Author Archives: Amy Rasmussen

Embedding Poetry in Core Literacy Instruction

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Presentations, Strategies to Add Some Zip January 27, 2015 Comments: 7
TCTELA2015

Selfie at our session. –“The Sound of Sense: Putting Poetry at the Core of Literacy Instruction”

Saturday Heather and I presented a session on poetry at the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts. When I wrote the proposal last year, I had been accepted but had not attended The Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching, and I had hope that my life would be transformed through poetry after my stay in Franconia at the end of June. I knew I’d have ideas to share with other teachers at this conference. I was right.

That’s how faith works.

I shared the strategies that have shaped my teaching into fine points for skills acquisition since I learned them at the

Frost Place:

Dictation. When we dictate a poem, slowly, speaking each word and each line with care; when our students write each word, each phrase, each metaphor and simile, they take ownership of the language and see into the craft of the poet. In this ever-moving world, our students need to s-l-o-w-d-o-w-n and feel the beauty of the print on the page. Words become tangible and approachable. Comprehension improves. Analysis advances.

Arguing a Tone. My friend Margaret shared this strategy:  Choose a poem that begins with “how” or “why” or one that you know can be read in opposing tones. (Dickinson’s “How gentle is the little brook” works well.) Divide the class into two teams, and ask one side to read the poem with a tone of anger. Ask the other side to read the poem with a tone of happiness. Instruct students to find text evidence that supports their given tone then hold a debate. After discussing, students can then take their thinking to paper and write paragraphs that show analysis of the tone.

I Wonder for Revision. At the Frost Place, I loved being in the company of working poets. They inspired me with their thinking and their calm. I learned as I listened to their language. One afternoon we sat in a circle as a poet shared his work. We listened and offered feedback in the form of “I wonder…” He listened and took notes. And he left with a page of possibilities that he might have wanted to play with as he revised his poem. I’ve used this strategy with my students and had great success. I wrote about it here: A Feedback Protocol for Revision Workshop.

At the end of our session on Saturday, I read my poem I wrote modeled after Meg Kearney’s poem “Creed.” Just like at the Frost Place, I cried when I read about my mother. Poetry is emotion. And it’s an emotion that we need to help our students see and feel and play with. Sure, we can reserve a unit in our curricular year to devote to poetry, but our students will love it, understand it, and appreciate the wonders of language when we embed poetry in every unit throughout the year.

It is possible, I know, because I do it.

What are some of your ideas for embedding poetry in your core instruction? or, what are some of your favorite poems to share with students?

The Sound of Sense – TCTELA 2015

Readers Writers Workshop January 24, 2015 1 Comment

Poetry makes no sense to many of today’s learners–many educators, too. We were lousy at teaching poetry so did something about it: spent a week at Frost’s Farm at the Conference on Poetry & Teaching. We’ll “Provide, provide” highlights on how to transform instruction with poetry at the core.

Presentation – Handout

Screen Shot 2015-01-24 at 11.08.01 AM

Dictation in AP English — It’s a Quiet Your Mind Kind of Thing

Amy Rasmussen, AP English January 20, 2015 Comments: 4

The sign on the door of my classroom

I asked my students to turn to a new page in their writers’ notebooks. I told them that I would read aloud a poem. Slowly. I would repeat each line twice. I would spell words that I thought were difficult. I’d tell them where the punctuation went. I’d tell them where the line breaks were. I’d give them time to write.

All they had to do was listen.

You would not believe the moaning.

I explained that to truly understand language they would need to listen to how language works. They needs to hear the words, the rhythm of the sentences, the length of the sentences. They needed to quiet their minds long enough to block everything out but the sounds of each and every word.

“The sound of sense, then. You get that. It is the abstract vitality of our speech. It is pure sound–pure form. One who concerns himself with it more than the subject is an artist. But remember we are still talking merely of the raw material of poetry. An ear and an appetite for these sounds of sense is the first qualification of a writer, be it of prose or verse.” ~Robert Frost

I didn’t expect students to understand so much Frost’s meaning, but I did realize the value of getting students to find a center and make the words their own as they write them down.

I’d experienced this first hand at the Conference on Poetry and Teaching at The Frost Place last summer. Every morning, we’d sit on metal chairs in the small barn behind Robert Frost’s house and listen and write what we heard.

