Celebrating Student Voice

After two days of state testing in Language, I explained to my #Crazy8s (8th graders taking 9th grade English) that we would be starting a personal narrative unit.

They moaned.

LOUDLY.

At 13 they are sick and tired of personal narratives.
I get it, but now what?
I know they are right. It's the go-to writing piece for everyone. I hate being lazy. My excuse is that I wanted to plan a new unit for them and doing something familiar would make that easier for me.

Shame on me.

Truth is. These are REALLY smart kids. Smarter than most I've had in advanced classes before and I'm struggling to challenge them, yet keep things fun.

So this weekend, our last at the lake, I am scrambling for new ideas.  (Any ideas appreciated)

But I'm still celebrating. The fact that 13 year olds speak up and let me know this is not an engaging lesson is GOOD. It's their education. They should speak up.

So I'll keep thinking.
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This week has also been demonstration speech week. And if you've read my blog before you know I love this week. I've written about it before (although I can't find the posts right now).

As always, I learn a lot about students (and sometimes other staff members!)

Lots of drawing lessons and braiding lessons and gaming lessons
But I've also learned about the care and feeding of Royal Pythons (UGH!)

How to make a weed wacker bike. This was an amazing project done by this kid (Totally Unacceptable). He had to repeat my class and we still have issues, but as the para in my class said, "Why don't we have class like this for kids like this?"  

Yea, why don't we?

But the biggest celebration this week is for A. A tall thin young man, who seldom speaks above a whisper. He has a para who goes to every class with him. Speech class is his nightmare, his hell on earth. But it's required for graduation and we're doing our best to get him through the class. He has been doing his speeches just for me, out in the hall. Friday morning he came during his study hall to do his demonstration speech for me. He made a homemade lava lamp (pretty cool. He let me keep it in my room). At the end of his class later in the day, he put an Alka-Seltzer tablet in the bottle and showed a couple of kids how it worked.  Others noticed and liked his lamp.

It was a small, but important step for him.  And we celebrated!

And how was your week?

I Forgot

So caught up in the teaching of genres,
      in the teaching of the how and why and what
I forgot to make writing fun.

But they reminded me today
That everything doesn't have to be
      perfect
        or polished
          or even finished.
They reminded me of how important sharing is
      Even if it's just a silly little piece
        or one great line
          or a title that says it all.
 

 .

I forgot
      the hook
        the engagement
          the fun.

But they reminded me.

Celebrate

This past week was Homecoming week in our district.  A week not only celebrated at our high school, but with our elementary and junior high as well. It is a crazy week of dressing up, selfie contests and and anticipation. For some it is easy to see negative behaviors and wasted class time, but for most of us, IT IS FUN.

Three little words that are so powerful.  I love you.  I've been saying them a lot this week--to students.  And I've been hearing those words a lot this week--from students. Kids drop in to talk, "Love you, Mrs. Day."

"Love you, too"

As I thought about it one night this week, it just made me smile.  Today, as I was looking through my quote board on Pinterest, I found this:

My students and I are creating quite the little community. We have a few "family" members who need to shape up, but most of us are taking care of each other in the classroom.  We're not perfect. Sometimes we lose our patience with others, sometimes we say things we shouldn't, sometimes we let things slide that we shouldn't. But mostly, we are getting it done.  And I do love my kids.....

This is my favorite picture of the week

When I asked him if was getting work done or if he was watching a movie or something, he immediately turned his computer around and showed me his work.  Never underestimate the power of putting yourself in the corner and getting a little work done!

And the last thing I am celebrating this week is a new friend, someone I know I can go to if I need to. She has joined @Artteach13 and I every Friday morning in a little project we have.  We are writing Happy Grams, for lack of a better term. Notes home celebrating something a student has done in the classroom or in school.  Not just the A students, but any kid who needs a boost.  It's been fun for us to meet and talk and write these notes.  We also decided that maybe they shouldn't be just for kids...there are a few adults who could use a boost also.  Here's to sharing celebrations!

Celebrate: Letting It Go

Take a moment out of your day and CELEBRATE with us at Ruth Ayers Writes.
It's a great place to share!

Last weekend, instead of heading to the lake, my husband and I headed to small town a few miles from my hometown. For the first time since I was in elementary school (well, at least the first one I could get to since then) my mom's family had a family reunion. All of her living siblings and their kids showed up (well, the ones who live in state. We missed the California cousins.) .  It was amazing. It was fun. It brought me back to who I am and where I'm from.

