Monthly Archives: January 2010

NaBloPoMo Wrap-Up

Posted by Jackie in blogging, personal goals, writing

Now that I have finished NaBloPoMo, how did it go?

First, why did I do it in the first place? What were my original goals?

Two blogging goals I’ve set for myself: more teacher-focused blogging, and more blogging regularly, without too many long or unscheduled hiatuses. Why teacher-focused blogging? Partly to add to the greater conversation, from which I have benefited greatly, and partly because I think reflecting about my teaching makes me a better teacher. I wanted to force myself to get back in the regular habit because any practice works best when it is regularly implemented.

I think some other goals, which I considered as part of my strategies included breathing more inspiration and energy into my blogging practices, and therefore into my writing life as a whole. For me, writing is like exercise or meditation is for others; I can tell a noticeable and unfavorable change in who I am in my daily life when I haven’t made time to write and reflect. It helps me stay in touch with myself.

As I looked back on the year’s posts, I saw some great ones, where I tackled an issue and presented my side, reviewed a book or movie that was important or interesting to me, or when I played around with some narrative structures that made for nice little vignettes. I am really proud of those entries, but the quality and frequency of my posts definitely dropped off in the fall, and so (not coincidentally) did my state of mind and quality of mental life.

So, did I write some great posts this month? I think so. Did I write teacher-focused ones? Definitely so, in a variety of ways. Did having the daily deadline force me to write more, force me to come up with new ways to fit in my writing time, force me to be more creative and resourceful? I think absolutely.

Some bloggers post every day as a matter of course, but many of those are professional blogs, or bloggers who make money from their blogs, and so that incentive is there. I’m not sure I could keep up that pace, since I am also focused on my poetry and since I still haven’t gotten used to the idea of the quick-hit entry, but I am definitely thinking of perhaps doing NaBloPoMo more often, as a way to keep me on my toes….

Any thoughts, my lovely readers? Did you enjoy my month of daily blogging?

Inspiration

Posted by Jackie in authors, writing

In his great book, On Writing, Stephen King calls his the boys in the basement, which is certainly more prosaic than “the muse,” but I think is just as apt. Inspiration: how do we stoke the fires of our creativity when we feel like instead we are trying to conjure magic from a handful of ashes?

Leo at Zen Habits has 5 Inspiration Hacks and also a little but really useful guide to creativity.

One of my favorite magazines has pulled together Writers Recommend, nuggets of inspiration from all kinds of writers. Some of my favorites: Jill Magi, T.C. Boyle, Mary Jo Bang, Frank Giampietro, Ru Freeman, Lucia Perillo, Adam Braver–save the link if you ever find yourself needing some inspiration.

The very fact that someone like legendary choreographer Twyla Tharp would write a book likeThe Creative Habit is evidence that creative people don’t wait to be struck by the muse. I can’t remember who, but I have a vague recall of a writer saying somewhere, “I don’t wait for inspiration. I show up at the page and roll up my sleeves every single day.”

Sonnets and Substitutes

Posted by Jackie in writing

Today my own girls are off school, so I’m taking them on a fun adventure with a dear friend and her two girls. While I’m gone, here’s what my English 11 students will be working on with their substitute present. I posted it all on my website last Saturday night and had the links in my back pocket for months, just waiting for the right moment. This is what a class can look like in a 1:1 school when the teacher isn’t there. I’m very lucky!

***********

Hi students,

First, read The Windhover, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of my favorite poets. Read the poem once through, without looking at the annotations the site gives you. Then listen to the recording of the poem being read aloud. Then read the poem a third time, checking the annotated words. Then read the poet’s biography, which you will find by clicking the link under the picture of GMH to the right of the poem.

Next, either in pairs or alone, answer the four discussion questions in a Word document (you’ll find the discussion questions menu right above the poem).

Next, copy the poem into your Word document, and highlight or circle or otherwise mark, in separate colors, all examples of assonance, alliteration and consonance you find. Write a few sentences about the sound effects in the poem, and their connection to the subject (the bird itself) and the form (the sonnet).

Finally, read another sonnet about a bird, Robert Frost’s The Oven Bird. Copy this poem into your document as well and annotate it. Under "Teaching Tips" above "The Windhover," you should answer the third question, comparing the two sonnets, adding your own thoughts as well.

