Tag: writing

Because of you #SOL23 31/31

When I woke up this morning, my left eye was swollen shut. A stye, I think, though no amount of hot compresses have brought it to a point, so who knows, really. At least it’s settled down enough that I can see. I had already taken today off sick; I wasn’t quite sick yesterday, but I was far from my best, and I knew my run-down body needed a break. Turns out, I have slept much of the day because I am, in fact, sick.

When I haven’t been napping, I’ve mostly been deep in a giant bean bag accompanied by a book, the puzzle section of The New York Times, and cats. We haven’t done much, and I’m ok with that.

While I’ve rested, I’ve wondered what I should write for the final day of this Slice of Life Challenge. I’ve wondered this every year that I’ve participated. After a month, I’m used to the practice of noticing and holding on to moments, of seeing how what is happening today brings up memories of what happened years ago. I love the way that writing daily makes me pay attention to the world around me (special thank you to Stacey for dreaming this up years ago to help get through March and to the Two Writing Teachers team for supporting this). I’ll miss this, even though doing it every day is hard.

I teach narrative writing at some point every semester, and I often tell my students that the universal lives in the specific. We connect best with friends and strangers when we share our very specific feelings or experiences – everyone has lived moments of joy or fatigue, grief or giddiness. This challenge is about sharing those moments, creating a community through that connection, through those stories.

I started this month with some trepidation: school systems are in a state of flux right now, and teaching is harder than I’ve ever known it to be. We need to have some hard conversations about things that don’t really fit into the “Slice of Life” model. I wasn’t sure I could write honestly for a month without talking about those hard things, but I did it. Mostly.

When I look back over my posts, I can see some of my concerns lurking behind and beneath my words, but that’s ok, I think, because reading and writing for a month with teachers from around the world means that I can also see the ways in which we hold each other up and, more importantly, how we share the dreams we have for schools and the world we’re striving to create. I can see how many teachers (and coaches and retired teachers and people in the world of education) are dedicated to our children and how, even though many of us are really, really tired, we don’t just cling to hope, we create it.

And so I leave March better than I entered it, better able to find the kernels of joy, better able to rest when I need to and fight for what is precious, better able to teach and, truly, to be taught. If you’re reading this, that’s probably because of you.

See you on Tuesdays.

It was supposed to be funny #SOL23 28/31

“It was supposed to be funny.”

That’s what I told my grade 12 students on Monday when I shared one of my recent blog posts – the one with the squirrel pictures. I pointed out the title and the photographs. “I started with funny, but I ended with sappy.” This was my writer’s dilemma: “So what I’m looking for are ideas for how to revise this to make it funnier – or even just a little funny.”

Cue uncomfortable shifting in their seats. Critique the teacher’s work? Not likely.

Undaunted, I continued. “OK, R has volunteered to be the leader,” R nodded, “so he’s going to tell us our first step.” 

“Um, ok, um…” he shuffled the papers in front of him, trying to figure out the next step. “Oh! You need to read it out loud.”

I did. I had planned two class periods (minus our daily reading and writing time) for the students to share their work and offer suggestions. I was following the Feedback Protocol developed by Peggy Silva and shared with me by Xan Woods and, not surprisingly, when I told students that they would read their work out loud to their peers panic had ensued. Telling them that someone else could read the piece out loud for them was not the balm they had anticipated. So I’d pulled out my next trick and asked them help me with my writing. 

You can imagine the wary looks I got. I explained about the Slice of Life challenge and how I had been writing every day for almost a month. EVERY DAY? They were half impressed, half worried about my state of mind. Those latter concerns were heightened because now I was offering – no, asking – to have them help me. As I read aloud, I found a mistake in my *published* piece. “Oops, I need to fix that,” I said – and I didn’t die or anything. I just fixed it.

“Ok, R. What’s next?” I asked.

“We have to read it again, then offer you ‘warm’ feedback.”

