Category Archives: Writers

May I have your intention please?

Amy Rasmussen, Classroom Culture, Poetry January 10, 2018 Comments: 5

I am borrowing my word for 2018 from my friend Whitney who in her wisdom spoke right to my heart:  “My word for 2018 is “intentional,” and I see that manifesting as spending quality time with quality people engaging in quality pursuits…being conscious about what I choose to do. I’m tired of being spread too thin and being so stressed out and/or exhausted that I can’t enjoy the moment I’m in.”

Ever had that moment when someone says your words for you? Thanks, Whit!

My father instilled in me the habit of setting goals. He taught me how to write them down and then see them to fruition. I am pretty good at it (most of the time.) But lately, (like the past three years) I, too, have spread myself too thin, and it’s taken a long while for my inner voice to shout loud enough for me to hear it. Poor hoarse thing.

This idea of intention resonates like an echo from the canyon of my soul. This voice is serious and a little scary. See, I’ve operated intensely in the extremes for decades. How can I do this and this and this? How can I be more, do more?

But I have not always practiced intention. More is not always better. Duh.

I am reminded of a conversation I had with my friends and colleagues Amber and Mary. I had the privilege of mentoring them as pre-service teachers several years ago. They told me the best word to describe me then was intense. Of all the words in the world. . .

I get it. And these friends will agree: I have come a long way. But I’ve got miles to go.

So I am going to be a little more honest with myself. A lot more patient. A lot more sincere. I am going to set myself free. Free to explore and relax and play.

Intentionhonestly

To be able to do this more effectively, I am also going to take some advice I got from Adam and not just take a break from social media but detach from it — a lot. Maybe I will read a lot more of the books Adam recommends and make a bigger dent in my books-to-read-next pile.

I found this article 6 Simple Questions to Set 2017 Intentions, and I’ve played around with my own questions and answers in my notebook. I am a year late to the party, but I’ve got the pointy hat on now.

I also found a list of beautiful poems at the Center for Mindfulness, a place I should probably rent a room. I’ve printed them out and will paste these poems in my notebook and write around them. (I remember Penny Kittle saying one time that she does this:  pastes poems in her notebook that she can write beside while whiling away in faculty meetings.)

Poem I Said to the Wanting Creature Inside of Me

Will this intention transfer into my teaching? into my relationships with students? No question. Here’s how I rewrote those questions above to fit with my quest to be more intentional at school:

  • What are 1-3 experiences I want to have with students this spring?
  • Who are 3-6 students I want to deepen my relationships with this semester?
  • What are 1-3 things I want to try in my classroom that I’ve put off trying?
  • What are 3 way I will take care of myself more effectively during the school day?
  • Who on my campus can I get to know more meaningfully?
  • What one word do I want students to describe me?

We all know the benefit of boundaries. I don’t know why it is so hard for some of us to set boundaries for our own well being. As teachers, we take on a lot, don’t we?

My hope for myself — and for all of you — is that we can stop a spell, consider the moment, think about what matters in the long run, then, and only then, take a step toward whatever it is we want to accomplish.

There we will have a solid place for our feet. I like that.

What are your intentions for the new year? I’d love to know.

Amy Rasmussen is the mother of six grown children and two naughty Sheltie puppies. She’s married to her best friend of 32 years and teaches at an awesome senior high school in North Texas. She hopes this is the year she can stop everything else long enough to write that book. Follow Amy on Twitter @amyrass and @3TeachersTalk 

Conversation is Our Most Powerful Teaching Tool

Conferring, Shana Karnes, Talk January 9, 2018 Comments: 7

After two months of being cooped up in the house with two kids under the age of two, we finally went back to school yesterday.

Hallelujah!!

To open my class yesterday, I asked my students to get up and get talking with one another–about nothing in particular. Each student had written her name on a note card, and after thoroughly mixing and redistributing them, each student had to go find her card’s owner and get to know him or her. Once we got talking, the room was never silent, and after we were all seated again, I asked students what topics they used as conversational entrees.

“Well, I’ve been in a lot of classes with people in here before, but never knew their names, so it was helpful to just start with an introduction,” one student volunteered.

quote-negotiation-and-discussion-are-the-greatest-weapons-we-have-for-promoting-peace-and-nelson-mandela-81-33-16I was flabbergasted–how could these students not even know each other’s names?! What sorts of classes were being taught that didn’t allow for dialogue and collaboration at this most basic level!?

But then I realized that this was the norm, and often is for our high school students, too. This statistic was even highlighted in the first page of the article we were reading for class: “Less than 1 percent of instructional time is devoted to discussion that requires reasoning or an opinion from students, according to researcher John Goodland.”

