Where to start?

Second semester.  A new beginning.  Another chance to light a fire. Thrilling and terrifying all at the same time.  And I'm not thinking about students when I write this, but rather of the teacher.   That's me.  For a global thinker, it is all so overwhelming because I see all the possibilities and the way each plays out and they are all simply swirling in my head.  And for a teacher like me, pinning them down into a linear fashion that anyone else can follow is the biggest challenge of all. So, I get out yet another notebook and try, try, try to catch the tails of all those balloons floating around in the sky. I spend 20 minutes just looking for the right pen to use to begin to line it up. What do they need to know how to do to be successful?

Here's what I know:

• This semester is the semester of ridiculous testing.  SAT and AP.  It is my job to prepare my students.  It is also my job not to step every day on their souls by inflicting myriad reading passages accompanied by brain draining multiple choice questions. How to balance this? What's true for AP is that after all of the AP reading passages we've done, the SAT passages are like kindergarten.  So, they don't need that.  English 11 on the other hand does need that but wants it the least, for the most part.
• This year's AP students, and actually many English 11, come in with strong rhetorical analysis skills because of the new SAT essay and the tremendous job that English 10 teachers have done in introducing and covering those skills....which means that we can spend less time there and more time on authentic writing.  First semester was all about real and expressive writing and inquiry and the personal essay.  Second semester should focus on reviewing the rhetorical analysis stuff, but should also move on to what will be especially important for college: synthesis writing a.k.a "the research paper."
• What I want my goal to be with the synthesis writing is to turn the old "term/research paper" on its head and make it waaaaay more meaningful for students.  Waaaaay more authentic. I believe it is the big essential learning that is left. When I say that, what is implied is that there are a hundred tiny essential learnings that take place all at once that can't help but be part of what leads students to be able to write the synthesis writing.  
• This is where it gets muddy.....there is the timed one that they will be required to do for the AP test and then there is the real stuff where they get to actually engage in the process of inquiry.  It feels to me as though what must come first is the real one and then we practice the fake timed one.
• If that was muddy, this next part is like trying to wade through clay.  At the same time, I must figure out a meaningful way to teach vocabulary and also read as a class (shoot me now) at the minimum one novel, at the most three. To what end?  Exposure?  Okay?  What works better for me is to probably read and incorporate the writer's notebook during that reading and the independent reading so that they can find a "seed" idea upon which they can formulate a question upon which they can engage in authentic inquiry. And that is good for all kids, AP or not.
• So I'm back at my same question: where do I start?
• Maybe I start by Considering the Lobster (David Foster Wallace) with all students, AP or not.  But for English 11, I break it into manageable chunks. And I pull vocab from there.  And I incorporate the writer's notebook thinking piece.  So, we do this with something small.  And then with Brave New World.  And we examine the question(s) that Wallace and Huxley probably began with. All the while doing the same with independent reading.  And then, and then, and then ......

Reflection: Teaching the Personal Essay

I still believe that this is the most meaningful teaching I do all year.  And now, I've cut out a lot of other non-essentials in order to free time and space for students to engage authentically in the process.  Always, teaching this involves high highs and low lows.  Sometimes I have conversations with students during the writing process and during conferencing that I believe truly help them help themselves reach the next step.  Other times, I read a student essay and I'm at a complete loss for words.  The only thing to do at that time is to shut up and listen to the student.  If I can get the student talking about why they chose a particular topic, what led them to write an entire essay about "Ants"--true story--then I can usually get them to reveal what it is that they are really trying to say.  The next step is to follow with a simple question, "What do you think you'll do next?"  The great thing about this job is that most of the time, the student has the answer about how to make his writing better.  I don't have to come up with it.  I just have to ask the right questions to help him discover what needs to be done next.

Stuff I struggle with during the "teaching" of writing:

• Shutting up and letting students write.  Well, okay, that isn't exactly true.  I do shut up and let them write.  But then I sit back at my desk or I walk around the room and feel guilty about earning my paycheck.  Intellectually, I know this is guff.  What do students lack today?  Time.  And good writing takes a lot of time.  I want good writing, therefore I am willing to give them time.  Did I just write a syllogism? Probably not. 
• Not taking loads of paperwork home.  Totally not true.  When the writing conference is at the center of writing instruction, no one has to sit home and write comments that will mostly be ignored on compositions that usually require something more for improvement....something more like a conversation.  In this conversation, the student brings the pen to the conference.  The student takes notes.  And I go home and make squash soup. 

That's all for this time.

Something Strange Is Happening

And I am not sure if it is good.  There is a tiny revolution taking place in my head.  It is manifesting itself in a purge. I have started getting rid of anything that feels extraneous in my classroom: handouts, file cabinets, tables, old educational theory books.

Here's the deal:  I don't need all this crap in order to help students improve their writing.  All I need are some well-written exemplar texts and some devices. This is quite contrary to the beginning of my career when I hoarded everything.  But I'm kind of scaring myself.  People are asking me if I'm retiring.  I'm not.  I just feel this compulsion to have less around me so that I can focus on what is important: reading, writing and talking about reading and writing.  And that's it.