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When Workshop Hits the Struggle Bus…

Poetry, Readers Writers Workshop November 9, 2018 Leave a comment

One of my favorite new terms this year is the struggle bus. My kids say it when they’re having a rough morning or when they don’t understand something or when they’re just generally having a difficult time in life–“I’m on the struggle bus today, Mrs. T.” It seems that hardly a day goes by without someone mentioning that phrase, so maybe that’s why it seems resonant to me today.

Actually, that’s not why at all. My workshop work has hit the struggle bus a bit this year in my grade level classes–that’s the truth of the matter. If you’re in this field at all for any length of time, you’re bound to hit it. That big old bright yellow school bus of a struggle bus is sometimes hard to avoid–is it those long tough early months of school? Struggle bus. Is it a gaggle of girls who just can’t seem to settle in to what you’re working on? Struggle bus. Is it game day and a classroom full of giant man boys who are so hopped up on adrenaline that reading and writing in the last period of the day is the last thing on their mind? Struggle bus.

So what do you do when you hit the struggle bus? Well, you find a way to mix things up and shake things up. I’ve hit some struggles this year with a couple of my classes that I haven’t experienced before. You see, I’ve always been pretty good at figuring out how to get kids interested in reading, and I’ve gotten to be pretty good at putting the right book with the right kid. I pride myself on it. I think back glowingly to the number of kids in the past few years who came in as avowed non-readers or who proclaimed themselves to be “over” reading since it was something that they did in elementary school with AR. Almost all of them left my room having read more than the year before and many of them have reignited a reading habit that I hope will only grow as they mature. I see them in the halls and they update me about their latest book or the new series that I should try. They reach out to me from college to ask for book suggestions or to mention to tour that they took in a college class of Flannery O’Connor’s home (and I was JEALOUS!). We formed bonds over those books and those conferences and those shared experiences, and those bonds haven’t ended just because they’re not currently enrolled in my classes.

This year, though, I’ve got a tough crowd. Oh, they’re the typical crowd I usually get–mostly super sweet, lots who are quite smart and interested in the world around them, some who are struggling in a variety of ways, some who like to act big and bad but are soft and squishy on the inside–teenagers are teenagers, after all. There are lots in this group, though, who seem to be particularly immune to my charm and reading connection magic. Some of my favorite “go to” books have fallen flatter than Tom Brady’s football in Deflate Gate. Some kids are serial quitters, picking up a different book every day. We just finished reading The Great Gatsby as a core text in my grade level class, with them reading Gatsby outside class and us working on connected texts during class…except I think very few were actually reading Gatsby outside of class.

I had my year all planned out based on some tweaks that I wanted to do from last year, but after Gatsby, I decided that what we needed was a major overhaul. Out go the window with my plans and carefully designed goals. I can teach many of the same standards with almost any piece of text–do I have to be tied to a plan that I made over the summer without a full understanding of the people in my room who would be most affected by those plans? Nope. What I’ve come to realize is that my year doesn’t have to be in exact lockstep to the plan I laid out for it. I work in a small private school, and I’m the only one who teachers Junior English, so I do have some autonomy that may not be available in other settings, but I intend to make full use of that opportunity.

Since I’m having trouble getting them to connect with longer texts, I decided that we’d spend the rest of the semester reading and writing poetry. Rather than having them dig into Farewell to Arms (for now, anyway) or jive our way into the Harlem Renaissance, we’re going to spend some time reading lots of poetry and trying our hands at doing some writing as well. I figure that I can pull in traditional beloved poetry and help my kids to see the connections to the new things that are being written today and even to the songs that they’re listening to on their phones.

That, for me, is the beauty of workshop. Because I tend to work with these texts as mentor texts, I have more freedom to tweak and adjust as I go and as I see needs in a classroom. If I have a group that responds particularly well to rhythm and rhyme, then maybe I pull some poetry that I can compare and contrast with some of Tupac Shakur’s pieces from A Rose that Grew from Concrete. (I also have to confess that they’re often shocked when I, a 45 year old white lady who I’m sure they think has no clue about such things, pulls out something from Tupac or references Biggie’s artistry. 🙂 I was in college in the ’90s–Tupac and Biggie were staples in the music scene. 🙂 ) Or maybe I’ll pull some silly pieces from Ogden Nash. Nothing gets a room full of teenage boys giggling than some of his silly poetry. But the magic happens when I hand the reins to them and have them enter the playground and try to work on their own versions of these texts, inspired by the style or by the content of one of these mentors. I love nothing more than seeing the big bad dude rush excitedly to his friend to share the phrase in a poem that he has just come up with or when the quiet kid decides to do her own parody poem of the “Johnny Johnny” meme and stands up to perform for the class and gets cheers and ovations.

The struggle bus will always be around, I suppose, but instead of getting run over by that big looming sense of doubt and uncertainty (or just of tiredness!), think about changing things up and switching them around, and invite kids into the playground that can be poetry. It doesn’t all have to be old stuffy boring pieces that make their eyes glaze over with boredom; it can be bright and vibrant and relevant and can reinvigorate your classroom.

What do you do when you hit the struggle bus in your classroom (or when the struggle bus is hitting you)? Let me know in the comments section!

Stick to It: Reading Goals with Staying Power

Conferring, Lisa Dennis, Logistics, Readers Workshop, Readers Writers Workshop November 8, 2018 1 Comment

In the world of Readers Workshop, I am still working to strike a balance between the promotion of reading for the sake of enjoyment, and my capacity to hold students accountable for that reading on any consistent and meaningful basis.

