Face-off with Self-doubt

If I weren't afraid...

I would put a Ping-Pong table in my room. 

If I weren't on a budget...

I'd hire an interior decorator to make my room look like Mrs. Hartwig's. (The decorator might tell me to nix the Ping-Pong table--)

If I weren't responding to this prompt...

I would write about what this month of blogging has taught me. Here goes...

Whew. I have blogged every evening for 30 days straight. The first day I was excited. The second day less so. By the end of week one I was sick of listening to myself. Week two? I knew Dread as my own little buddy. I then slogged through ennui, blither-blather and awe-shucks. One night I didn't post until 11:58 p.m. 

But I had made a public commitment on the ICTE Facebook group page and was inspired by my blogging partners: Melissa and Brittany. I wanted to be in their club--so I kept cranking out the blog posts.

I also wanted to prove to myself I could hush the mice in the jar.

So each evening I traded luscious reading time for a face-off with Self-Doubt, embracing vulnerability, exposing my imperfect thoughts in imperfect words. And I lived to tell about it. Seriously, I feel like I just completed a marathon: it mattered to me, even if no one else is that interested in hearing about it.

I also was reminded how important feedback is. Thanks to you who left a comment on the blog or Facebook. I felt less alone.

I'm still not sure who I am as a blogger. Frankly, the genre might not suit me well. But the @teachthought Reflection Challenge did invite (force?) me to think on the page about what I do in the classroom. And since it didn't kill me, it must have made me stronger.

Thanks for listening.

Journalism student adding grid guides to her phone's camera. The nasty sofa is just one of the furniture items my fantasy interior decorator would replace in my classroom.

Day 30: What would you do (as a teacher) if you weren’t afraid?

Reflection: I'm glad I did this challenge. And I'm also glad it's over. 

I used to be...now...

I used to be marbles rolling every which way; now I'm marbles rolling mostly in the same direction.

I used to be a gale-force wind; now I'm a stiff breeze.

I used to tell it slant; now I tell it straight(er).

I used to um, uh, lose my train of thought; now I uh, um--

I used to carry my school work home in a huge cardboard box; now I carry my school work home in a huge Google Drive.

I used to think I was teaching my favorite students; now I think I'm teaching my favorite students. Happens every year.

I used to teach poetry; now I share poetry.

I used to be chartreuse; now I'm jade.

I used to be Pop Rocks; now I'm Life Savers.

1985 - My second year of teaching.

I used to be chin-deep in student writing; now I'm up to my elbows. 

I used to dog-paddle; now I sidestroke. 

Day 29: How have you changed as an educator since you first started?

Reflection: I'd love to hear what some of you used to be...are now. Please share!

Who Gets the Spotlight: Tech or Students?

About 10 years ago, the Atlantic School District Foundation and school board generously funded my request for a set of laptops that would "belong" to my students. This was in the earliest days of 1-to-1 programs, and although our entire school wasn't ready to hand every student a laptop, I was. My set-up (pre-cloud era) allowed each student to "own" 1/5 of the computer and rotated privileges to take the machine home. 

I spent the next two years learning to manage the technology alongside my content teaching. But as time progressed, the tech slid to the background, becoming support to augment my content rather than demanding center stage as it had at first. 

My entire school went 1-to-1 this year, and many of my colleagues are now learning to juggle TECH demands in their classroom while adjusting to new ways of teaching.



I do mix technology into my daily teaching, but it is in response to the question "How can I increase the engagement of all students?" or "How can I deepen students' understanding?" rather than tech for tech's sake.

Here are the ways I used tech this week in my Comp class. 

Monday: Kids watched the TED Talk  “The Fiction of Memory” by Elizabeth Loftus and group-annotated related online texts from the New Yorker or the Atlantic Monthly.

Tuesday: Using the "See History" feature of Google Docs, my students reviewed two sets of comments from me about their writing. One set was "golden threads"--highlights of lines and phrases that sang to me. The other set is red marks for mechanical issues. This coming week the students will listen to Voice Comments. I use the tech to change up the type of feedback the kids hear from me.

