Personal Essay Matters

Yesterday I left school feeling more energized than I have in a long time.  And as I sat on the spin bike in my garage trying to cycle away the calories and the concerns of the day, I realized that this energy probably comes from the content of this week's lessons and the goals that I have for my students this week: writing the personal essay.

The personal essay is actually the essay that students will write next year for those all important college applications. It is also--without question--my favorite exercise to lead kids through.  Not because it's simple.  Actually, for them it is a giant struggle, an exercise in trust, a leap of faith, a practice in self-control during which they must stay out of the outcome and trust the writing process.  They are so used to the five paragraph structure.  They are so used to planning out their entire essays before even beginning to tap the keyboard that they do not understand the miracle of discovery that occurs when you allow yourself to sit down and write freely.

So, in the past few weeks, we've taken a chapter from Corbett's, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student and discussed schemes and tropes and patterns of organization.  We discussed types of diction and the connotative and denotative meanings of words. We then examined exemplar texts: Virginia Woolf's Death of the Moth, Annie Dillard's Death of A Moth, Loren Eiseley's, The Brown Wasps, Annie Dillard's, Living Like Weasels, Sherman Alexei's, Superman and Me, E. B. White's, Once More to the Lake so that we might understand how writers use rhetorical tools to create an effective personal essay.  Finally, after all of this analysis, we created lists of characteristics that an effective personal essay might include.  I synthesized all of those lists into a "rubric" of sorts for students. You can see it here: http://mcallister470.blogspot.com/ under the entry for November 16, 2015.

And now, we've moved on to the wonderful, awful, terrifying, exhilarating part: the writing. For three days, students will sit and do nothing but try to knock out a manageable draft of a personal essay on the topic of their choice.  I've given them three hours of class time, because I believe that students will be more likely to create a quality product if I give them the gift of time.  When they leave school, their heads are anywhere but wrapped up in the personal essay.  And I get that.  There is life to deal with after school: sports, clubs, jobs, younger siblings to care for, and all that math homework. Allowing my students to write in class is an investment.

So far, and this is only day two, the payoff has been huge.  When students are allowed to write about topics that matter to them and they are shown that their writing is worthy of class time, incredible things happen.  Writing the personal essay is already by its very essence a set up for catharsis.  Because it's personal.  Yesterday, I had three kids near tears at the end of the hour as they had chosen to write about topics of great sensitivity: the struggle with eating disorders, the death of a loved one, the difficulty of relationships.

Sometimes at parent teacher conferences parents will say to me, "Why don't you teach them how to do more technical writing? In my work, I see people all the time who cannot even write an email."
My response is that students who can write essays and arguments can transfer that facility with language to any writing task.  If you can write a personal essay, you can write an email.  If you can effectively articulate your ideas in an attempt to answer the questions we are faced with every day as humans on this planet, you can figure out how to write a report for your boss detailing the specs of some new design you are working on. But, to have at your disposal, for the rest of your life, the ability to articulate your experience and to discover what is significant in that experience, to attach meaning and order to it and to make connections between the seemingly random, sometimes glorious or frustratingly unfair events of your life...this is what makes us human. This is what adds depth and dimension to our experience.

I know that the source of my energy comes from the way that I have chosen to teach AP Lang this year, as a course of composition and non-fiction.  In years past, I have listened to the voices telling me that I was doing a disservice to kids by not including fiction from the canon.  There is nothing I hate more, that is more oppressive or soul-sucking, than taking an entire class through the SAME novel all at the same time.  Instead, this year, we are reading the likes of the aforementioned and many others, short non-fiction pieces that we can analyze and scrutinize and then use as models for our own writing.  And as I watch kids struggle with the writing process and adapt to this new way of writing where you let the outcome happen instead of trying to force it, and after that struggle when I hear them say things like, "This essay doesn't look anything like I thought it was going to." I know I've done what I am paid to do, what I am called to do, what I love: as Lucy Calkins put it "allowing kids to weave reading and writing into the fabric of their lives."

