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Reading and Re-reading and writing

8/31/2017

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We had back to school night last week, and it’s exciting to talk about the start of the school year with our amazing community. I usually start my language arts spheel with what I hope is a calming tonic to their ears.

Students’ reading practices can change in middle school.  For many, students keep reading as they always have. Many of them though, back off a bit. Even the passionate readers.

It’s all a function of topic, reading level, hormones, lack of sitting still long enough, etc.

My mantra is that parents should keep modeling a reading lifestyle, reading to each other, talking about books,  and avoiding too much pressure or any, about reading.  They will come out of this.  That’s what I promise.  Every time I promise this I worry a bit about the few who may not.  But those are other conversations and interventions.

More than the slow down for many in reading, parents worry about how often their student re-reads books, especially “lower level” books.

Here is where I get enervated and absolutely confident.  Re-reading is what writers do.  

I’m going to repeat this.  Re-reading is what writers do.  I know this as a writer, but also from patterns over time as a teacher.  I will be frank, though,  about where my absolute confidence comes from.  Stephen King writes about this in his book on Writing, “On Writing”. One of his biggest premises is how writers grow through in-depth study of worlds crafted by others. When students want to keep living in these most-often fictional worlds, they are creating a sense of how they want the world to be in the worlds that they live in within their imaginations.  

I’m a writer, and I re-read far more than I pick up new books. To push myself, I read new books and poems, but I mostly revert to the worlds that make sense to me in their style, flourish, feeling.

I’m currently listening to James Herriots’ All Creatures Great and Small Books on Audible. I have a 20+ minute drive to and from work, and I love listening to books as I drive.  So, I’m listening to these books (I’m on the third in the series), and I own the entire set in paperback (maybe my DH will buy me a nice hardback set one of these days). I’ve read them all no fewer than five times each.  The first one, I have read over fifteen times. I have also binge-watched the BBC series a few times.  I love this world. It’s about history, England, animals, and amazing characters.

But just today, I realized, as I finished the second book, as James Herriot is headed off to serve in the Royal Air Force during WW1, ten minutes from school, tears running down my cheeks, why I love these books so much. I thought it was the stories of animals, history, charming real-life characters, and the portrait of the rugged Yorkshire landscape. But today, at the end of the book, as he is describing his gratitude for living as he does, I realized that what I love about his books is his lens on gratitude.  He’s a storyteller, brilliant, amusing, hilarious, heart-warming and heart-wrenching.  But all of his stories have the theme of his gratitude.  Even when he is trudging through a blizzard after no sleep, and no idea where he is, he appreciates life.  Even after yet another crusty farmer disrespects his work and aggravates the situation, he has gratitude.  Even when the lonely old widower has to have his long-time companion, his dog, put down, he has gratitude for being a part of this.  

He appreciates life. All of life.  His self-deprecation, eye for raw beauty, and his  wry wit are all a part of the appreciation he has for everything.

When I started blogging when Danny was hospitalized in 2011, I created a theme of gratitude.

I did not know it then, but I had learned that in many ways, through my family, through friends, through Danny.  And I learned it as my soul learns, through stories. Through narratives that are more real than life.

It is why I love those books by James Herriot.  

It is why I am blogging about teaching. I have deep gratitude for every moment I learn from others, from my students who gift me with their hearts, minds, and souls.  

I wish I could express myself as James Herriot does, but I’m grateful that I can keep working at honing that craft.  

I have gratitude for re-learning through rereading. I appreciate how much I understand because I have lived in so many lives outside my own through the gift of others. It’s why I know students who love to read will always love to read if things stay positive, and if they have choice about what they read, and how often they re-read, even if those stories, those ideas are maybe “lower”.  A story is a story, and reading is reading. We’ll all keep reading if we enjoy it.

Goal: Keep writing and sharing and learning. Keep these lessons in my heart. Keep learning and growing with my students.

Gratitude: Oh, everything. The deer eating our garden tonight, munching and looking at us with complete innocence. Our cats who silly up our lives. My family and Danny’s family. Our friends and colleagues. This night sky that is slow to darken tonight. The fresh dill I bought at the farm stand tonight.

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meeting them where they are right then and there

8/25/2017

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I’ve had a pretty exciting first few weeks of school.  All of it is about the students, but I’m going to start with being self-centered.

First: I just discovered, and I’m pretty sure this is accurate: this is my 25th year of teaching. I think I’ve spent the last five years telling my students I’ve taught for 20, 25, a hundred, a million, 23, and over 22 years.  I’m going to try to to be consistent this year about the exact year.

On to the really exiciting news from the past few weeks. When I started a million, I mean, 25 years ago, I was revved up by Nancie Atwells’ “In the Middle.” I started out teaching with the workshop model, and I’ve never looked back.

Then, Ralph Fletcher entered the Writer’s Workshop realm and my sphere with “What a Writer Needs.”  His work innovated and pushed my current workshop model.

