My mother recently found and sent me a photo of myself at 18 months, sitting in a highchair at the kitchen counter in our first apartment. Blank pages before me, one heck of a grip on a pencil, and a beam of pride on my face. My mother's familiar handwriting on the bottom of the polaroid reads, "Writing Letters!"
I've always been a writer.
Who I am as a writer and what I know and understand about writing has changed, though. And so has writing instruction in my classroom.
I'd be fibbing if I attributed the change in my perspective to one single factor over the last few years. Truthfully, I can name three very specific events. But the one of these three that is most easily replicable is this:
I write.
What I write ranges from short bits of fiction to poetry to book reviews to professional pieces. Most of what I write lives inside of notebooks and my hard drive, has never (and probably will never) be seen or consumed by readers. What I write doesn't matter so much. It matters more that I do.
Writing regularly (or, close...ish) changed my perspective. When I looked at writing instruction in my classroom through my teacher-writer eyes, I could hardly look away from the incongruence of my writing workshop and my own writing life. So, while I write for a lengthy list of purely personal reasons, too, these reasons #WhyIWrite are some of my most important:
I write because every day I face forty-five apprenticing writers, and it makes all the difference when I can say to them over their notebooks and my own, "Yeah, me too."
I write because my students need writing mentors. Students should learn by engaging with a writer who has plentiful and practical experience in this thing they are learning to do.
I write because my own tendency to shield and protect my writer-heart from criticism and judgement reminds me of the need to be kind with my students' writer-hearts, too.
I write because experiencing that the process of writing changes for me with everything I try to write nags at me to be flexible and open to students' writing needs and paths to "publication" that don't look like mine.
I write because relationships are born of risk-taking and bearing ourselves, and if my students are going to trust me, I must take chances first.
I write because my students encourage me and inspire me.
I write because they want to know what happens next.
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.
Last week while driving myself and my colleague, Sara, to the ECET2 conference at Colby College, I had a notorious Melissa-moment. Our ride was full of chatter about the first day of convening and about our developing ideas for returning to school. There was a comfortable moment of quiet in the conversation which I punctuated by blurting:
"Yeah, I guess I need to email some people."
Sara's head whipped to look at me, and even though my eyes never left the road, I could see her puzzled face questioning my out-of-nowhere comment. It was a look I had seen countless times before in our friendship. I told you, it was a classic Melissa-moment. I laughed, mostly with awareness that I had done it again: had something of a conversation with myself inside my head and then sputtered out my seemingly-random conclusion in my out-loud voice. I am so lucky Sara is patient and forgiving of this habit. And yet, maybe I need to attend to this. In yesterday's case, my internal conversation was really just an ambling of small details and things I need to attend to sooner than later related to back-to-school business--literally a to-do list. But I know on other occasions my internal conversations have been more meaty, from thinking about increasing student ownership of my classroom to puzzling out ways to encourage parent involvement. How many other conversations do I have with myself internally that should be voiced...out-loud?
And I wonder: why don't I? (Why don't we?)
I wonder if it's because ideas are complicated, sometimes fragile and sometimes rough around the edges? I wonder if ideas feel safer in the confines of our minds, tumbling around without feedback, criticism, or response from others? Do ideas stay inside out of fear of rejection? Or are ideas trapped by perseveration on refining and perfecting our ideas first? Do we convince ourselves that someone else has already thought our thought or would think it better? Do we assume everyone else knows what we don't?
How often do we, as teachers, do this with our practice and our classroom experiences?
How many interesting, challenging, creative, or forward-thinking ideas get tossed around internally in the safety of our minds or on the pages of our notebooks but never benefit from tangling up with other people's questions or thinking or stories? How many lesson ideas, cool collaborations, or professional growth opportunities are never actualized or take longer to take shape because we keep them protected? How many ideas never have the chance to see encouragement, influence, or the company of others? Honoring risk and vulnerability with ideas is a place where my own growth is slow, but improving. More often than not, the risks I have painstakingly taken to be vulnerable about exposing my thinking have resulted in positive growth and promising momentum.
