The Life of a Writer

One of my goals for this year was to bring an author to speak to our Upper School. We had an ambassador and public health official speak last year, and the impact of hearing how people ended up in their careers was powerful. I knew I wanted to add a writer to that.

However, having a goal does not mean I can achieve it, particularly in these financial times. Our department budget has been restricted, and finding an author to come with little to offer was not high on my list. Enter technology! Ah, Will Richardson, you will love this story of the wonders of the web ...

I got an email from a Virginia author, Maggie Stiefvater, who had found my name listed as the department coordinator on my school's website. She sent me her information, including links to reviews about her new book and to her blog. I liked what I saw. Many of our students devour fantasy outside of the classroom, and it seemed that people were devouring Maggie's book already. Turns out because we are so close to her, she will come for much less money because she wants to encourage students to pursue lives as writers.

So, Maggie is coming Monday to present to our students. The connections the web have allowed between published authors and us as readers are astounding. In this singular instance, I would never have found Maggie before the web allowed us to find each other. But in a bigger sense, students can meet and learn from authors without them coming to our school. My students this past fall found Paulo Coelho's website and ended up friending him on Facebook and following some of his blog. I was so interested in seeing their reactions to this discovery because Coelho became a different kind of writer to them. They commented that he was even more connected through technology than they were, and this gave him a relevance that was subtle but definitely there. I plan to have my students next year delve even more into the ways we can connect with Coelho, but really, this spontaneous connection was better than any lesson plan I will develop.

So thank you to Maggie and Paulo and any other authors who have made themselves available to the world. My students may just become writers because of you.

It's More Than Just Content

I have been thinking a lot about my "Ethics in Teaching" class lately and about teacher behavior -- not teacher behavior in the classroom but instead how teachers behave when not teaching yet still in places where students are. This blog is not about specific people or events (in fact, I do not think that would be ethical), but I do want to explore how we teach and instruct students outside the 45 minutes or however long we have them in class each day.

I know I am highly conscious of my actions during the school day -- what I say, more importantly how I say it, and what I do. In fact, at times I feel I am too conscious of this, that my consciousness ends up momentarily creating small walls between students and me. Being human and being natural is important for us as teachers so students see we are people they can relate to and learn from. But I also see or hear about or read about the other extreme in teachers -- how they seem to feel they can do or say anything around students, and students will know the right way to read/interpret/respond. I wonder what students take away from moments when they hear a teacher making fun of another teacher (or worse yet a student) or observe a teacher coming late regularly to class (and not because they have the prior class across campus) or have to laugh with the class again when a teacher is unprepared.

In our society today, so much human interaction is in your face, uncensored, anonymous, "I was just joking." I wonder how students learn to be strong, kind, and considerate people when so much of what they observe and experience is not. Family is the first and strongest part of this education, and schools can come next. Part of our school's technology initiative is focused on this -- helping students see they need to think about how they create their online footprint because it is a reflection of who they are as people. But I think a large part of my job, and the main ethical responsibility I have, is to be a model for students to learn from in day-to-day human interaction. In fact, I think what we do in those moments between formal teaching is what our students end up learning the most from, particularly the way we speak and interact with others.

So I suppose this leaves me wondering if I believe that as teachers we have a responsibility to be more ethical, more careful, more thoughtful. Yes, we will (and should because we are human) make mistakes, but we then must deal with those mistakes directly and correctly. Do you believe this?

A Quote

"While most kids’ uses of these technologies are 'friendship based', the more compelling shift is when their use is 'interest based' or when they connect with other kids or adults around the topics or ideas they are passionate to learn about." (from Will Richardson's blog)

So this seems to be where we as teachers come into play ... helping students see the power of the web on their minds and passions. Yes, many/most students use technology all of the time, but they still have more to learn that we can teach them (if we take the time to learn ...) even when they might know more technological applications than we do.

Reflecting on the New Year

Using Dana Huff as inspiration, I want to take a little time to reflect on my new semester. My kids are still napping, the laundry is dry, Christmas thank you notes are finally done, and dinner is a breeze tonight. Don't know how I got to this spot, but I have 20 minutes right now when I really do not have anything else I need to be doing. Guilt-free blogging ... nothing like it.

I started this semester with some heavy duty style analysis writing with my AP Lit students. About halfway through my plans though, I had this niggling thought about the upcoming essay. I wrote about this below, but I want to revisit it here in the larger sense. I relearned the power of being able to tell a class, truthfully, that they as a whole are doing GREAT work. I resist comments like this as a teacher because I hate to lump my class together. My students actually will say to anyone who asks in class, "How did you feel we did on that assignment?" -- "She doesn't answer questions like that!" But when I really can say something to the group as a whole and mean it for everyone in that room, it is a powerful moment. And my kids deserve that right now. They ROCKED on their last essay. They were writing about that now-infamous-among-AP-teachers poem "Death of a Toad" (read Richard Wilbur's wonderful letter here), and I have never seen them as a whole glean so much out of a single poem or passage. Every one of them -- really. I now cannot wait for when I see this class next on Tuesday so I can tell them this -- that their hard work paid off, and I am so happy for them. They pushed themselves to new places because they were willing to try things I asked and, more importantly, took seriously my request that in the end they make this work their own through their style and voice. What more can I ask for as a teacher.