Because I know this is hard, every time we use the Feedback Protocol, I give students a script (also developed by Xan & easily modified to fit our needs) in addition to the general how-to. Now, we continued through the script. The students had plenty of nice things to say about my piece, and they were able to be pretty specific with their compliments. Then came time for cool feedback. 

“Oh, I feel bad about saying this.”
“Miss, are you sure you want to hear this?”
“I just feel kind of mean.”

I reassured the students that I had asked for this feedback, that I wanted to do better. “Look,” I said, “I really wanted this to be funny. I know you can help. You are 100% funnier than I am.”

As they spoke, I took notes in front of them. The more I wrote down their comments, the more confidence they gained. After a few minutes, time for cool feedback was over. I thanked them and reflected on what I had heard and what changes I thought I would make.

Just like that. Like it was no big deal.

Then it was their turn. Tentatively, they moved into their groups. On the first day, only one student from each group was able to receive feedback. As the class left, the mood was less tense, maybe curious.

Today, after reading time, the groups re-formed quickly. Essays appeared out of notebooks and folders. No one had lost their papers. Around the room, students huddled together around papers, their pencils scratching down notes or writing in margins. Laughter, questions, talking… was this the same group that couldn’t quite remember everyone’s names just a week ago? Were these the same students who looked stunned yesterday when I told them they would read their work out loud? 

Yes, yes these are the same students, I promise. As class came to an end, I asked how they felt about the protocol. “So good,” said someone. “Really useful,” said another.

“Excellent,” I said, then added, “Revisions are due Friday.” Good natured groans sounded around the room. As they kids left for their next class, I overheard someone say, “that was really good, wasn’t it? Like, really good.”

Ah yes, pedagogy for the win.

Throwing in the towel #SOL23 18/31

March Break is almost over and I’m still so tired my eyes ache. I’m not ready to go back. The EduKnitNight chat is full of “you can do it” messages as we gear up for the certain chaos of the return to school on Monday. 

“Gently suggesting that we all take space for ourselves – even if just for 20 minutes – today or tomorrow. To help us through the week with a little reserve.”
“Breathe, know that you are enough, be kind to yourself.”
“Messy and underprepared is not a sin.”

There’s a post in there somewhere, but I can’t quite find it. I text my sisters for ideas & they immediately list hilarious moments from our past – the time B put ketchup on her ice cream, the time we hid our exchange student’s speedo before we went to the beach, the time my sister broke her arm (which is funny because we were wearing towels around our necks and jumping off blue armchairs, spinning around and yelling, “Wonder Woman” when it happened). Soon we are talking about my nephews’ upcoming birthday, and…

I still don’t know what to write. I want to write about the concert Andre and I heard on Thursday or the play we saw last night. I want to write something funny about… something… but instead here I am, writing about not writing and laughing at myself because I have been participating in this challenge for six years and I think I have written some version of this post every year and every year I’ve felt badly about it. 

I think about Elisabeth saying once, probably my first year, that this isn’t so much a writing challenge as a publishing challenge, that part of this month is about knowing that some days I’m going to write things that aren’t great and I still have to hit publish because it’s ok for some things to be mediocre. 

And, once again, I have written something – which is better than nothing – and now it’s time for dinner and conversation with my friend. “Messy and underprepared is not a sin” I whisper under my breath. In a moment I’ll post this, heave myself out of this beanbag nest and tomorrow, I’ll write again.

Open Tab Poetry #SOL23 10/31

Sherri’s slice today inspired me right away; in it, she lists the titles of her open tabs. “Well,” I thought, “that is truly a slice of life.” I knew I wanted to try the same thing – not least because it would be easy, right? Ha. Writing is pretty much never exactly “easy”: first, I got all judge-y about the number of tabs I have open. (It’s a lot.) Then I got even more judge-y about the quality of my open tabs. And then I got judge-y about my judgy-ness. Harumph.

