Writing Marathon

This afternoon my friend Donna and I did a writing marathon, which was introduced to me in my Level 1 Iowa Writing Project class, and I just read about in Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, which I highly recommend for folks who need to get their writing habit back off the ground.  She's a big proponent of writing practice--daily or near-daily writing that sort of cleans your insides out so you can begin writing coherence.  Thinking in this way has opened doors for me this summer to just write for understanding and memory-keeping.  It's been great.

The idea of a writing marathon is that you write with others, and after set amounts of time, you share what you've written without commenting.  Then you write some more.  In my class, we also moved between sessions to see if new locations would lend new inspiration.  Donna and I noticed that our pieces were a little cyclical.  Though my second piece didn't answer questions she presented in her first, there were definite connections.  This meant that we had a few themes in our writing:  teaching, mothers, death.  I highly recommend this activity for getting some words on the page and pushing your thinking.

I thought I'd share a line or two from each location.  These were all pretty stream-of-consciousness, not focused on craft, journal-like entries (I did revise a bit before posting), but I appreciated some of the thinking that came up.

Stop 1:  Cedar Falls Public Library.
"I so wholeheartedly believe in the institution of public school as the purveyor of upward mobility and the cornerstone of democracy that it saddens me to be worrying about the unintended curriculum that kills curiosity so much of the time."

Stop 2:  Hillside Cemetery, sitting on the bluff of the Cedar River.
Comparisons between teaching and farming: "Seeing the potential is necessary.  The seeds will grow into something stronger, and you have to maintain faith that it will happen in order to continue putting resources into it."

Stop 3:  The Hearst Center
Here I was playing around with verbs and titles of works.  I ended up working on a fiction sketch from the choices in my list:
"I saw the other monks whisper as I refused dinner again.  There is nothing to say, which is why I remain silent except for chanting in the evening as prayer.

There is no solace from thinking about the way they treated Brother Thomas.  None.  He was fourteen, taken in as an orphan.  He was confused.  His elders should have reached out to him in love."

Stop 4:  Cup of Joe
Here we ate treats and talked, so we did less writing, but we did finish with about ten minutes.  The exciting thing about this stop was that I got to start a new notebook.  I filled up one notebook between April and now, which is the most I've written in a while.  There are some good seeds there, and it gives me some motivation to finish this next one.
 "Equations are freeing as problems with minimal consequences if we can only value the wonder of a solution and the human brain.   Kids always look at me like I'm crazy when I impart how joyful learning is--how exciting that they get to come all day and learn for free!"

So there are some snippets from our afternoon of writing.  I think this could work with any creative outlet--drawing, painting, photography, and it's a great way to set aside time to do it.  Any other fun suggestions to keep creative juices flowing?

Summer has arrived.

This is why I love summer:

I have time in the morning to make steel-cut oats, even if I didn't pre-soak them, and I have a stocked refrigerator and pantry so I can throw blueberries in and top them with walnuts and yogurt.

The relaxed mode of summer is ideal for reflection, but I've found over the past several summers that I can easily whittle away at my free time and feel like I didn't accomplish anything.  Now that the wedding is over, my scheduled class meetings are over, and I'm home for five weeks without scheduled activity, it's time to think through how I want to spend my days.  One problem I have had in the past is that I let myself do things I just want to do (like watch the Sopranos) that don't have any impact on me meeting my long-term goals.  I wanted to articulate some of my goals for the summer here so that I set out to work toward them.  I also considered the best way to meet my goals and thought about scheduling time each day on separate components, but I don't think that's the best way to go for me.  What I'd like to do instead is schedule each week on Monday that includes time for specific components.  I also know that one key thing for me is to included unashamed free time so that I don't feel like I'm scheduling my summer away.

These are the general goals I articulated earlier in my notebook, by category:

Cook:

*Bake our bread all summer.  There's no reason to buy when I have so much time on my hands.

*Preserve something from our CSA bounty--spaghetti sauce, pickles, corn... I'm not sure what, but I want to freeze or can something to use at a later time.

Read:

*Continue generating a list of "to-reads."

*Compose annotated bibliography for new master's research and start working through it.

