Category: Best Practices

A Case for Reading…

TL:DR teacher friends, if you want to discuss how to get inspired again, I’m here for us all.

This afternoon, I am struggling not to fall into cynicism, and I think I’ve found an answer for myself, at least.

It’s not like we teachers haven’t been sounding the alarm for years: trauma, depression, COVID, misinformation, disinformation, and now the frightening political future that was planted decades ago is now reaching its climatic destiny, and its poison apple fruit is ready for picking. (Well, climatic in the sense of this is our generation’s boss fight, and we’ll either go down in history as just another democracy who caved to fascism or we will get it together.)

Here is where some of my hope lives, the well I’m drawing from: I’m a pretty good teacher.

I’m creative, resourceful, and care about students.

It’s been interesting to see how this care and concern now includes parents who believe, with their whole minds and hearts, the lies and disinformation: I am concerned about these students, and also there is nothing I can directly do. If some students, a small minority, but they exist, even get a whiff that I am sharing my personal political views they will go to their parents.

This is where we are now.

And the best advice when one is lost in the woods, or in this case, my own entanglement with events, is to stay put. And staying put means to look over the metaphorical map, and remember what steps worked in the past:

  • Creative writing assignments: use RAFTS
  • “Dogfooding” the lesson: anything you create or try for students, do it with them. Over winter break, I wrote an essay on To Kill A Mockingbird, kind of hated the process, so I came up with another prompt that is related but much more engaging.
  • Read and write: notice how it feels, and share with students. I’ve shared that reading has been a struggle for me during times of grief, stress, and distractions, and how I’ve gotten out of my slumps. The reading lesson above is what I created for both my American Lit Juniors and will share with the ELA 9th freshmen.

Angela Stockman recently posted this — she is brilliant. Ask students to document and create their own learning journeys.

Book Links:

Give Me Some Truth: https://a.co/d/9ZO9MPp

Stamped: https://a.co/d/74lLgtU

Write.

Sometimes, my body just knows when I’ve eaten too much junk. I crave fresh fruits or vegetables, and even drinking a glass of ice water feels like a luxury. I’ve been drinking a lot of ice water lately — partly because it’s my latest sensory joy and it’s helping me battle some depression. That might sound odd, but if you know, you know.

ANYWAY.

The point is, sometimes we know when we need a change, something fresh, something more authentic. One tiny part of this that may have larger benefits and impacts is that we need to go back to handwriting and possibly cursive, making marks, and small motor skills. (And for those bodies who cannot make marks in traditional ways, of course, provide assistance, technical or otherwise.) I can’t speak for other secondary teachers, but anecdotally, I’ve witnessed about two dozen-plus students whose handwriting is illegible.

We have a reading/literacy crisis, (and no, SOR is NOT the answer). It’s just another in a long line of folks trying to sell you a story. We also have forced-error barriers to students’ learning: the amount of tech, cell phones, devices, lack of keyboarding instructions, soft censorship of topics and book bans,

Anne Lutz Fernandez says it best and comes in a timely manner in her post, “In Praise of Paper.” Timely because about two weeks ago, I was thinking about going back to binders, three-hole punches, and tabs. I currently use composition notebooks, but due to my own ADHD, grief, and attrition, I have not maintained or sustained their use. And yes, by and large, it’s up to me. I do have students who will occasionally ask me if they need their notebooks that day, and because I don’t remind them daily, use falls off. But I’m not letting them go.

For many, cursive handwriting has negative connotations: rulers hitting knuckles, not being allowed to write with the sinister left hand, forcing perfectionism, and nothing but tears for children. And like my composition notebooks, I can only do and offer choices and knowledge in my classroom. Here is what I plan to offer students next year:

  1. I give out sketchbooks when I can afford to. Here is a link to my Amazon Wish List.
  2. Provide cursive packets. Canva has many free templates.
  3. AVID binder organization materials
  4. Time to practice keyboarding skills. Many of the computer labs of the olden days have gone the way of rotary phones.

Also: I don’t think writing by hand is going to be a panacea for AI encroachment. I made this Google Site for myself, and some curated content to share with teachers/students: AI, Plagiarism, and Credible Work.

