tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3825807047688729622024-03-14T05:36:48.640-07:00Thinking about lifeGrandkids, travel, and teaching/learning...the mysteries of life and my passionsStevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-80827582330556560502019-07-01T17:28:00.005-07:002019-07-02T09:45:50.193-07:00Sitting on the Steps of the Tilt-a-Whirl<!--[if !mso]>
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June 24, 2019<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p><i>For years, I taught middle and high school in Thornton, Colorado. Then when the school year ended, I joined my husband and traveled on a carnival. That experience shaped who I was as a teacher. The following blog was written as a reflection of those years of being a carnie and getting to know people I might not have encountered in any other parts of my life.</i></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdkRNXZHDz0yQONMMiatfvbUzZQ7l4N3lvOcYZEgGrqlJnqLyVX0mUOJQlk4YtuO_jSC2fp9bIQWDUiHbWCzMnUgSSw0LmHnRQYlx0yzPFpzgJIit0Vxgx_JtdoafM_8bJKo0ehibDXm8/s1600/CarnieStevi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1392" data-original-width="961" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdkRNXZHDz0yQONMMiatfvbUzZQ7l4N3lvOcYZEgGrqlJnqLyVX0mUOJQlk4YtuO_jSC2fp9bIQWDUiHbWCzMnUgSSw0LmHnRQYlx0yzPFpzgJIit0Vxgx_JtdoafM_8bJKo0ehibDXm8/s200/CarnieStevi.jpg" width="137" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stevi back in the day</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Sometimes you have to look backward in order to move forward.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">August was nearing an end and soon the show would move on:
Belen, New Mexico for Burning of the Devil, Santa Domingo for the
corn dances, and eventually on to El Paso to wait for winter to end
and the spring to begin, but I was heading home. For 13 summers
after the school year came to an end, I spent the summer traveling
with the Kastl Show, a family carnival that traveled through
Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. As always I left before the season
came to an end since the school year was about to begin.
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Often before I drove away, I would sit and watch for a minute or two, soaking in the
details that shape a carnival. I would notice the gleam of the Ferris wheel and the
sagging canvas lining the cat rack and English pool games. I would listen to the grind
of the merry-go-round </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;">with its tinny carousel music competing with the aching
metallic sounds of rides. But after I </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;">drove away, there would be no more greetings of
“Hey, Teach.” No more would I hang out with the Stretches, the Vinnies, the Surfer Rays on
the road. Instead some version of them might sit in the desks in my classroom.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Would I recognize them?
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">And often I recalled those nights that had been long when the locals strolled down the
midway, pink cotton candy in one hand and a new but dusty teddy bear in the other.
Mornings would come only too soon, and when the heat wasn’t too much, the
carnies slept in. Morning was my time to enjoy the quiet and slip into my book. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">It
was one such morning in Buena Vista when I was sitting on the cold metal steps of
the Tilt-a-Whirl, </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt; font-style: italic;">Thorn Birds </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">in hand, when Stretch joined me. </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;">Tall and lanky, he could pass for a young Ichabod Crane. Hair a mess and clothes
greasy from working on the rides, Stretch sat down beside me. Because his top front
teeth were missing and his bottom teeth caked with plaque, he was hard to look at,
but his story was one that hooked me. Fresh out of the boys’ reformatory down the
street, Stretch was trying to find an entry point into adulthood. The townsfolks
wouldn’t hire him, but the carnival offered him a job and a place to sleep. He never
mentioned his family nor the reason why he spent two years locked up, but he knew
that school hadn’t worked for him and his future was uncertain. When he saw my
book, he asked about it and then confessed that he had never read a book until he
was in the pen. There he read </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;">once and
then twice and then three times. “Only book I ever read,” he said, “and I know I’ll
read it again. It saved my life.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
</div>
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<div class="page" title="Page 2">
<div class="layoutArea">
<div class="column">
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">I wondered if I’d have a Stretch in class next year. And what ninth grader would I sit next
to and just listen to his life story? Would I be able to help him find the book that sparks
hope?
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">Many summers Vinnie would stop by to talk when the crowds were slim
and the business slow. That particular summer as I filled the shelves of the Guess Your Age
game with beanie babies and cute plastic bracelets, I could hear Vinnie teasing me
about an over abundance of cheap girlie prizes. It was in Buena Vista one summer
when Vinnie took me into his confidence. “You hit 25 and you’re a buzzard. No way
am I going to be a buzzard. Not going to make it that long.”
</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">He was right.The next winter well into his 24</span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 8.000000pt; vertical-align: 3.000000pt;">th </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">year of life, he drank too much and
suffocated in his own vomit.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">And how many Vinnies will sit in those desks in my classroom? How many students
will be certain their lives would be short and their destinies out of their control?
And how will I know?
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">And then I remember Surfer Ray from a few summers back. He had been on the
show since he left the army. Only now and then did he drop hints about his life in
Vietnam, but often he told who ever would listen: “Not something you want to know
about. Not something you want to be a part of.” He too would join me in the morning
on the steps of the Tilt-a-Whirl when he wasn’t hung over. We’d talk philosophy and
history and he wasn’t showing off when he quoted Kant and believed in the
pessimism of Nietzsche. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">He earned his nickname Surfer Ray by drinking too much on most nights, passing
out, and pissing in his sleeping bag. In winters he’d live in a cave outside of Aspen.
“Don’t have to deal with people that way. Just me and my nightmares tucked away in
a safe place.”
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">A few years back, he failed to join us in the spring and no one knew what happened.
But I did see him one more time. He was standing on the corner of Speer and Colfax
holding a sign: “Anything helps. I served the country in ‘Nam.” I drove on.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;">And what about those young Surfer Rays? Will they be in my classroom too? Will I
recognize them or will I just drive on?
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.000000pt;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Sometimes you have to look backward as you move forward. I have to remember
Stretch and Vinnie and Surfer Ray and know they were young once and in need of
someone who would join them on the steps of the Tilt-a-Whirl. So what about the
upcoming school year? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Would I pull up a chair next to my ninth graders to just talk --
and listen?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-86131906150791858832018-06-11T09:47:00.000-07:002018-06-12T08:14:50.743-07:00Writing Our Way Out<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana"; font-size: x-small;"><i>I wrote my way out<br />
When the world turned its back on me<br />
I was up against the wall<br />
I had no foundation<br />
No friends and no family to catch my fall<br />
Running on empty, with nothing left in me but doubt<br />
I picked up a pen<br />
And wrote my way out (I wrote my way out)</i></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">--<a href="https://genius.com/Nas-wrote-my-way-out-lyrics">Linn Manuel-Miranda,</a> <span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; text-align: left;">Aloe Blacc & Dave East</span></span><br />
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As a teenager struggling with an elusive mother and a father
living thousands of miles away, I picked up a pen and wrote and wrote and
wrote. As a wife in a troubled marriage when I felt like the world had turned its
back on me, I opened my journal and wrote my way out of the confusion.
