A Year in the Life of a Writing Teacher

Testing. All Month.  My students only had one day of their English high stakes test (55 multiple choice questions – about reading, are you kidding me?) but then we have all the other grades and all the other tests that determine we don’t have internet access, or library availability, or any work in the computer labs or laptop carts.  It’s all about the tests.  After our test was over, at least one student, in every single block asked me, “Why do we have to come to school?  The SOL test is over.”  (I think there are some teachers who feel the same way but that’s a whole other topic…)

In an effort to put this whole testing thing in perspective, I asked my kids to draw a picture of what they thought the test creators looked like, and then give them a backstory.  What was their home life like?  How did they come to be in this job?  Here are some of the results:

Z used to be a human but one day on his way to work he was bitten by a Zombie.  He then blamed his teaching job for the incident and became a Test Creator.  Now he creates hard questions to annoy students into becoming…ZOMBIES! – Bill 

Back in 1963, there was a chemical war with a distant planet.  NASA created a deep space radar satellite.  Instead of trying to communicate, they triggered a war.  Rodriquez McPittles was out with his family when a glowing boomerang glided through the air.  That was the last thing he saw before he lost consciousness.  He awoke in 1972 in a pile of rubble.  He realized that he and a group of mutants were the last thing on Earth.  He later realized that his beloved family was dead; his father, his mother, and his beautiful siblings.  He lost his sanity and ever since then he tortures little kids into doing mind-wrenching tests call the SOLS. – Logan

Janking 5000 was a very old computer and his ‘father’ built him.  He raised him with questions (and without Google) so he had to figure out everything himself.  He saw all the other computers getting updated while he stayed the same.  He chose to take his anger out by writing questions for children that they can’t use Google for either.  He never had a Mom and his ‘Dad’ abandoned him for an Apple computer.  He lives in a powerplant so he can have unlimited energy to do what he does.  He plans to go on until he dies (never) or until iPhone 10000000 comes out. -Calvin

Senor Ghost

This is Senor Ghost.  He died while taking a test.  Now he will get revenge by haunting tests and making everyone fail.  Even the easiest questions are hard when he haunts them.” Emily 

Mr. Paper is a former heavy metal star.  One day a scientist invited him to his lab and by accident, made him as thin as paper.  Nowadays he is a middle school teacher who hates students. ( This is because the scientist was a college student).  If a student makes one wrong move, he will whack them with his electric guitar.  He is also famous for his latest teaching endeavor, making a new testing category; UF for Utterly Failed.  - Jim

Mr. Washton-Haston was raised by female clowns.  They dyed his hair red and gave him a makeover.  In Mr. Washton-Haston’s free time he sends out questions about things he has overheard.  His Moms make him do acrobatics and he breaks at least a bone a day.  This makes him very grumpy.  Ladies and gentlemen,  Mr. Washton-Haston! – Genovi

Dr. Midget Catclone – As revenge for calling him ‘cute’ constantly, he plans to make SOL questions and hacks the mainframe that debates the questions and enters his own.  He intends to bore people to death. – Chase

Ms. Booty-Shahooty was literally raised by wolves.  Once, she was dropped on her head and all her hair was sucked up by a vacuum so now she grows it obsessively.  She trips on it around 6-8 times a day.  She lives in a cave and makes pesky tests for the SOLs.  She hates children. – Virginia

Mr. Gwenn Shoeford stands at a tiny 3 feet tall.  He is 50 years old but likes to think he is 20.  He is an orphan (his parents died when he was very little in a fire) and he had to raise himself as a kid because no one wanted him.  Not even the orphanage.  - Julianne

Some of the kids only did pictures:

I’m glad they have a sense of humor about it all (more than I do, at least) but think about the message we are sending with these high stakes tests at the end of the year.  The overall theme in all of their backstories was someone who DOES NOT LIKE KIDS! Yet these are the same people making decisions about their futures?