I think we can all agree that reasoning and opinion should be at the forefront of student dialogue, and a central goal of any curriculum. But if we’re spending less than one percent of our time on these things, we’re nowhere near where we need to be.

After my students listed ways they began conversations with one another–clothing choices, majors, the weather, how was your break–I asked them how they planned to get to know their students.

“I’m going to give them an interest inventory,” one student said. “I’ll do a learning styles survey,” another claimed. Facepalm, I said.

 

No one said, “by starting a conversation just like we did today,” which is what I was hoping they’d jump to. Conferring is our most powerful instructional and assessment tool, and it’s the art of a conversation made critical. Not only is it important for teachers to get to know our students through simple talk–not with the barrier of a survey or paper between ourselves and students–but it’s important for students to practice the skill of conversation, first with us, then with one another.

Because perhaps less than 1 percent of instructional time is devoted to discussion not only because of how traditional classrooms are structured, but because of how little space in our culture there is for conversation these days. I’ve written about the value of talk before, but I’m coming to believe that there is more value in conversation. The exchange of ideas is much more valuable than the simple act of articulating one’s own, and needs to be our end goal.

The moves we make as teachers and thinkers will help our students reach this aim–first to help them read critically enough to develop their own nuanced opinions, then to help them write and talk to draft out their thinking, and finally to help them share and grow these ideas through conversation. Not to defend their own ideas, which remain only theirs, but to help their thinking evolve through discussion.

golden-globes6.jpg

Oprah Winfrey, in a speech that I hope will be close-read by millions of high school students as a mentor text this week, reminds us that “What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have,” and that our truths have power when someone “chooses to listen.”

Speaking and listening are much more than just standards for us to cover–they are the tools our students need to change themselves and the world for the better.

Shana Karnes is a mom of two daughters, a teacher of preservice educators, and a writer of hopes and dreams–in her notebook and here on Three Teachers Talk. She is delighted that winter break and maternity leave have ended and that she’s back in the classroom with her tribe. Find her on Twitter at @litreader.

Remembering How Good Readers Read – Guest Post by Brandon Wasemiller

Classroom Culture, Community, Guest Post, Readers Workshop, Readers Writers Workshop, Student Projects January 8, 2018 Comments: 3

Happy New Year, Three Teachers Talk! We hope your new year is off to a magnificent start. Hot off the presses from Franklin High School, my colleague Brandon Wasemiller writes about challenging our toughest students to value their voices and embrace the opportunities that reading can hold in their lives and their academic experiences with participation in The Global Read Aloud. 

We often talk about sparking the love of reading in our students. It is our daily, yearly, and career-defining struggle. Over the past few weeks, I tried something new because I was really struggling with a Tier II Intervention class (A class I have taught in the past but was reassigned to this year). I was giving book talks, getting to know the students, helping them with their books, teaching them how to be readers; but nothing was sticking. Most of them didn’t even try.   

It wasn’t until the second week of class that I came to a realization through a reading engagement survey, a pre-assessment, and a set of conferences. It was an idea that slapped me across the face and helped me guide the class. They’ve been nonreaders for so long that they have forgotten what it is to BE a reader.I have to re-teach these kids how to read.

And with that, I was off.

A fellow teacher, collaborator, and 3TT All-Star told me about a great project–The Global Read Aloud. A way for teachers and students in different classrooms (and most of the time different states) to collaborate and talk about the same book at the same time. So what was the chosen book? A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness.

(Listen, quick aside here,  but if you haven’t read A Monster Calls yet, what are you even doing?)

And so we began reading A Monster Calls. I tried to think of as many ways as possible to teach this book and make it fun and interesting. I started teaching them about active reading and about thinking while reading. I modeled for them how I read, and I had them track questions and comments throughout, but honestly, I felt like I was spinning my tires.

Then, one day, I pulled out the good ole Audible app and I played the audiobook. The chapters (The Wildness of Stories”, “The First Tale”, and “The Rest of the First Tale”) all feature two distinct characters. Conor, a young boy who is suffering through his mother’s battle with cancer, and a gigantic Yew Tree that turns into a monster at 12:07 to tell Conor stories. At the end of listening to all three chapters, we had a discussion as a class. To my sheer amazement, every single student discussed what happened and had amazingly in-depth responses to my questions.

So what was different? Why did the audiobook reach them better than some of my other activities?

And it hit me.

They are listening and experiencing a real and authentic reading experience.

They are actively engaged and plotting along with a READER who is emphasizing words, speaking in different voices for multiple characters, and emphasizing italicized and stylized words, all helping us as readers paint a picture of the novel in our heads. These are the qualities that good readers do independently. These are the qualities my students needed to re-learn.

