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They Can Do What?

It was the end of the day and we’d just finished reading. As other students started packing up,  K. practically danced up to me, excitement sparking from every pore.

“Mrs. Hogan! Mrs. Hogan!” he exclaimed. “Did you know that hammerhead sharks can ride bikes and use parachutes!?!”

A brief silence ensued, as I pondered my response.

“Um… no, K, I did not know that,” I finally said. “Where did you learn that?”

“I read it in a book!” he beamed. “It was one of the “Who Would Win” ones!”

I paused again, debating how best to proceed. I’m more than prepared to admit I don’t know everything, and I learn interesting things from students all the time. Some of them are really quite surprising. In this instance, however, I felt pretty sure that some wires had gotten crossed.

I started slowly, feeling my way. “Wow! That’s definitely surprising. Do you know that when I read something in a book that’s really surprising, I often reread to make sure I understood correctly. Sometimes I’ve missed something or misunderstood something.”

“I have the book in my cubby!” he said. I’ll go get it!” He dashed away.

A few moments later he was back at my side. He immediately began to leaf through the pages of his book. Another student asked me something and I turned to talk with them. When I turned back, there was K, book in hand, sparks noticeably dimmed.

“Oh,” he said, looking up at me. “It says can’t.”  He pointed to the page and read aloud, “Things Hammerhead Sharks Can’t Do. They can’t parachute. They can’t sing like Elvis. They can’t ride a bicycle.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Small words can make a big difference when you’re reading.”

We had a moment before the buses were called for him to leaf through his book and show me a few of the amazing things that hammerhead sharks can do, but soon afterward, the book was back in his cubby and we were headed out to the buses.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since it happened. I know that I’m responsible for teaching K to read accurately and think about what he’s reading. Still, I feel a bit like I pulled the wings off of a butterfly. He had been practically floating along with delight, imagining a wonder-filled world with bike-riding, parachuting hammerhead sharks. There’s something so gloriously innocent about that (even as it raises a few pointed questions about critical thinking skills).

As his teacher, I couldn’t ignore his error, but wow, I hated being responsible for dimming down his glow.

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PF: Autumn Zeno

The past few weeks have been very busy for me and for autumn. I’m continually stopped in my tracks by the beauty around me. When I don’t have much time to write, I often use a photo for inspiration and mess around with a form. Limiting the options can be helpful. This time around I wrote a Zeno (8, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1 syllable count and the one syllable words rhyme) inspired by autumn’s ongoing show. Because I don’t want to give a false impression of autumn’s pace in my neck of the woods, I should note that this photo was from a few weeks ago. The trees are now bare along this stretch. They offer their own beauty, but no longer of the golden-lit variety.

Transmutation

late day light transforms the driveway
to cathedral’s
amber
glow
worship-worthy
autumn
show
ripe reminder
to go
slow

©Molly Hogan

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Tracey at Tangles and Tales. (For some reason my computer is refusing to post a link to text right now, so here it is: https://traceykj.com/joomla/index.php/its-like-what)

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Blame Autumn

I’m late today, but that seems to be the case with more frequency lately. I blame Autumn. Time and again, her drama stops me in my tracks. Case in point: along the river on my commute yesterday morning:

I mean, how can you not stop for that!?

Or the day before, in the same spot, when sunrise was just licking the tops of the trees and the river mist was doing its thing:

At any rate, I’ve been having loads of fun filling up my cup with autumn’s bounty. Then, I have the additional joy of creating image poems. Here are a few recent ones:

perched on live wires
a hawk surveys autumn fields
telegraphs intent

©Molly Hogan

Garden Drama

sunflowers’ autumn show
augmented by zinnia cameos
and sporadic cosmos applause

©Molly Hogan

Cosmetics

a basin of geraniums
atop the steps
of the old farmhouse

a splash of lipstick
on a wrinkled facade

©Molly Hogan

Here’s hoping that your autumn is also filled with blessings! This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Jama Rattigan at Jama’s Alphabet Soup. Be sure to stop by and fill your bucket with some poetry!

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Today’s Gift

Monday is Writing Club, and I have a small group of delightful kids. I’d been hoping that moving our meeting time to Mondays this year would help me draft some slices and blog more regularly. Last week it worked well, but today I wasn’t making much headway.  I’d started and stopped. Started and stopped.

I looked around the room. Everyone else was busy writing. I sighed. I glanced out the window. It was misting rain, but there was bright sun shining.

 “It’s rainbow weather!!!” I cried. “Do you all want to check if there’s a rainbow?” 

Heads popped up from notebooks. “Yes!” they all exclaimed.