“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” ~ Mahatma Ghandi

Yesterday I did something that I am at once exhilarated and terrified by – I asked my students to rate my effectiveness as a teacher.  I went to a session at the ASCD conference in Chicago where 2 New Jersey teachers, one 8th grade and one high school, described their journey to find out what their kids really thought about them.  It was similar to the moment many years ago when I first heard about going into a general education classroom to co-teach my special education students – a little like being struck by lightning.  I couldn’t wait to get home and try it!

As I listened to the 8th grade teacher talk about how shocked she was that every child in her class did not love her completely and how hard and necessary that was for her to hear, I thought – why do we not ask the students what they think?  Politicians weigh in, school board members weigh in, administrators weigh in, even parents weigh in about my teaching effectiveness and how to measure it but I really don’t care about them – I care what my kids think.

I have surveyed my students before but it was more about the classroom or the curriculum, what they wanted to do more of, less of, that kind of thing.  I even have them give me a letter grade occasionally.  But I never asked them, ‘How am I doing for YOU?’  We teach how we are and that is not always a match for every kiddo.  I need to pay attention to that.  I have more boys than girls – do I teach them differently?  I don’t think I do, but they would be the ones to really know that answer.  This is the first year I have taught ‘honors’ classes – am I reaching them? I hope I am, I even think I am, but now I will know if I am.  And if I’m not – I can take steps to improve!

So, the first day back from the conference I went to one of my administrators, Patrick, (whom I adore) and asked him for his help.  The New Jersey teachers recommended that the teacher not administer the survey themselves because the kids might not be as honest.  They recommended having an administrator explain the process and ask the kids to be honest and fair and to assure them that yes, Mrs. McG. really did want them to do this.

Next, the technology teacher showed me how to set up the 42 questions (I tweaked an existing Teacher Effectiveness Survey from Robert Marzano because I respect and understand his work) on my webpage so the kids could do it online and I could analyze the results with ease. ( It was a much more involved process than I would have hoped but there it is.)

Patrick then went into each study hall and explained the process to the kids.  He told me later that they had two main reactions – they were REALLY excited to share their opinions because no one had ever asked them before, and …they wondered why in the world  I wanted to do this.

The main reason is that I crave feedback. I think it’s one of the reasons I loved coteaching – having someone to provide feedback daily was amazing!  I actually love feedback no matter where it comes from – it makes me more thoughtful about my instructional choices and forces me to reflect on why I do, what I do, the way I do it. I always hated it when principals would do walk-throughs and then never tell me what I could improve – I want to know how to get better!

It struck me that this may one of the most important steps I have ever taken in my teaching career.  I am going to know, without having to guess or infer, what my kids think of me.  It is so scary that I have regretted my decision countless times since.

The N.J. teacher said when she got her results back she immediately went to the ‘negative’ responses, even though the positive far outweighed those.  I know I will do the same.  But once she had time to process the results she realized they were right about many things they said.  For example, she did take on more of the instruction instead of giving some of it back to the kids to create on their own.

She told of a review session she did after seeing her results that had several students disagreeing with the statement, “My teacher lets me struggle with my learning.”  She freely admitted she NEVER let her kids struggle – she jumped in with a million strategies instead of just letting the kids figure out their own solution.  I do that, too!  So, after getting those results, she gave the review over to the kids that day. She told them to have scribes create the study guide on the board and to work together to find the critical information.  The final product had every item she would have given them and MORE!  A bonus for her was that two of her students who rarely participated volunteered to be the scribes and actively discussed what items to include.  The teacher as learner, indeed.

Once all the surveys are completed I plan to have a debriefing with Patrick and then he and I will have a discussion with each class.  We will need to talk through some of the questions and responses and learn from each other how to make the end of the year the best it can be for all of us.

I’m terrified but I also can’t wait…:)

We had our first Poetry Slam today.  I’m capitalizing it because it was that special.  Kids who hardly ever talk got up and opened their souls.  Kids who talk too much finally showed they knew the difference between important and superfluous.  We had hilarious poems and tear-your-heart-out poems.  We had poems about bacon and bullying.  There were metaphors, alliteration, and personification floating up into the ceiling tiles.  For the past month I’ve been telling them they had to ‘bring it’…and they did.