I have a memory that I don’t think I will ever forget. I was probably six or seven, and I was at my grandma’s house. Every day, after nap time, my grandma would have story time and she would read from this book of Disney short stories. She would read us a few and she always did the voices. My grandma was Br’re Rabbit and talked in a thick southern accent, she was Mickey and squeaked her voice. My brother, sister and I were her captive audience. Our favorite story, however, was the Tale of the Headless Horseman.

One dark, rainy afternoon (I’m being serious, it really was dark and stormy) my grandma stepped out of the bathroom and her head was tucked inside a jacket and the jacket was zipped all the way up. The effect was that she seemed to have no head. She sat down to read the tale of The Headless Horseman as the Headless Horseman. She performed the tale of Ichabod Crane and his race to get across the bridge before losing his head.

That was not story time, that was an experience. I was there on the bridge racing to save my life, I was looking at the evil horseman careening towards me as I begged the horse to ride faster, I was there as the Horseman drew his sword and prepared to strike….

The idea for this unit came to me as I remembered that sometimes enjoyment in reading is lost because we lose what it is that makes us readers.

When you’re a kid, your parents read to you in different voices. When you read out loud to your parents or to teachers at a young age, they encourage you to read like they do. They help you sound out words, understand what a comma does in a sentence, what it sounds like to read a sentence as a question or exclamation; and then at some point–after the training wheels are off–we no longer read out loud.

So we have students who hate reading because it has been force fed to them for so many years. We get them into Workshop and spark the passion of reading, but they have forgotten how to read. My hope for this unit is that it will help those students.

And so, with this new realization, I decided to have my students tell a tale of their own using A Monster Calls as my mentor text.

Prep: Find chapters that will challenge the students to be readers.

I decided to use chapters featuring two distinct characters. Conor and the monster. Students had to create two distinctly different voices (yes, having a monster voice was a requirement) and they had to deal with sarcasm, anger, frustration, and other emotions throughout the chapter. brandon1

There were three chapters all about seven to eight pages long, so I made three groups of seven to eight students per group. Each group was responsible for a chapter, BUT each individual student had to read–out loud–one page. (Huge selling point here, I just kept telling them “It’s only one page!”)

Mini Lesson – Active Reader Annotating

I told my students that the goal for our first class was to focus on how characters speak throughout the chapter. However, for me, this was an opportunity to teach them how to be an active reader and note taker. I did the first page myself under the document cam.

brandon2I annotated after each line of dialogue for how the character spoke. “What emotions are being expressed here?”  I also told them that we needed to pay attention to italicized words and what they are there for.

We looked at the line “‘He’s been very good, Ma,’ Conor’s mum said winking at him from behind his grandma, her favorite blue scarf tied around his head” (41).

“So why is the word VERY italicized?” I asked. The class then talked about sarcasm and how his mom says it that way as an “inside joke” between her and Conor. “It’s so that Conor’s mom shows him that she gets that this is hard for Conor to handle. She wants him to know she is on his side” one student amazingly pointed out. These are the kinds of things I want them to notice. Not so much content, but style and sentence fluency.

Then they set off on their own! It was time for them to work in their small groups and annotate their chapter–together. I knew that I wanted them to collaborate together so I printed out each chapter on extra large (11×17 to be exact) paper, and set them up in areas that they could circle up and all work together. I gave them the space to work it out and let them discuss the dialogue. If they couldn’t get it, I encouraged them to read it aloud to each other and discuss.

I was amazed at how well they did in their chapter prep work. Often there are students who will push back because they are scared to read out loud, but I found that having only one page, and six other students doing the same thing helped them through their stage fright.

The last step of that day: I let them chose the page they will be reading aloud for the audiobook chapter.

 

Practice (Group and Individual)

I opened the next class by reading a chapter to them. I did my deep intimidating monster voice, I did my frustrated Conor voice, and I did my mean grandmother voice. I put myself out there and it made the kids smile (and yes laugh) but that is the point. Model for them what you are looking for, voices and all.

brandon6

I told them that they need to practice and become comfortable with their reading of the page and now is the time to do that. Armed with Screencastify (an easily downloadable Chromebook extension for most computers) and a copy of their individual page with annotations, I send them out to record themselves. After they turn the recording into me, I listen and give feedback. I did my best to coach them away from monotone reading, whispering, reading too fast, or too slow, or most importantly, NOT doing a monster voice.

Clearance and Final Recording

The students were set to go.  As one final step, I called each group into the hallway and had them rehearse the whole chapter, as a full group, for me. I gave them my last bits of feedback and sent them back into the room to do a final recording.

I am already looking forward to revising this unit–make it even better. I feel that it can work in any and all classrooms. So much can be learned by understanding how a book is meant to be read and it is our jobs to help the students learn that.

What do you think of reading aloud and making group chapters come to life? Do you see your students struggling to be authentic readers? How have you encouraged students to have authentic reading experiences in your classroom?

