless.This past weekend I found a book by Aimee Buckner call Notebook Know How.  I'm sure I'm probably the last person on the planet to discover this gem, but on the off-chance that you haven't read it, do it. Now.In my rush to get a Writers' Notebook into my students' hands, I forgot something:

A notebook can become whatever the writer makes it to be.  As teachers, we can guide its use, present strategies,  and even mandate entries if we wish. If the notebook is to be useful, however, it must be useful to the writer first, and the reader (teacher) second.

Here's exactly what I have lost sight of! In my rush to get kids to use a writers' notebook I haven't provided them with any background for why writers use notebooks, nor any strategies for developing the notebook into a personal tool for each developing author.So for the first time, I am going to keep my own Writers' Notebook in hopes that I, too,  can learn right along with my students. We will become authors together.

A Common Thread

If you don't subscribe to the weekly Tip of the Week newsletter from the Sisters - Gail Boushey and Joan Moser, you are missing out on something really special.This week's front page essay was written by Joan and it really struck a chord with me. Teachers in current education practice are often stuck between a rock and a hard place: we often are charged with a mandate that we, as teachers, as professionals, know is not in the best interest of our students. What do we do - beside the obvious choice of continually attempting to change thinking? Joan - and Gail - raise an issue that, in my opinion, makes education a different kind of career.Or does it? When an employee in the private sector - an employee at a large corporation - encounters a mandate that just doesn't make sense is there ever any pushback? When the directive is one that impedes or prevents the employee from accomplishing a goal, do employees abandon their own thought and analysis to blindly follow a directive "just because"?My sense, which is anecdotal of course,  is that they do not. Maybe educators need to be more forceful advocates for what benefits our students when we get a mandate that clearly won't be helpful.Which brings up another blog entry that was recommended to me this week: The Real Mr. Fitz. In his "Letter to Mr. Obama", David Lee Finkle points out the irony of some of the more head-scratching initiatives that have impacted education in recent memory. Need I mention it is statistically improbable - if not impossible - that 100% of all students will read on grade level by 2015.As David Lee Finkle says

...reformers are saying we should put students first. That is what I try to do every single day in my classroom. But I feel the reformers are putting everything but students first: test scores, data, common standards and assessments, value-added models, and standardized curricula are all coming first. Real, flesh and blood students with real problems, hopes and dreams are the last thing on the reformer's agenda.

Two blog postings connecting with a common theme: teachers DO know what they are doing, we are here for the kids.

Divide and conquer?

When I hear people pit new teachers against experienced ones it makes me crazy.I cringe every time I hear that catch-all "burnt out" attached to experienced practitioners.  Yes, I'm sure you can find teachers who are marking time until they can get to the retirement board, but that's the exception, not the rule. And yes, new teachers bring a fresh viewpoint to education. Don't we have room for both?If you believe the half-truths of newspaper editors, you'd think a person like me - a teacher who has dedicated the last 25 years to elementary education - is just an ass in a chair taking up space and keeping a newly licensed teacher from solving all the problems of public education.What education needs are inquiring professionals regardless of the number of years spent in a classroom. Teachers who are experienced, but willing to research, consult, and learn from colleagues. Teachers who may have just entered a classroom for the first time, who reflect on what worked and what didn't and are unafraid to ask for help.What is the purpose behind the continual barrage from those who continually pit experienced (i.e. tenured) vs. new teacher? Is it economic? Is it ignorant? Is it some disgruntled adult now reliving a memory?Whatever it is, it is divisive. What teachers need is time and opportunity to share, to collaborate. And a bit of respect for the important work that needs to be done regardless of how long a person has practiced it.