Lessons from On Essays: Literature's Most Misunderstood Form

Lessons like this make me wish I were a more linear thinker.  But, I'm not.

To prepare for reading, I printed the essay for students and drew boxes around 42 words that I thought might be problematic and might impede comprehension.  I asked students to write definitions for those words in the margins of the essay.  There was some protest as students wanted to type them or write them on a separate sheet of paper.  I insisted for this time that they stick to the margin plan so that the definitions would be readily accessible to aid comprehension.  I believe that the vocab list is more functional when it is directly connected to the reading. Also, I believe that there are times in this age of technology when we bypass a valuable step of the learning process and that is the one that involves the brain to hand aspect.  Handwriting. I'll not digress about that at this time.  But I do have a rationale for making them try it this way.  If they try it, and don't like it ....next time maybe they do it their way and we see if it works better.  What I want to avoid is the copy and paste situation.

After students read the essay, they are to make a list of the author's assertions.  The piece is an essay about essays and I want kids to read it closely to glean from it the author's claims.  This is tricky as it becomes difficult to discern what the author's ideas are and what he has simply synthesized from others.  The piece is an analysis of the discourse that already exists about the nature of an essay, its history, where we've perverted it in public education and the paradoxical nature of the form.  The piece was written by Michael Depp and first appeared in an issue of Poets and Writers.  Depp's piece illustrates form reflecting meaning as he describes the essay as a meandering, an exploration, am exercise of sense making which is exactly what he does in his piece. In retrospect, I asked students to write the author's assertions in complete sentences....it may have been better to ask for big ideas.  Although there is some value in looking at how much of the actual piece is what the author believes and not what he is simply presenting from other writers.


The piece is also an excellent example of synthesis.  Depp incorporates the thinking of 8 different author's in his dialectic and illustrates a number of ways in which students might smoothly blend quoted material into their own essays.  He also illustrates this idea that the College Board and Higher Academia is so fond of which is to have the sources in discourse with one another.  So, students will be tracing the synthesis path and noting the blending techniques for future emulation.

So, maybe we get out the highlighters and we highlight the ideas of others and then we highlight what seems to be the author's own ideas or at least conclusions he has reached as a result of his exploration.

The next step will be the "Pithy Quotations" activity which requires students to choose one quotation that they feel is at the very heart of the entire piece. .  They write it out big and present an argument for their quotation of choice.  What is it about this quotation that makes you think it is the very heart of the piece.  Then we hang them all over the room and they serve as reminders for real essay writing, not fake 5 paragraph, I-know-exactly-what -this-is going to say before I even write anything down kind of essay.  Which is fake.

After that, I introduce the rhetorical precis which is pages of explanation.  But the rationale behind writing them is about analysis.  It is a highly structured form that requires close reading and precise composition.  And that's just good stuff.  So, that's where I am.

Excuse me, I need to go spend the next 4 hours at the duplo.

A New Year: Expectations and Euchre.

This year, more than ever before, it is going to be important for me to clearly define my expectations for students.  This is the first year that I have not had a summer reading assignment and, while this enabled me to have a much needed break after a challenging year, it creates problems for students who may be unaware of what they have signed up for.  The required reading of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer made it clear that kids who take AP Lang will be required to work at a level that is rigorous and preserves the integrity of the title, "Advanced Placement," by the College Board.   The test over the text on the first day of class left no uncertainty about the level of mastery required to achieve an "A" grade in AP Lang. Well, this summer, there will be none of that.  And so, how can I provide students with that kind of understanding?

I've tossed around many ideas.  Maybe I model an essay that introduces myself and states my expectations.  Something beyond the five paragraph format.  Maybe after kids read that essay, I ask them to write their own telling me what their expectations are for me as their teacher, for the course content and for themselves as students.  It could also be a means for them to communicate anything else they want me to know about themselves.  I've always said that one of the advantages of teaching writing is that I get to know students immediately as they are much more inclined to share who they are through writing rather than through direct conversation.  The essay would also provide an opportunity for students to think through some goal setting.  I'd like to know why they took AP Lang. I'd like to know why almost half of the junior class took AP Lang. 