Brandon Wasemiller has been teaching a Franklin High School for the past four years. He graduated from the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin where he majored in Secondary English Education. When he is not teaching, Brandon coaches multiple sports (Girls XC and Baseball) and enjoys listening to audiobooks while at the gym.

 

The best books I read in 2017 – Guest Post by Adam Glasglow

Books, Classroom Library, Guest Post December 21, 2017 Comments: 2

I’ve been begging Adam to write a post for us since I met him at a training in CCISD just Clear Creek ISD June 2017 (1)over a year ago. I knew then he was not only a fantastic teacher but an accomplished writer. Last summer when we met again, Adam shared with me a couple of book titles I read and loved, so when I got this post from him this week, my heart did a wee flip.

As you can see, this is not a true guest post. It’s a re-blog of Adam’s Medium site. I’m claiming it here. I read A LOT, but I’ve only heard of one book on Adam’s list. Thank goodness it’s almost winter break — I’ve got more reading to do.

Take a look. Then, please leave a comment and add the titles of the best books you read in 2017.

The best books I read in 2017 – Adam Glasgow – Medium

 

Adam Glasgow spends weekdays spreading a love of reading and writing with his 10th grade students. On evenings and weekends he enjoys reading, writing, watching movies, learning about wine, roasting his own coffee, trying to get better at disc golf, and hunting for new obsessions. He lives with his beautiful wife in the Houston area along with their two cats, one of which used to live in a dumpster, and another named after a crazed murderer from a Stephen King novel.

Who Are They When You’re Not Around?

Jessica Paxson, Readers Writers Workshop December 20, 2017 1 Comment

Former SsFormer Ss 2

“Integrity is who you are when no one is watching.”

I tell my students this until they gripe and groan at the sound of the first word, because they know the rest by heart.  I value integrity and honesty with such fervor, likely because I’ve seen the cancer dishonesty can become, spreading to affect many more lives than just the withholder or fabricator of information.  My students know this very early on, but I haven’t been entirely sure that the lesson was sticking with them.

Last Friday, I had a gaggle of former students come visit me.  They were on Christmas break from their various universities, and decided they had to come pay me a visit.  Honored and surprised, they quickly reverted back to laughing at me–never with me–as I jumped and squealed at the sight of them at my door.  I’m so glad my current students were occupied with food and reviews so I could grill these young men about their new lives.

I asked them questions about their classes, the various sports they played, and of course nosier questions like, What about a girlfriend?  Wait, what happened to your old girlfriend?  Are you happy with your life?  What do you eat?  Are you eating?  I’m going to send you some food.

After a series of questions, Carl said, “Mrs. Paxson, you know, you were right.”  I replied, “Of course I was!  About what?”

He explained, “You see, I thought I knew what it was to focus–that you’re on task when someone comes over to check on you.  But in college, nobody does that.  So it’s like focus is what you do when no one is around, just like integrity.”

They proceeded to laugh AT me, again, as tears welled up in my eyes.  I wish I were kidding.

As a teacher, this question often plagues my mind: Who are you when I’m not around?  

And the natural questions that follow:

How can I strengthen THAT person, and not just the one you present to me?

How can I provide a space where you can be the person you are when I’m not around, when I’m actually around?

Or, like Amy’s–Have I really taught you anything?

Just as integrity is what you do when no one is watching, I would argue that true growth and commitment to learning can be judged by the same criteria.

With this in mind, I’ve presented my students with some reading challenge ideas, to keep them engrossed in words over the break.  Here are a few ideas from my colleagues.  We ran out of time to make our own reading challenges this semester, but we will in the Spring.

I’ve also written down Carl, Enrique, Kobe and Tomi’s words in my notebook to look back when I’m feeling ineffective and voiceless.  What we do matters, and it matters everyday–even the days that they’re no longer in our presence.

Jessica Paxson teaches English IV, AP Lang, and Creative Writing in Arlington, TX.  She runs on coffee and exaggeration, and is a victim of OCD–Obsessive Christmas Disorder. You can probably find her humming Christmas tunes over the sounds of her students’ pained groans, and sporting a gift bow in her hair for the last week of school.  Her students frequently describe her as “an annoyingly cheerful person who thinks all her students can change the world.”  Yep, pretty much.  

What do fingernails have to do with data?

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Inquiry-based Learning, Readers Writers Workshop December 19, 2017 Comments: 7

We all feel it, don’t we? That time of the year when teaching gets tough:  skies get darker, holidays come looming, and students look out windows more than they look to learn. I have 2.5 days until the break, and, like you, I am ready.

This is the time of year I start to question myself. Have I taught the way my students need me to teach? Have I made them feel special, valued, a part of our learning community? Have they learned anything?

