Tag Archives: Readers Writers Workshop

#NCTE14 J.44 Nonnegotiables Across the Landscape of Workshop

Guest Post, Pedagogy, Presentations, Readers Writers Workshop, Shana Karnes November 20, 2014 Comments: 2

Jackie, Erika, Amy and I are excited to present at NCTE in Washington, D.C. on Saturday at 2:45 pm. Penny Kittle is our Chair. We are session J.44. Join us!

“I am the sum of my mentors,” writes Meenoo Rami in Thrive.  As a student at Miami University in 2005, I had no idea how fortunate I was to have Tom Romano as one of my mentors.  As a leader in educational writing, a teacher with his thumb on the pulse of research, and the giant who first introduced me to NCTE, Romano has always been my single biggest mentor.

As I thought for months about what I wanted to share with teachers regarding the readers-writers workshop at NCTE, I was reminded of an assignment I’d done in Romano’s class–to find the “red thread” of my teaching…my nonnegotiables regarding our profession.  I dug for it in the depths of my hard drive.

Re-reading it, I laughed as I always do at my older writing, but then I smiled.  Many of my nonnegotiables remain unchanged: sustained silent reading.  Craft informed by research.  Authenticity.  Engagement is central.  Model, model, model.

Tom Romano obviously did a damn good job as a mentor.

IMG_5031Those simple principles–plus my genuine passion for reading, and writing, and the joy I believe they can bring everyone–inform my practice day in and day out.  They are supported by the research of Penny Kittle, Katie Wood Ray, Tom Newkirk, Kelly Gallagher, Donalyn Miller, Linda Rief, and more.  I am the sum of those mentors, and in this season of giving thanks, I’m so grateful that I am.  My students have found incredible success because I stand on the shoulders of those giants, and I can’t wait to share their stories at our session in Washington, D.C.

A Mini-lesson on Extended Metaphor

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Books, Readers Writers Workshop November 10, 2014 Leave a comment

The Good Luck of Right Now is the first book by Matthew Quick that I read. It is a good book. I love the quirkiness of the narrator’s voice. It reminds me a little of the narrator in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. I don’t know which I like better.

I am not sure this is a book that my students will want to read, although I will share it with them with my high praise. I do know that there are several passages that I can use for mini-lessons. I especially like this one with an extended metaphor. I think students will be able to write their own, and maybe add it into their narratives, once we take a close look at the way Quick uses this one here:

 

The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick, p111

(I have to say that everything seems to be unraveling lately. Or maybe it seems as though I am a flower myself, opening up to the world for the first time. I don’t know why this is, and I’m not really in control of it either. Flowers do not think. Okay, it is now May, so I will reach up toward the sun and relax my fist of petals into an open hand. They do not think at all. Flowers just grow, and when it is time, they shoot colors out of their stems and become beautiful. I am no more beautiful than I was when Mom was alive, but I feel as though I am a fist opening, a flower blooming, a match ignited, a beautiful mane of hair loosened from a bun –that so many things previously impossible are now possible. And I have been wondering if that is the reason I did not cry and become upset when Mom died. Do the colorful flower petals cry and mourn when they are no longer contained within a green stem? I wonder if the first thirty-eight years of my life were spent within the stem of me — myself. I have been wondering a lot about a lot of things, Richard Gere, and when I read about your life I get to thinking that you also have similar thoughts, which is why you dropped out of college and did not become a farmer like your grandfather or an insurance salesman like your father. And it’s also why so many people thought you were aloof, when you were only trying to be you. I read that you used to go to the movies by yourself when you were in college and you’d stay at the movie house for hours and hours studying the craft of acting and storytelling and moviemaking. You did all of this alone. This way maybe when you were in the stem–before you exploded into the bloom of internationally famous movie star Richard Gere. Such vivid colors you boast now! But it wasn’t easy for you. I have been learning by researching your life. So much time spent acting on the stage. You lived in a New York City apartment without heat or water, one book reported. And then you made many movies before you became famous –always trying to beat out John Travolta for roles, and being paid so much less than him. But now you are Richard Gere. Richard Gere!)

