Jeff Anderson, Grammar Guru, Helps with Classroom Management?

Last Tuesday, my district was fortunate enough to have grammar guru, Jeff Anderson, leading the 3-6 general education teachers and 7-12 English/Language Arts teachers in professional development. We teachers have been clamoring for this discussion for some time now. We know in our heart of hearts that standard worksheets of years ago is NOT right, but that integrating grammar into the curriculum to the point of its entire disappearance is not good either.

So, how did Jeff present the opportunity to learn grammar?

H suggested we should be models of correctness: show good examples (or mentor sentences as we called them in the workshop), model it, admit mistakes, and then allow or encourage the students to follow in the footsteps of that mentor and model.

There were many takeaways from Jeff's presentation, but I implemented two the very next day--always the sign of a good presentation when one can do that (I've been able to do this before as well. See Room Re-Decorated).

1. I showcased a very good sentence, a mentor, from Alice Walker's "Everyday Use" which reads, "In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands." Then, I gave all of one minute for students to mention things they noticed. Just that question, nothing else. What do you notice in this sentence? Right away, I was getting it all: capital letter to start the sentence, commas to separate the adjectives, hyphens (initially called dashes by most students, but that's easily corrected) to combine words, even that there were five adjectives in a thirteen-word sentence. That's--well--a lot. Then the magic came in the second question. What do those noticings DO for the sentence? And, again, I got what I wanted: it adds detail, it clearly communicates the sentence, it tells us how we should read the sentence silently and out loud. But there was one unexpected comment from a student. He said, "Well, the adjectives actually give us back story." In eleven years of teaching and many years of studying, I've never considered it that way. I always saw adjectives as just detail to a noun--you know, the rad flames on my beat-up car. So, in this sentence, I learned, from a student, that the adjectives show us the history of a woman who has worked hard. After that, I asked the students to watch me write a sentence using much of the same structure. Immediately after that, I asked the students to do the same. In no time, students were writing sentences in the vein of Alice Walker. Not bad.
2. Then, the addition of Sentence of the Week in my classroom. Celebration of language is simple and important. (Besides, the sentence does not only have good structure; it is also timely in its topic.)

Over the rest of the week, though, I noticed something about Jeff's work. It wasn't just about grammar for me. It was a great reminder of how I use classroom management. I'm fortunate that I don't have issues in my classroom. Because of the administration I have, the parents I have, the students I have, and--yes--probably the personality I have, I just don't have issues. But every couple years, there is a big issue: a student--or students--significantly distracts the class from learning. Before seeing Jeff, I was going through this whole mind game where I allow one or three students shake me. I allowed them to question if I should be a yeller and a screamer, a person who demands students be in their seats at all times and things of that nature, all of which are foreign to me and are not naturally in my being.

But, no, not according to Jeff. I was reminded that my classroom management should, in fact, mirror Jeff's grammar instruction: SHOW students the behavior you expect, ALLOW them opportunities for practice, and CELEBRATE the many students who are following through with it.

Toward the end of Jeff's time with us teachers, he reminded us that, at the very least--the very minimum--nothing can be wrong about spending time with a good sentence. He suggested that we teachers just spent too much time looking at bad sentences.

The same can be said in my classroom. At the very least--the very minimum--nothing can be wrong when students see good behavior from their teacher.

Reaching Yin Yang in a Workshop Classroom

Over the past year and a half, my class has turned from a teacher-led classroom to a workshop model where I'm trying very hard to achieve student ownership in the work. If you've read my blog, you know I've done this

• by encouraging struggle/failure by allowing opportunities for students to make up lost points or by just not taking points away in the first place
• by offering a lot of choice in writing topics and reading specifics by focusing more on the skills of reading and writing instead of on the particular piece of literature or composition
• by increasing relevance of the work by making major works be for authentic audiences beyond me, the teacher.

While this transition has been wonderful and I wouldn't change any of it, every move is up for reflection. Sometimes I wonder if I'm providing enough leadership for those who need it. I mean, reading Thoreau's Walden is a massive challenge and though I give models on how to make understanding and analysis, I'm just not sure if it's enough to understand the most challenging texts. I feel more confident in my writing class, offering my students models of word usage and rhetorical strategies, but I still wonder if the students are pushing themselves in their own practice. I always wonder how I can push that, how I can guarantee that without being overly prescriptive. I need my students to have freedom to make decisions, but if they're not shown a variety of options in reading and writing strategies with time to analyze and practice, they'll just keep making the writing and reading decisions they've been making over the past several years. Isn't that right?

In short (and, yes, to oversimplify in order to make the point) to teach as I had for the first ten years of my career, students would not have the choices to believe in their writing and they wouldn't have the writing time in class to put their learning into practice.

But to go too far on the workshop side, students might not see their potential. They might lack focus in their writing and reading strategies; they might make safe decisions because safe literacy decisions could be the only decisions they know.

Like everything else in life, there must be a YIN YANG to this challenge as well--a way to allow a lot of time for writing/reading while providing guidance and risk-taking opportunities. There must be a way to demand complete, finished work while allowing opportunities for students to wander in their work--that is, to go back to something early in the term to revise it because the opportunity exists to make it better and they want to because they believe in the work and what they're doing.