Some research, if you’re into that sort of thing:

What does the research say about teaching students manuscript and cursive writing? What are the best practices according to research?

Rethinking Teaching Novels

Once upon a time I believed I possessed agency as an educator/teacher. Maybe I did, or perhaps it was just an illusion. And now I am wondering, with all my personality flaws and creative, meandering ways of planning instruction: should we still be teaching whole-class novels? And is there something “wrong” with me if I don’t think it’s a good idea? I want to foster lifelong learners, and it would be amazing if students read more, packed an ebook wherever they went as easily as their scrolling of Youtube videos. But folks, I think I’m tired of trying to convince cohorts of adolescents that reading is life: it’s like I have some secret key to joy and happiness that many of them just don’t want.

During the freshmen school year, our curriculum includes novels (well, technically one is a novella/allegory, and one is a play) and a dozen or so short stories. We also need to teach argumentative, poetry, and some person decided to put The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe in…March? No, ma’am. That is for October or December.

  • To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  • Animal Farm by George Orwell
  • “The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare

If you know me, which one do you think should be replaced? Well, of course, it’s TKAM. But that’s not completely why I am giving this some thought this morning.

Also, another aspect is I am passionate about what the creators of #DisruptTexts and Facing History have to share about novels; when I shared some of this with my honors students last year, a few complained bitterly that I didn’t allow them to come to the same conclusions or form their own. My attempt was to share literary critique, and I just opened myself up for harsh criticism. How DARE I share others’ opinions and analysis of To Kill a Mockingbird? Well, okay, this student was the only one, but she may have stirred up a rebellion. (When neurodivergent minds collide, it can be messy and painful.) But I stand by my sharing of others’ literary criticisms: my Black students did amazing work diving deeper into Calpurnia’s role, or lack of agency and voice, for example, and white and students of color found new dimensions to the work. But, in terms of TKAM: I know I can just provide excerpts and the gist, and paired better texts.

There are always, it seems, a handful of students, mostly girls, who read, read for enjoyment frequently, and seek book recommendations from me or the/a librarian. And I know why it’s girls: we’ve socialized them this way. But that may be a post for another time.

I lament the novel units, book pairings, choice novel sets, and a robust classroom library I used to create and share with students. (I still have this, but it’s collecting dust.) And, I’ve been doing some deep reflection on my ‘why’ these days, but moreover, the ‘what.’ Because the what is the why. What I want to teach are a combination of paired texts, multimodal and multi genre approaches, and to use only two longer texts per year, unless we get to replace TKAM with The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. The rest should be choice, personally curated content and Burning Questions(TM). (Yeah, I am trademarking the snot out of that!)

So, what’s an ELA teacher to do? Well, this is going to take some focus and intention, two qualities that have been depleted due to grief. And it’s not like grief disappears; it shapeshifts, expressing itself in a manner that only it understands and controls. I am not unique or special in this, and this may seem contradictory but that is a relief. I can adhere and comply with the current curriculum, and release some of the rigidity and upholding of colonialism and white supremacy by continuing to offer a variety of texts that are windows, mirrors, and sliding doors (Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop) and also curtains (Dr. Deb Reese).

This is good. I feel better. I’ll move some of the pieces around, and work within the boundaries provided to create meaningful instruction. And if there are some readers who come from this, all the better.

Schema.

Shared materials on helping build schema

For some reason, the Statue of Liberty question on my art endorsement test stands out. The endorsement test required a broad overview of fine arts, and apparently my BFA from the 1980s was still fresh, I didn’t have to study for this test, and passed with flying colors. That’s one of the cool things, at least in Washington State, is adding teaching credentials and endorsements requires a certain amount of study and basically a “driver’s test” of content knowledge and acuity.

And what I’ve noticed for the past, approximately, ten years or so of my eighteen year teaching career is that kids still want to know stuff, and the stuff has been largely fed to them on the internet via Youtube and social media, and it’s mostly — wrong. Or at least doesn’t provide context, relevance, is void of critical thinking practice. 

