Author Visit: Loree Griffin Burns

The truth is this: I have only ever had incredibly powerful and positive author visits at Oxford Elementary School, and I'm happy to talk about any of them. If you are lucky enough to host authors at your school, you probably already know that every visit--no matter how similarly structured--is ultimately it's own unique experience for the students and school community. We recently had another really wonderful visit I want to share:

Hosting Loree Griffin Burns for a two-day author visit last week was truly a pleasure.

Over the two days, Loree's presentations spanned all six of her books, and all of our students (preK through 6th grade) had the opportunity to interact with Loree in those classroom presentations. On the first day, our fifth graders virtually visited the relatively young, volcanic island of Surtsey. The sixth graders took a look at ocean movement and trash pollution, and the third and fourth graders learned about the dangers imposed by invasive species like the Asian long-horned beetle. On the second day, PreK, kindergarten, and first grade classes learned about the life cycle of a butterfly and about Loree's research experience at a butterfly farm in Costa Rica. With our second and third grade students, Loree dispelled scary stories about bees and spoke about why bees are so important. In every single session, Loree's presentation, style, and facilitation of student question and answer was seamless and perfectly suited to her wide-ranging audiences.

One part of our visit with Loree that set this author visit apart from others was the Citizen Science Night we sandwiched in the evening between her two-day visit. All of our students and their families were invited to Roberts Farm Preserve, a local preserve with gardens and greenhouses, miles of hiking trails, and indoor/outdoor classroom spaces that often hosts classes or grade-levels in our district for outdoor experiential learning opportunities. We had an amazing turn out for a gorgeous spring night during baseball/softball season! In addition to a brief presentation by Loree about citizen science and ideas for projects families can take part in together, students and their families rotated through three additional stations. Loree led families on a search for insects with techniques and tools for finding insects to observe. A parent

volunteer organized a station about tree identification and talked about watching for invasive species. A STEM teacher led a third rotation about using observation skills--especially your senses--to notice the outdoors, and students and their guests began composing haiku. It was beautiful, not just in terms of the weather, but to see the engagement and involvement of students and their families! Citizen Science Night was a solid example of Loree's willingness to work with us to personalize her visit experience to best achieve our goals for bringing her to our school community.

Another way that this author visit with Loree Griffin Burns was special was due to Loree's participation with Authors for Earth Day. (For more information about Authors for Earth Day you can visit their site, Loree's recent blog post about A4ED from her perspective, or my recent blog post about what our partnership looked like from inside the classroom.) By design, Loree's two-day visit was the culmination of four weeks of research, opinion writing, and persuasive speeches by our fifth graders who were tasked with educating the students of OES about three conservation organizations that are dear to Loree, her research, and her books. At the end of every presentation, fifth grade helpers assisted in conducting the school-wide vote in which every student, kindergarten through sixth grade, had a chance to vote for one organization to receive a generous $1,000 donation from Loree. Each team of fifth graders would come back from a presentation with a stack of ballots for me, and I counted along the way to keep the count manageable. I can honestly tell you that the race was close...the whole way. However, at the end of Loree's second day, she met more informally with the fifth graders who had done so much work and announced that the final winner was Maine Audubon. While all three organization were worthy recipients, Loree told the fifth graders she was glad that the donation would support an organization in Maine where they are living, playing, and growing.

With Loree's help and through her visit, we have been able to provide our entire school community with an author visit they will never forget.

• My students feel like they have made a new writer-friend. They were quick in their comments to note how easily they could talk with Loree and how they were not intimidated by her credentials as an award-winning, published author. 
• Students made many mentions related to how Loree made them feel: respected, valued, empowered. She was absolutely all-in with every age group, giving every student with whom she spoke her full attention. 
• Loree's interactions with students, especially in inviting and fielding their questions inside of her presentations, honored her aim to instill and promote a sense of wonder in students.
• They are motivated and tuned into the needs of the earth more than ever before, and they believe their voice can do something about those needs.
• They are inspired, and they have shared new aspirations for writing or for travel or both. They see new possibilities and realize they can think outside their every day because now they know someone who has done (does) just that.

