Teacher-Mentors with Insights, Ideas, and Resources for Secondary Readers & Writers Workshop
Oh, man. I love and hate this book. You have to read it. Then we need to talk about it. It’s that kind of story, a hauntingly beautiful coming of age story.
Here’s the book trailer:
And a NY Times review
I would love to hear what titles are keeping you up lately. Please share.
This wasn’t my typical spring break. This year I spent most every waking hour either snuggling a tiny new grand baby or chasing her 17 month old sister. Grandmother heaven. Especially since my daughter and my only grandchildren live 1300 miles away from my home in Texas.
I spent my late evenings reading a handful of books from my towering TBR pile. Two have left scars on my heart. And as I look at my beautiful and innocent granddaughters, I pray: “Please protect these babies.”
The girls in these books were not so blessed. Both suffered abuse and heartache. I know it’s fiction. I get that it’s not real. But the haunting images so artfully crafted by these authors have shaped my thinking in ways that I’d never considered. My compassion swells for those trapped in darkness and fear.
And I hope I can serve as rescuer to anyone who needs a person to trust. I know many students come to school hurting, hungry, hopeless. If only we can offer solace and provide peace, comfort, safety. If only we can help them fight their way to light and love, and help them be the actors in their own inspiring stories instead of always being acted upon–
My students will want to read these books, so I will chat about them and share these passages. They are rich enough for text study and I’m sure will inspire some insightful conversation.
from My Book of Life by Angel by Martine Leavitt p122
Skills Focus: tone, symbolism, hyperbole, metaphor
The worst thing was
Serena ending up being stolen
by someone else’s story–
just a character in his story,
and the ending she wanted to have
got him instead,
just a part of his stupid story . . .
that was the worst thing of all.
I threw up again,
maybe with a chunk of heart,
and Call came in and I said,
do you see any bits of heart in there?
He said, you’re losing it,
said, this could all be over in a minute
if you take your candy,
and I forgot to answer because I was thinking,
he can’t have her anymore,
I’m writing a new end to her story,
I’m taking Serena’s story back.
Question: Explain how the author uses the word story in this poem?
from Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman p40
Skills Focus: tone, details, euphemism, diction
Babysat
The metal flash of a pair of wire strippers, the unexpected shine on a Phillips head, these things cause the same fear in me, the same gut-tightening, ass-puckering panic as the midnight gleam of a switchblade. Chain locks have the same effect. And lightbulbs. You can find all of these at your local hardware store.
Sometimes Carol goes with Tony to Guido’s Pizza and leaves me at Ace. Tony is her boyfriend and he says having a six-year-old around all the time cramps their style, but I don’t like him anyway, be cue when I’m with them he either hogs the Close Encounters game or he hogs Carola and I never get a chance at either one.
Ace smells like orate hand cleaner and WD-40, and I pretend not to hear the adult talk that passes across the counter between the men of the town about certain women of the town as they pay the Hardware Man for their wood screws and drill bits. I also pretend like I never have to go potty. Because I don’t need help, but the Hardware Man will want to help me anyway. And when he helps me, the lights go out.
Question: Explain how the author creates a tone of dread.
Paired passages question: Explain how the passages are similar.
My student teacher’s last day was yesterday, and, frankly, I’m lost without her. In eight short weeks together (less, when you count the 17 snow days), we have transformed each other as educators, brought our students to new heights, and had an exorbitant amount of fun. I’m hoping she’ll take away a myriad of ideas as she goes on to a middle school placement, because I knew I’ve learned much from teaching her.
During the first semester of this year, I worked to implement the reading and writing workshop model successfully in my classroom. Things were going fine, but I felt that something was missing. My students were producing excellent writing, and reading lots, but I wasn’t getting the magical results I wanted. It wasn’t until I began mentoring Katie that I was able to truly understand the holes in my efforts.
After a few days of observation, Katie became familiar with the workshop model. She knew that I used mentor texts as teachers, saw dialogue as an assessment measure, and read for craft and content in student writing. She saw that workshop was collaborative–within it, my students and I responded to each other’s work as fellow readers and writers, not as teachers and students. She took those foundational ideas and ran with them.
Newly-added graphic novel shelf
Katie taught students to write powerful, convincing letters of complaint to make claims they felt strongly about. In her quickwrite prompts, she showed them how to break down visual texts, emphasizing analysis of pop culture. Many of those videos she then used as mentor texts for public speaking skills, which helped her guide students through the writing of speeches and debates. She booktalked several graphic novels, a genre I had, before her arrival, been woefully uninformed about. She blossomed into a confident leader of the reading and writing workshop.