Wednesday: I used a Google Form for formative assessment of my students' preparation for class discussion. We then used a Padlet to share our key questions in preparation for group discussion which I videotaped (using PhotoBooth) for my own analysis.

Thursday: Students had the choice to be a hand's-up student or backchannel notes while watching a grammar PowerPoint lesson. Giving students choices for expected engagement cuts down on that "sit and do nothing" choice they'll otherwise default to during whole-class instruction.

Friday: Because I was at a meeting, my students' assignments, including a quiz, were posted online. Students also submit their Friday papers through Google Docs, which has saved about 420 sheets of paper so far this year. 

Nothing on my above list will inspire wild applause. The tech sets the stage, provides some props, puts a little grease paint on an otherwise ho-hum task. But it is the students who are the stars of the Room 408 show. They get the spotlight.

Day 28: Respond: Should technology drive curriculum, or vice versa?

Reflection: I use a lot of tech in my room daily, but it is no longer something I fret over or stress about. It's in the background, where it should be.

Weekends for wiping clean the slate

My husband and I spent the day at Grinnell College, where we met up with two of our children to watch a third play football on the loveliest day of the year. 

Harrison and Palmer, two of my six.

Other than checking my email by phone, and flipping through this week's New Yorker for possible articles to share with my seniors this week, I did nothing school-related all day.

But tomorrow I will put in 8-10 hours of reading and responding, planning and posting. By week's end my mental white-board is unreadable: scribbles and cross-outs, revisions, excisions, addenda, amendments. 

I use weekends to clean my slate in order to start fresh on Mondays. I've learned this the hard way. If I don't catch up on Sundays, I will chase myself in circles all week. I know teachers who do not have my workload. If I look out the wrong window, I can really resent this. If I look out the right window, I remember that teaching students to write and think is noble work, and I genuinely love what I do. But to do it at a level I'm proud of, I have to do the time. If I don't catch up on responding to my students' work, I will spiral into a very bad place. Yes, I've been there.  

I have, over the years, developed strategies to manage the workload and still respond to my students' work meaningfully and promptly. But that means working weekends. 'Nuff said.   

Day 27: What role do weekends and holidays play in your teaching?

Reflection:  It has taken me a number of years to reconcile myself to the amount of time outside the school day teaching English requires of me. I say "of me" because I understand I need more time than many teachers do. I'm not a fast reader/responder. I'm not naturally organized. I'm easily distracted. But I've come to realize how I feel when I prep well for the week vs. how I feel when I don't, and I've learned that I am much happier with my teaching and myself when I invest (weekend) time to align the "me I am" more closely to the "me I want to be." 

Great sites for Journalism & English Teachers

#1 - If you teach journalism--or if you want students to understand their First-Amendment rights--you need to know the Student Press Law Center.  Great learning from the most reliable source on student-press law.

#2 - The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) is my favorite site for college-writing tips and information. This is one of the oldest and most respected online writing labs. It contains resources for students and teachers from seventh-grade through adult education. MLA and APA style guides are clear and thorough.

#3 - My third site to mention is the Iowa Council of Teachers of English (ICTE) Facebook Group Page. Opened May 4, 2014, by the indomitable Jenny Paulsen, our community of English Teacher is already 227 members strong. Ask questions, share strategies, link blog posts, connect! Best English-teacher support out there!

Day 26:What are your three favorite go-to sites for help/tips/resources in your teaching?

Reflection: Unrelated to today's topic: I had a crazy rough time at AIW training today. Maybe this is what I should have blogged about. My learning was huge, but I felt like I'd been through the stump mulcher.

I'd taken a "bundle" (see Wednesday's blog post) to score, but for a variety of reasons, we were pressed for time. My lesson was chewed up, and suggestions for fixing it were spat back to me rapid-fire, like one of those tree-stump chippers. Our well-intentioned instructor tried to salvage our experience by negotiating extended time, but we never got out from under the anxiety the rush had created. I didn't realize this in so many words until I shared my experience tonight with my daughter who is student teaching in secondary math this semester. She said, "Rushing puts a poison bomb in the room." She told me how a co-teacher had entered the room on a shortened day and announced "We don't have much time..." and how the lesson had dissolved from there. As time-crunch anxiety rises, teachers push harder, and the students (and teachers) grow more anxious. Poison bomb. Let me remember that.

