THE LIFELONG LEARNER

Sneaking Rigor into the Choice-Reading Classroom

Choice is a beautiful thing. With students choosing their own titles in my class, there’s so. much. beauty. There’s beauty in watching Reluctant Readers realize that reading is enjoyable–maybe just not how we‘ve been assigning it. These students become Authentic Readers and grow as a result.

And there’s beauty in the Closet Readers and the Only Read What Is Assigned Readers, as they’re able to read more of what they enjoy while also growing as readers.

But risk comes along for the ride, too.

There’s risk in losing control of what our students are reading. There’s risk in helping our students meet the standards when everyone is reading something different. And there’s risk in our students entering a state of Reading Arrested Development, opting for, say, John Green titles all year long. John Green is an engaging YA author, but if our students don’t eventually challenge themselves with more rigorous texts, too, that’s a college-and-career-readiness problem. The latter is my greatest fear and, thankfully, one that teacher-author Teri Lesesne has already solved. More on that in a minute.

As a teacher, I identify with Jessica Seinfeld (Jerry’s wife), who became a household name for her Deceptively Delicious cookbooks. She hides chickpeas in her cookies, cauliflower in her burgers, and spinach in her brownies. The best part? Her kids don’t suspect a thing, and they are healthier because of it.

There are plenty of ways to do this, but there are three that have proven successful in our classroom: 1) Using Reading Ladders; 2) Teaching whole-class texts when students are ready; and 3) Teaching portions of texts rather than texts in their entirety.

🏋️‍♀️ READING LADDERS 🏋️‍♀️

In her book Reading Ladders: Leading Students from Where They Are to Where We’d Like Them to Be, Lesesne introduces the concept of “Reading Ladders.” The goal is for the teacher to “connect students to book after book–each a little more complex than the last.” The graphic below is an example of a Reading Ladder for a mystery/thriller lover. A student might begin with Kate Medina’s Burn Baby Burn and then be guided toward more rigorous texts like Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City and Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. When they’re ready. The students are still reading because they’re interested in what they’re reading, and they’re becoming stronger readers in the process. Often without even knowing it.

Spinach. Filled. Brownies.

🏋️‍♀️ STUDENT READINESS 🏋️‍♀️

Another way I work rigor into the mix is by timing my whole-class reads carefully. I used to open the year with The Great Gatsby before students had completely bought into my For the Love of Reading program. Colossal mistake. The students who Fake-Read the year before did the same thing with me in the fall. (It was, of course, exacerbated when That Kid blurted, “I heard the movie is just like the book!”) While Old Me might have thrown my hands up and said, “Those darn cell phones!,” New Me knows that my students simply weren’t ready to tackle something as rigorous as Fitzgerald. Not yet. Were they capable? Of course. But were they ready? Not a chance. And “[a] book isn’t rigorous if students aren’t reading it” (Penny Kittle in Book Love).

Once I moved The Great Gatsby to the spring, the experience truly became, er, Great. Students were authentically reading a text that had been Fake-Read by all but a handful of students in years past.

And it never hurts to dangle the carrot of watching Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation at the end of the unit. I’ve found that not only are my students more willing to grapple with the text, fewer watch the movie ahead of time, since we‘ll be watching it together in class. Plus, Leo is, like, wicked dreamy.

Spinach. Filled. Brownies.

🏋️‍♀️ LESS IS MORE 🏋️‍♀️

Another way I sneak rigor into our curriculum is by following the research-backed approach that Kimberly Hill Campbell shares in her book Less Is More. In it, she writes that

“[her] task as a language arts teacher is to provide texts that are not so difficult that [her] students shut down in frustration and not so easy that [her] students don’t push their thinking.”

To do this, Hill Campbell exposes her students to portions of numerous, challenging texts, rather than reading only a few full-length ones. Accordingly, her students become familiar with far more authors and more writing styles and more genres and more worlds than they would have in reading a few full-length books throughout the year. (Her students read full-length novels, too, of course.)

Her research reveals that less really is more: The students closely read these rigorous texts and remain engaged throughout the entire process–rather than starting out strong, losing interest, and then phoning it in for the remainder of the unit. If a particular text doesn’t appeal to them, students know that if they can just hang on, another one is coming in a matter of days. Contrast that with a student spending a month (or more with vacations?) discussing, assessing, and writing about a book that doesn’t appeal to them. My students used to either Fake-Read (throwing “American Dream” into the conversation here and there) or disengage altogether. And were even upfront about it: “Ms. Hughes, I hate this book, but I promise I’ll try to read the next one.”

So, here’s an example of how I followed Hill Campbell’s lead.

Our final sophomore unit centers around society’s thirst for more. And what character is a more power-hungry, insatiable glutton than Macbeth? However, rather than read Macbeth in its entirety (which is done in some of our senior-level classrooms), I was given permission to explore just one act.

Rather than spend five weeks on a Shakespearean play, we explored a portion of Macbeth together and then students examined a scene (of their choosing) from another Shakespearean play, as well as teach it to small groups of classmates.

Like all books—especially ones we explore in part, context is critical. We first discussed Shakespeare’s unique language (to prevent any roadblocks), and then we discussed some background (to provide a context).

After our whole-class exploration, the training wheels came off. Students became experts in a scene (of their choice) from one of Shakespeare’s 36 other plays and taught it to a small group.

And the best part? My students remained engaged throughout the entire unit. Of Shakespeare. (In fact, many of them circled back to read the rest of Macbeth and their self-selected plays on their own.)

Spinach. Filled. Brownies.

We are currently in COVID, which prevented me from doing that again this spring; however, I’m excited to try this with many more grade-level texts in the fall.

(As soon as we figure out what school in the fall will look like.)

There’s been lots of talk about finding the Silver Linings in the midst of our current COVID storm. At publishing time, we’ve been quarantined here in New England for ten weeks, and schools are closed indefinitely. However, despite all of the anxiety and unrest, our students are still learning (because we teachers are still teaching), we haven’t run out of toilet paper, and we haven’t sold our kids on eBay driven each other mad.

But it’s a lot.

And if we’re not careful, the What Ifs can absolutely capsize us.

To help reset my own perspective (which I find myself doing on the daily), I‘ve been doing what many of you are doing: looking for the Good that has come out of all of this.

Of course, this is nothing new. Mr. Rogers urged us to see the Good, C. S. Lewis encouraged it, Mother Teresa—and probably just about all of our parents as they endured our adolescence. If you haven’t seen British YouTuber Probably Tomfoolery’s The Great Realisation [sic], it’s a must-watch that explores all of the Good that has come from our time in captivity quarantine.

So, without further adieu, here’s my own list—in no particular order—of the Good I’ve seen come from what my students are affectionately calling “Coronacation.” (#worstcationever)

1) We’re Moving.🚶‍♀️

I can no longer blame Never Being Home or Lack of Time or The Kids’ Crazy Schedule as a reason not to move. We’re home. We have sneakers. We’ve got nice weather. And we now have the time. So, we’re doing something every day to get our endorphins going—which helps with our emotional state, too. Now, if I could just stop eating my feelings…

2) We’re Organizing. 📋

Remember all of those To Do Lists that resurface every vacation? Me, too. Except mine come out, taunt me all week, and then get shoved back into a Drawer of Shame. Quarantine, however, has allowed me to organize cabinets and drawers and closets and even entire rooms. Take that, Marie Kondo!

3) We’re Playing. 🃏

I love board games, but no one wants to play them with me. Unless it’s my birthday. Being stuck at home—and bored—has forced my kids to cave. And while it’s infrequent and often leads to fighting, those first 15 minutes of Forced Family Game Time are glorious.

4) We’re Watching. 📺

Because our interests are so varied, we rarely watch the same thing in our casa. But since you can only watch so many episodes of The Tiger King or The Office, we’re watching more as a family. And in the same room.

5) We’re Talking. 🗣

And because you can only watch for so long (see above), our mornings typically have slower starts. Which I love. Prior to this, it had been eons since sleepy kids stumbled out of their rooms—hair askew—and just rambled while still waking up. I’m usually grabbing my coffee and my school bag and jetting out the door before they sometimes are even awake. I didn’t realize how much I missed the morning time. I love this part.

6) We’re Eating. 🍽

With sports and other activities, there was a lot of eating-in-shifts going on. So, to all be eating at least one meal at the same time—and together? Priceless. Now if all of us could eat the same thing at the same time, that would be a true COVID Miracle.