The bottom line? Students at OES love Loree Griffin Burns and would be ready to have her back next week or next year. But, since she just visited us and more students in more places should have the same great opportunity, they'd also probably say you should invite her to visit you.

Authors for Earth Day: Authenticity at it's Best

When learning takes place within a truly authentic context, students will soar.

Our upcoming author visit has been scheduled for more than a year, but just a few months ago, writer-friend Loree Griffin Burns reached out to me with a twist she had been thinking about. "Are you familiar with Authors for Earth Day (A4ED)?" Loree asked in an email. "I'd like to make OES my A4ED school."

I wasn't familiar, but between a visit to the website and Loree's explanation, I was sure we wanted to be her A4ED school, too. In short, authors who are a part of the A4ED school agree to donate some or all of their school visit fee to a conservation organization of the students' choosing. Yes, there was some work in it for my students, but every bit of the work was well-aligned to curricular goals and instruction.

One month before our visit, Loree Skyped with the fifth graders to introduce the A4ED project. She introduced herself and her work, and she briefly told the students about the three conservation organizations and their work, and then they would be responsible to help the other voters in the school make an educated vote.

Loree's three conservation organizations included Maine Audubon Society, The Ocean Conservancy, and The Xerces Society. Students set to work immediately to visit these websites and learn more about each group's work. In two periods' time, they would complete a quick survey about their first and second choices to help me build relatively equal groups of supporters to take the work forward.

With newly organized and somewhat informed groups in place, the students started the one-week task of researching and writing an evidence-based opinion letter to Loree to convince her why the organization they chose should receive her donation. Their motivation and confidence levels were high. They used all the resources of our previous opinion writing work, and we revisited the importance of knowing the audience you're writing for, because these traditional writing products would not be the only outcome of the project.

Once final drafts of the letters had been collected, the teams of researchers and writers moved to the next task, which involves educating their fellow students about Loree's visit and the A4ED vote. One part of the education step was for each group to make a pair of persuasive posters that would both educate and persuade student voters. The arrangement of our school is such that one poster would have a primary audience while the other would be geared towards intermediate peers. The conversations overheard in this stage, as the students wrestled with how much information to include and how to angle the text and visuals of their product, were inspired and thoughtful.

At the same time, the students began to work on a short persuasive presentation to educate other students about their organization. As part of the presentation, each group was responsible for creating a digital product using Canva or Google Slides that voters could take away from the presentation as persuasive material. There was so much synthesis happening as groups prepared for the range of audiences (grades K through 6) and thought about what would be most convincing and memorable to students, hoping to guarantee a vote for their organization. The transfer of strong opinion skills to persuasive speeches was well-supported by the authentic context.

We ended last week hosting round after round of oral presentations for student audiences of various ages (and parents and other school staff dropped by, too!). While the first rounds were a little jittery, the fifth graders quickly slid into a more comfortable spot, presenting like experts on their respective conservation organizations and trying to win the votes of their OES counterparts so that their organization will receive Loree's A4ED donation.

The fifth graders have done big work--from researching to writing to creating to sharing--in this four-week project, and they've done it all with incredible engagement and investment. With a meaningful and purposeful context for using and applying their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills, they have soared, and the work has been a whole lot of fun, really.

Tomorrow, Loree will visit OES for a two-day series of presentations at our school, and tomorrow students will begin to vote for the conservation organization that will win Loree's donation. Which will get the vote is hard to say, but what is certain is this: this project has already been a huge win for the fifth graders.

Author Visit: Elly Swartz

I had the great fortune of hosting author Elly Swartz at my school last week.

Finding Perfect was our class read aloud through the winter months, and my fifth graders responded strongly to Elly's characters and their stories. They were curious and interested in Molly's anxiety and exhibited a genuine desire to understand her internal conflict, even if different from their own struggles. The students were tickled to hear that Elly would be visiting to talk with them about a book they had grown to love.

Over the last year or so, I have also been lucky to have several conversations with Elly related to writing process and identity. Familiar with Elly's transparency and candor while being relentlessly inspiring and encouraging in her conversations about writing, I knew the students' writing lives would be enriched by the opportunity to talk with her personally.

The result was a completely full and especially joyful day for all readers and writers involved.