In the past, I tried (and liked) Google Forms to have students reflect on and make reading goals, the use of their writer’s notebooks to track current and past reading throughout the year, and of course conferences with students to see who and where they are as readers.

However, my capacity to consistently track the reading lives of 142 students (which is far fewer even than many of my colleagues) often feels daunting, if not completely crippling. I rarely feel like I’m giving enough attention to, or celebration of, the ever-evolving reading lives of my students, at least early in the year. As the year progresses, regardless of the method, we get to know our students well enough that their reading lives come into focus, but the before Thanksgiving days are far too murky for my taste.

My goal this year was to figure out a way early in the year that I could take manageable snapshots of my students’ goal progress in order to both celebrate the success that would fuel reading momentum and to get a handle on who among my students would need the most encouragement.

For this purpose, I’ve worked to make our goals more visible, easy to check in on, hard to ignore, and readily accessible for quick conferences.

I started the year with my Reading Goal posters prominently displayed for my 9th grade classes. Each week, students would set a goal after calculating their reading rate, let me know the progress they would be working to make in their books, and how long they had spent reading. Not surprisingly, for the first few weeks of 9th grade, my projected sample of a Post-It didn’t necessarily (consistently) get us a clear picture of what we were looking for. Numbers weren’t labeled, titles weren’t always included, etc.
I decided to take out the guesswork and use a Post-It template I found and photocopy quick reflections each week that would make it easy for both students and teacher to see:

What book are you reading?
What page are you on now?
What page will you be on based on your current calculation of reading rate?
How long have you been with this text?
Did you meet your goal for last week?

As I hand back slips to each child each week, I can do a quick check-in to see how on target, or not, my students are. This quickly prioritizes conferences for later in the week.

How do you keep track of students’ reading goals? Please leave a comment below!

Lisa Dennis spends her school days teaching AP Language and English 9, while also leading the fearless English department at Franklin High School, just outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin where she lives with her husband Nick, daughter Ellie, and beagle Scout. She is a firm believer that a youthful spirit, a kind heart, a big smile, and a good book can ease most of life’s more troublesome quarrels. Follow Lisa on Twitter @LDennibaum.

It’s a Good Day to Talk about Talk

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Classroom Culture, Classroom Library, Community, Readers Writers Workshop, Talk November 6, 2018 1 Comment

Many of us are on edge. You may feel it, too.

I woke today thinking about something I heard in the first professional development session I attended as a new teacher: We read literature to learn what it means to be human. It provokes a seemingly simple question, and one that’s prompted rich discussion with my students: What does it mean to be human?

Maybe we don’t talk about our shared humanity enough. Maybe we should do that a little more.

For those of us who embrace choice reading, we often refer to the words of Rudine Sims Bishop:

Books are sometimes windows, offering views of worlds that may be real or imagined, familiar or strange. These windows are also sliding glass doors, and readers have only to walk through in imagination to become part of whatever world has been created or recreated by the author. When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.

Let’s think about this line: “When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror.” Shared humanity.

Last year at NCTE, Lisa, Jessica, and I had the chance to sit down and chat with Cornelius Minor. We were three white women educators working to listen and learn and do more to advocate for equity and social justice in our classrooms. We knew Cornelius could help. He did.

“We start by focusing on what we have in common. Our humanity,” Mr. Minor told us. Then he highlighted the difference between diversity and inclusivity: Diversity is everyone sitting at the table. Inclusivity is everyone sharing equal power at the table.

Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

So what does this mean for me as a teacher, a facilitator of professional development, a writer, a mother, and a grandmother — someone who desperately cares about not just my family, but others’ families, about my country and the interactions we have with one another, about the future and all that entails?

What does it mean for you?

Sure, getting students reading and talking about books is a great starting place. But we also have to open spaces for talk. Cultivating risk-rich safe spaces where readers and writers can share their ideas, struggles, and successes about topics and issues that matter to them is vital to cultivating a civil society. I’ve long thought that our classrooms represent a microcosm of our society. If we can facilitate critical conversations where students respect and truly listen to one another, maybe we have a chance at changing conversations on the street or in courtrooms or press conferences or Congress.

Idealistic? Sure. But that’s the nature of hope.

In her article “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors,” Bishop concludes with these lines:

Those of us who are children’s literature enthusiasts tend to be somewhat idealistic, believing that some book, some story, some poem can speak to each individual child, and that if we have the time and resources, we can find that book and help to change that child’s life, if only for a brief time, and only for a tiny bit. One the other hand, we are realistic enough to know that literature, no matter how powerful, has its limits. It won’t take the homeless off our streets; it won’t feed the starving of the world; it won’t stop people from attacking each other because of our racial differences; it won’t stamp out the scourge of drugs. It could, however, help us to understand each other better by helping to change our attitudes towards difference. When there are enough books available that can act as both mirrors and windows for all our children, they will see that we can celebrate both our differences and our similarities, because together they are what makes us all human.

We come to understand each other better, yes, through wide reading, curating libraries with diverse, vibrant, engaging titles by authors of diverse heritage and backgrounds. Reading more matters. Couple Bishop’s thoughts with these by Lois Bridges:

Reading engagement is nothing short of miraculous—engaged readers spend 500% more time reading than do their peers who aren’t turned on by books—and all those extra hours inside books they love gives them a leg up in everything that leads to a happy, productive life: deep conceptual understanding about a wide range of topics, expanded vocabulary, strategic reading ability, critical literacy skills, and engagement with the world that’s more likely to make them dynamic citizens drawn into full civic participation.

Yes, wide voluminous reading matters. A lot.

But so does talk.