7) We’re Connecting. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

Let the record show that I don’t care about TikTok or Fortnite or the 97th season of Grey’s Anatomy. At all. However, it has been enlightening–and even a little interesting–to get a closer look into the things that interest my kids. Ironically, I talk a lot about the importance of reading the room and teaching the students in the seats in front of me. However, prior to this, I don’t think I practiced what I preached a whole lot at home.

However, please don’t misunderstand.

There’s definitely more fighting and #familydistancing in the Hughes homestead than there was, say, ten weeks ago. We’re not learning the guitar together or making our own hand sanitizer or building a shed in the backyard or baking our way through grandmother’s recipes. On the contrary, we’re still getting takeout quite a bit–under the guise of being “locavores who are supporting small business.” My laptop’s weekly screen time averages are nauseating, and that struggle-is-real work-home balance is realer than it ever was.

Plus, our kids are sick of quarantining, and their parents are, too. The kids miss being able to just hang out with their friends, and their parents do, too. And one person in our house especially misses being able to teach in front of real humans and eat in a place where she can pay the bill and leave the dishes to someone else. (Getting her roots “did” wouldn’t be too bad either. #firstworldproblems)

As of next week, our state will be reopening slowly. While it won’t look the same for a while, there are definitely Silver Linings in all of this. Matthew Quick’s novel The Silver Linings Playbook reminds us that “[l]ife is not a PG feel-good movie. Real life often ends badly. Literature tries to document this reality, while showing us it is still possible for us to endure nobly.”

But endure this we will–and hopefully, we’ll learn a thing or two in the process.

Endure nobly, everyone.

And stay well.

Photo Credit: Siouxsie Wiles and Toby Morris

This is our students’ 9/11. Their JFK Assassination. Their Uphill-Both-Ways-in-the-Snow walks to school. This is their “I-Remember-When…,” the story they’ll be telling and retelling the next generation.

This is also a breeding ground for anxiety. And the instant access to the news–complete with its statistics, daily briefings, and predictions–probably doesn’t help.

So, as we all do our best to flatten the curve, educators are doing their best to flatten student anxiety as well.

While keeping their own anxiety in check.

And connecting with their students in real-time.

And creating meaningful, non-busywork assignments.

And providing feedback on what students have submitted.

And reaching out to those who haven’t engaged with their class.

And helping their own children with their school work.

And keeping their cupboards stocked when the supermarket shelves might not be.

And… And… And…

Teaching 100+ students–while trying to just survive the current “unprecedented time”–is a lot.

So, to add some levity to this otherwise heavy time (especially now that many of us have loved ones who are sick), my students answer a Quarantine Question of the Week. (I answer it, too.) And their willingness to play along–and their sense of humor–has I think helped us both. Below are some of the Greatest Hits from these last few weeks.

Enjoy! 🙂

WEEK 1: MY QUARANTINE IN SIX WORDS

Describe your Quarantine in exactly 6 words. No more. No less. No explaining.

(inspired by Jimmy Fallon’s Hashtag Challenge)

• My 600 Pound Life–Quarantine Edition.
• Sleep, Learn Anywhere, workout, and repeat.
• Have to check my email again.
• Never thought I would miss school.
• Every day is Saturday, minus the fun.
• Walking from couch to fridge = challenge.
• Overused television, underused legs, inescapable family.
• Schedule? Funny. I’m slowly becoming nocturnal.
• Homework stress greater than Covid stress.

WEEK 2: LOTTERY LOOT

What’s the first thing you’d buy if you won the lottery?

• I’d pay off my parent’s house–and buy myself a nice car.
• I’d purchase a ball python and its tank requirements.
• I would pay for my college tuition and put enough in the bank for both of my siblings.
• I’d install a full wall of bookshelves.
• I’d purchase two plane tickets to Sacramento, California.
• I’d buy a giant bean bag chair the size of a bed.
• The first thing I’d invest in (besides college) is a studio where I can create stories.

WEEK 3: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION.

If you could quarantine anywhere else, where would it be?

• At Winona Ryder’s house (minus Winona Ryder)
• Anywhere warm! It would have to have A/C, as I melt very easily. Definitely need a private pool and a personal chef. If I’m in quarantine, might as well be stuck living lavish.
• In Maui, sitting on the beach with a tropical (non-alcoholic) drink in my hand
• In a Barnes ‘n Noble all by myself with maybe a couple of Starbucks employees. That way I could have tons of books, music, Starbucks, and other sources of entertainment.
• Any large city. I don’t care if it’s a cramped apartment building. It would be nice to have people living close by I could just talk to through a window or balcony.
• In a rock climbing facility, as long as I could get some decent food
• In a modest mansion in the Sud de France countryside. My friends and I are there so that we can play D&D and ride horses and read and talk all day. The entire collection of all the words of Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Franz Kafka is in the house. With some comedy in there for when we’re done reading about death.
• In all honesty, I wouldn’t want to be quarantined anywhere else. I love my home, and I have all my family and pets with me to keep my company.

WEEK 4: “QUIET ON THE SET!”

Congratulations! Your life is going to be made into a movie. Who would you want to play you?

• I’d want Saoirse Ronan to play me, and be my best friend.
• Blake Lively
• The Rock
• Millie Bobby Brown
• Sophie Grace Brownlee
• Mila Kunis
• Tom Holland
• Reese Witherspoon
• Dylan O’Brien
• Amy Poehler

And quite possibly the best response…

• Based off of Buzzfeed’s “We Know Who Your Celebrity Doppelganger is Based on These 7 Questions” Quiz, I look like Timothée Chalamet. So, I guess he would play me. Buzzfeed doesn’t lie. Am I right? (Note: This is a female who looks nothing like Timothée Chalamet.)

I always tell my students that Life trumps School. I don’t want them worrying about a reading assignment or writing deadline when they should be caring for a post-op mom or sitting with a sick grandparent. Life is precious, our time together is limited, and our relationships with each other will always eclipse English class. Life trumps School.

Then Dad died, and all bets were off.

That wisdom I’d doled out to my students? Completely lost on me. (It was also lost on me when, at Week 37, my water broke and I was writing lesson plans.)

Unfortunately, there’s no grad class for how to grieve in a job that requires you to be “on” every minute of every day. With other jobs, you can hold your father’s hand in hospice, plan his funeral, and take the necessary time to grieve. In education, you can’t move Tuesday’s meetings to Wednesday and call it a day. Tuesday’s clients still need to learn. As proof, I remember squeezing myself into the corner of Dad’s hospice room, writing lesson plans. And his eulogy.

Today is the one year anniversary of Dad’s passing–and the first time I could write about it.

These last 12 months have brought with them many emotions and even more realizations. Here’s a list of some of what I’ve learned about death and teaching.

There are a slew of other things I’ve learned in the last year, but I’ll save that for my book. I’ll simply close with this: I miss Dad something awful. But Elizabeth Kübler-Ross had it right.

“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.”

Our family’s Faith assures us that the night Dad left us, he fell–on two strong knees–before His God. No cane. No hearing aids. No pain. No cancer. Just completely Whole. And he heard his Heavenly Father say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” 

We’re one year down with a lifetime to go. And I trust there will be many more lessons to learn—and to teach—along the way.

A few years ago, during Thanksgiving week, I began what I affectionately call “The Gratitude Project.” (You can read read more about it HERE and HERE.) Essentially, I forced my students–and myself–to carve out some time to reflect on the Good in our lives in the midst of all of the bad. We were inspired by Kid President, we looked at an experiment that the Science of Happiness conducted, writing similar letters to the influential people in our own lives, and we saw how gratitude is being expressed in ongoing global projects such as the 365 Grateful Project and Thnx4. I shared my own musings–in the midst of aging parents–both of whom have battled cancer and defeated the ICU in the last year alone. (My father was actually in the hospital while we were working on last year’s Gratitude Project and lost his battle to the cancer that had unknowingly returned fewer than than two months later.)

In addition to wanting my students to have a positive digital footprint (hence our Passion Blog Project and our use of Goodreads–among other 21st century learning opportunities), I wanted my students’ parents–and the world!–to see the fabulousness these students show me on a regular basis.

The result was a community slide deck where students expressed reasons for which they are thankful this year. Some contributions were light, others were heartfelt, but all reflected the diverse mix of grateful thinkers in Room 1227. Take a look below to see what these fabulous adolescents shared. (Click on the slide deck itself to advance to the next one.)

High schoolers aren’t reading like they used to.