While visiting Oxford Elementary, Elly addressed my two fifth grade classes separately and presented a large group session with the three sixth grade classes combined. With each group, she invited any and all student questions, addressing everything from what happened to characters beyond the last page to writing quirks that are part of her process. Students' faces radiated with engagement. The dynamic was instantly comfortable, and my students could easily read that Elly was genuine in her interest and respect for what they had to say.

A look over one student's shoulder during
the Unfolding Identity Project.

Elly shared the Unfolding Identity Project with readers as part of her presentations. In keeping with the themes of Finding Perfect, Elly encouraged the students to look at the many layers of their identity and to consider what lies below the surface of those around them, too. As a teacher, I enjoyed listening to the students support one another in generating descriptors for themselves. There were so many opportunities for affirmation embedded in this activity.

Finding space for celebration as a more frequent part of the writing journey has become a specific focus for me and my writing workshop and was a direct outcome of my conversations with Elly. All year long, I have embedded more opportunities to scaffold students in recognizing smaller successes in our writing processes. During her time with my students, Elly followed up on this big idea of celebration, asking students to share one celebration about themselves as a writer so far this year, and every student shared a celebration.

Elly Swartz gave my students an up-close and personal experience in her visit to Oxford Elementary. The students loved everything about Elly's visit: the stories she shared about her personal writing journey, the picture book she brought that she had loved reading with her own children, the "secrets" about revising Finding Perfect and allusions to her forthcoming book, Smart Cookie (Scholastic, 2018). But also, they loved Elly--a writer among writers, a reader among readers. Through her authentic conversation about reading and writing and the care she showed for my students on this one day, Elly became part of our literacy community.

On Using "The Seventh Wish" in the Classroom

I'm that teacher.
I'm the teacher in Maine who read Kate Messner's newest novel, The Seventh Wish, to all my students. Twenty-three 5th graders and twenty-two 6th graders.
I'm the teacher who said to my colleagues: You need to read this now, and we need to think about how to use it with our students this year, even though it isn't published yet.
Now all of our fifth and sixth graders have read The Seventh Wish.

And our students are all the better for it.

I read The Seventh Wish in October. October 14, the very day the advanced reader's copy (ARC) arrived from Bloomsbury as part of Kate Messner's kid-blurb project. I knew I had lots of Kate Messner fans in my two classes who would be lining up to read her much anticipated "next book." (Me too, if we're honest.) So I cleared my agenda for the night and hunkered down.

I was entranced by the natural beauty painted in the opening descriptions of the magical ice flowers on the lake and I was wrapped up in the adoration that Charlie had for her older sister, Abby. I enjoyed getting to know Charlie and her middle school world. I liked her. She reminded me of kids I know. Kids like mine who sit at my tables each day. Kids who want more than they have--be it understanding, attention, courage, or a solo dress for Irish dancing. Kids whose relationships with their real life heroes--older brothers and sisters, parents, babysitters--are everything to them.

I was enlightened, too. Aware that the book would also address the topic of addiction, I saw the signs as they played out, and then I learned. I learned about a life experience different than my own. Charlie's experience with her sister's addiction let me see the challenges and complications of addiction on a user's loved ones through her eyes. Deception. Brokenness. Sacrifices and loss. And that was when I knew there was a discussion to be had with my colleagues about plans for our Healthy Choices unit. On that first read, I had texted my colleagues, "We need to use this book," before I had even finished reading.

The next morning, our conversations started about how we would incorporate The Seventh Wish into the unit, which also included nutrition, digital citizenship, peer pressure, and the D.A.R.E. program. I passed my ARC along to my colleagues. Soon we were discussing this addition to our curriculum with the D.A.R.E. Officer himself. We put The Seventh Wish ARC in his hands. We asked him to please read it, too. We knew there would be lots of conversation, and we anticipated questions. Almost certainly questions we didn't know the answer to or for which there isn't an answer. But we were ok with that. We would do our best to respond to students, to consult resources (like Officer Jack) to investigate further, or we would grapple with those questions without an answer together.

