Classic literature #SOLC25 30/31

The text from the young teacher comes in on Saturday. They want to start reading Lord of the Flies or maybe Hatchet with their intermediate ESL class. They’ve looked into purchasing copies, but it’s expensive. Maybe they could just print the pdf of the book, chapter by chapter? How do I buy books for kids?

I am quietly stunned. I sit with this for a few minutes, trying to decide where to begin my response. Finally, I point out that printing the entire book for 20 students is still expensive – we just transfer the expense to the school. Then, I suggest that the school has books – in both the ESL and the English departments. Then I pause.

In my next series of messages, I say that I find LOTF and Hatchet to be at very different levels. I casually note that neither of them has any female characters. (To be fair, in Hatchet Brian at least has a mother; no women exist in LOTF – just British schoolboys as far as the mind can fathom.) I wait again before adding that LOTF makes some “weird” arguments about the importance of British schooling for a civilized society.

I do not say that LOTF has a peculiarly western view of humans as inherently selfish and vaguely awful. I do not say that when a group of school boys were actually marooned on an island, they did not descend into chaos or madness. Instead, they worked together, supporting one another through hardships. I do not say that perhaps students from around the world will not be intrigued by stories in which western boys fight to dominate nature. Instead, I offer to brainstorm some other options and take the teacher on a tour of our tiny book room. They say yes.

Later that day, I read an article in the New York Times about The Great Gatsby turning 100. I love Gatsby and I love teaching it, though I haven’t taught it in a while. I have my reasons – its casual racism, its core critique of the American Dream in an era when that is all too easy – though I would probably teach it again if I could shoehorn it in somewhere. Still, I’m struck when the article reminds me that, upon the novel’s publication, “Reviewers shrugged. Sales were sluggish. The novel and its author slid toward obscurity.” I disagree with the early reviewers, but I find it interesting that the novel was not immediately seen as “classic” or even very good.

LOTF was similarly poorly received at first, and I can reel off a list of other books English teachers love that had rough starts – from Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights to Animal Farm and The Handmaid’s Tale with plenty of others in between. I’d love to point this out to those who wander through English offices saying things like, “there’s a reason they’re classics.”

In fact, someone said exactly that in our English office not too long ago. My most effective approach to these platitudes is a lot of listening seasoned with a well-timed word or two, so I let the teacher talk. Eventually, they pointed out that part of the reason that it’s hard to find new “classics” is because books need to be “just right” to work in a classroom – not too long, not too spicy, not too hard, not too dull. They need approachable literary devices and characters that are relatable.

By this metric, Gatsby, LOTF and even To Kill a Mockingbird are classics in no small part because of their length and lack of curse words. They have a plot and characters we can remember, so, assuming we ignore the racism and sexism and similarity in their world views, we can’t really go wrong.

I point out that “not too hard and not too long” means that our list has to keep changing. When I started teaching, The Scarlet Letter was on every high school bookshelf; now, the language makes it extremely challenging, so it is taught much less frequently. When I was in high school, everyone read Dickens. Now, his work is just too long and wordy. What has replaced these “classics”? I toy with the idea that The Outsiders is on the list; in the 70s and early 80s, it was just a good book to read. What about The Handmaid’s Tale? Atwood is Canadian, but we don’t teach her novel too often – too political or too long? I don’t know. Why has Their Eyes Were Watching God not made it into rotation in Canada? I have no idea.

I love to say that when we read everything, we can read anything, but many of our students are not reading everything or even very much at all. As a result, the books schools choose to offer take on outsized importance; each book is expected to do the work of ten: catch student interest, teach something worthwhile, be a paragon of “good” writing, reflect what our society can/ should be and more. Sadly – or maybe happily – no one book can be everything we want because good stories are, by design, problematic. To really use literature as a teaching tool, we need lots of it.

I don’t know how to make that happen, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t start by teaching students who are learning English in Canada in 2025 about shipwrecked British schoolboys in the 1940s. I’m going to suggest we start somewhere else.