However, most students remember a time when they enjoyed reading, going to the library, having a book read to them. But something happened, and reading was placed on the back burner. (For my readers, that Something tends to be middle school–when choice often goes down and requirements go up.) Addressing the part schools play in this decline, Kelly Gallagher (in his book Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It), asks:

“Shouldn’t schools be the place where students interact with interesting books? Shouldn’t the faculty have an ongoing laser-like commitment to put good books in our students’ hands? Shouldn’t this be a front-burner issue at all times?”

My answer, of course, is yes, a thousand times yes!

Thankfully, my students are readers. The students I had ten years ago? Not so much. But now–with far more distractions in the midst (e.g., Netflix, cell phones, gaming), my students are actually reading again.

And when I’m asked what has changed, the answer is simple: me.

A mid-career crisis–fueled, in part, by the non-readers sitting in my classroom–forced me to upend everything I had done in my English classroom. And I saw firsthand what the research had been saying for decades: Choice for the win.  The video below (which I share with my students and parents in September) articulates The Why behind the For the Love of Reading (#ftlor) Program.

And yes, there’s data. Last year’s (three classes of high school) sophomores read a collective 1,281 books cover to cover after openly admitting to only having read 356 books the year before!

While choice reading looks different in every classroom, here’s what has worked in Room 1227–after over five years of research, professional development, trial-and-error, and student and parent feedback. My For the Love of Reading program includes four steps: 1) Start with a plan; 2) Devote part of every class to reading; 3) Hold students accountable; and 4) Help them grow.

1) START WITH A PLAN.

Our department requires students to read one full-length text per quarter. However, in order to build the stamina necessary for college (where they’ll be assigned up to 600 pages of reading per week!), I require my students to read one book per month. Many students end up far exceeding this, but most confess to thinking in September that Teacher-Lady was certifiable (which is probably the case) and that they’d simply Fake Read again all year.

Since many of my students wouldn’t be able to name ten books they’d like to read without consulting Google, they first complete a reading planner. (I’ve allowed students complete choice and controlled choice within monthly genres. Both work well, but I’ve found that the latter exposes my students to a variety of readings. We spend a few days in September exploring genres in groups–again genres that the students select, and each month starts with a group sharing their research in a slide deck like this one on the genre we’ll be exploring.) My learners are given class time to play in the Literary Sandbox, perusing sites like Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, our school and town library database, and our classroom library database (of 2,600+ books!) through Booksource to find titles that interest them. Students who don’t know where to start are pointed toward sites like this 2019 Reading Challenge or this timeless Bingo-style one.

Having a plan in place means students always know what they’ll be reading next–which keeps the momentum going. And that’s half the battle. However, the beauty of the reading planner is its fluidity, as students’ tastes and skills change as the year progresses.

Since many of my students are still recovering from painful break-ups with reading, they often don’t know where to start. I encourage them to have an open mind and get themselves back out there.

I stress the importance of “dating” a book before fully committing to one, exploring titles within their potential careers, sampling the first book in a series, or trying a new-to-them genre.

But they are the captain of the ship, and this is what keeps them from getting stranded in the Sea of Fake Reading.

2) DEVOTE PART OF EVERY CLASS TO READING.

My students and I read for 10 minutes at the beginning of every 54-minute block and for 15 minutes at the beginning of every 74-minute long block. Every. Class.

All of the literacy experts agree: If we want students to read, we need to create time for it in class. How else do we demonstrate that reading is critical? In addition, students In her post “I’ve Got Research. Yes, I Do. I’ve Got Research. How About You?,” Donalyn Miller asks (immediately before unloading a slew of research on her readers), “Why must English teachers constantly defend the need for students to practice reading and writing in a class dedicated to reading and writing?” As tempting as it is to use those 10-15 minutes to take attendance or return papers, it’s important for our students to see us reading, too. And even more important? If we’re telling our students that lifelong reading is important, we need to model it. This is especially critical to help close the achievement gap between male and female learners.

So that I know students are making progress, the students and I update our reading every week on Goodreads. (See how I infuse Goodreads into my classroom here.)

And at the end of every month, students publish a book review (not  summary) following these guidelines for a real-world audience of 90 million readers. That’s a whole lot more authentic than writing for Teacher-Lady.

4) HELP THEM GROW.

I’m often asked, “What if students only read, say, John Green and Sarah Dessen?” I used to respond–as non-flippantly as possible, “So what?” They are reading.  Study after study shows that I could distribute Macbeth in September, which is unarguably more challenging than, say, The Fault in Our Stars, but the same five students that read everything assigned will read Macbeth. The rest will fake-read. Whereas, 100% of the students that choose to read Green’s text will actually read it.

And rigorous or not, “a book isn’t rigorous if students aren’t reading it” (Penny Kittle in Book Love). 

Like a toddler who, after being given full-range of the snack drawer, eventually begins to crave healthier food, my students–especially the ones I’ve had for two years–eventually move on from Green and Dessen to more rigorous texts. As Teri Lesesne champions in her book Reading Ladders: Leading Students from Where They Are to Where We’d Like Them To Be, I facilitate the process from the beginning to the end.

But most of my students couldn’t start with Macbeth. Which is how I used to kick off the year.

In addition to all of this choice, we still read whole-class novels, too; however, it’s all about the timing. My sophomores who might have abandoned The Great Gatsby in September are able to embrace it in May. Because they’ve increased their reading stamina. Because they are ready.

Students can’t be reduced to a number. They can’t be defined by their results on common assessment, reduced to where they fall on a state test, nor limited by their SAT/ACT scores.

However, sometimes numbers don’t lie.

With a towering goal of helping students fall back (or, for a select few, remain) in love with reading–while building their stamina to endure the 600-pages-per-week of reading they’ll be asked to do in college, I need numbers. They help validate what I do in the classroom (e.g., allowing students to choose the majority of their texts, beginning every class with 10 minutes of reading, using Goodreads for goal-setting, tracking, and review-publishing, maintaining a classroom library).

So, at the end of every year, I ask students to tally how many books they read–cover-to-cover during our time together and compare it to what they read the year before.

The. Results. Are. Glorious.

In a world of SparkNotes, Fake Reading, and Beating the System, check out the growth of these amazing, authentic (and hopefully lifelong) readers! It’ll warm your soul.

And just imagine the effect this much reading has had on their writing skills!

DISCLAIMER: These are all honors sophomores. However, I have done my reading experiment-turned-way-of-life for the last 6 years, and the results with my college preparatory students have always been equally astounding.

As freshmen, A block read a collective 169 books cover-to-cover from September to June. (See top pic.) As sophomores? 491 books! (See bottom pic.) That’s a 191% increase, folks! 

As freshmen, C block read a collective 83 books cover-to-cover from September to June. (See top pic.) As sophomores? 430 books! (See bottom pic.) That’s a 418% increase, folks! 

As freshmen, E block read a collective 104 books cover-to-cover from September to June. (See top pic.) As sophomores? 360 books! (See bottom pic.) That’s a 246% increase, folks!

It’s that time of year again…The snow is beginning to melt (ish). The days are feeling a bit longer. Daylight is sticking around for dinner.

And statewide exams are lurking around the corner.

In Massachusetts, sophomores must pass the MCAS exam (in ELA, math, & science) in order to graduate. So, naturally, I’ve shared strategies and sample test questions with them, and we’ve taken practice tests. Or test. Singular. (Since this year’s MCAS is the first overhaul since 1993, there’s only one practice test available. For the entire state.)

I’ve also shared with my sophomores and a bit more loudly that, while the MCAS is important, it in no way defines them. It’s one test. Assessing where these 15- and 16-year-olds are on those two particular days. And after seven months together, I can attest that they are so much more than whatever they end up scoring on the MCAS.

In their heads, I think they know that. However, I’m not sure knowing that necessarily assuages their anxiety.

So, to put the MCAS (or SAT or ACT or Midyear Exam or Final Exam or…) back into perspective,  I share the video below by teacher-author Kumar Sathy. (It’s also a great way to expose them to spoken word poetry.)

I also share with my students the letter-read-’round-the-world, penned by an Indiana teacher before their state exams (pictured below). This letter practically broke the internet after a student’s parent shared it on Instagram. And you can see why.

For the record, my students are just as fabulous as hers. And if you work with students, I’m willing to bet that yours are, too.

Are our students anxious about these state-wide assessments? Uh, yeah.

Will they try their best on these tests? Most definitely.

But will their scores define them? Not a chance.