My teaching plan: (and I will share my materials; if you would like to give me a Kofi tip, I would appreciate it): I cite other sources, too, meant for educational purposes.

I’ve been embedding this practice in my instruction for a while, but realize I need to be much more intentional about it:

  • Every sentence stem and introduction/thesis writing practice includes context.
  • Context may include all or part of the following:
    • Author’s time period and historical framing
      • Art, politics, religious beliefs, cultural framing
      • Human rights
      • Laws (see politics) and other societal or civilization framing
    • Context of the piece and essential questions

Shared materials:

These materials are intended to help instructors build the “why” and the how to help build background knowledge. The first presentation is a Google Slide Show with steps.

Thesis Writing Google Slides with materials from Purdue OWL

This is from Developed by Secondary English Department – Greece Central School District, NY

Featured image from Detroit Metro Times

Making the Most out of Mini-Lessons

A Short & Sweet Minilesson Formula
From the experts…

Giving it my best effort, y’all. Seriously. I try to focus on what is most important, every period, every day, and before it feels like a yoke around my oxen-esque neck, trying to find the spark and creativity in my craft and practice.

Mini-lessons, in my practice, often become maxi lessons, which should surprise no one since I am by nature a maximalist, not minimalist. Making my practice organized, visible, and clear to others is something I practice. I’m trying.

Recently I dove into ChatGPT to write some mini-lesson ideas, and it came up with some adequate frames: add and modify as you see fit for your classes. These are designed with ninth-grade freshman ELA in mind:

mini-lessons-climax-genre-etcDownload
bulk-1-bulk-1-vocabulary-1Download

The instructional goal is to use these materials for student inquiry, and just-in-time lessons for whatever objective we’re focusing on, and most importantly: to have them apply this knowledge. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Summer Series of Saves: analysis is life

@gacruz_phd

“Try That in a Small Town”, Polysemy, and Ideological Fragments #teachersoftiktok #popculture #phd #academia #jasonaldean #music #greenscreen

♬ original sound – Dr. C

Key phrases I learned from his video, ones I knew, and all of them I need to share with students:

Ideological fragment: Dr. Cruz explores how a piece of media can be an ideological fragment, meaning a piece or artifact that represents an larger ideology (belief system).

Transgressions: Wrong-doing against others.

Extralegal: Definition (not sanctioned by the law)

Polysemy: having multiple meanings

Yes, I did Venmo him some cash for his content. You should, too.

Now, next school year when I provide instruction on analyzing media (literature, poetry, videos, etc.) and through the lens of facts, opinions, and truth, as well as poetry instruction (revised from Mud & Ink) What an amazing #mentortext to discuss our purposes for analyzing and discussing the media we consume.

Summer Series of Saves: Genius!

Important update: Josie reminded me it’s this creator, another amazing one! Seriously — how much do I think sharing teachers rock!?

@strategicclassroom Replying to @R3_Rachel #greenscreen Shoutout to Nicole for sharing her Soup, Salad, or Sandwich slides with everyone! I 🔗ed them in my b!0! #teacherresources #teachertok #firstweekofschoolactivites #classroomcommunity ♬ original sound – Jen | Teacher Time Hacks
https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

Thanks once again to Chanea Bond introduced to another brilliant educator, jwoz_teaches
Josie | JWoz_Teaches·5h ago (TikTok) and while I dream of a world where I’m working side by side amazing ELA teachers like these women, alas, I will have to settle for digital hugs. Chanea alerted me to Josie’s Jenn’s “Soup, Salad, or Sandwich” question and during summer school last week we debated tacos. I’m leaning heavily toward sandwich, but can make a case for salad.