So, what's the YIN YANG?

The YIN YANG is in the hybrid text--an idea discussed this weekend with my well-respected, hard-working, composition/poetry-teaching brother who lives in Bloomington, Illinois and teaches at Illinois Wesleyan University. Through a great conversation on how to make my upcoming class, Creative Writing, its absolute best, we came up with this. In this hybrid text, I can ask students to play with genres (poetry, fiction, drama, etc.) and show them all of the great elements of these genres, but give them the time to play and revise because the term will be working toward this final blog portfolio.

They will have more opportunity for choice, for struggle, for revision and I will have more opportunity to guide and lead them into writing fearlessness--in other words, the YIN YANG.

Talking Education

Last week, one of my best friends saw me outside the school and shouted, "Dude! You made about 40 tweets last night. What's on your mind?"

The answer: EDUCATION. Education is constantly on my mind--and I love it.

I can't get enough of talking about it.

In the past week,

• I had a great Google Hangout On Air with Dan Spencer (Twitter: @runfardvs) about a conference I'll be attending in April; I'll be leading one session, actually, so we thought a short interview might help attendees decide on which facilitator they'd like to see. We had agreed to about ten minutes of conversation. After it went on for about fifteen, Dan started apologizing for running long. Truth be told, I could have talked for an hour on the topic and I would have been more than happy.

The Dan Spencer Interview

• I had an excellent email exchange with a colleague as we debated the values of helping a boy an hour and a half away when we had students struggling with similar issues right in our own district. Is it fair or right to spend the energy providing help to this student when so many in our own community could use the help and resources? Plus, was going to any extreme for this student just a publicity grab, something to promote our own community when most likely not befriending this student long-term? Great questions. No right answers. Just good conversation. To find out more, I linked in the news story. Feel free to leave your thoughts as a comment on the blog.

A News Story on the Student

• #MichEd allowed educators from every piece of The Mitten to get together and talk about what makes our schools great. Every Wednesday, the people of #MichEd make me think, reflect, and change. It's a phenomenal hour to connect statewide and grow as an educator. Educator, parent, student, administrator--join it on Wednesday at 8P.

#MichEd Storify

• A parent in the district posted an article to Facebook regarding education and the importance of failing. I couldn't help but comment on how valuable I think failure is and how badly I think we, as a whole national educational system, promote it. It could be the start to a bigger conversation--and, as you might guess, I'd be up for that. Below is the article that got the thoughts rolling.

Bloomberg Opinion Article

• I had pedagogical conversations with my students, too. As a matter of fact, I want them to be thinking about the educational moves they're making in class. What do they think about having an audience for their major works in class? What do they think about using projects for a major portion of their assessment? What do they think about having so much choice in the classroom? The conversations, even with these, teenagers are phenomenal--and they lead me to be a better teacher.

One Student's View

 I love to talk. And I love to talk passionately. So, when one passion (education) meets another passion (talking/thinking), I'm in a very good place.

And that's where I am right now in my profession--A VERY GOOD PLACE.

Room Re-Decorated

If you read my blog at all, this much you know: I've been expanding to more and more student ownership of learning.

I provide pages my American Lit students need to read, but they get choices within those pages. My students get ownership in how they show me growth in their learning instead of straight tests and quizzes--though that's always an option should they choose it. I provide them choice in their note-taking. We use Kelly Gallagher's list of Things Good Readers Do and practice them for a bit, but in their actual annotations, they get choice.

But there is just one pedagogical phenomenon that has taken up my mind since my experience with Kit Hard and Brad Wilson at the NovaNow Conference I attended last Saturday. One place where my students have NEVER had choice is in the physical arrangement of their classroom. I've always made that decision for them--until last Monday.

I took a page out of Kit and Brad's book by stacking all of the furniture in the center of the room.

Then, I offered these instructions:

• Knowing how we operate in this classroom, I'm going to give you five and a half minutes to redesign the space for your needs and wants. Oh--and you have to do this silently. (The silently part was purely for a communication experiment.)

In those five and a half minutes, I learned a lot about my students--and myself.

• The students crave different perspective. They immediately started creating height for their seating by stacking tables and chairs and by sitting on the counters and floors.
• I still have reliance on my front board and projector. Some of my students' tall structures blocked the way of the front board and I found that it bothered me. There is still a teacher "stage" no matter how much I try to get rid of it.
• The students provided space in front for that teacher stage. The thing I don't know is--why? Do they know that I need it? Do they crave it? Did they only do it because I was showing a redesign video clip to go with it so the projector in front was already on and in use? 
• I learned that I care very much about the safety of my students and my own criticism. When the students started building up, I got scared. I had safety concerns AND perception concerns. Allowing for more student choice is weird enough. Allowing double stacked tables could make me an alien.
• The students wanted more floor space. By about minute four, the students were looking for places to start putting the tables. They stacked them up. This created much more floor space in order to put backs against the walls or maybe even lie down on a stomach and type up a blog post. 
• I learned that I liked the extra space, too. No more bumping into backs of students. There is a lot more space to walk and roam and access other parts of the room. It's not so hard to get to our books, to the computers, to other areas anymore. 

