Gearing Up For a New Year

Just one more week of official summer vacation left. The last week of August we have back to school teacher meetings. Yesterday I had the privilege of sitting in on the Elementary teachers' summer meeting. It was fun to hear about the ways God has been work in their lives over the summer, and to hear their excitement for the coming school year.

Between tutoring and sitting on the back porch with my kitties, I have spent the last few weeks moving into a new classroom. I'm very excited! We got new carpet installed in two of the high school rooms, and I've been moved into the slightly bigger room. My student who is advising me on color schemes (she's hoping to go into interior design) stopped by yesterday, her response was, "It looks so homey!"

For most people, what they first notice is the books. I get comments such as, "you have more books then the school library!" (which is sadly true), and "people will mistake this for the library". I've also been asked, "Is this your office?" No, no. This is my classroom!

Last fall at the NERA conference in Portland, Donalyn Miller asked the audience, "How do people know that books are your brand?" I chuckled. There is no doubt in people's mind that books and reading is "my brand". My classroom, my Facebook feed, my Twitter feed. Books, books, books.

I'm a literacy teacher. Kids need to be exposed to books if they are going to learn to read and write!

In addition to my new learning space, I'm planning to bring some new practices into the school year. We will be using the Whole Novel method of studying literature (see Whole Novels for the Whole Class by Ariel Sacks); we will be using a new vocabulary study website, Membean, and we will be doing 20% Time (also known as Genius Hour).

Here is a brief video tour of my new classroom.

I am excited for this new school year, although I still have a lot to do to get ready!

Benefits of a Student-Centered Classroom

Midterms are next week. Over the Christmas break I needed to finalize my exams so I could handout study guides when we returned to school. I was agonizing over it.

nataleestotz Struggling with having to give an English midterm exam to my Ss. Just want to keep working on the things they need to learn, not test them! 12/30/13, 10:42 AM

Beth139 @nataleestotz Does it HAVE to be a test? Can it be some other assessment of ability? 12/30/13, 11:10 AM

MrsSaad24 @nataleestotz @Beth139 make the exam a lit analysis paper on passages they've never seen/a theme related to what you're doing. 12/30/13, 7:03 PM

I really didn't want to give an exam for the sake of giving an exam. I wanted it to be meaningful. I decide to have them write a major literary analysis. My seniors would write about the topic of Pilgrimage or Journey as a motif in life and literature. The freshmen and sophomores would write about the Human Experience in literature, and the juniors would have complete choice of their topic. 

And then there is my senior government class. I could have used their chapter tests and create an exam, but what really would that show me? So I asked them to think about how they could best demonstrate to me what they understand from this semester. It's a small class, four students. We discusses ideas and they each settled on a topic and a product. One is writing a paper about privacy and the gaming industry specifically related to a recent incident with an on-line game. One is doing a creative writing piece using the different forms of government. One is writing an essay on the different forms of government. The fourth is creating a series of info graphs that display key words and concepts for each chapter. 

On their way out of class on Thursday, after a very productive block period of work, one of them said to me, "I think is neat how what each person chose reflects their individuality!"

That right there is one of the things I love about a student-centered classroom!

In my English classes, we've spent this week developing thesis statements, drafting, and conferencing. When I assigned the essay, I asked the students to look at the works we read in class (both whole class study and pleasure read alouds) and at what they have read on their own. I have students comparing Arthur Miller's The Crucible with Robison Wells's Variant and Feedback, and students examining how suicide is delt with in Jay Asher's 13 Reason Why. B is writing about the power of words to create and destroy, it's a topic he's been thinking about a lot lately and he recently finished the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness. S is writing about revenge after having read Jonathan Maberry's Rot & Ruin series. N is writing about the masks we wear- something he noticed in a memoir he read. A is writing about love stories as she compares Romeo & Juliet with John Green's The Fault in Our Stars. C is looking at how authors in his favorite fantasy books deal with the depravity of man. 

The conversations that are happening as my students work in class on these essays are more valuable in assessing their knowledge then any 50 questions exam I could ever write. As I talked with several of the boys who regularly struggle with English class, helping them to identify a topic and develop a thesis, our conversation revealed the things they had noticed in their reading. They didn't think it was what I was looking for for the essay. When I pressed them to tell me their ideas, I was delighted with their thinking: turns out it was exactly the kind of idea I was looking for and was pretty insightful!

On the second day we were working, one of the boys said, "I'm bad at writing." Another immediately chimed in that he, too, was bad a writing. I responded right away, "No, you're not! I've read your writing. None of you are bad writers. You just don't like to write. There's a difference. Not one of you is a bad writer." The boy who original spoke thought for a moment, then replied, "You're right!"

