Monday, January 5: Invent your own prompt! Write at least 10 sentences.

Tuesday, December 16: How does your family celebrate winter holidays? Do you have any special traditions?

Monday, December 15: Tell me about your weekend.

Tuesday, December 9: What job(s) would you like to do when you're older? Why?

Monday, December 8: Tell me about your weekend!

Thursday, December 4: Interview someone who has a job. Find out what things they do at the job, what hours they work, and how they feel about their work.

Wednesday, December 3: Interview an adult who raised you and find out what you were like as a baby.

Tuesday, December 2: Draw a timeline showing the important events that have happened in your life.

Instead of drawing, I'll list the dates here:

• 1988: I was born in Sacramento, CA.
• 1989: My family moved to 4110 Mindt Court in Carmichael, CA.
• 1989: My great-grandmother died and we went to Chicago for the funeral. It was my first trip on an airplane.
• 1991: I started attending Shalom School, a Jewish Day School in Sacramento, CA. 
• 1991: My sister, Nirra, was born. Life was never the same after that!
• 1993: I began kindergarten in public school at Mission Avenue Open School.
• 1995: I left Mission and started second grade at Deterding Elementary school. I was nervous about making new friends!
• 1995: I started playing basketball for the 7-8 team at Deterding.
• 1999: I graduated from elementary school and went to Barrett Middle School for seventh grade.
• 2001: I received my bat mitzvah, which is a Jewish ceremony that you perform when you become an adult at the age of thirteen. I had to read from the Torah in Hebrew in front of all my friends and family.
• 2001: I graduated from middle school and started high school at Rio Americano high school.
• 2003: I stopped playing basketball and started doing yoga.
• 2006: I graduated from high school and moved to Chicago to go to college at the University of Chicago!
• 2006: I got a passport and took my first trip out of the country. I went to Spain, where Ms. Trigo is from!
• 2010: My dad and I both graduated! I finished college and he finished his graduate degree from UC Davis.
• 2010: I moved to New Orleans and started teaching pre-Kindergarten at KIPP.
• 2012: My grandpa died. I flew to CA for the funeral.
• 2013: I left KIPP and started teaching third grade at Benjamin Franklin.

Monday, December 1: Write a letter to your diary about the best or worst day of your break.

December 1, 2014

Dear Diary,

The worst day of my break was on Wednesday, when I spent TEN hours in a hot car driving up and down a mountain. The night before, my friend Jennifer asked me if I wanted to visit a school out in the country. I don't like being in the car, so I asked her, "How long is the drive?" She responded, "It's about two and a half hours away." I thought to myself, "Well, that's not so bad," and replied, "I guess I'll go." Boy, was that a mistake! First of all, in order to get there on time, I had to wake up at four in the morning! When the alarm went off, I almost screamed. Second of all, the car didn't have air conditioning and it was unbearably hot. For most of the ride, I felt like someone had taken my stomach and put it in a blender. It was awful. Visiting the schools almost made it worth it, but I'm not really sure that anything could make up for waking up in the middle of the night and spending the whole day in the car. When I got back from the trip, Jennifer asked, "Did you have fun?" I responded, "Are you KIDDING me? Unless your idea of fun is spending ten hours feeling like throwing up...NO!" Thankfully, the rest of my break was a blast. I'll tell you about that tomorrow, Diary.

Yours truly,

Ms. Radding

El Salvador, Part 1

Dear third graders,

I landed in San Salvador on Friday afternoon. I was one of approximately five gringos on the plane. Exiting the airport, I was met by a thick crowd of folks waving signs and calling names. I was struck by how many in the crowd must have been waiting to see loved ones who might no longer recognize them. I was looking for Jennifer’s mother, Guillermina, her brother-in-law, Irvin, and her five-year-old cousin, Leticia, (Jennifer was at work) but I quickly realized that I’d have better luck standing still and letting them spot me.

As we embarked on the 50-kilometer drive from the airport to the city, I marveled at the lush countryside we passed along the way: towering palms, enormous tropical plants, and the mountains and valleys carved into the land by the collision of the three tectonic plates the country sits on. After forty-five minutes or so, I started to recognize some familiar sights: the wildly curving roads, massive billboards (almost all advertising fast food), and repurposed, colorfully decorated school buses now operating as public transportation that now remind me of San Salvador.