Within a minute we were up and out of the room. We raced down the hall to the door and stepped outside into the misty rain. 

“Ah! Why is the rain so cold?” M. gasped. 

We immediately started scanning the skies. 

“There’s got to be a rainbow,” I said. “It’s perfect for one!” Suddenly I saw the faintest wisp of color. Pointing toward it, I exclaimed, “It’s not very bright, but can you see it?” 

“Where!? Where!?” they yelled, swiveling their heads around.

“Oh, I see it!” C. exclaimed. “I can see the green…and a little yellow…and definitely some of the red.” 

“There it is!” 

“Oh! There it is!”

“It’s a rainbow!”

Three of the girls ran forward onto the path, chanting loudly, “Rainbow!! Rainbow!! Rainbow!!”  They leapt into the air and spun about. The rainbow was so faint that you can’t even see it in the photo, but their joy was infectious.

We waited to see if it got brighter, but it didn’t. The rain eased, so we wandered back inside in the afterglow of delight.

“I’d never seen a rainbow before,” C. commented quietly as we reentered the classroom.  “Now I want to write about rainbows!”

And so did I. 

Addendum:
As we packed up to leave, I said, “Keep your eyes on the skies on the way home!”

We headed down the hallway to where parents were already waiting in the vestibule. Behind them rain fell again in big silver drops lit by the late afternoon sun. The kids excitedly were telling their parents about our rainbow sighting.

Glancing at the skies outside, I stated firmly, “There HAS to be a rainbow out there. It’s perfect rainbow weather! I’m going out with you as you leave to see if we can find one.”

We walked out of the school into brilliant light and rainfall…

and a huge, arcing double rainbow!

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PF: October Inklings Challenge: In Autumn

I’ve given up on finding a migrating geese photo after looking for much too long through my archives! I know they’re there…somewhere. Instead here’s autumn showing its glory alongside my driveway.

This month Linda had our Inklings challenge. Sharing a prompt from redroompoetry on Instagram, she invited us to “Find a poem you like, or one you don’t like. Write the first 6 lines of the poem. Under each line write your own response. Delete the original lines, use what you have as a beginning for your poem.”

This was a fabulous and productive prompt, and I found the process a bit addictive. I played around with a number of poems, thoroughly enjoying myself. Once removed from the original poem I found the responding lines to be fertile ground for tinkering. Here’s one I wrote in response to Rachel Field’s poem, which is a perennial favorite of mine.

Something Told the Wild Geese

by Rachel Field 

Something told the wild geese
It was time to go,
Though the fields lay golden
Something whispered, “Snow.”

Leaves were green and stirring,
Berries, luster-glossed,…

My response (which went in a different direction than I had anticipated):

In Autumn

As if a far-off warning bell had rung
arrowed masses depart in arcs across the sky
shot from summer’s bow
The orchard trees hang heavy with the harvest
Their leaves quiver in the chill-tendrilled breezes
holding autumn gold but briefly
before the release, the spiral downward
Meanwhile, the sweetness of berries
turns pungent on the vine
and the wild, keening call of the geese fades
Fog twists and rises amongst the tombstones

©Molly Hogan

Thanks so much, Linda, for a rewarding prompt. If you’re interested in seeing what the other Inklings did with it, check out the links below. Margaret also is hosting Poetry Friday this week.

Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche  (Click on this one to access Poetry Friday!)
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Catherine @ Reading to the Core

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Second Grade Vignettes

I’m having a wonderful start to the year with my new class! Here are two recent vignettes from second grade:

Vignette #1:

“Mrs. Hogan,” H announced loudly, his expression aghast, “I found something unexpected! There was a broken crayon on the floor!” 

His tone and volume caught the class’s attention, and the kids looked up. He held the two pieces of a fractured blue crayon in an accusatory manner. 

N. stood up, struck a dramatic pose, and announced in a stentorian voice (well, at least as stentorian as a 7 year old girl’s voice can be), “Good night, Blue Prince!”

S, a nearby student, commented in an aside, “I think you mean “Good night, Sweet Prince!” 

Without changing her pose or missing a beat, N. corrected herself, booming out, “Good night, Sweet Prince!” 

I was hard put not to applaud.

Vignette #2: 

L. put the dead snake body he’d found in his driveway under the document camera. After the initial oohs and aahs, we began having a lively discussion about whether or not it was a snake skin or a smooshed snake. I was pretty sure it was the latter, but L felt certain it was a shedded skin. We looked for evidence and several students reached out to touch the snake, turning it over and pointing to certain points of interest. 

L. announced with great authority, “If you’ve touched the snake, you’re going to need to wash your hands. Oh, and you don’t need to if you didn’t touch it.”