Being the Parent #SOLC25 25/31

I parked in the tiny parking lot and sat in my car for a few minutes, hoping that the rain would let up. While I waited, I texted a friend to let her know I had arrived; we made plans to meet in a bit. That taken care of, I darted out of the car and towards the well-lit building. A young man – one of Mr. 16’s friends – said hello to me as I made my way up the stairs. There, a couple I’ve known for years were standing near an open door, so I paused to chat for a few minutes – kids, work, life. Luckily, no one was in no rush.

Eventually, a door down the hallway opened, and an old colleague gestured to me. I made my excuses to my friends and headed over to him. We embraced briefly and then caught up. He shared photos of his son – already two and a half! – and we laughed a bit about my youngest, now 14, and some of his antics in English class. Time flew; soon it was time to go.

This is how parent-teacher interviews go for me now that both of my children are in high school.

The next interview was across the courtyard, and I ran into several people I knew as I made my way to the classroom. There, a semi-familiar young teacher greeted me and reminded me that we had worked together a few years ago. “I’ve gained weight,” he said ruefully, “Imagine me, thinner.” Again, we used some of our ten minutes to catch up and some to talk about Mr. 14. When time was up, the next parent was a friend, so we all talked for a minute before I left them to their discussion.

Being the parent in these meetings is odd. I’ve taught in this school district for seventeen years now, and I’ve worked in four different high schools. Since I take pleasure in both collaboration and mentoring, and since new teachers often move around a bit before they get a contract, I’ve gotten to know a lot of teachers at a lot of schools. More than that, a few of my former students are now teachers (!!). These days, much to my children’s dismay, parent-teacher conferences are a semisocial event for me.

The third teacher on my appointment sheet was not able to make interviews – too bad, really, because she was the only person I didn’t already know. After I figured out that she was absent, I made my way back to the front hall of the school to wait for Mr. 16. He was serving as a guide for the evening, and it was still cold and rainy, so I had offered him a ride home. This meant I was free to stand in the lobby and chat with an old friend/colleague and talk about books, the upcoming PD Day, and changes in the school board. Soon, one of Mr. 16’s teachers joined us, and we began an animated discussion of AI and how it’s affecting learning. By the time Mr. 16 was released from his duties, we were gesturing with enough enthusiasm to be completely mortifying.

Eventually, parent-teacher conferences wound down. Before we left, I found the friend/ neighbour/ colleague who I had texted when I arrived, and we all walked out to the car together – of course we were also giving her a ride home. After we dropped off my friend, my child said, “It’s kind of cool that you know so many of my teachers.”

I’m glad he’s ok with it because apparently this is what it means for me to be a parent who teaches.

Using every minute #SOLC25 24/31

Their discussion is winding down. Though several students have presented thoughtful arguments and backed them up with evidence from the text, no one has switched sides. What’s really bothering Hamlet in Act 1? According to my students, it’s not really his father’s death or his uncle stealing his crown; in fact, they are firmly split on whether Hamlet is more upset because his mother remarried so quickly – not even two months! – or because she married his uncle. Is the problem her “dextrous speed” or the “incestuous sheets”? Hmm…

I check my watch. Seven minutes to go. Too much time to sit; not enough time to… wait! What am I thinking? There’s always time to do something; it’s just a question of what. My brain whirs. Got it.

“So,” I say, “want to hear about some spying?” I waggle my eyebrows and pull up Act 2, scene 1 on the screen in the front of the classroom. No need for copies of the play; we can do this on the fly. Without warning, I lean in to M – poor kid came in late and ended up in the front row – and ask him how he would feel about spying on my son. Using lines from the play, I encourage him to share a few small lies to see if anyone bites. Maybe they’ll tell him something interesting if he starts off with some slight exaggerations. I suggest to M that he, you know, can pretend that my son drinks and gambles and drabs…

Drabbing is glossed in the text as “whoring”. Not my favourite word, but the students jump on it. WHAT? They are as outraged as Polonius’s servant (unwittingly played by M) is. Why would any father sully his son’s reputation in this way?

“I’d be pissed if my father said that about me,” says one. Others agree.

