Digital Sea

Move?

I'm seriously considering relocating to a near-big-city location.  This leaves only three reasonable locales for me.  This would be the ideal space to explain such a statement, but I'm not 100% ready to show my cards yet.

I'm taking this writing thing to a whole new level (for me).  For once, I'm taking it very seriously.  I've gotten some excellent advice and direction.  It looks like I've got my "one shot," my "one opportunity."  So, I think Marshall Mathers would be disappointed if I didn't "mom's spaghetti" take advantage of it.

All kidding aside, I really just wanted to clarify: I honestly realize that I'm just fortunate to have a couple of things.  First off, I'm lucky to have a story.  For many reasons--most of which come at the advice of someone within--and much more knowledgeable about--the writing business, I'm not going to reveal much about my "story."  The point is, I have something to write about, and I think it's something more meaningful than average.

...sounds pretentious, but I guess we'll find out.

Secondly, I'm lucky to have had a couple of professors in college--and one in particular for pushing me to take on Professional Writing as well as English--who taught me some things that helped my writing and my character.

Even if nothing comes from this project that I'm taking on, at least I'll be having fun, character-building experience.

_____________

Still listening to Blackalicious.  Check it out.

Looking Sideways

I want to take a minor sidestep from the main focus of this blog and discuss another important matter: writing.  I probably haven't felt better the past couple months.  I've been doing some serious writing... for me.  Not writing in the sense of scribbling together press releases or emails for work.  I've been finding myself enveloped in my Macbook from approximately 7PM to 1:30AM every night, and, to be honest, it feels damn good.

Since I don't want this space to be viewed as just another cheesy "Guess What I'm Doing" blog, I'll try to make some sense of this.  Almost immediately, my mind wants to justify my make-shift happiness to passion.  That seems a little pretentious, and I'm not sure if that's all of it.  Besides, I have always LOVED to write, and it's not like I haven't been doing it--just not as often and in a different format.

When I was student teaching at Moravia--which was, overall, an excellent placement--I had one student who didn't "place" well in the class.  Friends?  Nope.  Ambition?  Negative.  Hobby?  Not that I saw.  Anger? Not that type of kid.  Good grades, you ask?  Not so much.

I couldn't put my finger on this student.  I wasn't sure what was really going on...

The best most important thing she did was journal writing; a normally standoffish, distracted girl consistently wrote feverishly in her 8 x 4, black and white, $1 notebook.  Damn, I couldn't get this girl to write a story (in any format she wanted--video, music, comic, etc. etc. etc.) on any topic she wanted... But she'd write in that journal like she was trying to create a fire.  Because I'm a man of my word--mostly--I didn't read many of her posts.  I do, however, know that she was writing about something she was excited about.  That's an over-generalization, but I'm not about to try to capture the zeitgeist of an tenth-grader from Upstate New York.

Now I'm back to the classic "children want to write about things they're passionate about" cliche.  But I guess it's a cliche for a reason.

That drawn-out story was used simply for this: I'm excited about something enshrouded within my writing.  I don't know if I know what IT is yet, but I feel like I'm getting close.  Yowzer.

Reading
Charles Bukowski's Slouching Towards Nirvana

Listening
Blackalicious, A2G EP

Impending Doom?

Right now, as I'm trying mercilessly to find an ideal place to live and start my career, I'm working for a home service company (yes, home service = plumbing) in my home town.  To make make my job description seem a little more precise, I'll just say that I'm the Marketing Department for this company.

I really enjoy doing this; this is mostly because I love to write and love doing print and web design.  The majority of the work that I'm doing for this company is a juxtaposition of these two--in one way or another.  I even get to teach too!

That being said, most of my days keep me pretty busy (entertained--and I'm not writing this in a snarky way; like I said, I really enjoy this), so I don't have to much time to "worry" about the "bigger" problems that I have in my life.

I say "problems" like I'm a child-soldier in Uganda; I really mean "problems" in a more suburban context.

Basically, my for-now job is keeping me occupied during the day, but I have nothing specific to distract me after work.  Sometimes I even work later without remuneration for an *ahem* unknown reason.  This thought-bubble workspace of a blog may be serving that same purpose.  Maybe it'll be productive avoidance now.

Ultimately, I'm not scared of teaching. No Way.  I've spent a lot of time and have had a lot of fun teaching middle- and high-schoolers.  It's the whole moving-on and fear-of-the-unknown thing that has me spooked.  I feel like I'm searching for something that defies definition.

Humph.  I guess this is what it's like to be... "normal."

Reading
Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find

Listening
Album: Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Song: Radiohead, "Hail to the Thief"

Changing Venue

Recently I've been writing for pleasure.  I've had a story that I've wanted to write... for me.  This is a story that may be able to exemplify a lot of interesting situations that may have relevance to a lot of other peoples' lives too.  Needless to say, I've been neglecting this blog--because of the obvious difference in genre between the two.  However, I've been thinking about it a lot lately, and I really don't think that these two topic-points of my life should be separated entirely.