Another student commented, “Oh, yeah. It probably had rabies.” 

Several students took large steps backward and a few glanced at their hands and then rushed toward the sink. 

As the day was coming to a close, I opted not to dive into a convoluted discussion of rabies as a mammalian disease and the more likely salmonella risks and instead just took advantage of the motivation to hand wash. 

Note to self: consider clarifying this all at another date. Or not. 

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To Scone or Not to Scone

This is the first time I’ve managed to start writing an SOL post since school began. Where did all those good intentions go? Clearly they are not paving the path that I’m on, as the bumps and ruts remain numerous, requiring focus, swerves, and detours as I move along my way. Not to mention time to pull over and rest my eyes!

Last Friday we had our first Lattes and Lit meeting, which is our monthly before-school staff book buzz group. We come and share what we’ve been reading, swap books, and basically wallow in book talk and book love. It’s delightful! We started this a little over a year ago and it’s quickly become one of my favorite things. Usually I try to bake something to share and add to the festivities.

Last Thursday night though, I was in bed by 7 pm and asleep by 7:30. I hadn’t packed my lunch (always a night before in my life!) and I had even forgotten to put in my retainer. Exhausted doesn’t begin to describe it. Needless to say, I hadn’t baked anything. When I woke up around 4:15, I felt so much better. I knew I was already behind though–Friday’s planning had some large potholes in it, the group meets in my room at 8:00 which means my morning work time was truncated and I still had emails to respond to, lunch to pack and lots of other odds and ends to tend to. I got up and started the day.

At about 5:30 I came up for air. A sudden thought intruded. You know I could probably still make a batch of scones if I got moving. My mind hurried through the steps and the time involved. If I got the scones in the oven by 6, they’d be out by 6:15 or so and I could still head to work at 6:30. I debated with myself for a few moments. Did I want to rush? Did I want to make a mess and clean up? Did I really have the time?

Within moments, I had made my decision. I turned on the oven, grabbed flour, sugar, salt, butter, and baking soda and a mixture of baking cups. I dug out the chocolate chips, the dried cherries and the turbinado sugar. I lost myself in a whirl of measuring, chopping, mixing, etc. I was in baking flow, and it felt so good! Within 20 minutes or so, my scones were in the oven, the smell of baking was in the air, and I was smiling.

Hmmmm….could I make another batch? I mean people like having choices… I calculated. If I left home at 6:45, I’d still be at school by 7:15 which would give me a solid 45 minutes to get ready. I ran through the day in my head. Could I do it? Throwing caution to the wind, I optimistically decided I could. I mean, everything was already out! So, I zested some lemons, chopped some ginger and the next batch was soon ready to go.

As I baked, I realized how good it felt to be doing so. I absolutely love to bake, and don’t do so much these days as I simply don’t want to eat it all. For me, baking is both relaxing and fulfilling. It calms and centers me, and I also love to share what I’ve baked. It’s a win-win for sure! Making scones was definitely the right choice last Friday!

side note: When I searched my blog t to see if I’d already written about Lattes and Lit, I found a post entitled Baking. Clearly I have linked the two in my mind. As I reread it, I discovered that I was once again realizing something I’d already realized before, but somehow managed to forget. This time around there was a bit more rush around the edges, but still, the basic tenet was true: Baking comforts and connects me. It’s also a lot of fun.

In my decision to cut back the calories, I’ve also cut back on a source of joy. I think I need to reconsider this one.

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PF: Kenning

This month Margaret Simon posed our Inklings challenge. She asked us to write a kenning poem, and directed us to the Poetry Foundation’s explanation of kennings: “A figurative compound word that takes the place of an ordinary noun. Many kennings rely on myths or legends to make meaning and are found in Old Germanic, Norse, and English poetry, including The Seafarer, in which the ocean is called a “whale-path.” (See Ezra Pound’s translation). “The Oven Bird” by Robert Frost also includes examples such as “mid-wood” and “petal-fall.””

Here’s what I came up with:

In Praise of the August Bee

As light shifts
and lingering blossoms blaze
in heat-scorched fields,
you, thrumming honey-maker,
continue your work
undaunted.

Oh, blossom-diver, 
your advance is marked
by the dip and bend of stalks
and their speckled shadowdance
over thirsty ground.

You, benevolent thief, 
collect your autumn-gold 
leaving no trace,
merely the echo of your buzz,
and the soft petal-drop
of blossoms in your wake,
along with the promise
of future sweetness.

©Molly Hogan

If you want to see what the other Inklings did with this challenge, click on their links. Catherine won’t be participating this month and Heidi may not be either. You can still enjoy their most recent posts :).

