Telephone Talk with Ms. McLane

Monday, May 15, 2000

Pullman to Washington, D.C.

The class had read Ms. McLane's email messages from Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Swaziland, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

Before talking to Ms. McLane by phone, they each wrote down questions they wanted to ask her using pencil and notebook paper. They used sound and book spellings to write their questions. They checked their questions to decide if the answers would be just "Yes" or "No" and then tried to revise the questions so the answers would be more interesting.

For example, instead of asking "Did you like Greece?", they asked "What did you like best about Greece?"

The goal of their question writing assignment was to understand how to initiate inquiry that lead to conversations rich in contextual details.

Here are the questions they asked Ms. McLane and the answers she gave:

1. What do you like about the trip?

I like being able to see the world. It is lots of hard work though. I enjoy seeing the sights. I enjoy traveling with people and meeting new people in places around the world.

2. What were the foods like in Greece?

When I got to Greece, I had lots of Greek salads. (We had Greek salads in South Africa too.) A Greek salad has sliced tomatoes, feta cheese, olives and onions with olive oil over all of it. It's delicious!

3. How is the food in Portugal and Spain?

Hmmm…food in Portugal. Well, what food you eat depends on where the city is. If you are near the ocean, you will have lots of seafood. In Lisbon, we had grilled sea bass. I was served the whole fish with the head, tail and skin. I had to peel off the skin to eat the fish inside.

In Spain, one of our favorite places to eat was in Barcelona where we had "poppas". "Poppas" are appetizers made from tiny pieces of meat or seafood on pieces of toasted bread. At one place there were 80 choices of "poppas" on the paper at our table with descriptions and pictures of each kind. You circled the number you wanted and gave your order to the waiter. There were lots of choices!

4. Is the food good?

The food is good, especially at restaurants. Sometimes when the vendors for the Odyssey group fix the meals at camp, the food is just okay. In the Mediterranean area there was always pasta. In Europe the dinners are served in many courses. First you have an antipasto or appetizer, then pasta, then meat or fish. We had duck in France that tasted like chicken. It wasn't wild duck because the duck was raised on a farm. You have your salad after the meat and fish and then, if you want, you have desert!

5. *What different kinds of bread are you eating in different countries?

Well, in Mexico, what kind of bread do you think we ate? (The class answered enthusiastically, "Tortillas!") Yes, that's right! And in Chile, we had what we called "hockey pucks" because it was bread that was round and like soda bread so it was hard. In Argentina we had raised bread and in Europe, we had bread that was crusty on the outside and soft on the inside. In Europe, we also had flat bread that you wrapped around food like an ice cream cone.

6. What is Italy like?

Hmmmm…well, in Italy is looks like everything has been touched by man. The landscape is cultivated everywhere. It's not wild landscape like in the Pacific Northwest. The coastline was terraced to grow citrus trees. The hillsides had olive trees and orange and lemon trees. Underneath the trees there were wildflowers. You could see where rocks in the land had been gathered to make walls. There were ruins. There were places that had been used by people and were not used now. Italy has lots of old, old places.

7. What did you do in Spain?

In Spain, I didn't bicycle as much. I only bicycled two days. I was a tourist and took buses to Cordoba, Seville and Luigia.

8. What did you do in France?

I bicycled quite a bit in France. I really liked Corcasone which is an ancient medieval city ( That is where the movie Robin Hood was filmed.)

9. What did you like about Greece?

I liked the countryside! You could bicycle right along the sea which was very, very blue. The water was turquoise and very clean! And I could hear goat bells as the goats were being herded up and down hillsides. The goats were sometimes far away but you could hear the bells.

10. What animals did you see in Portugal?

Well, I didn't see wild animals. When I traveled by bus, I saw birds and I saw lots of goats and cows. Africa is where I saw the most wild animals.

11. What was it like to be so close to an elephant?

Oh…very, very exciting!!! So-o-o-o-o-o exciting! I was inside an open car that was big and up high off the ground so I had a sense of safety. The elephant just stood there and ate grass. I felt safe but if the elephant had decided to charge the car, I would have been scared.

12. Have you seen any rare birds?

The biggest chance of that was in Africa. I saw lots of birds that were new to me. I saw an Ibis eating worms after a rainy night. I saw Egyptian geese and the honey bee eater and a bird like the lilac breasted roller bird.

13. Do you make lots of friends and what friends have you made?

Oh, yes, I have made lots of friends!!! One of the first friends was Beth who helped me on the first night of the ride. I got into camp after dark and I was so tired and I was scared because it was dark and almost everyone else was already there and there wasn't much food. Beth helped me find some food and I was crying in my food. She gave me a hug and sat with me. That made me feel better. I have made lots of friends in the Odyssey group. I go back and forth doing things with different friends. I have lots of selections of friends. I'm not always with the same person. I have lots of choices. I bicycle with some friends and eat with other friends. Everyone's fine with doing that and it's good that way.

14. What kinds of clothes do people where?

Well, in Europe, they wear clothes the same as we do. the teenagers have baggy pants and sweatshirts. In Africa, women wear their tribal clothes and they carry things on their heads…large, large bundles. In Durban in a celebration of dance, a group wore black pants and white shirts to do a swing dance and then changed into traditional clothes for tribal dances.

15. Did you see any kids playing hopscotch?

No, I haven't seen children doing that but in a bus station in the country, children and their parents were in a circle counting in Spanish from 1 to 10. It was a game like our duck, duck, goose.

16. Are you going to finish the year of bicycling?

YES!!. When I know you are following my messages and know you are reading them…and when you send me such wonderful messages…that makes me want to keep going for the whole year!!!

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