Three Teachers Talk

Shhh…We’re Thinking!

Erika Bogdany, Strategies to Add Some Zip December 21, 2013 Comments: 3

As we near the end of 2013, there is an exuberance that has sprinkled itself all along the United States as Winter Break has arrived. Holiday lights decorate homes. The unbelievable smell that emanates from wood burning fire places gently floats through the chilly night air. The streets are bustling with last minute holiday shoppers. Celebratory gatherings have begun. The decadent hot chocolate, whose heat, penetrates our gloved hands. Yet I have cuddled into one of my favorite nooks on my oh-so-comfortable couch to think…reflect…and wonder, “How will 2014 be a year that embraces the power of introverts?”

Random? No.

Understanding the world of introversion has been very prevalent, as of late. My principal finished Quiet:The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain during Book End (our school wide reading program) and placed it in my hands for my own research and understanding. As I started flipping through the piece, I felt compelled to do more research because the concepts surfacing were a detailed description of how I move through the world. Before I allowed my vulnerability to take over and believe everything I read in this book, I wanted to know exactly who Susan Cain was. As an introvert, deep and thorough understanding of theoretical ideals feeds my soul. Just saying.

After watching Susan Cain: The Power of Introverts, I felt this overwhelming sense of needing to message this information to my students. I know, in my own journey as an introvert, there have been moments of painstaking chaos when all I needed was time. I needed time to gather my thoughts; time to sift through all of those insights; time to expand my ideas; time to understand the surfaced layers of complexity… I recognize students suffering through the same struggle in room 382 as well.

All students who struggle to find their voice in writing, reading, and communicating need time to build confidence and skill; and this does not necessarily mean they are introverts. A safe space to explore is essential. Risk-taking allows students to recognize their mistakes and empowers them to find ways to feel success; and only happens when they know their vulnerability will not be taken advantage of. We, as educators, are aware of this.

However, the idea of knowing who our introverts are would not stop gnawing at me. Which students find comfort and growth utilizing outside factors and people to fuel their creativity? (Extroverts) Which students are comforted by finding their ‘nook’ and looking inside of themselves to embrace their creativity? (Introverts) So I decided as a community, we were going to get to know the ‘real’ personalities learning in 382.

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend taking the Myers Briggs Personality Test to gain insight into your own world of learning and understanding. I introduced the concept to students, passed out laptops, and off they went…embracing an activity that was soon to explain why they are who they are! Chuckles along the way made the process that much more beautiful.

Students read all about their personality type and were captivated by its accuracy in some circumstances, and inaccuracy in others. That’s the beauty of this experience; people are “not all or nothing” in any circumstance, this one included. However, the assessment allows us to be privy to the dominant features of our personality. This information is priceless. I love having a better understanding of who the procrastinators are in the room because it’s my obligation to direct anti-procrastinating skills at these students. Who needs just those few extra minutes when free writing in our Writer’s Notebooks in order to complete a detailed thought? What students will ‘go with the flow’ because it’s innately who they are? What students thrive on making decisions with their own best interest in mind vs. the students who think of the impact on others based on their decision?

To understand who is occupying 382 daily; we physically moved to one side of the room or the other as we debunked each category and made sense of what it all means. It was insightful to see students embracing who they are as young adults; and most importantly, as part of humanity. Students went on to create posters filled with insight, activities, and “Aha!”s that described the four categories of one’s personality. The buzz throughout the room was infectious and not one student sat this one out. Because, when students are invested in learning about themselves, each other, and the world that surrounds them; they thrive.

As students moved about the room, I had a moment. I was shocked to see 2/3 of my students as introverts! What?! Shocked. I had rationales as to why there was chaos ensuing as the new cycle (and new infusion of students) just started. I know that deficiencies in literacy typically lead to behavioral concerns if not managed. I know a two hour intervention course pushes students to limits. Yet, I had NEVER contemplated that the majority of my students could be introverts. I mean, the room is always so loud…and chaotic. Introverts?