I’m going to take credit for the writing territories idea (even if she got it from multiple places)

Because this is am amazing idea:

@jwoz_teaches Replying to @Lisa Renee transition to formal essay #teacher #teachertok #englishteacher #eduprotocol #middleschoolteacher #writingteacher ♬ Everybody Wants To Rule The World – Single Version – Tears For Fears
https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

And when paired with #writingterritories (no, I do not remember who gave me the idea, but I’ve tweaked it over the years, and pretty sure it came from a sessions with the Puget Sound Writing Project (National Writing Project). Kelly Love’s Writing Territories Graphic Organizer

Look, my friends, I miss being on Twitter, but I am never going back, especially now. I miss the conversations I had easily, and readily on that app, and @threads jumped onto my personal Instagram. I have no brand, no identity, and am all over the place. I share ideas all the time, but clearly never get a Kofi tip because my lemonade stand of awesome ideas was built using haunted lumber from a fungus-infested and used Dixie cups. The lemonade is delicious, but no one wants to take those chances in this chaos of a blog. I guess I’m just trying to say, I’m good at a lot of things, but packaging my ideas for market isn’t one of them. In the meantime, I’ll just share what I do, what I learn, mistakes and successes, and hope you stick with me.

Summer Series of Saves: Dr. Candy

The “Reading Wars” confuses the boogers out of me. I was encouraged to listen to “Sold a Story” by Emily Hanford, and was completely befuddled over…what? Three cueing what? Fountas & Pinnell were just writers of leveled texts, and I had no idea that phonics wasn’t being taught in some districts, etc. I haven’t listened to the podcast since my first listen, but I remember the overall sense that something was right about it. That tingly sense that while it was assembled as hard-hitting journalism, it is a documentary, and documentaries have bias. And whew, boy, is there a lot of bias.

And this is where things get tricky: that bias is important and led to a grand conversation about how to teach reading. But — maybe in my silly little Masters’ cohort of about a dozen or so adults obtaining their Masters in Ed., from a local university collaborating with a local school district, our mentor, Dr. Candy Schulhauser, was an absolute rock-star, genius, amazing provider of K-8 literacy instruction. We got it all: fluency, comphrension, neuroscience, read-alouds, reading intervention, instructional and recreational reading, the problems with whole language (which is something, I suspect, the warriors for the “Science of Reading” folks confuse with balanced literacy).

I don’t know what Dr. S is doing these days. I do know that almost 20 years later, I still have all the books, hand-outs, and the strong foundation of teaching children to read. The bonus outcome is helping them love to read, and become confident readers and critical thinkers.My Master’s Thesis was titled something along the lines of “Using Engaging Children’s Literature…” and I am still a hug fan of Grant & Wiggins, introduced by Dr. S, and Understanding by Design.

There is something about being a classroom teacher as long as I’ve been one: I’m at that point where I’ve seen things come and go, and folks panicking when new things come out, and putting aside the old. Sometimes the old needs to go, but sometimes it doesn’t. I feel like there is something else going on that we’re not ready to admit, and I’m not sure what that is yet. There are parents who did everything they were “supposed to do” to help their child read– reading aloud, having shelves of books, etc., and still their child struggled. And I’m just throwing out wonderings right now:

I wonder:

  • Are we not providing enough context, background knowledge, and schema building for all students?
  • Are we passing students too quickly instead of providing more art, PE, and creative time to help build their growing brains? Or just passing and putting them into more remedial help?
  • Are we teaching to the test, meaning just a focus on isolated skills and not enough strategies to help students use and foster their metacognitive skills (know when they are lost)?
  • Are we bypassing small motor skills and key brain development activities like handwriting practice and cursive?
  • Are we not giving kids enough playtime and socializing time? Build the stories and their own narratives?
  • When new practices or a review of prior practices are introduced, do most educators and parents panic instead of taking a nuanced and inventory of practices? (Thinking about how Visual Learning and Hattie’s work got so misunderstood and misused.)

Well, I am not sure. I have my opinions and my anecdotal observations. That and $4 will buy a latte and all that — however, I am grateful I had a sensible, knowledgeable expert to help me and the other educators in the cohort understand and become experts on literacy. Things change, and being a professional practitioner means keeping the good and learning about “new-good.” I just don’t think what Hanford had to sell was “new good” for me and the others who received better teaching instruction. (I must mention, I also appreciate Stephen Krashen’s work on diving into the points and issues with the Science of Reading folks.)