Day one of this unit,  the kids wrote on the board the first word that came into their mind when I said, ‘Poetry!’.  Responses from every block were variations on the following themes:

boring, rhyming, Dr. Seuss, confusing, hard, silly, Shel Silverstein, etc.

I told them the story of when my kids were little and on our weekly library visits my girls would clamor for The Babysitters’ Club books and my son for Captain Underpants. I told them those were ‘candy’ books and were perfectly fine but they also had to get books for their heart and their mind.  It’s the same idea with Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein – lots of fun- nothing wrong with them- but there is more to poetry than just those examples.  Poems can make you cry and feel and be inspired and I was so looking forward to showing them some of those kinds of poems.  I’m pretty sure they didn’t believe me.

Then, in the following weeks, we studied Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, and Gwendolyn Brooks.  We talked about dreams deferred and what so much depends upon.  We tried to figure out what made a poem ‘good’ and decided if it made us feel something or think about something in a new way, we liked it.  If it used words in a clever and/or unique way, we liked that, too.  We really liked it when the imagery was strong enough for us to get a vivid picture in our minds.  Then we set about trying to do that with our own poems.  We wrote small haikus and lengthy biographical poems.  We revised for stronger verbs and imaginative figurative language.  We read to partners and teammates to get feedback and revised again.  It was hard work, but at the end of every class, when we had Author’s Chair and someone read their words and we got goosebumps, the poetry community began to grow.

Finally, we started to watch some Poetry Slammers on video.  Sarah Kay and Taylor Mali were favorites along with the kids from the Bronx who taught us poems really can change the world.  http://www.edutopia.org/poetry-literacy-live-technology-performance-video  We noticed how they played with words, how they emphasized the important parts with body language and tone and how sometimes they had a tag line repeated throughout.  We knew we could do that, too.  We had things to say, too.  Then came the thought – why can’t we have a Poetry Slam here?

So, today was day one.  As the students came in each block, the first five in the door were the first judges.  We had a podium, a spotlight, and a microphone.  As each slammer finished, the judges gave them a score out of 10 on whiteboards.  Top and bottom scores were thrown out and the middle three were added for the total.  The top three scorers from each class will compete in the auditorium after spring break with all the other 7th grade English classes.  Judges rotated out after three rounds so everyone got a chance.  What is amazing to me is that the three winners in every class were the exact three I would have chosen.  5 students received perfect scores and they deserved them.

When we were done, we watched part of a wonderful video called ‘Louder Than a Bomb’ which is a documentary about the largest poetry slam in the country. It takes place in Chicago each year and has over 500 high school students participate.  It makes poetry cool. The kids in the video say, “It’s not about the points, it’s about the poetry.”  And today, in Hamilton, Virginia, it was about the poetry,too.  We were slamming…and it was AMAZING!

OK – I’m going to confess something teachers don’t usually admit or discuss.  I have a favorite class. I teach 6 blocks of students.  I love all my kids and we have a great time together but…Block 7 is my favorite.  Part of it may be that they are a real mix of boys and girls.  Several of my classes are heavy on boys, two of my other classes have only 3 girls in them!  They are also sandwiched between my two most challenging classes so they feel like a reprieve for me in the midst of the siege. Beyond that though, they are, as a group, some of the most kind and caring children I have ever taught. 

After the Sandy Hook shooting, the environment at my school was very strange.  The shooting was not addressed in any kind of global way other than an e-mail to review our lockdown procedures with our students and that we could anticipate a drill in the spring.  We did, eventually, have a moment of silence in honor of the victims, but that came later.  I took the stance that if it came up in my English classes, we would discuss it but if it didn’t, I would not bring it up. 

The whole week I waited (the shooting happened on a Friday)  for my students to say something.  I don’t know if they were taking their cues from the administration, if they talked about it on their own, or if they didn’t think they should talk about it.  Thursday, as we were about to start our writing workshop, one of my girls asked, “Mrs. McG., do you think we could write to the families of Sandy Hook today and let them know we are thinking of them?”