Yes. Introverts.

It was at that moment that I realized the loud, chaotic vibe encircling us all was simple. Students’ innate needs were not being met. Students did not have the time they needed to think, write, and communicate. So, after the activity we took straight to our Writer’s Notebooks and reflected. One student proudly announced, “Many people who think they know me think I’m an extrovert. They’re wrong.”

So, as I continue to ponder (in awe) about the world of introversion, I can’t help but wonder: How will 2014 be a year that embraces the power of introverts?

Reel Reading for Real Readers: Bruiser by Neal Shusterman

Book Trailers, Books, Readers Writers Workshop December 19, 2013 Leave a comment

My students have asked for this one, but I didn’t have it on my shelves. Thankfully, Bruiser is a book I got in my box at the ALAN conference. this book jumped to the top of my TBR pile, and I read it the day I got home from Boston.

I love it when a book makes me want to be a better person. Bruiser did that for me. I am not sure this book trailer does the book justice, but I especially like how the students who made it made the opening look like a real movie trailer.

This is a book that’s going to have a waiting list.

AP English: Improving Our Rhetorical Analysis One Quickwrite at a Time

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Books, Grammar, Readers Writers Workshop, Writers Workshop December 16, 2013 Comments: 2

I’ve mentioned that I am working on finding a way to be more efficient in my writing workshop. I want to expose students to beautifully written language that we can study together, and maybe learn a little grammar, but I also want to use these pieces of text for quick writes. I know that the content (or at least my questioning) has to be compelling enough that students will have something that makes their fingers itch to pick up their pens.

When I read I find myself dog-earing pages and book-marking passages that have been crafted with many rhetorical devices and/or literary elements. By helping students recognize how these strategies, used deliberately by the authors, create meaning, my students’ rhetorical analysis timed writings are scoring higher than they have at this point of the semester in years past.

I love it when my ideas work.

This is the passage we will read and respond to this week:

From An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski p4

And so, when Maurice spoke to me, I just kept going. Another thing to remember is that this was New York in the 1980s, a time when vagrants and panhandlers were as common a sight in the city as kids on bikes or moms with strollers. The nation was enjoying an economic boom, and on Wall Street new millionaires were minted every day. But the flip side was a widening gap between the rich and the poor, and nowhere was this more evident than on the streets of New York City. Whatever wealth was supposed to trickle down to the middle class did not come close to reaching the city’s poorest, most desperate people, and for many of them the only recourse was living on the streets. After a while you got used to the sight of them–hard, gaunt men and sad, haunted women, wearing rags, camped on corners, sleeping on grates, asking for change. It is tough to imagine anyone could see them and not feel deeply moved by their plight. Yet they were just so prevalent that most people made an almost subconscious decision to simply look the other way–to, basically, ignore them. The problem seemed so vast, so endemic, that stopping to help a single panhandler could feel all but pointless. And so we swept past them every day, great waves of us going on with our lives and accepting that there was nothing we could really do to help.

Write about a time when you encountered a homeless person or a beggar. How did you feel? What did you do?

I am still working on the questions. Sometimes I think it’s best to say, “Just respond.” Other times I think students need more direction.

What do you think?

Christmas Miracles

Books, Pedagogy, Presentations, Readers Workshop, Readers Writers Workshop, Shana Karnes, Social Networking, Strategies to Add Some Zip, Twitter, Writers Workshop December 14, 2013

December has traditionally been my least favorite month of the school year. Something about it bogged me down, without fail, every winter–the dark, sunless days…the mountains of papers to grade…the looming specter of exams–to write, administer, and grade. I hated my job in December. From old journals, I know that I was consistently unhappy in the twelfth month of the year, and I wanted to quit teaching every time it rolled around.

