I’m still a student. I’ve been holding onto that title ever since I graduated from college. The grip was loosening every year while working in a different industry. I wasn’t going to let go of my drive for learning. I am so thankful for the people who had influenced me before and during my journey of being an educator, specifically my content area specialist when I was in my teacher preparation program who suggested GVWP. After learning that I was required to create goals and an action plan for induction I knew that GVWP would be first on my list – had induction not been a requirement, I would have signed up anyway. While the many strategies and research-backed articles provided for theoretical and practical knowledge to bring back to my classroom, I am most grateful for the effect the GVWP leaders and my peers had on my personal identity as a writer.

Previously I had a narrow view of myself as a writer. I was able to move between pieces of academic writing pretty deftly, but any freeform writing stopped me in my tracks. GVWP helped me think outside the rigid confines of “academic” writing and opened my eyes to a whole new world. Using the stories I’ve lived and stories others have shared, I am able to piece together meaningful writing which gives myself and hopefully the reader a better understanding of the world.

Rest. How people define that word varies wildly. Rest for a college student might mean binging the new season of Stranger Things. Rest for a stay at home mom might mean taking her time cleaning when the baby is napping. Rest for a teacher – never. Just kidding – although it does feel like that doesn’t it? For those who are coming into the profession (just as I had been just a short year ago – although it seems like a decade), please heed this articles advice. Start forming good habits about your own health and rest so that you are able to stay within the profession in a healthy manner. I tried to tackle a lot of things my first year. It came as sort of a surprise to me because in my last job I had just learned to say “no” so I can focus on things that really matter. However, my attraction to people-pleasing got the best of me and I still said yes to more things than I anticipated. It wasn’t just in teaching, but in life as well. I have to remember that I am a human being with limited resources.

A colleague of mine was the first one to bring to my attention of “filling the well.” You cannot pour into others if you yourself are not poured into. You will run out. I do not like doing a poor job of things, but I know that if I take on too much other parts of my job or life suffer because of it. “Do Less, Better” has become a sort of personal mantra for me in the past year. I need to take a step back and reflect on my time and experience and strike out the empty (another reference to the same colleague). People with a tranquil sense about them seems to calm the people around them almost supernaturally. When we take time during instruction to be “300 like the romans” (to quote Kanye) aka calm, cool, and collected – the students will take notice. We can then introduce the strategies suggested in the article to make time for bring mindful of rest.

I thoroughly enjoy the time we spend together. I enjoy the work set before us in reading, responding to classmates, discussing, presenting an inquiry topic and all the behind the scenes work going into these things. I also appreciate the time given to us just to be us and write how we would like to write. While words are suggested for prompts, we are allowed to dive deep into our experiences and thoughts to wrestle with them on paper without fear of assessment.

Talking It Out

Reluctant Revisers – collaboration, reading and writing. If they are able to come up with good questions to analyze their own writing or other writings it will help them become better self-reflectors.

Throughout the school year, you and your students might discover each other’s super powers.

Having a go-to for specific things is important. It makes the other person feel valued and you are at ease with having an “expert” take an in-depth look at a specific part of your writing.

The table is an awesome way to have students start and pick their strengths. What seems to connect with them? What seems familiar? What seems right? What type of hat fits? Does the feel of this pen form to their hand?

The Right to be Assessed Well

Three levels of assessment:

• State
• Classroom
• Personal/Reflective

Assessment must be perceptive – careful, reflective reading of a piece. Assessment must be compassionate – uplift and not find fault. Assessment should be useful – to serve and grow the writer.

It’s kind of bittersweet to hear a second grader say, “Please, tell me what I did right so I can do it again.” Bittersweet isn’t the word for it, but I’m unable to articulate what I would feel if I hear a little kid say that. We all have had that feeling before – not knowing what we did right and frustrated when we can’t conjure the magic again.

In our school we have students keep a portfolio of work from the beginning of their freshman year (or whenever they transfer in) until their senior year. They are able to see how they meet schoolwide learning outcomes, progress in their abilities, how their perspectives change, etc. They are especially useful when they complete a GBE (graduation by exhibition) which is required at Venture in order to graduate. I would love to incorporate more writing or start encouraging student to choose assignments that allow creative writing (and other types) to be displayed.