We consulted with our administrator, to whom I also loaned a copy of The Seventh Wish. We revised the traditional notification letter that parents have received at the beginning of D.A.R.E. lessons for as many years as the program has been part of our school. And, we acknowledged that students would be talking about big topics and supplemented the letter with sites and ideas for families to have conversations with children about drug use and addiction.

D.A.R.E. lessons happened weekly in the students' STEM classrooms. In Humanities, we read The Seventh Wish daily for read aloud. Here's what happened:

• We researched ice flowers.
• We watched Riverdance videos (and amateur feis videos, too).
• We weighed out our own winners of the "thinking of a word" game.
• We laughed together over Charlie's haphazard wishing and Bobby's hopeless crush and Drew's Lake Monster routine.
• We decided we'd like to try eating insects to know what that's like. (And we did.)
• We pondered Mrs. McNeill's words of the wiser on each trip onto the ice.
• We talked about friendship, and our wishes for others, and secret-keeping.
• We connected the information we learned in D.A.R.E. to the actions and effects of Abby and her heroin use.
• We asked questions--thoughtful ones--and considered the human aspect of drug use as a choice and addiction as a disease.
• We built empathy and understanding for individuals and families facing the obstacles of a loved one's substance use.
• We internalized the power we have to make our own choices, to know and understand more fully what the consequences of our choices on ourselves and others.

See, when I read The Seventh Wish in October, I saw an opportunity.
The Seventh Wish is as much an example as any other that we are classifying as "windows and mirrors." The life of the Brennan Family is the life of many families today, even though we wish it weren't so. Some of my students live inside The Seventh Wish. Probably most don't. But this brave and honest book let us all be at times inside and outside of the story, providing us a safe distance and enlightened perspective to have important conversations about lots of big themes for kids, one of those being addiction. In reading The Seventh Wish together, we had the opportunity to open the door to unheard conversations, to say to our students, "It's ok to talk about This Big Thing here. It's ok to ask questions. We'll talk about this with you."

I don't think my students understand the adult perspective that the subject of heroin (or other substance) use is "too heavy" for them. They would disagree openly. They would argue that they want to know about "the hard stuff."
I know they would.
They did.
Yesterday.
When one classmate shared with the others that Kate Messner's school visit to a Vermont school was cancelled because the book was "too heavy" for the 4th and 5th graders there, my students were vocal.

Kate Messner is a familiar and much-loved author to my students with a reputation she's earned by publishing many books that they have read and loved and grown from. The students trust Kate as a middle-grade writer who will invite them into the story and lend them characters to befriend, take them through trials and troubles, and will bring them out the story's end knowing something a little deeper or having learned something about themselves they hadn't thought about before. The same is true for The Seventh Wish. She writes the truth about characters (like our students) and a world that includes harrowing truths (like ours). She sizes up her research and knowledge of the subject and writes it to be perfectly fitting for her middle-grade audience. The Seventh Wish is gentle in building readers' investment in the story and conflict, but the serious nature of the topic of addiction is not dulled or downplayed, speaking solidly to Kate's respect for her readers.

What was the impact of reading The Seventh Wish with our students?

Traditionally D.A.R.E. program has students complete a formulaic five-paragraph essay as a requirement for graduation. With Officer Jack's support, our 5th grade team revamped the culminating reflection and asked students to write a letter to their 18-year old selves beginning with "Dear Future Me." This year's end-of-unit writing was some of the most personal and convincing evidence that students internalized their learning. Tracings of The Seventh Wish appeared in almost every student's letter. As a teaching team, we isolated one-line excerpts from each students' letter, filmed these lines, and compiled their reflections into one collaborative letter that we set to music.

Take a look.

Happy Birthday, Milo Speck

Dear Milo,

I’ll admit it: this is a first. I cannot think of another time in all my book-crazed doings that I wrote a letter to a middle-grade book character (let alone published it online). But, no matter how much it heightens my nerdy-factor, I couldn’t let your publication day pass without writing to say: 

Happy (Book) Birthday!

I bet you have quite a team celebrating today. I can only imagine the feelings of your author and her incredible support team on your publication day. My students and I have celebrated book birthdays before, but we agree that yours feels different, maybe more personal thanks to Linda, who invited us into your world two years ago. You were a manuscript under revision. Unbeknownst to you, you were an experimental subject, the topic of many revealing and inspiring writing conversations between my students and Linda. We’ve anticipated this day, too, the more we got to know Linda as a fellow writer and witnessed her writing process and followed you through to publication.