We arrived at Jennifer’s house, where they showed me to my room (Jennifer graciously agreed to share with her cousin so I could stay in her cousin’s room) and around the house. Literally, around the house—for those who aren’t familiar, most homes here are built around a central area that’s open to the air—and with the smaller rooms and bathrooms encircling the open space, kitchen, and common areas. The smaller rooms have open windows facing into the center of the home, and the center area often has many plants and a drain in the center for wash and rain water. Like American suburbs, the streets here are fairly quiet, though when you pass by you often hear dogs barking and music playing from behind the massive steel doors that protect homes from intruders. From what I can tell, folks don't spend much time talking to neighbors, because even the porches and gardens are enclosed behind the doors.

In the evening, I met Jennifer’s father, Carlos. He’s an English teacher at a public high school, where he works both shifts: 7:30-12:00, and 12:30-6:00. Jennifer’s mother teaches math to middle school students, and works a more typical schedule: just the morning shift. Schools in San Salvador are so crowded that students (and most teachers) attend in two shifts. In addition to working both shifts at school, Carlos teaches a mostly-virtual English course to overage students working on their diploma, which meets from 8:00-10:00 PM.

We talked about why American kids leave home after high school, and why Salvadorian kids often stay. Later, Jennifer shared why she stays: so she can live with her parents as a fellow adult, and know them as people in ways she couldn’t when she felt like she was their charge. As she and her family all live in the same city, there's no reason to move out and sacrifice her growing friendship with her parents. Jennifer says her independence is in her spirit, not in her housing arrangement!

On Saturday, Jennifer invited me to a writing group she’s been attending weekly since September. The group is hosted by the Spanish Embassy and taught by a well-known Salvadorian fiction writer. This week, we met at a park called Salvador del Mundo (a large statue of Jesus on top of the world is the middle of the park). The author prompted us to observe the visitors to the park, and write down our impressions. The park was a busy place on Saturday: a large Christian group had set up a stage, sound system, and about two hundred chairs for some kind of performance, and a radio station arrived to cover the story. Groups of children and young adults prepared to dance and sing on the stage.

We wrote for about half an hour. I wrote pieces of poems, bits of observations, things that startled or surprised me—like the fact that the radio station’s vans were decorated with Israeli flags. At four, we regrouped and drove to the Spanish Embassy, which rents a building that it uses for a café and artist studios. We purchased coffee and assembled in a small library located within the Embassy. The author began by inviting folks to discuss their observations. Various participants shared, and then the author explained the literary techniques she wanted the participants to focus on in their next pieces of writing, and identified some well-known authors who use these techniques well. This discussion took almost ninety minutes, with the author talking for most of an hour. It struck me that I didn’t hear any of the participants actually read what they wrote. If they had, the author could have used the participants as examples when she explained the techniques. Jennifer told me that for her, while the workshop “is no Bread Loaf,” it’s a chance to stay connected to a community of writers in San Salvador. She apologized to me, as if sitting and listening to a teacher talk wasn’t also a familiar experience for me. Unfortunately, I told her, most of my educational experiences were just like this one, which is why Bread Loaf has also changed so much of how I think about my role in the classroom.

After the workshop, we spent some time at an outdoor fair held in a garden behind the embassy cafe, where we made our own engravings and black-and-white prints from the designs. Afterwords, Jennifer took me to Santa Tecla, a wealthy city outside of San Salvador where many folks gather on Saturday nights to walk along a well-lit and guarded pedestrian mall called Paseo del Carmen. We ate in El Salvador's version of a mostly-vegetarian restaurant, which Jennifer thought I would find amusing (the most amusing thing was the size of the serving of hummus—one tablespoon for several triangles of pita!).

On Sunday, we drove to the beach, which is about an hour from Jennifer’s house. On our way out of the city, we passed a luxury mall, enormous gated communities, and coffee plantations built into the hills outside of the city. Our first stop was at a pier where freshly caught seafood is sold daily. I tried my first minuta, which is the Salvadorian version of a snow cone. I opted for a traditional flavor—limon, which literally means that they squeeze fresh lime on the ice, and finish it with hot sauce. Would you like to try a drink like this? 

