Sacred Writing Time

This is my second year using Corbett Harrison's Sacred Writing Time in my classroom. Sacred Writing Time is simply ten minutes every single day of free journaling time. Students can write about anything at all: a story, a poem, their day, a letter, anything. To go with it, Harrison has made a daily slide containing a writing prompt, quote of the day, word of the day, and a silly fact. (You can find those in his TPT store if you are interested.)

A lot of my students get really into Sacred Writing Time, and a lot of them don't. I think the lack of structure sometimes makes it hard for some of them to sink into it. But every once in awhile, it finally clicks for one of them. Where there were once random thoughts, suddenly there are personal essays. Where there were once only a few sentences, suddenly there is a three page story.

Yesterday, one of my girls came in steaming. She was upset with another student for some sort of perceived slight earlier in the day. Her first question was if she was allowed to use swear words in her writing. (I don't encourage this, but I do allow it as long as they are not sharing it with other students. I want them to have complete creative freedom during this time.) She set to work, writing three paragraphs in our ten minutes about how angry she was at this other student, and at the end of our writing time, she announced, "Hey! I'm not angry anymore!"

Finally, she gets it. Some of my students never write epic poetry, stories, or sweeping take-downs of the injustices of our world. But using writing to feel peace, to come back from the brink when all you want to do is scream? That is just as good.

Picture Books in the Secondary Classroom

This is the first year I have used picture books in my sixth grade classroom, and I am KICKING myself for not doing it sooner! As secondary teachers, sometimes we look down on "little kid" books, but the more of them I read, the more I realize how valuable they are to building classroom community, positive reading experiences, and background knowledge.

This week, we learned about personification, and I read The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors out loud to all of my classes. If you want twenty-five sixth graders to pipe down quickly, read a picture book out loud. Really. When I read picture books, all of my big tough twelve year olds turn into little, wide-eyed children, as if the classroom management fairy has visited and sprinkled them all with magical hormone-zapping pixie dust. Better yet, because they feel so secure with picture books, they start to make more inferences, ask more critical questions, and dig deeper into the layers of meaning hidden in the art. As English teachers, what more can we ask for?

My students don't always remember off the cuff what personification is. But when I say, "Remember the book we read?" they come up with it immediately! The joy of reading this silly book has burned the meaning of personification into their minds more permanently than any worksheet or Google Slide. (Bonus: There is STRONG vocabulary in this book like victorious, foe, depart, adhesive, and more. These may not seem like tough words to you, but for a lot of my students, they are, and this book is an accessible way to learn them.)

When I first tried this strategy at the beginning of the year, I was worried my students would think it was too babyish. Instead, something wonderful happened. The minute I stopped treating picture books like "baby" books, so did my students. Students who won't read a novel will read thirty picture books in a month and will digest them with more care and critical thinking than any young adult novel I put in front of them. Students who scoff at traditional biographies have learned all about Jacques Cousteau, Jean Henri Fabre, and Kate Sessions through the picture book versions of their lives. Though my classroom contains hundreds of novels, my collection of picture books are the most frequently read and loved books in the room.

Do you use picture books? What results have you seen? What fears do you have about using picture books in your secondary classroom?

An Unpopular Opinion About Classroom Management

First, a few truths I would like to acknowledge:

1.) Relationships are the cornerstone of quality teaching.
2.) Children of color are disproportionately punished in our schools, and that is not okay.
3.) Severe punishments, especially when used as a first resort, are not usually effective.

Keeping all of that in mind, I'd like to express an unpopular opinion: in some circumstances, raised voices and punitive measures are okay and necessary. 

All the time? No. As a first response? Of course not. But I'm seeing a growing number of people on Twitter in particular arguing that we should never under any circumstances employ these practices, replacing them instead with restorative circles, letter writing, journaling, helping out adults in the building, etc. I'm not a "tough love" teacher. I have worked my hardest to implement restorative justice and positive interventions this year, and what I've found is that this works perfectly for about two-thirds of my students. For the other third, it makes no difference at all. Somewhere along the line of this well-intentioned philosophy of compassion and understanding, we've forgotten that all students are different and respond to different strategies.

Take, for example, my older brother. While I was not alive for his early years, my mom talks about it often. Having lived a punitive childhood herself, my mom was determined to take the gentle approach with the two of us. However, what she quickly learned is that my brother simply did not think she really meant it unless she was screaming. (I, on the other hand, would usually burst into tears if you looked at me funny.) Same upbringing, radically different responses.