The essay would also give me a chance to look at the skills they have upon entering my classroom and it would allow me the opportunity to ask them to set some goals.

Maybe I give an entire AP Test during the first four days of class to establish baseline data and to let kids know what they are in for.

Maybe I have them write an essay and do the test.  Oh, wait.  There's eachieve and something I am supposed to be doing everyday for the first two weeks of class.  And I don't even know what that is yet.

But then, there's always the "getting to know you" stuff.  Which I have never been comfortable with.  It isn't that I don't want to get to know my students.  As I stated earlier, I feel fortunate that I get to know them so quickly through their writing.  I've just never been much good at playing the name game or cutesie games that involve a ball or getting up and walking around the room and interviewing people.  I hate doing that stuff as an adult and I hate the inauthenticity of trying to force kids to do something I hate doing.  Not to mention that it's meaningless.

Then there is euchre.  Who doesn't love euchre?  Euchre is real life.  Who doesn't need to know how to play euchre?  Last year during ACT time when I was trying to fill up the remnants of a school day that had been slashed apart by different tests, I threw my hands up in the air, borrowed several decks of cards from Elbert Yeh and decided to have a euchre day.  Don't get me wrong, I struggled with my conscience.  It felt like fifty shades of wrong.  But I did it anyway and here's what happened:

First, I polled the class and asked for the people who knew how to play euchre.  By some miraculaous educational miracle, it turned out that only about six kids knew how.  So, at that point, my game day free for all turned into an instructional day after all.  However, instead of me doing all the talking, each kid who knew how to play was assigned three others to teach. Remember, this was in March.  Maybe April.  And Matt Zacker had yet to speak an entire sentence aloud in my class.  But, he knew how to play euchre.  And he had a job to do.  And his classmates, at least three of them, got to know him really well that day.

Other things I noticed?  Kids who were entirely comfortable in an English classroom were suddenly struggling for understanding. And you and I know, that where there is struggle, there is growth.  I was able to act as facilitator and move from group to group getting to know kids on a level and in a context that seemed more authentic than I had ever experienced in a "getting to know you" situation before. And it makes sense.  Anyone who has been to college knows that life long relationships are created at the euchre table.  I began to reevaluate my "game day." But I still feel guilty. I feel guilty when I don't do funsy "getting to know you" stuff and I feel guilty when I do.  So, I don't know what to say about that.

I think I have a plan for the week.  It may need to change after I attend the eachieve meeting tomorrow.

On Tuesday, I am going to cram in as much of the eachieve learning as I can.  After all, we are AP, we should be able to pick up that stuff quickly.  And then, euchre. I am also going to send home the above mentioned essay with kids with a deadline for their own essay on Friday at the beginning of the hour.

On Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Monday, I am going to administer a practice AP Test to establish baseline data and to give kids an idea of what they are facing this year.  Additionally, that essay they are writing for me about themselves will give me an idea of where they are as writers in a genre with which they are comfortable at the very beginning of the year.

By Special Request: AP Lang, The Big Ideas

In a skills based class, the big ideas are not content driven, but are determined by the desired performance.  Only to a small extent can an English language arts teacher  ask, "What do I want students to know?"  Because even if they know the parts of an essay or they know the various organizational text patterns or rhetorical strategies that a writer has at her disposal, they might not necessarily know how to impose those patterns upon their own essays or utilize those rhetorical strategies in their own arguments.  Having said this, the exceptions would be the following:

I want students to know that no matter the path they choose in life, it is important to have a facility with language. Being able to read, write, speak and listen efficiently and effectively matters. And while there are ways of working around a lack of these skills, i.e., hiring editors, etc., the glass ceiling of literacy does exist. Impressions are conveyed through language whether it be to the parents of  the girls in a Girl Scout troop or to the CEO of a major corporation.