After some time strolling on the pier, we headed to another, ritzier beach—Playa Tunco. The beach is named for the giant rock just a hundred meters or so from the coast that’s shaped like piglet lying on its back. A little ways up the road, Playa Tunco is like another world. Jennifer compared the beach to an upscale, outdoor mall—recently renovated restaurants boast international, “healthy” menus, and foreign tourists carrying surfboards dot the sands. The street vendors who sold us our minuta at the first beach are nowhere to be found—only signs at each restaurant that say “Propiedad Privada—No Se Permite Vendedores” (Private Property: No Vendors Permitted). The waves here are formidable, making Playa Tunco an international surfing destination. We tried our hand at some amateur body surfing—Jennifer, with more practice than I, was much more adept at riding the waves. I mostly crashed and burned and ended up with sand and saltwater stuck to every imaginable part of my body!

Today, Jennifer couldn’t take me to work because she didn’t yet have permission for me to attend the classes she’s teaching at the jail. A day to myself was a blessing, though—I’ve been recovering from a mild flu, and sleeping in and working at home was just what I needed. This afternoon, I went for a walk with Guillermina and Leticia to a local park, where we ran (and walked) laps around the track and explored the playground. The park, like many in San Salvador, abuts a gorge and a wide view of lush forest. At one point, Leticia and another little girl joined me for some impromptu yoga! This evening, Jennifer and I went out to the center of her neighborhood for pupusas—and I learned about the indubitable superiority of pupusas de maiz over pupusas de arroz. Pupusas are sort of like quesadillas, only with thicker tortillas that cover the filling completely. The area was lively, though Jennifer commented that she had never been out in this area so late—it was 7 PM—both because she’s usually working or at school and because most areas are more dangerous after dark. With the sun setting before six most of the year, folks tend to stay home in the evenings.

Hasta luego,

Ms. Radding

Wednesday, November 19: Write a story of your choice that includes at least THREE quotations. QUIZ TOMORROW!

Tuesday, November 18: How does your family celebrate Thanksgiving? Do you have any special traditions?

Monday, November 17: Write about your weekend or the field trip. Your choice!

Thursday, November 13: Write a rhyming poem or song using at least 10 spelling words.

Wednesday, November 12: Who is your favorite musician or musical group and why do you like them?

Tuesday, November 11: Who do you argue with? What do you disagree about?

Monday, November 10: The fourth grade teachers are trying to choose a field trip. Which of our trips do you recommend for them and why?

On Friday, Ms. Hall asked me, "How was the museum?" I could hardly put into words how I felt about the trip. Never before have I taken my students on a field trip with their journals, and I was in awe of my students' writing skills! I told her how a trip to the Ogden Museum was a chance for students to write about and connect with art in a way that we can't do in the classroom, I implored her to take the fourth graders to the museum! I shared how students wrote notes, stories, and feelings, and drew sketches of paintings and sculptures. I added that we were going to use our notes and observations to write poems and essays this week. The best field trips last more than just one day, because they open our minds in ways we can't predict and continue to fuel our writing when we return to school.

- Ms. R

Monday, November 3: Imagine you can elect two classmates to the student council. Who do you elect, and why?

Instead of telling you who I would elect, I thought I would share what qualities I look for in a leader. First of all, I look for someone who shares my values. I want someone to represent me who knows the difference between right and wrong and who will stand up for what's right. Secondly, I look for someone who is innovative. If someone is innovative, they have lots of new ideas and interesting ways to make their ideas happen. Finally, I look for someone who has the qualities of a leader--someone who listens to their teammates and knows how to speak in front of a group. I hope you make smart choices!

Thursday, October 30: Write a really scary story!

Wednesday, October 29: You can have any superpower. What do you choose and why?

There are so many powers I wish I had...

I wish I could reverse death 

Interrupt mortality and 

Manipulate this world into a place 

Where I and everyone I love can stay

Together in this mostly blissful 

But sometimes burdensome 

Thing called life.