I stared at my list and wished I could change it. Moments before despair set in, I realized that, of course, I could change it – because that’s what writers do, they change words, and I’m a writer.

So I present to you the equivalent of book spine poetry except now it’s “open tabs poetry.” And because I just made up the genre, I decided that when you write it, you can use parts of the tab titles & just cross out the other bits. Also, I decided that I would use tabs as titles for each poem, too. Now I present to you three of the world’s first-ever “open tab” poems:

My Honest Poem

A Trick of the Light
Poetry Couture
Microjoys
if this is therapy, then i am all in

The Reading Performance – Understanding Fluency through Oral Interpretation

32 Million U.S. Adults are “Functionally Illiterate”
21 Lives Lost Invitation to Submit
No Time to Waste
What If Schools Truly Partnered With Families Living in Poverty?
Designing Trauma-Sensitive Classroom Management Strategies
I want to change the world, one proficiency sequence at a time

5 Exercises to Keep an Aging Body Strong and Fit

Art – Jarret Lerner
March Madness Poetry Bracket
Thinking About How Visual Images Support Writing
Reading Visual Texts with “The Call”
Memoir Writing 101 handout

Who’s right? #SOL22 22/31

For the past few semesters, influenced by Kittle & Gallagher, most of my English classes have started either with short memoir or flash fiction. One of the minor miracles about doing this type of writing at the beginning of the semester is that students often invest in their stories in ways that elude them if we start with expository or analytical writing. Short pieces allow us to get into the nitty gritty of craft without getting overwhelmed by, as one student said, “all the things.”

These assignments also allow plenty of time for feedback and revision. Students begin to ask for feedback from peers and, in turn, to offer comments beyond, “it’s good” and “I think this is a run-on?” As they tweak their imagery, diction, rhythm and structure, I can offer plenty of feedback via quick conferences, voice notes, and written comments on drafts in progress. In the end, the best part is that these stories emphatically theirs. Most students finish with a well-written narrative that they actually like.

Once I had this assignment as part of my repertoire, I started to focus on improving my feedback because feedback is part of what creates the magic of these assignments. (I wrote about commenting on student work once here. More recently, Melanie and Heidi (and Joel in the comments), have addressed feedback in their posts.) If we just grade for grammar or comment on what is not working, our students will stop writing. Growth happens when we highlight what is working in a piece. So I’ve learned to share my reactions as a reader, explain what I see students doing, and ask a lot of questions.

This semester, one student used identical phrasing at the beginning and the end of a short memoir. I didn’t love it, so in my comments I asked what effect they were hoping to create. I was thinking of this essay on picturing narrative structure, and particularly of the visual about coming full circle, where the author writes, “For… (the) conclusion to feel truly satisfying, however, it must mimic life, which is never completely complete… So the best conclusions open up a bit at the end, suggesting the presence of the future.” I thought the story would be better if it were a little more open.

A visual of coming nearly full circle, then opening up

Then, the most amazing thing happened. In the classroom, the student called me over and told me that they didn’t agree with me. They liked their closed loop. As soon as they finished speaking, they took a deep breath and looked away, astonished, I think, at their own boldness. Are students allowed to tell teachers no?

Disagreeing with teachers isn’t an everyday occurrence in schools. Too often, even when teachers try to demonstrate openness or give effective feedback, students just nod and do what we ask. After all, we have all the power. If we don’t like what they write, they get lower grades. For kids who’ve learned to play the game of school, disagreement about how to do an assignment can be nearly unthinkable. After all, they explain, being right doesn’t get you into university; doing what the teacher tells you to does.

When this student told me she didn’t want to change her work, she was telling me that her story mattered more than the grade. THAT IS INCREDIBLE. So I told her the truth,

“Look, I’m only one reader. I’m not your only audience, and I might not even be your target audience.”

