Anyone can teach four days a week, as for five? You know school is back in session when you face that first five-day week, a fact that had left me feeling like I had hit a brick wall when getting home Monday and Tuesday night. You close your eyes at 6:06 p.m with the intentions of getting a 15-minute power nap in and when you wake up, it's 8:46 p.m. That's the life of a teacher, or at least this teacher.
    Needless to say, I have been a bit behind on the diary this week, but I am feeling much more rejuvenated after a spectacular Wednesday with the students. Actually, my turn for the better began last night when I woke up around 9 p.m. and checked in on my email.
    A student of mine had sent me an email updating how seventh grade was treating her when she asked if I had ever seen the television show "Girl Meets World." I haven't yet seen the show, though I am aware of it as I was a big fan of "Boy Meets World" when I was in elementary school. Remembering that show got me thinking about the main character Corey, who was played by an actor name Ben Savage, whose brother was Fred Savage of "Wonder Years" fame.
    Long story short, whenever I think of the masterpiece that was the "Wonder Years" I remember the episode when Kevin and Winnie are dancing at a grade-school party to the Smokey Robinson and The Miracles song "Tears of a Clown".
    To hit my "turbo button" (a phrase that has been presented to school faculty this year), I listened to "Tears of Clown" on repeat for about an hour last night, which got me feeling good about the rest of week and set the stage for a productive Wednesday. 
    Here's the song and a cool video from 1970. Enjoy.

As for the reason you're here, see what's been happening in Room 307 this week by continuing on after the jump.

    It's the end of the first week (I know, I know, it was technically only four days), and I am feeling a bit like my nephew yesterday after seeing a light at the end of the tunnel below, so I am going to try to keep this post short, though I've been known to ramble (ask my students and see this run-on).

    In our morning literacy block, class began with a second close read of our obituary on Marcy Borders, the 9/11 "Dusty Lady", though her life was much richer and complicated than that one unforgettable moment.

    Students came together in groups and shared some of the vocabulary words that they were unfamiliar with during their first close read (see Day #4 Diary). I then read aloud the article to the students. During this second close read, we uncovered the meaning of words like sobriquet, talisman, grievous, spontaneous, ambitious and acrid.

    We also examined some deeper questions like the following:

• How did the events of 9/11 forever impact Marcy Borders' life?
• Could Marcy's stomach cancer have resulted from the exposure to chemicals that she experienced on 9/11? If so, how? Why would the cancer appear many years after 2001?
  
• What did Marcy mean when she said that she "...had a front-row seat to the end of the world?"
  
• Why might Marcy feel hurt and upset by being identified as the "Dust Lady" after 9/11?
• What were some of the tough questions that Marcy dealt with after 9/11? Were any of these inner conflicts surprising to you? Explain.
  

    Overall, while such a discussion was challenging at times, and quite honestly not always easy on the morning of the last day of the first week of school, the sixth graders generally brought deep thought and personal experiences to the second close read and did a solid job for our first close reading experiment of the year. Of course, on Monday, we will do a third and final close read of this obituary on Borders' life and start to conclude our exploration of 9/11.

    After about an hour of reading, students transitioned to social studies class, where they continued to learn about the events of 9/11 through the informational text Cornerstones of Freedom: September 11, 2001 by Andrew Santella.

    What was really cool about today's social studies class was that our principal Dr. Alvarez brought in her September 12, 2001, edition of the Chicago Sun-Times, which was, of course, the local newspaper the day after the 9/11 attacks.

    Each of the 10 groups in both social studies classes spent about 5 minutes flipping through the pages of this rich historical resource. As a teacher, it was really cool to listen to the kids ask questions about what was happening in the pictures, headlines and diagrams of the newspaper as its writers and columnists themselves tried to figure out and make some cogent meaning about what had just happened to our country.

    Especially exciting was one brilliant student, who clarified to her classmates how the towers fell down by using two pens to show how the heat from the crashed airplanes became too much for the steel girders, causing the higher floors to give out and leading to what the student called a "domino effect" of a collapse!