I want students to know that, frustrating as this may be for the strongest among them, reading and writing are skills which can always be improved.  So a student is the best reader in the class, there is most likely a more complex text with which that student can challenge himself.  So a student has "mastered" argumentative writing, rewrite it using different rhetorical moves or condense it to half of its size making it more concise.  When they walk into my classroom in September, most of my students have already reached the "good enough" status.  Good enough to communicate their ideas, good enough to score well on the ACT, good enough to get into the University of Michigan.  But when they get to Michigan, their professors will expect them to reach higher.  When they graduate and begin their careers, their employers will expect them to work harder and smarter and faster.  The benefit of the willingness to struggle and persevere and continue to challenge oneself  is a large part of what they must know from taking AP Lang.

Alas, AP Lang is a skills based class and so, by the end of the year, I want them to be able to:

• think more critically than they've ever thought before exercising powers of discernment and inference.
• write more effectively than they have ever written before for a variety of purposes and audiences, synthesizing the ideas of others and contributing to the ongoing discussions that exist in the world on a variety of subjects, reflecting upon their own struggle and progress, demonstrating clarity and coherence and voice and utilizing the writing process 
• read more carefully and closely than they have ever read before tolerating difficulty through challenging texts, rediscovering enjoyment in reading for pleasure, identifying textual evidence, writer's purpose, and rhetorical strategies 
• speak more articulately and eloquently and confidently than they ever have before utilizing the style, tone and vocabulary that is appropriate to the audience.

And by the end of the year, I want them to do all of these things with greater ease and more fluidity than in their previous English classes.

Big ideas.  Big job for everyone involved.  Big payoff in the end, beyond ACT or SAT or AP, beyond college...for life.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s, Letter from Birmingham Jail: Reflective Plan

Rationale:      As we begin this semester, I want to help my students get a realistic picture of where they are with argumentative writing.  Most of them have been exposed mainly to ACT style prompts to which they are encouraged to respond with evidence from literature. 

While I understand that there is truth in fiction, I have never understood our tendency as English teachers to overlap literary analysis and argumentative writing using plot events, etc. from Gatsby or The Crucible of Macbeth as evidence for the way things are in real life or as sound logic.

During this past week's exam writing, I had many students who relied on this technique. And rightfully so.  Their previous teachers have trained them well in this skill.  But now, it is time for them to look more at the world around them, to current events, to history, to their own personal experience and to the experiences of others that they have witnessed.

So, we read Dr. King's famous letter.  It serves two purposes at this time of year.  It helps us honor the civil rights leader on the day that was named in honor of him and it is an exemplary model of argument.  Technically, it is a counterargument to the claims of a group of clergymen in Alabama who were troubled by civil disobedience.

So, the goal for this lesson:

To gain an awareness of the many and varied examples of evidence that Dr. King uses to support his claims in his letter to the clergymen of Birmingham in an attempt to apply the integration of their own many and varied types of evidence to support their own claims in their argumentative writing. They will begin with an analysis and revision of the exam writing after the analysis of King's piece.

The target:  

The students will find various examples of evidence and identify it according to rhetorical strategy i.e., emotional, logical, ethical appeals, figurative language, syntactical strategies, specific choices in diction.

Procedure:

Before this lesson, students were required to read King's letter and to label the rhetorical strategies that they recognized.

The problem with teaching King's letter is that it contains an overwhelming amount of claims and evidence.  Where to begin?  Probably the best strategy--because students are coming prepared to the lesson with prior knowledge--is to now break students into groups and the letter into manageable sections.

To begin: in a brief reflective writing (index card, first and last name) students will informally self-assess their ability to identify King's claims and rhetorical strategies choosing a number between 1-4 and writing a few explanatory sentences.

Voluntary discussion of self-assessment?  Not everyone need share during this time.

Collect the index cards.

Guided Practice: As a class, identify the claims of the clergymen.  Post on the overhead screen.  Discuss and identify evidence.  Identify the type:logical, emotional, ethical.