Last year, a few days before Thanksgiving, I began what I affectionately call “The Gratitude Project.” (You can read read more about it HERE and HERE.) Essentially, I forced my students–and myself–to carve out some time to reflect on the Good in our lives. We were inspired by Kid President, we looked at an experiment that the Science of Happiness conducted, and we saw how gratitude is being expressed in ongoing global projects such as the 365 Grateful Project and Thnx4. I shared my own musings–in the midst of aging parents–both of whom have battled cancer and defeated the ICU in the last year alone.

In addition to wanting my students to have a positive digital footprint (hence our Passion Blog Project and our use of Goodreads–among other 21st century learning opportunities), I wanted my students’ parents–and the world!–to see the fabulousness these students show me on a regular basis.

The result was a community slide deck where students expressed reasons for which they are thankful this year. Some contributions were light, others were heartfelt, but all reflected the diverse mix of thinkers in Room 1227. Take a look at what they shared below!

Penny Kittle wrote,  “A book isn’t rigorous if students aren’t reading it.” This single statement has shaped my teaching career more than just about anything else. And for my first fifteen years, my students (and, chances are, probably yours, too) simply weren’t reading.

I was beyond frustrated.

So, I decided to teach the students in front of me, rather than teach how I had been taught. I decided to teach the students in front of me, rather than reuse the resources I had feverishly created the years before. I decided to teach the students in front of me, even though it required me to turn what I do in the classroom on its side and allow the students–who were fake reading, at best–to choose what books they would read. Part of my rationale was to help my readers build the stamina they’ll need to tackle the 600-pages-per-week of assigned college reading AND the other part was to help them fall back in love with reading.

Study after study has shown that the more students read, the better they will be at reading, writing, grammar, spelling, and even the unavoidable test-taking.

What study after study has NOT shown is that students have to curl up with the Complete Works of the Bard or anything Dickens or even–dare I say it?–Harper Lee. Nope. The studies simply show that students need to be reading. Period. And my students weren’t. 

Lest you think your cherubs would never fake-read (which Much-Younger-Me thought), check out the video below. (I show it to my students every September.) It features a group of Penny Kittle’s seniors–all of whom earned good English grades despiterarely cracking a book.

My favorite comment? The Everyman who confesses (at 1:23) to snowing his teachers with, “‘Well, this really gets back to the American Dream’… and then you just make a bunch of stuff up.” That was literally every literature circle in my class prior to allowing choice.

Mind you, this was in spite of my high expectations and my years of facilitating seminar discussions and my feverish crafting of higher-order-thinking questions that couldn’t be found online. (ASIDE: Even now, I generate my own questions so students can’t allow someone online to do the thinking for them. For example, the use of color in The Great Gatsby? I’ll bet few students could ignore the Siren Song of the 52.8 million (!) hits Google just generated for me. In 0.56 seconds.)

Even still, my students weren’t authentically reading. Their writing was formulaic and lacked depth and/or free-thought. Their discussion contributions were superficial and redundant. And both forms of communication merely parroted back what the students thought Teacher-Lady wanted to hear. Or what we had already discussed in class.  Shockingly, they fake-read in my class just as much as they had the year before. Even though they supposedly liked tolerated Teacher-Lady.

However, that all changed once students were allowed to choose what books they were going to read. 

I’ll be posting how I have made Choice work in my classroom and the importance of a blended approach separately. In the meantime, if you’re uneasy with allowing your students to direct their own learning, know that I was, too. It’s terrifying. After all, who’s the one with the literature degree in the room, the one who knows which standards have to be met? However, choice in no way means that Teacher-Lady works less or avoids steering students toward rich titles or withholds her vast knowledge about all-things-ELA. On the contrary, it means that in a Choice Classroom, “students assume responsibility and self-direct their own learning.” Which is one of our district’s 21st Century Learning Expectations.

But for Choice to work, there needs to be some ground rules.

1) DON’T JUDGE WHAT THE STUDENTS ARE READING. We can’t assume that because our students are young and inexperienced and don’t hold a literature degree, they are reading “garbage” or “bubble gum” literature. But some of them are. And that’s okay. We can’t shame these lighter-fare choices. After all, when was the last time we went to the library or Amazon.com and left with only Faulkner, Joyce, and Rand? Or we logged in to Netflix and only watched film adaptations of The Bard’s plays? We read–and watch–for different reasons. And if we’re trying to create lifelong readers–or at least readers who will be able to survive the 600+ per week they’ll be assigned in college, we can’t judge what they choose to read.

Plus, it’s about moderation. Those lighter-fare reads are the very Gateway Titles our reluctant readers need to come back into the fold. Rest assured: My sophomores authentically read–and enjoy!–The Great Gatsby. In the spring. When they’re ready. But many of them confessed to fake-reading it when I used to assign it in September. Same level of readers. Same Choice Reading Program. Just students who weren’t yet ready.

2) DON’T ASSUME IT’S QUANTITY OVER QUALITY. And we can’t tell our students that reading should be about quality over quantity. Says who? We don’t always know what our students are reading. We don’t always see the students who struggled through The Hunger Games in September now poring over Vonnegut and Orwell and Heller and Shakespeare in February.

Further, why are they even mutually exclusive? Why not hold students to a higher reading standard, quantity-wise, while helping them climb Teri Lesesne’s “Reading Ladder” toward more complex books? Ironically, I only require my students to read one Choice Book each month–a number so low it would make both Penny Kittle and Donalyn Miller guffaw. However, because my students quickly realize they enjoy reading (they just don’t love what we teachers have done to it), students read upwards of 80+ books during our 10 months together. After reading zero the year before.

3) DON’T JUDGE WHAT GOES ON IN OTHER CLASSROOMS. This is a good rule for all of us. We shouldn’t judge what our colleagues are doing in their classrooms–especially if we’re not current in what the research says. Until we read a professional development book about literacy or attend a workshop or take a graduate class or do something else to professionally develop, have we really earned the right to cross our proverbial arms and assume that what our colleagues are doing (with results) is lesser than whatever we’re doing? Conversely, Choice Embracers can’t judge what goes on in a traditional classroom either. Students need to be exposed to all types of teaching.

4) DON’T ASSUME, IN GENERAL. What if we just put a moratorium on assumptions altogether? We can’t assume that Choice Embracers don’t teach whole-class novels as well. Or dig in to texts with close-reading. Or assign works from the Canon. Or adhere to the one-size-fits-all curriculum that was purchased for us on top of all of the rich work we do with Choice Texts. Choice Embracers do all of that–and then some.

For Choice to work, we need to put our book-shaming and judgment and assumptions aside. Can we disagree? Absolutely. We teach our students that respectful discourse helps us understand other points of view. And isn’t that one of the reasons we read? However, we also need to consider the students in front of us. And teach them.

And, of course, you know where I stand: Let them eat cake choose books!

Since reading is the inhale and writing is the exhale, our Creative Writing class reflected on which authors have inspired the inner writers in each of us. Take a look at the community slidedeck that we created! (Use the control bar to control the speed.) Teacher-Lady played, too!

Students can’t be reduced to a number. They can’t be defined by their results on a common assessment, reduced to where they fall on a state test, nor limited by their SAT/ACT scores.

However, sometimes numbers don’t lie.

With a towering goal of helping students fall back (or, for a select few, remain) in love with reading–while building their stamina to endure the 600-pages-per-week of reading they’ll be asked to do in college, I need numbers. They help validate what I do in the classroom (e.g., allowing students to choose the majority of their texts, beginning every class with 10 minutes of reading, using Goodreads for goal-setting, tracking, and review-publishing, maintaining a classroom library).

So, at the end of every year, I ask students to tally how many books they read–cover-to-cover during our time together and compare it to what they read the year before.

The. Results. Are. Glorious.

In a world of SparkNotes, Fake Reading, and Beating the System, check out the growth of these amazing, authentic (and hopefully lifelong) readers! It’ll warm your soul.

And just imagine the effect this much reading has had on their writing skills!

DISCLAIMER: These are all honors sophomores. However, I have done my reading experiment-turned-way-of-life for the last 5 years, and the results with my college preparatory students are equally astounding!

Most honors students enter my classroom in the fall with the ability to craft organized, error-free writing. Which is fabulous. However, most students don’t have the tools to take their writing to the next level. (And based on the Traits of an Honors Student, taken from the Honors English course description in our school’s Program of Studies, honors students are already supposed to be writing on a more sophisticated level than their college prep counterparts.) One of the tools we recently emulated is repetition, which is a “rhetorical device writers use to make their point clearer and more memorable” (Your Dictionary).