As I watched Katie teach so passionately, with such new and exciting resources, I began to see a gaping flaw in my own first try at workshop: I was relying too heavily on all of the texts, ideas, and strategies I knew and loved. I’d worked hard to make them comprehensive–I’d sought them out from all genres, time periods, places, and people–but I was amazed by how many resources she used that I’d never heard of. Katie Wood Ray says that our students should expect not only the best mentors of writing, but also teachers who will search for them. Although I was constantly searching for good books, mentor texts, or strategies, I was not effective enough–where were these pop culture visual mentor texts? My graphic novel shelf? Oral, not written, speeches as products of the writing process?
As I reflected, I came to realize that I was relying only on my own cultural capital to create the best workshop environment for my students. It was, by definition, impossible for me to extend my knowledge beyond what I knew, or knew how to obtain. I needed more brains–brains with their own unique cultural capital–to help me bring diverse resources into the classroom. Where could I find them?
Zach and Brendan debate alternatives to the tardy policy
As I watched our students professionally, conscientiously debate each other, I saw from their products that they knew not just how to write and speak persuasively, but why that was important. I watched thee audience, and saw students changing their minds about things they’d believed for years, slowly having their eyes opened not by the adults in the classroom, but by their peers. They revised their scorn toward legalizing marijuana as Moshe spoke about his battle with leukemia, and the helpfulness of the medical marijuana he was prescribed. They felt ashamed to write about why the drinking age should be lowered after Anderson spoke about seeing a neighbor killed in a drunk driving accident. They questioned long-standing religious tenets after listening to Stephanie and Leanna debate the legality of abortion. They were guiding each other to that which all teachers want their students to learn–critical thinking.
In struggling to be a mentor teacher for the first time, I realized that the power needed to be even less in my hands than it already is in the workshop–it needs to be in the learners’ hands. In terms of Katie’s learning, she thrived when I let her just go crazy with her own wonderful ideas, instead of my giving her lots of suggestions. In terms of my students, I saw that they benefited from being more regular leaders of the classroom. I needed to do more than just give their writing importance by having them share it each day, or use their pieces as mentor texts, or listen to their suggestions about books, my writing, or my teaching. I needed to let them take an active hand in designing the curriculum, so that they could teach and learn from one another. Hence, a Eureka moment–the leadership in my classroom must by shifted to the students.
Katie Bush, Super Teacher
This weekend, I’ll be sitting down to write my first lesson plans in two months. Thanks to what I learned while teaching Katie, I’ll be designing structured leadership roles for my students–far more involved than the occasional student booktalk, or the daily quote sharing, or the class-by-class student mentor text. I’ll arrange for every student to give a booktalk this quarter. I’ll create a routine for all students to lead the class in a quickwrite with their own prompts. I’ll ask them to suggest titles to their peers for literature circle texts.
I’ve learned much about the reading and writing workshop model by teaching it to someone else, and I hope I will continue to grow as I hand the reins over to my students. Let this wild and wonderful workshop journey continue as the fourth quarter begins!
While recently in the throws of February break rejuvenating away from the hubbub of the city in the quaint beach town of Montauk; Malcolm X and I were becoming intimate acquaintances. We had been for quite some time, actually. But it was here that I really started questioning him, his motives, and his overall sense of dedication to any cause he finds justified. As I was making direct connections to my own beliefs and passions, my pen went haywire. There was, by no means, enough blank space on the pages of this autobiography for my own thinking. Out came the post-its. The power button on the iPad came alive and my inquisition and deep thought went ablaze. While X and I could not be more different human beings the ideal of commonality among passion elated me.
Later that very same day, I was introduced to Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade’s invigorating message that immediately added even more fuel to my already-burning fire. From the moment I pressed play (thank you, Apple TV) I was captivated. Jeff is an outstanding educator who believes there are three kinds of hope: material, critical and audacious. He believes that our [urban] students are roses growing in concrete. I mean, the city has always been referred to as the concrete jungle! In order to really grasp the intensity and genuine love Jeff exudes with his message, you’ll have to watch for yourself.