The practice is called DICTATION. “It’s a slowing down and feeling the language in your bones,” says David Cappella, co-author with Baron Wormster of A Surge of Language — Teaching Poetry Day by Day. (Here is a sampling from Heinemann.) Wormster explains, “[Dictation] is a kind of reading aloud to think aloud so you can live out loud. Poetry is life in the slow lane. Poetry tells us to slow down and to pay attention. Poetry directs our attention.”

I have used dictation three times with my students so far this year, and three times we have experienced a calming of the mind that moved us to specific and powerful learning.

1. We focused on word choice, paying particular attention to words we found interesting and unique. This lead to better word choice in our Go World video stories.

2. We focused on sentence length and variety, paying particular attention to the rhythm in the poem. This lead to more purposeful syntax patterns in our next blog post. (All of my students manage their own blogs. See this post here to know more about our blogs.)

3. We focused on figurative language, paying particular attention to the sensory words that created the images. This lead to more colorful, intentional and moving language in our notebook play leading up to narratives.

My second semester starts today. Today I will dictate a poem to get us started, I think it will be this one by Anais Nin:

Screen Shot 2015-01-19 at 5.17.58 PM©Amy Rasmussen, 2011 – 2015

Illegal Poetry

Heather Cato January 19, 2015 Comments: 5

While skimming one of my social media feeds I saw an article from the Huffington Post, Arizona Education Officials Say It’s Illegal To Recite This Poem In School. Of course, because Amy and I are presenting about poetry at TCTELA at the end of the week, the title itself peaked my interest. Briefly scanning it, and not thinking much of it, I sent it on to Amy as just one piece in a dozen I’ve scanned while preparing for our presentation.

In Amy fashion, like she always does for me, she shoots back, “Good one. What’s your take on it?”

Well, honestly I hadn’t really thought about my take on the subject, I was really just thinking about it as a reference that there is censorship in schools even in the genre of poetry. But as I started thinking about it I really generated more questions than answers:

1. What role should a state or federal government play in the specific materials that are used in an individual classroom? I certainly know that this question will continue to linger for me as the state legislators are about to reconvene here in Texas.

2. How do we prepare students for the culturally diverse world they live in when they are not given the opportunity to learn about different cultures? The article mentions that, “The law forbids classes that promote … or treat students as members of a group rather than individuals,” but I wonder to what end. Isn’t my individuality in some way tied to my identity to a particular group? And that’s not to say just ethic group, but also as an educator, a mom, a writer, etc.

3. The article also mentions that if the school district will receive 10% less in state funding if they do not comply with the state mandates. I’m not naive enough to believe that a simple slap on the wrist would be an effective punishment, but if there is a funding cut who are they really hurting, the school district officials or the students of that district? 

Above all though, if you read the portion of the poem that is included in the article, I find it most interesting that there are no terroristic anti-democratic overtones, as one might suspect based on the opinions of those that oppose the piece, rather a sentiment of mutual understanding and respect.

I would now like to return the question to you, Amy, and anyone else who would like to join in the conversation. “What’s your take on it?’

Thinking about my Reading Roots: a Response

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Books, Readers Workshop January 16, 2015 Comments: 3

Sometimes others write my thoughts. Shana did that this week in her post about Reading Resolutions.

Well, not the part about traveling to England and visiting all the awe-inspiring places she mentions. (“Someday,” I tell my self daily.) But the part about losing her way as a reader, and the part about needing to “read my roots.” This is so me.

When we run a readers and writers workshop classroom, we read so we can encourage our students to read. Sure, we can book talk titles that we’ve only heard of — there is a little art to that though. Sure, we can have students book talk to one another — this works well when we’ve modeled talking books enough times. And while most of the YA literature I have read over the past several years has held my attention and given me insights into the minds and hearts of my students, it is still not my roots. (Honestly, I get a little tired of all the teen angst that my students love to read.)

Like Shana, my roots run deep into literature. I love the classics. I mean the real old classics — a little Homer, Greek tragedy, a comedy or two, definitely a book of Will’s plays, maybe some Milton, and more.

I teach none of it. And I’m okay with that.