As a newly divorced woman, I opened my computer and pounded away on the
keyboard, working to understand the new world I found myself in.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Writing was therapy but so much more. Those journal rants
led to new understandings; confusion found its way into poems; and writing a
short story became a way to navigate a world that I controlled. I wrote my way out of traumatic times and wrote my way into a life of tranquility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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But I also wrote my way out of some not so smart teaching
moves. Through writing, I reflected on my classroom practices, and through the
writing, I discovered gaps between my beliefs and my actions. Through the
writing, I came to understand.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I wrote my way out personally, professionally time and time
again.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In my professional development world, we talk about parallel
pedagogy: using the pedagogy with teachers that we would hope they would use
with their <o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqumiPgWeai8EhHBAOro32UV6arCoF_pLObydGRwKGUzeY-wMJc8saLTJOJk5IVR21nsZ3jUPaFOMeUWW_B2cizE6xZk8QPpQ6XC9wXPnahJqAHcTSCYrBUuiQQihPM10lfuWSsLKVNVE/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-06-11+at+10.46.20+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="156" data-original-width="288" height="108" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqumiPgWeai8EhHBAOro32UV6arCoF_pLObydGRwKGUzeY-wMJc8saLTJOJk5IVR21nsZ3jUPaFOMeUWW_B2cizE6xZk8QPpQ6XC9wXPnahJqAHcTSCYrBUuiQQihPM10lfuWSsLKVNVE/s200/Screen+Shot+2018-06-11+at+10.46.20+AM.png" width="200" /></a></div>
students. And so I use that concept of parallel writing pedagogy to
think about students. Do they get that opportunity to write their way out of anything? Do they get that chance to use writing to ponder an event, to
celebrate a moment, to question an action, to discover and to find joy? Do we
invite them to use writing to explore, to meander, to deviate from the
expected? Do we invite them to pick up a pen or open their computer and write
their way out? Do they know that “when the world turns its back on me” or when
you’re “running on empty” and “nothing is left in me” that they can pick up a pen
and write their way out?</div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-36089117181599855672017-08-29T16:59:00.001-07:002017-09-25T05:11:44.871-07:00Launching the Writers Notebook: Authenticity, Vision, Ownership<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtXHUOCdbj_MePjlrU4dL0UnfRYYugmyjYf-P2opJYx9jlsDIVn4Vl9ZVxEQVQXMjm19YcygKnffc7Rj9upxzfGQFvr0rNmVvjlp_7yN-2qwm9Miqxrj8MQERD619QBVyRaAzUtPVRr3Q/s1600/IMG_4063.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtXHUOCdbj_MePjlrU4dL0UnfRYYugmyjYf-P2opJYx9jlsDIVn4Vl9ZVxEQVQXMjm19YcygKnffc7Rj9upxzfGQFvr0rNmVvjlp_7yN-2qwm9Miqxrj8MQERD619QBVyRaAzUtPVRr3Q/s200/IMG_4063.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just a few of my writer's notebooks</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";"><span style="font-size: x-large;">N</span>ovember last year I sat in a teacher’s classroom chatting about her hopes for the year. I looked around her room and saw a library filled with books that any middle schooler would want to read and commented on one of her walls, filled with photos of 6<sup>th</sup> graders at the local zoo and letters they had written to the newspaper and city commissioners about the horrible condition of the zoos.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">“That was the best unit we did last year,” she explained. “Their passion, their work, their dedication impacted this city.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Her cell phone rang, and she excused herself to talk to a parent of a new student and invited me to look around the room.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">This was a teacher whose work made a difference for kids and for the community. I knew that her classroom was one that I would want to linger in. Thinking about this, I glanced through Kai’s writer’s notebook and read his entry dated about a month earlier:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Ever since I was little I have wanted to be two things an engineer and a writer for a tv show. I always wanted to be the guy that was funny & smart about how he was funny. I spent fourth and fifth grade learning about shows like “The Simpsons” or “Sienfeld” two very different shows but still very funny. I spent this time writing a show called “Grasious with other people’s money” & I made about 12 20 min episodes & my older brother said it was bad so I flushed it down the toilet, my dream with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">And this was his last entry. The following pages were blank.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">When she returned from the phone call, I asked her about Kai’s entry, and she admitted that she hadn’t read it. “I have the hardest time with writer’s notebooks. I know they’re important, but I just can’t figure out how to make them work especially with everything else that we have to do.” Her honest answer was one that I hear often from middle and high school teachers: the will is there but the skills for sustaining the writer’s notebook aren’t yet in place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Authenticity</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about this teacher and reflecting on why writers’ notebooks are so important to me. In fact, I can’t imagine teaching writing without that notebook. Why? Because I know that’s how I work and I know how valuable that notebook is to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">What I wish I had asked that teacher is about hers. Does she keep one? When does she turn to it? How does she use it? Is the writer’s notebook (WNB) a part of her writing routine? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Here’s what I’ve come to learn: a teacher has to know from the inside out the value of a WNB. Keeping one has to be authentic, starting with the teacher herself. Without that insight, teachers have a hard time sustaining their students’ use of a WNB. Too often either the WNB fades after the first month or two or morphs into another school task: an assignment the teacher made, a commodity to be sold for the payment of a grade. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">And here’s what else I’ve come to learn: launching the WNB matters. But launching means creating a vision for the power of a WNB and designing the work so that students have ownership in it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0in;">I needed a vision for my WNB before I became ridiculously attached to it. For years I used my WNB as a journal, a place to keep notes from presentations and random thoughts on education. I called it my WNB but it was really more of a journal or a learning log, not a place that was the “junkyard of my mind” or a “compost heap” (</span><i style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0in;">Rosanna Warren) </i><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0in;">or “a place for seeds”<i> (Ralph Fletcher). </i>My use of a WNB began to shift when I started looking carefully at WNBs that others kept: Penny Kittle, Linda Rief, Don Murray (even though he called it a daybook). And then I started collecting quotes from writers about their WNBs:</span></div>
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Into my notebook goes anything that is interesting enough to stop me in my tracks -- the slump of a pair of shoulders in a crowd, a newspaper entry, a recipe, "chewy" words like ragamuffin. . . For me, it all begins with a notebook: it is the well I dip into for that first clear, cool drink. --<i>Rita Dove</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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The words do not take me to the reason I made the entry, but back to the felt experience, whatever it was . . . It is the instant I try to catch in the notebooks, not the comment, not the thought. --<i>Mary Oliver</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I started playing more with my WNB, adding photos I wanted to write about, trying a poem out, playing with colors, wishing that I could <!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape id="Picture_x0020_10" o:spid="_x0000_s1029"
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</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->make mine as beautiful as Linda Rief’s.<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBE6iHsHBiTq3L8FefohjeAU3GVaVJIwhYYnQScqgxmm5IB-vq3UPLAPZTQlhVH7-i-12uKPdtbukzUuAaqEmx5GAsLBGLYvLUywLNTsV6s6Z2ToiD-ADapXvCCya012Qo4yxdx5xR6r8/s1600/WNB_D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBE6iHsHBiTq3L8FefohjeAU3GVaVJIwhYYnQScqgxmm5IB-vq3UPLAPZTQlhVH7-i-12uKPdtbukzUuAaqEmx5GAsLBGLYvLUywLNTsV6s6Z2ToiD-ADapXvCCya012Qo4yxdx5xR6r8/s200/WNB_D.jpg" title="Except from my WNB" width="150" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">So what would I do to launch that writer’s notebook? First, I’d share several of my WNBs. I’d share several because each of my WNBs are a bit different. In my electronic notebook (yes, I have one of those), I have a section for collecting cool words and poems I love, but in my WNB, I’m playing with white space, thinking about how I can write sideways or create a concrete poem. I have entries about the passing of my dog: a poem, a Facebook entry, a vignette. Students would see how in some of my WNBs I’ve created indexes and divided my notebook into sections, using sticky notes to separate those sections: Here’s where I keep goofy words I’ve read, and here’s where I’ve copied down poems that I love and might emulate, and there’s where I’m keeping random thoughts about a topic I’m exploring. They would see that on the first page I’ve written myself a letter about my hopes and plans for this WNB, but this opening letter is a new routine for me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">I might also show a few entries in my WNB that were seeds that grew </span><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shape
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</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "verdana";">into future writing. I imagine that I might make a photocopy of a few entries and then show how they turned up in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Clock Watchers</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Just Right Challenge</i> or even in this blog. And why would I do that? To show how sometimes WNB are storage units and sometimes they’re gardens where seeds are planted, as Ralph Fletcher states.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">But not only would I share mine, I’d share the journals of famous people along with their quotes. I imagine that I’d make a poster with excerpts from Ray Bradbury, Einstein, JR Rowling, some pop musicians kids might know, and then </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeyVB43C4RvlW-glgJuS7W_21dpKruBBwH0YHR3UBShoFRVZ3No2jLeCzaU9yBMfMr3t_OpoYwhG3gSuHMASNB8Mupaz-Kks0stVlwTdSEGyioXwi1-t9PHAhVnHOmvGz3Sf_jqO01IFY/s1600/WNB_Hint.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeyVB43C4RvlW-glgJuS7W_21dpKruBBwH0YHR3UBShoFRVZ3No2jLeCzaU9yBMfMr3t_OpoYwhG3gSuHMASNB8Mupaz-Kks0stVlwTdSEGyioXwi1-t9PHAhVnHOmvGz3Sf_jqO01IFY/s200/WNB_Hint.JPG" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana";">I’d pepper the room with books like </span><a href="https://austinkleon.com/steal/"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">Steal Like an Artist</span></i></a><span style="font-family: "verdana";"> and Joan Didion’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/South-West-Notebook-Joan-Didion/dp/1524732796">South and West</a></i>. I want them to build a vision for the WNB that includes the myriad of ways that writers and thinkers use WNBs. I want them to know that the WNB is authentic – something that happens in the world outside of school.