There I was, hours away from the city and my students, yet never have I felt so connected. X’s passion exudes from his autobiography; Jeff’s passion seeps through his pores as his care is so loudly presented; and my passion was turning up the waves in the ocean right outside my window.
On my drive back to work that first Monday morning after break, I made a promise to myself. I promised to stay true to my passion and invite the new found passions I discovered to reside within me as well. My focus was by no means on the road, it was zoomed in on Jeff’s mantra: Tu eres mi otro yo! (You are the other me!) How could it not be? How could I not be heading back to room 382 thinking, “Students, you are my reflection…you are what I see when I look in the mirror. We are one.”?
As I headed into our building, my mind automatically trained itself on a female student that I have been working with for six months, but have yet to authentically connect with. Today was the day that was going to happen. The day had not begun, but I was sure of it. I was sure of it because I was going to channel all of the passion, intensity, and love I gathered over the break and pour it all over this student. I only hoped she wouldn’t mind!
As independent reading commenced I asked this student to join me with her new book, highlighter and pen. It was a piece well below her reading level (as is typical of her reading selections), but the premise captured her attention immediately: females making decisions based on their desperate need for belonging among other female peers. There’s no wonder.
X followed me to class that day, in many regards. As I put my chosen piece of literature on the table, a ‘huh’ surfaced from this female student. I opened to the chapter titled Icarus. 
I asked her if she knew what the title meant and the following is the dialogue that surfaced:
B: Nope.
Ms. B.: Neither did I. I decided I wasn’t going to go any further into this chapter until I understood what this name resembled.
B: Huh.
Ms. B.: So, I took to the internet and realized Icarus is the name of a Greek mythical figure whose father warned him of not flying too close to the sun with the wax wings in which he created for him. But, he did. And he fell straight out of the sky. Can you imagine?
B: Wow. Huh. That’s interesting.
Ms. B.: Isn’t it? Then, check this out…(I flipped to the last page of the chapter.) Read this last sentence. (B does.) Do you see it?
B: Whoa. It connects to the title. It explains what you just did. (Smile)
And it was at this moment, that the gathered passion, intensity and love I poured all over this student started to work its magic. Because here’s what happened next:
B: Ms. Bogdany, how do you know what to highlight though? I never know what to say — I mean annotate.
This may seem like a simple (and potentially expected response) but after working with this student since September, this was the very first time she was confident enough to be vocal with her inquiry. From there we opened her book (with much fervor) and highlighted a portion that she noted. I asked her what it meant, and she started to explain it…and, in her book, I wrote down her thoughts. I then asked her about her own ideas regarding this concept, and (with the longest response to date) she explained her insights about the decisions the main character is making. So, again…I scribed. We discussed. I annotated. She smiled.
Ms. B.: Do you see it now?
B: Hahah. I do. It…it makes you understand more. Thank you.
Before she left to resume this process solo, I pointed her in the direction of another female student who had just started reading: 
I explained the premise of this piece. She raised an eyebrow. I mentioned that when the other student was done, she may want to engage with it as it’s the same concept that envelopes her piece, yet it’s an informational, non-fiction piece. This piece is more level appropriate for her. Same concept, different genre, enhanced level. We’ll see.
In the meantime, I noticed during the rest of our two hours together that day, B’s book kept finding it’s way back onto her desk; her highlighter was incredibly busy; and her pen was relaying her inner voice on those very pages that previously would have remained untouched. And instead of refocusing her on the day’s lesson and activity; I whispered internally, “Tu eres mi otro yo.”
A couple of days ago Amy and I were lamenting over the reality that in a short six weeks students from all over the state of Texas will sit down with their sharpened No. 2 pencils and begin taking our version of “accountability” called the STAAR test. For 9th and 10th graders they will have five hours to answer 30 multiple choice questions, write 2 short answer responses, and write 2 essays.
Six Weeks – a mere 30 hours (at most) to make sure the students sitting before us are equipped with the skills they need to pass.
Choices are going to have to be made and lessons are going to have to be cut, or scaled down, in order to make sure that the last remaining hours are maximized. If you aren’t feeling it already, you should feel stressed!
But before you start running around in full-blown panic, might I offer you a solution:
The conversation with Amy got me thinking about the reading test vs the writing test. What if, instead of stressing out about the reading portion of the test, we double the time we spend working on the writing portion? A few days ago, I studied the released questions from last year’s 9th grade End of Course Reading Exam (see below). What is one striking feature about the questions I studied?