She looked dubious. I told more truth: I admitted that I sometimes don’t like books that have won awards. I told her about reading Jonathan Franzen’s much-admired novel The Corrections and hating it so much that my spouse begged me to stop. (I read to the last word so no one could ever say, “Oh, but the ending was so good” thus making me go back and reread.) It won the National Book Award, so obviously lots of people really liked it; just not me.

I asked who the student imagined enjoying this story. “My friends.”

“So, show it to your friends. Shop it around. Tell them that you like this and that I would change it. Ask what they think and why. Come back and tell me about the effect it has on your audience.”

It took them a few minutes to turn to a peer and share their story, but once they started, they gathered opinions from around the classroom. They made some changes based on what they heard, but they kept that circular structure exactly as written.

I still don’t like it, but they earned an A.

Make Writing #SOL22 13/31

I suspect that I found Angela Stockman through my knitting and reading (and all around awesome) friend Lisa Noble, though I honestly can no longer remember. I’ve lurked around Angela for a while – reading her emails, checking out her free units. Not only is she incredibly generous and thoughtful, her specific thinking and doing around writing intrigues me to no end.

Lately, I’ve been reading her work on using “loose parts” to teach writing. I find it fascinating, but each time I think about using it in the classroom I balk: I’m just not very spatial, I tell myself; I haven’t tried this myself, I worry, how will I explain it?

Angela writes, “Offer writers a variety of loose parts to build their ideas, responses, and drafts with.” In this phrase alone, I see all the reasons that loose parts fit with my writing pedagogy: play, multimedia thinking, draft, response… still, I couldn’t do it. Once I almost brought in a tray of thingamambobs, but then I didn’t.

On Friday, a student asked to conference with me about her personal narrative. She knew what she wanted to say, but she couldn’t figure out how to tell the story. She could articulate that the beginning was too long, “too much exposition”, but how could she tell the story without the background? She was stumped.

As we brainstormed, I found myself wanting to take scissors to her work – to physically move pieces around and see what might work where, but of course the writing was on the computer and somehow we couldn’t quite *play* with it. Play – PLAY! Of course!

I reached over to my desk and found some loose parts – a few pen caps, some paper clips; some random yarn (I have no idea – don’t ask) and a box of tacks. I plunked them down on the table where we were working. “Ok,” I said, “bear with me. What if these three pen caps were the aunties…”

We named parts, moved them, played around, and she ended up with this structure:

The final essay structure, minus a pen cap.

“This is great!” she said. “I can see exactly how to do it!”

I could, too, so I snapped a photo as the bell rang and thought, loose parts play. Got it.

Next step: figure out how to incorporate this on purpose. I have a feeling I won’t have much trouble with this now.

Many thanks to Angela Stockman, who doesn’t even know me, but who nevertheless just made my teaching better than it was before. Amazing. (And thanks to Lisa, too, for her neverending encouragement.)

Losting #SOL22 8/31

Near the beginning of each semester, my students write 100 word memoirs (thanks, Kittle & Gallagher). These never fail to knock my socks off, and this year that’s even more true. At my new school, many students have clear memories of coming to Canada, and many of them are continuing to learn English. Combined these lead to some great moments. For example, below, Tung wrote about his first time in a Canadian high school. Pay particular attention to the word “lost” – we’ll come back to that.

Walking through Canadian high school for the first time was like walking, lost, in an old tunnel surrounded by unknown creatures. The low-ceilinged crowded hallway was an ant’s nest of students trying to sprint through the narrow corridor. The thick moss-green bulletproof door had only a small glass cut-out, covered with an English-only poster. This prevented my curious eyes from spying on the Canadian students in the classroom. Everything was beyond my imagination. Each step I took, one rhythm faster my heart beat. What was I getting myself into? Would there be a light at the end of this tunnel? 

Tung, Grade 12
What I was seeing/ What was in my mind

He added pictures – including some pictures of his school at home. It’s much, much brighter and airier than our school and I can safely guess that it has never seen snow.