*Read Canterbury Tales and Frankenstein in preparation for my M.A. Comps in February.

House: 

*Deep Clean the whole place.  This includes our disgusting windows that no one has bothered to clean in years.

*Make the living room, master bedroom, and porch desirable places to hang out. (They sort of feel like we just moved in.)

*Re-paint the upstairs bathroom.  (Much needed as 100 years of paint is currently peeling off the walls.  I believe I will tackle this next week.)

*Hang art and photos.

Write:

*I'd like to figure out a writer's notebook routine that works.  I think this will involve research of different ways to work on it and seek which I like the best.

*Write a few pieces about teaching and unions that I've been thinking about.

*Polish and submit at least 3 pieces for publication somewhere.  I had a student pressure me about publication this year--"It's so easy to submit," she said.  "You have no excuse."  She is right.  I can only be rejected if I actually try to submit something.

Teach:

*Writing for Publication syllabus/plan

*Block Standards into quarters and figure out my portfolio grading system

*Work on revamping first month of lessons

*Read as much YA Literature as possible to prep for new year.

Other:

*Run a 5K sometime in September (I need to look at possibilities and sign up for a race.)

Goals for the Week:

1.  Finish cleaning and putting away wedding gifts, recycle all packaging, and finish thank you notes.

2.  Try writing by hand on a daily basis with sketches.

3.  Go to library to pick up copies of books for comps and books about student reflection; complete as many requirements as possible for summer class.

4.  Pick out paint chips for upstairs bath and research steps I will need to take to properly repair, clean, and prime surfaces.

5.  Wash five windows in the house.  I have to start somewhere.

Ideas for Next Year

It seems that every year around this time I start waking up in the night with ideas for things I want to change about next year.  I guess the time is here because this is the second time in two weeks that I’ve woken up with an urge to “Go write this down so you don’t forget it by the morning!”  This is good because it helps keep my teaching fresh all the way to the end of the year because I’m flooded with new ideas.  This is bad because it impacts my sleep.

I’m thinking about one major change in my English 8 class, and this is primarily in the way I assess my students.  I have never felt like the regular “each assignment is worth X points” and “you lose X percentage if assignments are late” is the best way to assess, even if the assignments are designed to assess skills. That way of measuring student growth puts so much in the hands of the teacher and so little in the hands of the student.  What happens when a kid doesn’t learn the intended skill of the assignment, or (gasp!) the child learns that skill through an experience in another class or through an unintended experience in mine?  Shouldn’t they have the opportunity to make the connection that they have learned something important?  Reflection and self-evaluation are key for kids to make sense of their own learning, but they are sometimes left on the back burner.  I do a good job of asking students to reflect on their writing process, but I don’t do enough daily and weekly reflection.

 I haven’t had enough experience in teaching to really consider assessment and shaking up the entire process until now.  Coincidentally, we are interviewing principal candidates right now, and the one who we spoke with yesterday mentioned that he thinks teachers start really developing in terms of assessment during years 5-7, which is where I am.

What I’d like to do next year is really move toward portfolio-based assessment in a way I never have before.  This is my basic idea for a grade breakdown:

1. 70% (or so) of their grade comes from their portfolio.  This is how I would structure portfolios (on paper or online):
1.  As the year begins, I’ll share all the objectives I have for them throughout the year.  I plan to use the Iowa Core standards next year as a test run to see how it works in the classroom as I serve on our district literacy committee for implementation.  (Our curriculum in English is so inconsistent in my district I don’t think this will be a problem.)  I think I’ll divide the goals into quarters as well so they are manageable both for students and me.
2. I will share the intended skill objectives for each assignment, and assignments will have due dates like they always have.
3. For each skill in the curriculum (which will correspond with separate grades in the grade book), I imagine that kids can demonstrate “competency” or “excellent” or something like that.  I think that competency would earn them 8.5/10 points or similar to “B” range, and excellent would earn them 10/10.  I’m not sure I like the idea of offering different levels of “meeting the skill” but I can picture work in my head right now that meets the lowest skill objective and work that surpasses it.  I think there should be a difference though I still want the emphasis to be on mastery and learning.
4. Every 2-3 weeks, students will look at the work they’ve completed and write reflections justifying how the assignments in their portfolio justify that they’ve met the goals.
5. Students can demonstrate that they’re meeting the skill objectives at any point throughout the quarter.  Then the question becomes—what do kids do when/if they show mastery of all the skills early?  But that is something to hash out another time.