 

Do you have other passages that work well to teach extended metaphor?

Running Away From Grading My Students’ Problems

Jackie Catcher, Readers Writers Workshop October 29, 2014 Comments: 5

when-i-runWhen we had to run the mile in elementary school, I was always at the back of the pack, inhaler in hand, slowly walking my way across the finish line. I have never been a runner; believe me, I’ve tried. So on Saturday afternoon, when I got the urge to hit the pavement in a light, albeit slow, jog, I was running away from more than my problems—the heaps of papers, laundry, meetings, assignments, and work I had waiting at home. I was running away from grading the problems of my students.

In the beginning of the year I always find that students are hesitant with their writing, cautious to share with one another, eager to find personal stories that are interesting yet not too revealing. I don’t blame them—after all, as much as we want to believe high school is a safe space to share our feelings and experiences, it isn’t. Bit by bit though, students unravel, some sooner than others, and slowly I begin receiving stories that are raw and honest. This last set of personal narratives I received included stories about the deaths of parents and grandparents and the suicide of a close friend. Students spoke about dealing with anorexia, suicidal ideations, and clinical depression. At 16 and 17 years old, many of these students have lived more life than some adults.

Part of this process has to do with the fact that my students peer review each other’s work. I find that as they are exposed to one another’s writing they tend to open up further. In addition, I share my own writing with them, in particular one piece on the complications that happened after my father had open heart surgery two years ago. I pick and choose what classes I share this piece with. Some classes are ready to hear that their teacher is capable of fear, anger, anxiety, and hurt; some classes aren’t. The piece is revealing of who I am as a daughter and sister instead of pigeon holing me into the role of a leader and teacher.

The problem with this dynamic is that it doesn’t fit into the traditional education system. While I am not an advocate of grades, I am also not anti-grades. Still, I find that no number can adequately convey the power of writing or the strength and guts of these students. As a teacher, I have to look at the structure, craft, mechangrade-620x425ics, and formatting of a paper, but no matter how much I observe the concrete aspects of a piece, I cannot help but remember that my job isn’t just about correcting punctuation or spelling; my job is to do justice to the stories of my students, to help them tell these stories in the most compelling way possible, which is what led me to my run on this fall day.

Unfortunately, my tromping across scattered leaves with heavy breathing and a stitch in my side didn’t bring any clarity, and when I returned to my kitchen table, the same stories sat underneath my pen, covered in blue ink that praised their bravery, their craft, their story. But still, these stories were gradeless, waiting for a number, waiting for the end of the quarter, waiting to be put into my online gradebook. So my question for all of you teachers, those of you who have been teaching and grading for far more many years than I, how do you tackle these difficult papers? How do you tack on a number to something that has so much more value?

A Novel in Verse to Study Craft

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Readers Writers Workshop October 27, 2014 Comments: 2

I recently read my first Ellen Hopkin’s novel in verse — all 666 pages. I’d often wondered why some of my most reluctant readers, girls mostly, would stick with and finish Hopkin’s books. Now I know.

While the thickness of the book is intimidating, the number of words on each page is not. The poems are short and beautifully worded, using language that makes the storyline pop like a 3D movie.

Impulse is the story of three characters, all with distinct voices, portrayed in their own series of poems. The point of view shifts from character to character, which I love because that adds to the complex thinking students must do to understand what is happening in the story.

All three characters suffer from some of the worst abuses that can happen in the lives of individuals. All are in a facility trying to figure out themselves and their horrid lives — primarily as result of the actions of adults.

This morning while checking my Twitter feed I was reminded of the need to introduce students to books as mirrors and windows. Students should be able to see themselves within the characters they read about, and they should be able to see into the lives of others that they may never know. Sometimes books allow students to do both. Impulse is one of those books.

I think it would be interesting to use this poem from page 2 as an exercise in imitation. What four verbs might students choose to write into their four sentence poem?