My babies turned 20 on this week. Had to share.

The Eye of the Needle: Student collaboration

Ideal collaboration between students? JOURNALISM!
Almost two years ago, in a wild student-directed learning adventure, two of my students decided to produce a weekly TV newscast. Hannah and Monica are now in college, and their proteges Kate, Macey, and Mollee have taken over. Each week they decide what to cover and how they'll do it. They do their own filming. They set up interviews, gather news stories. They've taught themselves how to use Final Cut Pro. I feel like the more they feel they don't need me, the better I'm teaching. I slip in nudges and prompts, and we watch the episodes together and critique. But I am truly a guide on the side...far side...way in the back...often out of view. And THAT is what I see as ideal collaboration among students! 

Day 25: The ideal collaboration between students–what would it look like?

Reflection: I love teaching journalism. It is unlike any other class because the learning is so genuine: non-stop problem solving. But it's also a challenge because my kids' work--mistakes and all--is public. 

AIW - Authentic Intellectual Work

Authentic Intellectual Work (AIW) is a framework that analyzes instruction for three main components: construction of knowledge, disciplined inquiry, and value beyond school. 

When I was introduced to AIW five years ago, my first thought was: if AIW is done "right, it will get really messy. My second thought was: AIW sounds a lot like the way I teach. (And yes, it's messy.)

By messy I mean the learning, when authentic, is in the hands of the students. Higher order thinking (a lynchpin in AIW) is halting, recursive, divergent, unpredictable. No wonder teachers cower back to lower-order questioning, with its safe, predictable answers. 

AIW challenges teachers to bring their "tasks" (assignments), videos of instruction, and samples of student work to teams of co-workers, who use a rubric of sorts for scoring and recommendations for revision. The process works best if teachers allow themselves vulnerability and bring tasks that they're dissatisfied with. The discussions focus on deepening students' learning.

I'm writing about this tonight because I've been preparing a bundle (task, student work, videos of class discussion & writing conferences) to take to coaches' training on Friday. Just the process of pulling together the items for my bundle has impelled me to 1) revise my task, 2) critique my writing conferences (!!??!), 3) scrutinize the depth of class discussion, and 4) evaluate students' annotations for substantive exchange of ideas.  All this, and we haven't begun the scoring yet.

Writing Conference

AIW isn't perfect. The structure of sharing and scoring tasks and instruction can feel belabored--especially if group members are not fully engaged on doggy Wednesday afternoons. And of course it has its own acronym-laced jargon that both grates and frustrates. 

But the emphasis of AIW is to create settings for teachers to engage in meaningful discussions about ways to improve their teaching. That's a trend I can push for.  

Day 24: Which learning trend captures your attention the most, and why? (Mobile learning, project-based learning, game-based learning, etc.)

Reflection: Would you like to look at my bundle? 

Real Readers for Research Papers

One of my favorite ways to involve community in my classroom is to ask my Comp 106 students to secure genuine readers (as opposed to "fake" readers like mothers and English teachers) for their research papers.

After selecting the topics, we brainstorm community members who might be interested in reading their papers. I do not let the students use family members (who wear rose-tinted glasses) or teachers (who are busy reading their own students' papers). The students' initial conversations with their readers frequently lead to tightening of the research focus as readers share their thoughts or questions about the topic. 

After the papers are finished, marked and graded by me, students take their papers through a final polishing revision and deliver clean copies to the readers. My explanation of the value of the reader's role and a request for email confirmation of the paper's delivery is stapled to the top. 

My students have shared research on Tommy John surgery with our hospital's physical therapist, electronic umpiring with a local baseball fan, assisted dying with a hospice nurse, and the future of NASA with our town's amateur astronomer. 

I believe that my students writing is improved by holding a real reader in mind as they draft and revise. "Would (my reader) understand this?" drives the writing process. The readers often send a note or comments to the writers, but I make it clear in my explanation that simply by agreeing to be readers, they have helped to focus the students' writing.  