I still remember two Decembers ago when you--a “smaller” you, in only your first five chapters--first made your way to my classroom. My students and I knew we were spending time something--someone--special as we read, discussed, reacted, and responded. We got to know you and your family. We ventured with you to Ogregon, where boy-hungry ogres seemed impossible to dodge. We couldn’t know your mission yet (really) and couldn’t imagine if you would survive it. But we were already looking forward to this day, when you would be published.

Do you remember the day you arrived in my classroom as an ARC? Our school secretary knew you were inside that decorated envelope and hand-delivered you to our door. The room erupted in excited noise. The students insisted that we stop whatever we were doing (I can’t remember what that was now. Telling, isn’t it?) and read on from where we had stopped in the manuscript that still lived in my inbox. And we did. Whenever we were inside your story, we were making happy memories--sharing our reading and writing lives.

We spent months in friendship with you as we virtually navigated the world of Ogregon, willing you to evade threats of danger and to be successful in your mission. We studied your actions, your words, your choices. We noticed as you changed and grew, and we found courage in your bravery, perseverance, and leadership.

Ready to begin again...

Today is not only your book birthday, Milo, but it’s also our first day of school. One of our very last memories of the past school year was talking about you in person when Linda visited us. The whole day felt celebratory, celebrating my writers and Linda and you, all the same. And now, here we are at the beginning again, and it seems fitting that my students and I will begin your story again--the published version--on page 1 with all of our new classmates and friends, in all of six of our new 5th and 6th grade classrooms.

Milo, your book birthday is a happy day for all of us, because there are so many other readers like us who will have the chance to read your story now, too. Kids and teachers and parents. They’ll laugh. They’ll cheer. They’ll worry and wonder for you, too. And then, they’re probably going to tell someone else about you. We sure hope they do.

It has been a real honor, Milo, to watch you evolve over the last two years...to cheer you along...and now to celebrate you.

Happy Birthday, Milo Speck: Accidental Agent.

From, 
Two Years of Book-loving Friends at Oxford Elementary School

Art and Word Mingle

One of my many celebrations this week came as an unexpected surprise. 

Last week was our first week of state testing, making our schedule way more topsy-turvy than it usually is (even for me). In between the test sessions, my goal was to keep our classroom activities easy-going, but to use time well. Like my colleagues across the country, I am trying to slow time down as I run out of days!

I accepted an invitation for my class to Skype with another group of fourth graders at Michele Knott's school in Illinois. Michele was incredibly well-organized and had a plan in place, leaving me to prepare my kids and fall in: we would read a few poems for two voices together with the Maine kids and the Illinois kids alternating, and then each group could share some of their poems with others. 

Uh, hold up. Share their poems? This was the onset of small panic attack. What did my students have to share?

My students had done a little bit of poetry writing in their weekly library special before vacation, but those haiku were mostly first-draft poems. You know, the kind you write when you're just trying out this new-ish, uncomfortable thing and, for the most part, any show of effort is close enough for now? I hadn't facilitated this learning. Did I think the students had haiku ready to share?

No, I knew. I wouldn't want to put them in a position of sharing first-draft work on the spot. I needed to give them time to practice writing, and they should know that the purpose of their writing will be to share with an audience.

Though this was in the back of my mind on Monday morning, it was purely happenstance that I lifted the screen of my computer and found myself looking at photo of a snake...and a three-line poem with the hashtag #haiku...by author Loree Griffin Burns. During our Monday morning class meeting to look at the week ahead, I shared the photo and Loree's haiku with my students. They applauded and expressed words of praise, and then someone said, "Isn't Loree the one who wrote Beetle Busters?" (And someone else chimed in, "And Handle with Care!")

Just like that a conversation spawned about writers who try different kinds of writing, and that yes, the same Loree Griffin Burns who they knew from the informational books in our classroom library also writes poetry. And, she's probably not the only writer who likes to write different types of writing.

