Teachers Teaching Teachers #249 - Writing, Making, Sharing, and Learning about Gardens: National Writing Project Makes! 6.1.11

Post-Show description: 

Do you garden with your students? Do they make things? And do they read and write about these experiences, japan_136.jpg.scaled.1000and sometimes publish the results online?

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, you'll hear National Writing Project teachers from Colorado, Oklahoma, Massachusetts, and California describe the gardens and writing projects they are doing with their students.

One of the guests, Patricia Paugh, recently did a session at the National Writing Project’s Urban Sites Network meeting in Boston.

Adventures in Text Analysis: Reading and Writing a Community Garden Project
Mary Moran and Patricia Paugh,
This session investigates theories related to genre pedagogy enacted in a year-long project on community gardening in an urban neighborhood. The session will include analysis of multi-genre texts and sharing of artifacts related to purposeful writing by students who worked with an urban farming collaborative. (Patricia C. Paugh, is an Associate Professor Department of Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Massachusetts Boston.)

We were also joined by an elementary school teacher, Denise Ferrell, who told us about the multiple garden projects she has been doing with Annie Ortiz and other colleagues at the Skyline Elementary in Stillwater, Oklahoma:

We are fortunate at Skyline to have several kinds of gardens. We have a butterfly garden, an 83 ft raised bed, 5 small square raised beds, a cistern, some small dwarf fruit trees. We also have an outdoor classroom.

Fred Mindlin, Associate Director for Technology Integration at the Central California Writing Project, joined us from a Whole Foods store! Fred has been working with gardeners and digital stories and videos, and more as part of the National Writing Project’s Makes project.

Marshall Woody from the Southern Colorado Writing Project who has just starting gardening with his students, was on the call with us as well.

Enjoy!

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.