Watching Tung try to capture the feeling of that first day was fascinating. Some descriptions came easily – he knew he wanted a tunnel and he knew the door needed to be moss-green and bulletproof. Those things never wavered. Other things changed – coming in, getting cut out, changing form. To me, the most interesting thing of all was the word “lost”. He really wanted it to be “losting”.

We chatted in the back corner of the room – the place he’s chosen for now – about this word. Somehow lost just wasn’t quite what he was looking for. He had a sense that losting wasn’t a “real” word, but he wanted the word to be active. He wasn’t simply lost, he was wandering, loose, casting about, feeling the sense of not fitting in, not knowing if he belonged. He was losting.

I couldn’t help but think of my own child, then quite small, crying as his grandmother left after another wonderful visit. He threw himself into her arms and said, “It’s your fault, the goneness.” The goneness. Really, it’s the only word for the feeling.

I told Tung he could keep “losting” – that it made sense to me and described what he was feeling – but English isn’t thoroughly his yet; making mistakes and making new words are still too intertwined to tease one away from the other. Still, I expect that the word exists now. I suspect that someday, probably soon, I will see a student wandering in the hallway with a particular look in their eye, and I will know that they are losting. When I do, I’ll try to help – because the goneness can be overwhelming.

Join us – or just come to read – as we blog every day in March at twowritingteachers.com

100 words

He has written 100 words.

“100!” He  puts down his pencil. “Done.”

“Not done,” I say. 

He glares. He wrote 100 words. Mostly about a dog bite. Some about a broken arm. He added the broken arm because he didn’t have 100 words about the bite.

I talk about telling a story, about narrative arc, about sensory detail and dialogue. 

Done done done. “You said 100 words.” He plays tic-tac-toe with his friend.

But… what about that dog, that bite. Was he big? Did it hurt?

He waits. I wait. Two days. Then he picks up his pencil and writes.

(Today’s exit ticket was “one thing you learned”. His response: “I’m not a bad writer even though I thought I was.”)

A year of walking

Yesterday, one of the writing prompts I gave my students was “create a timeline of no more than six moments from your life that tell a specific story; then do it again with different moments.” The idea behind the prompt is to recognize how selection and omission shapes the stories we tell. As I wrote alongside my students, I had a revelation: most of my stories aren’t shaped by specific moments. Instead, a lot of my stories are determined by a series of events or choices that someone – me, my parents, my sisters or friends – made over and over. The story isn’t one test, one class, one dinner, one disaster or one anything: instead, it’s all the swim practices that led to the swim meets that led to one race and then another; it’s the series of dates that led . It’s not one book; it’s all the books.

My timeline was a disaster – so obviously I shared it with my students. Though they nodded as I explained, I can’t guarantee that they really understood my scribbles. Most of them had managed to complete the assignment with some ease. No messy ongoing moments for them.

As of today I have officially walked at least 1.5 km for 365 days in a row. Once I decided to do this, I went about it wholeheartedly. I was so committed that when we foolishly went to a cottage during black fly season, I walked in the lake. I was so committed that I checked the weather and walked around rainstorms – and sometimes in them. I was so committed that I walked in ice and snow and even sleet (but only once), which I do NOT love. In fact, this is now the first year of my adult life (and possibly even my childhood) that I went outside every day in the winter. It’s the first year I went through multiple pairs of shoes. (I got fancy new ones for today.)

My fancy new shoes for my one-year anniversary.

And now, maybe because I’m deep into studying information with my students – how it is never neutral, how it is shaped & created – I feel like I should, you know, share some life lessons. After all, it’s been a year. Still, I’m not sure that I have any. In ways both literal and figurative, a year of walking is simply about putting one foot in front of another. And then doing it again. It turns out, there’s no earth-shattering moment when all is revealed. There’s just another morning, another day I put on my shoes, another day I head out the door.