It'll behoove me, in general, to keep this blog focused mostly on my forays into the teaching-world, but I did want to mention my "secret life."

The next couple of months will be--undoubtedly-- the most telling of my life.  It'll be a character-building roller-coaster ride of confusion, decision, madness, emotion and fear.  I'm looking forward to it (And I'll use this space as a passive-aggressive way to justify and hide from said things.).

Besides...

This was always my favorite blog.  Admit it; it's rad.

Also, I've also picked up the drug-like habit of posting to Twitter regularly.*  Follow me here.

*And by "regularly" I mean excessively. :-)

I Miss You, Blogging

It's been a while since I've been here.  Most of my writing energy goes into student teaching and the student teaching blog.  It's not like I haven't been blogging; I've just been forced to neglect this one.  I'll be back, though... with a vengeance.  Seems so long since my month-long blog binge. 

For now, all you'll get is a favor.

I've been working on my teacher ePortfolio, and I would love some feedback.  Here's the URL: www.raymondhedrick.com.

If you have any suggestions, criticism, anything... let me know.  It'd be greatly appreciated.

It is password protected, so if you want to help me out, leave me a comment or send me an email, and I'll give you the passwords.

Thanks.

SOS!

I posted this on my student teacher blog but was hoping to get a response here, if possible:

Hey, Folks, maybe you can help me out?  I was planning on making a book for all of the students–a book with all of the one-act plays that they have written this term.  It was going to be my parting gift to them.  I was really excited about it.

Here’s the thing: I went to Staples yesterday (to see how much it would cost to have 60 books bound), and they told me $700.00!  Wowzer!  I can barely pay my rent; I definitely can’t be spending that much money on a “going away” gift.

Does anyone have any ideas?  I wanted to give them something tangible.  I could just publish them on the web, I guess, but I wanted to give them somehting that each one of them could keep (not just the students with web access).  This may be my only option, but I’m anxious to see if any of you have any ideas…

Am I way off here?  Is everyone else giving the students and host teacher a little parting gift?  Let me know… STAT!

Cheers!

For A Minute There, I Lost Myself

It's hard to be a blogger and a teacher.  But, since I love both, I know I'll make it work. :)

First observation went well today, I think.  We did a WebQuest in class.  I think the students were into it; I was.  Take a look.

My friend, Andy, is coming to visit.  That will be a good break for me.  I went to bed at 1AM last night... and work up at 4am.  After a short cat-nap, I'm ready.

Here's the URL for my WebQuest.  One video doesn't work... going to fix that for Monday.  Let me know what you think.

Cheers.

Not THAT Word

I needed to make time for this tonight. 

It's been a hectic couple of weeks: not a this-sucks-I-can't-breathe hectic but more of a I'm-having-a-blast-but-am-super-tired kinda' hectic.  Student teaching is still going really well.  It's challenging to keep the students interested, having fun and really learning something relevant to their lives and future education (high school and above).

So far so good, though, I think.  There are a couple of things that I'm trying right now that I'm not sure if they'll be successful yet or not.  I've decided to write about them here for my own sanity.  If they don't work out, then this post will remind me of why I tried to do it in the first place.  Anyway, these will need some talking about, so I'll do one per post.  OK, so... here it goes:

The first risky practice I've implemented is with vocabulary.  For the first two weeks, the vocabulary words I had to teach the students were from a list that my host teacher and the other English teachers in the building had put together.  They wanted me to use one of those little orange vocab books that I used in high school.  I didn't like those books as a student, so I'm sure I won't like reading them as an adult.  I decided to ditch them.  Ms. B understood.

I really just had the students create their own definitions for the words, and then I incorporated them into mostly every lesson that I did.  I think that I did a pretty good job of putting them in context, and I'm thinking that the students are really "getting it."  That is, I think they know what the words mean.

I'm still not happy with this.  So, yesterday, I had a heart-to-heart with the students.  I basically just told them that I wanted to teach them words that they cared about: words that they want to know the definition of, words that they think will help them. 

So, here comes my idea.  I decided to write "Vocab List" on one of the often neglected panels of the blackboard.

Every time they come across a word that they don't know the definition and would like to know it, I'll have them write it on the board.  Hopefully, by the end of this week--we'll start the new list on Monday--I'll have a list of ten or so words that we can use for their vocabulary.

I'm really not sure if this is going to work, but it's just a feeble attempt for me to keep things in context.