In AP Language, our focus in non-fiction:  speeches, essays, op-ed pieces, arguments, and I have managed to include literature in our book clubs and poetry into our writing workshops. This works great for the purposes of my course design and my teaching. I just sometimes miss the me kind of reads.

Right now I need to think about me.

Here’s three things I’m doing to focus on the Reader who responded to Shana’s post with a “Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes”:

1. Participate in a Book Club.  We’ve only met twice, but we’ve read two interesting texts: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett and Unbroken by Laura Hildebrand, and our next book is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Grown up talk about books we read for pleasure. That’s about my favorite thing.

2. Challenge myself to read author’s I’ve never read: James Joyce, Kurt Vonnegut (ok, I read “Harris Bergeron”), J.K. Rowling. I have many more, but these are the first three that came to mind.

3. Attend an event at the Dallas Institute of Humanities. A new colleague filled me in on the offerings here. I had no idea. On-going classes, and then in the summer a Teacher’s Institute to study Tragedy/Comedy and Epic Tradition.

What are you doing to reach your roots?

©Amy Rasmussen, 2011 – 2015

Conferring with Students: Love it. Hate it. Or Just Don’t Know

Readers Writers Workshop January 12, 2015 Comments: 2

“There are creative manners, there are creative actions, and creative words; manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom or authority, but springing spontaneous from the mind’s own sense of good and fair.”  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar”

I’m thinking about the #NCTE15 proposal that I’ll submit this week with my TTT writer-friends, and I know my topic must be about conferences with students.

I used to be more cold than hot when it came to meeting with students regularly. I’m happy to say that I’ve learned how to manage my time and my focus. I’m getting closer to really really warm.

I know it’s the consistent one-on-one and sometimes small group chats that yield the most growth in my readers and writers. This might also be the hardest thing for me to do consistently. Good intentions and all that.

I love Emerson’s language and this idea of creative manners, actions, and words when considered through the lens of conferring with students. Sitting together writer to writer and/or reader to reader, I hear my students connect the dots. I see them reach inside for ways to improve. The more we meet together, the more I know these learning moments happen spontaneously. Students understand that they do not need me to help them think. They grow in confidence and competence. Their manners, actions, and words change as they believe in their abilities.

I want them to believe that they can grow as readers and writers.

Recently, I’ve been reading Reading Projects Reimagined by Dan Feigelson, and I know I can do more as I talk with my learners. Feigelson offers me advice when he outlines the steps for a successful reading conference that would lead to a student-selected project. I think it works for most of the reading conferences I conduct with my students, project or not, and it’s made me more intentional in having my students look for patterns in the literature they read. This will help with analysis, a skill most of my students struggle with — a lot.

These are Feigelson’s steps (a bit abbreviated) from p.30 of his book:

1. What are you thinking about this text?

2. Listen for the most interesting thing the reader says or does.

3. Ask the reader to say more about that thing. [Jot down words or phrases.]

4. Name what the reader is doing in a way that is about more than the current book…strategy for future reading. Teach him to go further…how it will help in future reading.

5. Come up with a project that allows the reader to follow his or her line of thinking by collecting evidence in the text.

6. Agree on a specific task.

7. Articulate the teaching point again.

“See? It doesn’t have to be complicated,” she reminds herself.

Yesterday, I read the transcript of a Choice Literacy podcast conducted by Franki Sibberson with Cris Tovani called Readers Workshop with High School Students. It’s worth the time to listen or read it. This is my favorite part:

Franki: You might have answered this one but what are the challenges of running a good reading workshop at the secondary level?

Cris: I think the challenges of running a good reading workshop at the secondary level is recognizing that you’ve got such a wide range of abilities as well as interest in that classroom and I think keeping in mind that every student deserves at least a year’s worth of growth whether it’s a struggling reader, on grade level reader or somebody who is an advanced reader. Each one of those kids we have to morally help them get smarter by at least a year. 

And so I think it’s key to figuring out who your learners are, what they like, what their interests are, what their strengths and what their weaknesses are and then allowing for some differentiations. 

Really, it all comes down to knowing our students and knowing their needs, and every student deserves an on-going conversation with a caring teacher. Every student deserves at least a year’s worth of growth as a reader  — and a writer.