It was the first, but it won't be the last.

The first two of four generations gathering together

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Every semester in Drama, the first assignment is "Don't Be Boring". Kids can do anything they want in class and there is only one requirement...Don't Be Boring.  They are scared, nervous, and swear this is the worst assignment ever.

But

Something happens.

At some point in the weeks following, someone always asks, "Are we going to do Don't Be Boring again? "

So we do. Usually several times throughout the semester.

Friday was one of those times

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We had such fun watching everyone perform that I don't think she realized that she was the only one they applauded. But she was. The only freshmen in a class mostly full of my contest speech kids. She stood in front of us and flat out told us that she doesn't sing well, but she loves this song. And then she pushed play and began to sing "Let it Go" from Frozen. 

And she's right. She doesn't sing well, but what she lacks in pitch, she makes up for in courage, passion and enthusiasm and belief in the song.  She stood in the center of our room and belted out it out.

Not one student laughed
or rolled their eyes
or made snide comments

And when she was finished, they applauded. Not polite claps. Not a smattering throughout the room. But LOUD applause.

I couldn't have been more proud of all of them....

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One of my senior speech kids shared a "Where I'm From" poem that she wrote for a college class. She had shared it with me throughout the writing of it. I've taught this student since she was in seventh grade and she's an amazing writer.  She took a simple template and created a heartbreakingly beautiful piece about her mother and her.

The thing about this student is, she NEVER reads her poetry out loud. EVER.  She lets other people read it. She will share the written page. She just has never read it out loud, in her voice.

Ironically, in contest speech, she's does poetry--oral interpretation of poetry. I've convinced her, I think, to use this as her contest piece this year---her senior year. So Friday was the debut of her "Where I'm From". Kids sat there for a minute, shocked that she had written this piece. Her honesty and courage in sharing it will stay with me for awhile.

We took a break and danced with another student.

So I guess this week, I'm celebrating family. The one you are born into and the one you create for yourself.

How was your week?

The Blame Game

It seems so easy for some to put the total blame for a student's failure squarely on the shoulders of the student.  And, sometimes, that's exactly where the blame should be.

But most times, there is plenty of blame to go around.

And sometimes, we need to start with the teacher.

Back when I was in seventh grade (and I rode a dinosaur to school), I was required to take Home Economics--one semester of sewing, one semester of cooking (only girls, no boys). I can remember being so excited to take these classes.  Especially sewing. No one in my family sewed and I thought it would be cool to learn. Oh, I could thread a needle, I made lots of embroidered dish towels. But this class would get us at a sewing machine. We were going to sew our own clothes!

I soon hated going to class.

You see, the teacher stood in front of the class, told us what to do and then stepped back. If she helped anyone, it was the girls who already knew a little of what they were doing. Girls who had people who sewed at home. I don't remember her ever coming over to really help me. I don't remember anything about that class except wanting to cry the whole time I worked on the jumper I had picked out to work on.

It never got finished.

I carried it in my arms during the "fashion show" that was held to show off our work.

I do remember her telling me at the end of the semester that she was giving me a D- so I didn't have to take the class again (or so she wouldn't have to have me back in class again. At least that's what her words felt like).

I never tried to sew again (I aced Cooking, though).

This experience colors everything I do in my teaching. I try to never make a student feel like I did as a seventh grader (although I know I probably have). I start questioning myself every time I send out midterms, every time a student gets lower than a C-. What am I doing wrong? What could I be doing to help this student? Sometimes I don't have an answer. Sometimes I sit down and look the kid in the eye and say, "What can I do to help you? Is there something I should be doing differently?"

And sometimes, I have to ask, "What's going on with you?  What's happening in your life? What is keeping you from doing your best?"

As often as I joke about students thinking I live in my room, I have to remember that students don't live at school either. That sometimes, their lives outside of school are traumatic. Scary. Complicated.

I have to give the kid a break who left his computer at his dad's several hours away
or
the kid who misses morning practice because he brings siblings to school
or
the kid who needs to bring breakfast to my room because his/her last meal was yesterday's lunch
or
the kid whose dad left last night.

Yes. Sometimes students  are lazy and unmotivated. Sometimes they screw around in my class. Sometimes they are playing games on their computers or checking Facebook and Twitter or listening to music and watching YouTube videos.

