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Shirley McPhillips
Shirley McPhillips combines a lifetime of teaching experience with an equal amount of love for poetry. Former Co-Director of the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Columbia University, NY, she currently works as a literacy staff developer, workshop and institute teacher, and educational consultant.
Shirley's work has appeared in such publications as Language Arts, Instructor, and the New Jersey Reading Association Journal. She is the co-author (with Nick Flynn) of
A Note Slipped Under the Door: Teaching from Poems We Love, available through Stenhouse Publishers. Shirley is Choice Literacy's Online Poet Laureate. Her writing is based on her on-going work in elementary schools helping teachers use their students' poetry as mentor texts in the classroom community.
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An Uncommon Place
Shirley McPhillips
Well, maybe when things get turned upside down, when something other than the ordinary steps into our paths and we allow ourselves to see things in uncommon ways, we can gather in the immediacy of uncommon ground, however nimbly. . . .
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Along Saplines
This morning, I tiptoe across the cold floor and open the shutters tenderly, not wanting to shatter my AM disequilibrium further by the blizzardly scene that forecasters have been predicting around the clock. Surprise. Nothing. Again. Only the snow-stained remnants of last week's lackluster dusting and a kicked-up wind. Not that we haven't had snow, and interminable cold. . . .
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Cap'n George: Mentors Who Matter
Shirl McPhillips
Poems mentor me. But having a personal mentor as well means everything to me as a continual student of writing. So, as school begins, I want to think more about the teacher as mentor. Sounds obvious, but is it? What does a good mentor do? Will students see us as their mentors? Will they see themselves as being mentored? What does that mean they do? . . .
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Days Ease
Shirley McPhillips
Some people suggest that in summer's ease, we have the time to rethink our curriculum, to read and select books we want to use next year, to consider how we will begin again in the fall, to get better organized. Yes, we do. And, yes, we could. But somehow just thinking about all that makes me tired. . . .
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If We Could Meet Again
Shirley McPhillips
In summer I tend to break out of a type of linear thinking that defines much of my attitude during the school year. It's a safe pattern of thinking and acting that sometimes dictates my view of where I am and what I'm doing. As teachers, it's easy to get stuck in thinking this way as we puzzle over problems and issues across the year. . . .
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The Porch in August: Letting It Be
Shirley McPhillips
Chris told his fifth-grade students last week that when he is inside a good book he just cannot put it down. He is caught in the vortex of the story and everything else disappears. He hoped all of the . . .
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What Happens Next
Shirley McPhillips
I found my notes for "What Happens Next" in the notebook I took in January to Poetry Week in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. There, I escaped the deepening light of winter back home to rise each day at Hotel Posada de las Monjas, settle my chair in a rooftop niche in this former convent to write and study. . . .
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Ode to a Sweet Snowy Day for Two
Shirley McPhillips
One evening W. D. Snodgrass, now in his eighties and living in San Miguel, took the stage at the Bellas Artes, a governmental cultural center. At one point he invited his wife Kathy to join him in a reading for two voices. She bounced up the stairs and took her place beside him. They smiled at each other and corrected their stances so that their feet were firm, their bodies tilted slightly toward one another, their heads just near enough to catch each other's energy, not to invade. They adjusted their books to the light and placed their hands gently to support the page. He nodded. Ready. . . .
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The Rolling Pin: Looking into Things
Shirley McPhillips
Julian looks long at the slipper shell, one he has brought to school from his collection. When I kneel next to him at writing time he is turning it over in his hands. He remembers the time he and his friend Peter, walking a Cape Cod beach, found it. It was the last summer they had together. He wishes Peter hadn't had to move, he says, that he might see him again, hear him laugh. I ask Julian to write a few word sketches in his writers notebook, keeping to the present tense, as if what he sees in his mind's eye is happening right now. . . .
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Messengers
Shirley McPhillips
I believe Ezra Pound when he said that "Literature is news that stays news," but we don't often get to hear our poets bring the news. When we do, we're apt to be informed in surprising ways . . .
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Let's Get Some Attitude
Shirley McPhillips
When Edna Mae Pruitt got her back up in eighth grade everybody listened. She didn't get riled easily, but when she did everybody sat back for the gusher. One day in English Composition class Carlyle Keely within her hearing, poor boy, made the mistake of telling Franklin Colley that Geraldine would never get a boyfriend because she was too smart. Boys didn't like girls who were known to be smart. They were scary. Whoosh! Old Faithful... . . .
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