Mary Lee @ A(nother) Year of Reading
Linda @A Word Edgewise
Margaret @Reflections on the Teche 
Heidi @my juicy little universe
Catherine @ Reading to the Core

I also went down an apian rabbit hole and discovered an ancient Anglo Saxon Bee Charm used to prevent swarming. I was charmed by it and delighted to notice that it used a kenning!

Sitte ge, sīgewīf,   sīgað tō eorðan,
næfre ge wilde   tō wuda fleogan,
beō ge swā gemindige,   mīnes gōdes,
swā bið manna gehwilc,   metes and ēðeles.

Settle down, victory-women, sink to earth,
never be wild and fly to the woods.
Be as mindful of my welfare,
as is each man of border and of home.

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Patricia J. Franz at her blog, Reverie. Be sure to stop by and gather up some poetry treasure!

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Thoughts on Wonder

Last week Tabatha Yeatts shared a video of a performance by Yoann Bourgeois. As anyone who knows me knows, I rarely watch videos or movies. Very rarely. I’m not even sure why I clicked on this one (well, other than my abiding faith in Tabatha to share amazing and thought-provoking things). At any rate, I did click and I was simply transported. This video is just … Wow! I encourage you to make a little time to watch it (Warning–It is a over 6 minutes long.) and to turn on the volume when you do so.

It’s amazing, right!?

After I watched the video, I watched it again. And again. I forwarded it far and wide. I determined that I was going to share it with my students once the school year started. I was amazed by how evocative it was, how every moment seemed to reveal something new. I had so many questions but mostly I just wanted to experience it over and over. It made me think of the human condition. Of struggle. Of resilience. Of Grief. I thought about writing and context and the power of zooming in and out, revealing less and more. I wanted to know what students wondered about it. Part of me wanted to read about the artist’s intent, but my stronger urge was to let this piece of art speak to me on its own. Perhaps later I’d investigate…

And then, after watching the video, one of my sisters texted me:

I felt like someone had smacked me in the face. Immediately I questioned my experience and the wonder I had felt. Was it AI? Was it fake? Was I a naive sucker?

And it struck me that AI is undermining or assaulting wonder. Wonder sparks creativity and hope. It unites us. But, how often have you watched something recently and been moved by it in some way, only to discover that it’s been artificially generated? Some things are obvious, but others feel like a set up. A trick. They lead us to doubt the very things that have inspired us.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since that exchange. While I’m certain this performance is not AI generated (I say that with a small niggle of doubt…how certain can I really be of something I’m watching on the internet?) AI encourages people to be dismissive, rather than receptive. The fact that my certainty has that niggle of doubt is symptomatic of the problem: The whole idea that something can easily be faked fundamentally erodes our experiences. It invites doubt and cynicism rather than wonder–at least when viewing things on line. Unfortunately that’s where many of us gather information these days–myself included.

For now, I’ve decided that the antidote to all of this is to immerse myself in the immediate wonders that surround me. To ground myself in my surroundings. AI can’t manufacture the monarch that stops to feast on the cone of the echinacea. It can’t create the fog that swirls along the beach, hiding and revealing all the landmarks along the way. Or the smell of sun-baked pine on a forest trail.

Still, that whiplash journey from wonder to doubt has left me deeply disturbed. As someone who deeply values the power of wonder, I’ll continue thinking about how to protect and nourish it for both myself and for my students.

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PF: August on my mind

Something’s coming…

The sense of time passing is never keener than in mid-August. Well, at least not for me, and I assume, for other teachers who are not yet back in the classroom. The days are bittersweet as we seek to squeeze every juicy moment out of them, even as they pass too swiftly. You can smell change in the air.

I’ve been writing a lot about time and August in my journal, and it’s nice to know I’m in good company with Sylvia Plath and Mary Oliver.

Ah, August…

For Tuesday’s Slice of Life, I wrote about my fascination with the hay bales in the fields, and shared some musings from my notebook:
“As fall speeds toward me, I feel a bit like that about my summer. It’s like I’m bundling up all my experiences, those bright sweet spots of summer, and neatly tucking them away. As if I’m counting on them to sustain me and nourish me through the coming months.” (Click here to see the full post.)

Here are some other notebook musings:

In August

Cicadas thrum
like a metronome
marking
time’s passing

And then I turned toward my beloved limerick form to try for something a bit more light-hearted:

In August there once was a teach
who pushed thoughts of school out of reach.
Looming tasks she eschewed
and as e-mails accrued,
she took herself off to the beach!

©Molly Hogan

Wishing you the best of Augusts and plenty of time to go enjoy this week’s Poetry Friday Roundup, hosted by Denise Krebs at Dare to Care.