The next day, when Loree posted another haiku accompanied by another photo, I was struck by the way the two -art and words- complimented one another. And that's where an idea that electrified my students' haiku writing struck.

In their previous haiku experience, my students had been asked to pull poetic language from wherever they had stored encounters with nature in their minds--in fact, their library assignment was strictly an animal haiku. For many of my learners, poetry writing was too open-ended and abstract, and many lines of their haiku contained phrases like, "...is awesome" or "I like..." or "...are cool." What if, I wondered, I could hand them visual inspiration from which to write? What if I could give them a choice of photos to get them started?

As quickly as the idea had come, I was revamping our poetry workshop for the day. When I shared my wonder, Loree generously offered her own photos for our use. Before they even put a syllable to the page, the students felt important and empowered by her offer. There was a swell of positive energy hovering in the room as I came to the last of Loree's photos, and students told a partner which photos inspired them to write. They needed no reminders or redirection. Notebooks flipped open, pencils scratched, and hands clapped out syllables.

I wrote, too--for a while. But mostly I listened. Voices came from tables around the room. 
"Ugh, that's too many!"
"What if you try..."
"Could you say 'pond' instead of 'ocean'?"
"Oh, I really love that line!"
"Could you pick a better word than 'awesome'?"
"Read that one again."

They were writing partners and poets, on a mission to give Loree's photos haiku, and in the writing process, no one was going to be left behind. Some students wrote many haiku and selected their favorite, sometimes polling their friends. Others created from images in their heads, and when it was time to format their poem on a slide, we were able to find photos in my own personal collection that they felt matched. 

The students are so proud of themselves and their poetry. On Friday, the project became something of a team effort as we pressed to finish before the week ran out--students were rallying behind other students to make suggestions about replacing words or dropping syllables. Every student has a finished haiku slide in the classroom collection. Many of their finished haiku slides are below. It has been so interesting to see which images spoke to which students and to catch them counting syllables in their spare time, too. 

What started as a frantic response on my part became a memorable workshop in our classroom. Productive talk and writing conversations, freedom to create and express punctuated the broken up days of our testing week. What a gift. Someday (if time allows!), I would like to take the students outside to the wooded edge of the playground, equipped with their notebooks AND iPads, to give them a chance to create poems with art and words again.

Art and Word mingle--

inspired poets result.

This teacher gives thanks.

(Oh! And several students did confidently share their poems with the students in Illinois while the others cheered them on. Phew.)

Developing Identity: Vulnerability and Value (Children Want to Write #2)

[As a member of my school’s Leadership Team, I have volunteered to facilitate a monthly book study using the text Children Want to Write: Donald Graves and the Revolution in Children’s Writing. This is one entry in an intended series devoted to reflections, musings, and captured wisdom that results from our book study readings and discussions. See how it started here.]

The DVD that accompanies Children Want to Write is a treasure trove of additional fodder for reflective teachers. When introducing the reading assignment for our session (chapters 1 & 2), I prepared colleagues to expect the featured video for chapter 2, “The Mother of the Story,” to be part of our discussion. Together we viewed the clip in which one young writer, Debbie, articulates what writing is really about—for her.

During the group viewing, I asked colleagues to watch the video specifically to identify characteristics of this student that made her a writer. The interview Lucy Calkins conducts with Debbie emphasizes her identity as a writer. She describes her ownership of her writing, expressing how she is in control of the choices and decisions related to her work. While she honors the influence of others in her writing community, she knows she is ultimately the decision-maker, or “the mother of the story.”

In the resulting conversation, my colleagues and I reflected on the conditions that are currently in place in our writing workshops, and we dreamed aloud of what we would like to see and do in order to promote such self-awareness and high levels of reflection in our own students. We want to nurture our students towards the development of their own writing identities.

Debbie’s confidence in describing herself as a writer and her relationship to her writing is evidence of the active role she assumed as a writer. She showed deep investment in her writing and owned her ideas. She was comfortable taking chances, and changing her mind or standing her ground. She recognized an intrinsic reward in writing. 