Day 23: Write about one way that you “meaningfully” involve the community in the learning in your classroom. If you don’t yet do so, discuss one way you could get started.

Reflection: I wonder why "meaningfully" is put in quotes. Thoughts? Another bang-it-out blog post tonight. G'night.

My PLN Target

I have a rich and wonderful Personal Learning Network. 

At the center of the bullseye is me. My curiosity and commitment to immersing myself in the language arts is at the heart of my PLN. I alone know my secret life. 

Directly surrounding me are my coworkers in Atlantic. Our English department meets for one class period every day, during which we plan and problem-solve, collaborate and celebrate. They know my children, my foibles.

The next concentric circle includes people I know personally who support my teaching and challenge my thinking. This includes my co-workers in other towns, with whom I connect through VSee and Google Hangouts, EngCamps and conferences.  They know my opinions, my struggles.

My outermost layer of PLC is the online community I connect to through Twitter and Facebook. I am enriched and educated by this outer layer as we meet on #jerdchat and #sunchat for lightning hours of idea-sharing. They know my quips and my typos.

What I have most enjoyed about the expanded PLN that social media provides is the delight of someone from the outer circle slipping in closer, connecting through a shared idea or question. I consider Tess Wigginton and Melissa Springsteen-Haupt among my outer circle of support who have inched in as we shared through social media exchanges. 

***SHAMELESS PLUG! Melissa and I will be presenting "First Do No Harm; Next, Get a Life: Responding to Student Writing" on Thursday, Oct. 9, at the ICTE Fall Convention. Join us!***

Day 22: What does your PLN look like, and what does it to for your teaching?

Reflection: To bed, to bed! There's knocking at the gate! My husband is resenting this blog challenge.

On Unicycling

I learned to unicycle three years ago at age 51. I'd been trying to learn off and on (mostly off) for about twenty years. Finally I decided that my days of willingness to hurl myself onto the pavement were limited; if I was going to learn to ride, I had to get on the stick. Yes, that's pretty much what it feels like.

Unlike my attempts of younger year, I now had access to Youtube! There I discovered the factoid that changed my attitude: it takes most people about ten hours to learn to ride. Once I learned this, I told myself that all I had to do was practice 10 minutes a day, and I could learn in two months. 

It in fact took me almost twice as long as that average person. But I did it all in ten-minute increments, reminding myself I didn't have to get better each time, I only had to put in the 10-minutes' effort and the universe would take care of the rest. It worked. Last year I rode the whole Homecoming route with only minor unintended dismounts.

My unicycle makes its way to my classroom from time to time, and students love to try to ride it. Two years ago a student borrowed it, learned to ride, and now rides a unicycle all over the ISU campus. 

Video from Oct. 2011, narrated by my sister and life coach, Adrienne.

Day 21:Do you have other hobbies/interests that you bring into your classroom teaching? Explain.

Reflection: I am utterly swamped with school work tonight. I told my story in the simplest way, and I just didn't have it in me to go into unicycle as metaphor for writing (do the time, trust the universe). 

Curating Student Work Through Publication

Maybe my aversion to student portfolios is rooted in my own slap-dash, guilt-ridden attempts at maintaining my children's baby books. Not. My. Thing.

There are teachers who are able to use portfolios and similar curating methods to help students visualize their growth, reflect on their learning, and organize examples of their strongest work. More power to them. I have nothing against the concept--unless students perceive it as hoop-jumping or creating of a product that is not truly needed or useful.

Instead I use (and teach) Google Docs. Save everything. Learn to use the search tools. Is that curating? It doesn't include a selection and presentation process, though as I write this, I can think of ways I could incorporate those worthwhile elements.

----

My journalism students are constantly curating their work. Their writing, photography, and video work are all archived on our website. The yearbook is a both a publication of student writing and a historic document of our school. Furthermore, my students maintain stringbooks. We keep it simple: a document with a link to each of their published stories.