Ok, so I gave it away… Look at all these questions that have students considering the motives of the author, or the writer, of the passage. Just a little under half of the questions ask our students to put themselves in the shoes of the writer and consider the author’s craft of the piece.
Wait a minute, isn’t that what we are trying to do when we ask students to write themselves? Don’t we want them to consider craft, purpose, style, voice, etc. as they put pencil to paper and write their own pieces?
So my challenge is this: If you are faced with too much curriculum to cover and not enough time, consider stepping back and focusing on developing your students as writers.
If we empower our students to critically think about composing their pieces as a genuine writers, not just test takers, where they confidently make stylistic choices in their own writing, they will be able to approach a reading passage with a critical writer’s eye, and in turn be able to examine another writer’s stylistic choices.
Amy and I think we are on to something. She is making these choices during her own crunch time with first-time 9th grade test takers and second-time 10th graders (and a handful of re-testers who haven’t managed to score high enough–yet).
What are you doing with your own six weeks?
It wasn’t as bad as I thought.
For those of you who read my post on Thursday where I bemoaned the weak essays my students produced on their most recent mock exam, you know what IT is. My students’ lack of application–the skills I’ve taught merged with their own deep thinking.
All in all, scores, compared to those in the fall, showed improvement, especially in multiple choice. I must celebrate that.
I know that year after year it’s the students who are readers who score well on the exam. The best readers are also the best writers. That’s not surprising.
What is surprising is the arrogance of many of my students, or maybe it’s not as much arrogance as naïveté. They think they know more than they do. They think their skills are sharper than they are.
I know this because they told me.
Friday morning, I began class with the opportunity for students to reflect on their performance on the mock exam. I put a large sheet of paper on each table and asked students to have a silent conversation with their table mates.
“Write what you feel you did well? And then respond to the writing of your peers.” I gave them about two minutes and then moved the papers among the tables and had students read and think and respond again.
Then I had them turn the papers over and write again. This time: “Write what you think you need to improve on. Remember to think about all the different parts of the exam.”
This is where I learned the most about my students. They wrote things like:
And on and on and on. They all know they need help with something. This is good.
But when I asked: “Did any of you write ‘I need to become a better reader?'”
Silence. In both class periods. Not one of my 49 AP students thought to write “I need to be a better critical reader.”
Therein lies the problem.
Students misread the prompts, and on the synthesis, the sources, as often as they lacked organization in their essays. A lot.
The AP Language and Composition exam is as much a reading test as it is a writing one. I imagine the other AP exams are as much about reading as their contents, too. Students must be critical readers to do well.
So, how does this matter when it comes to my instruction?
Simple. If I want my students to keep improving, I need to not only continue to get them to read MORE, I must keep teaching them how to read BETTER.
We’ll study short passages, looking for connotative meanings and nuances. We’ll discuss the function of this and the organization of that. We’ll slow down and discuss more.
I heard Kylene Beers say once, “The smartest person in the room is The Room.” I know I need to allow more time for class discussions where students can learn from one another.
I know I need to more effectively model how to think as we read. I learned from Cris Tovani to teach kids to keep the little man in their heads focused on the reading at hand. Too often students do not know that they have to train the little man before he will stay focused.
Tomorrow, we get out the training net.
Tomorrow, I change the balance up a bit. I revise my instruction yet again.
The constant reflection, the feedback, the changes — all parts that make readers/writers workshop in an AP class, or any other, work.
Have you ever been out in public somewhere and automatically used your “teacher voice”? You know the one I mean–the no-nonsense, I’m not kidding around, you had BETTER get with it this instant, voice of doom? Well, that was definitely me, yelling at the TV, when I heard Punxsatawney Phil’s grim prediction for six more weeks of winter.
Here in West Virginia, our school district has had a record 13 snow days so far this year…and more bad weather is in the forecast. I haven’t taught for a full week since December 2. Don’t get me wrong–the first few days off were glorious. I got all caught up on grading, read a few books (including the amazing Fearless Writing by Tom Romano–PLEASE check it out), and took some naps. But after seven or eight of those days (stuck in the house, mind you), cabin fever set in and I was more than ready to be back at school…and judging by their chatter on Twitter, my students were, too.