That opened the floodgates and for the next 45 minutes, we talked about the shooting, gun control, familes, siblings, and the emotions and anxiety poured off my kids.  They were thinking about it and many of them were feeling the effects in ways I could not have imagined.  As adults, we can work our way through these terrible events and come out on the other side.  But sometimes kids, without that ability to process, get stuck and need help sorting through all the horror.  We cried together that day and then, it was just the tiniest bit easier for all of us.

Yesterday, I was trying to impress upon them that poetry has the ability to change your life.  Most of my kids have been brought up with Shel Silverstein, Dr. Seuss, and Jack Prelutsky.  Nothing wrong with any of those authors…but poetry can mean more than catchy rhymes and silly fun.  I showed them an Edutopia video of a Bronx poetry slam:

http://www.edutopia.org/poetry-literacy-live-technology-performance-video

Their mouths were hanging open at the end and then they talked about the passion, and imagery, and strength of these poems.  They noticed that the kids in the video were talking about things that really meant something to them and because of that, it meant something to us as well.  In other words, they totally got it. Very often, they get what I am trying to teach them.  I have to admit I love that.

Block 7 students also love writing.  When I ask them to get out their Writer’s Notebooks, they don’t groan, they cheer.  I always save their summatives to grade last because I know they are going to be stellar – it’s my carrot to keep grading because I know I get to read their work when I’m done.  They seem ready to tackle any writing challenge – write a novel in a month? Sure!  Answer a prompt?  No problem. Create a class anthology of poems? Let’s go! It’s so fun to teach kids that love writing almost as much as I do.

So, that’s my confession.  I love Block 7 the best.  I plan on telling them on the last day of schoo,l if they haven’t already guessed.  They deserve to know I loved teaching them and that every day we spent together felt like a gift.  Lucky, lucky me.

I spent most of my teaching career as a special education coteacher.  It’s one of those things that can either be fabulous or hellish.  My fabulous years were ones in which I found true partnerships with the other teachers with whom I shared kids.  Those kids were always at the center of our decision making and none of the team(s) forgot that for a moment.  The hellish years were when I was treated as a teaching assistant – my sole purpose was to ‘circulate and assist’ (shoot me now if I ever have to do THAT again…).  The fabulous years outnumbered the hellish ones by about two to one.  Color me grateful for that…

There are a couple of partners I would teach with again in a heartbeat. It really is the most professional fun I’ve had – to work with a teacher who totally loves kids, loves teaching, and loves anyone else who feels the same way.  And, even though it was really fun for us to teach together, the true beneficiaries were our students.  They got to have two teachers to turn to with questions, concerns, or struggles.  They got to have two different kinds of feedback for everything they did. They doubled their chances of getting the kind of teacher they needed to have.  Lessons had double the amount of thought and preparation so the kids’ chances of remaining engaged were doubled as well.  (Besides, it’s hard to zone out with 4 eyes watching instead of two!)  When it really, really worked, I know we changed kids’ lives in a way that we could not have done nearly as well on our own. 

So, knowing what it takes to make a great coteacher, it should follow that this year as I move to the general educator side of the equation, that I would be the best coteacher ever, right?  Well…not so much.  Although I did not hesitate to have my coteacher, Mike, make his home in our classroom, provide him with a desk of his own and space for his things, and put his name on the door alongside mine, we are not really utilizing the ‘power of 2′ that I believe so strongly in. 

The power of two means that a classroom lucky enough to have two teachers in it should look considerably different than a classroom with only one.  The possibilities for instruction are doubled, for goodness sake, so why not take advantage of this gift?  Splitting the class in half so you are only teaching 12 kids instead of 24, using small group instruction with flexible grouping to bring kids along more quickly or to enrich kids ready to move on, conferencing with kids about their reading and writing while the other teacher monitors the rest of the class,  setting up stations where each teacher gets to work with a small group, and so on and so on.  I know these techniques.  I’ve used them successfully in the past.  And yet it’s almost semester break and we have only done one or two of these strategies!

