Johnny Port Aransas

One night I had a dream where I made a new friend named Johnny Port Aransas. I woke up laughing because he was such a friendly fellow with such a fabulous name and he came from my imagination... while I was SLEEPING! So, that day my family and I went to the garden store and purchased a beautiful seven-year old October Glory Maple tree to plant in our front yard. We decided to name him Johnny Port Aransas, of course.

The art that follows is in honor of that dream and all dreams brought to us by our imaginations that so want to show us all the emotions we have available to us, in this case humor and awe. It's also in honor of that day spent tromping through the garden store with three of my best people.

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Don't Read This if You Don't Like the Word Pee

Okay... so I think I nearly broke the toilet from plopping down on it so hard to go pee. WHY did I plop instead of coming in for my usual graceful landing? Because my best friend encouraged me to go to the gym and take her weight lifting class... and because I did it... and because she's so darn encouraging that I tried to show off how MOST people who don't go to the gym for four months would really stink their first time back... but not me! I decided that I should prove that I am a superhero who can skip the gym for four months and come in looking fresh and fit and strong as an ox... okay, okay... an ox that can lift a 2kg dumbell. I decided that these sleeping muscles could SURELY do just as many squats as that cute 60 year old woman in the front row whose gluteus maximus muscles look nice and bouncy. I'm just going to have to be deliberate about which chairs I go to sit in today. Spindly antique ones are definitely NOT my best option. ...

Undivided Self

Palmer describes two teachers, one who found joy and success in his career, and another who did not. He attributed the joyful teacher's success to the idea that he taught "from an undivided self." He says, "In the undivided self, every major thread of one's life experience is honored, creating a weave of such coherence and strength that it can hold students and subject as well as self." The other teacher, on the other hand, projected his inner warfare onto his students. The joyful teacher enjoyed craft, while the sour teacher enjoyed nothing. The joyful teacher was "enlarged" by his teaching. The sour teacher was diminished. As teachers we are either the joyful teacher OR the sour teacher. We have days, maybe even weeks, of being the joyful teacher and days of being the sour one. In my personal experience, when I am actually in the room teaching students I am the joyful one 95% of the time. When I leave the room and enter the rest of...

Altered Books and Journaling

We English teachers usually believe that the WORD, the combination of letters into meaning, is the most important tool in the box. In an effort to document my belief that it may be time to consider that there are other tools that help students make meaning out of their lives, out of what they read, out of what they think... I offer this slide show. Perhaps the literacy toolbox could be expanded. I say this knowing that some kids, like my oldest son, might balk... but also knowing that other kids, like my youngest son, would sing arias of found comfort and joy. Maybe next to the words and sentences, some kids could find color and shape and sticky-stuff... maybe cuttings and doodles and sketches... This slide show exhibits a visual reading journal using a traditional text entry and a webbed entry. It also shows some altered books.

The Days of Day

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