A book is born...

April 17, 2009

Cathy, I think the title of the poetry is perfect! I will stimulate my students to get involved in this work. It'll be nice. When I tell them their poems will be printed and published in the US, I think some of them will get interested in this process. You know, there are lots of students that have resistance to poetry. I will try to convince them to write something about the theme chosen.

My students and I create a new bulletin board and part of it is comprised of 17 pictures of each of your students. It is very nice to see them looking at your guys' pictures and respond to their comments. I thought I found a practical way to make them immediately have an idea about whom they are speaking to... I hope I can see you next Wednesday, via Skype, TappedIn and blog!! ---Tyrone

April 17, 2009

Tyrone, I will miss seeing you and the students, but enjoy the holiday and have a happy birthday.

I think you are right on with the subject of the poetry. Maybe we can have a title like "Facing the Future: Our Hopes and Our Fears" or something like that. We can work on it. I would like as many students as possible to be involved. I was thinking about the book being at least 50 pages. I need to check out pictures. I know it costs more so I have to check on it, but it would be cool to have a picture of the student with their poem.

I will use both my seniors and the juniors who you have not met yet. They will be joining the group the week you are back from the holiday. I think we should have every poem in both Portuguese and English. That way when each student gets a copy of the book, they can read every poem. I will have $500 toward publishing this. You and I will edit the work. I would like to get all the poetry from the students by the end of May -- then we can print a copy for each of us to make corrections. After that we will print the rest of the books.

I am very excited about this. I hope the students, yours and mine, will be excited too. Have a great weekend and holiday! ---Cathy

April 15, 2009

Hi, Cathy!! Great news!!

Of course, I would like to have my students taking part of this work. I would ask them about those ones who like poetry and I would make them write some poems in class. In this case, such poems should be translated, shouldn't they? What kinds of descriptions would they do? We would have to think about something related to our work. For instance, the difficulties teens face before finding a job, going to college, the relationship with their family and so on. Anyway, I would have to ask them about their ideas and the subjects they want to discuss about. How many students would you like to have in this student work? How many texts would you like us to send? I can't promise anything till I talk to them but I think the idea is great!

This week, students responded to comments of your guys; some of them also answered TappedIn questions and create PowerPoint presentations regarding the Verb to be, by using their own pictures. I will make them, afterward, create another PowerPoint to talk about their lives using several simple present verbs in English. Then, they will create movie makers about a student of yours that they liked most. Isn't it nice? ---Tyrone

April 15, 2009

Tyrone, I have been selected for a $2500 grant to buy more webcams and digital cameras to continue our project. One of the things I listed to spend money on was to publish some of the student work.

How would you like to do something together -- with the students writing poetry or descriptions in their native language and then translate it to the other -- unfortunately a lot of the editing will have to be your job since I don't know any Portuguese. But my students would write, use translation sites, and then you would have to check to make sure it made sense. Do you have any ideas?

Anyway this is quite an honor and I want something really good to show for what
we are doing. ---Cathy