Comparatively, I frequently encounter students who are more passive, operating from a position in which writing is something done “to” them, given as an assignment or a consequence. Risk taking weighs them down, and fear of having nothing "good enough" to write paralyzes them from the start. The act of writing is not yet internalized and ownership of the writing is not yet actualized. 

How do we make the shift?

I take hints at ways to begin from Graves’ wisdom about writers and vulnerability and value.

Students need opportunities to see themselves in the role of a writer. I need to empower them with words and wide-reading experiences, and I need to gift them with time. I can instill this idea by calling them writers, and reminding them they are. I can involve them in partnerships with other writers, including myself, stretching their potential as developing writers. I can create ways to share and celebrate their writing.

Students need to experience that they have ideas worth thinking, exploring, and sharing through writing. I need to validate that their ideas have worth. I can cheerlead their efforts, honor the personal nature of their work, and recognize the risk that is involved. I can help students increase their comfort with vulnerability by being a vulnerable writer myself.

Students need to find acceptance, through discovery, that writing is often imperfect, sometimes unfinished, unpublished, and/or private and not shared with a wider audience. I can de-emphasize final drafts and publishing. I can model more exploratory writing and be an example of a writer who doesn’t perfect every piece I begin. I can to broaden students’ perception of what writing is.

Debbie was a writer. By accepting vulnerability and internalizing the value of her written work, Debbie developed her identity as a writer. With some intentional choices to promote these habits in our writing workshop, so can our students.

Too Many "Would-be-Writers" (Children Want to Write #1)

[As a member of my school’s Leadership Team, I have volunteered to facilitate a monthly book study using the text Children Want to Write: Donald Graves and the Revolution in Children’s Writing. This is intended to be the inaugural entry in a series devoted to reflections, musings, and captured wisdom that results from our book study readings and discussions.]

Why this book, and why now?

            It seems each year I work at puzzling through negativity in students around writing. Reluctant writers, they’ve been called. They have been characterized as unwilling, difficult, and/or unable. Yet, I wonder if my classroom make-up has been comprised of “would-be-writers,” as in, students who would want to write and would enjoy writing if they had a chance to be writers.

            I’m fearful that in an effort to deliver good writing instruction, we may have actually exacerbated the challenges of writing by establishing conditions in which students have been expected to write as a performance, an attempt to meet certain specifications as outlined by their teachers. Conversations with students often reveal that writing is perceived as a task or assignment to be completed, something that is done to fulfill teachers’ directions. Do we create this by imposing routines and structures with too many parameters and prompts in an attempt to “cover” writing objectives?

           Donald Graves’ work describes the necessity of a different outlook. Graves’ writings and research cause us to slow down as practitioners, and he refocuses us on the students…the writers. Children Want to Write is a compilation of Graves’ work that invites teachers to slow down, to reflect, and to consider what it means to be a writer—both by engaging in the practice of writing ourselves and by trying on the mindset of our students to understand their development as writers.

            I accepted this invitation from Graves (through the work of Penny Kittle and Tom Newkirk) in the summer months, spending days with my copy of Children Want to Write. My own thinking and reflection, scrawled in the margins and in and around the text, prompted a freshness for me in returning to writing workshop in the fall—I was enthused about inviting students to write, and I was a renewed writer myself. When the opportunity arose in my school community to propose titles of professional texts to be considered for a building-wide book study, Children Want to Write was atop my list. I enthusiastically shared my hope that this work would become a basis for wide reaching discussion about writing instruction. I hoped others would have a stirring reaction to the text and that it would inspire us to create conditions school-wide to develop writers, to guide students in self-discovery through writing, to facilitate a shift in student affect towards writing.

            After reading the first chapter herself, Graves’ strong invitation to teachers of writing to be writers themselves sparked my principal with energy to encourage our staff to engage in writing themselves. Hoping to encourage us, she enlisted the PTA’s support to purchase Moleskin notebooks for each participating staff member. Each book study session incorporates at least one invitation to write with an optional prompt for those who want a starting place.

            Our work with Children Want to Write is significant and important, a message emphasized in the choice to hold our book study sessions during reserved staff meeting times. This communicates that the work we are doing as a learning community is worth the investment of time and energy. Our book study group includes classroom teachers, special education teachers, our literacy coach and interventionists, and our principal. The experience of the group ranges from those who were fortunate to hear Graves speak in person at the onset of his revolution to first year teachers who are absorbing his influence eagerly, having been impacted by the work of Graves in their own formative years.