I am seeing a lot of the same in my students. For whatever reason, (upbringing, brain chemistry, some babysitter they had once that looked like me, I don't know) a large proportion of my students just don't think I really mean it if there is not yelling or a traditional punishment attached. (If this is the part where you start asking yourself if I've tried x, y, or z strategy instead, yes. I've tried it. More than once.) Despite that, I persevered. I kept speaking to them privately and quietly, validating their feelings, asking them what they thought needed to be done to repair our classroom community. But over time, I started to see troubling things in my students' journals. Frustrated kids writing how they hate how teachers "allow" students to disrespect them, not understanding why kids are "getting away" with certain behaviors. Of course, these students weren't getting away with anything. The consequences simply look different from what they are accustomed to. But that's not the message the rest of the class is receiving, and the consequence is that some of them are trying to test what they, too, can "get away" with.

The fact of the matter is that some of my students do not speak this language yet. I imagine they won't until this idea filters into most homes and classrooms. Am I going to abandon restorative justice and trauma-sensitive practices? No. But I'm also not going to feel bad for occasionally making my anger known to the entire class. I'm not going to feel bad for assigning a student a detention when repeated letters, discussions, and calls home have been ineffective. And I'm not going to feel bad for letting a kid get a little embarrassed by being in trouble. Embarrassment exists for a reason. It helps us understand when we've messed up and violated the standards of our community. It helps us realize we've make a mistake, fix it, and move on.

I'm not calling for this practice to be abandoned. I think it's a great thing! But we have got to stop teacher-shaming each other and recognize that all students are different. There is (almost) no room for "never" or "always" when you work with humans, and we should acknowledge that.

A Day of High Hopes

One of the most meaningful experiences of my education was the day that my AP Composition teacher asked us to help her revise her application essay for an award she'd been nominated for. Being a part of her writing process was empowering. I had never experienced such a level footing with an educator, and the feeling stuck with me for a long time.

After yesterday's post, it occurred to me that a similar opportunity was presenting itself. On other occasions, my students have really enjoyed when I've shared my writing. We just started a figurative language unit, and my poem used many of the terms we were practicing. So, I copied and pasted that bad boy into a Google Doc, slapped on a space for instructions and student comments and passed it out.

This is the part where I wish I could tell you that it was an incredible life-changing, relationship-building experience that highlighted the importance of being a good writing role model. If you like being inspired, you can stop here and pretend that's what happened.

It's not like it was a catastrophe. My students did a good job of ferreting out the figurative language, and some of their comments were pretty funny. Many of them had a problem with it not rhyming, which I thought was an archetype we had outgrown as a culture. (Past years have not taken issue with free verse poetry in the same way.) But was it the spectacular lesson I imagined? Not really. It was just okay.

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day!

Children Lie to Me

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about how Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson changed my thinking about lying. That idea has been rattling around in my head for some time trying to become a poem. I don't think this is the final draft, but it's getting close:

Children Lie to Me

Children lie to me
all the time
about their homework or the weekend
or what they really think of William Carlos Williams,
and I keep asking for more.

Lie to me,
but develop it.

Who was at the park? What did they want?
How is the squirrel symbolic of your deepest held desires,
and how does it reconcile itself with the greater progression
of your development as a literary being?

A good lie, after all,
is a germ of a story, just waiting
to be spread, smeared from hand to hand.
And children make such good carriers.

Lie to me,
but tell it strong.
Arm the lie with color and feeling.

Tell me about the dog,
how your mom threatens to get rid of him even though
you both know she loves him more than you do.
Tell me how his nails click-clacked on the laminate,
how he whined, his shiny eyes watering
as he realized how he had betrayed you.
Tell me about the low trill, half-growl, half-whimper
as you tugged your papers, bit by bit, from his jaws,
trails of spit smearing the blue pen,
hoping against hope that I'll believe your excuse.

Well, I don't.
But I liked your story.
Turn it in tomorrow.

Your Questions About Boarding School Answered

Happy Saturday!

For the couple of people who asked, my evening with my friends last night went great! My only regret is bringing a drawing-based game to a party with three art teachers. (Think like the game Telephone, but with pictures.)

Truthfully, this game is more fun with at least one bad drawer.

However, that's just not what I feel drawn to write about today. (No pun intended.) Yesterday, a friend commented asking about boarding school, and this is a question I get a lot from both adults and students, so here are the basics:

Q1: Did you really go to boarding school?

A1: Yes! I attended the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities in Muncie, IN during my junior and senior years of high school. These are the only two years the school offers. 

Q2: Why did you go? Were you a "bad child"? Were your parents trying to get rid of you?