This December, though, things couldn’t be more different. I am LOVING my job!! Last week, I found myself completely caught up on grading–something that literally hasn’t happened yet this school year. Somehow, I had plenty of time to plan great lessons, confer with students with no back-of-the-brain worries, AND reorganize my classroom library. I was a productivity machine–and it didn’t stop at school. At home, I found the energy to assemble Christmas cards, decorate my apartment, and make some holiday crafts. As I type this, my fingers are still sticky with powdered sugar from the big batch of cookies I baked this morning. What’s with the freakish perfection, you ask? One little, made-up, three-week-old, hashtag of a word: #nerdlution.

Teachers across the country made nerdy resolutions that would be kept for 50 days. They could be anything–write every day, exercise, a more robust reading life. A Thanksgiving day Twitter chat gave rise to that wonderful idea, which I hope will become an annual tradition. Still riding my NCTE13 high, I resolved (nerdsolved? nerdluted?) to spread professional ideas about English teaching any way that I could, every day.

I started by leading an epic two-hour workshop for my English department. We book-passed (a la Penny Kittle) the entire contents of my professional library, shared best practices in a “gift exchange” of ideas, and made our own heart books (a la Linda Rief) of things we wanted to try. Afterward, Kristine, a 20-year veteran with a reputation for pessimism, approached me. “I used to have your energy,” she said. “I don’t know what happened, but I haven’t had it…for years.” She teared up, then borrowed Blending Genre, Altering Voice by Tom Romano, a balm for her troubled teaching soul. Other books from my NCTE haul were checked out, too–Georgia Heard’s brand new Finding the Heart of Nonfiction was battled over by two first-year teachers, Penny Kittle’s incredibly dog-eared and highlighted Book Love and Write Beside Them were taken by veterans, and Tom Newkirk’s well-loved Holding On To Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones was checked out by our department head, who has held his position since 1972 (I’ll let you do the math on that one).

I was elated, and my colleagues’ willingness to try new ideas didn’t stop there. The next day, a friend came and talked through some ideas about having her students do mini multigenre projects on Greek gods. Enthused, I told her I couldn’t wait to see the results. The following morning, Kristine, the tired veteran who’d borrowed Tom Romano’s book, stopped me in the hall. “I came to school every day this week with a new attitude. I feel the spark again,” she told me. I nearly cried after we went our separate ways.

The following week, it all seemed to be coming together–our entire English department was on board for trying something new, especially the workshop model. They wanted to see it in action. In five days, I was observed eight times by fellow teachers, and they saw my students doing amazing things. With heads down and pens on paper, their extended narratives were growing to eight…twelve…twenty-six pages long. They were BEAUTIFULLY written, and on an incredible variety of topics–hunting, car crashes, detectives, breakups, death. One male student wrote a narrative about rape from a woman’s point of view after hearing me booktalk Speak.

As my colleagues listened in, my students conferred with me about their writing like the confident, thoughtful, reflective authors they are: “I want it to read like a Rick Riordan story,” Kenneth told me. “Do you think the pace is too slow?” Nora asked. “I just need to zoom in a little more on this,” Tevin realized. “I’ve resorted to writing in my vocab section because the rest of my notebook is full,” Adam admitted with a giggle. I ended every class with a smile and a feeling of pride threatening to burst out of my chest. My colleagues were stupefied. “How are you getting them to read so much? To write so much? To work on this stuff in study halls and for homework?” They were flabbergasted, but all I had to do was point them toward that professional bookshelf, full to bursting (but with more and more empty spaces!!) with the brainchildren of so many of my teaching heroes.

So, my #nerdlution, as well as this little workshop experiment that Emily, Erika, Amy, and I have been trying out, is going beautifully. The two are combining to bring me the most peace I’ve felt during the holiday hustle and bustle in a long time–and that, for me, is a Christmas miracle.

Reel Reading for Real Readers: My Friend Dahmer

Amy Rasmussen, Book Trailers, Books, Readers Workshop December 12, 2013 Leave a comment

My Friend Dahmer by Berf Backderf only sits on my shelve until I book talk it just once. My students are fascinated when I tell them that the book is based on a real boy who grew up to be a real man who murdered people. They only know of serial killers from TV and the movies. I get the “pleasure” of introducing them to a real life psychopath. It creeps me out a bit that this is such a popular book, but students love to read it.