These were my musings last week when I got a special gift in my inbox:  three photos of a former student’s fingernails.

With this message:

This is totally random, but I thought you might like to know that aside from all of the English, reading and writing skills that you taught me. . .our end of the year project (the How-To), has actually helped me in real life! If you remember, I did my project over biting nails because I desperately wanted to stop. After that project, it was so easy to, and I haven’t bitten them since the end of the year in your class 6 months ago! I’ve attached some pictures… Like I said, this is super random & weird, but if you’ve ever wanted proof of that project actually working, here is my successful end product.

Does this count as hard data?

Yesterday I answered questions about student data in a phone interview. One question went something like this:  If a cynic questions your methods, what do you do to win her over?

The exchange left me unsettled. I said I would show the cynic student work and let her read students’ self-reflections on their learning. I spoke about how the data I care about is the qualitative type that comes from my observations, conferences, and interactions with students. I value process over product.

I think my response fell flat with my interviewer. Maybe she wanted numbers. What would she think of Micaela’s nails as proof of my instructional methods?

Later in the day I twittered upon these tweets:

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The whole thread rings true.  And I’ll add this:  Numbers mean nothing if we do not add value to a child’s life and help her learn to thrive, achieve, and find herself within it.

I’ll be honest:  I thought Micaela chose an easy topic last spring as her final writing piece:  a multi-genre project that was more than a how-to but a comprehensive argument for or against an issue; I didn’t think she could write enough about breaking her habit. But I got out of her way, and she composed a multi-layered piece about the shame and the struggle and her desperate desire to leave her nails alone.

I’ll go on break this Thursday. But when I get back to work in 2018, I’ll remember Micaela. What do my students need beyond my ELA curriculum? What motivates their thinking? What will my students choose to do this spring if I remember to get out of their way?

Amy Rasmussen shares a classroom with juniors and seniors at Lewisville High School in North TX where she learns as much from them as they ever do from her. She was once a nail-biter herself. Writing a paper about her habit at 16 might have helped her kick it a lot sooner. She was 21. Amy wishes you a joyful holiday and a Happy New Year, and sincerely thanks you for following and sharing Three Teachers Talk.

A Little Learning with Big Outcomes

Amy Rasmussen, Boys & Literacy, Conferring, Grammar, Readers Writers Workshop, Writers Workshop December 12, 2017 1 Comment

Last week was tough. If you teach in TX, you probably know what I mean.

December means STAAR/EOC testing, and while I teach readers and writers in 11th and 12th grade English classes at a large senior high school, many of my students carry the label of “re-tester.” (It’s an ugly label; isn’t it?)

All week students who have yet to successfully pass all five exams required to graduate filed into testing rooms to try again. This meant many disruptions for students not testing.

All week the English hall, along with other rooms, became the testing center. Classes displaced. Students out of comfort zones. Just a bit of chaos.

We know how well this works for learning.

In an effort to get my students settled in, back in our classroom and back in our routine

Julian shares his haiku

Julian sharing his haiku

of workshop, we played with words.

Testing disrupted our writing project, a series of letters in a variety of forms with a variety of tones, all related to a self-selected thematic link. We needed a revision workshop, but my seniors were not having it. With just 10.5 days until winter break, plus 8.5 until the end of term, many are already playing XBox and watching Netflix in their heads. (Me, too, but at least I’m fighting it.)

Since we read our choice books at the beginning of every class period, and I work daily to hold students who have not read a book on their own throughout high school accountable, I am constantly trying something new.  Today the new turned pretty cool.

We wrote book reviews in the form of haiku.

The tremendous thinking about word choice — well, it was kind of magical. (If only students would always think about word choice with such care.) Here’s a sampling of our book review poetry:

A book can contain

many life lessons that we

can use in our lives.

~Cesar Perez

The Playbook by Kwame Alexander

Are her thoughts her own

or does the tightening coil

control her whole being?

~Maria Cruz

Turtles all the Way Down by John Green

my life was stolen

but after 18 years I

got to hug my mom

~Grace Foust

A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard

being arrested

for helping his ex-girlfriend

Being black is hard.

~Di’Myrius Owens

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

her eyes captured me

I lost myself in her heart

Owned me from the start

~Axel Ibarra

The Oxygen Thief by Anonymous

Looking for a path

Twisted and in need of help

How do I escape?

~Jesse Borjas

Dark Dude  by Oscar Hijuelos

Running for freedom

Garret escapes boot camp

Fear, risk run with him

~Cris Velasquez

Boot Camp by Todd Strasser

Black lives do matter.

