How do we encourage and foster creativity in ourselves and others?
“I want to do a series of non-routine tasks, that require social intelligence, complex critical thinking, and creative problem-solving.”
well, well, well…how about we continue the conversation about ‘career and college ready?’ My mental pebble in my Sunday slippers is this concept of training students for ‘jobs that don’t exist yet.’ The jobs exist now. Right now. The problem is companies don’t want to pay for employees to ‘do a series of non-routine tasks.’ They don’t want to pay anyone at all. Wages have been stagnant for decades, and though the job market has grown and unemployment is low, skilled trade workers are hard to find.
My older son is sitting on a double major in Russian and German, with a minor in Math, and is thinking about becoming a teacher. My younger son is attending a community college and working weekends as a custodian for a local school district. I have no idea what the future holds for them because I have no idea what my and my husband’s future holds. It’s been…stressful. The social safety nets are ripped, and the Herculean task of moving toward healthcare uncoupling from jobs seems impossible, no matter what progressive politicians promise. Lobbies and corporate interests are monied monsters. In other words, I don’t know what my sons are going ‘to do’ with their degrees.
So how do I “sell” education’s value to a group of 13 and 14 year olds who are well aware climate change is real and dangerous conspiracy theories become factual lies? When we have a curriculum that teaches the test questions, and not a lot of ‘creative problem solving?’ I am thinking the answer is right in front of my nose: ask them. Just–ask them. Here is what we ‘have” to learn, now let’s seek out why, and how it helps us–and add what we ‘want’ to learn. John Oliver’s quote is going to be my mission statement for teaching and creativity.
I’ll share my 99 Problems document, and keep asking ‘What if?’ as if our lives and futures depend on it. (Because it does.)
We teachers have full, wonderful lives outside of teaching. I think. Sure we do! YES! We most definitely do! And why let all the wonderful folks such as Barack Obama create a list!? Here’s my challenge, inspired by @jarredamato, the leader of #ProjectLit:
What if all leaders — politics, education, business, you name it — shared their own lists each year? https://t.co/6N9bkDI2aY
When a friend posted Obama’s list today, I immediately went to i-Tunes and grabbed some of the songs I liked. Dang, I used to be such an aficionado of new music! What happened?
What did we watch? Well, Black KKKlansman, Black Panther, Hereditary, A Quiet Place, Isle of Dogs, Bird Box, (read the book first, dang it!) Game Night (eye roll), Solo and whatever comes out on Netflix. Shows include Ozark, Sabrina, Black Mirror, Stranger Things, The Haunting of Hill House, Making a Murderer, Jessica Jones, Series of Unfortunate Events, Vikings, Game of Thrones, all of the American Horror Stories, Better Call Saul, Barry, and started Dark. (I feel like there are some missing, but oh well.)
Music
Some songs I added (not new to 2018 necessarily, but new to me):
In addition to consuming media, I like to create media, too! I love to write and make collage images.
@cmclymer tweeted this fun thing – what would your two accessories be?
A toy company makes a replica action figure of your likeness. What two accessories do they include?— Charlotte Clymer🏳️🌈 (@cmclymer) December 27, 2018
So thank you, Jarred and Charlotte, for some fun ideas. I’m not anyone important, but I am a teacher, and living my best, creative life helps me, my family, and my students. It is my personal oxygen mask.
Neil Gaiman spoke at Benaroya Hall on Sunday, November 18–my dear friend Wendy bought us tickets, treated me to dinner, and a lovely book. I can’t say I haven’t been spoiled like that in ages because my sweet friend Sharon put up with my rantings and insanity of two very bad, dark and confusing years.
Going out on a Sunday night in late fall is hazardous for a teacher, especially this teacher who is prone to insomnia and falls blissfully to sleep but wakes early in the wee hours. This is my third time hearing Gaiman speak, and he did not disappoint, and I’m sure he will forgive me if he knew I drifted off during some of his readings. In my defense, I had a bellyful of sourdough paste bolognese and it was warm and dark–and his voice. Oh, that voice of his–the cadence of an English garden–kind, colorful, but untamed and slightly dangerous. Fortunately, my inner writer homunculus took the watch and alerted me whenever he answered a question from the audience or discussed context. Many of the questions were about writing–and he said what I’ve been telling students for many years.