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ownership</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">Too often – and lordy, was I guilty of this! – teachers co-opt WNBs – with the best of intentions. They become objects to meet the demands of assignments rather than a vehicle for a writer to play and take risks and gallop around with ideas galore. Teachers -- again with the best of intentions -- set up a section for vocabulary, for taking notes, for collecting grammar rules, for responding to prompts. They worry about accountability. But I want students to set up their WNBs in a way that works for them and to be accountable to themselves as evolving writers. I want them to own that WNB and to see that the WNB is much more than a task the leads to a grade. I want to show students like Kai how their WNB might be a place for them to study a genre, like he did as he studied <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Simpsons</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Seinfeld</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">I think of Daniel Pink’s triad of elements that lead to motivation: autonomy, mastery, purpose. Those three elements need to be in place. Autonomy (or choice): a metaphorical room of my own (thanks, Virginia Woolf!). No one assigned sketch noting to me, I got to decide. Purpose: No one told me my purpose. I got to discover it and then write about it in my opening letter to myself. Mastery: No one told me what I had to master. I had my own purpose and knew that I could work to it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "verdana";">Does that mean I wouldn’t assign quick writes or have students create heart maps or make lists of their writing territories (ala Nancie Atwell) or study and emulate craft? Oh, we’d definitely do all that, but I’d urge students to figure out what else they needed in order to grow as writers and then to set some goals. For instance, they might want to write daily outside of school for a month. Or they might want to analyze more craft in writing than what they’re doing in class. They might want to play around with different genres or include more art or make reading and writing connections. I want them to have ownership of the WNB.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">And how would I know that they’re using their WNBs? Conferences. A routine for conferring with students during reading or writing workshop is to check with them about how the WNB influenced their reading, writing, thinking. When I confer, part of the conference would be to look through WNBs and to gently nudge through questions about how their current writing project was shaped by seeds planted in their WNB – a positive presupposition. Before a Socratic seminar, I’d ask how the WNB helped them prepared for the seminar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";">To remind myself of the potential demise of the WNB, I’d tape this reminder from the <a href="https://twowritingteachers.org/">Two Writing Teachers blog</a> next to my computer and I’d use it in a whole class or small group discussion: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: #edeef0; color: #7f7f7f; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10.0pt;">It’s a sad fact that our middle school “Lost and Found” bins seem to collect so many writer’s notebooks in particular. Whenever I leaf through these, I invariably discover that they are used mainly for note taking, with a few sketchy entries and a few responses to prompts. In elementary school, writer’s notebooks are introduced with much fanfare and joy, decorated with such celebration, and remain at the center of daily writing work. Something of this joy and purpose seems to get lost in middle school, just when most kids feel ready to explore deeper ideas and experiment with their writing voices. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://twowritingteachers.org/2015/08/08/creating-classroom-environments-setting-up-for-the-middle-school-writing-workshop/"><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 9.0pt;">https://twowritingteachers.org/2015/08/08/creating-classroom-environments-setting-up-for-the-middle-school-writing-workshop/</span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 9.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana";"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I want students like Kai to keep thinking in the WNB: to take risks, to be vulnerable, to play. I don’t want blank pages following a few entries. WNBs are much too important to let them just gather dust on the shelves of our classrooms.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-39522929498163062782017-08-11T11:04:00.001-07:002017-08-11T11:05:18.064-07:00Plastic Flowers<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The snow crunched under our feet as we walked the dogs by the lake. Grey clouds hung low, and the geese looked as though they were huddled together for any kind of heat that might come from being a flock. Jim continued his winter rant: “Three more months of this? We need to move to San Diego.” Mick wagged his tail, ignoring the cold and pulled on his leash to pee on someone’s dead lawn. But instead of taking aim at a bush, he lifted his leg and relieved himself on red, purple, and pink flowers, little plastic things with fake leaves jetting up and down the stems.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCyu0bfliVnirbCtct6U-u4o6SjPUCeDFAM0YwxjbHWSZQkqNpMeIMmPy95YAFOW1AmQ_C6y-jJp6oRhy6_qz3TWYU12mliWVSzJRJg1qzUtGFxUQmatKKHxxGVbNHjLCrZBKUEb-e3mM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-08-11+at+12.00.27+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="435" data-original-width="679" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCyu0bfliVnirbCtct6U-u4o6SjPUCeDFAM0YwxjbHWSZQkqNpMeIMmPy95YAFOW1AmQ_C6y-jJp6oRhy6_qz3TWYU12mliWVSzJRJg1qzUtGFxUQmatKKHxxGVbNHjLCrZBKUEb-e3mM/s200/Screen+Shot+2017-08-11+at+12.00.27+PM.png" width="200" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So out of place, such a sense of fakeness in the winter wonderland surrounding us. Given Mick’s desecration of them, it might have been better if the gardeners had planted a fake fire hydrant instead.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Jim looked at me, patted Mick approvingly on the head, and stopped complaining about winter. “Who would plant plastic flowers?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">“A lazy gardener, maybe.” I thought how much easier they were than what we did in the garden: no weeding, no aphids crawling in and out of the blossoms, no rust caused by too much water, no deadheading, and color year around. What a deal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">“Yep,” I repeated, “a lazy gardener.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">When I talked to Cali not long after that, I listened to her complain in a tone that reminded me of Jim complaining about winter. “Grandma, I have <i>another</i> five paragraph essay due tomorrow.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">And then that image hit me: those fake red, purple, and pink flowers, those little plastic things with fake leaves jetting up and down the stems. Those phony things parading as flowers. How different were those fake flowers from those phony things marching around in schools parading themselves as essays. Just plop in a thesis at the end of the first paragraph. It could sound like this: There are three reasons that everyone should have a garden. And then figure out a topic sentence. It could go something like this: The first reason is that everyone likes a garden. Next step: easy. Give two or three examples. No problem. Easy, peasy. Reason one, color; reason two, pretty, reason three: nice. And then do it again, two more times. Easy, measy, peasy. Just count the paragraphs, add up those sentences, and put a period at the end of each sentence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Yep, fake flowers. No wrestling with ideas, no struggle with purpose or audience, no pulling hairs over organization. Just five simple paragraphs and call her good. There’s an essay for you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Oh, yeah, I can hear granddaughter’s teacher say: They have to learn the basics and then they can move beyond the formula.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s like me telling the lazy gardener that he had mastered the structure of his artificial garden and now he could forget the plastic and move on to the real thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">What exactly what are those basics that they have to figure out? A write by numbers? A collection of sentences and words without the basics of thought? A simple recipe that requires little decision making on the writer’s part?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Oh, if it were so easy then I’d tell Rick Reilly, Annie La Mott, and even Penny Kittle to set down their pencils or close down their computers. No more thinking needed. Just fill in the blanks and send ‘er off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Next time we walk by that garden with plastic flowers Mick may not be the only one who lifts his leg.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-50340927606400728492017-06-09T06:03:00.000-07:002017-06-09T06:03:33.225-07:00Please Disturb My Beliefs<div style="border-bottom: solid #4F81BD 1.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: accent1; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0in 0in 4.0pt 0in;">
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Okay, reader, I have a challenge for you before you read this blog. If you were to read a student’s IEP and learned that he had been diagnosed with all of the following, what would be your first thoughts? <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Really, don’t read any further until you’ve thought about teaching this student. How would you plan for him (or her)? What would you expect or his (or her) behavior, attitude, scholarly abilities? And if you were to predict his (or her) future, what would your prediction be?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Now read on.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">I’m not sure when I ran across Peter Smagorinsky’s work, but I’m guessing it was sometime in the 80s when studying writing pedagogy. What I do know is that his writing has influenced me for, literally, decades. When coming to terms with standards, his </span><a href="http://smago.coe.uga.edu/Books/Standards_in_Practice.pdf"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Standards in Practice</span></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> pushed me out of my knee jerk resistance. When planning my first English methods class, his </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/How-English-Teachers-Get-Taught/dp/0814121500"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">How English Teachers Get Taught</span></i></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> guided the trajectory of my course. And more recently while working on argument, I ran across </span><a href="http://www.heinemann.com/products/E03400.aspx"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Teaching Students to Write Argument</span></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">, his small but fun book chocked full of ideas. Not only have I read his books, but I’ve followed him on numerous NCTE postings and have even sat in on several of his conference sessions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">So it was quite a shock when I encountered an article by him in </span><a href="http://getschooled.blog.myajc.com/2016/05/27/university-of-georgia-professor-explains-his-aspergers-advantage-and-disabling-assumption-of-disorder/"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Maureen Downey’s Get Schooled column</span></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">. Writing about the “mentally ill,” he explains: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In fact, I am among them, as are several people in my family. Various people in my gene pool have been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, Tourette’s syndrome, chronic anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive thinking, oppositional-defiance, and other conditions. I suspect that many readers can say the same.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">You might have guessed from my opening challenge that this would be true of Peter, but it was a great surprise to me and sent me into the research mode. From his </span><a href="http://smago.coe.uga.edu/vita/vitaweb.htm"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">vita</span></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">, I discovered that he has written or co-written over 15 books and a ridiculous number of articles for professional journals, has been honored with numerous awards, and currently holds the title of Distinguished Research Professor of English Education. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 242;">Have you ever had one of those moments when you knew you needed to rethink an assumption that you didn’t even know you held? That’s what happened to me as I read about Peter. All too clearly I recall in the past saying something like, “For a special ed kiddo, he’s doing okay.” Or – I confess this with great embarrassment – “I’ll cut him some slack. After all, he is in special ed.” And as a consultant, I don’t know how many times I nodded in empathy with a teacher when she talked about low test scores and all of “those” students or I indicated my understanding when the teacher said, “Oh, she has an IEP. Of course, she’s struggling.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidz4C2E2e5tUhwO6-zXSvE60_yzJSn563EMFetiC-5o0OPyisgfX_OmSXV7bR-EaMbVSi_W2i6tkoxAkXAaayj7ba6x4dj-60QYvf9nLU94LER-DM-cJJAXAmP2_hvWDr_Cy9oQXkDbg8/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-06-03+at+5.02.47+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="616" data-original-width="341" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidz4C2E2e5tUhwO6-zXSvE60_yzJSn563EMFetiC-5o0OPyisgfX_OmSXV7bR-EaMbVSi_W2i6tkoxAkXAaayj7ba6x4dj-60QYvf9nLU94LER-DM-cJJAXAmP2_hvWDr_Cy9oQXkDbg8/s320/Screen+Shot+2017-06-03+at+5.02.47+PM.png" width="177" /></a><span style="color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 242;">I’ve been thinking a lot about beliefs lately, and Peter’s story has stirred up beliefs that lay dormant, beliefs that I hadn’t examined. My discomfort reminded me of what Margaret Wheatley describes in her essay “</span><a href="http://www.ode.state.or.us/opportunities/grants/saelp/willing-to-be-disturbed.pdf"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Willing to be Disturbed</span></a><span style="color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 242;">”:</span> <span style="color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 242;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #003366; font-family: Helvetica;">Lately, I've been listening for what surprises me. What did I just hear that startled me? This isn't easy-I'm accustomed to sitting there nodding my head to those saying things I agree with. But when I notice what surprises me, I'm able to see my own views more clearly, including my beliefs and assumptions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 242;">And Peter’s column dredged up assumptions that I would have denied. For years, I’ve argued for thinking of kids from an asset perspective, but buried deep within me reigned a deficit orientation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 242;">As I kept reading more of Peter’s writing, I encountered his push for neurodiversity in which teachers recognize that there is a range of neurological orientations and, therefore, it’s important to “</span><a href="http://blogs.ncte.org/index.php/2016/08/foregrounding-potential-not-disorder-neurodiverse-students/"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">foreground potential, not disorder</span></a><span style="color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 242;">.” Peter argues:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #141412; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Rather, I think that I follow a different order, like many who share my classifications. In fact, it’s quite ordered. There probably is no more ordered way of being than to live on the autism spectrum. It’s a life of pattern, ritual, and clarity of purpose. The problem is that those purposes can seem odd to those who believe that having a narrow or unusual way of being in the world is a problem to be fixed, a sickness to be cured.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">Looking at more of his writing, some in </span><a href="http://getschooled.blog.myajc.com/2016/05/27/university-of-georgia-professor-explains-his-aspergers-advantage-and-disabling-assumption-of-disorder/"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">blogs</span></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> and some in </span><a href="http://www.petersmagorinsky.net/About/PDF/EJ/EJ2014.pdf"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">academic essays</span></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">, I found provocative gems such as these: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="background: #FDFDFD; color: black; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“As part of my rebellion against … stereotype, I have begun referring to my<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://www.petersmagorinsky.net/About/PDF/TCR/TCR2014.html"><span style="background: #FDFDFD; border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #aa787c; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">Asperger’s Advantage</span></a><span style="background: #FDFDFD; color: black; font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">, especially when Asperger’s is bundled with my anxiety and obsessive-compulsive thinking.”</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In one essay, he credits Tourette’s for his prodigious writing career, explaining that when</span></span><span style="color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 242;"> he reads, he picks at his nails and goes into endless tapping routines, but writing channels his nervous tics into productive and satisfying work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0d0d0d; font-family: Helvetica; mso-themecolor: text1; mso-themetint: 242;">What if I had viewed my students with “special” needs – just think of the condescending tone of that phrase – as seeing the world differently and my job was to figure out their strengths and ways I could build from those strengths? My buried beliefs were madly disconnected from my espoused beliefs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #003366; font-family: Helvetica;">Yes, Peter disturbed me, surfaced my beliefs, and challenged my assumptions. And the troubling question is: what other negative beliefs are tucked away, needing to be disturbed?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-15698807242053316112016-07-30T15:48:00.001-07:002017-08-16T06:20:52.937-07:0030 Years Ago and the Kaypro, Phone with Cords, and Writing Workshop<div style="border-bottom: solid #4F81BD 1.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: accent1; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0in 0in 4.0pt 0in;">
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</v:shape><![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->Thirty years ago, I talked on a phone with a long cord that I could carry from the kitchen into the living room and even the bathroom. I bought my first microwave and worried about radiation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gave my son a "portable" computer to take to college: a Kaypro II that weighed 26 pounds and was about sixteen inches long while the screen couldn’t have been more than 10 inches wide. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In my high school classroom those 30 years ago, on Monday I assigned students topics for their five paragraph essays, collected them on Friday and spent Sunday night grading like mad so I could hand them back the next day. Knowing the reputation of the red pen, I corrected those run-ons and punctuation errors with a green felt tip pen, softening the demand of “get your writing right!” <o:p></o:p></div>
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And then thirty years ago in the summer, most of my colleagues in T<a href="http://www.thorntonhigh.org/">hornton High’s</a> English department spent two weeks with <a href="https://coloradowritingproject.org/">Colorado Writing Project</a>. We wrote on topics of our choice, shared our work with each, received smart feedback from our mentor, Judy Gilbert, and studied Nancie Atwell’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In the Middle</i> and Dan Kirby’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Inside Out</i>. We fell in love with writing and the teaching of it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5geSE-9N5Co1j3ETzw3pXKMPus1iIEwh5j7IIMnYleNqfjIEdS0vduCSvn6FwjkfmSXHAth-GHvHOtXPnjB62y299whBghars5SCek-pSzcfEtSlwNmL3nOYLC3lU3Rs-rr0VhBmxuXs/s1600/community.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5geSE-9N5Co1j3ETzw3pXKMPus1iIEwh5j7IIMnYleNqfjIEdS0vduCSvn6FwjkfmSXHAth-GHvHOtXPnjB62y299whBghars5SCek-pSzcfEtSlwNmL3nOYLC3lU3Rs-rr0VhBmxuXs/s200/community.jpeg" width="151" /></a>And together the next few years we figured out how to bring choice, time to write, a <span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;">variety of ways to respond to drafts, and teacher modeling into the classroom</span>. We devoured Tom Romano’s <i>Clearing the Way </i>and Zemelman and Daniels’ <i>A Community of Writers</i>. We mined Donald Murray’s wisdom and taught our students about the myriad decisions writers make. </div>
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We figured out what a writing workshop looked like in a high school setting. </div>
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And our classrooms shifted but not completely. Some of us held on tenaciously to practices that we were convinced also mattered.</div>
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Meet the five paragraph essay.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the 10<sup>th</sup> grade Introduction to Composition, we taught the comparison/contrast essay, the cause/effect essay, and the precis. Sure, students selected their topics, and we worked on strategies for generating ideas, but the structure was a given: first paragraph had to hook the reader and end with the thesis, the next three paragraphs had to support the thesis, and then that closing paragraph had to pull it all together. Simple! So students created webs or free wrote to generate ideas. We had choice, and, yep, response. Every Wednesday students brought drafts to their workshop group, and I modeled. Yep – I wrote those god-awful essays side by side with them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd3PF8AKOmXy3bXVRweCpYXxy9aWoVFnqQ9DHf04HeV9DnfbnLzv84l_fhRlz9hhI974Z2W6MNeDmQtlHQMCMYMb-AZXObPMOGms_XCal0sVgjJ0aIIyXmhGh1_Vericg8BCtgqMQFEf0/s1600/rhetorical+traditions.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd3PF8AKOmXy3bXVRweCpYXxy9aWoVFnqQ9DHf04HeV9DnfbnLzv84l_fhRlz9hhI974Z2W6MNeDmQtlHQMCMYMb-AZXObPMOGms_XCal0sVgjJ0aIIyXmhGh1_Vericg8BCtgqMQFEf0/s200/rhetorical+traditions.jpeg" width="129" /></a>A couple of years passed. I applied for a sabbatical leave to work on my masters and took the year off to study. Borrowing my son’s old Kaypro II, I headed to Fort Collins to further my studies in writing pedagogy. One of the first books we read in Bill McBride’s Theories of Composition class was by <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Rhetorical-Traditions-Teaching-1984-01-13-Paperback/dp/B012TSILHY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469909069&sr=1-1&keywords=knoblach+and+brannon">Knoblauch and Brannan</a>, and in that book, the researchers <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>slammed the five paragraph essay as an artificial structure that existed no where outside of school. Knoblauch and Brannan were my nemesis. “Why,” I argued over and over, “can’t we have lively writing within the five paragraph essay? What’s the deal here? After all, students need to learn the structure of an essay.” Even as I worked at synthesizing what I was learning from Ken Macrorie, Linda Flower, and Peter Elbow, I fought with Knoblauch and Brannon. If I’d had an email account, I might have sent them an angry missive, but email was rare then.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I still remember the great epiphany – the moment it hit me that the formula was<a href="http://www.csun.edu/~krowlands/Content/Academic_Resources/Composition/Form/Brannon-5%20para%20essay%20deficit%20education.pdf"> outmoded and ill-conceived</a> and that Knoblauch and Brannon were right. It was after dinner and while studying another chapter of their book when that proverbial lightening blot hit me. I had to stop privileging form before ideas, and writing didn’t begin with structure unless it was a limerick or a sonnet.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Again my high school classes changed. In Intro to Comp, we kept a writer’s notebook, learned strategies for drafting and revising, experimented with structure, and read each other’s work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We played with organization and experimented with leads and closings. We played, worked hard, and celebrated our work.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sometime about then I bought my first cell phone though I rarely used it and thought about buying my first Apple. I no longer feared my microwave and set up my AOL email account and wondered about buying a fax machine.<o:p></o:p></div>