Some resources I’ll be diving into that will work for my students moving forward:

Beyond the Essay: Making Student Thinking Visible in the Humanities
Beyond the Essay, III

2023 Summer Series of Saves: making the best

I am honored to be virtual friends with Angela Stockman — there are a few I’ve met along the way I truly consider kindred spirits, and she is right up there. Her vision is clear and enchanting to me: I see it, and how it can be incorporated into instructional moments. It’s my goal this summer to figure out how to bring these practices, and many of my past magical practices, back to my classroom. I mean, for goodness sake: look at this one!

Words are elusive this morning; not sure why. Perhaps it is the constant sawing, hammering, and shouts across rooftops from the construction of million-dollar homes across the street from us, interrupting any flow or traction. (And I am grateful for the skilled workers who are here, and not working in the exhausting, hostile heat of states like Texas or Florida.)

What I’m trying to say is complicated: I am an artist from the beginning (one of my favorite memories of my dad is him buying me art supplies when I was about four). As an artist, I see and do teaching a little differently, and I thought I was an oddball. But there are other creative educators out there who understand that content areas are not bound by imaginary, limiting constraints. I’ve been working on my own teaching/writing/art book for about four years; “working on” is kind of a lie– thinking about, trying, struggling, procrastinating, and sabotaging myself is more accurate. So, this blog serves as my scrapbook.

One of the insights/narratives I share with students is how to start writing: when I was getting my BFA, one of the best and most effective ways to get over blank-canvas fear was to mix up a batch of black paint with solvents and wash the freshly gessoed canvas. Just make a mark. No fear. Get started. And the benefit of the dark wash on the canvas is all colors, layers, and light become richer, more interesting, and

An artist my husband discovered is Jessica Brill: we love her simple and powerful lines, subject matter, and color. Her work evokes David Hockney and Edward Hopper, and yet it’s all her own. An artist for GenXers like us. Poolside discouragement, Holiday Inn mediocrity, and an overwhelming sense of loneliness and isolation. And maybe she captures what I feel as a teacher sometimes: that those connections I long for are forever out of reach. I will never be the martyred ELA teacher spending hours with my red pen grading essays. I learned early on about single-point rubrics, playlists, and the work of the National Writing Project.

//www.instagram.com/embed.js

I do, however, spend an inordinate of time creating, writing (this blog), and thinking. Not sure where it’s getting me. (Just a mood I have right now– it’ll pass.)

Oh, wait: I’m here.

2023 Summer Series of Saves: the notebook

Organizing instructional sequences is, well, interesting right now. But I shall persevere. It is my hope that some of you can use this collection as you wish; I put a lot of work into these creations, and like Austin Kleon says, “Steal like an artist.” I’m an artist, I’m stealing, and I’m sharing the loot. Most of this work is original or original-adjacent. Take that as you will.

Composition Notebook Inserts:

Annotations Insert

Dialectical Journal Insert

Context Clues Notebook Insert

Context Clues Slide deck

Cornell Notes

Ideas: Moving Writers: Discovering Language

Theme and thesis writing

Other items:

  • Thesis cheat sheet
  • What It Says
  • Question Chart
  • Sketchnote instructions
  • Punctuation cheat sheet
  • IXL list/Mini Lesson template
  • Large One Pagers

Classroom Posters:

Canva Poster: Facts, Opinions, and Truth

Canva: Literary Analysis Academic Language

Canva: Theme

Canva: Close Reading

Poem Posters:

These are poems by others, and the art is by me.

Canva: Allowables by Nikki Giovanni poster

Canva: Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Canva: Snowy Woods

Bento Boxes and Other Cool Projects:

I am so sorry, but I do not remember who put this one together. If you recognize your work, please let me know so I can credit you: Bento Box Directions

Google Decks

Here are a few of the Google Slideshow instructional decks I’ve put together (in truth, I have approximately 100+ of these, but no one needs…never mind).

Google Slideshow: Sentences, Paragraphs, and Essays
Google Slideshow: Writing Thesis Statements
Google Slideshow: Poetry
Google Slideshow: Paragraph Analysis
Google Slideshow: Annotated Bibliographies