Anything you don’t complete should be completed for homework. In addition, you should continue your work with your assigned sonnet, thoroughly annotating it and beginning notes on the major themes, devices and images present in the sonnet.

What Makes a Great Teacher (Part Two)

Posted by Jackie in conversations, education, teaching

Rapport with the students, thorough knowledge of the subject, and an enthusiasm for the job of teaching: these are the three factors my mother has always identified as essential for practicing good teaching. The teachers over at the EC Ning are discussing this too, and more than one bring up an idea my mother always hated: that teachers should be idealists, driven to “save” a school or class or child and willing to martyr themselves in order to do. I think the only popular cultural perception of teachers she hated more were the clueless or callous villains we see so often in high school movies! But as far as the martyr model, it too often leads to disillusionment, discouragement and burnout.

I especially liked the idea argued in the article that a good teacher is constantly thinking about how to be a better teacher, and maybe I like that because I feel like I am constantly striving towards that goal myself, which I think makes me a better teacher. It’s similar to this quick take on teachers as gnomes, wizards or giants: can a stagnant teacher who no longer takes risks still be a good teacher? I also believe strongly in a student-centered room, or what Freire describes as a community of teacher-students and student-teachers, which inherently demands that everyone in the room be engaged with each other and be invested in each other as partners in learning.

I think she would also agree with some of the factors that Teach for America has identified, like “perpetually looking for ways to improve their effectiveness,” frequently checking for understanding (which dovetails with the idea of engagement and investment from all members of the classroom), and a history of perseverance, in and out of the classroom. A psychological study calls this “grit”: both “perseverance and a passion for long-term goals,” which predicts not only teacher success, but cadet retention at West Point.

But how do you teach grit? What seems to recur is that many of the factors that make someone a great or “highly effective” teacher–passion, dedication, grit, drive to improve–are factors that can be measured, evaluated and recognized, but not taught in a classroom. What does that mean for education programs? As a teacher who’s never taken an education class, I’m perhaps not the best one to ask, but I don’t think it’s a question that can be ignored for long.

What Makes A Great Teacher (Part One)

Posted by Jackie in education, media mentions, teaching and tagged with , ,

I read an article recently that immediately made my senses sharpen: What Makes a Great Teacher?, which apparently is a precursor of an impending book.

This is an incredibly difficult question, and many of the stakeholders involved will answer very differently: is it strength in classroom management, or thorough knowledge of the material, or pedigree or education, or possession of advanced degrees, or something entirely different?

My mother was a great teacher– legendary, you could even say. I was always conscious of this, whether it was because every where we went in our small town, former students would come up and greet her, tell her how much she changed their lives. She was the kind of teacher adored by “bad kids” and AP students alike, the kind of teacher who gets asked to be the commencement speaker for years, even after she has retired.

Both my sister and I had her as a teacher, I for AP US History and my sister for US History before me, so I can testify to her greatness personally. My mother has a master’s degree in education and a bachelor’s in history, but she has said to me before many times that she thinks her master’s degree is essentially worthless– not because she didn’t work hard for it, but because she doesn’t believe you can be taught how to be a good teacher in a classroom. In her opinion, good teaching comes from years spent practicing and refining the class. It certainly didn’t come from technology– I remember her mimeographing handouts and passing around manila folders she’d taped magazine photographs to, so we could see some of the famous images she told us about in class.

But if it doesn’t come from technology or graduate-level education programs, where does it come from? How do we recognize and develop highly effective teachers?

Satisfaction

Posted by Jackie in education, writing

Unlike poetry, I have always felt very confident about my nonfiction writing. I spent years in college and graduate school polishing and refining my skills, for one, and for another, I’ve been lucky enough to have a measure of success with every nonfiction form I’ve tried. Finally, I read so much nonfiction that I’ve been pretty good at pitching my work to the right audience in the right way. For five or six years there, I sent out queries and pitches and articles regularly, but I haven’t done much in that arena since I started focusing on poetry.

However, now that I’m more confident in my new teaching arena, I naturally thought of writing about it in a more formal way than blogging, and started collecting different markets I’d be proud to be featured in–always a good way to find the right market for you, I have found. And my friend Laura and I have been having such great success working together this school year, presenting and collaborating on so many ideas, that the natural next step seemed publishing. So we sent a query to Independent Teacher for their special issue on reading, and very recently, our query was accepted!