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No longer did my classroom look the same as a few years earlier. Students sat in small groups and collaborative work really required the thinking of all students. I wrote along with them: stories, poems, essays, biographies. I chucked those formulaic assignments along with the overheads that described the opening paragraph and listed transitions to start each of the body paragraphs.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Over the years my writers workshop evolved. Genre shaped the curriculum, and mentor text grew our craft. We wrote for a broad range of audiences, from the principal as students argued that they had earned the right of an open campus to their senators when some disagreed with our entry into the Gulf War.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Today I rarely use my landline (didn’t even know that’s what it was called a few years ago). I carry my cell everywhere so I can check emails and recipes and snap pictures. Not too long ago I ditched my fax machine. It no longer served a purpose.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And yet….<o:p></o:p></div>
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And yet….<o:p></o:p></div>
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And yet this is what this essay is about.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thirty years ago our high school English department learned about writing processes and the writing workshop. For a decade or more we studied what it meant to grow the adolescent writer and figured out how to teach grammar in context. So given the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrcq3dzt0Uk">long history and the research base</a> about teaching writing, why is it that when I walk into high school classrooms across the nation and, literally, the world, I watch hard working, smart teachers assign an essay topic, explain the structure of the five paragraph essay, and grade those essays on Sunday night, sometimes in red ink, sometimes in green, and sometimes online? Why is that I see students’ eyes glaze over when their teacher explains once again the importance of having a strong thesis before moving forward with drafting? Why is it that I see learning targets that urge writers to <a href="http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/composition/endings.htm">"wrap up their essay in a tidy package and bring it home to the reader"</a>? Why is it that I don’t see students writing side by side with their students? Why am I not seeing writing workshop as the norm and instruction in the multiple processes for composing?<o:p></o:p></div>
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What is there about our profession that keeps us the same so that even as teachers use “TurnItIn.com” and <a href="http://teacherstechtoolbox.com/?p=264">No Red Ink </a>and text message students on their phones, their classrooms look like mine did over 30 years ago? Was <a href="http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed354587">Seymour Sarason</a> right when he complained that the school system itself creates an “intractability to significant reform and change”?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Does each generation need to learn anew? Do we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i> grow as a profession? Why was it easier to move from the ditto machine to the print option on laptops than it is to move from a teacher-centered writing classroom to a writing workshop?<o:p></o:p></div>
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A phone with a long cord, anyone? I've got one somewhere in an attic, one I used over 30 years ago.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-67626987297858894232015-12-09T18:41:00.001-08:002015-12-09T18:42:22.978-08:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>My wonderful CFG challenged each of us to write our professional creed/belief statement, so this is what I wrote:</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<h2 style="text-align: center;">
My Bottom Lines</h2>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Teachers and students
deserve respect. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><i>“To teach
in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential
if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply
and intimately begin</i>.” bell hooks, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Teaching
to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt;">To
work from respect means that my stance is grounded in positive assumptions and that
my mission isn’t about fixing anyone. (I’m not a handyman nor do I want to be.)
Respect means that I trust that teachers and students are capable, competent,
and well intentioned. And how does that translate into practice? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Relationships underpin
the risky, challenging work that we do as educators. To the best of my ability,
I need to know the teachers, the administrators, and the students.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Instead of rushing right
into the work, I need to slow down and say hello, check in, and see how life
is.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Agendas need to be built
so that all voices are a part of the conversation right at the start.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Kids have stories, and so
do their teachers. It’s those stories that shape who they are, and it’s my
obligation to seek out those stories.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><a href="https://www.stenhouse.com/content/choice-words">Peter Johnston’s </a>caution
must be kept in mind: “there are hidden costs in telling people things. If a
student can figure something out for him- or herself, explicitly providing the
information preempts the student’s opportunity to build a sense of agency and
independence…” <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifynamaCxQdXLrWLG8YaDuExYZCKTWBURdAEVe3F-vqeMmB8NCy1DCq1NUBA6gkTLjzRJVJUKou_mN5QTBkXl4wm-UI-BvnSYQv9MXVO2GQRT1ffLR1GNynYHXd43A3gKF1B9ZgsNw2ZA/s1600/Advice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifynamaCxQdXLrWLG8YaDuExYZCKTWBURdAEVe3F-vqeMmB8NCy1DCq1NUBA6gkTLjzRJVJUKou_mN5QTBkXl4wm-UI-BvnSYQv9MXVO2GQRT1ffLR1GNynYHXd43A3gKF1B9ZgsNw2ZA/s200/Advice.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Substitute teacher with student and a good share of my work is
about asking, listening, probing, and paraphrasing, and then, perhaps,
consulting.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt;">All voices, including the
dissenting voice, matter.</span></b><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Instead of labeling someone a resister, I owe it to her <a href="http://www.ode.state.or.us/opportunities/grants/saelp/willing-to-be-disturbed.pdf">tobe disturbed</a>, to listen, and to come to understand, but with no obligation to
agree. When students say that work is stupid, my job isn’t to correct that
perception but to understand if the level of difficulty is out of reach or if
something else is at play. When teachers say that students can’t write a
counterclaim, my job isn’t to say “yes but.” Instead, my job is to figure out
if it’s really about belief in students or doubt about a teacher’s capacity or
simply a question about how to do the work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Students and their
teachers deserve to do <a href="http://padlet.com/steviq/workthatmatters">work that matters</a>.</span></b><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt;"> Time is the nemesis of all in education,
so it cannot be squandered. The work done within schools must be purposeful,
meaningful, and relevant. There’s no reason that students can’t write for
authentic audiences, solve problems that reside in the world, or contribute to
our society. Likewise, there’s no reason for teachers to collect data that has
nothing to do with their instruction but everything to do with a misguided
policy or to complete other tasks that take them away from doing the work of
planning, teaching, and checking on students’ understanding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Vision determines future
steps.</span></b><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt;">
As students grow, they need a vision of what’s possible: to see people like
them doing important work, to study models of work that can serve as mentors,
and be inspired by people who have achieved despite the odds. Likewise, teachers
need a vision of classrooms and schools where students are highly engaged
regardless of their home situations. Schools/districts/policy makers need a
vision of schools where students thrive regardless of their past. Vision
creates possibilities and generates hope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ClockWatchers/">Engagement</a> is the trump
card. </span></b><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Even
before standards, before assessments, and before strategies, teachers must plan
for student engagement. Thinking about whether the work requires attention,
persistence, and commitment is critical. Holding the tenets of Pink and others
of autonomy, mastery, </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNIaD8yoXPBui3FeK3AZl7l0m879a0b-a2UFu5GYtI_KARJVG3bJJanaGvCKaVMXQf9bBIQFr1KLtJP6fQr6jJExUp4IyGyMyPXuru9R4uiGWKa9xBz0KcNDR-mlA4ahFm4rVCMcDQ_eI/s1600/Echi-Book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNIaD8yoXPBui3FeK3AZl7l0m879a0b-a2UFu5GYtI_KARJVG3bJJanaGvCKaVMXQf9bBIQFr1KLtJP6fQr6jJExUp4IyGyMyPXuru9R4uiGWKa9xBz0KcNDR-mlA4ahFm4rVCMcDQ_eI/s320/Echi-Book.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
purpose, and belonging is critical. Likewise, teachers
need to be engaged in the work that they do. They need to know that their work
matters and that it’s work that they can and must do.<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10pt;">What
does this look like in terms of practice?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Lessons live within a
context: a unit of study, a year’s curriculum, a life.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Students need to be the
workers, the thinkers, the do-ers, and teachers need to be the ones planning
for <i>these</i> students at <i>this</i> time.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Teachers can create the
conditions that nurture engagement (the 6 Cs).</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">Choice, choice, choice.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "century gothic"; font-size: 10.0pt;">--- Stevi, December 2015<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-31776461605516983082015-12-05T14:04:00.001-08:002015-12-05T14:04:16.551-08:00<div style="border-bottom: solid #4F81BD 1.0pt; border: none; mso-border-bottom-themecolor: accent1; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0in 0in 4.0pt 0in;">
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The Power of Ideas</h2>
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<i>"Those things you learn without joy, you will forget easily." -- Finnish proverb</i></div>
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When I first started attending NCTE, I stalked the footnotes. I made sure I was up early to claim a front row seat
to listen to Nancie Atwell, hoping she’d help me figure out that one part of my
workshop that was still rough. I pushed through the crowds to listen to Donald
Murray, yearning for that one nugget that would move those reluctant writers. I
searched for the specific activity, the practical idea, the thing to do on