So far I have three words on the board.  After one full day, I don't think that's too bad.  The words are as follows:

"tedious"
"pacifist"

I know, I know... that's only two.  Here's where it gets tricky.  When you do things like this, there are certain repercussions.  One of my most respectful students took me aside and asked me if he could add the word "queer" to the board.  I was shocked to hear this from him because, at first, I honestly thought that he was just trying to gain some attention.  That wasn't the case.  He confided in me that he heard one of his parents' friends say that one of his parents was being "ignorant" for using the word queer.  My student then heard his parents' friend say that they were using the word wrong and he was really curious what the true meaning of the word is.

As of right now, I'm going to play it by ear.  It'll be tricky, especially considering I had another student yell the word "faggot" today in class...

I'm going to see how many words I get and et ceterea.  Just some more food for thought.  Any ideas?  What do you think about all of this?  Cheers.

A Whole New Meaning to the Word "Work"

Something really awesome happened today in class.  One of my students--one that I hadn't really connected with (or so I thought)--confided in me.  This 8th-grade girl told me that she wanted me to read her book.  She told me that it means a lot to her and asked if I would read it.

I would be honored, are you kidding me.

So here it is--well, a picture of it anyway.  This young girl has really produced fifty-something pages of material.  It's really impressive, and I'm honored that she wanted me to read it.

I think I know why she gave me this honor: our journals.  I think I've done a good job at making the journals a place where students can write anything and feel comfortable with it.  Sometimes I'll start them with a prompt:

For example, today, I wrote this on the board:

"The course of true love never did run smooth."
--A Midsummer Night's Dream

So I then tried to relate the quote to the students, spoke a little about relationships and love.  Then I gave them 7 minutes to write about the quote in their journals. 

Because this isn't something that they're truly interested in--hey! I'm honest--they write the bare-minimum then daydream for the rest of the time.  Well, instead of having them daydream, I ask them to fill in the time when they're done writing about anything.  I mean... ANYTHING.

I told one student--to make the point that they can write about anything--to write about how ugly my tie was.  I recommended to a young girl to write to me about her favorite band (she had scribbled the logo all over her binder). 

Now, instead of getting a bland response about love (which we'll discuss and argue about later), I get over a page of carefully thought-out response (on all sorts of subjects).  It's really great.  Really great.

Some of the responses I get in the journal are priceless, and Miss Burgess agrees that they are incredibly effective; it's like pulling teeth to get some of these students to write a sentence or two.  Students get excited to write in their journals now... not too shabby, huh.

We're going to start doing some cool tech stuff too (for those who were concerned that I wasn't being techy enough... you know who you are).  No, seriously, it is important to have the students create and collaborate.  I have plans for both.  The wiki will come in early October (for the plays they are going to create and perform--I have the auditorium booked and everything... PARTAAY!), and we'll be weaving in important apps throughout.

Whew... that's a long one. Cheers.

Oh, and by the way... you can check out some pictures of my classroom on my Flickr page.

So Perfect... Almost

I really can't describe it: my first week of student teaching.

It's been surreal.  Everything went so well.  My students are incredible; my host teacher is "da bomb;" the staff has been super helpful; my lessons have been successful.

There have been some interesting developments, though.

This morning, before even the homeroom bell rang, I had a student run in hysterics!  She hurled herself into the corner of a room and started screaming "I WANT TO GO HOME! I WANT TO GO HOOOMMMEEE!"

This is what was going through my mind:

A. Oh. My. God.
B. Where is Miss Burgess!

There is definitely no schooling that could prepare a person for something like that.  I get to school annoyingly early--I don't know, I just like to be early.  So, I had no idea how to handle this (considering Miss Burgess wasn't in yet).

Of course I walk over to her and try to calm her down initially.  I just wanted to ask her what the problem was.  Between a mouthful of tears and mumbles, I heard something along the lines of "she said she was going to kick my ass because my shoes looked like hers, and her boyfriend's going to kick my ass because I told him to layoff with splashing people with water."

So because I didn't know how to handle this, I decided to use my instincts: change the subject.  Before I could do this, I had to calm her down.  SO, I fabricated this story (yes, completely made up a story) about how something similar happened to me recently.  I told her that people can be "jerks."

I then promptly steered her towards my desk.  I told her there was something I needed to show her.  Then, without a clue what to do, I improvised.  I grabbed one of the many YA lit books on my desk and told her that I thought she would like it.

After about two minutes, I got her talking about other things; the situation was at hand. Phew.

I have no idea if this is a good thing to do or not, but I sure am happy she didn't have to run out of the room or freak out, etc.  Any ideas on what I should have done differently?

One last thing...

Like I said, I brought in all of my YA Lit texts (the ones I had in Cortland; I'm going to get the others tomorrow).  I book-talked a handful of them and put around a sign-out sheet.  By the end of the day, I had kids basically fighting over books.  They were excited, and Miss Burgess was happy!  We even put a list of the ones they were fighting over in the library.  They'll be there next week! 

I can't describe the feeling of seeing those kids so excited... I love this.  Cheers.