Police brutality sucks.

assume all black steal

~Alondra Rosales

All American Boys by Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely

The first hand account

No excuses for mistakes

Kill Osama Bin

~McKenzie Bowie

No Easy Day by Mark Owen

This simple activity led to a complex discussion about the power of words and why we need to revise our writing in order to craft with purpose. We discussed adding figurative language, creating imagery, using complex sentences. I taught how to write appositive phrases, a grammar move my students did not know.

And as students moved into their writing groups, they talked about their plans for revision. Teaching writers does not get much better than that.

When our students take on the identify of writers, they talk like writers, and they write with purpose — choosing words and phrases and making moves like real writers do.

Side note:  Some of my students produces haikus that revealed needs in their reading lives. For example, one student wrote that Fahrenheit 451 was set in WWII, and another showed confusion in the change of point of view in All American Boys. Their book review haikus gave me an action plan for reading conferences. Bonus!

Amy Rasmussen teaches senior English and AP English Lang & Comp in North TX. She loves to get her students talking about the things that matter to them. She also loves to get them talking about the things that matter to us all:  books and words and poetry and writing and serving people everywhere. Follow her @amyrass and @3TeachersTalk.

On Poetry: A Guest Post by Charles Moore

Books, Charles Moore, Guest Post, Poetry, Readers Writers Workshop December 11, 2017 Comments: 3

PoetryQuote4_zpsa4587647.jpgI write a poem on my white board every day.  Students, teachers, and administrators can see it. It’s a practice I started sometime after the hurricane when I realized how much my students were reading poetry books as their self-selected reading and I thought maybe the kids and I could use another way to connect to language. 

Recently, in a response email to a recent blog post submission, Amy challenged me to write about the poetry that I briefly mentioned in “Part II. Continuing the Crusade for My Readers.”  She called on me to elaborate on the authors that I use in my “Poem of the Day” selections and why I mentioned those in particular.  This took some reflection because an obvious answer didn’t leap fully formed from my head. I think there are several reasons: 

It’s what the kids are reading. So many of the girls in my classes read “Milk and Honey” and Rupi Kaur’s more recent book of poems, “The Sun and her Flowers.” They buy the books themselves and a few weeks ago, members of our dance squad feverishly passed my poetry books around.  Many of those girls don’t even have me as their teacher. They take pictures of the entries that speak to them and re-read when they think they’ve missed something or they want to experience those feelings over again. 

This style of poetry appeals to me.  I like it.  I like to read the poems and consider my own experiences and feelings.  Maybe I’m entering my emotional teenage girl phase, but sometimes these speak to me as strongly as they speak to the kids. 

Like everyone, time is precious for me.  My schedule is particularly tight with my football periods and no real time to plan or collaborate with my teaching peers during the school day.  Like everyone else, I find time when I can and when I’m working on my lesson plans, I make sure that I’ve selected, ahead of time, the poem for each day.  Choosing poems is easy. I try to pick poems that might be meaningful to 12th graders and not too long that I can’t write them on the board.  I might find these poems in the poetry books I’ve already mentioned or even on Instagram.  I have to dig a little, but #poetry produces gold often enough. I recently purchased a compilation of the poetry of Langston Hughes and I have books by other poets on the shelf behind my desk.  My wife even purchased a book of poetry for my classroom when one of her co-workers recommended it.  

 Another place I can reach for poetry is into myself.  I can take what I see and mimic it.  Structure is easy to replicate, but the themes are more difficult. The “notes” app on my phone is full of little thoughts and lines and poems.

 I guess the natural question is, “What do you do with the poetry?” The answer: it depends.  Sometimes the themes of the poems tie into the themes that we see in our reading selections.  Other times, we use the poems to jump-start a quick write.  Most days, we take a second to look at the poem on the board, and move on.

No matter what, I can say that I give my students a window through which to view poetry every single day, and that, I think, is an important opportunity for them and for me. 

A list of resources I’ve pulled from recently: 

  •  Milk and Honey – Rupi Kaur 
  • The Sun and her Flowers – Rupi Kaur 
  • Born to Love, Cursed to Feel – Samantha King 
  • A Beautiful Composition of Broken – r.h.sin 
  • Identical – Ellen Hopkins 
  • The Princess Saves Herself in this One – Amanda Lovelace 
  • The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes – Edited by Arnold Rampersad 
  • How Lovely the Ruins: Inspirational Poems and Words for Difficult Times – Forward by Elizabeth Alexander 

Charles Moore teaches Senior English, coaches JV soccer and shuttles his 10 year old soccer playing son across town 2 days a week. Follow Charles on Twitter at @ctcoach.

#NCTE17 – Pearls of Wisdom From Those Far Smarter Than I

Lisa Dennis, Professional Development December 7, 2017 Comments: 3

Have you ever attended professional development that reached into your soul and stirred things up so thoroughly, so deliciously, so deliriously, that you knew your teaching would never be the same?