The ECET2ME convening was a small sampling of professional community that helped reiterate this learning for me. ECET2ME was glittered with conversations between pairs or groups of impassioned educators on the edge of creativity and movement, forward-thinking teacher-leaders who brainstormed and problem solved and empowered one another through the sharing, questioning, and probing of ideas--out loud and with others.
This is what I am thinking about as my "new year" approaches. As I consider what I might prioritize as professional goals this school year, I'm thinking about the ideas I protect internally and what might happen if I let them out. I have a voice. I need to use it. Out-loud. I think I'm going to. How 'bout you?
Today makes 30 days. December 1 to December 30. I wrote for 30 minutes on every one of those 30 days. My longest string yet. So, on this last day of #writedaily30, I'm looking back. Calling today "the last day" has me a little on edge. See, I can't really look at today as a "last" day. I've been successful with this challenge, but I can't afford to chance breaking the chain. I can't treat today's celebration of my accomplishment as a finale or lean on 30 days of success as a reason I don't need to write tomorrow. The truth is, I do. I do need to write tomorrow. And the day after. And the 363+ days that come afterward. I do need a place to reflect and express and play and create and explore. I don't always need the same thing of my writing time, but I do always need my time to write. My December #writedaily30 goal was essentially to show up. To make a commitment to keep my pen moving on paper for 30 minutes every day. No specific topic, no intended audience, no pressure to publish. Just "me" time with my notebook to see what would come. Writing is generative. Flitting among the pages of two (Yes, not one, but two!) notebooks, there are recurring themes and ideas I have circled back to. There are pages that house classroom vignettes or specific memories I'll be glad to hold on to. And there are occasional rants or outpourings of questions--followed by more questions--that may never have real answers. But that's ok. All of it is, actually. Because it's evidence of how my thinking and my life as a writer are evolving. Together. Last night I set a timer for five additional minutes after my 30 had passed. I wanted those five-more-minutes to respond to Linda Urban's prompt: What have you learned about yourself? What have you learned about goals and daily writing and commitment?
Reflective notes flowed freely from my pen. I was astonishing by the ease in which I was listing! Could it be that while my attention was turned to keeping a 30-day writing commitment and establishing a habit, I was glazing over some bigger realizations? Like these:
Ideas come to me. All. The. Time. An offshoot of writing daily means that consciously or subconsciously, I anticipate the chance to write. My daily goings on include observing, generating, and storing ideas for writing time, whether intentional or not.
My notebook is an extension of myself. Along with my wristlet and phone, my notebook is the third thing that travels with me almost everywhere. And I depend on my notebook to catch my randomness--inspirations or otherwise.
Sometimes the pressure of posting publicly stifles me as a writer. I get caught up in doing it right. Giving myself permission to "take a break" from blogging was hard, but a necessary reprieve to let me get back to reflecting on and banking ideas. And I've come away with at least a dozen smaller writing pieces that I can return to. That said...
I need to up the ante on myself. Free writing with no pressure has been what I needed this month, but now I need to attend to a nagging idea that is begging for more of my attention. It's time to find a balance between continuing to generate writing and making project-specific progress.
As solitary and personal as writing is, keeping the company of other writers is motivating to me. Beyond the gentle nudge of accountability, the #writedaily30 community is special, generously encouraging one another with positive responses to expressions of relief or frustration.
So... Today I'm celebrating my success. I kept a commitment for 30 days and wrote 30 minutes on each of those days. And I came away with lots of possible blog posts, a project to pursue, and a whole lot to think through about what it means to be a writer and a teacher of writing. I'm pretty sure I still need to write tomorrow.
