My NCTE Gallery of Writing Submission

Our students are beginning to submit to our Gallery of Writing: Fredericksburg Academy Writers. Here is my submission:

Marian

I've always been told I have her hands.
My grandmother's ring twirls around my pinky,
the swirl of diamonds arranged in her jaunty style,
a sweeping crescent surrounding a single stone,
nothing staid or common.

My size eight fingers,
monstrous to my teenage eyes,
earned my acceptance
because they were her large fingers.

I see her hand as I watch the ring,
pale whiteness shot through with the purple of age,
the ring glittering as if to say,
"I have life in me yet."

We believed the ring.

I watch her ring twirl, my ring now.
It is too small for my fourth finger,
the finger she wore it on.
I guess I don't have her hands
after all.

Thank you to all of the members of the EC Ning writing group who helped me to revise this poem.

NCTE 2009

While there is more that I learned at NCTE than I can possibly share in a blog post, here is what is going through my mind as I am back at home and should be in bed. No particular order ...

• If you have not read Clyde Edgerton, do. Then have your students read his work. Laugh and see the honesty of humanity all in one place. Thank you Yvonne Mason for introducing me to both the man and his writing.
  
• Still pondering: Why do boys stop reading? Maybe it is because they have learned to hear the question, "Are you reading?" as "Are you reading fiction?" Maybe they are reading more than we know, but they are reading things we do not "count" as reading?
• Philadelphia has done a remarkable thing with their convention center -- to see a beautiful and modern convention center fit inside an old train depot was breathtaking. Kudos to this urban wisdom.
  
• Great idea from B38: Rediscovering ourselves as readers. Ask students to bring in the last book they truly enjoyed reading (no matter how long ago they read the book). On one day in class, all start rereading these personal favorites. Give the class and you time to finish the rereading out of class then discuss (together, in essays, ...) what each reader learned about themselves as a reader -- how this book marks a moment in their lives as readers. Let them rediscover why they like to read then take that enthusiasm into their reading with you.
• (I twittered this one, so move along if you follow my tweets ...) Have students pair up throughout a text. For each chunk of reading, they switch roles: one posts quotes they find particularly noteworthy; the other responds to the quotes. Gives variety to reading responses through both alternating roles and immediate collaboration. Great way to use blogs/nings/discussion boards.
• Everyone deserves an "open destiny." "Even fictional characters deserve to have hope." (Emma Walton Hamilton)
• Still pondering: Can being more careful with the semantics of how we talk about grammar help us to better define the learning we hope to engender in our students? Think about the progression underlying these three terms: GRAMMAR --> USAGE --> RHETORIC
• Great presentation on comedy from G38: A paraphrase of Chris Rock ... Comedy deals with things we would be uncomfortable with if we weren't laughing. Still pondering how to craft my dream elective, "Why don't we ever read anything happy?"
• Did you know Art Spiegelman drew Garbage Pail Kid trading cards??
• Paused for a long time on this one from Kelly Gallagher (my best memory of a quote): "Kids see reading today as a means to taking a test." Ninth graders have had NCLB in their lives since third grade ... what does that mean they make of their education?
• Why do some people put the work into sending in a presentation proposal then not prepare a full presentation? Nothing was more of a downer than reading about a presentation and getting excited by what it would have to offer to find that it was over 25 minutes into the session block and I had missed out on the first half of other sessions. Thank you to each presenter who worked hard to craft an engaging and informative session (@tomliamlynch was a perfect example).
  
• If you have any doubts (which I have had at times), Twitter is truly a relationship builder. I have attended the past two NCTE conferences without any colleagues, and this year I was able to attend with both an actual school colleague (Jennifer Clark Evans) and my Twitter network of colleagues. To meet in person the written voices I have learned so much from (@readinator, @ydmason, @klbz, @msstewart, @englishcomp, @iMrsF, and almost @nooccar ... I am sure I am missing someone) was something my Web 2.0 work offered that the convention could never have done all on its own.

Off to bed to make it through the next two and a half days before Thanksgiving. This weekend was a perfect pre-Thanksgiving celebration for me.

Stopping and Taking Stock

My wonderful English colleagues in the Upper School, Susan Carter Morgan and Jennifer Clark Evans, and I created a portfolio to submit for the NCTE Media Literacy Award. We worked on it both F2F and collaboratively online, and this wiki is our proud product. I do not know if we will win (and really even what winning this award means ...), but we all decided as we were working that just to have created this portfolio was worth it. It is empowering to stop for a minute and see what great things you and your colleagues have done. There is always more to do, indeed. But for today, pause and pat yourself on the back for what you have accomplished. It is worth it.

"No Way!"

That was my students' response to the quote I shared for them from the NCTE presenter about the limits he saw with growing up in America. I already felt my students did not fit this stereotype themselves. As much as I get frustrated that they do not do as much as I know they could do, I am actually really proud of them for all they have learned so far. I have handed them their next challenge to keep them thinking -- their essay for our search for self theme. I am having them write and explore their own essential questions, and I am excited to see where our studies in class and their own minds take them.

In the end, I told them today that if they were to only do one thing as a result of our time together this year, if it were to show that as Americans they WERE engaged with culture and literature, I could not ask for anything more.