My spring semester starts in a week, and I know that I can improve my conferences. I’ve set some Screen Shot 2015-01-11 at 11.43.01 PM
conferring goals for myself with the hope of doing a bit of research and improving student outcomes. I know that when I make goals public, I am more apt to meet them, so here goes:

Now, it would help me out if I knew you struggled, too. Not really, but I would like to know where you are at with student conferences. Please take this simple poll and let me know. You’ll help me with my research. Thanks!

©Amy Rasmussen, 2011 – 2015

What does Equality Mean when it Comes to Student Learning?

Amy Rasmussen, AP English January 9, 2015 1 Comment

“Children born into families that raise them with love and with care to see that they acquire knowledge, values and discipline that will make them valuable members of society have far more chances of economic and other success in adulthood than children raised in families that lack these qualities.

Studies show that children whose parents have professional careers speak nearly twice as many words per hour to them as children with working class parents — and several times as many words per hour as children in families on welfare. There is no way that children from these different backgrounds are going to have equal chances of economic or other success in adulthood.” -Thomas Sowell

Read the whole of “The ‘Equality’ Racket when you get a chance. I would love to know what other educators think in terms of how this argument relates to your experiences with your students.

I’m struggling and would love to have a conversation.

5 Ways to Meet Your Writing Goals

Amy Rasmussen, Readers Writers Workshop, Writers Workshop January 8, 2015 Comments: 4

Posted on the bookshelf behind my desk is this quote from Horace:

“Nulla Dies Sine Linea”

It means “Never a day without a line.” I learned it from Penny Kittle who I assume learned in from one of her mentors.

I thought if I posted the reminder, it would help me write more. It didn’t.

Sitting on my desk right behind where I place my laptop is this quote that I found in one of the many books on writing that pack my shelves:

“Write when you write.”

I thought if it stared at me everyday, it would help me avoid distractions. It didn’t.

I’ve learned.

The only way for me to write is to create some discipline. I almost said find discipline. Then develop discipline. Neither quite work. Knowing myself quite well. I know I have to carve out the time and cleverly create some. I can be tricky like that.

So, this is my five step plan to meet my writing goals this year. Maybe something similar can help you meet yours:

1. Get a part time job. That’s how I’m going to have to think about it — as a job. I’m committing to leaving the school an hour after the bell and going to my writing place: the public library just across the street, or the Starbucks around the corner, or the Barnes and Noble down the Interstate. I cannot stay in my classroom and write. I find a million other things to do — plan, grade, organize the books on my shelves in alphabetical order. I cannot go home and write. I find other things to do — cook or clean or lay on the couch or pet the dog.

2. Start a writing club. I started a book club with my friend, Tess, and some friends I used to work with in my prior district. The idea started as a way for us to stay connected because we know how hard it is to stay friends with folks we never see. Now, we meet once a month, late in the afternoon at a cute little restaurant not too far from where we all teach, and we talk about a book. We’ve only met once so far. Our next meeting is soon, but I’ve read two books I would not have read without these friends and this book club accountability. The same will work for a writing club. If I will really write and not just meet for scones and hot chocolate (like I did the last time I tried it).

3. Free the notebook. I have a perfectionist problem in all aspects of my life, except for my mess of a closet. The throw rug on the floor in my classroom has to be straight, the markers lined up in neat rows on the whiteboard rail, the anchor charts on the wall in absolute alignment. The blank page in a new notebook. Why is it so hard to just write? If my handwriting is weird or sloppy or whatever, even if it’s the pen’s fault (you know how your writing changes depending on the pen), I hate it. I have to stop hating it. Who cares? Absolutely, not a soul. My husband says that my parents put too much pressure on me as the first daughter after three son and then being followed by four younger sisters. Middle Child Syndrome with complications of being the oldest daughter. Really? That’s what makes me afraid to mess up on a page in my notebook? Whatever it is, I must set it loose. I have to free my mind and let my thoughts loose on the page.

4. Join a writing challenge. I found a welcoming group of writers called My 500 Words in a Facebook group. The encouragement and kindness is contagious. I found myself reading others’ posts and sincerely commenting. I also began following Poets & Writers. They have a “Tools for Teachers” page with prompts. I wrote my first poem of the year after reading one. It’s at the end of this post. I know that a lot of my problem with putting in writing time is the blank that envelopes my head at the end of a long day. While I have a love/hate relationship with prompts in my teaching life, I do think they are valuable tools to get stagnated thinking flowing.