(Now if I can only tell myself. I don’t have writer’s block as much as writer’s sludge.)
But here are the big ones:
Write
Editing/Revising: read your work out loud to yourself. Read it with fresh ears/eyes. You will hear what needs to change.
Characters: describe and discover what each character wants. Therein lies the conflicts, and the story.
Use these three for reading, too:
Read
Read out loud and hear the voice of the writer
Characters: what does each character want? How do their desires and needs create conflict?
Every time I feel I have my Professor McGonagall-mojo in place, inevitably realize I am only a Trelawney. I want to be firm, peering over the edge of my spectacles, jumping in and of animal bodies with ease and precision (aka going from my awkward projector on the cart to the tiny weird screen, to the tiny space for the doc camera, etc.: the tech in my room is…uncomfortable). If I could shout out with my confident Scottish brogue, “TWENTY POINTS FOR FIRST PERIOD!” with a flick of my wand, oh what wouldn’t I give?
But alas, every day my practice leans toward the Professor Trelawney style, and unfortunately, for the Dolores Umbridge’s of the world (of education) this is –not good. For me. But like Trelawney, I have a few tricks in my sturdy tapestry bag:
I know my content area (even if tea leaves and tarot cards are to ELA like potions are to Science: ELA content is confusing for more linear-minded folks)
I love my students. And I know it takes time and the small moments that can’t be documented to build relationships and trust. Expecting it to happen overnight doesn’t honor the humanity in teaching.
I love my colleagues: and a huge thank you to a mentor in the building who jumped in and helped me with one particular lesson.
Tessomancy 101: your first draft will not be your best. Pour another cup.
One of the cumulating assignments (not a project, mind you, an assignment) is a traditional essay. Here is the prompt:
Consider the meaning of the novel’s title, Inside Out and Back Again. How does this title relate to the universal experience of fleeing and finding home, and in what ways is Ha’s experience a specific example of this universal experience?
Essayius Patronus, yo! This is a high cognitive, rigorous and steep prompt. Deconstruct how much it’s asking for the second month of school from 8th-grade students (who are still essentially 7th-grade students): it’s…a lot.
But that’s my job, and what I love doing: how to build a scaffold so that no one falls off, or at least can get back on to meet the requirements.
Remember: this doesn’t happen overnight
Throughout the course of the novel and other readings, we curated quotes and moments
This was one interactive lesson: quote pages and comments.
Spend a fair amount of time having them just connect concepts to themselves.
We wrote a hook to ease them into the larger prompt about a time they moved or transitioned. This is a human experience. Some have personal stories that are similar to Ha’s: they are indeed, refugees, immigrants, and moving closer to home, many students have encountered big transitions of emotional lives.
And this is where my occasional Professor Trelawney got something right: one of our building mentors who frequents our afternoon classes helped me model the writing: I interviewed him as I tell all students –that’s what writers do–they ask questions for themselves and put the answers–and more questions–on the page.
Mr. Sudon helped me with this:
We wrote the hook first, then spent a class on the introductory/thesis paragraph (we had talked about thesis prior), and then each day as a class decided what parts to focus on next. Here’s where we landed:
Hook
Introductory/Thesis/Claim paragraph
Body Paragraph: Focus on Ha leaving/fleeing Saigon
Every day I provided sentence starters for the paragraphs (practice and identifying what they are doing as writers helped). Students wrote a little every day, by hand, then typed up what they could in a Google Doc, and submitted what they have done so far.
I know a few fell off the scaffold.
And to get them back on, I’ll put together a paragraph-by-paragraph resource document for them, and they can finish on their own. I’m thinking of doing stations next week
Station Ideas:
If you still need to type your draft
If you still need to write your draft
If you are nearly completed with the essay, need to make a few changes, and refer to the rubric
Ready to move on: provide enrichment ideas (use my Reading Road Trip blog for this purpose)
Thinking sooner than later, because it’s time to bring some magic into the mix.
“You can laugh! But people used to believe there were no such things as the Blibbering Humdinger or the Crumple-Horned Snorkack!”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
PS: This past week was full of Crumple-Horned Snorkbacks, too:
*dog poop tracked in my already smelly room
*someone threw three students’ notebooks in the girls’ bathroom trash (I replaced them all, and am buying cool markers for the students whose notebooks were trashed)
*many confusing schedule changes and rearranging of students without consultation, discussion or teamwork –here’s to that getting better.