I believe it’s through talking about their books, discussing their similarities and differences, their characters, conflicts, and resolutions; talking about their writing, helping each other see angles they might not have seen, validating ideas and challenging others — all in safe spaces of shared respect — that we fast track students’ abilities to engage with each other and with their world. Our world.

So on this election day, I would ask you, dear reader, one favor: Between now and the next election, can we all do a little more to open spaces in our instruction to facilitate more meaningful discussions? Let’s amplify our shared humanity.

Amy Rasmussen has no middle name, but if she did, it would be “Idealist”. She believes everyone is a child of God and should be loved as such. She’s excited to attend NCTE this month and hopes you will attend her session at 4:15 on Saturday as this blog team presents “Accomplice”-ing Great Things: An Action Plan for Equity, Inclusivity, and Allied Partnerships in ELA Classrooms.

Humans of League City

AP English, Argumentation Mentors, Charles Moore, Mentor Texts, Modeling, Readers Writers Workshop November 5, 2018 Comments: 3

I work with a team of freshman teachers who are experienced, passionate, knowledgeable and, luckily for me, functional. We collaborate in the creation of lesson plans, lesson cycles, the unending search for mentor texts, and grade calibration. Our collaboration doesn’t just benefit the teaching team; the students are the true beneficiaries of our functionality.

Consider the following:

Our goal was to take the hard work and struggle that our kids overcame as they learned about expository writing and literary analysis and have them turn that lens back onto themselves.

We spent the last forever working on pulling issues, claims, and evidence from the writing of others, how could we do turn that around and invest it in ourselves?

Enter: Humans of New York, an idea brought up by colleague, Austin, at our team planning day. The idea was that we would work through the exploration of expository writing by having students interview and then write about a human in their life.

Lesson Cycle 1

Lesson Focus: I want you to know that writers use specifically selected issues to support their claim.

Reading
Dear World Video
Respond to the video- Write for three minutes. I wanted them to get the emotional response out and onto the page because it’s important, but not the focus of our lesson.
Question 1 – Why do issues matter?
- Take one lap around your group sharing your response.
- Write for three minutes, sharing your response.
Question 2 – Why is it important that we identify issues important to us?
- Take one lap around your group sharing your response.
- Write for three minutes, sharing your response.
Seed writing: Tell me about issue you care about enough to write on your skin. This is an extending time for writing, something in which I strongly believe.

Lesson Cycle 2

Lesson Focus: I want you to know that writers use craft to strengthen their expository argument.

Reading
Poet moment, I wanted to get their minds set.
Read two HONY examples, look for issues, claims, and evidence and think about how those the author expresses those ideas.
Seed Writing – Tell me about a human you know along the same lines as what you saw in the Humans of New York mentor texts.

Lesson Cycle 3

Lesson Focus: I want you to know that writers use stories to advocate.

Reading
Euripides Excerpt (7 minutes total)
- Read and show your thinking.
- Respond using the sentence stem: This piece is really about…
Read two more HONY examples, look for issues, claims, and evidence.
Seed Writing – Tell me about: A different human than yesterday, a different story about the same human as yesterday, or yourself.

Honestly, these lessons look a lot like most of the lessons that find their way into my classroom. These are the structures with which my students have become accustomed. If you look closely, in three days, the kids wrote for over an hour, experienced five mentor texts (and a video) and talked… a lot!

Oh, and throughout these three days, I hardly sat down. I made it around to every student at least once and worked beside them through the process.

This doesn’t just happen “sometimes” in my classroom. Truthfully, the functionality of the team I get to be a part of promotes this level of complexity because none of us are going at this alone. We work together, and as a result, the kids win. I love watching kids win.

Charles Moore likes learning about humans, even if they don’t love the Dallas Cowboys. He loves moving students through moves that unveil their literacy. He’s pretty worn out from the multiple Robotics practices he helps supervise, but he’s learned exactly how much work he can complete in three hours. He’s excited to co-present at NCTE and to receive his first solo invitation to present at TCTELA in 2019.

Incorporating Drawing into the Workshop Model so that Students can Show their Thinking

Julie Swinehart, Readers Workshop, Readers Writers Workshop, Strategies to Add Some Zip November 1, 2018 Leave a comment

Teachers are adaptive. We are always ready, even when we feel never ready, and we approach new challenges with willingness and enthusiasm.

Even when the changes come as a surprise!

For the first time in many years, I am teaching middle school. I’ve taught high school exclusively for at least fifteen years, so it was quite a change to approach these students. I have been giving it my best attitude, attention, and effort, but somehow I knew it wasn’t enough. A few weeks ago I realized why: I was trying to teach my seventh grade students the same way as I was teaching my high school students, only changing the content.

While I realized that I have to approach middle school students differently, I wasn’t sure how. They aren’t just little high schoolers. They are in a different developmental stage, and I have to be attentive to that.

One of my classroom mantras has been don’t share your answers; share your thinking, and when it comes to talking to high school students about it, it seems like they “get it.” That’s not to say they always value the thinking and don’t look for the “right answers,” but they do seem to mostly understand what it means.

With middle school students, I don’t always get that same feeling. I’ve experienced that they aren’t always sure how to show their thinking, but instead sometimes tend to want to parrot back my thinking, or the thinking of others.

When we’ve worked in our readers/writers notebooks, I’ve also seen that middle school students often ask if they can doodle and draw. I love it when my students get creative in their notebooks, no matter what grade they are in. I just noticed that my middle school students seem to especially enjoy this activity.

That led me to realize that middle school students can show their thinking through drawing, sketching, and illustrating, in addition to talking and writing.