To further complicate matters, I am hosting a student teacher for half of this semester. Katie is wonderful. Her openness, enthusiasm, and serenity amidst all of this upheaval has been incredibly refreshing. We have wonderful curricular conversations and push each other to be the best teachers we can be. She is only with me through the end of this month, and while my students and I will miss her, I know two things: Katie will be an excellent teacher on her own, and I’ll be glad to be back at the helm.
As if that weren’t enough, testing season is upon us. We’ll lose several days this month to a state online writing assessment, and more next month for the reading portion. There’s nothing like a marathon of standardized testing to suck the joy right out of reading and writing.
What all of this mayhem has made me reflect deeply on is the importance of structure in the workshop model. In many ways, structure–repetition, transfer, organization–is the heart of the reading and writing workshop. One of the core tenets of this method is the goal to encourage our students to be lifelong readers and writers. The vast majority of my general level students are still a long ways away from that. We made great progress during the first half of the year, but with this extended interruption of our time together, things have changed. Without structure, the gains my students experienced have been, in some cases, lost, for a few reasons…
One: my students do not have ready access to books, plentiful time to read, or constant encouragement from me to find both. My kiddoes are coming to class at a complete loss as to what to read next, and some can’t even remember what they read last. With no bookshelves at home and no way to get to a public library through the nasty weather, they need lots of help to find new, high-interest texts to draw them back into reading.
Two: my students have lost the reading and writing stamina they have built up. It has been two full months since we’ve had a regular week of learning, so they are mentally sluggish–almost like they are on the first days of school. The automaticity they’ve developed as learners has stalled, and they must work now to rebuild it.
Three: my students are struggling to see continuity in our work together. As Katie and I have tried to work with them on crafting strong arguments that still bear the hallmarks of good writing, we have encountered obstacle after obstacle to the transitions, previews, and reviews that scaffolding consists of. I am seeing the effects of this on their products.
Luckily, I’ve had a lot of time off to contemplate a solution to this unique problem. I feel thankful that the community we have established in our classroom is intact, as it will be easier to dive right back into the work of reading and writing. My students and I trust each other: they know I trust them to be independent readers, writers, and thinkers, and I know they trust me to steer them in the right directions.
First, I will redouble my efforts to begin class with exciting, diverse booktalks. Katie has introduced me to some new titles and reminded me of some tried-and-true home runs–Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Beloved by Toni Morrison, and Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan. I will add these and other titles (or more copies of them) to my library, recommend them heartily to my readers, and then wait patiently for meaningful dialogue to emerge. I’ll see it in reading conferences, Big Idea Books, and book blogs. My hope is that this injection of freshness into the winter doldrums will awaken my students’ inner readers once again.
Next, I will work to reacquaint my students with the visceral joy of writing through introspective quickwrites. I want them focusing only on enjoyment with their informal writing…we will take a break from Kelly Gallagher’s marvelous articles of the week for now and will lean heavily on Linda Rief, Ralph Fletcher, Penny Kittle, and Georgia Heard for inspired notebook prompts. I fully hope to see meaningful, serious writing in my students’ journals as they return to thinking of themselves as authors.
Lastly, I will use the energy from the long break I was given to fuel my passion as I teach. I’ve heard people say that if students are truly independent learners, they can learn without a teacher…but I believe the leader at the head of the classroom is incredibly important. I know for a fact that on days I have that extra cup of Starbucks Pike Place coffee, and I’m really on fire, my students get more out of my teaching. I’ll recommit to my enthusiasm for, and teaching of, all things reading and writing. I am hoping that this will carry both my students and I to the end of our now-extended school year.
So, 13 snow days, an amazing student teacher, a feisty groundhog, and two standardized tests later, here’s what I know: structure is important. It is a NEED in the workshop, as well as in reading and writing. Without it, growth and learning cannot occur. In retrospect, perhaps a bit of lobbying for year-round school is in order…but I’ll save that blog post for another day.
A follow up to a comment on the post Not the Same ‘Ole AP Writing Teacher
Wow. Thanks for following my blog. I’m grateful. I appreciate your inquiry into our Snowfall writing project. It’s made me do some thinking, and you’ve inspired me to turn my response into a follow up post. Thanks for that.
Here’s my best shot at answering your questions:
1. Do you have any completed student assignment that you would be willing to share? and 2. What vehicle/medium did you use for to students to publish their work?
No student samples yet — this is the first year I’ve had students complete something quite so extensive. In regard to publishing their work, we aim high, so students will do a bit of research to see if they can submit their articles somewhere for publication. When they were first selecting topics, we discussed audience, and students had to justify what kind of magazines would run a piece about their topics. For sure, students will publish their finished articles on their blogs. They each have their own blog in which they write weekly.