Ok, America. Your July 4th/Independence Day thing is coming up. Here are a few things that I think you should re-read or read for the first time. I have included audio where possible so you don’t have any excuses. 1/ pic.twitter.com/lRMiYroS1s
I sent my request out to the good educators on Twitter, tagging @ncte and @writingproject, and received a few ideas. Some switched up the medium, such as “do a video essay” and that’s partly what I was looking for, but not quite. I’m looking for essays that don’t feel like the rigid essays of “school” — one of the most unnatural forms of structured writing.
This post doesn’t have answers yet, or the curated list. It’s a start, a placeholder for the process. My goal is to encourage and foster true excitement about what essay writing is, and reading of essays. Though I have bristled over the structured, formulaic writing of essays it’s a love of reading essays that motivates me. I don’t want students to hate writing. None of us do. So why do we keep ignoring all the rich content and mentor texts that are shared? Not a single writer uses the five-paragraph structure. I can understand its use as a foundation, but we need to have some hard conversations about when to take the scaffold away.
Scaffolds and formulaic writing carry an enormous responsibility: the responsibility to go away. Be gone! BANISHED! They must serve their purpose, and then skedaddle. But how do we teachers help students know when to take off the training wells? The paradox of scaffolding helps them get started but also sends the message that they are not capable of thinking on their own. We’ve been using the same scaffold for two years now in my building and I’ve lost my own ability to take off the training wheels and ride freely, and show students how to do so.
Recognizing this while giving feedback to students this morning, my mission became clear: to find ways to dismantle scaffolds.
TO THE INTERNET!
Well, heck. When I research this, most of the sites advise how to scaffold with students, not to what to do to tear them down so students can do this independently. And after twelve years of teaching middle school students, they will push back when you want them to grow and become more independent. That push-back is a strong indicator of progress and growth.
What I am going to try this morning when I confer with this student and others who may need this help, is to be straight-forward and have them do the tried-and-true method of reading it out loud, see what sounds boring and formulaic to them, and what are they really, truly trying to say: what is the “so what?” of their thinking/learning. The “So What?” was one of my eureka moments years ago, and like all good insight, turns out it’s shared by many. I came across this document (So What/Now What) and in journalism why it matters.
It’s 12:15 PM on November 10th. Do you know where your NaNoMo novel is? Yeah, about that. Good intentions aside, I have done everything but just sit and type. I made a video. Updated grades. Reheated a bowl of chili mac (that will come back to haunt me), and read a few Tweets.
But two things grabbed my brain this morning:
The epiphany that teachers enjoy creating lessons for themselves and having agency, just like students. This has nothing to do with the rest of the post directly, just needed to remember this.
We must flip reading around to writing, or balance it much better.
For some time now, my professional opinion held the research of the National Writing Project that writing helps us become better readers. Reading helps us become better writers, too, but somehow that message got lost in translation.
Summaries, Claim, Evidence and Reasoning paragraphs, Short Answer Responses, etc. are not ‘writing instruction.’ They are a form of writing, of course, living in the Land of Explanatory, formulaic, structured texts, but alas, really do not help or support writing instruction.
And, as one who prides herself on good writing instruction, it’s hard. It’s really hard.
Until it’s not.
Do you know why middle school students give up on their writing lives? Well, wouldn’t you if no one really cared to hear what you had to say? If you didn’t get the answer “right” or scrambled madly for text evidence just to get the dang assignment done? (I asked my students this week if they ever just grab text evidence randomly and every one giggled and confessed yes.) This is not any teachers’ fault –not at all. I am recommending that we teach them how to find their OWN “text evidence” first. Their own stories, insights, moments, etc.
“A 2010 study by the Carnegie Corporation called Writing to Read found ample evidence that writing can dramatically improve reading ability. The authors discovered that combining reading and writing instruction by having students write about what they read, explicitly teaching them the skills and processes that go into creating text, and increasing the amount of writing they do results in increased reading comprehension as well as improved writing skill.”
I know this so well. This message is inscribed in my heart. I passed along Writing to Read to past administrators, who’ve come and gone, and I am not sure current ones want or need it. I’ll ask. In the meantime, I’ll take a look at works and reformulate them to fit the digital instruction:
The current test focuses so much on reading, it’s true, but not all of it. Here is the brief write portion of the test, just in case anyone wants it, (even new teachers).
