She had a voice like slow thunder and sweet rain. - Chicken Sunday
One Sunday at the table we watched her paper fan flutter back and forth, pulling moist chicken-fried air along with it. - Chicken Sunday
Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
I'm in love with YA author, Joan Bauer
It was the kind of room that forced you to make the bed and pick up your dirty clothes even though it was against your nature. - Rules of the Road
We are shouldering work, life, and Chicago humidity with the usual grace and sophistication. - Rules of the Road
"You know what I like most about waitressing? When I'm doing it, I'm not thinking that much about myself. I'm thinking about other people. I'm learning again and again what it takes to make a difference in other people's lives."
-- Hope Yancey, Hope Was Here
In minutes, I got every kind of sitter at the counter. I love watching people sit down. There are ploppers, slammers, sliders, swivelers, and my personal favorite, flutterers, who poise suspended above the seat and move up and down over it before finally lighting. -- Hope Yancey, Hope Was Here
She tends not to suffer in silence. -- Hope Yancey, Hope Was Here
Saw her walking up the welcome stairways, tossing her long, straight hair that was black like india ink. -- Hope Yancey, Hope Was Here
School.
It came up on me like indigestion. -- Hope Yancey, Hope Was Here
Tree's mother had been the time sheriff. -- Stand Tall p. 18
"You've got to hold on to the things you know to be true, set your mind to a higher place, and fight like a dog to keep it there. War can be so fierce, you can forget the good. Forget what you're about in this world, what's really important. There's always going to be somebody who wants to try to make you forget it. Don't let them." -- Grandpa, Stand Tall p. 71
We are shouldering work, life, and Chicago humidity with the usual grace and sophistication. - Rules of the Road
"You know what I like most about waitressing? When I'm doing it, I'm not thinking that much about myself. I'm thinking about other people. I'm learning again and again what it takes to make a difference in other people's lives."
-- Hope Yancey, Hope Was Here
In minutes, I got every kind of sitter at the counter. I love watching people sit down. There are ploppers, slammers, sliders, swivelers, and my personal favorite, flutterers, who poise suspended above the seat and move up and down over it before finally lighting. -- Hope Yancey, Hope Was Here
She tends not to suffer in silence. -- Hope Yancey, Hope Was Here
Saw her walking up the welcome stairways, tossing her long, straight hair that was black like india ink. -- Hope Yancey, Hope Was Here
School.
It came up on me like indigestion. -- Hope Yancey, Hope Was Here
Tree's mother had been the time sheriff. -- Stand Tall p. 18
"You've got to hold on to the things you know to be true, set your mind to a higher place, and fight like a dog to keep it there. War can be so fierce, you can forget the good. Forget what you're about in this world, what's really important. There's always going to be somebody who wants to try to make you forget it. Don't let them." -- Grandpa, Stand Tall p. 71
Monday, October 27, 2008
This sentence makes me feel good EVERY time I read it!
With a grin and a giggle, a hug and a whistle, we'd slap our knees and Mama would say: "Bless the world it feels like a tip-tapping song-singing finger-snapping kind of day. Let's celebrate."
- from Mama Had a Dancing Heart by Libba Moore Gray
- from Mama Had a Dancing Heart by Libba Moore Gray
Loooong sentences
If you have ever peeled an onion, then you know that the first thin, papery layer reveals another thin, papery layer, and that layer reveals another, and another, and before you know it you have hundreds of layers all over the kitchen table and thousands of tears in your eyes, sorry that you ever started peeling in the first place and wishing that you had left the onion alone to wither away on the shelf of the pantry while you went on with your life, even if that meant never again enjoying the complicated and overwhelming taste of this strange and bitter vegetable. - from The End by Lemony Snicket
American Chica by Marie Arana
This passage perfectly describes how I feel when I'm deep in Bookworld and am called out of it:
When we'd walk in from school we'd see her reenter in stages: the chin up, the quick blink, the realization that we were standing before her, and then our mother descending the staircase of her mind, peering down at us from some far landing of consciousness. She was there, but she was somewhere else, too, like a lynx with his nose in the wind, sensing trails that could call her away.