“We should be very, very careful for what we assess, for in the end, what we assess is what we will get.”

Not all advice is good or helpful. You know your writing best – be critical with yourself and with criticisms. I’ve heard “Don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from” and it rings true in writing.”

I have a hate/love relationship with the grading of writing. It is subjective – people say, “Use a rubric!” Yes, now you have “classified” your subjectivity or justified it, however you would like to say it. Did the reviewer have their cup of coffee yet? Did they have to go to the Post Office because they were out when their parcel delivery was attempted? So many factors can subtly influence. On the other hand, if you take away the human aspect, the subjectivity, all writing might become the same and formulaic and boring.

Look up six trait model of writing – someone mentioned it in AVID – and now I come across it again.

Below (in italics) is my response to the article from a couple of years ago. Now with a couple of years of teaching experience under my belt – I’d like to respond to the article again and myself.

The article “How Does Discipline Literacy Differ from Content-area Literacy” attempts to reinforce concepts read in the previous week. I acknowledge the fact the two are different with discipline literacy being more focused than the other; however, I believe master of discipline literacy is not simply talking the talk (as described in Buehl pages 41-46) but walking the walk. Students are intelligent enough to decipher vernacular to play the part. Think of how long it has taken a teacher to become a “master” or an “expert” in their field. Typically, teachers of disciplined subjects are not really considered “experts” in that discipline/industry, much less in another subject. Albeit, we are still able to use skills and strategies more effectively simply due to the knowledge and practice gained over the years. Asking students to master “walking the walk” in each discipline by the time they graduate high school is a daunting task. How many English teachers can read a Math textbook in the correct way and factor polynomials on the first try? I would venture to say not many without modeling and scaffolding, even then it would take multiple attempts. Fischer and Frey lay that point on thickly on page 13 to develop reading comprehension for students and I appreciate that this text highlights this key concept. Teaching the students to talk the talk is much easier than to walk the walk. Beuhl backs this point up in Discourse Outsiders on page 51 stating, “People who are outsiders in a discourse need support and mentoring when encountering texts packed with insider knowledge.”

I wholeheartedly agree with making sure students understand and are clear on learning objectives. Students need to be able to self-assess and assess texts to better utilize the proper strategies to tackle an assignment/text for its intended learning purpose. Once students realize this they can further “assume some of the attributes of insiders” (Buehl 74). I understand the reasoning behind all the authors points. I am eager to see specific, practical strategies such as the Argumentation in Disciplinary Literacy section in Buehl pages 48, 57-63, as we move through the textbook and class.

So I reference a lot of different texts in addition to the article to make my points. I wish I had the time to go back and read the original text I was referencing, but I remember them enough to respond appropriately. I think of all the times I’ve tried to complete assignments of other content areas and failed simply because I was not familiar or literate in the subject. I could probably have thought critically enough to figure out the processes, but because I did not have a base knowledge.

Discipline literacy, in and of itself, (while still valued) is simply not enough. You are to use the literacy learned in each discipline to apply yourself in writing or whatever else may be asked of you. Stepping into the shoes of a historian to become discipline literate is much different than skating by with particular close reading due to the nuances. We as the experts of our content need to be enthusiastic about the information and model how we interact with the intricacies of the language, structure, etc.

A book I’ve been meaning to read…

Can I say all of them? It sure seems like it. I have four books in my backpack right now that are on my list (no joke, I just leaned over and counted them. Two of them are personal, one is fiction but for work (a collaboration of English and Government), and the other is a research book which I’ll be using in my demo (so stay tuned for that one).

An actual, semi-professional book I’ve been meaning to read: Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks & Get Students Excited About Doing History. In the bit I’ve read he loathes memorizing dates and facts. Instead he encourages analysis and diving deep into an event whish illustrates a larger theme. Doing History – in my mind, this would include writing – a lot of it. Writing with analysis, writing as if you were in that time period, writing in all different aspects. The first part of the book explains his thought process about teaching history, why it’s important, the role of teachers and strategies of Doing History. The second part of the book discusses specific topics in history and are somewhat case studies. He has studied so many American History textbooks and written extensively on the topic. I would love to utilize some of the stuff I’ve heard about in my own classroom.