And yet, I want to create meaning from this year of walking. I *want* to reflect. Two million-ish steps later, I must have learned something. It’s not a timeline, but…

  1. Have a buddy. (Hi Lisa!) I already knew that having a buddy makes things easier, but I didn’t know that even a virtual buddy would be a real motivator. In some ways virtual was better (story of this year, right?). I had no idea if Lisa had already walked on any given day, so I couldn’t let her down by skipping my own. On days when the weather here was better, I imagined her slogging through snow or muck. How could I not go out when she had faced that? On days when the weather here was worse, I imagined the glory of sharing that I did it anyway. Lesson learned: community counts.
  2. Bite-sized goals. Our original goal was to walk daily from Victoria Day (right before Memorial Day for you Americans out there) until Labour Day. Ambitious but do-able – I mean, walk through the summer? Easy peasy. Then we aimed for Halloween. No problem. I balked a little at the stretch until Christmas – I knew what the weather might do – but once that was done, the rest was a no-brainer. (It was as if I had forgotten February’s existence. It was cold.)
  3. Make it fun. I listen to podcasts, talk to my friends or my sisters, walk with friends, take pictures, find scenic routes. Taking pictures every day has allowed me to slow down & really look at things – no worries about cardio or times. Just walking. I love it. Now, I take pictures every day – and I’m getting better at that, too.
  4. Focus on the basic goal. I am NOT going to run a race – turns out I prefer streaks to competitions. I am not going to sell my pictures. I am not going to walk 30 km. All I’ve committed to is 1.5km each day. Everything else is extra. Extra is fine, but some days 1.5km (and a few snapshots) is enough.

I’m sure there’s more, but there always is. I’m proud of myself in that sort of vague way that comes with milestones I saw coming: I never feel older on the day of my birthday, I found my various graduation ceremonies mostly tedious & I think I was more tickled about finishing a year of walking a few weeks ago when I realized how close I was. A year probably won’t fit neatly onto a timeline for a writing prompt, but as it turns out, I’m not especially good at telling my story through just a few big moments.

Might as well put my shoes on and head out the door again tomorrow.

100 word memoirs

For the past few years, I’ve used Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher’s idea of a 100 word memoir as one of the early assignments for my classes. It’s miraculous. Over and over, students engage deeply with this task. They dive into their notebooks for ideas; they draft multiple options; they give each other feedback, laughing and talking in small groups as they tell their stories. Best of all, they revise and revise – actual revision! – to get their word count and their craft just right.

Each time I assign this, I write in front of my students. They see how I generate ideas. They help me choose my topic from my list; they almost always choose ones about dating or embarrassing things I’ve done. They watch me struggle with decisions – how should I start? does this ending work? maybe I should fiddle with this sentence – and see my mini-memoir grow and shrink as I aim for 100 words. Sometimes, I actually get to the end.

Today, teaching online, I shared some of my potential ideas and saw the reaction of the two kids whose cameras were on; no point in taking a vote, experience told me that this topic would win. I fiddled and futzed, changed and rejigged. I started 87 words. I changed the opening. Moved the middle. Added some details, took out others. 100 words! But still not quite right. I moved bits, changed sentence structure… They were writing, I was writing. It’s actually pretty fun. In fact, I kept fiddling with it after class until I got something I liked. Tomorrow, I’ll ask my students for feedback, but you can read it here first.

Kissing J Austin
As soon as my lips touch his cheek, I know this is a mistake. I’m already seriously awkward and Pammy has pushed me forward, so I nearly knock him into a shelf full of beakers. Supposedly every girl in the 7th grade is kissing J. Austin for his birthday, but at this moment I realize he isn’t in on the plan. He rights himself and stares at me…horrified? disgusted? Red-faced, mortified, I retreat from the science supply room. Behind me, the popular girls titter and flit around him. How many girls kissed him that day? I never dared ask.

Craft moves: use of present tense, a hook that drops the reader into the moment, 7th grade POV/diction – all the emotions are giant