Ha! I’ve got them where I want them. Quickly, with one eye on the clock, I find a student wearing a zip-up hoodie and ask her to come play Hamlet for a minute. Next, I recruit an Ophelia to “sew” in her “closet” and a Polonius to read a few lines from her seat. Hamlet “unbraces” her “doublet” by unzipping her hoodie. She rolls up one leg of her jeans. She’s wearing boots because it snowed this morning (hello, winter in Ottawa), but we pretend her socks have fallen down. She follows Ophelia’s narration of Hamlet’s actions and the class laughs along. Hamlet’s gone mad.

30 seconds before the bell, I shoo them back to their seats. I look at the class and say, “Now, who was Ophelia talking to again?”

“POLONIUS!” They’re starting to put this together. Wasn’t he just the *#!hole spying on his son? He’s not especially trustworthy – and now he knows about Hamlet…

“Oh, this is not good,” says one student.

And the bell rings.

“We’ll find out what happens tomorrow!” I announce as the class leaves, muttering – another good reason to use every teaching minute I can get.

Say it again #SOLC25 21/31

Inspired by Sherri’s post with the same title. Things I say on repeat…
(And if you were here yesterday: I FINISHED THE BOOK!)

Good morning! You awake? Time to wake up! Hey, kiddo, if you don’t get up your brother’s going to get the first shower.

I’m leaving! Have a good day!

No, I don’t know who has the Chromebooks. Have you checked Richard’s room?

Books and notebooks out and open! Make sure you have a pen or pencil available.

You know where the pencils are. The pencils are where they have been all year. I’m sure you can find a pencil. Yes, that is where the pencils are.

Please make sure your phones are away. Headphones and air buds, too, please. Away means in your backpack. Your pocket is not a backpack. I see a few phones out. Make sure your phone hasn’t accidentally snuck into your hands. Phones are sneaky like that.

If the teacher writes it on the board… you should write it in your notebook.

Is anyone else hot or is it just me?

You can’t read and talk at the same time; that’s not how brains work.

Listen first, then move.

Ok, you know the drill: SLANT! Sit up, lean forward… look, even if you don’t ask questions you can nod your head and track me when I’m speaking.

Ok, but you need to be back in five minutes or less. Five minutes is reasonable.

No one else is hot?

Bye! Bye! Nice work today! Bye! See you tomorrow! Bye!

Hi! How was school? Has anyone walked the dog? Ok, I’m going to walk the dog. Did anyone feed the dog? Have the cats been fed?

No, dinner’s not for a little while. Try a healthy snack. It won’t be long.

Please make sure your dishes end up in the dishwasher. Do you have any homework? I’m just going to mark a few things. Please make sure that plate ends up in the dishwasher.

Goodnight, my love. See you in the morning.

A good day #SOLC25 19/31

Today was a good teaching day, the kind that makes me keep grinning off and on right through the evening. At first, I was going to write something else, but then I wanted to capture this.

First period:
In grade 12, we’ve just started Hamlet. I am always torn about teaching Shakespeare, but I really love teaching this play. And today was amazing. We finished up yesterday’s rhetorical analysis of Claudius’s first speech and students cited lines from the play without being prompted. In my head, I was jumping for joy, but on the outside I played it cool, like, “yeah, my classes always just naturally use lines from Shakespeare to back up their points. Nothing to see here.” My super-cool teacher persona just took notes on the board and nodded her head.

Then we moved on to Hamlet’s first soliloquy. I’d planned a soliloquy buster (which I clearly got from somewhere at some time, but I no longer remember where or when), and even though we’ve only been together for six weeks, and even though it wasn’t quite 10am, and even though it’s Shakespearean language, the students happily moved their desks and sat in a circle and read aloud. Then, the real miracle occurred: no one protested (I mean, I heard a groan or two, but that’s just normal) when I dragged the class into the school lobby to “walk” the soliloquy. I stood on the risers and read the lines loudly while students held their copy of it and walked, turning 180 degrees every time there was a punctuation mark. By the end, we were breathless. When I asked how they thought Hamlet was feeling as he gave this soliloquy, students knew immediately: agitated, frantic, upset.