December 1. I was in search of the tip and trick, the cool activity that would hook my kids.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Times have changed. Now I’m not stalking the footnotes in search of the practical; I’m no longer pushing through crowds to get that
last handout.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, I still get up early
to listen to the keynoters and make my way through the crowds to listen to Tom
Newkirk or Jeff Wilhelm or Vicki Vinton. But the aura surrounding the famous
has faded, and I don’t gasp when I see Lucy Calkins. Now I’m stalking for a
different purpose: someone who will provoke me, nudge my thinking, make me
think in new ways. Now I want to stalk the idea. It’s the idea that lures me
back each year to NCTE, ideas swirling around the heads of those most prominent
in our field, ideas that are about to – or should be about to – catch on fire,
ideas that like the wind force the skyscape of my mind to be a bit brighter,
look a little different. <o:p></o:p></div>
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And what were the ideas that most grabbed me this year? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Bring on the joy and
the pleasure<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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No, no one said it exactly like this, but <a href="https://tomakeaprairie.wordpress.com/2015/11/28/giving-thanks-to-ncte/">joy was in the air</a>. When Ellin Keene talked about engagement, she was talking about joy. Engagement,
Ellin argued, is “born of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>emotional
response to ideas.” Isn’t that joyfulness? When Jeff Wilhelm challenged us to
reflect on whether or not “we would do the crap that we assign students,” he
urged us to think about the role of pleasure. Why wouldn’t we think about
pleasure as we nurture our readers, our students? Why wouldn’t we remember that
pleasure exists in the world of play, work, the intellect, and the social? And
when Penny Kittle advocated for students selecting their own books 75% of the time,
she too was talking about joy and pleasure. What if, she asked, students didn’t
fake read? What if it were otherwise? After all, if our kids don’t love
reading, they’re not going to do it when we leave the room. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Oh, yeah, bring on that joy! Invite pleasure into the classroom!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Eliminate the great
divide<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Tom Newkirk warned us that we are plagued by a category
problem. Yep, it’s CCSS’s three categories of writing:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>narrative, information, and argument. Good
writing, he reminded us, crosses that great divide and blurs the lines between
categories. All writing that we want to read is told by a narrator that we want
to follow and that kind of writing leads us through surprise after surprise. Yes, the writing might
convey information, but it’s the story that carries the day. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Linda Hoyt and Seymour Simon disabused us of the notion that
good nonfiction writing is devoid of voice and style. Instead beautifully
crafted sentences belong to the both the worlds of fiction and nonfiction. The
beauty and power of a well-crafted sentence ushers us into the factual world of
the gorillas and nudges us into the fiction of Joseph Conrad.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And, by the way, how is it that we have the categories of
fiction and non-fiction? Doesn’t fiction contain truth, and doesn’t non-fiction
carry us away through the story? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps
that’s another divide that we need to close.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Get curious<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Sessions on inquiry filled the conference docket, and Steph Harvey, Smokey
Daniels, and Sara </div>
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Ahmed did a great job getting us curious. Steph Harvey reminded us of Sir Ken Robinson's statement: <span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;">Curiosity is the engine that
drives achievement. </span>Inquiry doesn't just lead to a cool project at the end of a unit; instead, it's how we should live our lives. To illustrate the importance of teachers living a curious life, Sara Ahmed showed us images of <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=ruins+syrian+desert&espv=2&biw=853&bih=406&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjd996phMXJAhVr44MKHewrAYoQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=NfyZl36pIJ7zXM%3A">Syrian ruin</a>s in the desert and of <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=syrian+children&espv=2&biw=853&bih=406&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjUq8LAhMXJAhWM4IMKHei1AJ4Q_AUIBygC#imgrc=FEOK1puQq1CvVM%3A">beautiful Syrian children</a>, images not often seen <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-19331551">in popular media</a>. Smokey nudged us to develop an inquiry question that emerged from studying those provocative images. For about 10 minutes 100 educators or more engaged in inquiry, and when Smokey and Sara tried to call us back, a good share of us tried to ignore them so that we could continue exploring. Inquiry is addicting.<br />
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Carol Jago's message at CEL dovetailed Smokey's and Sara's work with visual images and inquiry. After showing us a few images from Gordon Park's <a href="http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/gordon-parkss-harlem-argument/">A Harlem Argument</a>, she invited us to talk about how those stunning images build a visual argument. Our job was to figure out that argument and determine who the argument was for. After showing us beautiful and provocative paintings by <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=kehinde+wiley&espv=2&biw=853&bih=406&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjw6pWZhcXJAhVJnYMKHUV_AT4Q_AUIBigB&dpr=3#imgrc=WlRL_fR39O0QMM%3A">Kehinde Wiley</a>, she juxtaposed Claude McKay’s “<a href="http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/if-we-must-die/">If We Must Die</a>” and invited us to write. Those images promoted curiosity and heightened our response to the literature she had paired with them.</div>
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Even though I was ready to head home after the conference -- already I had been away for over a week and a half, I left refreshed and so glad that I had stalked the idea makers. The skyscape of my mind had altered. Already I’m planning for next year, curious about what joy
will look like in 2016 and what ideas will dominate.</div>
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<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment-->Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-46434999199069388622015-11-29T12:56:00.001-08:002015-11-29T14:38:01.573-08:00The Matter of Beliefs<!--StartFragment-->
<!--EndFragment--><br />
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<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
Charlie was never a
stellar student, so I'm not kidding myself even as I get angry. I know he
didn't always do his work, and I know that he would smile and nod in
acquiescence and then walk about and do nothing.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
To his teachers he
was lazy, not motivated, and "if only…"</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
His early teen years
weren't good ones -- school hadn't been a strong suit, and he was having
too<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>much fun with kids who were at the
edge of school. Then came the night his mom rushed his dad to the hospital. A
few days later after the swelling of his dad's brain had returned closer to
normal, his dad underwent the knife. For most of that week<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Charlie's days were spent in the hospital,
waiting for the diagnosis.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
Brain cancer.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
Life expectancy --
not known but not good.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
And when he returned
to school, his science teacher said no to turning his work in late.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
You've got to be
more responsible, she told him.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
Lazy is what she
believed.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
He needs to learn a
lesson about responsibility, she believed.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
And then there's
Marie. </div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
Her mom was
Japanese-American, her dad Mexican-American. Through her first few years of
school, she carried her dad's last name. After her parent's divorce, she
carried her mom's last name. While Mexican-American, her teachers<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>shook their heads in dismay at her struggles with math,
but when she became Japanese-American, her teacher insisted that she visit him
after school for tutoring.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigc-wRZlqsT7AeOlJhX8i3JQbyslo_amUIrX-4Yj2i6GlR0hQey1-0-6sGB0aO6VikfbzOUYY3R2eVzrt8TJUTz5o5X9pHiZb7LfO4S8JdEi6OkGFfGG7Ct1T77j4tgyY69lhVI4HdsSY/s1600/Absurd+Teaching.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigc-wRZlqsT7AeOlJhX8i3JQbyslo_amUIrX-4Yj2i6GlR0hQey1-0-6sGB0aO6VikfbzOUYY3R2eVzrt8TJUTz5o5X9pHiZb7LfO4S8JdEi6OkGFfGG7Ct1T77j4tgyY69lhVI4HdsSY/s320/Absurd+Teaching.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
Your people are good
at math, and we must catch you up, he told her.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
Asians are great at
math but those from the southern hemisphere aren't, he believed.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
Beliefs that
teachers hold serve as roadmaps, as beacons of light, guiding a teacher's
interpretation of events and subsequent<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>actions . Those beliefs determine the words that come out of our
mouths and the instructional moves that we make. And the potential collateral
damage: the Charlies of the world and the Latino Maries.</div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt; margin: 0in;">
We owe it to our
kids -all of our kids --<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to take stock
of our beliefs, to reflect on what is driving us and to ask ourselves: what if
it were otherwise? What if…?</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-10267758416102186462015-06-23T05:20:00.001-07:002015-06-23T05:20:34.747-07:00Why I’m not retiring…. not just yet<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<span style="text-indent: 0in;">How many years ago was it? Perhaps too
many to recall, but I can still remember him and his stories. Steve was a
little scruffy ninth grader who sat in the back of the room at old Merritt
Hutton High School, a guy in need of a hair cut and a new pair of jeans.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
For the month of September, he slouched
down in his desk and glared. In October he slowly warmed up. In November he
started submitting work. Instead of “forgetting” his homework, he hesitantly passed
it forward. Each piece of paper was as scruffy as he was: crinkled, pencil
smears here and there, evidence of his breakfast on one corner. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
In December, I noted the pattern: the
essay on Charles Manson, the free write on the mysterious disappearance of a
neighbor boy, the fictional murder of a neighbor. Death hummed through each of
his pieces.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
I don’t recall how many he submitted
or how many I read, but enough to spot a pattern. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
And worry.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
In January I acted. After showing his short
story of the death of a neighbor, I went to see Jerry, the counselor.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
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When Steve returned to class after
meeting with Jerry, he wouldn’t look at me. And he wouldn’t reclaim his desk.
