June 5, 2008 Scribe: Ariana Morgan
I, Ariana Morgan, scribe for the day, do solemnly swear to be observant, attentive and objective in my recording. Today, June 5, 2008 we officially began at 9:30 while we awaited our beloved former scribe, Wilfredo. In the interim, Ellen (DR. Pratt) suggested we comment and reflect on yesterday’s activities. The discussion focused mainly on tomorrow’s potluck lunch, food always being a favorite topic. Abimael volunteered his wife to cook but she declined. There will be a sign up sheet for all. As we argued over “pan con ajo” or “keeping it light”, Wilfredo entered. We tried not to act anxious so Ellen gave us a “sneak preview” of next week. She enticed us with upcoming activities such as our guest speaker, Linda Rodriguez. We got excited about planning our fruit and vegetable personas for the event. I pondered the banana.
At last, Wilfredo in his resonant voice read his humorous and descriptive account from June 4rth. I really see Wilfredo in a different light now as he peppered his account with many personal names and details. I decided to be more attentive. Wilfredo and Jennifer, (in the words of my new friend, Peter) have raised the bar on “scribing”. Ellen informed us of our upcoming “teleconferencing” which I look forward to because it makes us sound real high-tech. Then Maria, from Wisconsin, introduced herself and moved right in to a discussion of her experiences and the “hot” topic of bilingualism. She’s not as shy as I thought. After all, she’s part of the Walks’ contention. Peter, in his usual inquiry-driven mind, posed questions challenging some of the practices of the public school system. Matias, the guy who cuts letters, came to his rescue. Inevitably, the topic of politics interfering with effective classroom teaching came up. Ellen did not waste the opportunity to suggest that these “burning questions” should be posted and maybe even provide the groundwork for publishing and ultimately lead to educational reform. She is still so idealistic! I love it!
Then, we discussed the alignment of the curriculum across the grade levels. Abie declared the floor making 3 strong points about the challenges of teaching in public school without administrative support. Melissa interjected that we need to be proactive rather than disempowered about these problems. (Voice vs. bitching) The solution is to document all these conflicts in writing. Peter offered his “Crap vs. What we want” activist model that Ellen seemed to like. This led to discussion on institutionalized racism and “sapientes”. It was suggested that teaching native speakers Spanish was also difficult. The tone of the debates became serious until a break was called.
Feeling rested, we returned to prepare for the Poetry Demo by Jennifer Gomez, who presented William Blake’s “The Lamb”. Ellen reminded us to observe the Critical Friends guidelines. Jennifer really packed an incredible amount of research and info into her presentation based on reader-response, one of my personal favorites. She used good examples and elaborated on her Power Point presentation. Then as we posed as young ESL college students, we gave our responses. The “teacher/students” really became engaged in interpreting the poem and responding. Everyone enjoyed the discussion, time constraints being the only real problem. In small groups we read our responses. Many, such as Ellen’s were philosophical and religious in overtones.
Then we turned our attention to the Multiple Intelligence samples that Jennifer’s students had made. We discussed evaluation and rubrics in reference to this activity. Melissa, in her Virgo mind-set brought us back to “authenticity” and the “Author’s Chair”. Hark, is that the lunch bell?
Everyone returned from lunch and prepared for the infamous and empowering “Author’s Chair” while Aida read her peer response, Melissa read a tribute to her 1 year old son, Kalaiah and Madeline reflected on her moving experience at summer camp. Melissa and Ellen clarified the purpose of “the chair”. After much “revolu”, we formed impartial groups to give the feedback of our memoirs. In my group, Zenaida, Wilfredo, Madeline and I read and responded to each other’s writings following the guidelines. This collaborative effort was very satisfying and the time flew by when Melissa reminded us to gauge ourselves on our time limit.
We finally transitioned ourselves for the final event, The Book Talk by Melissa and Ellen which got a little heated and political. Both facilitators tried to steer it back to salient points to no avail. Politics had reared its ugly head. So, we emoted about the situation in PR. There were some relevant and thought provoking pieces but I feel as if we lost the verve. Ellen did state one point that we should remember, “Writing is not a subject!” Melissa stated that all these issues were not exclusive to PR and they both listened politely while the group went off on their tangent. I was getting fuzzy by this time and was elated when Melissa reminded us of the time and the need to write it all down in our journals. We really managed to cover a lot of ground today.