A book that’s had an impact on me as an educator or a writer…

This has taken me a lot of thought and even while writing this, I am still unsure of my selection and the reasoning behind it. To be fair, I never wanted to be an educator. Both my parents were teachers and I heard all the horror stories every day at the dinner table. I’m sure they talked about the good things, but I remember the ones that stood out – which were nearly all portrayed in negative light. I went to high school and college with a career in education far from me. Therefore, I did not read any books which would have inspired me to be a teacher. If a video about a teacher popped on Facebook – skip! In my credential/master’s program we read a lot of textbooks regarding pedagogy, teaching methods, writing, literacy, etc. Although they were informative, there isn’t anything that “rocked my world” or made me rethink my whole approach.

So, I am taking this in a different direction. One of my favorite books is A Painted House by John Grisham. This book is about a boy growing up in rural Arkansas on a farm in the 1950s. Wait, Paul – doesn’t Grisham write books about law that eventually get turned into movies with the main character is usually played by a big actor such as Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Matthew McConaughey, and other A-listers? Yes, this is the same Grisham. While A Painted House was made into a movie as well (TV movie), it is simply not the same. This book was semi-autobiographical and seemed to have so much more heart. This book seemed to be the one that sat John at his desk and said, “Write what you’ve felt and not what is just simply easy or familiar.” I’m sure he went through similar methodology in writing, revising and editing. I admire John for writing a book that was out of left field, something that wasn’t part of his cash cow of law stories. It is a courageous move and I believe he wrote his best book because of it.

When I write every piece seems to be in the same vein. I write a funny piece or a joke starts on the first couple of lines. I write something observational. Short lines. Smallest details. Express route of writing: get to the end without wasting time. Recently, with our writing groups and morning prompts I’ve decided to branch out a bit. I’ve thought a lot about my favorite novel – A Painted House.

“Percy had never owned a ball or a glove or a bat, had never played catch with his dad, had never dreamed of beating the Yankee. In fact he’d probably never dreamed of leaving the cotton patch. That thought was almost overwhelming.”

The Impact of Students Taking Ownership of their Writing

Takeaways:

• Limit feedback to a few, prioritized comments.
• Be social, share the work, use the comments as data to inform your rewriting.
  • These will allow the student to formulate the questions – having a student be specific.
  • For example, “I don’t understand.” “Okay, which part do you now understand.” “All of it.” This irks me to no end – I can help you, but I need a little nudge in a direction.

The Right to Personalize Writing Process

Two things necessary for students in writing:

• An environment which allows for success and shows them the action of writing
• Actual writing of extensive, expansive, frequent pieces with different purposes

Writing needs to breathe and move. – Anne Lamott

Writing workshop is a continual search for one’s own best personal process.

The next time you’re the observer, you look for other things, because now you know what to look for.

Outside perspectives change so much when you get in the game. Every time I watch a college game live from the stands, I think to myself, “I could keep up with these guys.” In college I would play intramurals on the court next to them begore their practices and there is absolutely no way I could. Each those guys would blow by me. I would be like Ryan Gosling in Remember the Titans – an absolute liability on defense.

You can love a piece you’ve written one day and hate it the next.

This reminds me of How I Met Your Mother (I think it’s from that show). Someone makes the joke that they kept a sweater for nine years and they look in the closet, try it on, and think to themselves “Why the hell did I keep that sweater?” Buyer’s remorse is not just in shopping.

Between writing times, everything I read or experience, every conversation becomes a well from which I can draw for the drafting I will do tomorrow.

I feel as if my whole character is drawn from a variety of sources. It shows in my conversations when I make a joke or quote tv shows or movies with friends (see text just above) It is displayed in my writing when I connect thoughts to a quote from an author who is much wiser than me.

The very act of selection causes them to look at their work and their personal growth as writers quite differently.

This seems to be a sort of revising on a macro scale – revising a portfolio of writing rather than the paragraphs in one piece of writing.

There is no more reason to finish everything we begin to write than there is to finish everything we read.