5. Write as much as writing students. For several years I prided myself on writing every assignment that I gave my students. They wrote weekly blog posts. I wrote them, too. They wrote reflections on literature. I wrote them, too. They wrote analysis essays in preparation for the AP Lang exam. I wrote them, too. Everything my students wrote, I wrote, too. Then, I stopped. I don’t even know why, but it has made a difference — and not a good one. I know that if I want to be a credible writing teacher, I have to show my students that I am a writer. They must see me struggle through the thinking, the planning, the drafting, the revising. I used to be great at all this. I need to be great at it again. I saved a slip of paper that one student wrote at the end of the year on her last evaluation:  “I love it that Mrs. Rass writes everything she asks us to write. I’ve learned to love writing because of her. Thank you, Mrs. Rass.”

Anything else? Help me out here, dear reader, what are your suggestions for helping busy teachers meet our writing goals?

Why My #onelittleword Will Work

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Community, Conferring, Pedagogy January 7, 2015 Comments: 2

My friend Jackie sent me a link to this blog: Setting a Work Schedule to Make Us Better, Saner Teachers. Somehow she sees inside my head.

My teaching world grew when I changed my pedagogy to readers and writers workshop. Over time, I also became so passionate about helping my students move as readers and writers I kind of lost my love for what started this change in the first place. Sometimes I get so busy reading the next great YA novel, or searching for mentor texts, or inventing new ways to get my reluctant students to write that I forget that I really just love my students. I love them.

I need to let them know that.

With all my musings about resolutions, (If you haven’t seen my posts for the past three days…) I probably need to give it up and follow the trail of those leaving the #onelittleword hashtag.

My word is L-O-V-E. sunshine-wallpaper-6

Do you remember when you first learned to spell it? I do. I wrote it everywhere. On notebooks. On desks. On the wooden slat holding my sister’s bunk bed above my head. (Years later I would also write the names of every boy I ever crushed on. It’s quite a collection.)

I need to reclaim the feeling I felt when I first learned to spell love. I need to spread it like I spread the lead of those pencils so long ago. My students will respond to my urgings to read and to write with quality and care, if they know I love them — not as readers and writers, although that is true, but as humans who deserve it because all humans do.

So, I’m thinking about how. How do I show my students love?

I read this post by my friend Jennifer: Teach Like An Artist. I like this idea of minimalism. I need to clear the clutter and refocus on the things I know work. My values are similar to Jennifer’s, and it’s by focusing on these things that I will show greater love for the students in my care. [It only looks like I copied Jen’s values. We just hunk alike.]

The Core Values of My Classroom

1. Empathy. We talk about windows and mirrors in my class a lot. We read to know what it means to be human. Do you see yourself in this book? What do you learn about someone else in this one? Do we make connections with individuals and characters as we read. Do we try to learn where their thoughts and feelings are coming from?

My classes are more diverse than they’d been in years. We have an incredible opportunity to step inside another’s shoes — if we only will.

Also, I must learn about my students lives.

(from Empathy in Education) Empathy has long been an intrinsic part of the education system, “if schools are involved in intellectual development, they are inherently involved in emotional development” (Hinton, 2008, p. 90). A student’s emotions coming into the class affect the way, and how much they learn. Educators must be able to connect to, and understand their students in order to best serve those students’ needs “focused on nurturing learning rather than judging performance” (Hinton, 2008, p. 91). Teachers in the classroom face students from all different backgrounds, sometimes very different from their own.

I think about this at the start of every school year. I am glad I’m thinking about it again now. I can do more now.

2. Authenticity. I cannot keep touting choice when I sometimes forget that “Choice without boundaries is no choice at all,” per Don Graves. I need to make sure that students are able to explore what matters to them, but I must guide them in directions that truly help them explore. Too many are afraid of the struggle of research and evaluation. They take first pick or rely on me to share my opinion. I want them learning how to form their own. I believe this is where TALK in the classroom is so important. Students are free to be themselves because we’ve established a comfortable learning environment — it’s safe — so students know they can express and share their beliefs.

I mentioned in another post that I used to write every assignment I gave my students. I commit to doing that again. They need to see me struggle and grow and share as a writer just like I ask them to.