    Overall, having the newspapers in front of the students seemed to make the experience more realistic to them. As a teacher, it has inspired me to make some photocopies of the different articles from this day and use them next week as we begin to dive into the seven components of social studies and examine different types of text sources.

    Here are some pictures from this amazing social studies class.

Sixth graders officially got a taste of what their morning schedule will be with two-hour classes in reading/social studies and math/science.

During the literacy block students began class by taking 15 minutes to perform an independent and silent close look of the infamous "Dust Lady" photo (see below) from 9/11.

Sadly, the woman in this photo, Marcy Borders, died this past August 26th of stomach cancer. Borders was only 42 years old. She wondered if her exposure to airborne chemicals during the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers caused her cancer. She also lamented the "Dust Lady" label, which did not do justice the pain and difficulties that she experienced after 9/11, as my students came to learn later in class.

With a small copy of this photo in front of each of them, the students observed small details in each quadrant, interpreted and made inferences about the back story behind the image, and then reflected upon their immediate reactions to the photo. From there, students took about 5 minutes to break out in groups to share their most powerful observations, initial interpretations and personal reactions. We then pulled out into a whole-class discussion of the student's observations, interpretations and reactions, which I used to provide more context about the photo. For example, students wondered where this photo was taken. It was actually taken in the lobby of a nearby building moments after Borders escaped the South Tower, which would collapse only three minutes later!

After getting exposed to this photo, the students then performed a first close read of a powerful obituary on Borders' life.

Well, I definitely felt more tired at the end of day two than day one, though for good reasons as our sixth-graders were exploring some interesting concepts related to close reading and close looking.

In a combined reading/social studies class today, we shared what we thought close reading was and then clarified our understanding in more detail.

Overall, it was great seeing so many familiar faces today! I was really impressed with the sixth graders (specifically my homeroom 308) in the morning as all of the students showed up to listen, work and think. After sharing some of our summer happy moments, including canoeing trips to Michigan, water rides at Six Flags Great America and family reunions in Houston, Texas, and then diving into the many school-required forms, we were able to have a brief reading class.

In reading, I was happy to see that the majority of students did their summer reading of Tuck Everlasting and another required novel (Al Capone Does My Shirts; Zane and the Hurricane; Ninth Ward; or Summer of the Swans), and also turned in their required book reports. After I provided a very quick synopsis of what sixth-grade reading class will be like (there will be more information to come early next week), the students did a word association game to help familiarize themselves with close reading, a concept we will be exploring in relation to September 11th during the first week of school.

Essentially, the students worked in groups at their tables, dividing a shared sheet of looseleaf into four corners. For each corner, the students had to answer a specific question, as follows:

Corner 1: What do you first think of when hearing the term “close reading?”

Corner 2: How would you define close reading?
Come up with a group definition.

Corner 3: How does close reading work?
Describe the process.

Corner 4: What are the different close reading signposts?
List as many or all of the six as possible.

The results: students certainly remembered their close reading signposts but had some cobwebs when it came to what close reading was and how it worked, which we will cover in the coming days.

With that said, I have attached some of the student responses that really inspired me and showed that the kids were closer to close reading than they first realized.

My favorite response has to be this definition: "Close reading is like taking X-rays of a broken bone. You have to double check it and examine."

I never thought of close reading this way and love the analogy, which confirms to me how inspiring it is to be back around such great minds on a daily basis.

Here were the kids' thoughts, which we will review and clarify in class tomorrow.

Enjoy!

Well, I don't really have any photos of the classroom to add at this point as I am mainly touching up on some little things here and there. With that said, it's safe to say after this quite busy yet productive week that I am feeling a bit dazed like my nephew Sean when he woke up yesterday. Here's to a relaxing, rejuvenating and refreshing Labor Day Weekend, and a great start to the school year on Tuesday. 

Please don't call us the vainest teachers in all of our school. At the very least, we are ready for Open House and looking forward to seeing some familiar faces after thinking of our students throughout the summer.

I wish I had some before and after photos of the last 24 hours as my room looks completely different and is thankfully coming along quite nicely, with the desks all ready to go. As for that disaster of a storage closet, thank goodness for doors with locks.