This is so difficult for me as I just like finish things. Even if these things have incredibly little value. I need to finish this show because it is the last season although the writing was crap 2 seasons ago. I could have used that time in a much better way. The same goes for books – although I do know a writer who reads the endings of the books BEFORE he even starts to make sure he likes it and does not waste his time. That might be a bit too excessive for me. I like finishing even the smallest of tasks – such as eating a dish that I don’t particularly like just because I get to check it off a list of having something completed.

You have to indent to write a paragraph. That is what writing is all about.

Hilarious – this whole blog post missed writing completely, I guess.

I haven’t said a whole lot in this blog post. However, it does not mean I did not like these pieces. There were plenty of good ideas and even more golden lines. I had to refrain from including more and more, otherwise my whole post would just be gold.

Creating a Community of Writers in the Classroom

When it comes to creating a community of writers, there is no perfect formula.

Write Now

• You simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed.

Mimic the Masters

• LOL at the fact that they have never seen a 5 paragraph essay in other pieces of writing – talk about the easiness of the format to grade. I don’t think it matters as much that the writing is there.
• I’ve heard of the skirt theory – originally from a nun. Which is infinitely funnier.

Join the Fun

• My students always (1^st period is dead and don’t jump at the opportunity though) want to hear my writing when we do a 10 minute free write.

Put in, Coach

• Grade in chunks.
• I resonated with the sports metaphor and it totally makes sense.
• Asking the kids to choose one piece of the many pieces they wrote and develop it.

No Time Like the Present

• Students need to develop writing now – it will be useful for the future.

The Right to See Others Write

Okay – the beginning is bags (aka totes, aka hundo aka 100%) me. Megan made me put that in there. “Isn’t ‘figuring it out’ part of what school is supposed to be about?” This was me as a competitive student, not understanding why my classmates just didn’t get it? I talked in a previous post about being able to write with the professor/teacher in mind and navigating their style of teaching and/or curriculum to get that desired A. I thought I had school figured out. I was wrong. There is much more to education than the A. I just learned to improve myself by myself – I’m sure I had a lot of help along the way – I know I did.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, modeling is worth a thousand pictures.

I really like the asking for topics from students, narrowing it down, explaining why you would choose it and how it relates to your life. It explains how you get started which is such a big hurdle for many students.

Good modeling is about strategies and behaviors.

Instead of interrogating right off the bat…

The above quote reminds me of a joke/story told by Mitch Hedberg. He was doing a radio interview, walks into the booth, puts on the headphones and the host asks him, “So who are you?” Mitch thinks to himself, “Whoa, did I walk into the right radio station or is this guy just real deep?” I do not want to make the students feel uncomfortable so on the first days of school (for sure in the first week), I do a historical investigation of artifacts. These artifacts are from my life and they try to piece together the information and figure out who I am as a person. Then we also do a Kahoot which is a series of questions about me and some of my interests.

It is helpful to see how someone else makes the leap from one sentence or thought or paragraph to another.

To quote an esteemed colleague of mine, “I loooooooooove a connection.” I appreciate when writers, speakers, comedians, storytellers become self-referential or make connections to aforementioned piece (most of the time the reader might have thought it was a throw-away line).

Giving the audience something to listen for will help in sharing and revising.

Model that for me Annie. Oh, how I wish you could.

Had I known how brief childhood is, I’d have looked closer.

Too often we overlook these practices because we may think, “Oh, they know that – everyone knows that.”

Improving Student Writing – Challenges and Expectations

The best writing is rewriting. – EB White

Two Challenges

• What students need in order to develop and improve as writers
• How teachers and administrators must support and sustain effective writing instruction

Learning to write requires frequent, supportive practice.

I think the word supportive is the key word here. Students may write till their hand falls off, but one does not magically become Shakespeare without instruction. Instruction comes in all forms, but as teachers we need to not only provide the time and space for students to write, but also guidance. James Moffat said earlier in the chapter that one of the stages of writing includes “consultation with others.”

So what does supportive mean? Does it mean being their cheerleader and cheering them on until they reach the word count or sustained writing time limit? Does it mean providing examples of student work or other work to analyze and discuss what good writing looks like? Does it mean providing timely and constructive feedback throughout the writing process and not just at the end? I would argue that it means all of the aforementioned and more!