I’ve allowed myself to fall victim to the same resistant forces that many of my coteachers did in the past.  I worry about covering the standards for the quarter, and grades, and testing, and the ridiculous notion that I need to do it myself in order for it to be done correctly.  Note to myself:  YOU ARE WRONG!!!

Today Mike was absent and I had to handle our two blocks on my own.  It was not pretty.  My first block ended up with everyone at their seats working silently (a first for this school year in any block).  I could not take the under-breath comments, the rolled eyes, the talking during work time another second.  So everyone, guilty and innocent, had to leave the beanbag chairs, the adirondacks, and the pillows on the rug and return to their seats to work silently. 

I was especially incensed because I had created an opening of which I was quite proud – they had to come in the room and sit at the team table that best described their winter break -

• Read a great book (c’mon – I’m an English teacher)
• Saw a great movie
• Got the BEST present ever
• Traveled out of town
• Family visited
• Went skiing, sledding, or skating

Then I gave them 5 minutes to talk to their tablemates. They got to nominate the most interesting story from their group to share with the whole class.  Pretty clever, right?  I knew they’d want to catch up on their first day back from break and this would give them a chance to talk – but with a purpose.  Well, they talked all right – but even when they went back to their home teams, they kept right on talking.  Mini lesson on similes and metaphors – talking.  Reading Lit.Circle books – talking.  Checking vocabulary – talking.  You get the idea.  I got ticked off. 

None of this would ever have happened if Mike were there.  First of all, the boys (our combined classes have 5 girls and 32 boys)  LOVE and respect him and will rarely do anything that might disappoint him in any way.  Secondly,  he is a no nonsense kind of guy.  One raised eyebrow from him and they straighten up. But equally important, I would not have reacted as I did because Mike would have said something about these rowdy rascals that would have made me laugh and see the humor in trying to teach a room full of kids who were not the least bit interested.  Having another adult to bounce things off makes such a difference!

So, here’s my pledge.  When Mike comes back to school, we are going to start again, we are going to do things the right way, we are going to fully utilize this gift of two teachers in our room. 

We are going to make a difference. 

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I LOVE New Year’s Eve! It’s my favorite holiday.  Weird, I know, but it’s been true for decades now.  I love the idea of starting over with a clean slate.  I love the possibilities a new year brings – this year I can get it right!  I love the idea that all those mistakes are SO last year – no way I’ll do those over again, right?  The celebration aspect appeals to me, too.  Everyone excited and happy together, ready to welcome a new year with new opportunities. 

I’m not a fan of resolutions – we all know they don’t work – but reflections are another matter.  Looking back, what went well?  What can I improve?  Work with the National Writing Project and National Board for Professional Teaching Standards over the years has impressed upon me the value of this kind of reflection.  It’s made my teaching better for sure, more thoughtful, more responsive to the needs of the kids sitting in my classroom, more in tune with best practices and research based instruction.

So, here are my top three reflections going into 2013:

1.  Less grading, more feedback - I spend way too much time grading my student’s writing and way too little time sitting beside them, talking about their work.  I know that is my favorite kind of teaching – all the kids busily writing away while I sit in the back talking one on one to a student. I love how close it makes us, how sharing writing and thoughts about that writing really connects us in a powerful way that nothing else can do.  It’s also the single best way that I have found to get my students to really revise – to see their work in a new way and then go about finding a way to communicate that on paper.  They love that I love what they wrote – my kids e-mail me their writing all the time and there is ALWAYS something wonderful about it.  But they also know there is ALWAYS something to improve – word choice, figurative language, structure, voice, etc. and when we sit together and they tell me what they meant to say then I can help them find a way to do that more effectively.