After looking at some fabulous examples in literature, the students set out to make this sophisticated technique their own. Take a look at some of their publishing!

• Writing can be a challenge. People need a challenge. A challenge is what helps people grow.

• It’s going to get better. Everything gets better in time and I plan on doing whatever I have to in order to make it better. I will force it to get better.

• We played for our families. We played for ourselves. But most importantly, we played for each other in the championship game.

• I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe the vibrant colors right before my eyes. I couldn’t believe the delightful aromas filling the air. I couldn’t believe the overall sensation and feeling of safety. I couldn’t believe I found home.

• We waited not knowing what would happen. We waited not knowing if we would be happy with the results or not. We waited not knowing if the list would destroy friendships or bring people closer together.

• We’d get to see ball games, we’d get to see Broadway shows, we’d get to see some museums and we’d get to experience anything else New York has to offer.

• I don’t like running, I don’t like it at all. I don’t want to like running, I don’t want to like it at all, yet all I do is run.

• He fell hard. And he fell fast.

• What’s outside the window? A thousand possibilities. What’s outside the window?A land far away. What’s outside the window? Anything but here

• Green is my favorite color. Green is the color of the trees. Green is the color of the grass. Green is the color of the land we call home.

• Tonight, we fight for our fathers, we fight for our mothers, we fight for our sisters, we fight for our sons, we fight for our daughters, we fight for our future. Tonight, my friends, we fight for our freedom.

A few days before Thanksgiving, I asked my high school students to take an inventory of what they were thankful for this year.  They knew ahead of time that I would be sharing their lists, and, as promised, I emailed the class projects to my students’ parents and guardians on Thanksgiving morning.  (You can view the finished products HERE.)

Part 2 of the assignment was to commit a Random Act of Kindness over Thanksgiving break. On their first day back, the students reflected on their experiences. Take a look at some of the fabulous, very-adult realizations the students made. (I shared the list below with my students’ parents in my December newsletter.) I’m teaching some pretty kindhearted, magnanimous souls!

• Over the break, I helped my mom put up all of the Christmas Decorations in our house, which actually took about 2 hours because we have WAY too many, and [which] I even had to wake up early to do…I knew that my mom had a lot of work to do…so it was helpful to her. This action helped me feel good about myself because I usually do not help with decorations, but this year I decided to.

• My random act of kindness…was volunteering to help set the table at Thanksgiving. My mom was certainly appreciative of my offering, but more so shocked…I could tell it took stress off of her…I saw her face instantly relax once the table was set, and her visually exhale out of relief. I felt good after setting the table, about myself and about my contribution. Helping my mom, when she so often helps me, was a really nice feeling.

• Although I only got a small “thank you,” I still felt better about my day, and I was glad that I got to help someone out that seemed like they needed it.

• At work, I helped out a woman with a broken arm…It felt nice to help her out and it felt very empowering. She needed help and there was no one else who was going to help her so I did. When I think back on it I wonder, what if I was in her situation?

• The effect of the random act on me was that I did more that day than sitting doing other things while my mom worked. I know that she enjoyed my help because she wasn’t as tired as she would’ve been if I had not helped doing small but big tasks around the house.
  

• My random act of kindness was bringing the dirty dishes to the sink. I was about to run upstairs to my room after eating, but both of my parents were still sitting down. I stopped and turned around. They just finished their food, so I offered to take their plates. They said “thank you” and continued to watch their show. It felt good to do this small act for my parents. After all, that is the least I could do considering my mom cooked all the food for us while I watched Netflix.

For the December holidays, my students will be encouraged to complete another Random Act of Kindness, and I’ll be sharing  this list of fabulous ideas from fellow-educator Brad Aronson (@bradaronson).

I’m sort of done with the news. Except for the whole I-don’t-want-to-be-ignorant part. With each shooting, political scandal, and social media war, it’s hard not to head into the holidays with a heavy heart.

And our students feel it, too.

Maybe more than we do.

After all, behind all of the eye rolls, looks-that-kill, and saltiness they might display at home, they expect us adults to keep it together since their brains can’t developmentally do that just yet.

So, in addition to wanting my students to have a positive digital footprint (hence our Passion Blog Project and our use of Goodreads–among other 21st century learning opportunities), I want the world–and especially parents–to see the fabulousness their students show me on a regular basis.

Enter: The Gratitude Project.

With Thanksgiving a few days away, my students and I discussed how much we need to take a day (weekend? month? season?) to focus on all that is Good, to be Thankful for all  that we have. I shared my own musings–in the midst of aging parents–both of whom have battled cancer and defeated the ICU in the last year alone. We also discussed the many benefits of being thankful and gave ourselves a pick-me-up with wisdom from internet sensation Kid President!

The students were then each assigned a slide in a class-wide Google slide deck and told to share what they’re thankful for this holiday season.

The next step is for them to share their gratitude with others, since “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it” (William Arthur Ward).

In the meantime, take a look at what they said. It’s all sorts of fabulous.

Teachers don’t have favorites. Sure, and Mom didn’t like me best because I was the baby. However, there are definitely those students whose growth leaves us beaming with pride, whose writing leaves a lasting impression, whose authenticity leaves us questioning how we can help fix a systemic problem. I’ll come back to this.

For the written portion of my Final Exam, students reflect on their journeys as readers, writers, and thinkers. In examining how their culture has shaped them (e.g., home, family, friends, school), their narratives are poignant and heartbreaking and authentic and beautiful–which makes it my favorite writing assignment of the year. Their narratives are positive, as they recall reading with their parents and grandparents, zipping to the library with their elementary classes, tearing through the I Survived series, and choosing books over television and gaming because, “duh, reading was awesome!”

But these final compositions are also quite raw, as students relive the forced visits to the resource room for extra reading instruction or their ongoing struggle with dyslexia or not having anyone to read to them or to take them to the library or hating reading because of reading logs or being scolded for reading ahead or spending way too many months discussing a single book or closely reading one page in a grade-wide text for two weeks.

The essay that stopped me in my tracks this year (and there’s always one) included the excerpt below.

For context, the narrative, as a whole, was positive. And the author is an excellent student who earns stellar grades in her classes, is creative, and has a great sense of humor. I would take a class of 25 of her any day of the week.

But she’s also a truth-teller, which made it devastating to read.

We teachers work our tails off to compete with a Grey’s Anatomy Netflix binge or a seven-hour COD (Call of Duty) gaming marathon. We get up at 4 AM to prepare for the day. We hurry home, after we’ve dropped off the last friend in the after-school carpool, to begin leaving feedback on essay drafts. We answer emails until we go to bed. When the final drafts come in, we devote another15-20 minutes assessing each one of those–multiplied by 100+ students, several times a quarter.  (To save you from doing the math, that’s 25 hours. Assessing one set of essays. Written to a common assessment prompt that we most likely did not design.) We have our own, shortchanged children snapping how they “never want to be a teacher” or how they hate how we’re “always on the computer.” We sacrifice our family time and our planning time and our lunch time and our catch-our-breath time to sit with students in need.

But we can also be dangerous landscapers.

When we get into autopilot mode or continue doing what we’ve always done or teach the way we were taught or work so long creating something that we can’t possibly abandon it or focus more on data than reading the room or assume learning is happening because we are teaching, we cut back our students’ excitement “like the sides of a perfectly healthy but unwanted shrub”–often without even knowing it.

Don’t get me wrong. I work feverishly to avoid this dangerous landscaping. I try to make my classes engaging, to bring relevancy to the content I am asked to teach, to foster a love of reading in my students, to help my students write with voice and style and sophistication (rather than craft a formulaic, 5-paragraph essay that does not exist outside of a high school classroom).

But no matter what I do and say and assign, my students (or at least the ones who feel comfortable enough to tell me) confess that–in the system as a whole–X must equal 3, that they will lose points if they create their own thesis statement instead of using the teacher-provided one, that this–and only this–is what color represents in The Great Gatsby.

We are trimming away our students’ love of learning–unwittingly inviting them to go on their phones during class–when our actions say, “I’m going to take what you said and shape it back into what I want you to think.”

Every year, we are entrusted with 100+ healthy shrubs, and despite our greatest efforts, our feelings of #nailedit lessons, our satisfaction in a year well done, we are unintentionally cutting back otherwise healthy shrubs.

Ironically, we want our students to be free thinkers.

We want our students to be passionate about learning.

We want our students to think outside the box.

We want our students to be curious about our subject matter.

We want our students to be creative.