When we'd walk in from school we'd see her reenter in stages: the chin up, the quick blink, the realization that we were standing before her, and then our mother descending the staircase of her mind, peering down at us from some far landing of consciousness. She was there, but she was somewhere else, too, like a lynx with his nose in the wind, sensing trails that could call her away.
Some sentences my students stalked
Would anyone, either Jew or non-Jew, understand this about me, that I am simply a young girl badly in need of some rollicking fun? - from Ann Frank Beyond the Diary - submitted by Catalina
In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. - from Ann Frank Beyond the Diary - submitted by Asne
In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. - from Ann Frank Beyond the Diary - submitted by Asne
Saturday, October 25, 2008
From my friend, Danielle...
While in browsing in one of Quito's bookstores, I stalked this passage:
"You cannot pretend to read a good book. Your eyes will give you away. So will your breathing. A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper is in flames" --from Mister Pip
Wonderful, yes?
"You cannot pretend to read a good book. Your eyes will give you away. So will your breathing. A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper is in flames" --from Mister Pip
Wonderful, yes?
A Sentence from my Grandaughter, Kayden
"When my daddy drives, I go forwards, backwards, and sidewards," she smiled - demonstrating the effect by hurling her little four-year-old body around in her carseat.
A Few Sentences From "All Over but the Shoutin'" by Rick Bragg
He stops at my desk and leans against it. I do not remember exactly what he said but it was something to the effect of, "I know we said we would try to get you some gentle editing, but..." and my heart froze.
"... but we had to change the comma in your lead."
Instead I found my friends on the photo staff, a collection of delightful, smart, cranky, streetwise, and often fearless artists and weirdos who knew this city frontward, backward and sideways, and consented to let me ride along.
You do the best you can for the people left, a yard-fighting, teeth-gnashing, ugly-dog-raising, towel-stealing, television-praying, never-forgiving, hard-headed people that you love with all the strength in your body, once you finally figure out that they are who you are, and, in many ways, all there is.
"... but we had to change the comma in your lead."
Instead I found my friends on the photo staff, a collection of delightful, smart, cranky, streetwise, and often fearless artists and weirdos who knew this city frontward, backward and sideways, and consented to let me ride along.
You do the best you can for the people left, a yard-fighting, teeth-gnashing, ugly-dog-raising, towel-stealing, television-praying, never-forgiving, hard-headed people that you love with all the strength in your body, once you finally figure out that they are who you are, and, in many ways, all there is.
Some sentences stalked by my 5th Graders
But as Mr. Canker said, there is a book about everything if you only know where to look, and one day he went to Todcaster Library and began to read. - Which Witch - Dylan Morris
Two days went by before I actually learned what happened that night, because it was at supper on Friday that Aunt Millie said, "A fox got my turkey that was nesting by the Christmas tree." - The Midnight Fox - Carlos Javier Perez
"The sea monster!" I shrieked. "The sea monster!" Would they believe me this time? - Deep Trouble - Luis Fernando de Santiago
Then, blessedly, the skies would clear and his mood would lift, and he'd put to sea again in the Ida Penrose, leading his little fleet to the pearling grounds. - The Divine Wind - Catalina Scarone
I sing, and the sun hears my song and answers. - The Listening Silence - Asne Andersen
I hope you have a family business you can push him into when he leaves school because he sure as heck won't get a job anywhere else. - The BFG - Claire Griffiths
Early evening is a time when animals visit streams or places where water seeps out of the ground. - Fur, Feathers, and Flippers - Daniella Sarmiento
Just when you think everything is going swimmingly, somebody goes and throws a shark in the goldfish bowl! - Goodbye Grace? - Laura Rushton
She darted away without waiting for an answer and dashed to the bus. A Ghost in the House - Salvador Alvarado
But headmasters (and policemen) are the biggest giants of all and acquire a marvelously exaggerated stature. - Boy - Mabel Garcia
The dummy stared up at her, his painted eyes as dull and wide open. - Night of the Living Dummy - Antoine Aragon
Her hands flew up and she tumbled back onto the floor. - Monster Blood - Ricardo Ramirez
