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This is the Gold Star by our light switch in #Room407. Purchased at Goodwill for a quarter, it is a symbol of affirmation for our students as they leave each day. For two months, I watched as students would touch, tap, or gently palm the star as they left. But, then, one day. . . 
I came back after an absence. I turned on the light switch to find the Gold Star still on the wall but fractured. I was very upset. I felt as though a positive initiative on its way to new tradition had failed. All that held the Star together was the sticker and Command Strips.
I brought the fractured star home and I have kept it in this state for a few weeks now. Students have been upset. They wanted to know when the star would come back. I just didn’t know. Could we put it back and not acknowledge it’s having been broken? I couldn’t see how we could.
I'll break down this collage inspired by @halseanderson's SPEAK in the next few tweets. #SpeakLoudly #DisruptTexts #Room407 #THIS407
@halseanderson First, I want you to know that this "exquisite corpse" (some of you might call these floor or table "storms) came together in ten minutes. Tops. From one brand new magazine delivered yesterday (I didn't want you to think I had been sitting with this and pre-composed in process.
@halseanderson Artist friend Melissa Sweet asked me about "exquisite corpses" in the classroom yesterday. I had been thinking about floor storms in the past couple of weeks. Artists. In community. We seem to know how to tap into something latent in another. The question/invitation is the tap.
@FletcherRalph has a new book coming in September from @HeinemannPub @HeinemannPD (and I've pre-ordered, friends). The idea of the book has got me thinking and making this morning. Here is a quick collage to share and an idea to share. It will take a few tweets. #Room407 #THIS407
@FletcherRalph @HeinemannPub @HeinemannPD There used to a monthly magazine, MENTAL FLOSS, that I would pick up from stands. One of the features of the magazine was something called "1006 Words" which was really like a synthesis of ekphrasis and the 6-Word movement (inspired, according to folklore by Earnest Hemingway).
@FletcherRalph @HeinemannPub @HeinemannPD This is a quick collage I threw together this morning using an old Subaru ad, a crisp, beautiful backdrop of a bird feather and two phrases that seemed to work with the image. All of this is placed in an IKEA frame I got for a dollar.
Some English 11 pieces (Dear, __________") inspired by @JasonReynolds83's "Dear, Dreamer" this week in #Room407. You can find the ten-minute film at Vimeo.
@JasonReynolds83 Some have asked for the link to @JasonReynolds83 in "Dear, Dreamer" (ten-minute film). vimeo.com/338777680. While the film was running, I took down a page full of quotes and phrases from the film. Shared with students. Students used these captured lines as riff lines here.
We've been writing Garland Cinquain in #Room407. If you know Cinquain, a "garland" is made up of five stanzas. A sixth that is made from the other five. S1/L1, S2/L2. Often this poetic approach can lead to a surprise breakthrough to thesis/guiding statement for a writing project.
We work a lot of poetic form into our inquiry-based, multigenre writing project, T.H.I.S. (#THIS407). Often, poetic forms give us just enough structure and rules and boundaries (syllable and work count and meter) to help us break into and through our prose thinking (sentences).
Done with intention, a Cinquain form and the Garland Cinquain can be generative. These can invite not only twenty-five points of entry into a project or new pieces, it can offer a surprise Thesis or Guiding Statement into a longer project. #THIS407 #Room407 @AmerCreedMovie @ncte