3. Quality.  Somewhere along their learning journey, many of my students missed the bit on producing and turning in quality work. They focus on completion instead of quality. So far this year, it’s been an uphill battle with students expecting to do well on work that is poorly done. I spoke with a colleague just today. She said that she’s noticed the same problem in the business world:  a bank telling a customer to go to a different branch because “I’ve never done this before,” instead of attempting to learn how to do a task. Imagine if doctors, mechanics, the engineers who build our roads just shirk their duties and look for the quick and easy way through tasks? We are in trouble. My students need to know the value of producing work they know represents their best selves. I will refuse to take anything less.

“If it’s not worth doing well, it’s not worth doing,” my mother often said (mostly about chores around the house, but still.) I must make sure my students see the value in the tasks I ask them to complete. The quality of these tasks will reflect the quality of the work students put into them.

photo

More talk, better conference, additional Harkness discussions. That is how I will show my love for my students, and how I will help them have an even better than the first second semester.

Penny Kittle taught me that “writing floats on a sea of talk.” Natalie Goldberg taught me “Talk is the exercise ground.” I believe that when students talk about their thinking, about their plans for writing, they write more — and they write better. I believe that when the classroom is lively with energetic voices we learn and grow together. We learn to listen and to care for the thoughts and feelings of others. It’s through our formal class discussions that my students have learned how to analyze a text. It’s through my one-on-one discussions that I’ve learned where they struggle and how to help them grow as individual readers, writers, thinkers, and contributors in our society.

I’ve started writing notes to my students. Here’s another thing I used to do that brought positive results. I bought nice cards (Half Price Books has a lovely selection as teacher-friendly prices.) Every day I write one or two notes per class period. I highlight traits that I admire. I encourage. I notice. Students respond with higher quality work, more participation in class, sometimes even happier faces. My handwritten message, signed “Warmly, Mrs. Rasmussen” often works better than any conference with a student face-to-face.

And tomorrow students think and explore and decide upon their own #onelittleword.

My Take on Your Resolution Tricks

Amy Rasmussen, Pedagogy, Readers Writers Workshop January 6, 2015 Leave a comment

Before I wrote anything down for 2015, I needed to think through this idea of resolutions. (If you read yesterday’s post, you already know that.) Maybe more importantly, I started reading posts about resolutions and how I might make mine actually come true this year.

I found this article “The Tricks Psychologists Say Make Resolutions Stick.” Okay, then.

(Of course, I get the gist of the article, but let’s look at it through the lens of an educator.)

Don’t Have a Back up Plan

Evidently, “having a plan B at the back of the mind or simply using the wrong language to frame our resolution can end up scuppering the best intentions.” I’m not sure I buy it for every goal we set, but I really like the word scuppering.

I get that we can sabotage our best intentions when we frame our goal-setting around failure, but imagine if we never have a back up plan in the classroom? Many a day I conduct my first period, thinking I’ve got a good plan, all is well, students will learn, and BAM! it doesn’t work and slams right into the hardwood door. I have to do some fast thinking to create a better learning opportunity for my second period.

A teacher’s job is all about alternatives, especially in a readers and writers workshop classroom. We reflect on our practices. We rewrite lessons. We revision our classrooms.

So, really, when it comes to setting goals, we have to use language that allows us the freedom to change our minds without feeling like we’ve failed. It is okay if I set the goal to read 101 books this year, and I only read 58. Really, 58 books is a lot. And every one of them I can talk about with knowledge and passion and place in a young reader’s hand.

Sleep on It

This is a hard one. Every teacher I know is sleep deprived. If this is true, every school in the nation is in big trouble: “New research from the University of Hertfordshire found that lack of sleep can reduce self-control.” Of 1,000 people, “Sixty percent of people who slept well said they were able to achieve their resolutions, compared to just 44 per cent of those who slept poorly.” Teachers, we get an F.

Wouldn’t it be great if sleep were a talking point in ed reform conversations?

I could engage more students if I had more sleep. I could teach them how to have grit. I could create better assessments. I could prepare more kids for mandated tests.

Not really.

I lose sleep because I have a student whose mom has cancer. How can she focus on school work when she might lose her mom?

I lose sleep because I have students who read far below grade level. They want to go to college, but they are far from college ready.