20:33:52 Paul Allison: http://paulallison.tumblr.com/post/6059983517/writing-making-sharing-and...
20:34:06 Paul Allison: http://nwpmakes.posterous.com/
21:00:07 SusanEttenheim -> puentesalmundo: hi chris
21:00:09 SusanEttenheim -> puentesalmundo: :)
21:04:59 PeggyG: hi all-audio is great :-)
21:05:05 Chris Sloan: Where in Colorado are you Marshall?
21:05:12 Marshall: colorado springs
21:05:21 Marshall: just below pike's peak
21:05:59 Chris Sloan: I teach in Salt Lake City.  We're out of school in four days.  When are you done?
21:06:10 Marshall: last friday
21:06:24 Chris Sloan: Oh, so you're in vacation mode
21:06:37 Marshall: almost
21:06:50 PeggyG: Paul-I saw your posting on ISTE Unplugged to present Youth Voices! That is awesome!! So glad you're doing that!
21:07:02 Chris Sloan: Me too, Peggy.
21:07:34 Paul Allison: yeah
21:07:51 Paul Allison: http://paulallison.tumblr.com/post/6059983517/writing-making-sharing-and...
21:07:53 PeggyG: loved that description about the "go gettum kids" :-)
21:07:59 SusanEttenheim -> puentesalmundo: hi peggy
21:09:02 PeggyG: those are great photos on your blog post Paul!
21:09:56 PeggyG: that's such an authentic, valuable learning experience!
21:10:25 fmindlin: Hi!
21:10:36 Chris Sloan: Yeah, your garden is looking like it's in full bloom.
21:11:27 Paul Allison: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ewsis/collections/72157624237854938/
21:11:49 Paul Allison: http://ccwritingproject.org/events-and-programs/maker-collaboration
21:12:15 Paul Allison: http://makezine.com/
21:15:59 fmindlin: Love the seed packet genre analysis idea!
21:16:28 PeggyG: how creative! design your own seed packets :-)
21:16:38 Chris Sloan: Never thought about all the genres on seed packets
21:21:47 SusanEttenheim: hi peggy
21:22:23 PeggyG: Hi Susan :-)
21:23:00 SusanEttenheim: had one ear in the broadcast and on on my mom for a few minutes! she just sat our 6hrs of bad storms!
21:23:01 PeggyG: these are such great suggestions for learning extensions!
21:23:06 SusanEttenheim: yes yes
21:23:13 SusanEttenheim: is there much gardening there?
21:23:24 SusanEttenheim: when you were in the schools?
21:29:47 Paul Allison: http://scwpmake.wordpress.com/
21:32:50 PeggyG: http://almaflorada.com/
21:32:53 fmindlin: There's a "curriculum map" in the form of a garden design, formatted as 11" X17", that correlates every part of anything you might want to study onto a bed in the garden--from one of those new age early 70's homeshool books...
21:34:36 fmindlin: I hope to find it again one of these days...
21:35:19 PeggyG: http://almaflorada.com/gathering-the-sun-an-alphabet-in-spanish-and-engl... Is this the book you mentioned about the migrant fram working families?
21:36:43 PeggyG: farm--oops :-)
21:40:00 Marshall: i just added some pictures from last fall  
21:40:16 Marshall: http://scwpmake.wordpress.com
21:40:21 PeggyG: brutal honesty but so helpful!!
21:41:30 PeggyG: wonderful story!! :-)
21:41:46 Chris Sloan: I'm wondering what advice these teachers have for other teachers who've never done a gardening project.  Where to begin?
21:42:02 PeggyG: don't begin with writing a script :-)
21:42:11 Chris Sloan: good point Peggy
21:43:40 Paul Allison: http://youthvoices.net/node/21653
21:44:23 PeggyG: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ewsis
21:46:53 Paul Allison: http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2010/05/gardening_theme_roundup.html
21:48:24 PeggyG: heard a similar comment in an earlier presentation today on TEDxKids Brussels--trust the kids and then get out of their way--they will learn
21:49:37 Gail Desler: great quote, Peggy
21:50:31 PeggyG: she was the final speaker at the event and she was great!
21:51:01 Gail Desler: Seedfolks is a wonderful piece!!!
21:51:11 PeggyG: we tried to get a Pepsi grant for a neighborhood garden in central Phoenix but we didn't get funded
21:51:19 Marshall: I've used Seedfolks as well.
21:51:33 Gail Desler: Seedfolks covers so many grade levels and topics.
21:52:06 Gail Desler: Definitely Seedfolks can be read on elementary level
21:53:31 Gail Desler: I have a Calif teacher who would LOVE to connect on a school garden project
21:54:10 PeggyG: http://www.tedxkids.be/index.html  home page for TEDxKids@Brussels
21:54:40 Gail Desler: Yes, Youth Voice garden photography project would be awesome
21:54:48 fmindlin: Gail, feel free to pass my contact info on to the CA teacher--
21:54:59 Gail Desler: Mission thing? (sorry to be late into the conversation)
21:55:11 fmindlin: [email protected]
21:55:30 Gail Desler: Hi Fred, I'm just up the hill from you in Elk Grove.  That would be great.  I saw the video on Paul's email
21:56:16 Gail Desler: Oh, great idea: connect with some actual farmers.  
21:56:37 PeggyG: Paul's mission statement for his gardening project I think
21:57:34 Chris Sloan: http://youthvoices.net/node/21653
21:58:06 PeggyG: love that! local knowledge, global attitude
21:58:12 Gail Desler: "start & stop with the local knowledge" I like that
21:59:42 SusanEttenheim: hi Gail!
22:01:09 PeggyG: one of the objections we always had about school gardens was who takes care of them when school is out for the summer? need a plan
22:01:13 Gail Desler: Hi Susan.  Sorry to be so late.  Would definitely love to join a summer conversation on gardens.  Will be using Seedfolks as one of the lit pieces in a Crossing Lines: Tools for teaching tough topics summer workshop (funded by NWP and Memorial Library of WWII)
22:01:42 SusanEttenheim: yes Seedfolks was mentioned tonight!
22:02:39 Gail Desler: There's actually even a powerful Holocaust reference in one of the chapters - on why an immigrant gardener chose not to weed her section of the garden.
22:02:48 Paul Allison: http://nwpmakes.posterous.com/
22:04:34 PeggyG: thanks to all of you! such a fun, interesting, informative conversation!
22:04:40 Marshall: i saw something about the victory gardens in cities during WWII
22:07:26 PeggyG: many moons ago :-)
22:07:30 PeggyG: good night everyone
22:53:43 edtech12: Saw this posted on twitter. Any current edtech discussion?