But one of my favorite methods of curating student work is to use Lulu.com to publish a collection of student essays. For the past three years my Comp 105 students have written exemplification essays about classes of benefit. Let me share the assignment here: 

Exemplification Essay: Classes of Benefit

Explanation: As a class, we will produce a collection of essays that will be printed in book form and made available in the scheduling office as a guide to help students register for classes.

Writing about a class of benefit gives you the chance to tell underclassmen about a class you are glad you took. This doesn’t need to be your favorite class, but it should be one you see benefit in taking.

Directions: Utilizing a blend of specific, typical, and hypothetical examples, guide your readers (in-coming freshmen) through the benefits of taking a specific high-school class.

Your writing should be engaging, clear, and smooth. As you explain the benefits of the class, also consider (and quell) reservations readers may have about taking the class. Examples should anticipate readers' needs to understand and visualize generalizations through specific examples.

Aim for 400-500 words.

Order our most recent edition here.

Day 20: How do you curate student work–or help them do it themselves?

Reflection: Yikes! Four minutes to hit "send" and finish this blog before midnight! 10 hours on the road today to watch my son play football (Go Grinnell Pioneers!) at Luther College. 

Reflecting on Reflection

Three ways my students reflect on their learning:

1) Google Forms

2) Class discussion

3) Face-to-face 

This prompt reminds me to use student reflection more often; the opportunities I give my students to reflect are quite limited. 

Last week at the end of a class, I gave my students address labels and asked them to rate their productivity on a scale of 1-5, then slap the sticker on a yellow paper I had posted by the door. Productivity, however, is not the same as learning. And learning may not be content-related. 

For example, today two of my students asked to use the J-Lab green screen for a project they were working on in another class with another classmate. After I set the boys up with a camera and suggestions for filming, the boy I did not have in class asked to use a lab computer to create a photo-shopped background (turning Kanye West's face into a moonscape). Several class period later, he came to my room to show me his amazing product. 

The point of the assignment the boys were working on was to explain a part of speech. They may or may not have locked in learning about grammar, but the green screen and photoshop learning was top-of-the-line. 

When do we give kids a chance to share (reflect) not only on what we intended for them to learn, but on what they actually learned?

I am writing this post late on Friday night. You, friend, do not even want to hear about the obstacle course I've traversed to make it to this point in the day. When I faced this prompt, I planned to finish the post asap. Yet as I reflected, I found ideas I hadn't yet given the thought they deserved. Is that not the power of reflection? 

My teaching next week will indeed incorporate student reflection.

Day 19: Name three powerful ways students can reflect on their learning, then discuss closely the one you use most often.

Reflection: The best part about this prompt was that it caused me to REFLECT on the power of reflection...and how, unfortunately, I may not give reflection its due in my classroom. Formative assessment is not enough. I must construct opportunities for my students to reflect. I will.

The Metaphor Mixmaster

Ah, I'm using tonight's prompt as an invitation to fingerpaint, muck around in some metaphor. Permission to roll your eyes granted.

By Thursday night I am a shriveled, deflated balloon. I am soft grandma skin. I am melted butter. 

But tomorrow morning I will again galumph down the hall like a happy labrador pup.

I'm a bursting milkweed pod, my fluff and silk wafting onto hopeful air.

I'm the baker, mixing ingredients, tasting the batter, making substitutions. 

I am Gumby.

I am fog on little cat feet, on silent haunches.

And that, my friends, was the last drip out of my hose tonight.

---

Today my journalists asked if we could replace the bland linoleum flooring in the journalism lab. They've already painted the walls and ceiling tiles, stocked the refrigerator, and furnished the place in funky dorm-room style. Their suggestion for today was to put down some sort of wood laminate. Part of me shakes my head in dismay: these kids want to be interior decorators far more than they want to be journalists. But I am pleased they see this space as their own.  

Today's Amazon box contents. This is going to make a certain student very happy.

Day 18: Create a metaphor/simile/analogy that describes your teaching philosophy. For example, a “teacher is a ________…”

Reflection: At first I thought today's prompt would be easy--just dash off some metaphors. But I had to really fight my inner critic tonight. She kept reminding me that most of my readers are themselves English teachers with an eye for the lame metaphor. I had to consciously remind myself that this blogging challenge is not a competition. I read others' posts in a joyful, generous spirit of sharing. I need to grant myself that same grace.