Each student group will require one scribe, and two reporters: one who will report the claims and evidence to the entire class and one who will elaborate on the rhetorical techniques contained in the evidence.

Each group will begin by revisiting their assigned section of the letter.
Next, students will follow this protocol:

1.  Decide who will start.  Each person will take a turn sharing a few items that he/she annotated during his/her independent work.  Others may add notations to their own copy as each person shares. One minute per person.

2. The scribe will list all of the following on chart paper in the same manner as those from the letter of the clergymen.

a.  King's claim
b.  The evidence for each claim followed by (an identification of the rhetorical strategy.)


3. The next steps will be presentations of the findings.  And, hopefully, revisions to the findings by their classmates should they miss any crucial claims, evidence or strategies.

 Students are so reluctant to go on at length in their writing, to  provide an ample amount of evidence that is logically sound, fully elaborated upon  and which demonstrates fresh thinking.  They want to make general statements about what they think (much of the time incredibly cliche) and then leave it up to the reader to guess at the reasoning in their minds (if there is any) or relying on boring and stale (sorry) examples from literature which anyone will counter with "But, that's fiction."  Hopefully, after experiencing this mentor text, they will be able to transfer the knowledge (with help )in an application to their own writing.  Because King's evidence is overwhelming.  It demonstrates the exact amount and the level of idea development that is necessary to convince an audience.

For later, I have these grand ideas about putting their theses from one of their previous arguments on index cards, doing a silent gallery walk where students vote on the best one.....Maybe they choose that thesis to re-work their own papers  Next, I'll direct their attention to examining the evidence they used in their arguments so that they can analyze it the way that they are analyzing King's evidence.  The thing is that the only example from literature that King uses is from the Bible, and that is not so much used as a literary example as an ethical appeal and evidence of his consideration of his audience (clergymen).  How can they argue with reasoning from the Bible? 

What I haven't decided yet is whether to work from the exam writing or from the AP prompt I had them do during my absence this week.  Maybe they could choose.

The bottom line is that I am looking at this King exercise very much as a "let's explore this together" exercise because it is a large piece that is overwhelming to everyone as it is so full of skillful craftsmanship.  It is also about "seeing how this can inform our own writing."

I hope we can do it justice.  And what i need to remember is that good work takes time.  So I need to make sure i don't rush the process.

On Collaboration

I am not the first educator to grapple with the unnamed elephants in the room that can hinder collaboration.  But, let me start by admitting that when it comes to "playing with others," I  bring all kinds of my own resistance to the table.  I always have, even as a child, and this isn't something that is dissipating with age.  Quite the contrary, actually.  I like going in my room and being in charge of what happens in there.  Mostly, because--and I suspect that I am not unique among teachers in this regard--I am a control freak.  And I, probably like many others, honestly believe that my way is the right way.  Well, at least most of the time. And so, okay, I'm all about picking up some ideas at conferences and searching Pinterest for cool classroom tips, but ultimately, I just want to be left alone to do what I believe to be the best for my students.  It's pretty presumptuous, truth be told.  Arrogant, even.  Okay.  Guilty.

But I'm not as oblivious to my faults as I am making myself sound.  I know that there are many places in my teaching where I fall short.  I can name and discuss them at length. The most glaringly obvious is my inability to think in a linear way.  And yet, to follow a lock-step style of teaching, binder-based and handed down from on high has almost led me to contemplate career alternatives.  It leaves no room for individuality and for the passion that must fuel each lesson and unit.  Still.

I have big thoughts.  Big ideas.  I can write essential questions all day long with ease.  I can map out curriculum on a giant piece of paper with arrows and thought bubbles that connects it all into a coherent year long thematic paradise.  A colleague once took a look at one of my maps and made a reference to Russell Crowe in the film, A Beautiful Mind.  Remember, he was the schizophrenic math genius. I, of course, was flattered and insulted all at the same time, because whether he knew it or not that colleague was speaking a truth that I was all too well aware of.  Like the guy in the movie, I have a heck of a time pinning all that thinking down into a day by day orderly progression that does all that thinking justice.  I fail miserably every time.  I never get to realize the entire vision because I can't line up all the steps it takes to arrive at the grand destination.