I am introducing the Notice and Note fiction signposts this week, and instead of asking students to write about them, I’ve asked them to sketch and illustrate them.

middle school drawing

The buzz in the room while students were drawing, illustrating, and processing the different sign posts was fantastic. While circulating the room, I was able to interact with students in a fun and academic way. I learned that middle school students love to be creative, and I was able to get a window into their thinking. That was before I even saw their finished products.

Students have illustrated a couple of the signposts now, and I feel like I am on to something. Students are able to express their thinking through drawing, and even think about things more deeply than if they were only doing the discussing and writing. The illustrating has increased their processing, and I’ll keep using this strategy alongside the writing, reading, and discussing. Perhaps every other middle school teacher on the planet already understood this, but now I do, too.

I’m going to add more illustrating and drawing components to all of my classes now, no matter what level they are, from grade seven to AP Lang.

I’d love to hear how others have reached students who are in different grades and levels. How do your students show their thinking?

Julie has been teaching secondary language arts for twenty years, spending the first fifteen in rural Central Oregon, and the last four in Amman, Jordan. She’s thrilled to report that she and her family have moved across the world to Managua, Nicaragua this year, where a new adventure has begun.

Follow her on twitter @SwinehartJulie

15 Reasons to Read as Written by High School Seniors

Lisa Dennis, Readers Writers Workshop, Student Blogs October 31, 2018 Comments: 2

You, dear Three Teachers Talk reader, are about to enter another dimension. A dimension not only of Readers Writers Workshop, but of very strange Halloween happenings. A journey into a wondrous land of…a post returned from the dead.

A few days back, Lauren Zucker, fellow educational blogger, reached out to ask about a post I had written back in 2017 detailing the insights of her awesome blogging seniors. The post, it seemed, had…DISAPPEARED. Diving into the bowels of Word Press, I too came up empty. It wasn’t until my husband took me to the eerie depths of the Way Back Machine that I found my deleted post, and can run it here for Lauren to link to, and hopefully for you to enjoy if you missed it the first time around. Happy Halloween to all!

I was giving my thumb a workout last week on Twitter, scrolling past political fallacies and pundit reports, quips from Ellen about cats, and sad attempts by the Packers organization to distract themselves from their lack of big plans this Super Bowl Weekend (single tear running down my cheek) and I came across an irresistible link: 15 Reasons Why You Should Read.

Aaaaaaand, I’m hooked.
Click.
Scroll.

And what to my wondering eyes should appear, but 15 reasons to read, linked in individual blog posts (wait for it!), written by students for their Senior English Seminar class blog and inspired by Kelly Gallagher’s Reading Reasons: Motivational Mini-Lessons for Middle and High School.

A little investigation had me scrolling (no wonder my right eye has been twitching for two months…I may need an eyepatch soon) through the class blog of, English educator and doctoral candidate at Fordham University, Lauren Zucker’s third period students, whose sweet smiles look just like the seniors in my own classroom: five parts confidence, fifteen parts senioritis, three parts fear, two parts energy drink, and boundless potential.

The possibilities with these blogs are endless:

Have your students read through them and reflect on one that stands out to investigate further.
Put just the rules up on the board and generate some discussion on initial impressions, connections, etc.
Comment on the student posts with personal experiences to connect student blogger to students in your classroom.
Have students write their own blog posts about the benefits of reading.
Challenge students to synthesize some of the logos from these blog posts into an oral defense of the endless beauty that is reading.

Below, brief explorations of each reason to read. I loved diving into this student thinking and connecting their ideas to my classroom.

Reading Improves Your Social Understanding by Andrew Zayas

Andrew speaks to a common theme in high schools across America: We live and work in bubbles. As I suggest to my students, reading affords you the opportunity to live lives, solve problems, and meet people you may not have even considered before. Those experiences can provide, as Andrew suggests, “an unlimited source of social knowledge,” that is invaluable in a time when people need to understand one another better if we ever hope to overcome all that divides us.
Reading Reduces Your Stress by Avery Semkow

Avery explores a study by the University of Sussex in which test subjects were taken through several activities to elevate their stress levels. Reading silently for only six minutes slowed the subjects’ heart rate and relaxed muscles to a level of stress that was even lower than before they started. SIX MINUTES! When student sit in our classrooms and read for ten minutes, a veritable spa service with those four extra minutes, we are helping them to calm, focus, center. Namaste, fellow readers. Let’s do our hearts some good.
Reading Helps You Sleep Better by Ben Tyler

Similar to the study above, Ben’s piece suggests that reading, again for as few as six minutes, can help you fall asleep much faster. I’m not sure I love what this means for my classroom (at 7:20 a.m.), but I know it to be true in my own life. Or maybe that’s the full-time job and a preschooler at home. But seriously, our students need more and better sleep. According to the Sleep Foundation, only 15% of high school students get the recommended eight hours of sleep each night. If we can’t get them to bed sooner, at least we can help them fall asleep faster (and without glowing phones in their faces). Challenge your students to start small and commit to heading to bed with their books to read for even five minutes. It’s like a certain snack crisp that comes in a tube…bet you can’t read for just five minutes.
Reading Develops Empathy by Skylar Giarusso

If there is one thing our world needs right this very minute, it’s more empathy. Not sympathy, not apathy, but empathy. The words of Atticus Finch ring more and more true each time I read them. If we could all just “climb into someone’s skin and walk around in it,” I think we could benefit from the shared perspectives that promote more patience, tolerance, and civil discourse.
Audiobooks Are Another Great Option by Thomas Hamrah

