Reflecting at the start of the summer

A couple weeks ago one of my family members was talking about how great it must be to have summers off. I initially went straight to defense mode… but the truth is I knew I would never change his mind. I can’t convince a guy who created a fake company to write off loot for his taxes that this summer I have a ton to do. He just writes my explanations off; in the same way he finds loopholes to save himself thousands of dollars. Why waste the energy?

Instead I will reread Romeo and Juliet and create some writing prompts as activators to transition students into the classroom. I will do what many teachers are forced to do over summer break, work and ignore the people who have no idea how difficult and important it is to be a teacher. I can’t explain to relatives how important it is to have time to reflect on my year and make a plan for adjusting my practice.

I think two of the most productive meetings I had this year were the meetings with my administrator and my co-teacher, where we reflected on the year (what worked, what didn’t work, what do we need to do better) and discussed changes to our practice for next year. This reflection led me to realize that we need to write some activator prompts that connect directly to the texts we are reading.

Romeo and Juliet offer the opportunity to connect the students with the characters in several ways. Initially, the characters and my students are around the same age (though the character age varies in all of the movies, freshmen can still see the awkwardness of the norms in Shakespeare’s time). Secondly, the idea of love and lust and romance creates a hotbed of discussion. Another connection to the age group is the fighting and feuding, especially in the age of social media where students often see the trials and tribulations of their peers unfolding in real time.

Summer is just beginning, I am still waking up early and now, instead of filling a travel container with coffee, I am sitting at my computer with a steaming mug and working on making my practice better next year. Even if people I know don’t understand what teachers do. I know that this summer I have a lot to do.

Why do we hate writing so much...

and why don't we do a better job encouraging students to love writing?

I certainly have some theories based on over a decade teaching in K-12 classrooms. I certainly don't know everything, I will be the first to admit that, but I do see some commonalities between shifts in teaching and student attitudes.

I grew up in the middle of nowhere and I remember not liking school from an early age, but a series of teachers help me become excited and comfortable with writing. My seventh grade teacher allowed me to write weird and crazy stories and share them in class to my peers. The sharing pushed me on to stranger stories incorporating my classmates. My eight grade teachers created this little haven for reading and writing, while encouraging the creativity in multiple subjects. In high school one of my English teachers, who is now published herself, allowed us to build big ideas while also crafting format and structure. All of these teachers helped me become the first person in my family to attend and graduate college, but more shockingly a guy with an illiterate father testing into honors English when I arrived to college.

As I have moved into teaching I found that we have ramped up the pressure on student writing. We focus on personal narratives and highlight "small moments" in an effort to make everything deep and meaningful in the classroom. We think we can create amazing authors and thoughtful students, who analyze and debate each other's work. There are several problems with this method, in my opinion. First, we spend much less time modeling writing, because teachers are less likely to be confident writers themselves. Secondly, we don't give students any flexibility to find their own voice because we over focus on one style of writing for too long in elementary school. Another reason I think we are failing our students is because we are constantly putting time constraints on writing and removing any chance for enjoyment.

I am almost forty years old and I love writing small vignettes to use as modeling for my special education students. I actively enjoy writing and I try to share that joy of writing with my students. I do this because I work with high school students who don't have that love for writing. I see the end result of the constant barrage of personal narrative and deadlines and academic stress. It creates students who shut down or won't write at all. I spend a great deal of time trying to undo the dislike for school and the hatred for writing that has built up over 9 years of school.

So let's try to get together and chat about what we can do about making writing an important part of the lives of every student!