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.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Sunday, January 25, 2015
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.
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.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
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."
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."
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