3. What were your specific requirements for the assignment?
Since I am pushing toward authenticity, I intentionally did not start with a rubric. I’m sure John Branch didn’t have a rubric when he started writing “Snowfall: Avalanche at Tunnel Creek” either. I want students to take ownership of this work, so I want them to think through the parts and pieces that will make their work turn out the best.
Students and I read five pages of Branch’s piece together, and I encouraged students to read the rest of the article online in their own time. All I really told them was that we were each going to write a full-length feature article, and this Pulitzer Prize winner was our model. I am trying to break habits of skating through writing assignments with weak ideas and weaker research. Many of my student are used to getting A’s without having to actually learn anything. This bothers me. That is partly why, although they got to choose their topics, I had to approve them and be sure there was some depth to what students were thinking in terms of what they could discover in their research.
While it may sound strange, I do not have specific requirements other than–
1. show me that you have learned several different modes of writing, including how to embed and cite research,
2. include several different images, including photos, video clips, info graphics, charts, etc that make your article multi-media and convincing,
3. prove that you take pride in your work by revising, evaluating, improving, and learning as you move toward publishing your best work.
I do keep tick marks in my records of students who submit their work to me for review on time and who use their time wisely in class, but those benchmarks become daily grades and will not influence a student’s final grade on the piece he finally publishes. Most likely I will allow students to give themselves a grade when all is said and done. Without question they always grade themselves harder than I ever do, and I have to score them up a bit.
4. Any other information that you could share with us would be greatly appreciated.
Every week we work on some aspect of this writing. Last week we read some descriptive writing, and students finished up their narrative intros. I read aloud the prologue of The Emperor of All Maladies–a Biography of Cancer (also a Pulitzer), a non-fiction text that begins with a narrative intro, similar to the narrative at the beginning of Snowfall, although different at the same time. We connected our thinking back to Snowfall, and students moved their “remember it” paragraph to the top of their page and revised to make emotional stories that would draw their readers into their articles. They read and evaluated the writing of their peers– aiming for the WOW factor (our way to gut-read a text), and they revised to make better.
Later we talked about definition as a mode, and students began writing a paragraph that defines their topics and includes a position statement. (We are including a persuasive slant more than Snowfall because of the argumentative focus of AP Lang.)
I showed students how to use google forms to conduct surveys, so they could gather their own data instead of relying on whatever they found on the internet, and they took a survey I created that I will use in my own feature article I am writing beside them. Every step I ask students to take, I take as well. They can see my piece develop and change and grow as theirs does. Soon I will introduce info-graphics with the hope some students will include those in their full-length article. I think info-graphics are so cool.
So, that’s about where we’re at with this huge and engaging writing project. I wish we could stop everything else and only work on this piece– we had a district checkpoint, and we have an AP mock exam looming, so we have to move back and forth into the genre of test taking. But … maybe, this slow process is for the best: I am able to show how the skills needed to write on demand are the same as developing a long process piece–only s.l.o.w.e.r.
We are in process, and that is exactly what I want. Kids are learning and growing as writers, and that is so much more important than rushing into a finished product.
I hope this helps. Please ask if you have other questions. I am happy to share and share and share. I am thrilled that others are doing this same kind of exciting and engaging work with students. We are teaching the writer and not the writing, and that is beautiful.
Warmest regards,
Amy
The buzzing alarm clock that startles you out of sweet, sweet dreams into the darkness of your frazzled morning is by no means friendly. (BUZZZZZ…) Open your eyes. Quickly! The abnormally freezing cold of winter; the unimaginable storms that continue to blanket our front lawns and backyard swing sets; the must to have snow boots handy at any given moment accompanied by a shovel and ice brush are in need of your attention – immediately. The closed-eyed shower. Fumbling and bumbling around while simultaneously getting dressed, blow drying your hair, making coffee all the while trying your darndest to remain quiet as to not wake other household members is…
Well…quite frankly…getting old; quickly.
The harried morning commute – windshield wipers flailing against the hail and tires shifting in the opposite direction to protect you from skidding– allows you to greet your students (with a smile, but of course!) on yet another cold and unpredictable winter morning.
You made it.
I made it.
We made it.