He grabbed his books, dumped his notebook on the floor, and stormed out of the
room, uttering “bitch” under his breath.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
And that was the last time I saw
Steve.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hey,
Steve, I’m still at it because of you. I owe you one, bud, and I don’t want
teachers to shut students down like I did you.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
Steve was long ago at the start of my
profession, but Marty was on the other side of my career. While walking through the university commons on the way to teach my Methods class, I heard my name. “Quate? Ms. Quate, is
that you?” Marty beamed when I stopped. “I’ve been looking for you. Someone
told me that you were teaching at UCD and I wanted to thank you. You got me
writing. Remember when we…” and for the next few minutes, I listened and laughed
as he talked about memories of our tenth grade class, his stories jogging long
buried memories. And then we both realized we were about to be late for class.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
“Thank you, Ms. Quate,” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and he hurried off to class.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And,
thank you, Marty, you too are why I’m still hanging in there.</i> <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
Connor was never a student of mine,
but a young teen who I knew well. I watched him cope with his father’s two year
battle with brain cancer, each day taking a toll on Connor, each day moving him
further away from caring about quadratic equations or the separation of church
and state. Connor watched<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>his father
lose his hair but not his sense of humor, and then two years later the humor
was gone as well as his ability to walk, keep up his business books, or eat
dinner with the family. And Connor no longer cared about the impact of carbon
emissions or the symbols in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To Kill a
Mockingbird</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
And no one at school knew of his loss.
Walking through the halls like a ghost, Connor was enveloped in his pain,
invisible to his teachers, his classmates, his counselors. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
“I feel like a ghost.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And,
Connor, you’re another reason why I’m hanging in here. No one should be that
unseen person who floats through the halls. Everyone needs to be seen, to be
known.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;">
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I often joke that I’ll retire when I have “it” all figured out,
but the truth is that as long as I have the energy and the courage, I’ll hang
in to make my retributions, to celebrate successes, and to honor those students
who fade into the background, faceless yet in need of adults who care.</span>
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<br /></div>
Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-59232464954734094702015-03-06T12:56:00.003-08:002015-03-06T13:02:17.079-08:00A "Do Over" Moment (with Thanks to Alisa)<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Probably all teachers have those "do over" moments, those times when we wish we could roll back the clock and do that lesson completely over.<br />
<br />
One of my many "do over" moments was when I was early in learning about writers workshop. I knew going public was important and so was getting feedback, so I circled my students up and naively asked who wanted to share a piece they had been working on.<br />
<br />
It was so long ago that I don't remember her name, but I do remember that she was rather shy and had long black hair. "I have a poem I'd like to share."<br />
<br />
And so with a blush she read it, and we gave her feedback. Rather, I gave her feedback. The rest of the students listened. Of course, I intended my feedback to be gentle and supportive and loving and would grow her as a poet.<br />
<br />
I was wrong.<br />
<br />
Her mother called during lunch. "Why did you tear my daughter's poem to shreds in front of the whole class? She's in tears and doesn't want to come back to your class."<br />
<br />
Speechless doesn't describe my reaction. Stunned doesn't come close. Maybe mortified and embarrassed and guilt-ridden about what I had done to my student.<br />
<br />
Had I spent time in Alisa Wills-Keely's class I might have known better. I might have learned how going for the good in what students do pays back big bucks and doesn't leave a student in tears.<br />
<br />
Today I saw Alisa pull strong work from her students, display it on the doc camera, and concretely name what the students did well. I saw Alisa compliment a student by saying, "You nailed it, girl, you named the claim and got that evidence. Look at how you've grown since January." I heard Alisa tell a student that she needed to give a mini-lesson on insights she had that would serve the class well. Not once did I hear Alisa publicly name and shame a student.<br />
<br />
And that's what I did. I named and shamed my young poet.<br />
<br />
With the best of intentions.<br />
<br />
But they weren't good enough.<br />
<br />
Alisa knows that students will do more of what they do well when it's noticed and named. She knows that students shy away from public display of errors but are attracted to public display of strengths. She knows that the growth mindset comes into play when students see what is possible, not what is wrong.<br />
<br />
Yet Alisa doesn't shy away from pointing out needs. That's what conferences are for: those private moments when she kneels next to the student, listens hard to what he's saying, and then adds a teaching point to move him forward. But publicly she bathes him in specific, authentic praise that becomes a model for all to emulate.<br />
<br />
Oh, yeah, if I could it over, I would. I would have provided my young poet with more models. I would have shown her and the other students how I wrestled with images in a poem, agonized over line breaks, and experimented with white space. I'd show them attempts that didn't work and ones that eventually worked. I would have knelt down beside them and listened harder long before I offered a suggestion or made that cogent teaching point. And I would have waited till they had poems to celebrate. That's when we would have gone public.<br />
<br />
If only there were "do overs."Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-20214705112647468032012-11-11T07:03:00.000-08:002012-11-30T10:35:39.484-08:00Recipes and Writing<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I love recipes and cookbooks. In the checkout line at
Sprouts, I don’t mind a long line since it gives me time to thumb through <i>Cuisine </i>and <i>Cook’s Illustrated</i>. As I scan the photos and glance at the recipes,
I think about who will be sitting at the table with me. Would this recipe be one
that would likely lead to a request for seconds? Would my husband beg that I
cook it again? Would my guests ask for a copy of the recipe? If yes, I might pluck
down my credit card and add it to my ever growing collection of recipes. If no,
I pass and save ten bucks.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so this brings me to the five-paragraph essay: the
simple little recipe for writing the academic essay, “that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-paragraph_essay">common requisite in
American schools</a>.” Instead of one cup of flour, it’s one introduction with
a three-pronged thesis statement, followed not by a teaspoon of vanilla and a whisked
egg white, but three body paragraphs and a conclusion. Ah, so easy, so basic. Such a simple recipe.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yet who wants to sit down to a meal of five paragraph essays?
Who feels compelled to read the next one and then devour one more, licking
their chops and smiling in delight? Who asks the writer to explain how she
wrote it so that you too could serve it up to your reader? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No one who I know.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So why do we insist that this recipe is one that will lead
students to be masters of the art of writing? Is the five paragraph essay
really a no-fail recipe? Is it really the “<a href="http://www.createbetterwriters.com/Five_Paragraph_Essay.html">backbone of
good writing</a>”?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I want essays to be like those dishes that I love to prepare
and serve to my guests: enticing delectables for the mind. I want good food –
just look at my waist line and you’ll see that – and I want to read writing
that moves me intellectually and spiritually, writing that urges me to see the
world in a new way or that helps me think deeper. I want to linger with the
ideas, curious about how the writer beguiled me to stay with the movable feast
of ideas.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I cook, I begin with an idea or maybe a question.
Desert tonight? A key lime pie could hit the mark, and I envision the finished
pie sitting on the table. Only then do I organize the work space and ingredients
and begin to create what I hope will be a picture perfect pie. And near the end as I beat those eggs, I know
I’m doing it to create the meringue that peaks just right so it’ll brown up in
the oven. It’s about creating my version of a pie that will leave my guests
begging for more. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I write, I think about the questions and ideas that I
want to explore and imagine what the
final piece might be. I don’t start with how I’m going to organize my work.
After all, if I don’t have the ideas down pat, how do I know what I have to
organize or what design will work best? Writers begin with ideas and then comes
the work hard of figuring out how to shape the idea into something that a reader
would want to linger with. They don’t begin with their organizational framework
first, or, at least, I know I don’t unless, of course, I’m writing
a limerick, but that’s another story.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve yet to find a piece of writing that is as easy as a
recipe to follow. When I’m in the act of writing, I explore ideas; I push back
against my thoughts and then play with them, letting them lead me where they
will. It’s a messy process, not a nice simple one like determining my three
pronged points and tying all those ideas together in a neat little package at
the end. No, writing is filled with solving problems and wrestling with one
challenge after another. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If there were a magazine at Sprouts called <i>Delectable Five Paragraph Essays</i>, I
doubt I’d pick it up. And I know I wouldn’t serve one to my guests.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-19266794396920688712012-04-03T12:36:00.000-07:002012-04-03T12:36:29.018-07:00A Critical Incident<br />
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<h2>
A Critical Incident</h2>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sometimes all it takes is one comment to rock our world. One
innocent comment and our world shifts around us. Like you could guess, it was
an ordinary day like any other day at Thornton High. As usual at lunch time, teachers sauntered
into the English department office either with a tray from the cafeteria
or with their packed lunch. I must have beat everyone in because I remember shaking
off thoughts of my last class, Practical English, a class that I loved to teach
but one that other teachers shied away from. Louis had told the story of his
father getting into trouble with the law one more time, and Joe complained
about having to close late at work the night before. That class, mostly boys,
were sometimes tricky to settle down, but once we got into a grove, they often
surprised me. Right now we were in the middle of a mock business venture where
they had to determine the qualities of a person they’d hire, then develop
interview questions, and design the application form. It was a task they
enjoyed and that had prompted some hot and heavy conversation.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just as I was thinking about Louis’ comment about whether or
not a criminal record should matter in hiring decisions, our department chair
walked into the office. Often her stories of her AP class were entertaining and
stories that greatly differed from those I might tell about Practical
English.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“You know,” she began, “I looked around the room today and
noticed that I have a lot of girls in AP,
and they sure are blond!” She sat down and began eating her salad.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I pictured my Practical English class: those boys sure
weren’t blond. Louis’ last name was Lucero, and Joe’s last name was Italian,
can’t remember all these years later, but I do know that I had a Gonzales and a
Gomez in class. And one of the few African American students in our school sat in the third row. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Blonde, huh?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And my guys weren’t.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Her girls were learning about Hawthorne and Hemingway.