The other thing that has consumed the start of this semester for me is getting my Othello plans finalized. Tuesday is the big day when the nings go live. I have high hopes -- I have decided to do all I can to make this global collaboration thing work in a classroom so I can really see what we can all gain from it. So, a final plea -- if you know this play and want to join any of our conversations, you are welcome here and here.

Now I must reenter my life here -- with my blog time well-spent.

How to Make a Better Exam

Our divisions heads have asked us as departments to discuss our semester and final exams with the goals of ensuring that they are truly testing the students on what we hope they learned and that they are worthy of their 20% weight into the semester grade. Our exams are two hours long, and we have the option of using the laptops or not -- although Internet access is not available in our testing site.

While I know there will be many thoughts out there about the worth of such exams and whether they should have such weight, that is not something our school is open to pursuing right now. Instead, I would love to know the BEST exam or part of an exam you ever gave. Also, what have you done to have your exam be skill-centered rather than content-centered? Maybe between us all, we can create the perfect exam that is worthwhile and challenging for whatever school, like mine, is committed to having exams.

I'll start: a colleague and I crafted a section on the British Literature exam where the students wrote about what they learned from their classmates' wiki postings on the novel Regeneration. I thought it was so effective because it forced them to read new ideas and to collaborate. They got to pick any two of the wiki entries to read and learn, so they had choice, but whatever they chose, they were validating their classmates' work and learning more about the novel.

Letting Them Think

I have used Jane Schaffer's style analysis plans for years with my AP English Literature students. I do not promote formatted writing instruction as a whole, but I am fortunate to have students who have done so much writing before they get to me that we can really use this structure as a tool. Some students find it is just what they need to corral their ideas, and they end up with really powerful proofs that finally go from start to finish well. Others find the mere requirement of LOADS of textual support finally makes them do this (I hope I'm not the only English teacher who has students -- even juniors and seniors -- at times turn in writing with NO support -- their adolescent minds just wig out every now and then!).

What I have worked hard to do better each year is helping my students really see it as a tool and not the only way to write. This year, as I am discussing student-centered learning with my PLP group at the same time that I am finishing my Schaffer unit, it was an aligning of the stars for me. I threw out the assignment I have always ended this unit with -- writing an essay (and a VERY long essay at that) that follows exactly the Shaffer structure to "show me you can do it before I let you break the rules" -- and created an open rubric for us to create together for an essay where they show me they know this is a tool and use it.

Here is my rubric. I am very excited to complete it with my class today -- to talk directly about how they can use the tools they have learned to create writing that speaks for them.

Ning-ing It

I have just put the most recent touches on a ning I am going to use with my students as we study Othello. I use the wonderful lesson plans written by the Shakespeare Set Free folks, and I think a ning will be a perfect complement to the active and collaborative work already happening in these plans. My main two goals for the ning are:

1. To push my students' collaboration even deeper with their in-depth character studies. I have had each student choose a single character to follow for years, and they ultimately write character studies. Knowing that there is so much Shakespearean literary criticism already out there, my goal last year was to help my students see that they were joining this conversation. I think by collaboratively following their character choices on the ning, and ultimately sharing the sources they find as they begin to research, the students will even more vividly see their participation in a wider intellectual community.

2. To collaborate with another set of students through a Twitter friend, Laura Nicosia. A teacher of pre-service teachers, she is interested in having her students work with mine, so I am waiting to hear back from her to see if the ning can be our platform for this. I will be VERY EXCITED if I can get other voices into the class's ning community. This kind of collaboration has proven to be the hardest for me to achieve (the timing and work it requires has been daunting), so it is a top goal for this project.

7 Things

Here is my list in response to Susan tagging me for this meme:

1. One of my favorite classes in high school was AP Calculus.
2. I am a Southerner by birth who, after moving to the Northeast in fourth grade, has rediscovered an almost instinctual connection to the South when I went to college in North Carolina. Pine needles underfoot are inextricably connected to my childhood.
3. I am awful at remembering people's names -- even characters from books. I think I never really pay attention when I first hear a name.
4. I love to lesson plan -- I write plans that are more detailed than I really need that I then mark up for changes I want to make for the next year.
5. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, and I really dislike lunch. I cannot make a good sandwich. My brother-in-law makes amazing sandwiches.
6. I am tall (5'9 or 10) and have never really liked being tall. I would be okay if I were 2 inches shorter.
7. I do cross-stitch and just finished a Halloween one.

(and #8 -- This list was really hard to come up with! Wonder what that means.)

Word Trees

Having loved using Wordle this semester, I am now very intrigued by Word Trees. I learned about the site from the 21st Century Skills Map: English, which has of course lots of really great ideas (including one I shared with my colleague about using The Onion to make satire more current for students and thus make "A Modest Proposal" more accessible).

The difference between Wordle and Word Trees is that "punctuation matters." I am curious if this will lead my students to different understandings as the trees branch out in different ways. Has anyone used Word Trees before?

"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!