September  3  1999

Having the lesson plans and ideas on the internet has been something in which I can take pride as well as a time saver. Someday when I have time to think things through I’m going to have to see if I can turn it into a web resource for other teachers so they can do the same thing if they want without spending all that time in the design.

Get them to analyze literature and think about what makes it work so that they can write their own stories. So far they each have an idea in "story map" form in a folder. We need to read other books as a class and discuss why the book works or why it didn't for them. Look at what happens in a book or story, use the SFA story for the week and ask the writer's questions  1. What is the plotline? 2. Does what happened make since? 3. Do I care? Why do I care? 4. What would I change? By the end of the week the class should have conferenced with their peers, and have written two criticisms of a book and a rough draft of the outline with the aim of improved sentence construction. Introduce the successful writer's beliefs.

Justin Olmanson

September 6 1999

 I look at belief one and want to call my mom and thank her for her countless hours of reading instruction. When I was 4 and 5 years old (the oldest) she already had 5 children one set of twins-. Was it 20, 80 hours of reading and sounding words out, then the weekly trips to the library where we would check out 10 or 12 books and read another 4 or 5 in the library while she was looking for her own books in the adult section.

 Never asked us to get a certain book, didn’t frown on comic books or say a book was too hard. Just let us pick and helped lift them up on the counter. Then I think about my kids, how many of their parents have even been to the library? Some have and you can tell. How do I make up that personal individual instruction time with them? I remember being bored in first grade in reading circle as other students plodded through three or four words. In fourth grade the teacher would give me a book and tell me to read to the class. Thirty minutes everyday, don’t remember what she did but I read to the class.

 There was nothing I was scared to read, no book to tough, no word worth looking up, it would come around again and after seeing it a few times a working definition would present itself.

 My kids are slaves to the dictionary, scared to keep reading when they don’t understand a word. What can I do to make them forget their fear and see themselves as capable, good readers? They need to see me taking risks, and their classmates also. They need to try and be met with success. More classroom talk and peer accountability.

 Justin Olmanson

September 10 1999

Chapter 4 of Framing Literacy talks about literacy and cultural diversity and how it relates to background knowledge and schema.

 If anyone needs activation of background knowledge it’s my kids. First on the cultural variance of this country in which we reside and more importantly (if they are distinguishable) according to administration they need acculturation and help in activating something that might link to the TAAS test.

 Still too early to complain or voice my concerns, need to demonstrate with my actions and accomplishments. Sad that people seem to be noticing a change in my abilities in the way my kids keep a straight line in the halls and whisper in the lunchroom. The whole teacher of the month thing makes little sense in that everyone is too busy with their own things to really know who to vote for, and outside of grade-level or too far down the hall and I have no idea how things are going.

 One thing I can do is activate the test schema as it relates to video games and cartoons. Most games and animated shows have some sort of quest at their core. The TAAS is a sort of a quest by the state to see who does well and who needs more work. They hear so much about the TAAS you would think that it is a living thing.

 If my students develop into successful readers the TAAS holds few pitfalls.

 Justin Olmanson

September 13   1999

 Tried SSR or FVR Free Voluntary Reading in the library today. I modeled my expectations and also modeled what I didn’t want them to do. I was crash and burn stimulus overload. Too many books, NO excitement and I couldn’t bring myself to quash it. I don’t know if I should have or not. What I do know is that the best thing may still be FVR in the classroom setting. Maybe I need to go the library every week and pick up 30 or 40 books and rotate them every week.

 My FVR time is about 10-15 minutes long at the present. I eventually want to extend it out to about 35 minutes. But we’ll work it in as we go.

 I love figure 4.1 in the Framing Literacy text. I don’t know if I fully understand it as of yet but that will come with discourse with other teachers and more reading. I like the idea of demonstrating strategies instead of teaching exact skills. Strategies being things you can take with you and apply to multiple challenges. Skills get you to tomorrow’s lesson plan, strategies take you past the scholarly horizon.

 Justin Olmanson

September 17 1999

I get the feeling that miscue analysis is a very elusive creature. I understand the basic concepts but it seems that you could give the test and collect the information and approximate a guess.

 I bought a book called Reading Process and Practice, a tome really, it has a section on miscue analysis so between the two of them I should have a good enough idea to try it.

 Another thought that I had was to put up a web page that you use for miscue analysis which would go straight to your e-mail account after you were done. I’m always getting ahead of myself. That’s months away if there’s time and I’m still alive and a teacher and retain even a little of my current energy.

 I like Rosenblatt’s Transactional Approach to Reading, it seems to parallel Keene and Zimmermann’s ideas in Mosaic of Thought. The idea that even though there was definite purpose behind the writing of a text, there is still room to negotiate that meaning to the present state of the reader, not to detriment of the work, but to create harmony between the reader, the text and a pivot-point in time. That explains why my favorite book of poetry remains Black Zodiac by Charles Wright, but my favorite poem jumps from page to page as I move through time, space, and experience.

 Justin Olmanson

September 20 1999

   The writing process seems to taunt me. It teases me with potential and then yanks it away. I taught 4^th grade last year and I never understood writing. I just thought everyone grabbed a pencil or keyboard and someone said begin and you did. Writing might not flow always but the need to write often does. My students and I would start something and then dump it the next day because I thought that we would make it farther and didn’t and the initial thrill would be gone. 

This year is going to be different. I go watch a fourth grade teacher do it and it seems to not only go slow but really at different speeds. Some working on their brainstorming, others on editing, a few typing it on the Mac. Last year I was not consistent in anything. This year I’m consistent in most things, but I worry about staying with writing. It is vital and I know it is, but it is so easy to let it slip into tomorrow and next week and then next grading period

 I want to try out Goldberg’s ideas from Wild Mind and I want to do writing roulette as well. Sometimes I see the good in TAAS writing. It makes teachers like me initiate a consistent writing process. I know that I need to do it to help find the joy my kids have or could have or will have with writing but it is still in the distance.

 Justin Olmanson

September 24 1999

 Bridging the gap between academic and functional / world literacy is an issue I have great interest in. We do not teach note writing or grocery lists, memos nor limericks, well maybe the last one we do teach at times but doesn’t that just seem a little out of place? We teach something which is almost totally without functional transference the limerick- and no work on writing and or describing driving directions. In my class, with my kids I want to change that.

 There are teachers who feel they need to have their kids begin every composition with "I am going to write a composition for my teacher" though I think it drives the creative spirit out of them, I can respect the ability to stick to it day after day, plodding along.

 Though most of my writing is heuristic, I see the need for balance in writing and see the many facets or faces writing can take, page 45 Framing Literacy.

 I need to find time to sit down and go over my teaching / development goals subject by subject and then two at a time then all at once to make as much of my teaching as possible logical and exciting.

 Justin Olmanson

September 29

Still struggling with writing, the principal is trying to get me to do the school newspaper. It means that I can use the scanner with my kids and also have a great color printer in my room, but the price is 20 or so extra hours per quarter compiling and printing the paper.

 What I really want to do is work on my classroom and maybe the school web page as I am also the webmaster. I am concerned that the added workload will cause my classroom to suffer.

 Looking at chapter five and fluency assessment / grouping puts most of my students in the fluent sector. N is still struggling; this student gets extra attention but has learned to tune out regular classroom instruction due to an apparent academic career of slipping through the cracks. Sometimes in math or reading if we start at the very basic elements of what we are doing and include N in the modeling / demonstration he lights up and participates. Somewhere in there though it seems like he gets lost again and the question again surfaces, am I slowing the class down? Or am I doing what I need to do so that everybody learns? 

 My question is what can I do better?

 Justin Olmanson