Dear Neglected Blog, I'm sorry. I realize I've done a really poor job of keeping you refreshed and up-to-date with my reading diet, happy celebrations, and otherwise random musings of classroom life and professional endeavors. I feel really guilty that I have not shared the highlights of #NCTE14 or amazing connections my students have had with books and authors. I know it likely seems I have been swallowed whole by a book I have yet to review, and that is somewhat disheartening to you. It is to me, too. So, let me begin by reassuring you: I am still the same "me." I'm still doing important work helping kids find who they are and assume their place of responsibility in a crazy world every day. I'm still a nerdy book lover, devouring middle grade novels in a single sitting (when I can). I'm still thinking-incessantly-about what is going right in my professional world and what needs to change. And, I'm still writing, I promise. In fact, I'm writing more now than ever before. So then, you ask, what's the deal? Why no new posts since mid-November? Why the skipped weeks of #IMWAYR? *sigh* For the most part, it's because I'm writing. A lot. All the time. In my notebook. To reach this point, I've had to give myself permission to relax about posting to you, sad Blog. I've had to allow myself the freedom to write to explore my ideas without the expectation of publishing for an audience, without the pressure of finding words that are pretty, or perfect, or provocative enough to interest readers. And you know-just between you and I-doing so has actually give me PAGES of what feel like possibilities. Possibilities for researching and revisiting and revising... Things that might grow into blog posts I can share later, that will help you appear "impressive." Dear Blog, I hear your cry of concern that time is passing me by, and I'm not saying enough or showing everyone else who I am. I share your concern a little, too. But right now, this free, personal writing feels good, feels promising. So I'm going to trust in it...for a little while longer. I want people to look at you...I do. I hope you can one day do even more to introduce me to people and connect me to great professionals with whom I can stretch my thinking. For now though, I beg you, be patient with me and my process. Support me in taking the quiet road. I have some things I need to think about. Explore. Tussle out. For a few more weeks, at least.
I will be back. Don't give up on me. I'm just finding my way.
Your wandering (but no less committed) writer, Melissa
One of my major classroom goals this year is to empower my students in writing, to free their inner writer. In order to achieve this goal, I am adjusting course and pushing my own writing instruction further. My effort is to strike a balance between teaching structures and craft in writing and teaching expression and purpose in writing. My first instructional shift was to devote a length of time at the start of the year to the purpose of writers' notebooks. Considering that I may have historically rushed students through the stage of "owning" their notebooks and written content, I wanted to slow down this year, modeling and guiding students to curate ideas in their notebooks. Our year of writers' workshop kicked off with a directive the students were unaccustomed to when I told them to make a mess. Then, in the days of "mess-making" that followed, I observed the students' daily work. I sampled the crowd some days, recording the frequency in which I saw long, voluminous writing, alternative experiments to log writing ideas, and/or strategies to generate writing.
Based on the samples and frequency in which they appeared (or did not appear) in the students' notebooks, I designed a sequence of mini-lessons to highlight lesser seen methods of generating ideas. This allowed me to influence students more directly and facilitate guided practice, exposing students to more available options for bringing about writing.
Plenty of "what ifs" to explore
Over the last two weeks, pages of brand-new composition notebooks have become collections of
sketches, drawings, and diagrams
lists (related to firsts, lasts, people, places, objects, emotions)
maps of familiar places
questions and wonders
three-column lists (borrowed from a Jo Knowles' writing talk).
Not all students tried all of the strategies modeled during the independent portion of the workshop. I decided that was ok for this particular unit, especially since my primary goal was to help students get in touch with their inner writer-voice. An attempt at each was all I required, and the workshop practice qualified as making an attempt.
Left: Map of a familiar place; Right: List making with firsts, lasts, etc.