The energy in the room was high when the bell rang; I could almost *feel* the learning. They were jazzed.

Second period: Planning. And I actually got things done. I even sent a suggestion to the principal: what if we invite the public library to set up a table during parent-teacher conferences and help people get library cards? (He said yes!)

Third period:
Literacy support. Another teacher actually invited me into their classroom to support students. I used AI to almost instantly convert the assignment (which is a *great* assignment but which has a LOT of words) into a checklist. I photocopied that and handed it out within minutes AND managed to sneakily support two students who really needed support. HOORAY!

Fourth period:
My, ahem, energetic grade 9 class started Long Way Down today. Their reactions to seeing the books piled on desks were decidedly mixed: “Are we going to read that?” can be said in many ways. But Jason Reynold’s novel has a magic that has never failed me – not since the first moment students unboxed brand-new copies of the book a few years ago d, and started to read. Today, Reynolds’ voice filled the room, our hearts beat as we heard that Will’s brother Shawn was shot, and we waited the horrible millisecond while we turned the page and read the words “and killed”. Someone gasped.

The kids let me pause to ask a few questions here and there, but mostly they begged to keep reading, so we read right to the bell. As they piled the books back on the desk (we have to share books with other classes), several of them said, “That’s a really good book, Miss.” I just nodded and said, “I know. I know.”

Then one darling child stayed after and whispered the story of the book she finished over March Break, the one she really wanted to tell me about, even if it might spoil it if I decide to read it. (Reader, I will not; it is “romantasy” – virtually all she reads – and sounds extremely silly, though just right for her.) I nodded and oohed and aahed until she realized her bus was coming and ran out the door.

For just a minute, I sat in the quiet classroom, completely satisfied with a day when learning felt almost tangible, when almost everyone was engaged almost all the time. I don’t always write about these days, but they happen – they really do – and I wanted to capture today. It was wonderful.

yr move #SOLC25 17/31

hey

im returning thisessay 2U cuz u haven’t done any of th things i asked like for example u didnt capitalize i & u forgot that u half to use spellcheck and um punctuation cuz this is something u wrote for school also i specifically asked u to, you know, spell words out instead of using txt shorthand again cuz this is for school

yah & how fast can u get it back 2 me cuz i need it for report cards? Sry! I know its late but if u cd be fast that wd be grt. Also ur parents will freak on me if ur marks r low so id rlly appreciate it if u wd do this solid

I no writing formally might seem whack, but trust, its the move – or at least, it’s ur move if u want to level up

yr tchr

27 #SOLC25 16/31

Twenty-seven. I have twenty-seven “This I Believe” essays to comment on, ideally before tomorrow morning. And that’s just for one class. It is 6:17. Wait, let me be clear: it is 6:17pm.

Y’all. This is not going to happen.

I would like to write “How did I end up here?” but I’ve been teaching too long to pretend I don’t know. These were due before March Break and I should have been done before I even left. But some people wanted extensions and some students were late, and I put things off, and here we are.

I would like to pretend that this is because our flight home was delayed yesterday, but I’ve been teaching too long to believe it. I was never going to get through these in one day. Getting home earlier would have made no difference.

I would like to think that the students know how they did or that it won’t matter to them or that this isn’t a big deal, but I’ve been teaching too long to fool myself about this, either. They want their essays back, with a grade.

The good thing about “teaching too long” is that I have learned to forgive myself for this. Am I a fast grader? Sometimes. Thorough? Pretty much always. Right now that has to be enough because there is little I would change about the past ten days, even knowing where I am right now. I loved my March Break – I loved travelling, seeing family, learning to scuba dive. I loved swimming, walking on the beach, and hanging out with my kids. I loved writing and reading in ways that were not completely focused on work (although anyone who knows me knows that I am pretty well always half-thinking about teaching). All of those bits – plus a few hours of lesson planning – mean that when the bell rings tomorrow morning I will be ready to teach again, focused and interested and excited for what each student brings.