Students will waste time once in awhile. I do too-- when I'm bored.

But it doesn't mean we should write them off.

It means we might need to look at ourselves. We might need to dust off lesson plans that have seen their better days.

We might need to really put students first and teach what they need, not what and how we were taught.

End of Rant.

Celebrating Students

118 students. 5 preps.

This has been the smoothest, happiest start to a school year I can remember. I think I've said that before. But I come home every day loving my students more than I did the day before.

It helps I've had most of them in class before. We all know what to expect. They know I expect them to work hard, to think hard, to take charge. I know that they are kids and that won't always happen.

We adjust.

And when you love them, they love you back. And how can your day not be better when you receive all that love?

It's not that there aren't negative things going on. There are. Some personal. Some professional. Some both.

I'm choosing to ignore the negative. Choosing to focus on my kids and the community we are creating.  It's a safe, comfortable place. A place where kids can come and honestly say, "I don't get it." And no one will ridicule them. Or tell them to read it again. Or ignore them.

We are reading Fahrenheit 451 in College Prep Lit. I chose it because I wanted them to think, to question, to have opinions. I wanted them to have a say in their education. My big question for this class, one I have written on our writing graffiti wall is, "Why do we need the things in books?" Yesterday's class discussion was one of the best I've ever had in a classroom with students because they did all of that. And they were honest about things they want and need from a teacher. We talked about making mistakes, about why kids don't want to participate in some classes and why they all have something to say in others. They explained why they hate most lectures, but love the ones from a certain teacher (he connects everything to the world they know).

That conversation affected everyone of my student interactions the rest of the day.

I hope it affects evert interaction the rest of the year.

Celebrate #Hashtags

Join the celebration over at Ruth's  blog. You'll be glad you did!

Here I sit on Saturday morning, doing exactly what I dreamed about all week...

• drinking more that one cup of coffee
• watching The Today Show
• snuggled in a blanket on a chilly Iowa morning
• writing about celebrating my week

And this was one amazing wonderful week.

I don't really know why the start of this school year has gone so smoothly, why I'm enjoying the start of this year more than years past, but I am. Seems like I am celebrating daily!

My favorite celebrations came in hashtags this week...

#CWFierce
I try to come up with hashtags for each class. As I tweet out what we are doing in class, I have a hashtag we can use. It's mostly for our class, but parents catch on and so do other teachers.  #CWFierce is the hashtag we came up with for Creative Writing.

It's been quite active this week as we wrote 6 Word Memoirs and Twitter Memoirs this week in preparation for Expressive/Reflective writing.  Once kids got writing, there were many great words shared. Some kids don't have Twitter or they preferred to remain anonymous, so they wrote their memoirs down for me and I tweeted them.  They loved seeing their stories out in the world.

And then, my blogging community teachers asked if they could also use the hashtag for sharing out student work. Of course, I said yes.

So, please, follow our hashtag. The kids are (and will) sharing some amazing things.

#OMW1415
This is going to be a fun project for my 8th graders to participate in this year (I may get my writing kids doing this too). Out My Window is a creative project to help kids become more aware of the world around them. Each month there is a different theme for kids to write about, all while using the five themes of geography.  We've taken our pictures and started our poems. Look for the final products next week!

#BoysDontRead
Ever since I read Grasshopper Jungle and then Winger I have been a HUGE  fan of Andrew Smith. I followed him on Twitter (he followed me back!)  I followed him on Facebook (he followed me back again!). This week on Facebook, he told a story about meeting several adult non-fiction writers. They seemed to believe that boys don't read, especially boys don't read YA. All week, teachers have been writing and sending pictures to him of boys that read. So yesterday, during our ten minute reading time, I snapped a couple of pictures of football players reading in College Prep Lit.  I tweeted them out with our school hashtag (#2020HowardWinn, just in case you want to follow that one) and then, thought What the heck and I added Andrew's name to the tweet.

This picture has taken on a life of it's own. It's been retweeted MANY times and Andrew put it on his Facebook page. How cool is that?  Well, the conversation on his page was pretty fun too. Especially after he said he should consider coming to Iowa and author Geoff Herbach jumped in. He visited my room last year and recognized it!

As I'm writing this, Andrew tweeted a promise to visit Iowa. I'm going to hold him to that :)

Well, that was my amazing wonderful week. How was yours?