My guys were learning about business writing and filling out forms. Her girls were writing extended essays while my guys were writing letters of
complaint. Her girls were talking about going to college and my guys were
worrying about jobs.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And hers were blond and mine weren't.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Yep, one comment that day at lunch shifted my world and
rocked me awake.</div>Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-82453831485613507402012-04-03T09:08:00.001-07:002012-04-03T09:08:16.361-07:00<br />
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I AM WHAT I AM</div>
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I am what I am – a woman of a certain age who is still
intrigued by teaching and learning and figuring out what works. Still questioning,
still learning, still puzzled and still not retired. </div>
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I am what I am! </div>
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A hanger
oner to the 70s when we believed that schools could change the world. A writer who has yet to find a formula that will make the writing easier. A traveler who moves beyond the boundaries of a school house or a district to
work in a country where women wear head scarves and where I hear the call to
prayers throughout the day. I am who I am: a breaker of rules, a reader, a coach, and angry
when students aren’t taught to find their voice and when debate is silenced. </div>
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I
am what I am – a grandmother, a mother, a wife, a hiker and a biker. And a
teacher. </div>
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Hey, that’s what I am!</div>
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW1DlrAhkIw">I Am What I Am</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.lyrics007.com/Gloria%20Gaynor%20Lyrics/I%20Am%20What%20I%20Am%20Lyrics.html">Gloria Gaynor's I am what I am </a></div>Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-82711257866624506292012-03-22T08:38:00.000-07:002012-03-22T08:38:26.450-07:00Miner's Candles and Hinky Pinks<h2>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Miner's Candles and Hinky Pinks</span></h2>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I first moved into my house, my hair was long and parted in the middle, I wore granny glasses and long flowery dresses, and I wanted to bring the mountains into the city. So with all my hippie optimism, I dug up the miner's candles in the foothills and transplanted them in my city garden. I found columbines and little red elephants for a backyard plot. Oh, the miner's candles grew and spread and in a few years could be found in my neighbors' yards and in fields blocks away. The columbines died after one season and the little red elephants didn't even come up that first year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What I didn't know about gardening was that altitude mattered and so did the surroundings. I didn't think that the little red elephants growing by the stream needed that water and that the miner's candles were profuse because they were, well, simply weeds. I</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">had an imaginary vision of the garden I wanted to create, but I didn't have enough knowledge to make that garden a reality. Instead, I relied on aesthetics -- uninformed aesthetics, I must admit -- and naive enthusiasm.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That attitude, sadly, carried over into my teaching. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In those first few years, I naively believed that if I could create a garden in my classroom, the students would grow. So like I plucked the mountain flowers and replanted them in my city garden, I plucked lessons that I discovered and replanted them in my classroom. And like my home garden, I didn't check that the growing conditions were right, and I didn't consider the future of those lessons. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With just a bit of a blush, I remember hearing about a teaching practice that sounded engaging and, frankly, fun, so the next day it might be the lesson of the day. After listening to a college professor talk about hinky pinks, I developed a lesson where we "hinky pinked." Somewhere I heard about having students play with language through metaphor, so we figured out what was like an unsharpened pencil lying on an empty desk. And then I heard about how to teach students to write a sure-fired, guaranteed high quality essay with five clearly defined paragraphs. Those teaching practices were the miner's candles of my teaching: random and unprincipled.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And when I visit some classrooms I see the teaching version of my gardening from those days long ago. I see some teaching practices that are like those miner's candles: spreading like weeds. Others are like the little red elephants: can't grow in the setting that they've been transported to. But the reason they can't grow are more insidious than my innocent plucking of flowers and hoping that they would spread. Some of the practices that I see can't grow because they simply shouldn't grow. Just like miner's candles don't belong in a city garden, some practices don't belong in a classroom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And some practices result from teachers who are like the gardener that I was those years ago. I didn't know what I was doing, but I had the best of intentions and I knew I wanted the beauty of the mountains in my backyard. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few years ago I hired a landscape architect and invested in books on gardening. The yard that I have now is filled with whirling butterflies, delphiniums, and lavender. They fit within the environment of the city, and the flowers rebloom each year. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's what we need as we plan for the garden of our classroom. What are the practices that work? That with tending will produce the results we want? What are the weeds we need to yank out of the ground, and what's the fertilizer that will nurture the roots? And what do we need to learn in order to be the best gardeners of young minds that we can be?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';"><br /></span></div>Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-80729515695499862152011-11-20T05:57:00.000-08:002011-11-20T05:57:01.836-08:00CCFG: The Great SynthesizerSeveral teachers across the table from me had a hard time focusing on the workshop. One woman whispered to another, "And how are we supposed to use <i>this</i> stuff?" During our time to talk as a group, those teachers frequently returned to the same topic: initiative overload in their district: "We have to deal with Common Core."<br />
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"Yeah, and don't forget the new teacher performance system."<br />
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"I'm supposed to be integrating technology into my curriculum."<br />
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"When are we going to know about the new assessments?"<br />
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As valid as their complaints may be, I kept wondering how they could refocus so that their complaints were acknowledged and then addressed. Teachers are not supposed to be professional victims. Instead, as professionals they need to be able to actively construct solutions to the multiple problems they face. So if initiative overload is a problem, what are some ways this could be addressed?<br />
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My hunch is that the collaborative strategies that are used in critical friendship could work here. Sometimes all those initiatives seem disjointed but often at the heart of them there is a value that is shared by the initiative initiators and those who are supposed to implement them: wanting to do best for the children in our schools. This hit home quite awhile ago when I worked at the state department of education. The commissioner at the time was not particularly well-liked and was particularly disrespected by teachers. Teachers questioned his policies and his motives and resented his harsh stance towards them. One day when I was stuck in the elevator with him, he turned to me and started talking with great passion about students he knew who deserved a chance to make it in the world. His passion was sincere. It was the way that he translated that passion into action that troubled many of the teachers I knew who saw him as evil incarnate. After this brief exchange in the elevator, I knew that he and I both shared a similar emotional, spiritual, and intellectual commitment to all students, but the way we displayed that commitment took very different paths.<br />
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What if educators began with the premise that policy makers and others had their hearts in the right place even if we disagreed in the methods they proposed? Would taking that stance result in our willingness to figure things out?<br />
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For instance, could we look at those initiatives through the lens of critical friendship and begin the process of synthesis?<br />
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If we used the consultancy or Isaquuah to move into the stance of problem-solver, not victim, could we use other protocols to find commonalities of initiatives? Could we find the red thread that weaves together what initially appears to be distinct? Could we use that red thread to create a tapestry that was united and coherent? That's our challenge. My hunch is that through the collaborative work of critical friendship that we could move from victim to actor.<br />
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And bottom line? What's good for kids? Let's trust that others share that commitment.Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-382580704768872962.post-52502021412837782692010-05-30T06:53:00.000-07:002010-05-30T06:53:06.889-07:00Friending Connor<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My grandson “friended” me!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hey, I love socializing. I love gossiping with friends and gabbing on the phone and checking my email to see what’s new. So when I discovered Facebook, I knew what I had to do: charge into the world of social networking. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And when Connor sent me the invitation, I knew that social networking was for me: “Mom said I had to friend you or else you’d kill me.” I grinned and accepted and wrote on his wall.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That cute little boy whose first pee nearly hit Papa Jim smack in the face was now my Facebook friend! <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That darling grandson of mine who only a few years ago was wobbling around on his chubby legs and learning to run and hinting of the jock he would become – now part of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">my</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> social network.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That youngster who just yesterday – or so it seems -- crashed his bicycle on the hill at our cabin and cried for his mother. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And now here I am: part of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">his</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> social network, friended by sweet 13 year old grandson.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I should have realized the future when he sent out a message that said, “Connor’s single.” Malea, a friend he’s known since birth, answered back, “I think we all know that, Connor.” I laughed and poked him: Glad I didn’t miss a wedding.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then another message appeared. “Oh, I’m so sexy.” Sexy? He wasn’t sexy when he peed on Jim.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Connor has the hots for … The hots? He doesn’t even have a driver’s permit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Connor is a fan of “Can this Onion Ring get more fans that Justin Bieber?” And just who is this Justin Bieber?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“School sucks!” I panicked. From a budding soccer player to a high school dropout.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Where’s that sweet little pee-dribbling boy who cried for his mom? And where’s that little toddler chasing the ball and checking us out for approval? </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
Gone, I guess, gone the way that social networking takes him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maybe I should poke him or maybe check out my other friends, friends who won’t remind me that I’m growing old.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> And so are they.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>Stevihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01716472977738406647noreply@blogger.com0