After all this time, I’ve finally realized that teaching is an impossible job. There are not enough hours in the day or days in the week for me to learn and plan and teach and care and mark. I could work all day every day and still there would be more. In fact, sometimes the better I get, the more work I have to do. This doesn’t mean that I don’t feel guilty about work I haven’t finished, but it does mean that I handle it better, and I have a much stronger understanding that I am responsible for taking care of myself.

So here I am, reminding myself – and all the other teachers heading back to work – that it’s ok not to have everything done. Tomorrow, we will show up in all our imperfect ways, and the essays will (sadly) still be there on Tuesday.

P.S. And this is why I don’t assign homework over breaks. Everyone needs time off.

The Language of Flowers (Cayman Version) #SOLC25 14/31

For multilingual Friday, I’m trying a photo “essay.” As I’ve worked on this, I’ve realized how little I know about this as a form. I have struggled for a theme, tried to figure out organization, made choices about what to keep and what to cut. I thought I was just going to play and share pretty pictures – and in the end, I think that’s what it looks like – but it turns out, given a new language, I had to work to understand form and learn how to manipulate things. Also, it looks different on a laptop than on a phone. Gah! If I had been at home rather than on vacation, I would have given up because this took so long. Makes me think of what I’m asking for when I ask my students to “just” write an essay or some such. Interesting.

Learning to be Underwater #SOLC25 11/31

The instructor gives the ok sign to each of us, one after the next, and waits for our mimed response. Next, he points two fingers at us and then at his eyes. Once he has everyone’s attention, he removes the second stage from his mouth and slowly blows out bubbles as he searches for his “missing” air supply. He finds it, puts it back in his mouth, and starts breathing normally again. Then, he points directly at my youngest child and signals for him to repeat the same actions. Nearby, I watch patiently, waiting for my turn, confident that, far from putting us in danger, this activity will make us all safer in the long run.

This week, my family is taking a scuba diving course. We’re learning a lot and I, of course, am busily observing both how we are instructed and how we are learning. I am always curious about how skills are taught outside of classrooms. Scuba is particularly fascinating because the consequences of not being able to perform the skills effectively can be deadly, but plenty of regular people scuba dive, so, while there can be no compromise, skills acquisition has to be manageable for all sorts of people.

Before we arrived on the island, all of us completed a five-section, multi-part online course with a final exam that we had to pass with a minimum of 75%. Each section built on previous sections for at least some of the learning (i.e., “How to be a Diver, part 3). As a family, we took four very different paths to success: one of us started early and learned methodically, using the “You will learn” introduction to each section to guide their reading, taking notes to learn “how not to die underwater”; one of us read the information in chunks, making sure they were able to pass the short required quiz at the end of each section before moving on; one of us skipped most of the reading but watched the videos for each section before “acing” the quizzes (not my word); and one of us went straight to the quizzes and tried them, then, once they knew what they didn’t know, went back to review only that section before completing the quizzes correctly and moving on. These choices were not obviously age-based, and no, I was not the one who took notes. We all passed the final exam, though one of us had to take it twice (72% then 80%). The last person finished the day we left on vacation. (Ok, that was a kid.)

If you’re keeping track… PADI (the group that administers the course)

used a focus checklist (“by the end of this section, you will be able to…”)
presented the information in both written and video format
offered low-stakes immediate retrieval assessment questions (we could redo them as often as necessary)
encouraged spaced practice by expecting us to review things we had learned in previous sections
at the end of each of the five sections, offered more retrieval with a section quiz which we had to pass but could retake and THEN
provided an evaluation which mimicked the section quizzes and which we had to pass with a 75%. If we needed to, we could review material and take it again.

That is decent pedagogy.

Today, we started the “practical” portion of the course with… wait for it… a written quiz based on the material we learned online. It was not for points. We simply took the quiz and then the instructor reviewed the answers and chatted with us about mistakes that anyone had made. For much of the information, this was at least the FOURTH time we had been asked to retrieve it. I don’t want to shock anyone, but we all passed this low-stakes review.