We have all made it to the half way point of our school year. Students have pushed themselves in ways we could not have anticipated. Educators have moved through obstacles with grace and poise. Administration is pushing harder than ever. Mother Nature has joined the club.
In the vein of reflection, doesn’t this seem like an integral point to stop…reflect…plan…and dig deep to find our reasons for trailblazing forth? I think so. So, here’s what I’ve been doing to keep warm during a brutally chilling winter:
To warm my HEART: I stop planning. Aside from lesson plans, I have no plan. I realize that when I stop planning every minute of my day, the most beautiful of moments surface.
From a quick drop in (“Just checking in, Ms. Bogdany. You good?”) to a first-time-independent-reader so engrossed in Hill Harper’s Letters to an Incarcerated Brother he insists on marking pages to share with me as he passes by during the day.
From a very simple high-five in celebration of a special moment to a poet sky writing his inner most thoughts regarding his hometown.
See the island of Manhattan, smaller borough
Back on Staten
Cross the county of the kings, then you make your way
to Queens…..
From a post-Regents philosophical discussion about Malcolm X’s beliefs and convictions to a colleague swinging by with, “Your previous Multi-Genre Writing students insisted that Ashlee, whom you didn’t have, show you her creative writing piece because it’s astounding. They wanted you to see it. Here it is.”
If my door was closed and my agenda had continued to take control of my day, these beautiful moments that inspire me, would be lost.
To warm my SOUL: I read voraciously. I live in a sea of literature. From gathering books from the laundry room’s shared library to the continually growing Francis Gittens Lending Library; I am never sans a book. Often, I am juggling a few and that includes my new found interest with audio books. From Room 382 to Apt. 2 (whether themed by topic or color) my soul sings in the presence of literature.
New books on display. Students love working among literature…lots and lots of literature.
Welcome to my rainbow library. It continues to grow with pieces I’d never imagined would find their home here.
(Feel free to click on the picture to take a peek at the titles.)
And really, what better way to keep warm (during this winter full of icicles) than with a book of choice; pomegranate spice scented candles; and blackberry-vanilla decaf tea?
To warm my MIND: I ask for help when I know I need it. Yup, pride aside. Wild, I know. While I try to be all things for my students, there’s a reality. And that reality is simple – no one educator can be all things for his/her students. So, we must find those we trust, branch out, ask for a helping hand and push forward together. It would be an injustice to not bring them into my ‘teaching loop’ to help motivate and encourage each student they’ve built trust with. I need them to show me the way.
I also reach out to my PLN, no matter how far, they are always there to help guide, attempt humor, and support in soulful ways. Their insight and guidance is always a surefire way to refocus my attention to the authenticity of educating. Of this I could not be more grateful.
So, while we are all bundling up this winter and trying our very best to remain focused in-spite of the blistery weather – which does not seem to be going anywhere, anytime soon – we have much to celebrate. We’re halfway there! And instead of looking toward the finish line, let’s all take a moment to enjoy the snow filled scenery and the halfway mark. It really is a warm place to be.
It’s warm in here! And so beautiful out there!
Winger by Andrew Smith is another book I kept hearing about. (I’m a little jealous that so many of my teacher friends seem to be way ahead of me in their TBR piles.) I knew I needed to keep this one — like I did Eleanor and Park— and read it before I let my students get their hands on it.
I did not have my own copy, but at #ALAN13 in Boston, after I had the pleasant task of helping Donalyn Miller with her jacket, she gave me a copy from her book stacks. She gave me a copy! 
Surprisingly, I found no book trailers promoting it. However, I did find and read an interesting piece in The New Yorker called “The Awkward Art of Book Trailers,” which made me rethink the value of them at all. Rachel Arons says, quoting Jonathan Franzen, author of Freedom: “Franzen explains—in a tone that is polite but characteristically aggrieved—his “profound discomfort” with having to use moving images to promote the printed word. “To me, the point of a novel is to take you to a still place,” he says. “You can multitask with a lot of things, but you can’t really multitask reading a book … To me, the world of books is the quiet alternative—an ever more desperately needed alternative.”
Hmmm. I might agree with that.
So instead of a trailer today, let’s read a book review. I love this one at TLT: Teen Librarian’s Toolbox, and I’m thinking that a next step in my students’ literary journey is to write their own “professional” reviews. This one will make a good mentor text.
Any thoughts on book trailers? good idea or not?
Three Teachers Talk 