Teacher as Learner

I have long gotten past being the "sage on the stage". If educational gurus hadn't already convinced me that students learn best from peers and self-exploration - constructing the meaning of something themselves from experience - anecdotal evidence from the classroom would have.This week I arranged with our school's Literacy specialist/coach, Pat Sweeney, to have her model peer writing conferences.  Knowing how much language we need to build into any speech-based activity with English Language Learners, help in supporting my students is always welcome.Pat started by engaging my students in thinking about why an author may want to ask a peer  for advice. First Pat laid down the ground rules for the author (read your work and listen to peer input), the peer group (listen and then offer 1 compliment and 1 suggestion).  The rule of compliments (always start the sentence with "you or your") and suggestions ("I think.....") was next.Then kids then looked over and clarified a list of compliments and suggestions that Pat had placed on anchor charts. Having previewed some independently written narratives my students were working on, Pat selected two students to be the first to try out peer conferences in a whole group.I was pleasantly surprised at the level of constructive criticism my students had. They offered compliments and useful suggestions about the plot of a story, the beginnings, the endings, descriptive languages. Pat wrote down up to 3 suggestions for each author - fitting them on a 3x3 stick-on note - and then instructed the author to keep the note with their original work so when they later conference with me, we can both see which suggestions were incorporated into their pieces. Self accountability - brilliant!Several days later, when Pat led our peer conferences a second time, she gradually released the conversation to the students. And the students were much more willing to sit in the author's chair or offer suggestions and compliments. As we continue this process, my hope is that students will move eventually to arranging with a smaller peer group of 2-3 students or even with a critical friend.As for me, I've learned that I have a habit of offering a compliment but linking to the suggestion with the conjunction "but" - which negates the power of the compliment. I'm also going to need to do some work to remember beginning compliments with "you" and not "I think". I also was delighted to see the authors who had been through the peer conference check in with me ("Do you think I should rewrite this or just write this part on my draft?") -- how many times have teachers given students a writing suggestion and then notice it never makes its way in to the final copy?Having a valuable critical friend for my own teaching is not a luxury, it is a necessity. We learn from each other - just as the students do. 

The Places We Write

When we returned to school this week, I knew I would need to revisit some of our routines. The first week in January always seems like a good time to do such things. One thing I knew I wanted to clarify was where to put writing.In my third grade classroom, there seem to be 4 categories of writing activities - Reading Responses, Writers' Notebook captures, Genre/project based writing, and Free Writing.  So this week I set out to redefine these 4 with my students through the creation of anchor charts and practice. As we work to refine the kinds of writing we do in  the four places, we created an anchor chart for each.Our Writers' Notebooks in particular had become a mash of full-blown stories - not simply observations, ideas, snippets of conversation that might later turn in to something more substantial. We've started with a new notebook this week, a notebook that students are expected to keep on their desks during the day just in case a new writing idea comes to mind. While that spontaneity has not yet been achieved, I hope my message is clear: writers need to be ready to jot down ideas at any time.Organization, as any teacher can tell you, is where we succeed or stumble. If the structure for keeping track of materials and tasks doesn't make sense to me personally, it probably won't be helpful for the students. For me, and hopefully for my students, this past week's activities has helped us to clarify and to organize tasks more logically.

Assumptions that aren't always bad

I subscribe to Responsive Classroom's newsletters and blogs. They usually help to ground me, help me to see and understand my students better.  This week's entry was about Questioning Assumptions. And as a teacher, I know there are too many times when I've jumped to a conclusion about a student's behavior or motivation. And then been surprised by the wrongness of my assumptions.But I'm here to say that making assumptions in an educational setting is not always a bad thing.I assume my students are smart - brilliant mostly. And given the chance, I know they can achieve everything in life that any other student can achieve. I assume they want to do this. Of course, my third graders come with lots less baggage than middle- or high-schoolers and a fraction of the peer pressure to not look too nerdy. That makes this assumption a lot more easy to keep.I assume that when I believe in my students, the expectation that they can and will succeed becomes a cornerstone for learning - one that both of us are responsible for.Angela Maiers tells us that two words - you matter - make a world of difference. I believe that. Through my thoughts and actions toward my students I believe that they will also believe it and come to find their inner strength, their core.And I assume that when students believe they matter, they can achieve whatever they want in spite of or because of things that happen outside of school.I assume, that given a chance to become involved in their child's learning life, a parent will do just that. Each September, I ask parents to tell me what their goals are for their child. Those goals are not that different from more affluent families. Just sometimes there are unique challenges that need a little work.I agree that stereotypical assumptions block us from helping our students to be all that they are destined to become. But the next time someone tells you to re-examine your assumptions about students, don't throw it all away. Keep on assuming those things that make expectations high. 

Vacation is a time to.... THINK!

This is a *short* vacation week as school holiday weeks go. I know that thought doesn't elicit much sympathy from the dreaded private sector :-)Usually I spend a lot of time being my compulsive self and trying to do all the school work I think I need to do while I have some time away from kids. I plan, I research, I read..... I obsess.This year, however, it has been different. I did not actually pick up a teacherly activity until this morning. This morning I worked on long-range Writing Workshop plans and short range weekly lessons for our return to class next week. I suppose I could obsess about some reports or research, but I'm going to play against my instinct and try to be less freakish about anticipating every nuance.I think I've got a game plan to last me for a bit. What got written seems reasonable. Instead of reacting or working quickly, I have a chance to consider and be more reflective and thoughtful about how to teach this, that, or the other.This week away is passing quickly; there are many projects to be completed around our house before the routine of school takes over again. And even in doing those mundane chores that I've put off since the Fall, I can spend some time in thinking.... about school, about learning, about being less nudge-y.Vacation for me, is a time to think.