2. Less teacher talk- more student talk:  I pride myself on knowing a lot about cooperative learning.  I’ve been trained by Kagan and know how important it is to have kids actively engaged.  But I find myself more and more doing the talking.  For me, it’s a slippery slope because there is so much material I have to cover and I’m afraid it won’t get done if I don’t tell them what it is.  This is ridiculous – I’m cringing as I write that last sentence.  I know that’s not true and yet I do it anyway!  Even something as simple as ‘Turn and Talk’ where I pose a question and they talk to their neighbor about it for a minute – how simple is that?  That means I have 100% of the kids actively engaged instead of the 10-20% who would actively be listening to me drone on. 

3.  Less literature circle, more real book talk - I got talked into doing literature circles by the English team.  I’ve never really liked them – mostly because I have never found a way of doing them that convinced me that it made readers out of kids.  Even when they choose their lit circle books themselves, they are never as engaged with the book as when they have chosen it independently.  I’m not sure where the  process breaks down, but it always breaks down.  This time I even let the kids design their own ‘Ideal Literature Circles’.  They spent a lot of time figuring out what would work best for them.  Yet here we are again, some kids reading ahead, some kids not reading enough, and discussions that put me to sleep. 

I think when we finish this cycle (please let it be soon) I am going to try letting them read their own books, and then having them come together by genre and discuss what they are reading.  I haven’t got it all worked out yet, but my goal is to make them readers, and the only way I know to do that is to have them choose their own books.

So, there you have it – my reflections for the New Year.  My wish for you – may all your reflections be merry and bright!

Something important happened in our classroom today and it didn’t happen to a student.  We were working furiously to finish our novels for National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO) as the deadline looms – Friday at midnight.  Like it is for many of us, computer access is limited at my school and we only have the laptops for two days this week.  My kids are trying very hard to make their word count goals and get their novels into the ‘Word Count Validator’ so they can ‘win’ at NANOWRIMO.  (It sounds more complicated then it really is – actually we just write like crazy for the month of November.)

So, the kids were typing away and I was inputting all their names into Student Publishing* so they can get their books eventually published.  I got up to check on their progress and noticed that one of my students had not written a word.  She is very quiet and shy so I didn’t say anything right away and went to my desk so I could keep tabs on her.  For several minutes she sat staring at the blank screen.  I bit my tongue.  More minutes passed – no typing.  Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore and said, “You have to write something! Don’t you have any topics in your Writing Journal?”  She pulled her Journal out of her desk (!) and gave it a cursory glance. 

I admit it, I was a nanosecond away from losing it.  Here she was, with this wonderful opportunity to publish her very own book and she was squandering her time!  All the other kids were hard at work, what was the deal?  I knew she didn’t like writing.  She always had her head in a book (like I could complain about THAT!) and didn’t always pay attention. 

But then it occurred to me that often what seems like opposition from a student is actually fear.  Our students want to please us, they want us to like them and to show that we care.  I pulled over my stool and plopped down next to her.  I said,  “What’s going on today?  Why are you having such a hard time with this?”  She just shrugged, obviously uncomfortable but I pressed on.  “Let’s get out your Writing Territories and see if anything intrigues you, ok?”  She pulled her Journal out again and turned to her Writing Territories.  It was jampacked with story ideas.  The one that jumped out at me was ‘girl doesn’t talk – afraid’.  I pointed to it and said, “How about a children’s story about this girl?”  That got a hint of a smile and a fairly vigorous nod. 

I pulled the laptop over and typed, “Once upon a time there was a …is it a little girl or just a girl?”  She said, “a girl” so I typed that.  Then we were off…

Me:  “What was her name?”

Student:  “I want her to have the girl’s name in Lord of the Rings but I can’t remember how to spell it…”

Me: “OK – leave it blank for now and we’ll come back to it and fill it in. Where does she live – a castle, an apartment, a house?”

Student: “a treehouse in the middle of a vast forest”

Me: “Does she live alone or with other people?”

Student: “She lives alone because she has to protect everyone from the mad unicorns.”

Me: “Wow! Unicorns that are evil – I love it! Such a great twist – you think they’re going to be all rainbows and lollipops and POW!