Nancie Atwell and Ralph Fletcher have been my gurus for the last 25+ years.

I have long fantasized that I would meet Nancie Atwell sometime while I’m back in my homestate, which is her homestate: Maine.  My sister lives not far from her school, and I keep hounding my sister to find someone who knows her, who can get me in to meet her.

I don’t have that geographical connection with Ralph Fletcher.  I have something better.  Twitter. Over the past few years, I’ve built up my online PLNs through Twitter. I’ve built a community and sub-communities of shared colleagiality on Twitter. Some of my communities are all about writer’s workshop models, but all of them are about personalized learning, student agency, and student choice.

I’ve been so lucky to meet and know so many amazing educators who inspire me daily, and usually, minute by minute.  

Okay, I need to go back 25 years ago again. When I started my classroom with the writer’s workshop model, there were only a few of us that I knew of in the district who embraced the model.  Over time, I had lost any connections with other workshop model teachers.

Over time, I did that cliche teacherly thing, and I “hid” how I taught and avoided being collegial.  I couldn’t relate to other teachers because, though so many did (and do!) amazing things that I learned from, I had nothing to give them. I had a model and modality. I did not have “stuff.” I did not have resources or lessons.  I had nothing to give them.

Social media: blogs and Twitter have changed me. I am now contributing and learning because I’m connecting with others who use a workshop/constructivist model of teaching, and we’re learning from each other.  I’m energized.

I need to back up yet again.  This all started when my former student became my teaching partner, and grassphopper became the master. She nudged me like a stubborn mule to elevate the workshop model into a more streamlined approach, leveraging all of our technology.

My philosopy and practice and ideology has not changed.  What’s different is using technology to enhance the workshop model.  So, though it’s the same, technology allows the true nature of a workshop, the organic nature workshop, to thrive.


A few weeks ago, I came across a tweet from Ralph Fletcher:
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I was so excited. First, I did not even think about finding my guru on Twitter. Second, here he was in real time honoring what I do: plan on the fly.

My teaching is organic, and many people think that means “winging it.” I’ve had a lot of people ask me the difference, and it’s a good question. Superficially, they seem similar.  All good teachers are good at winging it and enjoying it (usually) when it happens. The difference is in intent.  
  • Winging it is when you have a plan and something goes wrong, so you have to wing it.  This is a much needed skill most teachers have.
  • Winging it is when you don’t have a plan and need to wing it. All teachers have had to do this for some reason.
    • In this scenario, and in the above scenario, there is an organic component, and it’s why when it happens, it’s not a terrible thing.  All teachers can do this and feel the success of holding things together and even having teachable moments.
  • Organic teaching is a planned approach to reacting and interacting with the dynamic nature of class. It is that “plan-on-the-fly” Ralph Fletcher refers to.  
  • Organic teaching starts with a goal (daily,weekly, etc.), but allows daily class dynamic to ebb and flow the work and focus.
  • It’s individualized. It’s reactive not just to daily feedback, but to class feedback. It informs instruction daily. The teacher needs to change plans “on the fly.”

Conversely, many teachers plan tightly, and understandably, but they say things like,  “I can’t do such-and-such on this date because my students will be doing X,Y, or Z (presenting, testing, etc.).”  My idea of the organic approach (and yea, Ralph Flettcher for supporting this!), is that the goals of learning flow with the needs of the students. I cannot imagine honing a presentation date for something for all students into a certain time chunk.

I keep using the pronoun “I,” but I speak for Emily too. She reads through all of these blogs and gives me content and editing feedback.

I speak for both of us when I speak of what we do in the classroom and what we believe. Most of our cohort meetings are about philosophy, not minutiae. Most of what we communicate about  are stories of what our students share with us.

I started this blog post with my two exciting things. The first was actually pinning down how many years I’ve taught. The second is about how exciting it was to follow Ralph Fletcher on Twitter.

Dorking out here.  Following Ralph Fletcher is exciting, but I’m human, and I’m just dorking out about this:

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My guru is following me on Twitter!  I don’t know how it happened, but it did. The amazing thing is, he is only following a few hundred people, and thousands are following him.  I’m just….I’m just...swooning!


And better still, I was enboldened to thank him for his leadership, and I did. I tweeted directly to him.  And then this:

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In all the million years I’ve taught, I’ve never been so humbled and excited and dorked out.

Goal: stop the hyperbole about how long I’ve taught. Keep feeling the gratitiude.
Gratitude: the people who push me and lift me up and make me better,  the people in my in-person and online communities who lead and encourage and help us all to empathize with the humanity in the classroom.

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    6th grade language arts teacher at Westview Middle School in the St. Vrain Valley School District

    Old dog learning new tricks

    writer of fact and fiction

    educator of middle schoolers and self

    cat lover

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