Let’s get this out of the way – I have never listened to an audiobook. Not because I don’t want to, but mostly because I haven’t broken my longstanding addiction to NPR, so most of my car time is either spent listening to Morning Edition or, if Ellie is in the car, “Let it Go” from Frozen. What’s interesting to me is that Thomas explores the idea that students think listening to an audiobook is cheating, but like most things, it’s only cheating if you don’t do the actual work. Attentive listening is a necessary life skill, one we promote in the classroom as it is often underdeveloped in our students (Let’s get real. Many adults need more work at listening too. Listen first. Think of a response and talk later). Stories are meant to be heard. Listening isn’t cheating.
Reading Shapes Your Personality by Tori Murry

Tory takes her self-described “fascination with psychology” and uses the same study as Skylar but moves her conclusions in another direction. The class discussed which parts of your personality are genetically linked to relatives and which parts you can craft. I know that adolescence finds our students at the prime point in their lives to become independent thinkers, and thereby, independent people. I’d like to believe that I’m equal parts Elizabeth Bennett, Mary Anne Spier, Jo March (though I’m probably more of a Meg, so room to grow in spirit there), Offred, and the Lorax. I think it would be a blast to have students help support elements of their personalities with book characters.
Reading is Fun by John Miele

I loved that John explored how reading can challenge you to solve a mystery, allow you to escape reality, and be a “part of something” all at the same time. I’ve seen it happen in my room. I gushed so long and hard about A Monster Calls, that I now have a group of about 25 students that want to meet on a Saturday at the movie theater to see it together. “We can go to the movie and then get coffee. You know…be collegiate and talk about whether or not the movie does the book justice.” Fun! In addition, that social element can be defining. “Everyone” read R.L. Stine when I was a kid. Our students “all” read Harry Potter. Books promote belonging and genuine belonging promotes positive feelings. This is at the heart of my classroom and I may be biased, but it is fun.
Reading Will Make You Live Longer by Maeson Nolan

I’m going to need extra years in my life to read all the books on my “next up” list, that’s for sure, so if a study from Yale is telling me that reading 3.5 hours per week will add two years to my life, I’ll dismiss my misgivings about sample size, variables, and math in general (never been my strong suit anyway). 730 days is a lot of reading. Now, I just need to get Yale to do a study on beach reading.
Choice Encourages Reading by Nicole Kudelka

Choice is nothing new to 3TT, but what struck me about this perspective was the way one of Nicole’s classmates phrased her insights on why choice matters: “Assigned books become more of an obstacle, and shortcuts are taken because the grade is more important than the actual book.” Amy’s post on choice yesterday, shared this same sentiment: When we “make kids read a book,” we might as well mandate that they enjoy it while we’re at it. My honors kids, by and large, didn’t read more when I assigned nine whole class novels, they just got better at convincing me they read nine books. Cultural literacy and choice can coexist, they need not be mutually exclusive, so we must work to increase choice to build volume and then push for complexities (classic or not). Penny Kittle says that we must first engage in order to build volume, then complexity can follow.
Reading Doubles Your Vocabulary by Brian Sayre

A voluminous lexicon can be procured through bibliophilic tendencies. Win.
Reading Preserves Your Memory by Claire Blass

If I am going to live two years longer, I’d like to remember those years, and all that came before. No surprise, that stimulating your brain with books can help sharpen brain function. In fact, I told my classes today before silent reading that I was presenting them with an opportunity to not only be smarter but think smarter. Seriously, will my benevolence ever cease?
Just Ten Minutes of Reading Yields Better Reading by Griffen Klauser

Griffen explores the idea that 10 minutes of reading per day (again, classes, you are welcome) is a stepping stone. In his own small experiment over Thanksgiving break, he challenged himself to read just ten minutes per day. By the end of the break, he read 90 minutes in one day because he was so “into” his book. As the brain is a muscle, it needs training. I’m never going to make it through a sixty-minute spin class if I haven’t exercised in months. I’m never going to finish 601 pages in East of Eden if I don’t keep after it in small chunks. And if I could give two hoots about what I’m reading, I’m not even going to make ten minutes a day for it. So, please see #9.
More Reading = Better Writing by Nick Frasco

“Reading molds your writing style.” Preach, Nick. Preach.
Reading Changes Your Perspective by Noah Slakter

I love that Noah’s insights run completely contrary to my piece Books Can’t Be Bullied. He argues that the text means nothing without a reader to understand it, and that understanding can vary from person to person (Transactional Theory), anyone?. I think back to my earliest days of teaching. Five sections of freshmen per day. Five days per week. It’s the year I developed my saying about supporting an opinion on a text with text evidence: “As long as you don’t tell me it’s about a giraffe (as I have never read something solely about a giraffe), you’re right.” Their opinions varied as widely as their converse shoe color, so we learned to synthesize those perspectives to get at meaning. Did opinions change? Certainly. Did students grow in hearing the varying perspectives of their classmates? Certainly.
Reading Gives Your Brain a Workout by Samantha Bernstein

Reading these 15 pieces certainly gave my brain a workout! I’m proof that it’s true. I also loved Samantha’s voice when she said, “The mental task of reading words on a page, processing them, hearing the voice in your head, creating a picture in your mind, and following a plot is not only a mouthful but a nice stretch for your noggin.” She encourages us all to show our brains “some love.” I love it.

If you’d like to read the student blogs in their entirety or pass along the readings to colleagues and students, take a look at each of the pieces here. And don’t forget to follow Lauren @LGZreader for more great ideas and insights. If you want to take a look at how she’s having her students promote their work on Twitter, take a look at #SESNH.

Lisa Dennis spends her school days teaching AP Language and Honors/Pre-AP Sophomores, while also leading the fearless English department at Franklin High School, just outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin where she lives with her husband Nick, daughter Ellie, and beagle Scout. She is a firm believer that a youthful spirit, a kind heart, a big smile, and a good book can ease most of life’s more troublesome quarrels. Follow Lisa on Twitter @LDennibaum.