The Thread

Wish

you could turn off

the questions, turn

the voices,

turn off all sound.

Yearn

to close out

the ugliness, close

out the filthiness,

close out all light.

Long

to cast away

yesterday, cast

away memory,

cast away all jeopardy.

Pray

you could somehow stop

the uncertainty, somehow

stop the loathing,

somehow stop the pain.

Why Are So Many Adults Threatened by Students Choosing Books?

Readers Writers Workshop October 25, 2014 Leave a comment

The teacher-readers at Three Teachers Talk agree. The only way to promote, encourage, foster, nourish, and engage readers is to let them read. We thank The Reading Zone for this post. Our thoughts exactly.

thereadingzone's avatarThe Reading Zone

  • Flowers in the Attic
  • A Wrinkle in Time
  • As I Lay Dying
  • Mists of Avalon
  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
  • The Hobbit
  • Little Women
  • Anne of Avonlea
  • the Bible
  • Cold Mountain
  • Angela’s Ashes
  • The Celestine Prophecy
  • Dreamland
  • Speak
  • The Hot Zone

A list of books you can find at garage sales or friends of the library sales?  Probably.  But the above-named books are also just some of the books I chose to read in high school.  They weren’t assigned books but instead were books that friends and I passed around.  Of course we read Hemingway, Salinger, Achebe, and Shakespeare in school.  Well, we “read” those.  I can tell you exactly which assigned books I read and which ones I “read”.  But the books I picked on my own and the ones my friends were all talking about?  Those I didn’t put down until I turned that last page.

I…

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PTSA Reflections: The World Would Be A Better Place If…

Readers Writers Workshop October 23, 2014 Leave a comment

I love this line: “As I try to do with all assignments, I did the writing along with them.” This is a teacher who knows what her task is as an English educator and honors her students by walking the talk. If we expect our students to learn to write, take time to write, be willing to write — WE must write. We must write so they see our thinking, our struggle, our process. Because it’s in the process that all the learning happens. Thanks for sharing a slice of your pedagogy with us Mrs. Kelley.

Whitney Kelley's avatarAlong for the Write

The theme for this year’s PTSA Reflections competition is “The World Would Be A Better Place If…,” and I have assigned my students to write an original work for a ReadAround in class tomorrow.  As I try to do with all assignments, I did the writing along with them.  Below is my response to the prompt.

If “ifs” and “buts” were candy and nuts, oh what a Christmas it’d be.

My brother and I always said that when we were growing up, and it’s been running through my mind since we began the Reflections writing.  I think about the truth behind that little chant, and I have to shake my head that we had no idea what truth we were actually speaking in our naïve youth.  Quite honestly, at the time we liked being able to say the word “buts” without getting in trouble, and we also liked to taunt…

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A Whole New Take On He Said, She Said

Readers Writers Workshop October 23, 2014 Leave a comment

307652“This raw and powerful book will hammer its way into your heart and haunt you,” says Laurie Halse Anderson, and boy, is she right.  Keir Sarafian, the narrator of Inexcusable, is one I won’t soon forget.  Not only is he guilty of having committed a horrible act, he’s also guilty of being completely unaware that he did anything wrong.

Keir is a rambling narrator, spilling sentences onto the page in an attempt to understand his past even as the reader struggles to alongside him.  He is a subtly unreliable narrator.

The narrative structure is my favorite part.  We jump back and forth between the present–as Gigi accuses Keir of rape, while he focuses on the fact that he’s a good guy–and the past–as we see the senior year storyline that leads up to the climax.

The focus is on perception–Keir sees the same events completely differently than Gigi does, which is so amazingly educational for my students.  The jumps in time are difficult for some, but the compelling subject of date rape keeps them hooked.  Inexcusable makes a reader feel empathetic, disgusted, confused, and ultimately, thoughtful–all in 176 pages.

From Inexcusable by Chris Lynch – p. 1

The way it looks is not the way it is.