I hope so. If not, consider packing your bags for #NCTE18 – Houston next fall. Or book some inspirational PD for your district. Or simply follow any of the heavy hitters on Twitter. Professional development is everywhere because sometimes all it takes is a few words to send you down the path of beautifully rich, and possibly practice changing, reflection.

Our students deserve teachers who see the classroom as an opportunity. Teachers who see them as deserving of unending work to help create the best opportunities for their learning. Teachers who see each day as an opportunity to build up readers and writers, as the most important work to be done in education.

The voices below, that I was lucky enough to drink in at #NCTE17 this year, speak of opportunity in every endeavor: The day to day, the conversations we have with kids, the responsibility we have to see beyond test scores, and things we can do to stay true to what we believe as educators.

Dave Stuart Jr. – Doing more isn’t doing better. Refocus your practice with a personal Everest/Mission Statement.

Mr. Stuart’s session focused on how to teach English and still have a life. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? I’m still working on it, personally, but anyway, this sentiment stemmed from the idea that we often spend a lot of time doing things that don’t align with our true beliefs about what’s important in our classrooms. His suggestion to craft and publically post in your classroom a mission statement really hit home with me. I need to boil down my practice to stay focused on what is most important in my classroom, and a visual reminder will help me filter my stressors through what I’ve claimed is most crucial to the daily movements in our experience as a class. Often, what stresses me out most, for example, is returning emails. While important, I’m certain it wouldn’t be included in my mission statement for my classroom. Therefore, I need to set some limits to when and where I allow this work to take away from the work that will move my students forward as readers and writers. My Everest statement, so named because it’s really evident what the goal of climbing Everest is, will bring me back to readers, writers, and critical thinkers who use both their heads and hearts to guide not only our work but their lives. Work in progress.

Kylene Beers – If we raise test scores but fail to raise compassionate people, we have failed.

I thought the crowd in the theatre might come out of their seats at this suggestion. If there’s one thing anyone who has ever been acquainted with education understands, it’s failure, and we avoid it at all costs whenever possible. I’ve let this sentiment guide my IMG-8069work this week specifically as it’s Kindness Week here at Franklin High School. Student need does not end (or perhaps more importantly begin) with the test scores they generate throughout their time with us, but if I can influence their capacity to better care for and understand one another, I’ve really made a difference.

Linda Reif – End in the middle of a sentence. It makes getting into the thinking again much easier.

I often have my students end their quick writes by suggesting that they should take a moment and wrap up their thoughts. I’d never considered the subtle shift of having them stop mid-thought as an encouragement to go back and finish, expand, explore, and keep at those thoughts. A quick write is inherently incomplete in terms of the time given and the depth of process used, so why suggest to students that their work should be wrapped with a nice little bow? I head back to my writing often. It’s where some of my best work grows – from the hazy suggestions I started with, to the revisited and revised thinking. Ask students to come back to their work more often. They might be surprised at what comes of it.

Kelly Gallagher – Reflected on Nancie Atwell’s quote about American schools having an aversion to pleasure.

This suggestion made me laugh out loud. How painfully true, yes? How often have I struggled to let go of the control in my classroom? How often have I feared that exploratory writing would be at the expense of preparation for the work my students would do after they left me? How often have I worried that it would be a “waste of time”  IMG_7306.jpgto extend a discussion or let students read just a bit longer? Far too often. As a colleague of mine famously suggested years ago, “Big Bird can’t come to class every day,” but pleasure doesn’t have to be a throwback to elementary playground free-for-alls. It can be simple. It can be personalized. But it must also be considered a worthy goal of any daily lesson planning. What opportunity for joy, satisfaction, or pleasure am I organizing for my students today? If the answer is nothing, then I wouldn’t want to be in my room either.

Tom Romano – There is language inside of you…Be fearless in heading down the page with it.

Tom said this casually before we did some quick writing in his session on multigenre writing. While I filled two pages with notes on how to incorporate a multigenre project into my classroom, this simple sentiment really stuck with me. I’ve used it several times with my students since then because I love how it rephrases the idea that we have to outwrite our inner critic. This phrasing suggests that we are already full of valuable ideas! We need simply to give ourselves permission to let them out onto the page.

What seemingly simple sentiments have changed your teaching for the better? Please share in the comments below.

Lisa Dennis teaches English and leads a department of incredible English educators at Franklin High School near Milwaukee. Her personal mission statement is a work in progress but needs to involve equal parts readers, writers, thinkers, believers, and dreamers. Follow Lisa on Twitter @LDennibaum. 

Letting Go: An Experiment

Jessica Paxson, Readers Writers Workshop December 6, 2017 Comments: 2
CW

Please ignore my sad, disorganized bookcase.  Trust me.  I KNOW.