A2: Nope. The Academy is one of several public boarding schools in the country. They exist to combat the "brain drain" of bright students fleeing rural states for the coasts. I went to The Academy because I just wasn't being challenged at my home high school. I was also a very serious kid and was craving a social life with other students who were as into school and academia as I was (hence the long loss of contact with my hometown friends). 

Q3: Did you miss home?

A3: Most of the time, no. (Sorry, Mom.) Sometimes, yes, especially during my senior year when I was dealing with college applications. We'd have three day weekends once per month, so we could spend some time at home. However, The Academy did dissuade me from applying to the Ivy League. By senior year, I knew I wanted to stay close to home, so I went to Northwestern and then moved back to Indiana after graduation. 

Q4: Wasn't it expensive?

A4: Nope! Since it's a public school, they charge a modest room and board fee that covers all tuition, housing, food, etc. The charge has risen a bit since I went, but when I was there, my parents were probably saving money over keeping me at home. 

Q5: Did you wear uniforms?

A5: No. Pajama day was every day. And our teachers had offices in the basement of the dorm. It was pretty typical to see kids talking to teachers in their slippers. 

Q6: What was it like?

A6: This is the question I get the most, and the answer is that it was incredible. I wouldn't trade my two years at that school for anything. While we were still heavily supervised and bound to curfews and some other pretty restrictives rules (no cars, mandatory "face check" at 6:30 and 10:30 every day, mandatory study sessions every week night your first quarter), we also had a lot of freedoms more similar to what college students experience. Our schedules were college-like, in that you might have a 10 am class, a 2 pm class and a 3 pm class, or two classes in the morning and then nothing until 4:00. We had full run of Ball State facilities and could go anywhere the bus or our feet would take us as long as we were back for curfew. We learned pretty quickly that if you hung out at the student center Starbucks early in the morning on Saturdays, you'd catch them training new hires and could get free slightly-wrong drinks. 

     It's funny; I never refer to The Academy as "high school." High school is where I went freshman and sophomore year. In my head, The Academy is more like pre-college. It's a place where I learned how to manage my time and my identity. My whole life, my self-image revolved around being the smart kid. That's impossible to do at a school full of high-octane perfectionists. I had to really look inside myself and find what nourished my mind and my soul the most. I am not sure I would have learned that lesson anywhere else.

     It was our eighth grade English teacher, Mrs. Drake, who first encouraged my older brother to apply to The Academy. She knew he wasn't going to get everything he needed in our hometown. I think about that a lot, how she put his needs and his welfare over that of the district, which surely was not happy to lose his test scores (or mine, for that matter). Working in that same district now, I have a greater appreciation for all the things it does well, but I will always be grateful to Mrs. Drake for recognizing that even the best districts don't do everything well. Sometimes our students need a little more than we can give them. For my brother and me, The Academy met that need. 

The First Day of My First SOLSC

Today is the first day of my first time doing the Slice of Life Story Challenge. Eeeeek! One of my New Year's resolutions was to do more things that make me uncomfortable, so here we are.

In addition to my nerves from embarking on this writing adventure, I am feeling a little trepidation today. Out of nowhere, a good childhood friend of mine invited me over to her new home to play games with some of my other old friends. We were close once, but over the years, we've lost touch. I left for boarding school at sixteen and went out of state for college while they all stayed relatively nearby. How long does it take good friends to become strangers? Will we still have as much in common as we did when we were fifteen? What if they have so many inside jokes that I can't understand them at all?

All of a sudden, I feel like a tween again.

(Not to mention, my doctor put me on muscle relaxers to fix a back injury caused by my too-heavy teacher bag (oops), so there's about a 50/50 chance I will just pass out on the table at 8 pm.)

At the same time, I am, of course, excited to see them! I think about this particular set of friends all the time because they were the people I was closest to when I was the same age as my students. At lunch, in the long-ago times before cell phones and iPads, we would draw elaborate comics about Bob the Evil Banana Dictator and his strawberry henchmen. (Losing this notebook remains one of my greatest regrets.) Today, as I teach my classes about personification, I find myself telling them all about Bob and his antics as I watch them draw their own eerily similar versions.

Even as we've spent years apart, our paths have run parallel. All of us became teachers. Several of us live in the same town adjacent to our hometown. All of us married young or are in long-term relationships. I imagine we'll all have children roughly the same age, maybe even in the same school system.  So much in my life reminds me of them on a daily basis that, in my mind, it often doesn't feel like we've spent any time apart at all. Here's hoping it feels that way in person as well!

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