I lose sleep because I’ve had students who were abused by uncles and fathers and strangers. They are still hurting deep within their beautiful souls.

I lose sleep because I am always learning, trying to find new ways to reach my hardest-to-reach kids. They are happy and out-going, but they are not ready for the challenges of 21 C literacy.

Don’t Say Don’t

We know we must use positive framing as we teach. We must be encouragers, facilitators, even hand-holders sometimes. Yet is a powerful word when students try to turn to the negative. “I am not a reader” so many of them say. “Yet” I interject, and they usually smile and repeat me. “I am not a reader yet.”

There is a time and place for the word don’t in education though — I’ve said it plenty when it comes to testing. I imagine you have, too.

Chop it Up

“Why give yourself one tick when you you can have 20? It’s more gratifying to work towards lots of smaller goals than one enormous (and potentially overwhelming) one,” the article says, and I know this strategy works, especially with students who do not identify themselves as readers.

We set small reading goals. Sometimes they are for overnight, sometimes a week, sometimes a semester. And we celebrate achieving them. Often in my conferences with students who’ve been stuck in a book for a long time, or they’ve been fake-reading way too long, I will challenge them to finish a book in a certain number of days. They come tell me when they reach our goal, and this usually turns into a happy dance (usually mine, not theirs).

Of course, short writing goals work, too. That’s what a focus on process in writing workshop is all about. We use mentors to show us how to frame our thinking. We practice writing leads and using supporting evidence, or whatever skills we need. We provide mini-lessons that target these specific skills. And we write and confer and write some more. Chopped up, little bits of effective and powerful instruction.

The large goal:  “My students will be prepared to write all three of the essays on the AP English Language exam in May” can only be reached in tiny bite-size writing instruction in one workshop after another.

Try ‘temptation bundling’

“This idea is to bundle ‘should’ activities with ones we have a strong desire to do.” I do this all the time. When I work out on the elliptical machine, I read. When I run, instead of listening to music, I listen to audio books. I read right before I go to sleep. This calms my mind much quicker than scanning my Twitter or Facebook feed.

I share these ideas with students, too. A few of them told me that they now read on the bus to and from school, or on the way to extracurricular activities. One student told me that she loves to read when she is babysitting her siblings. “They don’t bother me as much,” she said. (Of course, I want here reading, I hope she still pays attention to the children!)

One of the biggest problems I face with reluctant readers is what they perceive as a time factor. “I don’t have time to read,” they like to whine. In conferences, we often chart our time, hour by hour. Teaching students to not only monitor their time — few really know what that means — we have to teach students how to value their time. The cell phone in their hands is a mean master when it comes to the value of our young people’s time.

Raise the Stakes

Here’s a new take on high stakes:  money-losing incentives to help us reach our goals. Seriously, there are companies out there where we can bet against ourselves. StickK.com is one of them.

“The site asks users to sign a commitment contract, which they say helps define the goal. Users then decide how much money they’ll put on the line and where the money will go if they don’t fulfill that contract. (For extra motivation they can even designate an ‘anti-charity’, a cause you don’t believe in, to receive their funds.)”

Who’s in?

I did play along with something similar at my former campus. We’d have Hollywood Weight Loss Challenges. Choose the name of a celebrity, so you are incognito on the weight chart. (I always chose the pseudonym of Queen Latifah because she’s so beautiful.) Pay $20 to the pot. Weigh in weekly, and at the end of say three months, the biggest loser gets the cash. I did this challenge four times. Four times I gave my money, just gifted it really, to the biggest loser and didn’t lose a thing.

Obviously, $20 didn’t cause enough pain. High-stakes testing does.

It will be interesting to see how Texas Education deals with the huge number of seniors this year who have not passed their state mandated exams needed for graduation. They are seniors, credits earned and all, but they will not graduate according the House bill if they do not get qualifying scores on all five of their exams. Many of these kids have taken this test six times now. Failure after failure after failure.

Raising the stakes does not work when it comes to the benefit of a young person about to take her place in the world. Somehow there has to be a better way to see our students off into their futures.

Personal goals not withstanding, I wish the psychologists quoted in this study would conduct a study on the yearly goals of educators and how we put it all on the line to honor and serve and teach our students, year after year after year.