Student: (giggle) “I know, right?  And she is the CHOSEN one to defend everyone and the really bad unicorn – the most evil – is blue!”

Me: “OK – I’m going to go look up your Lord of the Rings chicka – you keep going because I want to see what happens, ok?”

So you know what happens, she typed happily away for the rest of class. (If I find out later on this was from a video game I will be very disappointed.)  My lesson learned today:

Sometimes underneath the appearance of stubborness is a small voice pleading, ‘Help me, please…just help me.”

*http://www.studentpublishing.com/main.php - a great website that will publish one free paperback book for each of your students – including an ‘About the Author’ page at the end!

Today, because they made me, I gave my students their first writing prompt of the year.  Up until now we have been brainstorming, learning how real writers work, reading mentor texts, and experimenting with finding and creating beautiful language.  Today we finished reading Kate DiCamillo’s wonderful novel, The Tiger Rising, with some of the most seamless examples of figurative language I have ever seen in any book, YA or any other genre.  Most of my students loved the book and I’m encouraged by that.  They know what ‘good’ looks and sounds like, at least.

I tweaked the prompt a little by giving them a choice between 3; one about books, one about sports, and one about PE.  I have about 80% boys in my classes so I tend to lean male in my selections to draw them in as much as I can.  I only gave them 30 minutes to write because that was as much time away from real writing as I was willing to give up.  As each block finished and turned in their drafts, with the ‘Checklist for Writers’ stapled to their papers, (seriously – who puts the checklist for anything on the FRONT – they check off they have done the editing BEFORE they write the paper!) I asked the students how the experience was for them.

Here is what I was expecting:

“It was SO boring to write to a prompt.”

“I HATED writing that way – I want to write what I want!”

“Why do they make us do writing this way? It’s not right!”

Instead they told me they liked it, they preferred it, it was fun! I gave them an online survey halfway through the quarter and the results were equally baffling.  When asked if being able to choose their own books (instead of having books assigned by me) was ‘Awful’, ‘OK’, ‘Good’, or ‘Perfect’ 86.7% of my students thought it was positive.  However, when asked how they felt about being able to choose their own topics to write about, 66.6% felt positive about it.  4% thought it was ‘Awful’! 8% thought it was ‘OK’ and 22% didn’t care one way or another! (That group is the one I’m especially concerned about…) 

These are kids who have had nothing but standards based writing since they started school.  They know about 5 paragraph essays. They know about indenting paragraphs and how to use a dictionary.  But they don’t know how to write from their hearts, to move their readers, to create writing that changes lives and minds. They haven’t been moved to tears by someone’s writing, let alone their own.  They are beginning to recognize gorgeous language when they see it.  They may know it’s quality writing but they don’t yet know why.  But they are not real writers.

Real writers start and stop on different pieces, drawn to work on one while letting another simmer on a back burner for awhile.  Real writers write messy first drafts, cross whole lines or sections out, and insert new ideas in the margins.  Real writers play with words, images, and phrases until they get it just right…and then they change it again.  Real writers live with their characters in their heads, create backstories that never make it into any draft, and worry about what happened to their characters when the book or story is finished.  Real writers are constantly thinking about what to write next, how to improve what they’ve written, and how to make time to write some more. 

Real writers do not write to a prompt.  Real writers do not complete editing checklists before they begin writing a word.  Real writers do not enjoy being told the topic they must write about.  Right now my kids are settling for the easy way of writing, the way that doesn’t require much of an investment of their minds or hearts, the formula style of writing that high stakes testing requires.  What they don’t yet know is that their teacher believes they can all be real writers, every last one of them, and it’s time to get to work. 

We are halfway through the marking period (how did THAT happen?) so I thought it was time for some student reflection.  I hoped the students might learn something from looking back but I was the one who gained insights instead.

The first survey was a quickwrite in which I asked them, “Since the start of the school year, what has been easy? What has been hard?”  Then I gave them 5 minutes to write.  Like any other writing, some kids wrote furiously the entire time, some wrote a few lines and stopped.  Some made lists and some wrote paragraphs. Many focused on the academic side of school but some wrote about their bus rides and lunch.  That’s one of the things I love about writing, it gives me a window into their brains.  In just five minutes, I could see what was important to them.