Later, the same two boys were sitting just looking a their thesis generators- organizers they had filled out after conferencing with me and contained excellent ideas. 

"I don't know what to write." 

I knew they could explain their ideas, but were hung up on the process of getting thought to paper.  "Just think about how you explained it to me. That's where you start. Pretend you're talking to someone. If you're at home, record it. Go into your room and talk to your cat, but record it."

"There's an app that does speech to text!" And they proceed to explain how the app words, even show it to me on an iPad, and laugh about the funny way the app gets things wrong.

"Exactly! Then you go back and edit to fix the words it got wrong. That's much easier than struggling to get your ideas written or typed out." 

The conversation continued as they realized they could use their technology to help them write their papers in a way they never imagined. I swear, angels were singing in that moment.  When I relayed this story to my husband this morning, he quipped, "They say 'find your voice', well this is 'use your voice'!" 

I think these boys are finding their voice and learning to use their voice! These are revelations and learning moments that they would not have had if I had given them a study guide of literary terms and vocabulary words. 

I'm not dreading midterms and end of quarter. It will be a pleasure to read the English papers and see the final products from my government class. I love the ideas these kids are generating and developing. 

A Little Late to the Party

We were suppose to go back to school yesterday. Winter storm Hercules had other plans, and our Christmas vacation was extended by two days. I'm not complaining. While I do miss my students and I'm eager to hear about their vacations, the things they did and the books they read, I have used my extra time well. I spent time reading and researching.

I've been researching some trends in education and in my research on Genius Hour (more to come on that later), I reconnected with a guy I ran cross-country with my freshman year at PCB (now Cairn University). We weren't super close because I was a dorky freshman and he was a cool upperclassman, but he was (and is) a really nice guy and was part of the family that helped me make a smooth transition into college. Turns out he's been doing Genius Hour for a couple of years. Its been fun to reconnect and swap ideas and book titles.

I also spent time reading TEACH LIKE A PIRATE by Dave Burgess. When the book came out, there was a lot of buzz on Twitter and a large number of people all read it and had chats about it. I lurked in some of those chats (how can your curiosity not be piqued by a hashtag like #tlap?) but didn't participate. I hadn't read the book, and the impression that I got was it was something for elementary and involved dressing up to teach your lessons. So I kind of passed it off. That's just not my thing, and I teach high school.

Then came time for the executive board of the Maine Reading Association to plan it's spring conference.  One of the names that was floated was Dave Burgess. "Who?" I asked.

"Teach Like a Pirate".

"Oh."

My fellow board members had all read they book (They are elementary teachers. I still was so clueless!) and gushed about how amazing it was. From a marketing stand point, it made perfect sense to me. I hadn't read the book, didn't know the guy from a hole in the wall, but I knew from Twitter that he & his book would be a big draw.

Now I needed to read the book, preferable before March 8. After all, I was helping to plan and promote the event and would certainly be attending, even if just to support MRA. So here we are, back at the first of two snow days at the end of Christmas vacation. I started reading and playing around with visual note taking. This morning I finished reading Part 1 and spent about 30 minutes talking with my husband about the ideas that I took from just this first part of the book.

I can honestly say, I drank the Kool-aide. I came away from the reading encouraged, inspired, and challenged. What I thought was a gimmick that didn't apply to me, is actually very appropriate to my situation. I've been working hard to try to find the best practices that are the best fit for our school and am coming to the realization that we can't keep trying to fit into the traditional model of school. It just isn't producing the outcomes we are looking for. My co-worker and I have been lamenting that our high school students are disengaged from the learning process and unenthusiastic about school. You see, PIRATE is an mnemonic. The cornerstones are Passion (both professional and personal) and Enthusiasm. These are two things that we want in our students. These are two things that our teachers need to have. Students are not going to be passionate or enthusiastic about learning if their teachers are not exhibiting those qualities.

This is challenging me to rethink how I'm teaching. I'm not going to be able to change everything instantly. As Dave Burgess points out, "creativity results from properly directed attention, laser-like focus, relentless effort, and hard work." It takes time, and I admittedly have a lot on my plate, but it is important, and so I will start targeting bits of my lessons and figure out how to approach them in a way that will better engage my students.

I've already been thinking about that handful of boys that I know I'm losing. They're great kids, and are definitely capable, but they are struggling with the complex texts and the writing assignments I'm asking them to do. I don't want to lose them. I want them to know that while English might not be their cup of tea they can still succeed. I want them to learn to see the connections that I see between life and the books we're reading.

As I work on researching best practices and what works, and prepare my proposal for the school committee, I'm going to keep all this is mind. We want our kids to be engaged, enthusiastic, and passionate learners. That's not going to happen with a special program or schedule, they have to see it in their teachers before it can be fostered in them.