            The shared conversations, the commitment to deeper learning about writing instruction that positively impacts students, the redirection to the writers we are developing…these things make me hopeful. I am hopeful that Children Want to Write, and what we as professionals do with it, can be a catalyst to change writing for our students in big ways. I am hopeful that we can create an environment for learning with fewer “would-be-writers” and more students (and teachers) who proudly identify themselves as writers.

The Magic of NCTE

Here it is. My NCTE blog post, at long last. I’ve put off writing about NCTE, and though I’m ashamed to have struggled to write, I know the struggle has come as a result of fear: I know that a single blog post will not represent the worth of this experience for me, and I’m afraid I lack the words or writing skill to adequately share the magic.

Magic...yes. With that I have your attention? NCTE wasn’t full of pixie dust and mythical creatures (On the contrary, larger-than-life personalities became even more real!), but the air in and around the convention center in Boston shined with a unique and special spirit. I’ve scribbled and scratched through pages of my notebook trying to grasp what was responsible for said magic, and I’m going to suggest that the spirit of NCTE lies in connectedness.

I attended NCTE in Boston as a first-timer. I was doubly fortunate that the conference location was within driving distance from my home in western Maine and to have a joint-proposal about reading communities accepted for presentation. Excitement around attending NCTE snowballed from the date the proposal was submitted in January. By the time the November arrived, I looked forward to the weekend “away” with great anticipation, but I was tentative also. The nearer the conference came, the more overactive my introverted character grew. I was nervous about navigating the conference on my own and unsure I’d get the most out of my NCTE experience if I was too reserved. I expected to be a very small fish in a large pond…a pond much larger than I am accustomed to and full of literacy greats. The truth is I couldn’t possibly know what I was in for.

And I didn’t. In the last week, I’ve often found my mind rewinding to parts of the NCTE weekend, and I realize no one could have prepared me for the magic.

It was magical to share time and space with renowned authors whose professional publications have shaped and influenced my practice. These people imparted wisdom and issued challenges in their presentations. The presenters who were accessible, engaging in conversations about our real classrooms, and offering inspiration and encouragement in our work developing literate students were magic. 

It was magical to meet talented authors of remarkable children’s books that have lasting impacts in kids’ lives. Authors who were giving of their time and listened with their hearts to the stories shared about individual readers who have been impacted and/or turned on to reading because they shared a talent generously. Authors who indulged in post-it note autographs and photos, who expressed gratitude for the reading audiences of our classrooms, and authors who attended each other’s signings with mutual respect glowing in their faces were magic. 

It was magical to experience the Twitter-verse coming to life as colleagues from across the country met or reunited. Colleagues whose interactions are usually limited to 140 characters amicably joked about real-life resemblance to Twitter avatars and introduced ourselves to others with the caveat, “I follow you on Twitter!” Kindred souls in the flesh with whom we have felt solidarity and camaraderie; teachers, librarians, and administrators who are a lifeline when we want to share professional thinking outside our geographic circles are magic. 

But the greatest magic was witnessing the interconnectedness of all these parties. I immediately felt a sense of belonging in this larger community as I was greeted, embraced, and introduced to new connections. I found people—lots of them—who were “like” me! Enthusiasm and passion for all things literacy and children were shared liberally among colleagues, authors, and presenters. Regardless of individual credentials and roles or the states and regions we represented, it was undeniably clear that those gathered joined together to work towards common goals for students everywhere. And—to take this awesome magic one step further—the end of NCTE was hardly the end of the spirit. The magic is seeping into each and every young person we work with and every colleague we share our stories with…in short, whoever we invite into the extended NCTE community by sharing our connectedness.

In his panel presentation on close reading, Chris Lehman reminded us that we can choose a lens through which we look at our profession, and we should choose to look for the people we need to "see" collaboration, compassion, and joy. I am grateful for the backdrop that NCTE provided me in refocusing my lenses and acquainting me with the people I need to increase my connectedness and expand my collegial support net. You are magic to me.