80/20

AP Language, Readers Writers Workshop, Reflection, Sarah Morris October 30, 2018 Comments: 2

I’d like to take this post and, in honor of Halloween, share something really spooky with you. Well, maybe not spooky, but terrifying. Maybe not terrifying, but scary…

It’s the fear that creeps in every time I try something new in the classroom: a little fear I like to call The Questioning. And that’s what it is – just a series of questions that like, any good Halloween monster, waits until I’m lulled into complacency to rear its ugly head. Questions like is this best practice? Does the research support it? Are you doing enough? Are you doing too much? Are there better ways to support your kiddos? What are the unforeseen consequences of this action.

You see, my PLC partners and I are trying a lot of new ideas this year in our AP classrooms. We are organizing our units around essential questions, including a lot of choice reading in classes where choice reading has never really been an option for us, and slowing our instruction down in an attempt to go a mile deep and an inch wide instead of an inch deep and a mile wide.

I feel almost like a new teacher again – high on the possibilities of all the new ideas but brought low by the realization that I’m creating new content again while also surrendering a lot of the direction in the classroom to my students. Now, granted, they are rising to the occasion, and their conversations and writings are truly interesting, interesting in the ways that I’m not sure they would have been without these new procedures. But, it’s been a little bit of a roller coaster of a year – a crazy, scary rollercoaster.

I find that I’m spending a lot of my time thinking through new activities and new approaches, trying to predict the possible benefits and consequences of these changes while also teaching and grading and making time for reflection. I don’t feel like I am ever wholy in one part of the teaching cycle, but instead just this Go Go Gadget-person vacillating between all of the points on that spectrum at any given moment. It’s stressful.

In times like these when I can’t get my brain to settle, I remember a little tidbit of wisdom dropped by Penn State’s Russ Rose at a volleyball clinic several years ago. He argued that limiting your drill set to a few key areas and the finding variations on those drills to keep them fresh was the key to his success.

He called it the 80/20 rule.

The idea goes back to an Italian economist in the 1800s who found that 80% of the wealth in Italy was held by 20% of the population. Oddly enough, he also found that 80% of the peas in his garden were produced by 20% of the plants. Essentially, Pareto‘s rule could be boiled down to this: 80% of the effects are the product of 20% of the causes.

Whenever my class seems frantic or I’m nervous about my practice, I think of Pareto. If 20% of my effort produces 80% of my results, where should I spend my time? How should my students spend their time? I’m becoming more and more conscious of the demands placed on our students. I grapple with what I should expect of them outside of school as many take two or more AP classes, play sports, work jobs, and still need to be, you know, people with a consistent work-life balance. I want to make sure that I make intentional choices that meet the demands and rigor of my subject while honoring my students’ time.

Pareto’s Principle reminds me to consider what has the most immediate and lasting effects on my students. It reminds me to channel my energies into productive avenues by limiting my focus to just a few key ideas. For me, those ideas always come back to Socratic Seminars – it’s important that we talk through our ideas in controlled and questioning places. It comes back to writing – it’s important that we write every day (a goal I’m refocusing on) And, it’s important that we marry those ideas in conferences – safe places where we talk about our writing. Consistently, these have been my 20%. What are yours?

Sarah Morris teaches AP Language & Composition and Film as Literature in Murfreesboro, Tn. She is rediscovering her love of bullet journaling and PaperMate InkJoy Gel Pens. She tweets at @marahsorris_cms.

Less Really is More

Description Mentors, Katie Maguire, Mentor Texts, Readers Writers Workshop October 29, 2018 1 Comment

Any English teacher who has seniors this year or who had juniors last year or who ever gave useful feedback to any student at any grade knows the feeling of this time of year: It’s early-deadline-week in the college application season, which means most/many seniors are in the throes of essay anxiety. Much of their stress — and the stress of any of us called upon to assist in this process — arises from the arbitrary word-count limit which, depending on the school and the prompt, can range from 30 words to 650, the latter being the upper limit of the Common App essay.

If we stay true to the process theories of mentors like Donald Murray, Peter Elbow, Lucy Calkins, and Penny Kittle — among so many others too numerous to name — we tell students to address word count limitations only in the final stages of the process. Every year, we all hear the same concern, some version of the following:

“Thanks for the feedback, and it really makes a lot of sense, but I’m already past the word limit so there’s no way I can add anything.”

Scissors-May2 Students wish for us to tell them what to cut out before the essay has even been developed, before the central story has been identified and fleshed out to its most meaningful degree. Mariana and I brag to students about our 100% success rate in revising with students to pare down their college essays to within the word count: possibly the ONLY 100% success rate we can boast. Still, this critical skill of letting go what isn’t needed in the writing — which also, 100% of the time, results in a cleaner, more gratifying piece — is one students still struggle with.

Kristin Jeschke offers hands-on (and fun!) strategies for students to cut out the riff-raff in this post. For our senior writing classes, Mariana and I have found some other useful ways to develop this skill in our aspiring college freshmen, starting last quarter with the 100-word memoir.

imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery-that-mediocrity-can-pay-to-greatness-oscar-wilde-7013b Like all great lesson plans, the 100-word memoir was “borrowed” from Kittle & Gallagher. We didn’t even realize the value of adhering to this limited verbiage until we witnessed students engaging and (willingly) struggling with it. While this exercise doesn’t seem to have been quite enough to provide students with enough strategy to pare down their 1000+-word college essay drafts by almost half during revision, we found the concept of a limited word count so potentially instructive that we have decided to turn it on its head with our seniors in our second quarter fiction-writing unit.