I’ll probably write more about the practical part of the course later, but I want to pause here and notice what I can take into the classroom from the written portion. For me, the lesson focus wasn’t particularly useful – I tended to skip that part – but one of my children loved using it to guide his attention. Interesting. We all spent different amounts of time with the information and took it in differently (I didn’t watch a single video; everyone else watched some or all of them). The low-stakes retrieval questions worked for all of us, as did the “do it until you pass” mastery quizzes at the end of each section and of the written course. The spaced practice was effective, too: if you’d forgotten something from a previous unit, you got a quick review in order to pass the current one.

I was most impressed, however, with the “extra” retrieval we did today. Let me tell you, everyone who took the course is very clear on the biggest ideas – and PADI has used both spaced practice and retrieval practice to ensure that we actually remember it.

Of course, a classroom is a different place. Most obviously, students’ motivation for learning in a classroom is not quite as compelling: rarely does anyone die because they forgot where to put a comma or mispronounced “epitome.” But I’m also thinking about how our family moved at different paces and took information in differently. That could happen in a classroom, to some extent. I think a lot about the Modern Classrooms Project, for example, which seems to account for some of that. My particular school is desperately low on technology, so I’m not quite ready to adopt the approach, but it seems right. I wonder what I could do to make learning in the classroom just a little more like getting ready to scuba dive?

Maybe I could just bring some really cool fish.

This tarpon – and her friends! – were at least three feet long & swimming casually next to our lunch spot.

Literacy on vacation #SOLC25 10/31

Last night, after a long day of travel that culminated in beach and pool time, I crawled into bed, exhausted, and read a few pages of my new book (The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store). This morning, I woke to a long meandering chat with my aunt over tea and coffee. At some point, as I caught her up on my life, I talked about literacy. If you talk to me long enough, I pretty much always do.

She has recently gone through her books and had set aside some for me to look through, in case I want any. Would I contemplate taking books from an island back to Ottawa? Yes, yes I would. I am constantly looking for ways to get books into my students’ hands, and books cost a lot, so I am well-known for my – ahem – willingness to accept books. As a matter of fact, I brought books as gifts for my cousin-nephews, so I’ll have space to take more back if any of these look enticing. Now, out on the veranda, as I sit down to write, books and reading are on my mind, as they often are.

I know the 2024 NAEP Reading Scores have just been released, and I know they’re not great. I teach in Canada, but I have little evidence to suggest we’re doing a lot better. Oh, I know our PISA scores are better than most, but only if you consider having 50% of Canadian students reading at level 2 or below “fine”. I do not.

I’ve just spent a frankly silly amount of time looking at the statistics I linked to in the previous paragraph. I was reading because I wanted to be sure that what I wrote was true, and now I’m stuck for what to say. Thinking about literacy is a huge part of my life, but is this little blog, mostly anecdotes, really the place to write about this? Is today, sitting by the ocean, really the day? And what will I say that others haven’t said? My family is waiting for me (only half true: the teens are still asleep), and hey, I’m on vacation: I should be relaxing. But I am almost never not thinking about literacy.

Even here, on vacation, reading and writing are firmly part of my life, and I find myself wondering if what I want for students is realistic. Do I want everyone to travel with books? Do I think we all need to be “readers” (whatever that means)? I don’t think that’s what I’m after. I do want all students to have reading as a back pocket possibility. I want them to develop the empathy and the knowledge and the critical thinking that come from reading. Literacy is a pathway to many kinds of success, and I know that very few people who have achieved only functional literacy are able to follow that pathway with any ease.

Now I’ve gotten lost in the weeds of this post: I’ve been typing and erasing for too long and I feel silly for starting my vacation thinking about this, but I can’t stop. Do I write about what I’m doing in my classroom? Do I link to more information? Do I share my hopes and dreams for my students? Maybe not today. For now, I’ll go back inside and go through that bag of books to find ones that students might read, then I’ll snuggle in with my cousin-nephew and see if I can tempt him into the world of Dragon Masters, one of my own children’s favourite book series when they were his age. I’ll have to pull him away from the iPad, but it’ll be worth it in the long run.

And I’ll write more about literacy later – because heaven knows I’ll be thinking about it.