What I learned was that Sam, who I thought was grooving along just fine, was actually extremely stressed about my English class and was worried that he might fail.  He couldn’t see very well from where he was sitting either.  I called him back to my desk to talk and he was near tears.  I had absolutely no idea any of this was going on in his head until I read his quickwrite. We talked about his grades (which were fine) and how he might improve them before report cards come out.  I moved his seat.  He is a changed boy now and bounces into class like Tigger.

What I learned was that Calvin has an hour ride on the bus each way. He has to be up at the crack of dawn to eat breakfast and make it to the bus stop.  If he comes in a little cranky or sleepy, now I know why.  I had no idea any of our students had that kind of trek to get to school.  Most of them live within a 5 mile radius of the school, but because of budget cuts, they share a bus route with the high school which starts an hour earlier then we do.  So, they get on, ride the high school route to the high school and then circle back for the middle school riders who live between the high school and our school.  So much for putting the students first. 

What I learned was that the kids feel pretty good overall about how their year has started.  One thought the math teacher on our team was ‘epic’ (which he is, actually) and others loved the fact that they get free seating at lunch (they get to sit with their friends, instead of assigned seats). They loved the history unit on Western Expansion but not the one on Reconstruction.  They loved that their History teacher is very clear about what she expects from them. They learned that when they study for tests, they do better!

What we learned as a team is that we need to space out our quizzes and tests. The kids were stressed about having more then one in a day.  That’s a legitimate concern! We found out they feel like they have a LOT of vocabulary to learn so we are going to streamline and I will teach the Science/History vocabulary in English class.  We learned that, in general, the kids are happy and confident about doing well in school, and that’s a very good thing.

I think the students appreciate that we are actually listening to their concerns. The activity took 5 minutes of instructional time. The results will benefit everyone much longer.

Next time:  Mrs. McG. gets graded!

I think about this a lot when I’m driving.  What can I do to make sure my students think our classroom is a happy place? What kind of environment can I create that lets them start to associate reading and writing with a positive experience (if they don’t already)? I have a room with no windows and one shared foldable wall.  (Luckily, the math teacher on the other side is very understanding about my Kagan cheers and music playing!)

I started with how the room looks.  I love teal and lime green and I have no idea why, but it soothes me.  Whenever I have to pick color for crafting, I gravitate towards those two colors.  Maybe it’s earth, sky and water – let’s go with that. I also needed to brighten things up because of that perpetual HGTV phrase, “not a lot of natural light”.

So here is one corner of the room. We actually manage to  use only the lamps, no fluorescents, for most of the time, and that helps with atmosphere.  You can’t see in the pictures but the chairs say ‘READ’ on the backs, an idea I got from pinterest.com.  The small lanterns are from Pier One.  The bulletin board shows the settings of the books we are reading.  We have almost all 50 states represented.  Second semester we are going with a world map!

The students are in color coded teams with a desk in the center to hold team bins and books, etc.  Although I like the idea of this extra desk, it does take up a lot of room so I’m not sure if it will continue. 7th graders need all the help they can get with organization, though, so it may be worth the extra space it takes.

On the other side of the room are the bookshelves with a rug and pillows for reading.  These are some of my homeroom kids reading before classes start.  I had no idea that 7th graders would enjoy this area so much.  I have to rotate (and keep track of) who gets the chairs and who gets the rug so they won’t mutiny!

The green and blue bins hold picture books that coordinate with what the kids are studying in math and science. The shoebins have different genres of chapter books. On the top are magazines for those days when they just finished a book or feel like reading something short.  Also, the plate holder displays show recommendations from other teachers on the team with signs that say, “Mrs. Eden recommends…”  Eventually the students will start supplying their recommendations as well.

So, that’s my start at creating a happy reading place.  I would love to hear your comments or suggestions. Next time, creating a happy writing place…