Aziz Ansari recently put himself on an internet diet, and maybe the rest of us should follow suit.
I bought the full-meal deal from Freedom a year ago, and it’s been buggy ever since, and the customer support is confusing, but I’ll keep trying. I’ve tried to limit myself: making jewelry again, just reading (though it is on an i-pad/Kindle), and doing other things…but it’s been tough. All I’ve succeeded in doing is making a mess. This next week I’ll focus on finishing up the computer technology curriculum and nailing down the first few weeks of ELA. My schedule next year will be a bit different, and I’m trying to be flexibly- proactive. (Whatever that means!) It was time I went through my own digital hoarding and pulled out some of the best articles/ideas.
My best skill, my most beloved gift, is teaching writing.
Hold that thought.
This morning it occurred to me that my task every summer is not to just ‘take a break,’ or enjoy the nice weather, but to clean up my mental lag, too. (Notice how I used the words “task” and “break” in the same sentence? That is the paradox of teachers’ years.) Little phrases or incidents roll around in my noggin until they lose their centrifugal force and drop off of my mind. All the little slings and arrows, missteps and frustrating meetings and discussions, worrisome students, and…other stuff. Just. Other stuff. It takes awhile for it to go down my mental head drain, and then a few weeks in, right about now, I’m feeling confident again, have my sense of agency and rest, knowing in those few weeks until school begins again I’ll be refreshed and capable. And more importantly, take back some modicum of control over my responses to outside forces. That’s is what these weeks are for. That and dentist appointments.
Mr. Vilson says many wise things, strong things–but not radical things. We teachers, who spend hours searching for the best and better ways to practice our profession, do not need permission to own what we know, our expertise, and our talents.
If this happens to our most visible spokespeople, what does that say about the rest of us? We have systems that constantly bombard us with deficit modeling.I’ve sat in a billion PDs where we’re told that we’re failing our kids, even when the kids themselves say otherwise. The person saying it is usually a professional developer who isn’t worth their weight in whiteboard ink. Politicians tell us that we’re not yielding results with measures that are both inappropriate and wildly unstable. Then, they turn around and tell us they can’t alleviate and eradicate oppressions like poverty, institutional racism, gender inequity, and the prison injustice system. We’re told by any number of folks that they’d left the classroom for greener pastures but still taut the “teacher” title and get to speak on behalf of us. (Nah.) We get stacks of books from folks we love (few) and folks we have no love for (many), but the letters “Dr.” or “Ph. D” legitimized why a district spent thousands of dollars on folks who may or may not have better pedagogical knowledge than the folks being handed these books.
Can I get an “Amen?!”
He’s not suggesting bragging for bragging’s sake. The most skilled professionals know it is safe to say “I don’t know, but let’s collaborate and figure this out together…” No one knows everything, nor should they. There is no growth, no creativity, from a vacuum in professional development space. I’ve said many times that there are those who know how to naturally, seamlessly collaborate: they ask questions not assuming the answers and have the flexible thinking skills to roll new thoughts in their heads like Play-Doh and create something new.
“In our quest to demonstrate humility, we can tip over into modesty, where we don’t acknowledge the fullness of the gifts we’ve been given. We don’t have to pretend to have it all together, either. I’m more suggesting that we should be allowed to express the depth of what we do and put our strongest foot in the work we’re already doing with our students and communities.”
Now I am ashamed to say this is my first time knowing about Jose Vilson, and he is the real deal. Go to his page and read his bio. I’m an NBCT, too, and an NWP Fellow. And if he says I should own my expertise, then own it I shall. It’s for my students anyway, because it gives me the joy to see them grow and find their voices, too. That simple. I know how to teach writing, and help students become writers. That simple.
And I have made a promise to myself, that if I am ever at a meeting like one that occurred in December, I will respectfully, politely, leave. It won’t be an act of defiance, but self-respect, and respect for our work.
“Teachers who do the work model justice in this way. When given a platform, the best of us can look at the rest of the society eye-to-eye, feet firmly planted, and let truth sprout from within. That’s the work, and if a teacher’s already there, then they should take a mic and pump up the volume. Shake the corridors.”
It’s 12:15 PM on November 10th. Do you know where your 