We want our students to be problem solvers. (Employers do, too.)

And our students can be and do all of these things–just as long as they use this starter sentence. Chop. Or read that book. Chop. Or fill out this worksheet. Chop. Or color inside the lines. Chop, chop.

Students can’t be reduced to a number. They can’t be defined by their results on a common assessment, reduced to where they fall on a state test, nor limited by their SAT/ACT scores.

However, sometimes numbers don’t lie.

With a towering goal of helping students fall back (or, for a select few, remain) in love with reading–while building their stamina to endure the 600-pages-per-week of reading they’ll be asked to do in college, I need numbers. They help validate what I do in the classroom (e.g., allow students to choose the majority of their texts, begin every class with 10 minutes of reading, use Goodreads for goal-setting, tracking, and review-publishing, maintain a classroom library).

So, at the end of every year, I ask students to tally how many books they read–cover-to-cover during our time together and compare it to what they read the year before.

The. Results. Are. Glorious.

In a world of SparkNotes, Fake Reading, and Beating the System, check out the growth of these amazing, authentic (and hopefully lifelong) readers! It’ll warm your soul.

Last Year’s Total: 55 Books; This Year’s Total: 189 Books!

In a world of Common-Assessment-This and District-Determined-Measures-That, it’s more important than ever to allow our students to show their learning in  non-standardized ways as well.

Enter: the Explainer Video.

An Explainer Video is a real-world digital tool that can be found on virtually every website. Between the fast-forward button on our DVRs and the ad blockers on our devices, commercials are growing increasingly extinct.  As a result, companies now squeeze what they want us to know into these tiny, bite-size videos.

And my students just did the same thing.

As a way to wrap up our unit, students were asked to answer our Essential Question in the form of a script (so that I could trace the development of their writing, which is our district’s goal). Once the writing process was complete, they integrated their scripts with a student-created video that demonstrated their learning. (We first viewed some examples of Explainer Videos and then created a list of ingredients–which I used to create a rubric for the assessment.)

Students were allowed to frolic in the Digital Sandbox to find a platform that worked for them. They played with iMovie and YouTube‘s built-in editor, as well as some new-to-them tools, such as Adobe Spark, Powtoon, My Simple Show, and the Chrome extension Screencastify (which, when used in tandem with Google Slides or Prezi, is the easiest platform). 

They were given class time to work on their Explainer Videos, which always turned into students providing built-in tech support for each other. Seeing this impromptu, 21st-century collaboration warms the soul!

So that the finished products could be viewed by all students–regardless of their devices, students published their finished products to YouTube and shared these links in our Google Classroom. (The more camera-shy students made their YouTube videos UNLISTED, which makes them virtually invisible online without the direct link.) We viewed the finished products for homework, voted for our favorites using a Google Form, and then watched the winning videos in class.

And it. Was. Awesome.

Here are some of the amazing, finished products!

Carter’s Explainer Video

Harini’s Explainer Video

Rachel’s Explainer Video

Eric’s Explainer Video

Jocelyn’s Explainer Video

Sometimes the best ideas begin with a dream. And the PostSecret project is no exception.

This ongoing community art project was born in 2005 to proud parent Frank Warren. After visiting Paris–where he experienced a lucid dream, he returned to the states and began disseminating postcards with specific directions: Recipients must write down their innermost secrets, use the postcard itself as their canvas, and mail it–anonymously–to the address provided.

Twelve years later, the project continues to thrive. It has resulted in six books (I purchased two for our class library), has won several blogging awards (the top PostSecret entries are still published weekly), was featured in the All-American Rejects’ “Dirty Little Secrets” video, and is currently on display at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum through September 2017.  And because of how much pain Warren has seen in some of the responses, he has teamed up with the National Crisis Hotline Network for suicide prevention and speaks at various colleges and communities throughout the country.

My English classes participated in our own version of this project, focusing on our greatest fear (rather than secret), since we had explored that motif in a recent unit of study. The students anonymously published their greatest fear to a Padlet (they were encouraged to go deeper than just writing, say, “snakes”) and then selected the fear of an anonymous classmate’s to represent visually in our collaborative Google slideshow. (The names on the slides are the artists who brought to life the fear of their unnamed classmate.) We used Google Forms to vote for the best one, and awards will be distributed next week.

Check out the finished products of our community art project! The sophomores’ project is first, followed by the juniors’. (Use the pause button to linger on any given slide.)

Enjoy! 🙂

Our American Lit students are examining the role that individualism plays in American society. After studying Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” (and Langston Hughes’ response, “I, Too“), my juniors, as a class, created their own 21st century anthems below. They were too fabulous NOT to share!

Enjoy…

B BLOCK’S HOMAGE….

F BLOCK’S HOMAGE….

In an effort to create a positive digital footprint–while doing real-world writing for an authentic audience beyond Teacher-Lady, my students have started their Passion Blog Projects. This real-world task, inspired by the fabulous teacher-author  Catlin Tucker (@catlin_tucker), allows students to shape their own learning while honing their research, communication, writing, and digital citizenship skills. They select the topic about which they are passionate (e.g., baking, science, henna, the Patriots, dance, nail art) and regularly blog about it. (This year, “regularly” is monthly.)  A hidden benefit? Students are creating an online portfolio, of sorts, that they will be able to share with prospective colleges, future employers, scholarship organizations, etc.

The permission slips have been submitted, the  platforms, selected, and the ABOUT ME sections, published. However, before we put pen cursor to paper screen, the last step requires my students to look at five blogs that already exist on their topics and create a list of common ingredients that make them effective. (In their analysis, the students are creating a rubric, of sorts, without even realizing it!)

I had to share, with permission, the list of ingredients sophomore Jocelyn M. published in her journal for homework last night.  Jocelyn would be the first to admit that she doesn’t monopolize class discussions; however,  giving her a voice online through the Passion Blog Project is one of the many reasons I can’t not do it. In her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain (@susancain) reinforces this: “The same person who would never raise his hand in a lecture hall of two hundred people might blog to two thousand, or two million, without thinking twice.”  This project allows Jocelyn to do just that. She will be blogging and sharing her creativity with two thousand, or two million, people who will recognize, as I already have, that she has a vibrant voice worth hearing amid the noise. And of course, her final sentence made my day.

Enjoy!

Good Passion Blog Recipe

by Jocelyn M.

Makes: One well thought-out and stunning blog!

Serves: As many as the internet will allow

Base ingredients:

• At least 3 cups of creative and different ideas.

• A handful of interesting and well thought-out topics.

* A pinch of dark humor never did anyone harm either (not too much, it’s like cilantro).

• 9 ½ tablespoons of dry humor is crucial.

• A dash of vivid and varying use of vocabulary.

* Alliteration and Irony never hurt anyone.

• Around 3 points of view, the more the merrier~

* do not skimp on this ingredient

Method:

1. Slowly fold creative ideas and dry humor into the well thought-out topics. These will be used as posts. Be careful to not overwhelm mixture with dry humor, can cause a very bitter taste. Put to the side and let set for ~20 minutes.
2. While you are waiting, gather materials that will be added into the base mixture. Some questions to ponder will definitely wow the judges and cause them to think, and possibly distracting them from your atrocious grammar! Choose carefully because these questions could overwhelm the total flavor of the blog, distracting from the main focus. You wouldn’t put cupcakes in a pie, would you?
3. When the post has set, mix in the questions. In different recipes, don’t be afraid to add some variation! Think outside the box and come up with different mixtures for the post. The posts can be tiny or huge, both will satisfy your audience… just make sure that they are mostly proportional.
4. Once that has finished, garnish it with pictures, media, and some spicy vocab (don’t you dare put swears in it, that’s like putting pineapple on pizza, you heathen!) Disclaimer: Only suitable for some audiences ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ). By the end it should be looking

　 ＼＼ ＿
　　 ＼(　•_•) F
　　　 <　⌒ヽ A
　　　/ 　 へ＼ B
　　 /　　/　＼＼ U
　　 ﾚ　ノ　　 ヽ_つ L
　　/　/ O
　 /　/| U
　(　(ヽ S
　|　|、＼

5. Serve to audience, try to engage with them as much as possible so maybe they’ll not notice you made the post at 10:00 at night (please do not look at revision history *wink wink nudge nudge*).

Do not be discouraged if no one even observes the hard work you put into the blog… Not all posts will be wins. The most important thing is to have fun with what you are doing. Do not make it a chore, make it a hobby!

By the way, I had a lot of fun writing this and cannot wait to finally start posting!