The plants appear in spring, when the winter - frozen seas break up, and ice is carried away by winds and currents. - Fur, Feathers, and Flippers - Sooji Kim
It was reddish-brown and hung in curls like springs that touched her shoulder and bounced as she walked. - Ramona the Pest - Andrea Vela
The Himalayas contain 100 times as much ice as the Alps and provide more than half of the drinking water for forty percent of the world's population, through seven Asian river systems that all originate on the same plateau. - an inconvenient truth - Daniel Escobar
A committee picked a simple but elegant design by James Hoban, a young Irish American architect. - The White House - Alejandra Mercado
Two days went by before I actually learned what happened that night, because it was at supper on Friday that Aunt Millie said, "A fox got my turkey that was nesting by the Christmas tree." - The Midnight Fox - Carlos Javier Perez
"The sea monster!" I shrieked. "The sea monster!" Would they believe me this time? - Deep Trouble - Luis Fernando de Santiago
Then, blessedly, the skies would clear and his mood would lift, and he'd put to sea again in the Ida Penrose, leading his little fleet to the pearling grounds. - The Divine Wind - Catalina Scarone
I sing, and the sun hears my song and answers. - The Listening Silence - Asne Andersen
I hope you have a family business you can push him into when he leaves school because he sure as heck won't get a job anywhere else. - The BFG - Claire Griffiths
Early evening is a time when animals visit streams or places where water seeps out of the ground. - Fur, Feathers, and Flippers - Daniella Sarmiento
Just when you think everything is going swimmingly, somebody goes and throws a shark in the goldfish bowl! - Goodbye Grace? - Laura Rushton
She darted away without waiting for an answer and dashed to the bus. A Ghost in the House - Salvador Alvarado
But headmasters (and policemen) are the biggest giants of all and acquire a marvelously exaggerated stature. - Boy - Mabel Garcia
The dummy stared up at her, his painted eyes as dull and wide open. - Night of the Living Dummy - Antoine Aragon
Her hands flew up and she tumbled back onto the floor. - Monster Blood - Ricardo Ramirez
The plants appear in spring, when the winter - frozen seas break up, and ice is carried away by winds and currents. - Fur, Feathers, and Flippers - Sooji Kim
It was reddish-brown and hung in curls like springs that touched her shoulder and bounced as she walked. - Ramona the Pest - Andrea Vela
The Himalayas contain 100 times as much ice as the Alps and provide more than half of the drinking water for forty percent of the world's population, through seven Asian river systems that all originate on the same plateau. - an inconvenient truth - Daniel Escobar
A committee picked a simple but elegant design by James Hoban, a young Irish American architect. - The White House - Alejandra Mercado
I realize
that I'm becoming a bit obsessive about Sentence Stalking, but I have never seen any one thing make such a difference in my students' reading and writing and in mine as well.
For the uninitiated, Sentence Stalking is that search for interestingly punctuated, precisely worded sentences that catch your fancy for one reason or another. Since becoming a stalker, I read more slowly - savoring the how and why of why a sentence is written in the way the author wrote it.
Our school - I teach at InterAmerican Academy in Guayaquil, Ecuador - has adopted sentence stalking in a big way. Our school is plastered with sentences harvested from our reading and written on sentence strips. Students pause and read. We take field trips around campus to find punctuation patterns or interesting figurative language that can be models for us in our writing. Sentence Stalking brings mentor texts down to the smallest level and can be used from Kindergarten to 12th grade. We're doing it. And we find, as teachers, that our writing is improving at the same time.
For the uninitiated, Sentence Stalking is that search for interestingly punctuated, precisely worded sentences that catch your fancy for one reason or another. Since becoming a stalker, I read more slowly - savoring the how and why of why a sentence is written in the way the author wrote it.
Our school - I teach at InterAmerican Academy in Guayaquil, Ecuador - has adopted sentence stalking in a big way. Our school is plastered with sentences harvested from our reading and written on sentence strips. Students pause and read. We take field trips around campus to find punctuation patterns or interesting figurative language that can be models for us in our writing. Sentence Stalking brings mentor texts down to the smallest level and can be used from Kindergarten to 12th grade. We're doing it. And we find, as teachers, that our writing is improving at the same time.
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