Normally over Winter Break, my big "me-time" outing would be going to a movie by myself in the afternoon, seeing something that neither Rich nor the kids would want to see, and which I would thoroughly enjoy partly because it's such an indulgence, to sit alone in a movie theater in the middle of the afternoon. However, that was obviously not happening this winter break, so I had to find a new way to indulge myself. The solution was to lose myself while following the recipe for a sausage-apple …
Phobia Story with Jamboard
I did this Jamboard as an example for my students, for a Creative Writing assignment. I have been working on creating new assignments that will engage them via distance learning. This one is done in steps. The first step is to chose a phobia and do some research. As my example, I chose alektorophobia, which is an intense fear of chickens. The second step is to create a jam board, with post-its about the phobia, and ideas for a protagonist who suffers from it, along with their ideas for setting, …
A Condensed History of my Last Four Years
A little over four years ago, I promised Pauline, my daughter who was six at the time, that we would soon have our first female president. Then, that damn New York Times election needle that kept moving in the wrong direction. I had a sleepless night and had to break it to Pauline the next morning that Trump would be our next president. I went to school and saw the scared, deer-in-headlights expressions on my students’ faces. They were sure that they and their families would be deported soon. …
Massive Human Error (a short story)
I’ve never been the type to carefully read instructions. I don’t have the patience. Or, maybe it’s more like most of the time, I don’t understand. I’m not a visual, step by step sort of person. I’ll just assume I know what I’m doing enough to figure it out, that through some combination of instinct, common sense and magic, everything will come together. That strategy worked in the Before-Times, back when there was room for human error because there had also been room for human interaction, …
Write about Fear
I thought this would be fun for Halloween. If you're a teacher and planning to use this for your class, you'll obviously need to press pause throughout, and give students writing time. Hope it works well! …