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., asserted that “Man’s mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.” Since I’m assuming that applies to a woman’s mind, too, I’m fixing to celebrate: My mind has done quite a bit of stretching since September.

I should mention that my department is now using a newly purchased, common curriculum–the kind where all Grade 11 teachers are teaching the same thing on relatively the same day.

It’s a curriculum that I: a) appreciate greatly, because the investment validates the important work we are doing; and b) embrace fully, because, well, see letter a.  And like any paradigm shift, a new curriculum brings with it excitement, trepidation, and a smidgen of stress.

THE EXCITEMENT. New things are exciting. Think about your first new (or certified pre-owned) car. Who doesn’t love that new car smell or the contrast stitching on the seats or the way the cockpit lights up in the dark? The danger, of course, comes when we focus too long on the smells, the needlework, and the lighting; it means our eyes aren’t on the road. And the results can be catastrophic.

The same is true in the classroom. When we focus so heavily on any curriculum–old or new–that we forget to look up and read the room, we’re doing a major disservice to our learners. How are our students responding to the newness? What about the pacing? Or the glitches in any new system? If we, in our excitement, forget for whom the investment was truly made–our students, then we have lost our efficacy. The curriculum is still shiny, and it’s still brimming with bells and whistles. But we can’t allow our myopia, the curriculum, or even the standards to interfere with those students who are sitting before us.

THE TREPIDATION. New things are also daunting. As I write this, I’m waiting for my middle schooler to take the block at her first swim meet after missing six months with a broken foot. In Anna’s mind, she’s Missy Franklin–or Missy Franklin two Olympics ago. (Anna dropped Franklin like a hot potato the second she didn’t qualify for Finals in Rio.) When Anna first started racing, she was late to the party. While she was canonballing onto her brother in the backyard, her teammates had been competitively swimming for years. For Anna, swimming was new. And swimming was scary. But she pushed through and has been loving it ever since.

A new curriculum isn’t much different. (And I wonder if it’s a bit scarier for the veterans among us who are used to all of that delicious autonomy.)  We fear that somewhere in the transition, we’ll disappear. Don’t misunderstand: A common curriculum is liberating; ideally, teachers are freed up from the starting-from-scratch lesson-planning in order to provide more reflective feedback to our students. (That, of course, isn’t until Year Two; Year One is pretty harried. More on that below.) However, what is liberating is also positively frightening. What if teachers transition into auto-pilot and lose who they are? I like to believe that I was hired, in part, because I have a few good ideas and a master’s in curriculum design and an ability to relate to students. (Ish.)  If I’m not careful, a common curriculum–no matter what anyone says, can absolutely take away some of the “Me” in the classroom. And on many days this year, I miss Me.

THE STRESS. Even second-year teachers return to school with a cache of lessons that work. Those high-quality, standards-based lessons help bridge the gap between new units of study. If we’re being honest, a common curriculum largely means leaving many (but not all) of those lessons at the classroom door to make room for the new program–and the stress that comes along with it. A new program means that even the planners among us are living only a few steps ahead of our students, and that is one of the worst feelings a teacher can experience.  (I can’t imagine teaching elementary students, juggling several new curricula at once!)  We pride ourselves–and are evaluated–on being organized and well-provisioned. We take solace in an organized desk or an organized Google Drive. We relish in a plan that makes sense from beginning to end–and was planned end to beginning. But no matter how fabulous we are, it is impossible to focus as much on the students in front of us in Year One when we are so intently focused on what we’re presenting in front of them. Next year? We’ll be pros, naturally. But for this growing-pains year, we’re pretty stressed.

I have faith that this year’s students will eventually forgive me for the mistakes I will make this year. New curriculum or not, one thing that remains unchanged is my relationship with these learners. To quote the wisdom-filled High School Musical, “We’re all in this together.”  The excitement, the fear, the stress–all of it stretches both our students and us in ways we couldn’t imagine. And I know that this time next year–if not this time next week–all of our minds will be reaping the benefits!

August ignites a range of emotions in teachers. We’re sad that our delicious, correcting-free days of summer are over. We’re disappointed that those ambitious To-Do Lists didn’t get completed. We’re dismayed at how quickly the school supplies, school clothes, and school lunches add up. And we’re eager to step down from our role as referee between our littles at home we’re eager to start a new school year.

After all, in what other profession would we inherit a fresh start every September? We have a chance to implement new ideas and to take a mulligan for any of last year’s that didn’t work. It’s an absolute blank canvas. And it is beautiful. Author Piper Payne agrees:

There is something beautiful about a blank canvas, the nothingness of the beginning that is so simple and breathtakingly pure. It’s the paint that changes its meaning and the hand that creates the story. Every piece begins the same, but in the end they are all uniquely different.

Refreshed or not, we’ll return for a new year of encountering, connecting with, and shaping fresh minds. For reasons we sometimes question, we’ve been entrusted with a classroom (media center, building, district). And if we’re honest, sometimes we fear the jig will be up, that others will realize we’re just learning as we go. (Truth be told, aren’t we all learning as we go?) This year’s students will be different from last year’s, and hopefully, the educators that stand before them will be, too.

For all of us, September is a fresh, blank canvas.

And most years, that’s all it takes to get us excited about the new year.

Other years, summer comes and goes, selfishly withholding its rejuvenation. Exhausted, we trudge back to face a daunting new curriculum or another year of master’s coursework or a year without a beloved colleague or another new leader or the aftermath of layoffs or the stress of juggling parenthood and career. Whatever the scenario, there are years when we just plain stumble back to school–and a lot more battered than shiny.

This is one of those years.

That doesn’t mean I’m not excited to connect with my students or that I no longer love my job. It just means that I don’t feel as rejuvenated as I normally do. Regardless, my blank canvas awaits, and there is indeed something beautiful about it. So, this year, I commit to doing what I’ve always done after summers like this:

1. Be Inspired by Others. While my summer may not have been energizing, it was for many of my colleagues.  And I commit to living vicariously through–and being inspired by–them. I know that their enthusiasm, their ideas, their sparks will help rekindle my own fire. And once it starts, I know that “it [will be] a pleasure to burn” (Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, 1).

2. Reserve Judgment. As a new teacher, I remember offering to prep a veteran teacher about her incoming students. (In hindsight, I think I was desperate to contribute something–anything–to someone who didn’t need me and communicated that daily.) Her reaction caught me off guard: She hid her list, saying she’d rather head into the year without any preconceived notions about her students. She’d formulate her own judgments. The Year-Two Me licked her wounds all the way back to her classroom; however, the Year-Twenty Me gets it: Blank canvas.

3. Avoid the Toxic. The teacher’s lounge can be a wonderful, safe place to vent our frustrations, share our successes (albeit gingerly–No one likes that guy!), and solicit encouragement. However, it can quickly become toxic. So, if you feel worse after spending time in yours, RUN! If you’re already vulnerable, spending time in a place where the negative outweighs the positive will only chip away at what little armor you have left.

And please–please!–protect those new and prospective teachers, too. A newbie won’t last if she spends Year 1 focusing on the negative. In April of my first year, I still wasn’t sure I wanted to be a teacher. It was the hardest job I’d ever had–for which no amount of classes could have prepared me; it wreaked havoc on my young marriage; and I felt incredibly alone. So, protect your newbies: Teaching is hard enough. Don’t let the negativity of others be a factor in their decision to stay.

4. Model the Notion of Lifelong Learning. Since we’re trying to instill the idea of lifelong learning in our students, we need to model that for them. We, too, are blank canvases in September, and there is beauty in what our students will contribute to it. Each year, the changing variables (e.g., our students, us, the content, their ages, our ages)  affect the dynamic of the classroom. And every year, these variables splendidly shape our teaching narrative.

Whether we’re exhausted or renewed, what awaits us this year will be simple, breathtakingly pure, and filled with meaning that contributes to our story. Like a canvas, “Every [year] begins the same, but in the end they are all uniquely different.”

And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Happy Back-to-School!

If April showers bring May flowers, and Mayflowers bring pilgrims, what does June bring? Apparently, abdominal pain.

I’ve had some internal discomfort for a while, and since I practically have a medical degree because I can Google my symptoms, I self-diagnosed it as being gall bladder-related. My doctor-sister, Wendy, thinks I’m Hysterical–but not in that ha-ha-you’re-so-funny kind of way; she means my flair for the dramatic. When I told her that I could need surgery, might drop 10-15 pounds, and could pick up lots of attention (Can you guess my birth order?), Wendy suggested that it might also be stress. She started me on ranitidine and has me meeting with a gastroenterologist next week.

