Monthly Archives: May 2010

Student Evaluations

Posted by Jackie in all about me, education, teaching

When I was teaching at the college level, I knew that at some point towards the end of the semester, I would get an on-campus mail envelope full of Scantron forms, narrative forms, and the kind of pencils you get when you go play mini-golf. That’s when I knew that it was evaluation time, that sometime in the next week or so, I would be standing in front of my students, asking them to evaluate my timeliness, professionalism and effectiveness, and then waiting out in the hallway, trying not to eavesdrop or imagine every nasty comment.

Truth be told, I got very few negative remarks on course evals in the six years I spent teaching at that level, but then, I think sometimes the students who feel lukewarm about the class just don’t fill out the forms at all. But I do think I was good at my job then, and I think I’m good at my job now. I really enjoyed getting my evals back too– between the smiley faces and and “Thanks for everything!” comments, I often got some really valuable constructive feedback, and sometimes some validation that a weakness I had noticed was actually there. But without that structure, it has been a little trickier to get my students’ honest feedback on the course. Sometimes I’ve had informal discussions with them at the end of the year, and other times I’ve tried to check in with them after different assignments, especially ones that I’m trying for the first time.

This year, I created my first English 9 Report Card (click for document) and gave it to my students during our exam review time. I didn’t require it, and I didn’t save class time for it, because ninth graders are often so worried about exams, they want each and every one of those exam review minutes. Next year, I think I will mimic my old experience and save at least fifteen minutes for it, from one of the last few classes, and go outside while my students handwrite on the form. Since we are a laptop school, they could handwrite them and I probably would not be able to recognize their handwriting! I may even save them to open until after the semester is over, and write a little note to that effect on the evaluation itself. I did manage to rainbow-color-code it this time, though, which ninth graders often appreciate (and honestly, I do too).

I would love to hear from anyone who uses an evaluation form or tool with grade 9-12 students, or even if you just have some thoughts or feedback for me.

Geeking Out

Posted by Jackie in blogging, conversations, teaching

This post is a quick shout-out to Laura at Geekymom.com, who just landed a tech coordinator job at an independent girls’ school! Congratulations, Laura, I think you’ll be great, and I’m so excited to read what you are able to post about your work!

I was reading through her comments and saw a mention from my friend What Now?, another teacher at a Fabulous Girls’ School who was also a refugee from academia, and one of the bloggers I have come to think of as part of my online professional learning network, or PLN. I’ve been meaning to blog about that but haven’t gotten to it in the current end-of-year tsunami, but it has become increasingly important to me over the past school year.

The advantage of the online PLN is that it can be completely separate from any particularities of your own school, so you don’t focus on personalities or policies, but instead on possibilities and projects, which can be a refreshing break from your own work environment but can also add jolts of inspiration to that environment. I get quick bursts of inspiration with every new entry from Dana at Huff English or from the wonderful folks at the English Companion Ning, and my teaching has been helped immeasurably in the time that I’ve been connecting with these resources. Another advantage is that everyone you’re connecting with is dedicated, energetic and eager to share–otherwise, they wouldn’t be spending their scanty free time blogging, right?

So welcome to the world of FGSes and online PLNs, Laura! It’s a lovely place to work and thrive, I do believe.

Eight

Posted by Jackie in all about me, family life

My girls are turning eight.

Friday, we began a week of festivities when we read stories in their classes and handed out stickers, then met my mother to see a movie and have dinner. Saturday, they have a piano recital and Roller Derby with the Brownies, and I’m sure we’ll spend much of the weekend experimenting with their birthday present. Monday, we’ll be bringing cupcakes to the Brownie meeting, where I’ll be leading the group in the Her Story Try-It. Then it’s Field Day and Math Night and Saturday, our pool opens and they will have their birthday party, with pizza and sunshine (I hope) and the sweet smell of summer.

But really, life has been like that this year, as they have really blossomed into independent girls, each with their own passions and adventures.

Sophie finally got to test her inner actress and take the stage, and it was just as fulfilling and exciting as we had always hoped it would be. She has had a wonderful year in second grade, becoming a voracious and inquisitive reader and collecting a new group of girlfriends, including her first BFF. She is still a die-hard animal lover hoping for that puppy (no way) and spinning stories at every opportunity for an audience, enchanting anyone who stops to listen. Last night a dear old friend of ours was visiting, playing guitar in our living room, and Sophie spun and twirled and danced, a smile on her face and joy at every step. She is still the quickest to laugh and the quickest to tear up, and my most reliable source for hugs. No moment is dull when she’s around, but most importantly, her compassionate and caring nature means no one goes unloved.