I’ve never written with a co-author today, so that will certainly be challenging, but I’m very excited about our idea, and about taking this new step in my writing career. I’ve benefited so much from articles and books about teaching English since I started teaching at Single Sex School, and I’m thrilled to finally be contributing to the conversation myself.

Visiting the BMA

Posted by Jackie in writing

I’ve written before that The Walters is our favorite art museum in Baltimore; it’s wonderful for families with frequent art projects, a friendly atmosphere, a decent cafe and themed art scavenger hunts (and of course, free admission). The girls have had two birthday parties there, and it has a special place in our family life.

Yesterday, however, I took my girls to another art museum here in Baltimore, and I think we may have a new second-favorite art museum. I’ve always enjoyed my trips to the BMA, and it’s situated in such a lovely and walkable neighborhood (our old one), and I used to walk the girls there in their stroller and then let them run around in the sculpture. However, I always thought of it as more of a classic art museum, the kind where people walk slowly through the galleries and speak in hushed tones, so once the girls were older, we kind of switched allegiances.

But after seeing some mentions of family activities, I decided to take the girls there yesterday, and we had a great time! They have definitely made a deliberate effort to have more family activities; though the art classroom was a little chaotic when we got there, once we settled in, we had a blast making a family of telephone-wire figures and little houses for them to live in. Then we stopped at the front desk and picked up the family audio tour, run on handy electronic devices and keyed to twenty different paintings and sculptures around the museum. My girls both really enjoyed the persona of Matisse’s schnauzer, which leads you through the tour, and loved hearing all the information about the artist and the paintings. The guided questions were helpful to draw their attention to different aspects, and I also appreciated that the tour includes students from the Baltimore School for the Arts, of which my husband is a proud alum and a fantastic city institution.

Of course, my girls also enjoyed the tour because they could listen to my own voice: my poem “Strange Fruit” is still featured in the museum’s 60 Objects: Countless Stories audio tour, which is accessible through the same devices as the family tour. I admit that the thrill of experiencing my poem as part of the museum never gets old; I continue to be incredibly proud of its inclusion, and absolutely love thinking of all the visitors who might have listened to it over the past year. But watching my own girls grin from ear-to-ear and punch the numbers in over and over to hear my voice speaking poetry back at them was a special little thrill all its own.

We walked back to our car in the drizzling rain and talked about all the art we had seen and the great time we had had, and I’m pretty sure we’ll be back.

Over-Scheduled?

Posted by Jackie in all about me, conversations

Brownies every other Monday. Piano every Wednesday. Environmental Club every other Thursday. In the fall, Tuesdays were for an arts-and-crafts class. This spring, Saturdays afternoons will be drawing workshop for one, musical theater workshop for the other. Last summer, they did a six-week tennis clinic, and yes, I forced them to do it. I even bribed them with their favorite ice-cream shop if they finished the classes (ironic, I know), which they did–and after the first class, both girls thoroughly enjoyed it and were sad when the class was over.

Alice at Finslippy recently wrote a post about her 7-year-old’s lack of interest in extra-curricular activities and her conflicted feelings over whether or not to push into anything. Apparently, a lot of people had opinions (on the Internet? No!). This spring is our first regular Saturday commitment, which feels like a new threshold in child activities, so it’s been on my mind too.

When my girls were still babies, I remember reading a lot of fuss about hyper-parenting and over-scheduled children, but I didn’t take it very seriously. Of course, I was more worried at that point about when my babies would eat solid food, but also I believed (and still do) that it’s such a middle/upper-middle class problem to have. I also remember reading an excellent personal essay in Brain, Child maybe around the same time about violin lessons. The author had grown up with a mother who was alcoholic or abusive or both, and as she watched her daughter mope and moan about violin lessons, she felt so glad that these were the biggest villains in her child’s life. “I’ll be a happy mother” she wrote, “if the worst thing she can say about me when she grows up is that I forced her to take these violin lessons.” I still think that is a great perspective on the situation, having had my own share of less-than-ideal conditions in my childhood. I feel lucky to have the money and time to worry about whether my kids are doing too much.

