It is a sunny Wednesday morning, January 25, 2012. A Gilded Flicker, numerous Collared Doves, Sparrows and Red Poll are jostling for food outside my window. The sunshine feels grand on my face. I love sunshine and I love beautiful language. These January days I am having opportunity to visit one on one with all of my students. Yesterday afternoon I had a wonderful visit with a ninth grade young woman who has discovered the delight of figurative language; the power of personification,  alliteration, simile, metaphor and more. I invite all of you to be on the look-out for beautiful words, words that enlarge understanding and are delicious to the ear. Share your findings ...

Enjoy these samples of similes: 1. Little Women: "…she tried to get rid of the kitten which had scrambled up her back and stuck like a burr just out of reach."
2. The Red Badge of Courage: "In the eastern sky there was a yellow patch like a rug laid for the feet of the coming sun…".
3. Magnificent Obsession - "…utterly absorbed by the curious experience that still clung to him like a garment."
4. East of Eden - "Kate inched over her own thoughts like a measuring worm."

Changes!

It is the morning of Tuesday January 17, 2012. We have all just come through

a very balmy holiday season, enjoying record breaking warm temperatures. Suddenly, literally overnight, we have been plunged into deeply cold air; an abrupt change for all of us, including this flock of Eurasian Collared doves that come to feed outside my office window each  morning. Yesterday my internet connection was down all day; I felt cut off from a communication source that I never  imagined even 20 short years ago. Today I am communicating again but missing the hot water unable to reach my shower due to frozen pipes.  

A ponder challenge: How did your own feelings change when we moved so quickly from warm to cold temperatures? What freedoms did you lose? What blessings in your life do you most take for granted? What would you miss most if it is gone? 

Ask your own questions; think your own thoughts, catch them on paper and share them.

Yours in learning, 

Mrs. J