Lucy spent the spring experimenting with watercolors, inks and pastels and continuing to be a conscientious and dedicated student in second grade. I know that sounds like something written on a report card, but she really is! Orderly, thorough, responsible, curious and patient: a teacher’s dream. Her sense of color continues to be distinctive in her artwork, and her sense of humor sharpens continually too; her pursed-lip squint is a trademark weapon. She had her first bumpy patches on the friendship journey this spring, which hurt her feelings and fractured my heart, but she evolved and showed a resilient spirit that warmed us all. It’s been wonderful to see her confidence slowly mature, and to see the strength inside our little peanut.

Seven was a wonderful year, full of excitement and challenges for all of us. My girls have been testing their wings and finding their footing and all those other cliches that try to express how tricky it can be to set foot on the open road and watch it unfurl before you. My girls are nowhere near taking those steps, but we are more conscious than ever of all the supplies and skills they’ll need, and how much they’ll have to discover on their own in the years ahead.

Wish us all luck as we embark on year eight!

Faeryland

Posted by Jackie in all about me, family life

Today I took my girls to the Maryland Faerie Festival, an offshoot of the larger, more established one in Pennsylvania. I had heard about it a year or two ago and thought the girls might enjoy it, so when we actually had the weekend free, I thought we’d give it a chance.

If you’ve ever been to a Renaissance Festival, you have some sense of the vibe at these kinds of events. There are vendors selling wizard paperweights with marble-sized crystal balls, small children running around in translucent wings, and adults who have chosen to step outside the mainstream in favor of the Maypole (or chain mail). The Faerie Festival is a little short on the mead and jousting but long on the flower crowns, corsets and pointed ears. My girls really enjoyed making faerie houses and tying wishes on the trees in the glade, but sadly, I think we probably should have gone a year or two ago to get the full magical atmosphere. They had a little trouble suspending their disbelief, a disbelief that wouldn’t have existed in kindergarten or even first grade, when they believed wholeheartedly in Santa Clause and called all their classmates friends.

But we still ran through a labyrinth, made felt puppets and got their faces painted with tiger stripes and glittery flowers. I bought them lemonade and funnel cake and paper parasols printed with peacocks. It all felt a little bittersweet when I thought of the smaller girls they had been who would have been dazzled by the faerie magic.

But then we came home, and they twirled their parasols and showed off their face paint for their father, and then they thanked me for our “girls’ day out.” They’re making all kinds of fun summer plans, and I’m excited for each and every one. We’re going to tie-dye and read books and make new recipes; they want to go to the beach and Mount Vernon and so much more. We have had some really rich and sweet adventures lately, and I’m thrilled they still automatically include me when they venture out into the world.

These days, I’m trying to remember that if I dwell too much on the past, I’ll miss out on the present, which is actually pretty wonderful too.

Boost

Posted by Jackie in teaching, writing

Sometimes, just when you need it, you get a little boost. Maybe it’s a class that goes really well, where even the sleepiest student is suddenly engaged, or maybe it’s an hour spent with a good friend that leaves you feel content and understood.

Sometimes, it’s seeing weeks of work and time and effort pay off.

Today, on the Independent Teacher website, you can find a really interesting special issue on reading, with articles on teaching, reading and writing from a variety of perspectives. Independent Teacher is a journal I’ve enjoyed since I started teaching at an independent school, and I’ve always found food for thought and inspiration in their pages.

In that special issue, you can also find an article co-authored by yours truly, concerning digital scaffolding in several projects from the past two years of my teaching. In this article, I talk about a project called “Facebooking Gatsby,” which went well in my classes and is the subject of my most popular post ever, as well as a project my juniors did with sonnets and Voicethread. I was really pleased with how the projects went, and it’s my first teaching-related publication, so I’m thrilled about that as well.

So today, after some darker days, I got my boost. I hope you will too, if you are in need of one.