Rethinking: Real World Learning

Heather Cato, Strategies to Add Some Zip December 11, 2013 Leave a comment

life

I can’t say that I’ve ever posted an assignment to readers of my blog before, but I do promise this is not an exercise in futility. It will be worth your time.

After reading this article:

These Are the 30 People Under 30 Changing the World

Ask yourself:

What are you doing in your classroom with teenagers that is really pretty trivial in the scheme of life?
Is dissecting Silas Mairner for the 83rd time really necessary when kids in your classroom are quite literally curing cancer & making millions in real life?
How might you bring real life into your classroom and make learning relevant for kids?

I know when most educators say, “I’m trying to prepare these kids for the real world,” they are referring to the “real world” as the time when students have graduated high school or college and are living on their own, but let’s be real with ourselves. The world that our learners are currently living in is the real world. Why do they have to wait until they are 18 years old, or older, before what they are learning in school becomes relevant?

Personally, I was blown away to think about all the things that young people are currently doing to change the world in which they live, and I immediately began to think about how we could be doing school differently to support the ingenuity and innovation of our learners. Hopefully you will take a minute to think about that too.

Photo credit: Werner Kunz / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

Excuses: Why I can’t write

Readers Writers Workshop December 9, 2013 1 Comment

After carefully reading and agreeing to the terms & conditions of wordpress.com, this blog was officially birthed in a tiny hotel room on January 21, 2010 at the annual TCTELA conference. In that time, and really over the last two years, there have been close to 20,000 views of the blog, 10 guest bloggers, and 200 posts.

I account for less than 20% of those posts.

Since August, we have stepped up our blogging efforts and generally are posting consistently four times a week. Four posts a week for 4 months is approximately 64 posts.

I account for 5 of those.

Some may be starting to think, “Gee, Heather, you aren’t pulling your weight around here! Amy should kick you off, or at least ground you until you write some more blog posts.” But before Amy goes and punishes me, I have several reasons, really good reasons I might add, as to why I haven’t been blogging.

1. The Dog Ate My Homework – Ok, I don’t have a dog, but the last several weeks have been littered with catastrophes. From packing up an entire house and moving to a new one, a husband with a chronic tooth ache (heaven forbid he go to the dentist), and me dislocating my kneecap when I fell walking across the street, it seems like there is always something that is getting in the way of my writing.

2. I Don’t Have Time – This year it seems like everybody needs my time. Between family, church, work, friends, my alone time, etc. there simply isn’t enough hours in the day to get it all done.

3. I Have Nothing To Say – I took a new job this year, and it just seems like every time I do sit down to write I have nothing to say. My perspective has changed. I look back on my teaching experience and think it was so much easier to write when I was in the classroom, would try something out, and then reflect on it through my writing.

4. My Writing Isn’t Good Enough – This is probably reason enough to go to counseling and certainly a blog post for another day, but every time I go to type a single word or even get so far as to press the PUBLISH button, I have a voice inside my head (my seventh grade English teacher’s voice actually) saying that not only is my writing not good enough, I’m not good enough.

It is actually quite funny. Knowing I was supposed to post today, I texted Amy last night and joked with her about what my excuse might be for why I wouldn’t get a post done today. Forget the fact that in Texas we have been iced in for the last four days, and I have had more than ample time to get something posted. It made me start to think:

What about the learners that sit before you everyday in your classroom?

What are their excuses for not writing?

It is easy to look at the monumental amount of standards that have to be covered in a given year, and then start assigning essay after essay after essay. Between the demands pushed down a campus and the looming state test, educators quickly turn from teaching the art of writing to merely assigning writing.