When Students Miss Class

My challenging issue of the day is attendance. I can't teach kids who aren't there.  I don't know if Jonny misses school because it sucks his soul (as one student told a colleague today), or if school sucks his soul because his absences prevent him from building momentum in learning or rapport with his classmates. What I do know is that my students with frequent absences are often less engaged, less confident, and less connected than those with regular attendance. 

Language arts learning is not linear; it's recursive. The learning billows up from shared experience, from pushing against each other's ideas, from manipulating language in myriad ways. Students can't "make up" a vibrant class discussion, a rousing exchange of opinions, or a thoughtful group analysis of a text. 

I've tried all sorts of ways to get kids to school. I've given them wake-up calls. I've bribed them with breakfast pizza. I've left school during my prep period to pick them up when they didn't have a ride. It matters to me if they're there. I'm sorry that it often seems to matter less so to them.

When I don't have answers, I turn to poetry. Let me leave you with a wonderful poem by Tom Wayman. titled "Did I Miss Anything?" CLICK HERE to read it on the Poetry180 website. 

Day 17: What do you think is the most challenging issue in education today?

Reflection: The issue of attendance has been rattling around in my brain for some time. I loved being reminded of Wayman's poem.

Have you--or has your district--found ways to improve attendance? Please let me know. I'd love some help with this. 

Tough Lesson: Power Imbalance in the Classroom

"With great power comes great responsibility." --Ben Parker

I may not have a superpower, but at the helm of my classroom, I have super power. Daily I must remember the imbalance of power across the teacher-student divide. 

I had a tough lesson on this concept yesterday while at mentor training. I like to think I'm a good student in professional development settings. I strive to engage and to question, to be the learner I want my own students to be.  

But I blew it. Now I'm struggling to look at the experience honestly for this blog, and instead I'm feeling defensive. Yes, I used my phone from time to time (Necessary texts! I'm an important person!). Yes, I used the internet to check a vague unattributed statistic the teacher stated as fact (Of course I did! I'm a critical thinker!). And yes, I used my laptop for some note-taking and, okay, email-checking (to keep myself from talking too much and dominating the room's discussion!). 

But when, at 2:30 p.m. I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping as if someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door! (Whoops--unsolicited burst of poetry.) The tapping was actually the teacher, and she wasn't tapping. She was looming over me, asking what I was doing on the computer. I stammered through my explanation: I was emailing my mentee the key points of our learning-project assignment, figuring this would be a way to take notes and give my mentee the info at one fell swoop. 

The teacher wasn't having it. She scolded me. She told me that wasn't what I was supposed to be doing. She then asked me if I'd been "texting him all day." Trick question! Yes, I had answered a text from him earlier in the day (when he asked if he should send parent correspondence through the gradebook application or school email), so I said "yes," which caused me to inadvertently admit to texting "all day," sounding like I had some creepy texting relationship with my mentee. 

I was flustered. I was embarrassed. I was angry. I'm still angry. The power imbalance created by our teacher-student roles gave the teacher--not me--control of the classroom, the behavior, the interaction and the learning. 

At that point I emotionally checked out. I spent the last hour of class replaying what all had gone wrong, licking my wounds, pouting, and then feeling bad about letting myself down as a professional.  

I'm sure I'll remember the negative emotional learning from yesterday long after I've forgotten...whatever it was I was supposed to be learning. And that, my friends, is my lesson of the day. The classroom power structure favors the teacher lopsidedly. By remembering what it feels like to be on the short end of that power stick, may I honor the responsibility I hold as teacher.

Day 16: If you could have one superpower to use in the classroom, what would it be and how would it help?
Reflection: I started this entry thinking I would write about how great it would be to have the superpower to speed read!

From today's Amazon box. I need a speed-reading superpower.

But I was only a sentence or two in when I realized I needed to write out the mentor-training incident. I'm still not satisfied with the last line, but I feel better having written this.