Fiction is driven by conflict, but conflict arises mainly out of character, so we start with brief character sketches, using McSweeney’s satirical versions as mentor texts (warning: a few of these are R-rated for language and adult themes). Students took these short pieces and extrapolated the rest of the iceberg, so to speak, by imagining clothing, favorite media, relationship status, hopes and dreams, and potential conflicts that might arise in the lives of each of these fictional folks. Next, they will develop character sketches of their own, describing the main character of their budding short stories. (To give less fiction-confident students a grounding [and to require all students to build some foundation to a piece of writing that can remain dangerously nebulous throughout the entire process], we required all students to craft the world of the story first, through research and planning. I’m happy to elaborate on this for anyone interested).

I’ll also truncate the entire writing-of-the-short-story for the sake of staying focused on the topic of this post: boiling down the writing to its most essential elements. Rather than scaffolding toward longer, more developed pieces as we did in the narrative (ie “college essay”) unit of quarter one, our third writing endeavor (or “lap” in the language of 180 Days) will be to pare down their 1500+-word short story to, say, 250 or less.

the-flash-hates-flash-fiction-2 To heighten the deletion and word-choice challenge — and, more importantly to encourage students to boil down prose (their own and others’) to its very essence — one might consider “hint fiction.” I plan to try the strategy with my AP students, asking them to boil down the essence of a complicated argument presented in a text, using limited words to still capture the nuance of a complex argument. In fact, in a late-Sunday-night-lesson-plan-panic, I think I’ll have them do just that this week with Arthur Miller’s article “Why I Wrote The Crucible.” So much of AP Language & Composition depends on seeing just how much depends on that red wheelbarrow of nuance, and this exercise can develop the skill of precision in identifying argument. We’ll see.

buried-under-paper (1) In the meantime, though, I can feel the value of requiring shorter work for both us and our students, on so many levels: precision in word choice, saying more with less (vocabulary development); eliminating redundancy (sentence variation / sentence combining); not to mention the refinement and clarity of ideas that is required to say what you mean with an extremely limited word count. Not to mention the exquisite beauty of conferring on 100 focused words as opposed to 1000+.

First, Love

Conferring, Kristin Jeschke, Readers Writers Workshop October 28, 2018 Leave a comment

Wisdom to Stand On

On a gray, rainy October Monday in central Iowa, Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher came to town. And, friends, I got to spend a day with them (in an intimate ballroom at the Sheraton stuffed with many other teachers and coaches and administrators). Did I fangirl? Of course I did. But not for long. Their struggles with technology, their comedic timing, their gifts as storytellers–these transformed them. These giants in our field morphed into humans in front of me: mentors with experience, mentors with ideas about volume and choice and feedback–wisdom to stand on. Even now, nineteen years in, I still need that kind of mentorship. Perhaps that’s why one of Penny’s principles about feedback lingers, even now, weeks later: The first teacher interaction with writing should be love.

I’ve worked hard over the years to provide the kind of feedback that sets my students up in hope. Yet I wondered–have my first interactions been love? No. Not consistently. While conferring, my leading questions are “How’s the writing going? What roadblocks are you running into?”. These certainly help conferences stay focused and solutions-oriented in those precious few minutes. Love, though? No. When providing feedback on drafts and best drafts, I’m certainly identifying and encouraging strengths; and I’m taking the time to respond as a reader, too, with what I love and appreciate about the writing. Is that very first interaction, are those words in the first comment bubble, love, though? No. Not regularly. How does it feel if what’s first heard is or read is criticism?

In Tom Newkirks’ Embarrassment (pretty sure I’ve referenced this in each of my blog posts this school year. Like Penny’s words, the book lingers. Read it.), he mentions the “close association of writing and shame.” On some level, writing means rejection. Our ideas, our words, our rhythms–all can be rejected. For students, this feeling of rejection–linked with shame!–comes from us, especially, as Newkirk notes, because of the power dynamic in the classroom. But we can learn to look at the love-first interaction as a tool for more productive feedback.

My colleagues will remind me of the challenge, at times, of the love-first interaction. Indeed, it may be challenging to find what’s working in the piece, and there’s danger in seeming disingenuous. I tend to agree with Newkirk, though, who explains that in most writing, there is something to like: “a word choice, an image, a bit of humor, a good detail, a sharp verb, a telling fact or statistic, a fine bit of logic.” Still, there’s also danger in love that’s not balanced with constructive criticism, which is why we can use the love-first interaction to set the stage for that constructive criticism.

In the days following the conference, I tasked myself with love-first interactions, while conferring and while scripting feedback. To do so, I prioritized strategies already in my repertoire.

Ways to Interact with Love

When a student shares a concern, I scan the paper and look for a place where the student successfully handles the skill. Then I say, “Look what you did here! More like this!”. Following this approach in a recent conference, the student commented she worked hard on the section I pointed out, and if she just needed to do more of that, then she could. That conference ended with smiles.
Sometimes it’s about giving love through curiosity. When I read a student’s paper and realize a deficit of details, I re-frame it with something like this: “Wow. I really want more of this. I’m so curious about …”. This reinforces that what’s written has value and then showing where they can build more value.
Other times, it’s about saying YES! I’ll say, “YES–I notice that you recognize the need for justification here and use the “this shows that because” strategy. Now the next step is to . . .”. The love first interaction allows me to set the student up in hope through the small victory.
Occasionally, I focus love to the idea or topic. I confess–sometimes I might even squeal. “Ohh. I really like this idea of comparing grief to a pinball machine. There’s a level of unexpectedness there that will engage the reader.” I’m loving and reinforcing what good writing does for audiences.
And, finally, my new favorite: asking my students what they love. Some students still don’t believe in my genuine praise; I get the side-eye, the nervous giggle. So, encouraging them to share what they’re loving allows me to affirm their observations and shift the power dynamic.