New Look

Posted by Jackie in blogging

I got adventurous today and tried one of the brand new WordPress themes, which I rarely do because I’m not the biggest fan of change. When given the chance, I usually stick to the tried-and-true, but at the end of a long and draining Monday, I thought it might be fun to mess around a little.

So! I really, really like almost everything about this theme–except the way it makes my blog title look. I hate how big and dark and all-caps the title is now. But! I love everything else about it–the fonts, the functionality, the clean lines, the ability to switch background colors and images easily.

But the title. I hate it.

What do you think? Am I overreacting to the title? Any thoughts or feedback would be great.

My Heart’s Quiet Home

Posted by Jackie in conversations, family life, writing

At first, I wanted to make a quick post, a lovely sonnet to mark Mother’s Day, a holiday that has multiple, onion-like, layers of meaning to me now that I am a mother too.

But this year, it is especially poignant to me. This weekend, a funeral is being held for a young woman who died too soon, a case that continues to unfold but is already so heartbreaking. I cannot imagine what the next few days or months or years will be like for the mothers involved in this case.

Children die, and our hearts are shattered; mothers also die, and leave incredible empty spaces behind. We are all so fragile, and we want so desperately to be the mothers we think our children deserve. It stops my breath to see myself in any of these scenarios, or to see the faces of my own dear girls, and my heart has certainly been unquiet.

So then I thought I wouldn’t post the poem I had chosen, but then, this is still a time to remember mothers, to cherish the ones we have and do not, to love the ones we are and are not.

[Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome]

by Christina Rossetti

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tome
Has many sonnets: so here now shall be
One sonnet more, a love sonnet, from me
To her whose heart is my heart’s quiet home,
To my first Love, my Mother, on whose knee
I learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;
Whose service is my special dignity,
And she my loadstar while I go and come
And so because you love me, and because
I love you, Mother, I have woven a wreath
Of rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name:
In you not fourscore years can dim the flame
Of love, whose blessed glow transcends the laws
Of time and change and mortal life and death.

The Right Season

Posted by Jackie in blogging, conversations, poetry, writing

In my post about National Poetry Month, I outlined my plans for celebrating poetry in my work life and in my writerly life. I talked about posters and projects for school and writing a poem a day, which I did last year and really enjoyed.

And my work goals came true: I had students posting poems all over the school, sticking them in each other’s mailboxes, handing out book marks, and one of the bulletin boards in my classroom is now adorned with posters of poems. I even kicked off the month by reading a poem aloud to our entire upper school at one of our morning meetings, a favorite of mine that I have posted here before. I really enjoyed asking my students to do this, and plan to do a variation of the project for next year, perhaps as the second act of a poetry unit that also includes a poetic March Madness.

But my personal goals? Completely kaput. For the first week or so, I managed to copy the prompts into a document in my Google Docs and jot down some drafts for a few of those prompts. But after that? Nothing. All my good intentions got completely subsumed in the whirlpool that was my April. I’m trying to feel philosophical about it, and remind myself that it was a personal challenge, so I’m only letting myself down, but I still feel the same way: disappointed and let down. When I’m in self-pity mode, this just seems like the most recent casualty of The Year That Ate My Life.

But I also don’t want to make excuses: it’s not my students’ or colleagues’ or family’s fault that I didn’t complete this challenge. I was feeling overwhelmed, and chose instead to put my energies into work and family, and chose not to show up at the page every day and do the work of writing, inspired or not. That’s a choice, and I have to own that choice and how I feel about it.

I read a post recently by my friend Anjali where she talks about her own choice since January to make her writing a priority in her life and what a difference that choice has made to her. In that entry, she quotes an agent giving advice to would-be novelists on the importance of making writing a daily or regular part of your life. One of the lines really struck me was when she said, “Maybe this simply isn’t the right season of your life.” One of the most significant reasons that I’ve continued to blog over the past six or seven years, through catastrophes and dry spells alike, is because it helps me keep writing close to the center of my life. I need to figure out a way to make a similar commitment to poetry, an increasingly important part of how I see myself as a writer. I need to see this as a chance for growth, and as a reminder when I set my priorities for the summer and next school year of what is really important to my well-being and how it feels when I lose sight of that.

Sometimes it is simply not the right season, and that is okay. But it doesn’t mean that season won’t come again, or that I don’t have a role in making it the right one.