So, how did we decide? I took a picture of each hour's re-design and posted them to Edmodo. All they had to do to vote was hit reply. And you know how many did? NONE. What does that mean? Was it a big middle finger to my crazy idea that they could have say in how the classroom was designed? Was it just a busy night? Did they forget because there weren't any points attached to it? Or--do they just not care how the room is designed? Or am I over-thinking the meaning?

Regardless, no votes on the following designs:

Fascinating isn't it? But you know what having no votes allowed me? A teacher hand in the mix. It allowed me to take the positives of my students' design and add my own securities (and insecurities) into it.

So, we got rid of five tables. There is now more open space. Students can be with big groups of 15 or small groups of three or off on their own. Students can sit on the counter or the floor for change in perspective. I still have access to my screen and projector (for now). And, overall, when the students came into newly designed room, they liked the changes.

I like what we've done with the place.

Humble Pie Tastes Good

I find myself short on time--always short on time. But write I must. I just might be--efficient with my words.

This Friday and Saturday I took part in a conference unlike most I've attended. It was called NovaNow and it was held at the Kent Innovation High School. The school itself hosts a not-so-"school as usual". It's a project-based learning school and its physical design is something to marvel. There are glass walls to allow common areas to see what's happening in the classroom. There are common areas built for cross-curricular collaboration. Fascinating, for sure.

But the conference was not-so-"conference as usual". Each presentation was to be a dialogue among those who attended, NOT a sit and get. In six different sessions, I was able to work with educators across Michigan about ideas.

And that's when I tasted humble pie.

There are so many Michigan educators out there who push limits and reign them in, who challenge students by letting them go and help them by reigning them back in.

In every session, even the one I co-presented, I couldn't help but feel that I am just one of many educators pushing to get better, collaborating to improve.

Attending conferences is new for me. It wasn't until my 10th year that I attended my first session. I don't know why. I just was scared to leave my room. Perhaps I thought too highly of myself. I certainly thought too little of the conferences.

Through these conferences, through these educators, I tasted humble pie--and it tastes pretty good.

Friends Show Me The Way

In every corner

Including the darkest ones

Friends show me the way

I write this short haiku for my friends today. Up in Northern Michigan, tucked into a beautiful cottage while on short holiday, I reflect on the power of those around me. 

In my worlds--home, educational, AND social--I have an abundance of friends who pick me up at every turn. These friends listen to me, laugh with me. They challenge my thinking and inspire my actions.

Some examples from this past week only:

-Very little excites me more than to know I have been a part of some exceptional young peoples' lives. This past week, I was with a former-student-turned-friend who is heading to Italy for three months. She makes things happen in her life. She wows me--and shows me the way.

-I had the privilege of working with some exceptional teachers in my own district this week. I just heard stories of what they're doing in the classroom. Incredible! They show me the way.

-Just this morning, I finished a productive conversation with a Michigan educator, Brad Wilson, who is leading a charge in student engagement. Even through social media, my friends show me the way.

-Here in this cabin, after the kids were asleep last night, my friends and I had a conversation that makes me feel alive. They show me the way in loving others.

-As I start to plan a big summer vacation, I've utilized my Facebook friends who so quickly have offered home-cooked meals, advice on nearby attractions, and even places to stay. From afar, and sometimes even out of direct contact for nearly a decade, my friends have shown me the way to be generous and gracious.

Whether new or old, near or far, face-to-face or digital presence, THANK YOU!

Life is good because of the people in it.

Bieber Who? Heroes Are In The Halls

When I saw some tweens throwing love notes over Justin Bieber's secure fence wishing him well in his recovery from bad press (forget his necessary recovery from alcohol and just general bad decision making), I had this weird sensation of anger.

Really? Love notes? For him?

Truth be told, those couple of girls--and tweens/teens/children of all ages--just don't have to look that far to find heroes. They need only look down their school hallways.

In my blog, I tend to focus on the work my students and I are doing in my classroom, but I'm lucky the lucky one because heroes are working all around me. Here are just some of the highlights:

• My direct colleagues in the English department push for more and more individual reading while working to balance informational texts
• Other teachers work hard to find innovative ways to deliver material and engage students by using technology, personal experiences, physical lessons, and so much more
• The office staff is warm in their greeting and is able to communicate well with all people--teens, parents, grandparents, teachers, administrators, and more
• Our administrators look for programs that will challenge our students and push our teachers
• Our kitchen staff provides us nourishment--and plenty of smiles
• Our support staff does incredibly important work with individual students showing both passion and compassion
• Coaches and directors of every kind provide experiences that allow family to form within social groups

There is no doubt, in these bullet points, that I've missed an aspect of the school life, but the idea is that heroes are everywhere in our lives. If you don't want to look at your schools, fine. Look at your churches, at your local government/public services, at your local businesses, at the stay-at-home parent next door.

As my oldest daughters, currently in 4th grade, prepare to move schools--from their elementary to an intermediate and then junior high--it is my responsibility to remind them of the reality of heroism.

And if they're going to write love letters to their heroes, I'm just hoping they can hand deliver them.