Liz Salchow's Action Plan

Starting this fall...From my fellow teacher consultants at the NWP summer invitational, I will be applying the wonderful writing lessons in which I participated. There is so much to say about each demonstration and how I will be applying it that I feel overwhelmed as to even begin such an undertaking.

• Poetry is a genre for which I have always lacked a muse. Nancie Atwell has been my guiding force until this summer, but even with her voice in my head, my heart never yearned to teach or practice much past what I knew must be done. From the demonstrations on poetry, my second grade students will be starting the year with "Sentence Poetry" because that is a place at which we can all begin together, as new writers. It will be fun for me and for them to see their work develop during the year and finish with another Sentence Poem to share. In order to feel more confident in our ability to construct our own poetry, we will do "Copy Change Poetry" with some of my students' favorite poetry as models. We will team-build with "Collaborative Poetry" to share with other classrooms or the building, especially when something important happens that the children cannot seem to stop talking about. I will spend at least two weeks working with my students on "Finding Images in Poetry & Finding Poetry in Images", and see what they can develop further from the Sentence Poetry lessons from earlier in the fall. This whole idea of working in-depth with poetry as an on-going unit all year is new for me. I had typically taught poetry as a unit at one shot. This new way of approaching poetry as a genre in writing and journaling is a direct reflection of my new-found comfort with the genre itself. Poetry sticks its foot out and laughs when I stumble, but no more will I sit pathetically at the tormenting feet. I hope to inspire my students to learn and stumble with me in the process, laughing at ourselves and cheering on our emerging voices.
• For my own development, I am going to be incorporating another facet of technology into my instruction. My students will be blogging from their journal writing and from prompts at least once a week. This gives my students and me an authentic audience outside of our classroom walls. Hopefully, other classrooms around the district or further will read and reflect on our thoughts. This way, we are experiencing authorship for all its vulnerable glory. I am hoping to incorporate a media component into our classroom writing projects at least on a monthly basis, thanks to inspirations from Shelly, Susan, Larry, Julia, Julie, and Jason. The children will love it, and what a fun way to rejuvinate our creativity.
• As for my own writing, I am going to finish my first children's story that my SWG helped me get started. It would be great to have the first "formulation" finished by winter. Prod me whenever you remember--keep me going on this! I also felt like I had maybe written one chapter of a collection of memories about my brother. I'd like to keep that vein open and see where it leads me. My demo is in its first reformulation as I blog this, and my intention is to have it sent for publication this fall. I will be giving a copy of it to my school district and grade-level colleagues as we begin the back-to-school meetings, so hopefully it will be well-received in this community of learners. My SWG promises to help me with reviewing my drafts and reformulations, and I love them so much for all they have done in the short time we've been a family.

If anyone in the OWP uses my demo to teach any genre (not just fairy tales), would you please keep your student samples so that if I present at Write to Learn, I can demonstrate its applications across grade levels and content areas? I promise to send you copies of my student samples when I use your demos, which I am using your demos...so check your email inboxes this year...you'll be getting some cutie-pie writing samples to share when you present your demos again, too!

As a teacher consultant, I am anxious to share my enthusiasm and experiences with others. As department chair for my district, my colleagues will reap the benefit of what I have gleaned from the other teacher consultants in the Ozarks Writing Project. I hope to also connect with other schools and teachers in areas where they feel I have strength. I feel confident in my ability to teach genre and writing mini-lessons using Read Alouds and graphic organizers as I lead students toward analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, as you saw in my demo. These skills can then be utilized in writing topics that I love to help develop. I also am willing and able to present on multiple intelligences, differentiated instruction strategies, and positive leadership skills. I also have presented a GLE and standards-based Space/Universe unit at Interface that I wrote while teaching upper elementary, so if you know of anyone wanting new ideas for teaching about space, I would be willing to share my ideas with them. I would love to share my enthusiasm and passion with others.

I would like to participate in NWP events, but I will need some guidance from Keri and Casey to help me focus and comprehend. To these amazing women, and my fellow teacher consultants, thank you. You helped restore my confidence and encouraged me to find my voice. It means more than you realize.

Much love and respect,

Liz Salchow