Gigi Boudakian is screaming at me so fearsomely, I think I could just about cry.  I almost don’t even care what the subject is because right now I am sick and I am confused and I am laid so low by the very idea that Gigi Boudakian is screaming at me that the what-for hardly seems even to matter.  I love Gigi Boudakian.  I hate it when people I love scream at me.

And I don’t feel guilty.  That is, I don’t feel like I am guilty.  But I sure as hell feel sorry.

I am sorry.

I am one sorry sorry bastard.  And I feel very sick.

I am so sorry.

Please Don’t Judge Me

Jackie Catcher, Readers Writers Workshop, Writers Workshop October 1, 2014 Comments: 5

“So, uh, yeah this is pretty embarrassing for me.” I could feel my face flush in front of my 1st period Advanced Composition before I’d even begun. My voice shook as I stood in front of the 24 pairs of 17-year old eyes—the most vulnerable position one can be in. I had captured their attention at 7:45 in the morning, but I could feel my innards twist as I stammered through some of the usual excuses I hear from my student-writers: “I need to tell you the backstory first” and “I hope you get what I’m trying to say.”

Then I started, reading line by line the maid of honor speech I will deliver in fewer than two weeks at my best friend’s wedding. It wasn’t the first time I had shared my writing; I write with my students during quickwrites, share finalized pieces with them throughout the year, and discuss drafting pieces for this blog, but this speech was different—it was raw, personal, and untraditional. I had made some major stylistic decisions that pushed me, particularly as a writer, outside my comfort zone.

“I really need your feedback,” I said to them. And I was honest, practically on the verge of begging. “You see,” I continued, “writing happens throughout your life, and in this instance I need your help to make sure I don’t make a fool of myself in front of 200 guests.”

photo-1

My Advanced Composition class, pictured here, helped to walk me through the revision process.

“You’re going to trust us?” a student asked.

“Yeah,” I responded, “Plus, at the wedding I’ll be in front of 200 people I might never see again, whereas here, I’m with you guys for the rest of the year. So, if I’m embarrassed here, it’s going to be really bad at the wedding,” they laughed and they listened to me recite the piece with a calm voice and a racing mind, a mind that begged them to chuckle at the jokes and coo at the memories. When I came to the end, I looked up, realizing again, as I have realized so many times before just how vulnerable it is to share writing. This time though, as much as it made me nervous, I knew that the only way to teach writers was through modeling. If I was asking them to expose their writing to each other, I had to be willing to expose my writing flaws as well, even if it felt like singing solo karaoke stone-cold sober.

Then the suggestions came: “I’m not sure what you were doing with that transition, maybe try to make it more specific.” “I would like to hear about when you first met her fiancé.” “I think you could add another story.” Their words were carefully chosen as not to offend but instead encourage and help. While some students doled out praise, others helped to polish the piece. Even trailing side conversations pertained to how to make the piece stronger. I typed their comments into the document, repeating what each of them would say, and then I sent them to begin a similar process of reading aloud their personal narratives within groups of three.

Next week I will arrive in class with another draft of my speech, and I will repeat the cycle. They must see me live the life of a writer if they are going to believe what I say. They must see me absorb their feedback if they are going to understand the value of peer review. And above all, they must watch me return, raw nerves and baited breath, if they are to believe that I see value in their words.

A Lesson in Craft: The Yellow Birds

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Books, Readers Writers Workshop September 29, 2014 1 Comment

If you have not read The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, go buy it and start reading it today. It’s that good. Maybe I loved it because Powers is a poet, and his poetry flows into the language on every page. Maybe I loved it because I have similar fears as the mothers portrayed in this book. At least one of my sons will join the Army in a year.

Whatever the reason, I love this novel, and I know many of my students will appreciate the beauty of it, too.

Many passages are worthy of study, but when I read myself into this one, I knew that the discussion around it in class would be powerful. What do you think students might discover about language by reading this?