In the tail-end of this unit, I've been conferencing with students to listen to their preferred strategies and what writing they have unearthed from within. Many have been joyful and proud in sharing the different "possibilities" in their notebooks. Even my most reluctant writers have been able to name something they tried that felt like it was working. In the first month of school, this group of students has produced more writing than the previous years' classes. Sure, there is never a pure study, and I know there are all kinds of variables at play, but easing up on the pressure of expectations and validating students' effort and imperfection seems to have resulted in volume writing and improved engagement. My deliberate decision to coax out the writer within has reinforced the idea that all students can write, and every written attempt has value.
What are some alternative strategies for generating writing that you model/facilitate for students?
Last year I learned about International Dot Day, the creative global event established by Terry Shay and Peter H. Reynolds, fashioned after Mr. Reynold's book, The Dot. The positive and important message of Vashti's creative experience was one I could promote with students whole-heartedly, and so we shared the book and designed dots and posted about making a mark on our bulletin board. This year, I anticipated the arrival of Dot Day from before the start of school. I knew it was a connected event I wanted to participate in with my classroom. And, I wondered if others in my school would, too, if they knew it was coming. So, I composed a brief description and a link and an offer to borrow my book on our staff email. My teeth clenched and my heart wrenched and I hit the button...send. And then I waited. See, I've earned something of a reputation in my school for having crazy, big ideas, and while some embrace the spirit and join in, I get the impression that many would prefer I just do what I do quietly. And the truth is, sometimes that impression is strong enough to make me retreat inside the four walls of my classroom and hold to doing what I know is creating the best experience for my students. But other times, I try to stand up to the worries that restrain me. Sometimes, I grit my teeth and go for it. Sometimes, I summon the courage to take a chance and share what I think is good enough for my kids to be good enough for all of our students. Nothing happened right away. But then, slowly, enthusiasm struck and gained momentum. I went looking for my book (which I had left on the table in the teachers' room for easy, no-pressure access) and couldn't find it. It was being shared in other classrooms. And an enormous, bright yellow dot filled one of the bulletin boards in the main hallway and signatures began to accumulate.
I began to overhear conversations about who had articles of dotted clothing in their closets and who didn't and needed to borrow something. And a schedule for the book started taking place, it would travel upstairs and downstairs in the morning and afternoon. Because my one copy was in such high demand, the district librarian ordered a copy for each school in the district to add to our libraries. And PTA volunteers and parents were glowing and telling stories about the kinds of designs and creations they made in the wee hours of the night and then plastered along all of the walls in our building.
The secretaries used window markers to draw dots all over the glass surfaces of the office. The students arrived on Monday morning, Dot Day, to The Dot Song by Emily Dale and Peter H. Reynolds playing on the speakers overhead, and their eyes lit up. I arrived on Monday to find 5th grade students sprawled across the courtyard using sidewalk chalk to make a visible mark that any visitors to our school wouldn't miss.
I stood back for a moment and took in the scene before I went inside, because truly, it was a beautiful thing that was being created: a school community unified by the spirit of creativity and the idea that anyone, everyone, could contribute. Upstairs in my classroom, my students helped me collect the loads of art materials we would need, and we organized by table for our own dot creating time. The students set to work intently, designing their unique dots that only they could
make. They had already composed a few reflective sentences about how they make their mark in their notebooks. While they munched on dot-like snacks, each took turns speaking their writing into my computer. We stretched Dot Day a little in the coming days (because of technical challenges), but we paired each student's writing with a photo of their dot and created a digital poem, set to the performance version of The Dot Song. The students wore a distinct look of pride as we saw the video come together and were at last able to share the finished version.
The worry and the risk taking (and maybe even the wear on my teeth!) were worth it, to allow our students to create. Students revealed themselves to us through their art, their written work, and their conversations. My students shared a creative bonding experience that--I think--has us turning a corner to being a tighter learning community. I can hope the same is true for other classes, too. And I have been served with a reminder: Though it may seem easier or safer to retreat and operate with small brush strokes and subtle colors, that's not who I am or who I am meant to be. I have as much responsibility as my students to "make a mark." I must continue to create bravely in my school community.