An interesting line: Spelling errors may give way to blunders in word choice, syntax, and rhetorical strategy. The author wants to change the perspective on this though – this is a sign of growth. I struggle to see how errors leading to bigger errors is a sign of growth. I would think that improving in an area or having a few spelling errors is a small price to pay for clear and great writing.

Limit Self-Criticism in Early Drafts

The author describes two schools of thoughts on writing: structured and building a craft or Anne Lamott’s suggestion of writing whatever comes to mind and as my colleague would say “throwing it all up.” The main topic of this piece is to ensure the silence of the internal critic. The author states the “watcher at the gate” limits creativity and provides distractions with other life duties. In order to overcome this “watcher” there are strategies such as “deadlines, writing fast, writing when you are tired, writing on cheap paper, and writing in surprising forms from which no expects excellence.”

The Right to Write Badly by Bruce Ballenger

Taking risks is one of the most difficult things we can do as human beings. Out natural inclination is to play it safe. Don’t raise your hand and speak up in front of the group for fear of sounding dumb. Don’t take a new job in a different field, stay in the comfortable job you are indifferent about because it’s secure. We lean toward safe nearly every time, unless we truly desire a different outcome. This applies to writing. Ray Bradbury is quoted, “You’ve got to be able to look at your thoughts on paper and discover what a fool you were.” I think he meant at a distant time in the future. Or maybe I’m missing the quote completely. Bruce illustrates a similar point concisely with the man going through the maze and putting together a map in his mind, or a “doctor using every diagnosis to refine her skills.”

When I was a student I could definitely write to the audience. I was able to adeptly find out what the teacher/professor wanted to hear and tailor my writing for the grade. I did this for years and years – to borrow from my colleague again “I could write a mean academic paper.” I never had a problem writing, but when it comes to freeform writing I struggle without structure, purpose, or direction or an end goal. The illustration of the spider spinning a web and relating it to the “initial line being fragile” was somewhat eye-opening. It was an interesting exercise of seeing how differently people could write about the same topic and take it different places and yet both still be “correct” pieces of writing or answers. Bruce eventually moves his thesis to the end of his piece because “writing is thinking, and we work toward meaning.” I also would have never thought to turn that information/persuasive piece into a poem from the cat’s perspective. That’s not just a hop, but also a skip and a jump.

Regarding a student writing a good first draft: Bruce states, “Respond without irony but with sincere anticipation, “Tell me what you feel especially good about. What really worked for you in this piece.”

Writing: just do it – Nike. Write everyday – keeps it fresh. Although “smooch of death” could have been edited on the spot in my opinion. Just because “kiss of death” is unoriginal doesn’t mean he should change it for the sake of changing it – he didn’t make it better in my opinion.

Reading the story of the student of the 4H – although I understand the point being made about voice and story-telling over grammatical writing for standardized tests, etc – this story made him choke up? It was so abrupt that I had no time to feel anything. It was more shock than anything.

Golden Lines:

We assume we know what is going on inside of our own heads until we are challenged to put it on paper.

Isn’t this the truth? You don’t really know something until you try to teach it to someone else. If you are unable to explain it clearly you have not mastered it yet. However – with writing we don’t have to worry about mastering it because it is a perpetual process. There is no final draft.

When we read, we take in information. When we write, we refine it.

I think Brett may have mentioned this in the research portion – he will paraphrase the quotes picked out of his research and then work it later into his paper revising several times I’m assuming.

The Importance of Writing Badly

Honestly, to me this shows the diversity in learning and teaching styles. He spoke from his heart that he remained voiceless because of the dreaded red pen. While he mentioned others, who flourished from the red pen demanding the music of a perfectly crafted sentence. Who knows, maybe without that red pen, the other students might have not taken to writing as beautiful music. The ability to adapt your teaching to multiple modalities is incredibly important so your reach as a teacher is broad. I don’t like the red pen, but I empathize with those who feel they need the structure. I rarely ever police student’s paper for grammar (unless it muddles their message) for I am attempting to understand their thinking.