I hadn’t know what I was doing then, but my memories of Murph were a kind of misguided archaeology. Sifting through the remains of what I remembered about him was a denial of the fact that a hole was really all that was left, an absence I had attempted to reverse but found that I could not. There was simply not enough material to account for what had been removed. The closer I got to reconstructing him in my mind, the more the picture I was tying to re-create receded. For every memory I was able to pull up, another seemed to fall away forever. There was some proportion about it all, though. It was like putting a puzzle together from behind: the shapes familiar, the picture quickly fading, the muted tan of the cardboard backing a tease at wholeness and completion. I’d think of a time when we sat in the evening in the guard tower, watching the war go by in streaks of read and green and other, briefer lights, and he’d tell me of an afternoon in the little hillside apple orchard that his mother worked, the turn and flash of a paring knife along a wrap of gauze as they grafted uppers to rootstocks and new branches to blossom, or the time he saw but could not explain his awe when his father brought a dozen caged canaries home from the mine and let them loose in the hollow where they lived, how the canaries only flitted and sang awhile before perching back atop their cages, which had been arranged in rows, his father likely thinking that the birds would not return by choice to their captivity, and that the cages should be used for something else: a pretty bed for vegetables, perhaps a place to string up candles between the trees, and in what strange silences the world worked, Murph must have wondered, as the birds settled peaceably in their formation and ceased to sing. And I’d try to recall things until nothing came, which I quickly found was my only certainty, until what was left of him was a sketch in shadow, a skeleton falling apart, and my friend Murph was no more friend to me than the strangest stranger.

Viral Titles

Books, Guest Post, Readers Workshop, Readers Writers Workshop, Shana Karnes September 25, 2014 Leave a comment

ifistay1Every year, one or two books go viral. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell, and Hate List by Jennifer Brown have all held the Viral Title award in the past.  I couldn’t keep those books on my shelves, and students couldn’t read them fast enough.

This year, If I Stay by Gayle Forman is everywhere I look.  All of my students want this book–AP, on level, male, female, black, white, readers, non-readers.  I have six copies and all are checked out.

I got into bed Tuesday night with my Nook, where I’d recently downloaded If I Stay.  It’s been about a month since I’ve read a book for pleasure, so I intended to just read a chapter or two and then go to sleep after my 14-hour day.

I stayed up ’til midnight and finished the book.

Silent tears dripped down my face around page 15, when Mia’s family is destroyed in a car accident.  Forman’s writing shoves me into the moment and I am right there with Mia, feeling her anguish as she sees her parents strewn across the road.  I agonize with her over the whereabouts of her younger brother, Teddy, and I hear the eerie quiet of a post-collision highway.

I was captivated from that moment onward, terrified for Mia as she watches her own injured, unresponsive body be flown to the hospital.  Watches her now-daughterless grandparents in the waiting room.  Watches the surgeons and nurses frantically try to save her.  She vacillates between wanting to stay in this world, and wanting to leave it behind.

NPR calls this story “achingly beautiful,” and I would agree.  Its language, its structure, haunts me, days later, and I know my students and I will study Forman’s craft soon…the way she brings us into a moment, frozen in time, and suspends our disbelief as we stay beside Mia’s spirit, watching all of this unfold.  Please read this book, and get it into the hands of your students, too.

ifistay2

If I Stay, Gayle Forman, pp. 15-16

You wouldn’t expect the radio to work afterward.  But it does.

The car is eviscerated. The impact of a four-ton pickup truck going sixty miles an hour had the force of an atom bomb.  It tore off the doors, sent the front-side passenger seat through the driver’s side window.  It flipped the chassis, bouncing it across the road and ripped the engine apart as if it were no stronger than a spiderweb.  It tossed wheels and hubcaps deep into the forest.  It ignited bits of the gas tank, so that now tiny flames lap at the wet road.

And there was so much noise.  A symphony of grinding, a chorus of popping, an aria of exploding, and finally, the sad clapping of hard metal cutting into soft trees.  Then it went quiet, except for this:  Beethoven’s Cello Sonata no. 3, still playing.