Why Prioritizing Love First Matters

We all need the shoulders of giants to stand on: as I need the steadying wisdom of Penny Kittle, Kelly Gallagher, Tom Newkirk, Peter Elbow, Don Murray, and so many others, our students need our strong shoulders to hold them–no, LIFT THEM–higher. Love first interactions set up our students to persist. Love first interactions set up our students to take risks. Love first interactions set up our students to silence their own inner critics. Love first interactions set up our students to hope.

Kristin Jeschke teaches AP Language and Composition and College Prep English in Waukee, Iowa. She’ll need to remember the love-first mentality as she helps her nine year old practice cello and her six year old practice violin. Follow her on Twitter @kajeschke.

Getting “There:” The Narrative Behind the Grade

Maggie Lopez, Narrative, Readers Writers Workshop, Reflection October 26, 2018 Leave a comment

Suddenly, there is snow on the mountain range that encircles Salt Lake City and the first quarter has come and gone. Even after spending 11 weeks together, I confess that we, my students and I, aren’t “there.”

You know, there, that elusive place in education where students are investing, taking ownership, engaging, and enjoying thinking.

We have engaged in the elements of workshop, but our classroom feels like we are on a 10 mile per hour train to “there” that is frequently derailed. Reading as a community was a high point, but the momentum has since stalled. My old bag of tricks–student-created due dates, “go to” YA books that may shock or surprise, favorite mentor texts–aren’t reaching a far too large chunk of my people.

Students are being compliant, but they’re not engaged.

I am not okay with this. It feels…I feel…mediocre.

Was it me? Is it me? The stress of junior year? Too much choice? Not enough choice? Other teenage things I don’t know about? In an effort to figure out what was going on, what the story behind the data was, I asked students to write the narrative of the student behind the grade.

I simply wanted to know: Who is the student behind these grades? Who is the human behind the numbers?

Throughout my 100+ students, the reflections were consistent and their honesty certainly made the case for continuing to cultivate a workshop classroom. Thankfully, we are heading there. Summatively, these are the three take aways from their data-driven reflective narratives.

Stress and anxiety: Junior year seems to unkindly smack students in the face. I have seen it for eight years now. The ramped up, seemingly casual yet threatening chats about the looming college process sits heavy on their shoulders. Increased course demands eat up time that used to be spent with friends or participating in activities without sacrificing academics. Aside from school stress, there are two-sport athletes, thespians, part-time workers, and family child care providers struggling to balance.

All the more case for carving out time to read for pleasure. These students’ lives are just as busy as adults. Giving time to read, even 10 minutes at the start of class, can be “therapeutic” as Emily said: “This student found reading at the start of class each day to be therapeutic. She is sad on odd days when the class doesn’t read.” Our students need time to pause. More importantly, they need to connect with characters, settings, and challenges that mirror their existence. They need to read that sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t, but you will get through these tough years.

True choice is new: While students now admit they really like being able to choose books, choice in August was scary. I believe it was scary because they didn’t know themselves as real readers, just readers who were assigned chapters due on certain days. Aria, who is reading through everything that is on Netflix or will soon be a movie, reflected: “This student, who read three books last quarter, loves being able to choose books without judgment.”

All the more case for exposure to new titles. While my school is a college prep school and many teachers, from theology to science, assign books to read outside of a textbook, it isn’t a culture of readers. Students struggling with choice lack a knowledge of what genre or story they prefer versus what they don’t like. My developing readers need exposure via student recommendations, book talks, library displays, topic journals, or ANY other medium, so they can continue to curate a “To Read” list with meaningful titles.

I use my classroom library to highlight books by genre, theme, etc. to grab students’ attention.

Developing “To Read” lists in our notebooks.

This fall’s bulletin board outside my classroom, suggesting titles to read before streaming.

Writing voices are still developing: Elliot wrote: “This student has never been asked to write anything besides school stuff. This student has a writing voice, but it is quiet and shy, only the notebook knows it now, but the voice is gaining courage.” Wow. Check out that voice! Many times, I feel my students don’t trust their ideas or analysis as being “right,” just as they don’t yet trust themselves as writers, frequently asking “Is this what you want?” or “Is this good?”

All the more case for writing, writing, and writing more. Writers need practice just like athletes. Aside from developing confidence in their ideas, students need to develop confidence in trying out elements of voice to develop the craft of writing by writing beside mentor texts, infusing craft into formal writings, journaling, and closely reading for craft in their choice books.

Boiling it down: students need time, exposure, confidence so we can get there.

I will keep at it, as Lisa encouraged, because the work is not easy, but we know it is worthy. As some keep resisting, fake reading, or simply not reading at all, I will keep conferencing and book talking. I will give reading time As students doodle instead of write, stare at the ceiling instead of revise, ask “Is this good?” instead of trust their skill, I will keep modeling writing and encouraging. The culture I create this year will create momentum for next year, then into the following, speeding up the train to take us to that special place of learning.

The train may not be speeding ahead, but it’s chugging along. At least I know we are on the track, heading in the right direction.

Maggie Lopez teaches American Literature and AP literature in Salt Lake City. She is anxiously awaiting the start of ski season in Utah and NCTE in Houston next month, while reading Girl, Interrupted and scouring for flexible seating furniture on a budget. You can follow her on Twitter at @meg_lopez0

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