This is one of those times that I wish I had endless funds so that I could purchase this book for all my colleagues and pay for them to attend the workshop with Dave in March. I maybe a little late to the party, but I'm glad I made it.

If you driving distance of Auburn, Maine, and would like to attend the workshop, click here for a link to the flyer for the March 8 event.

Write Beside Them ( with a nod to Penny Kittle)

Nearly every workshop on teaching writing that I have sat in over the last few years, from Linda Rief to Penny Kittle, to Kelly Gallagher, has emphasized the idea that I am the best writer in the room and that I need to write beside and in front of my students. In fact, Penny Kittle wrote a book by that very name: Write Beside Them, (Heinemann 2008). It is very helpful to write with my students. They need to see me modeling writing, from the struggle to focus or find the right word, to getting into the flow. It also helps me to understand they struggle they may have with a particular assignment. Unfortunately, I don't always get to write with them or I have the best intentions but don't follow through with completing the assignment.

I have a unique situation with my sophomore English Composition and Literature class this year. There are just three students in the class and two of them are ELL students whose native language is  Chinese. Because of the ELL students, I have another teacher in the class with me. Her job is to work one-on-one with the ELL students, both in the classroom and outside of class, to improve their English and be able understand and complete the work in their classes. She always tries to do the assignments so that she can best help the ELLs. That inspired me to make a greater effort at doing the writing assignments with my students.

We are wrapping up our study of Romeo and Juliet. I'm not completely happy with how the unit went. Things took way too long, November was broken up with days off, half days, special events, and testing, and we weren't able to cover everything I would have liked to. Still, I tried my best to stick to the lens of relationships that I use (thank you, Jim Burke, for the idea of this lens as well as many of the textual analysis assignments!) and I think we've done enough that they can write the final paper on relationships. We reviewed the characters and their relationships to each other, I gave the students the prompt and guideline and took them through the thesis generator (again, thank you Jim Burke!)

We are taking this week to write the draft in class because the ELL kids need a lot of support. Today, after getting everyone rolling on their writing, I sat down and started my own essay. As I got going with the thesis generator and then moved on to planning out the examples I want to use from the play, I realized that this will be really good prep work to show to my 9th graders as they start the same process in our next class. They need to see the steps and see the model for this paper. This is when I wish I had a document camera! But I'll do what I can. I would like to try to carry through on writing this paper. I need the practice and it will be good for my students. I'm also excited about apply to this an idea that I read yesterday on Kate Baker's blog. Rather than use the term "Final Draft", use the term "Best draft (for now)". I love this idea! It makes so much more sense!

I'm excited about the thesis statements the sophomores have crafted and I am looking forward to what the freshmen will come up with. I like using the lens of relationships for the study of Romeo and Juliet because it allows for such a broader understanding of the text- it's not just about Romeo and Juliet, but also about the other relationships in the story.

Wagon Wheels

I had the best of intentions, really I did. I started off the summer so well doing my IMWAYR posts. I was going to blog at least once a week. Then things got real with our move, and the wheels fell off the blogging wagon. Blogging didn't happen, my Twitter feed grew dusty, school plans got pushed to the side. Now here we are, two weeks out from the start of school and I'm trying to get back in the saddle, get the wheels back on the wagon, and hoping that it's not to late to be at least a little prepared for the school year.

Early in my teaching career, my dear friend, pastor and administrator explained to me the Rotter-Covey Square.

(image source: http://www.achieve-goal-setting-success.com/set-priorities.html)

Too often we allow the tyranny of the urgent to take over. As I enter the last two weeks of the summer and look at all the planning I wanted to do and did not get to, as well as the planning I needed to do and did not get to, I feel my stress level rising. I need to manage that stress well. I want to enjoy my job as a high school administrator and I want to enjoy teaching- both my high school students and my fellow teachers. I think it's time to fill out a Rotter-Covey Square and try to enjoy my last two weeks of summer in this beautiful house that we have moved into. If I sit on the porch, I can look at the pond and not the piles of boxes that still need to be unpacked!

It may be 9:30 and I'm still in my pajamas, but I've emailed three teachers and one teacher candidate. So that's good, right?

Coincidence?

Yesterday morning I was looking at the map ( LOVE my DeLorme Maine Gazettah and Atlas! And yes, I know it's spelled gazetteer, but I've been trying to reclaim my Maine accent that got lost somewhere between college in PA and teaching in NH and MA- After all, when you're dictating spelling words, the kids will 90% of the time spell it the way you say it!). I wanted to see what communities were near the schools I've applied to because we may not be able to afford to live in the towns where the schools are located. Near one of the schools is a little town named "Hope". Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not.