So why do my second-graders do so much? Well, the new Saturday workshops were both chosen at the behest of our girls, who have demonstrated a strong interest in art and theater. This year especially, I’ve benefited from the after-school childcare that these activities provide for us–Brownies and Enviro club both meet at their school, so no transportation worries there. They enjoy hanging out with their friends and making new ones, and I enjoy not having to schedule tons of playdates.

But also, the kinds of activities we sign them up for and encourage are a way that we transmit and reinforce our own values. We are not church-going people, so we have to build community in other ways. Laura at 11d wants to raise active kids, and we do too, as well as creative, compassionate kids, and while we do a lot as a family to transmit these values, it’s great for our kids to be surrounded by adults and kids who believe in the same ideas and practices. If we did go to church, I expect we would have a similar experience there, but for now, it’ll be Brownies, and piano, and drawing, and music, as well as summers at the pool and walks to the duck pond.

Working Moms and Leisure Time

Posted by Jackie in all about me, blogging, conversations

I was going to write a long post in response to this WaPo article on working moms and leisure, but then Laura at Geekymom beat me to it and said a lot of what I would say anyway!

I did post the link to the article on Facebook after I had read it, and many of my friends said the same things I thought. Here, in random bullet fashion, are some of my (and their) immediate reactions:

• What counts as leisure? Exercise? Time spent waiting for kids or other obligations? Time spent alone, or time with family? Time spent purposefully, or time spent in a kind of daze? Time spent on nothing that can be called “responsible”?

• Part of me shudders at what my time diary would like, and that’s probably exactly why I should do one.

• It’ s disturbing how seemingly “dedicated” time blends so seamlessly into each other– how do you classify what is work time and what is family time? How does multitasking work against this?

• The writer’s mention of more “stream-of-consciousness” diary entries made me wonder if she ever journalled and if that would be helpful for her, or if writing always feels like “work” for her since she is a journalist by trade.

• 30 hours a week of leisure time?!?!

• TV is certainly leisure time for me, but I’m often answering work emails, commenting on papers, or reading work-related sites and blogs. Does it still count as leisure time? Which should I put down, the remote or the laptop?

Grading

Posted by Jackie in writing and tagged with

Whether you teach second grade, eleventh grade, or college-level seminars, one of the constant threads is the dread of grading. I will always know where we are in the school year because on my Facebook page and favorite blogs, I start to see the same updates: I’m avoiding the pile of bluebooks lurking in my school bag or Jennifer is still grading, and grading, and grading. Every teacher or academic I know sighs and groans and moans at the mention of grading.
 
Why do we hate it so much? There is the tedium of sitting in one place, pen or laptop in hand, for hours while we try to concentrate, or the hard fact that no matter how much grading we do, there is always more grading coming along right behind it, which can get a bit Sisyphean. But I think the worst part is staring down a pile of assessments that may be full of disappointments. Before we have graded them, we can still maintain the illusion that the brilliant new assignment we designed actually did what we wanted it to do, or we can cling to the belief that the kid in the back of the room that we’ve been trying to reach may have actually woken up and applied the talent or potential we know is lurking within. These hopes and dreams are only revived when we actually do get a batch of papers that reveals that it worked, that they got it, that our goals and their abilities dovetailed in a wonderful harmony– and then the next batch comes in, and our hopes sink again, and it’s back to the drawing board.

[Practical Note: on my ever-expanding wishlist, I have a book called Rethinking Rubrics, and the author, Maja Wilson, wrote a lovely and funny reflection on dreading grading when that book was part of a book discussion on the EC Ning.]
 
You will also often hear teachers and professors alike complaining that the students get so hung up on grades, focus so much energy and emotion on them, that all they care about is the grade, not the knowledge they are supposed to have gained. Alternately, the students are callously indifferent to their grades, and we wish they would care more about them. They either invest their entire self-worth into their grades, or they don’t invest their grades with any personal value at all. Is this a result of institutional or cultural atmosphere, of parental priorities, of teacher reinforcement or neglect, or is it some terrible mix of all three, that will be impossible to dissect or dissuade? Why is it so challenging to find the middle ground between caring too much and not caring enough?

All I know is that if you ask teachers what their least favorite part of the job is, I’m betting that “grading” will be one of the top five answers. And I know that right now, if you took a random sampling of schools from Kansas to Florida to Oregon, and asked the teachers if they had grading to do, every head would nod in weary unison.