Day Two of NCTE

Today was a more directed day for me -- it seemed like all of the very specific sessions I wanted to attend were today versus more overall ones yesterday. The most direct session I attended was on Literary Worlds, what seem like effective and fun virtual worlds tied to literature. The session focused on Things Fall Apart, and I cannot wait to enter my stduents into the world. The main reason is the wealth of visuals and audio. The creator found pictures from a photographer who chronicled colonial Africa in the 1800s, and this is exactly what my students need to truly experience what Achebe hoped -- to identify with the Africans more than the white man. There are also great African songs playing in each of the rooms. By assuming one of 49 characters from the novel, the students navigate the world of Umofia. I will be sure to let you know how it goes when I try it in April. There are many other novels on the site too, so look around and see if one works for you. All you and your students need are computers and a browser. Couldn't be simpler!

I also attended the tail-end of a session on laptop schools, and it was gratifying to feel like the "old-timer" there. Schools who are considering moving in this direction were asking questions, and hearing others' answers and sharing my own reminded me how far we have come in successfully implementing our 1:1 program. Yes, we are still growing and improving everyday, but I cannot imagine teaching without laptops.

I ended my day with a tour of the Alamo -- what a beautiful place. The trees are breathtaking -- they look like the olive trees I saw all over Italy. I picked up cowboy hats for my two kids and an Alamo bandana for my husband -- I am bringing some of my Texan roots home to them.

Tomorrow morning is the Commission on Composition meeting then I head home. A fast and great conference. Next year is Philadelphia, and I think I can get at least one more teacher from my department to be able to come with me because we could maybe stay with my sister (read: free). It will be great to share this with a colleague -- twice the sessions, twice the learning, twice the growth for us as teachers.

Further NCTE Reflections

Now that I am on my own laptop (and not hogging one in the NCTE store), I have time to think more about what I heard and did today.

First, I find it interesting that the fullest session BY FAR that I attended was on AP English. Their focus was how literature still matters and how the AP curriculum is one good way to keep literature at the forefront. The session was absolutely packed -- people sitting in every empty space on the floor when all of the chairs were full. It makes me wonder why. In a conference of so many new ideas, AP gets some of the biggest attention. I enjoyed the session overall, and the presenters were well-prepared and engaging. But I have to say that I did not learn strikingly new things. Instead, I enjoyed it because it confirmed the techniques I use with my AP students and younger. I wonder why others were drawn there and what they took away.

I did attend a session that was not well-prepared, and that is always frustrating. It can take a good 15 minutes to get from one end of the buildings to the other, so once I get there, I'd like to stay and gain something. I was really looking forward to the topic too, but the presenters mostly rambled and quoted a single teacher resource. This surprised me I guess because of my own personality. If I were giving a session at a national conferance, I would hyper-prepare (not a great thing either!), so I guess I expect each session to at least have a focus and forward motion.

I have the first thing that I am going to take right back to my students. This was said in a conversation about the decline of reading habits across the board in our nation. The stats are pretty sobering -- nearly half of all Americans 18-24 do not read for pleasure. The presenter then said this: "Something about growing up in America discourages cultural and literary growth." I plan to share this with my world lit students as a step in our quest to answer the essential question, "Why must we think?" I am curious if they agree with the statement, and if so, why. Or if they do not, I hope to help them come up with ways they can prove it wrong by how they live their own lives.

Finally, that session linked with another in my head about students' reading habits. I think I am fortunate that many of my school's students are active and engaged readers. Our teachers do a great job of offering choice and encouragement with personal reading, thus keeping that flame alive. I also think our students impressively give us the benefit of the doubt and are willing to try an assigned reading and actually like it. Yet, I don't want to be living in a dreamworld, so I would like to dig a little more deeply into our students' reading habits. Do they really read enough for pleasure, or are they in that other half of the statistics? The reason why I wonder this is what was shared in a session about reading stamina. First, they said the thing that prohibits most students from maintianing their reading fluency is maintaining their stamina as texts get harder. I think this might define a struggle we have been seeing from our 7th to 8th grade as we have realized that our 7th grade texts might not challenge the students as much as even the 6th grade texts do. Is their stamina back-sliding? And this leads me to their other finding -- the students in their research study, even in 6th grade, were overwhlemed by homework so they literally had no time to read well and for a duration of time. I think my school might be guilty of this too ...

Tomorrow I am facilitating a session on how high-stakes testing is affecting writing and writing instruction -- should be interesting. Then later in the day, I am really looking forward to finally having the time to stop by "Tech on the Go." I can get there when they are having a general sharing of ideas, so it will be great to hear what others have done and be able to share what I do. Oh, and of course, I am going to visit the Alamo -- I am two days behind Dana Huff as it is!

Day One of NCTE

Here are the highlights:

• Opening Session with Marc Prensky: "With the old ways of teaching (lecturer/teacher), technology does get in the way. With the 'new' ways of teaching (guide/partner), technology is the tool." (a loose quote from memory)
• A talk on critical theory and practice with Gerald Graff (president of the MLA): How we read and how we talk about what we read matters more than what we read.
• A session with AP consultants sponsored by the College Board: My worlds collide when one of the presenters is someone I knew from the AP readings.
• A session on using American lit texts to teach about prejudice and cultural understanding: I went to this one specifically to bring ideas back for our American Literature teacher Jennifer. I think I have some titles for us to consider for replacing Black Ice.
• This afternoon is going to be all about teaching reading strategies. One session I am attending is billed as specific reading strategies tied to brain research, and the other is billed as focusing on teaching reading stamina. I am very curious about both of these because I think they can help with discussions our department has been having about challenging our students as readers without losing them.

Oh, and my hotel is literally right across the street from the Alamo. As a native-born Texan, I feel like I am home :)