Let's jump to the beginning of this school year when I learned that there were enough sections of creative writing to assign one to a colleague, Rhonda Leese.  She wanted to meet and talk about what I had done in the past.  You can imagine my panic at having to lay out step by step how I've taught this course over the past several years.  The jig was up.  I was going to be found out.

I responded with the only course of action possible.  Create a binder.  Dazzle her with resources and surely she'll think that I know what the heck I have been doing for the last four years.  I mean, I know what I've been doing, it's just that it comes out differently every time.  And that is difficult, then, to articulate to someone who wants to follow your lead. Or just find a starting point.

To make a long story short: we met.  She looked at the binder.  The first semester went by.  We talked some. And then, we were forced to meet again during a professional development day devoted to collaboration.  Luckily, I really like Rhonda as a person, so my anxiety over the meeting was minimal.  And it all began easily enough...I opened a Google Doc and titled it, "Taking Creative Writing VERY Seriously" and we started planning out the semester.  As we worked, I fired off a bunch of essential questions that we and our students should work toward answering at the end of the semester.  I thought it went pretty smoothly.  We didn't get very far, but we had something; more structure than I've had in the past. Ever. I chalked up the success of the collaboration to the compatibility of the people who were collaborating.

For some time after that first meeting, both Rhonda and I pretty much forgot about the folder and then, one day at the end of the semester, I got an email that informed me that she had edited the document.  Little by little, it was becoming more fleshed out and so we decided to meet again.  We worked together to get the questions into some kind of logical linear progression (imagine my struggle).  The content was looking great.  Finally, Rhonda volunteered for something that I would NEVER--well, maybe I would if someone was holding one of my loved ones hostage, but not under any circumstances of lesser desperation--sign up for.  She wanted to type up the syllabus.

Big red signs started flashing in my head that said something to me like: "You are not doing enough of the work!  You are a slacker!  You are the weak link in the group!  You are not doing your share!"
And so I just came clean. 

"You really want to do that?"  I asked her.  "That's a lot of work." Kind of like trying to get hamsters to walk in single file, I thought.  Or like getting the leaves to fall from the trees according to shape, and then size, and then color. An impossible task. 

She insisted.  And then she did this thing that I think made all the difference.  She, too, came clean about some of her own insecurities during our work. And her honesty must have been enough to put me in some kind of place, comfortable enough with Rhonda, to drop my ego and let her.

She sent the completed syllabus to me today.  It's beautiful.  Far better than anything I could have put together.  The red signs are no longer flashing in my head, for I see both of us in it.  It's clear.  It's logical.  It contains all of the elements that I see as vitally important to, as Calkins says "helping kids weave reading and writing into the fabric of their lives."  The elements are organized in a linear progression that will be our road map as we work to  provide our students with experiences of all of those elements. It is a piece of collaboration that integrates our strengths, and capitalizes upon our differences in the way that we think about and process the sometimes very messy task of teaching creative writing.  Most valuable, it is a future model for me as I strive to replicate it in the other classes that I teach without Rhonda.

Semester's End

I am in a strange place at this semester's end.  I, quite honestly, cannot remember if it is always this way for me at this time of year or if there is something exceptional about this year. I'm leaning toward the latter.  I've had a couple less than optimal years in 2013 and 2014. And let's not pretend for one second that what happens in a teacher's life personally does not affect what she does professionally on some level.

So, why does it seem like 2013-2014 were exceptionally difficult?   Well, it was the first year since 2007 that I did not run either of my "staple" races, the 5/3 25 K and the Grand Rapids Half or Full Marathon.  That might sound to the outsider as though it is irrelevant to how I am feeling about my teaching.  I believe it is all connected.  2014 was a year where my weight increased to an unprecedented height, not including the years I was pregnant.  I packed on 25 lbs from November 2013 to December 2014 topping out at 152.  For a woman of 5'4, that's significant.  I had stopped working out all together.  If there is one thing I know about myself it is that health and fitness and exercise are crucial to my overall mental health.  And when I find it acceptable to eat five cookies in one sitting, something is wrong.