Again, what about your learners? When might they have some of the same excuses I have? If we as educators overlook the excuses of our learners, or maybe even blame them for these excuses, I venture to say we are not really doing everything we can to create a classroom of writers. At the heart of everything we do, we must first look at it through the lenses of the learners that sit before us and carefully craft experiences where they can feel safe enough to not have to make excuses. As educators it is not only our responsibility to teach standards, it is also our responsibility to help break down barriers that hold a student back from learning and being successful.

As an adult, I have to break down my own barriers and excuses. Not having time and having things come up are universal excuses that could be given for anything in life. You have to make time to have time, right? Feelings of inadequacy aren’t always just about writing for me. Truth is though, when you look at the facts my top two posts had over 500 readers each! Now, why would I ever think no one wants to read what I write? And the excuse about how my perspective has changed, I still have a story to tell and should be brave enough to share that story.

What are your excuses for not writing? How might a reflection of your own excuses help you to guide learners to break down their excuses?

Reel Reading for Real Readers: Meta Maus

Amy Rasmussen, Book Trailers, Books, Readers Writers Workshop December 5, 2013 Leave a comment

The book Maus by Art Spiegelman made me a believer in graphic novels. Maus II was just as influential.

One year I applied for a grant and got the funds to create a whole set of various war-themed graphic novels for literature circles in a gifted/talented humanities class. I no longer teach that class, but my friend Tess does, and she’s the owner of that box of beautifully written and illustrated graphic novels. I remember the first year we used them, our student Claudia said, “I got a question right on the AP World History exam because of something I read in the book about Gaza.” I had no idea at the time that graphic novels could be so powerful and so important. Now a few years later, I have a small collection that a few students eventually work themselves into.

This is a trailer for Maus completed by some students (not my own) using DSI Flipnote Studio. It’s cool, and now I want to download the software. The trailer is well done, too.

He read ZERO books before he came to me. Not Good Enough.

AP English, Books, Readers Workshop, Readers Writers Workshop December 4, 2013 Comments: 2

He came to me pretty much hating to read. This tall freshman, eager to talk and laugh, and constantly wanting to do anything else but open a book. He admitted that he read zero books his 8th grade year.

The first book I got him to attempt was Game, a chapter book of about 160 pages that took him four weeks to get through. Every day I had to put a hand on his shoulder and whisper “Get to reading.” Next, he tried Gym Candy, and while he seemed to read it faster, he couldn’t tell me much about the plot or the characters.

Finally, with a stroke of luck, this young man picked up Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach. I had book talked it a week or so before, reading the first few pages to the class. At the time, R.J. wasn’t interested. When I saw him with this book, I hurried over and practically begged him to give it a try. “Okay,” he shrugged and moved away from the bookshelf toward his table.

Every day for two weeks, R.J. came to class and told me how much he had read. “I like this book,” he smiled at me more than once. He finished this book in two and a half weeks, and then took himself to the bookshelf to find I’m with Stupid. (At the time, we thought this was the next in the series.)

When I finally made it over to kneel by R. J.’s table and conference with him about his reading, he told me that the beginning was hard to read because the main character’s family was “weird,” but he really liked the parts about football. We talked about character development and how the main character Felton changes throughout the book. “He grows up,” R.J. notices. I asked him what kinds of questions he would ask the author if he had the chance, and then I remembered: I follow this author on Twitter.

“Hey, R.J., let’s take a picture of you reading this book and tweet it to the author. I bet he’ll respond.”

“No way…. Oh, okay.”

So we did.

R.J. left class that day feeling pretty special. He will finish his fourth book this week. His personal reading goal for the whole year was only FIVE.

Now, here’s the really cool thing: While wondering the exhibition hall at NCTE in Boston, I struck up a conversation with the representatives from Sourcebooks Publishers. They asked if I knew of the books by Geoff Herbach, and, of course, I had to tell them about R.J. Then one of those very sweet insightful women reached under the table and handed me this:

She understands the value of nurturing readers. She’s helped me make a difference in the life of this young man. I wish I could describe the yelp I got when I told R.J. he’d been gifted with an ARC of an ARC — how cool is that?

I’d love to hear your best “Conquering the Reluctant Reader” story. Please share.