2. The remaining 30% of the grade would come from “Responsible/Desirable Student Behaviors” or some similarly phrased term.  This is where I can communicate with students and parents how the kids are demonstrating responsibility and good work habits.  I envision the grade book to have between 5 and 10 categories each quarter, the largest of which comes from turning in work on time.  This category would start out with full points (so every kid actually starts with an “A”) and is a bank from which I deduct points for late and missing assignments.  There would be some formula for this that I will determine at a later date.  Other categories I’ve been thinking about are collaborating in groups, organizing materials, taking notes at opportune times, and taking risks that value learning over grades. I’d like to look at research this summer that helps me figure out what the most important things in this category are, and by second quarter, I’d like to have students defining a couple of these categories for themselves based on what they know they need to work on.  It would be awesome to reward growth in these categories rather than have all work in this area be punitive and tacked on to other skill-based work. 

Some real strengths I see in this system are the information it gives kids and parents about their learning and the way it puts some of the “behind the scenes” parts of teaching out on the table.  I think having to share with kids why they are doing what they’re doing on a daily basis will help me make sure I’m using time wisely and connecting all of our work back to the overarching goals.

I see problems in the system as well, and the largest is time.  This system will take time to implement and time for kids to reflect on their learning and how what they’ve done demonstrates that they’ve learned something.  I believe it will be time well-spent, but I know there will be times in the school year that I don’t want to give the time necessary. 

Teacher friends/parents/interested parties—what do you think?  What would you have liked/disliked about this type of assessment as a student?

A Few Rough Ideas...

This is the draft of a piece I've been working through to articulate some of the ideas I've been thinking about regarding teachers unions and administration.

I try to instill the power of words in my students every single day.  Whether we’re reading and discussing a character’s motivations and what we can learn from them or working to articulate our own ideas, the gift of communication and what it can do for human beings is front and center in our classroom. 

            As a young teacher, I’ve been in this business for only five years, and in each of those years the politics prevalent in public education overwhelm, invigorate, and flabbergast me.  I can’t get too close to these politics, because they make me feel sick and they take away from my work in the classroom.  I’m also drawn to the politics because so much of it impacts my daily work with children.  At any rate, the more I learn, the less I understand about why teacher’s unions and the administrative side can’t better communicate.

            We are in bad budget times as I write this, which certainly heightens the tension.  Our district is looking to cover about $500,000 they are short to fully fund next year’s budget (they have about $4,000,000 in cash reserves, but that’s a topic to delve more deeply into at another time).  The good news is that there are few teacher reductions.  Unfortunately, cuts have been handed off to others: associates for general education classrooms and school nurses.  Our district is looking at outsourcing our school nurses to public health to save $60,000-$70,000 a year.  That’s the salary and benefits of one long-term teacher.  In the long run, this doesn’t seem worth it.

            What makes less sense is that if our union and our administration can’t agree on a settlement by Wednesday, the bargaining will go to arbitration.  I don’t really understand what that means, but I know that lawyers get involved, and according to our chief negotiator, it will cost the district $60,000-$80,000 a year.

            Um, what?? Common sense tells me that if the two sides don’t go to arbitration, we could save our nurses.  Our chief negotiator said that if the district will give us 4%, this won’t be necessary.  I said, “What if you go to 3%?” 

            He said, “I won’t.”  This, to me, also doesn’t make sense.

            Ever since I was a kid, I have been able to see the gray in nearly everything.  I can never make a decision because I can see too many sides and too many perspectives.  I feel that way now.  I see Sam’s point of view that if the union settles too low, we’ll lose the ability to attract quality teachers to our area.  If we drop all family insurance coverage for our teachers who are the single earners in their family, we’ll lose good people too.  There’s a union mentality that if you give a little one year, you’ll never get it back and you’ll always settle for less.  I also wonder what the district would be able to do, and what they would do, if we settled a little lower.  Would we save nurses?  Would we buy more computers for our kids?  Or would administrators earn big raises?  The trust is so broken between teachers unions and administrators that no one knows and no one will believe the other side is acting in the best interest of the students.