2014 was the first year-since 2007-- that I was completely without my husband throughout the entire week. At age 46, I was the single parent of a high energy six year old.  She is my daughter, and I love her, of course.  But let's not kid ourselves. Most of the time--and especially without good nutrition and exercise-- I was not up to the task.  But, we do the best we can, right?

In 2013 and 2014, I devoted much of my time and energy to a friend who was diagnosed with cancer. I attended appointments with her and committed myself to her mental health so that she might recover through the power of positivity. While this was a good thing, I have to admit in retrospect that it wasn't altogether a choice based exclusively on what was good for her.  In there somewhere, my own issues, my own kind of sickness was raging under the surface fed by a less than healthy need to be needed. When my own mother was diagnosed with lymphoma, I was forced to step back from her situation to pay more attention to my mother's.  Strange days those were, indeed.

2014 was the year that my oldest daughter finally went away to college.  While I told myself that I was prepared for it, after all she stayed home for two years of community college, her move has been a significant loss for me. Of course, I wouldn't want it any other way than for her to go have her life. Still.

And then, there's Eddie and his permanent move to his father's house.  He needs his father.  I get it. Still.

Then there is my grandmother. There are step kids.  I mean, there is always stuff, right?  Everyone's got their stuff.  I've always had stuff.  That is just life. Why has my stuff overwhelmed me this time?

For some reason over the past couple years my only coping skills seemed to be eating cookies and drinking beer.  At the same time, I threw myself into teaching AP Lang with great fervor. I chose a new summer reading book for my AP Lang students and devoted myself to providing the support they would need to get through it.  I kept a blog every day of the summer, held meetings, made videos and tried to develop lesson plans for the fall that would help students see why I had chosen this difficult text.  It truly is a beautifully crafted text. It teaches them much about what writers do. But by the beginning of the fall, none of my clothes fit me and I was exhausted. I was reduced to a rotation of three dresses I had found at Meijer.  I felt increasingly horrible about myself.   I am not proud of this, but truth be told,  I am not a woman with a strong enough ego to be able to be okay being, as Aaron Foust calls it, "a post-menopausal fatty" or, in my case, a pre-menopausal fatty.  It's just not okay.

It all came to a head on December 6 with an event that I won't describe here, but which required that I take two consecutive personal "recovery" days .  And so here I am a month and a half later 15-20 lbs. lighter, weaning myself from a mid-life obsession which shall also remain unnamed, back to my daily work outs, eating right, drinking lots of water, but contemplating direction for my second semester instruction.

Ultimately, I just want to clear the fog and get back to basics.  I want to see where I'm going.  Today, as I read  the creative writing exam prompt to my seniors, I got a glimpse  of the me that I remember from once upon a time before the fog that I created with my addictions and my unwillingness to accept life on life's terms.  The prompt requires each student to analyze the cumulative semester collection of his/her own writing for the recurring elements of self that can't help but be present in one's work. Writing is, after all, as someone once said "the soul on paper." The prompt is one that I had written several years ago. In it, I heard pieces of a personal philosophy about the teaching of writing that I have lost sight of.  It is the philosophy of a woman who is more real, more connected, maybe more vulnerable.  Definitely more invested.

The good news is that today and tomorrow, I have some uninterrupted time to set up my vision for the next semester.  I want to be very deliberate about the choices I make in regard to methods and materials.  I want to plan and teach in a way that is not inflated and convoluted with lofty and unattainable ideals, but rather is grounded in practicality and the authentic behaviors of lifetime readers and writers.   I want to avoid distractions that will keep me from realizing this vision i.e. ego-inflating curriculum committees and other pointless meeting based involvement that clouds the real reason I am here which is, as educational guru Lucy Calkins states, "to help students weave reading and writing into the fabric of their lives."