So, I guess I went gradeless this semester, but it was an accident.

I’m the luckiest teacher in our school because I get to be Yoda to the young-jedi-creative-writers of James Bowie High School.

Wait, let me re-write that, The luckiest teacher I am because Yoda I get to be… okay, I tried.

We have one section of Creative Writing at our school, and it’s my baby.  Don’t worry.  It’s not weird.

This semester was my third semester teaching this class, and I decided to go full-choice as an experiment.  You see, in prior semesters, my units were centered around modes of writing.  We worked on character development and dove into short stories, we focused on powerful connotation and tone and dove into spoken word poetry, we wrote personal stories that exposed our souls, shared them and became a family.  I watched as they supported each other, got to know each other, and tried to hide my excitement and shock when we could go from laughing to crying to intense work and focus.

However, the only thing missing was buy-in for every single mode of writing.  Even with choice of topic within the mode, it was inevitable that some students gravitated more intensely toward poetry, fiction, real-life writing, humor, etc.

At the beginning of the semester as I got to know my students, I asked them if they would rather our sections of writing be organized by mode or thematic topic.  Unanimously, they voted for topical organization.

Then, we brainstormed broad topics that would allow for a myriad of interpretations and modes of writing.  They came up with the following list:

  • Power
  • Turmoil
  • Control
  • Kindness
  • Grudges
  • Beauty
  • Music
  • Addiction
  • Open-mindedness
  • Fear

Within these topics, we found stimuli and mentor texts along the lines of the idea, talked, wrote, wrote, and talked.  I put together mini-lessons quite similar to those from my modes of writing approach.  What I found can be described in one sentence.

Free students result in free writing, and free writing is what will change our world.

This is along the lines of what Cornelius Minor said in the Heinemann Fellows session at NCTE: In order to have free students, we must have free teachers.

At first glance, freedom seems easy.  Of course we want to be free, who wouldn’t want to be free?!  But what I’ve learned is that freedom doesn’t mean the work, stress, and weight of it all goes away.  Actually, quite the opposite.  As a free teacher, I find myself still up at night because of the weight of it all.  If free writing will change our world, what’s the next step for me in supporting my writers in their freedom?

Here are a few of the amazing writings that resulted from this experience:

  • Students wrote about addiction, and surprised me at their jarring use of sensory imagery that described addiction from every angle.  They wrote about addiction to a substance, addiction to a person, addiction to a feeling or a conception of oneself, but they were all rooted in that visceral, physical experience of being tied to something with such fervor.  They also decided that for read-arounds, we all needed to speak in a British accent.
  • Alexis wrote about a blind person’s experience with beauty.  Here is a line from her piece:
  • Maddie has written about 20,000 words over the course of our class, and is in the process of world-building for a future novel.
  • Jerrell wrote a mega-creepy horror piece describing the relationship between a stalker and his victim through the mode of letters, social media, and other correspondence.
  • Mecca draws with everything she writes.
  • Terrianna finally worked up the courage to write her brother’s story, but more on that later.

I realized last week that my class was essentially gradeless.  Ironically, it was not a conscious decision, but simply a natural result of being so entrenched in the writing process that I forgot to grade!  There was also really no need.  This semester I’ve been in constant writing conferences, teaming up partners with strengths to match weaknesses, asking students to help me with my own writing struggles, etc.  To me, this is what an entirely engaged classroom looks like, and it also resulted in better writing.

Now, as I mentioned in my last post, all of my classes do not look like this, completely.

Here’s why letting go sometimes sounds easier than it actually is:

  • Sometimes you don’t have all the answers.
  • Sometimes things fail. (But shouldn’t we be showing our kids HOW to fail?)
  • Sometimes students have not been conditioned to invest in learning as a process rather than a way to check boxes.  (But, I mean, that HAS to change, right?!)

Sometimes images are better than words:

letting go

Creative Writing gives me grounds and hope for experimentation, and helps me to be brave and think outside the box in my other preps as well.  I hope that more time, talk, and investment in the real work of allowing students to be seen translates more intensely to my other classes in the Spring!

Have you ever happened upon a Happy Accident in your classroom?  Tell us about it in the comments!

P.S. For more about going gradeless, talk to Amy, or visit The Paper Graders’ blog!  I will be visiting in the next few days, and would love to chat about it with anyone!

Jessica Paxson teaches English IV, AP Lang, and Creative Writing in Arlington, TX.  She runs on coffee and exaggeration, and is overjoyed to be in a graduate program because that means she has access to a better library. Also, you can probably find her humming Christmas tunes over the sounds of her students’ pained groans.  They frequently describe her as “an annoyingly cheerful person who thinks all her students can change the world.”  Yep, pretty much.