            Because I’m young and naïve and the teacher in me has always wanted to see the best in people, I believe both sides are acting in what they believe is in the best interest of the students.  I have to believe this, because I can’t physically work in an environment where I believe the leadership is greedy and manipulative. 

            Teachers unions are getting a lot of bad press these days, and some of it is deserved.  Some of it isn’t. I’d really like to write about the complexities of all this in a way that brings folks together and helps them understand the other side’s point of view. 

            Sam wants to step down as chief negotiator after this year, and I thought maybe I would be a good negotiator—I can see all the sides of problems.  That’s what ACTUAL negotiation is.  But I would be terrible in that role—I’d give in to a pay cut assuming my kids would have a consistent nurse in the building, my members would be pissed, the administration would spend the money on something else because you can’t actually bargain to save jobs, and kids would end up worse off because their teachers wouldn’t feel valued.  Epic fail as chief negotiator would be my legacy.  That’s the little scenario that plays out in my mind.

            So, how can I negotiate?  How can I contribute?  With the power of words that I teach every day.  I’m throwing this piece (it’s rough, I haven’t fully developed ideas or thoroughly revised) to the small world of people I care about on my blog because I want to make it a public goal that I write about this.  I have these ideas floating around for chapters in a book, how I can make it fit together, what research I need to do, and while I’m not sure what the timeframe will be or what roadblocks there might be, I need to articulate this goal and share these ideas while they’re so fresh and I’m so fired up. 

            I would appreciate any feedback or points of interest or questions you have that would fuel the fire.

Silly Goals...

I always have to laugh at myself when I say things like, "I plan to write a post five days a week," and then I don't even maintain that for the first week.

I know that I still need to put up pictures of the dining room.  I will, promise.

I'm coming up from the craziness that is parent-teacher conference week and feeling really good and really inspired by teaching and life in general.  (Oh yeah, my job is safe for next year.)

Last night over drinks I discussed some aspects of education with some wise teachers who have been at this for a while, and I have some interesting ideas for some new pieces to write, which will question the adversary between teachers and administration, how it got that way, and how it continues to impact kids negatively while neither side will budge.  I'm very curious about this and interested in exploring it.  I'll try to share along the way.

How clearly you see everything...

I've been thinking along these lines, from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, one of my favorite books:

"The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself. This that I see now, she thought, to see no more this way. Oh, the last time how clearly you see everything; as though a magnifying light had been turned on it. And you grieve because you hadn't held it tighter when you had it every day. What had Gramma Mary Rommely said? "To look at everything always as though you were seeing it for the first or last time: Thus is your time on Earth filled with glory."

There are more significant clues this week that my job might change or be eliminated for next year.  Sad.  It's quite interesting how knowing time is/might be limited can make any circumstance more beautiful, including eighth graders right before Spring Break.  Lessons to learn from Gramma Mary Rommely.

"Helix" by Banana Yoshimoto

We were assigned this story for class this week.

This story is about a writer with a hangover who seems ambivalent and disconnected from his life, primarily his girlfriend, until she tells him she's considering going to a seminar with a friend that promises to clean out your bad memories.  This seems to wake him up and make him think about the possibility that he could be erased from her life, despite the fact that she reassures him otherwise: "I promise that I'll be able to recover all my memories of you...Even when I have crushes on other men, I always see you in the curve of their eyebrows" (654, Art of the Story, Edited by Halpern).

Oh, literature.  I've always said that I love teaching reading and writing because they are ways to get at the bigger picture of life, and this story is yet another example of the way a great text can provide a little life lesson.  Reading this story reminded me a lot of the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.  When I saw that movie for the first time, I bawled through the entire thing because it made me think about all the things I was taking for granted in my various relationships.  This story is a nice wake up call for that same reason.  Also, some gems of language, as listed above.  I'll be happy to lend out my copy of the anthology at the end of the semester.