That’s because with two sisters in education, Wendy gets June.

It’s a rough month that is only compounded by the internal conflict we teachers face. There’s the Inner Voice that screams that we deserve to do some Teaching Lite for the last few weeks of the year after practically winning Teacher of the Year for the first nine months. But there is that much smaller voice that asks why our work ethic in June should look any different than our work ethic in, say, October.

Which explains the myriad of work that is pouring in this month for all of us.

Education World gets June, too, as they recently featured a timely piece entitled “From Chaos to Coherence: Managing Stress While Teaching.” Among the suggestions was to create a list of favorite activities and then commit to doing one a day to manage our stress. Mine is reading in the sunshine. As an English teacher, though, I can’t justify diving into a good book at home when I have over 500 pages of research papers (from just two classes) that I should be reading instead. (That is after the 500+ pages of research paper rough drafts  that I already graded. At 20-25 minutes a piece.)

But we adults are accustomed to stress. But are our students? Our learners–who are the very reason we do what we do–are absolutely overwhelmed.  Not all of them, of course; some have absolutely rolled over and are playing dead. However, many of them are completely damaged.

In homeroom last Friday, a formerly doe-eyed freshman asked, “Ms. Hughes, do teachers get together and say, ‘Let’s completely ruin our students’ lives during these last few weeks of school’?”

I explained that there is not, in fact, a secret, underground meeting where we teachers rub our hands together, cackle a sinister “Mwah ha haaaa!,” and then plot our students’ demise. (I’m pretty sure in her mind there were also flames–lots and lots of flames.)  She explained that all of her teachers have assigned at least one project since June began–some, two. I reasoned that projects were a great thing, as education is moving away from those scantron-type final exams (which re-assess the same standards the students have already met earlier in the year) and are moving toward project-based learning that allows students to apply what they’ve learned throughout the year. Her response? “Yeah, that’s not what my teachers are doing. These are projects that are due now, and we still have to take a scantron final.”

I had nothing.

All I know is that there has to be an easier way–an easier way to assess our students, an easier way to grade 1000+ pages of writing per month, an easier way to witness and celebrate our students’ growth. If June is for wrapping up learning, why aren’t we asking our students to reflect on September through May? If finals are meant  for students’ application of learning, why are we still asking our students to regurgitate? (And if the only answer is “to prepare our students for college,” I addressed this in  an earlier post.)

I don’t have the answers: I’m the one with abdominal pain in June. And sadly, it will most likely result in weight gain from eating my feelings than any surgery-induced weight loss. However, if we are stressed and, more importantly, if our students are stressed, then the system is broken, and no 3-letter educational acronym is going to serve as the panacea.

In the meantime, I can only control what happens in my own classroom, and so, once again, I commit to doing things differently next June.

In the meantime, could you please pass the Tums?

I love the planet; however, I didn’t go paperless in my classroom to save the Earth. It’s a fabulous, additional benefit, as we ELA teachers can photocopy like nobody’s business! But saving trees wasn’t the motivating force two years ago; engaging my students–while trying to work smarter and not harder–was.

First, some background. I teach in a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) high school, so, on any given day, our students are working on iPads, Chromebooks, Kindles, cell phones, MacBooks, Surface Tablets, and/or Windows laptops. Because our district is a GAFE (Google Apps For Education) community, our students have school-issued Gmail accounts, and many teachers use Google Classroom as our content-delivery platform. Students use their device of preference and the school’s WiFi to access the teacher’s content. However, regardless of one’s environment, using the internet to deliver at last part of the content has countless benefits. Here are five reasons to consider going paperless tomorrow.

1. YOU CAN SLEEP IN (-ish). Since I now push out class handouts, create activities, and share websites digitally, I no longer have to beat my colleagues to the photocopier. Which may or may not be working. Before going paperless, Murphy’s Hughes’ Law dictated that a class set of 25 handouts would mirror a hostage negotiation. (“You seem frustrated; on the count of three, slowly back away from the master copy, and I promise to stop chewing and spitting out uour copies.”) While the LBD (Little Black Dress) is always en vogue, LBTE (Lots o’ Black Toner–Everywhere) is never in style–whether on one’s hands, face, or even backside. (The latter of which one might not discover until the end of the day–hypothetically speaking.)

I said “-ish” because the paperless teacher can’t really sleep in. The time at the copier is traded for time on the computer, getting documents ready for delivery, culling good sources to share with the students, and organizing it all in a post with clear directions. (Aside: The teacher is still extremely vital in the paperless classroom; however, the sage on the stage has been replaced with the facilitator, as the teacher moves from group to group to check for understanding.)

2. ABSENTEES DON’T LOSE MOMENTUM. When students are absent, they can check the designated space online* and complete the missed classwork without skipping a beat. Momentum is maintained, and upon their return, absentees no longer need to ask, “What did I miss yesterday?” In a recent survey, one of my students reflected on it this way:

When I am absent from school or cannot come to class, I can get all my work, do it at home, and not fall behind! Having everything online means I can receive all assignments, even if I am not in class.

* NOTE: Everyone’s system is different; however, I create live calendars in a Google doc every two weeks, which are posted in the ABOUT section in Google Classroom for easy access. My calendars include hyperlinks to documents I have shared in Classroom and/or Drive, sites we will be exploring together, video clips the students will watch, etc.) We start each class with ten delicious minutes of silent reading and then “meet up” in the biweekly calendar to review the current day’s plan, that night’s homework, and see how both fit into the big picture. 

3. TEACHERS CREATE AN EVEN PLAYING FIELD. Every class includes students ranging from mildly disorganized to those living with Executive Functioning Disorder (EFD). In a paperless classroom, gone are the days when Struggling Susie reaches into her backpack and pulls out 29 (crumpled) handouts when the teacher has asked for Handout #30.  (This is usually followed by the organizational aficionado jabbing, “Dude, you totally need to clean out that backpack!” Really?) One of my sophomores framed it perfectly:

As a student with ADD, it is infinitely easier to keep organized in a digital classroom. This is because I am in the digital native generation- organizing a computer comes much more easily and naturally to me than organizing a backpack. It’s not a coincidence that the paper-based classes I’m in are the grades that fluctuate the most. The grades I get in a more digital classroom tend to stay much more consistent.

4.  STUDENTS & TEACHERS CAN WORK ASYNCHRONOUSLY. With the curriculum posted online, students can access it at a time that is convenient for them. This is great news for the first-block-of-the-day students who could benefit from a second review later in the day, when it is better for their brains. While the mother in me cringes, it is not uncommon for students to post work at 1 AM. However, as long as my students meet the deadline, I can’t impose my own schedule on them. After all, I do my best work between the hours of 4 and 6 AM when my students wouldn’t dream of doing homework. One of my students captured the asynchronous feature of the paperless classroom beautifully:

Being paperless in the classroom means anything we do in class will be with me when I go home. This adds to the convenience of being able to go back and look at everything I need all in one place as opposed to on multiple different sheets of paper per night. It also helps to keep organization up and to ensure that I will have what I need for class every day.

5. STUDENTS & TEACHERS LEARN THE ART OF FLEXIBILITY. Technology is a fabulous tool. When it works. On more than one occasion, I’ve invested countless hours in a lesson–only for technology to take its ball and go home. Veteran teacher or not, having our plans thwarted can be rattling. (“The best-laid schemes of mice and men…“) However, when things don’t work, when lessons flop, when technology seems out to get us, that’s when it really counts. One of my favorite quotes is from Pastor Dwight L. Moody: “Character is what you are in the dark.” And whether we teachers are literally in the dark (power outage, anyone?) or figuratively, our students benefit from seeing that character of flexibility in us. It might not be part of the Common Core State Standards, but flexibility is one of the most important, real-world skills our students will need long after they leave our classroom.

There are a myriad of other benefits of teaching in a paperless classroom; however, a class set of digitally submitted essays await!  If you need more convincing, I leave you with a response from one of my juniors:

Compared to normal classes, a paperless class has benefited me in many ways. For one thing, I am very much into saving paper and conserving in general! Go green or go home! Also, being online allows me to not carry around as many things that would weigh down my backpack. Usually for each class, I have to have a notebook and or folder, and I lose papers much of the time. This way, everything is stored on my laptop. Also, it is easier for me when I go to do my homework because I do not have to remember to bring items home. Most of all, being paperless helps my back problems!! LOL