So Lady Gaga had just gotten back from space and was wearing a hotdog costume. Hitler came up to her and said, “You look like a Wiener Schnitzel.” She says to him, “This is a bad romance, Adolf.” But I get ahead of myself. It all started when Hitler, Mitt Romney, Obama, Hans Solo, aContinue reading “The Disaster of the Cranky Crankie”
Tag Archives: Teaching writing
Chinook Jargon
Continuing in our explorations of translation, my class has been playing around with Chinook Jargon. Chinook Jargon is the trade language of the Northwest, a pidgin of English, French, and several Salish languages. It was widely spoken through the 1800’s, and gave the English language words including “muckamuck” and “salt-chuck.” It has about 500 coreContinue reading “Chinook Jargon”
Translation with Nine Year Olds
I’ve been doing poems using words in Spanish or French with my students for several years, and have been trying to figure out a way to do our own translations. They love working with words in other languages, but it’s always felt a little daunting to do a whole translation, given that I have rustyContinue reading “Translation with Nine Year Olds”
Food for an Eager Writer
My first year of my second stint of homeschooling, the year I was fourteen, I was given Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones for Christmas. I was also given a huge stack of Enviromints. If you aren’t versed on ’90’s health food store candy, Enviromints were squares of minty chocolate wrapped in gold foil. EachContinue reading “Food for an Eager Writer”
Frog Hollow School 