The following is the description of an exhibit of publications that a colleague, George Drury, and I have been involved with, shepherded, cheered for, jollied along, facilitated, or created ourselves. The description is for an in-house e-publication. George and I had that odd out of body experience of writing in the third person about ourselves. …
Author: Kate Tabor
English teacher in a JK-12 school
Suddenly Sadness
I found out that a former student of mine was buried today. He was a deeply troubled boy, one who since leaving us here had so much tragedy in his life. He may [or may not] have been responsible for the fire a few years ago that burned his family home, killing both his parents….
If wishes were horses…
I know that I have unrealistic expectations for professional development, and maybe that is because I feel like I spend a lot of time with colleagues (both face to face and virtually) who are always thinking and challenging their own expectations and skill set. The people that I look to for PD daily are the…
Quilting with middle school students
For my community service project this year I am working with 14 middle school students as “blanketeers.” We are making tied quilts for a local chapter of Project Linus the national organization that distributes new, handmade blankets to kids ages 0-18 who are in the hospital. We are going to make quilts that are three…
Circus Dreams
My eldest daughter has just finished a short weekend run of a Halloween Circus show. The girls have worked hard over the past month and it always amazes me when the show comes together. But I’m not amazed at what they can do. When they commit to the show and really bellieve in it, the…
Halloween Memories
Today in class we were writing memoir pieces about Halloween. I started with reading two chapters of Knucklehead, the memoir of Jon Scieszka author of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and then we started writing our own memories of Halloween. Like the crazy lady who lived down the block from us…
Many Voices
October continues treating us with passion and gentleness as befits this time of year. There are few people that I know (outside of my classical musician neighbors) who might totally geek out with me about this piece of music. But I’m going to share it with you and the tiny little glimmer of hope that…
This Makes Me Cranky
Both of my 12-year-olds were in a 6th grade level math class last year (one was bored, I’ll allow, and both were one of just a few girls in their respective classes). This year on the basis of a test only one was moved up not to the grade level class but to Freshman Algebra…
Banned (not Band) Books
I am happy to say that in my twelve years of teaching I have taught a number of books that have been challenged in other communities. I have even taught that explicit book Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. I once went to a seminar where the topic of the seminar became whether or not…
Twitter me this friends…
I’m still looking for a book for this year. I frame the year around stories and storytelling and why we tell stories. I have a bunch already: The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (here is my hole in the list) Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare Inherit the Wind by Lawrence and Lee Haroun and the…
Friday at the Reunion – and a teaching idea
I’m still posting at my travel blog, but the Friday morning experience got me thinking about central subject. Here is the full Friday post : of Atlatls and Tomahawks But what has got me thinking was the visit to the Jeffers petroglyphs. If I lived near this site I would connect my curriculum to it. …
Living on the Lip of Insanity 