Multi-purposing My Quickwrites

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Books, Readers Writers Workshop, Strategies to Add Some Zip, Writers Workshop December 2, 2013 Comments: 3

Photo Credit: Jennifer

At NCTE last week, Penny Kittle reminded me of the need to consistently share beautiful language with my students. If I ever want them to be able to read it, understand it, and use it in their own writing, I must make conscious choices about voicing that which is lovely. I do a fine job of this right until my students choose their own topics and begin their compositions. Then the room gets stale, and the feeling of “what a chore” begins.

No wonder. I stop sharing short texts and poems. I stop having students respond in their notebooks. I stop allowing them to share their thinking.

While in Boston, I stole a moment with Penny and asked her about my problem, and she simply said, “I keep sharing beautiful language every day.” I must do this, too.

I made a list in my notebook of the things I need to do better when I return to the classroom. Continuing to share poetry and short passages that students can respond to sits at the top of my list, but I want to try to multi-task this activity.

My students are in the process of writing a feature-length article. They chose topics and began drafting before the break. I want them to think about ways to make what they are writing pop into 3D on the page; I want them to see vivid verbs and colorful word choice, and all kinds of devices that they might include in their own writing. My goal is to use poems and passages from now on that will serve several purposes:

1) rhythms of beautiful language,

2) models for sentence structure,

3) examples of figurative language,

4) built-in book talks,

5) questions that aid student thinking about things that matter in their lives.

We will read, and we will respond. We will notice author’s craft as we craft ourselves.

I know, I know, I am slow on this boat. Good planning would make this possible with all my quick writes. I get that. Thus far, I’ve been a bit disjointed because I struggle with doing it “all:” Independent reading time, quick writes, mini-lessons on craft, grammar, mechanics, student-to-student reading response, reading and writing conferences, book talks. . . I keep most plates spinning, but more and more are crashing lately. My #nerdulation is to do better. (Search that hashtag on Twitter if you don’t have a clue.)

Here’s the passage I will use today. I think it’s appropriate to read a beautiful passage about books since I got a ton of new ones at NCTE. My classroom library welcomes them, but it’s screaming “crowded.” I gotta get a new shelf.

From Broken by C.J. Lyons:

Kids fill the hall from wall to wall. Despite the unfamiliar press of bodies, I don’t panic. Instead, I let them steer me, like running with a herd of wild, untamed horses. At the end of the corridor, the herd separates into two, leaving me alone in front of a high glass wall.

The library.

Footsteps and lockers banging and voices colliding barrage me. Then I open the door, cross over, and step inside. I’m greeted not by silence, but instead by a hushed burble, relaxing, like the sound of a water fountain. I stand, enjoying the sensations, and take a breath.

School smells so much better than the hospital. And the library smells the best of all. To me, a good book is hot cocoa on a stormy winter day, sleet battering the window while you sit inside, nestled in a quilt.

A room filled with books?

I inhale deeply, a junkie taking her first hit. Sweet, musty paper. Ebony ink so crisp it threatens to rise off the pages and singe my nostrils. Glue and leather and cloth all mixed together in a menage a trois of decadence.

Another breath and I’m drunk with possibilities. Words and stories and people and places so far from here that Planet Earth is a mere dust mote dancing in my rearview mirror.

Hugging myself, containing my glee, I pivot, taking in books stacked two stories high, couches and chairs strategically positioned to catch the light from tall windows lining both sides of the corner, like the bridge of a battle cruiser, broad, high, supremely confident, and comforting. In here, I dare to imagine that I might just survive high school after all.

Respond in your notebook: Describe a place where you find peace or refuge?

How do you revision your instruction when you know something isn’t working?

Three Teachers Talk

Shhh…We’re Thinking!

Reel Reading for Real Readers: Bruiser by Neal Shusterman

AP English: Improving Our Rhetorical Analysis One Quickwrite at a Time

Reel Reading for Real Readers: My Friend Dahmer