I like beginning the class with a writing exercise, and the resulting pieces of writing were often interesting and useful as far as discussion. But the students had gotten a little complacent, and I didn’t collect them every day, so I had no way of knowing exactly what they were writing unless they volunteered, which I didn’t want to make mandatory if they had chosen to write about something more personal. So I started thinking about ways to try and keep the same utility, but adapt the assignment itself, make it more assessable and more challenging.

I used the idea of the transactional reading journal to create an assignment (document linked here) where my ninth graders would begin each class by writing a transactional response as a blog post, which they would then publish. I decided to give over 20-25 minutes (from a 70 minute period), depending on the day, to this activity, which is twice as long as I used to dedicate to freewrites, and I asked the students who finished early to comment on any published blog posts made by their classmates. I also comment on their entries regularly, and required them to choose a different type of entry each day, so that they would have to stretch themselves. As with my Hamlet blogs, I created student blogs that are hosted on my teacher website and set to only be viewable by the members of each class.

I’m in the midst of this unit now, and I have been really pleased with the results so far. Sometimes they have trouble settling down to quiet work at the beginning of the class, and sometimes there is some chatter amongst them as they decide which prompt they are going to respond to that day. But I think they really enjoyed the novelty and the break from the familiar, and once again, the act of commenting on each other’s writing has knit them a little closer together as learners, which is great to see. Their blogs have also functioned as portfolios, as they have posted writing tasks and assignments there which I have graded instead of quizzes.

They’ve written advertisements for hunting hats and nun-staffed hotlines, poems about ducks in the park, a letter from Holden to Mark David Chapman, predictions about the novel, movie casting reports, found poems from different chapters and testimony for a mock school board meeting on censorship, which we held in class. They explained their reactions to certain scenes, examined “five-star quotes,” and written letters from one character to another, created comic strips and Facebook profiles and soundtracks. I love getting to see everything they’ve created, and I love that they get to see how creative their fellow students can be.

I worked with our tech coordinator to set up blogs for each student that would be hosted on my faculty website and password-protected. Then I gave my students the following instructions, adapted from the Set Free assignment:

As we read Hamlet, you will make an entry in your log, paying attention to different aspects of the play each time. There are six options to guide your responses:

1. Comment on the significance of the scene. What would the play be like without it? What does it add, and how?
2. Ask questions about the scene: has anything caused you confusion? Ask the characters in the scene some question.
3. Quote lines from the scene that you enjoyed and comment on them.
4. Describe your reactions to a character, action or idea you confronted in the scene—be specific.
5. Talk about the relationships characters have to one another, quoting specific words or phrases to give evidence for your opinion.
6. Imagine yourself as an actor playing one of the characters in the scene. Get inside that character’s mind. Tell how the character feels about herself or himself, about other characters, about the situation of the scene.

I’ve also had them use their blogs to record their reactions to different filmed versions of particular scenes, and to make predictions about the next act or scene. Once when I was absent, I assigned them writing work and they posted it on their blogs, a paragraph addressing one of the soliloquys to be graded for 20 pts. I try to comment regularly on their entries, and I’ve given class time to have them read each other’s blogs and comment as well. Finally, I will give them a grade at the end of our unit as a major 100-pt assessment.

This blog has supplanted the dreaded reading quiz for me, and feels like such a more authentic way of really discovering whether or not they are engaging with the text. I learn so much more about each of my students from these blogs than I would from a quiz– I see their senses of humor, their preferences, their opinions and reactions, and what they truly find most important, revealing or interesting about a text. In my comments, I can offer encouragement, give gentle nudges if a student has wandered off-track, agree or disagree with one of their conclusions, or trade favorite lines, as I did tonight. I have really loved getting a peek into their minds, and it has really enriched my teaching of the play.

I’m still working on the rubric, but I envision it as a mix of this one, this one, and this one, with some tailoring. Since my Gatsby Facebook entry is consistently one of my most visited, I am trying to do more entries like this one that really talk about a specific project or lesson. I’d love to hear what you think!

At first, I didn’t know that there’s a lot said here that wasn’t said in the Atlantic article: it’s very tricky to know how to make good teachers, hiring Ivy Leaguers or giving them merit pay hasn’t necessarily worked, the impact of teachers on a classroom can be massive, etc. But I also liked the tone of the article, which was not accusatory, but instead acknowledged that many teachers want to be better (myself included), but in the early years, we often are just as mystified as to how to accomplish that improvement as scholars and journalists are. Like the article says, why buy a better teacher, when it might be possible to build a better one instead? They acknowledged that increased opportunities for women and minorities resulted in them leaving teaching, to some degree, for “better” jobs, which hasn’t helped the profession either. A recent survey of teachers in my state backed up the theory that new teachers need a lot more mentorship and guidance in the first few years. The teachers over on the EC Ning seem a little nervous about why all the sudden attention to measuring teachers and what that might mean in an era of massive governmental budget cuts. There’s some great stuff in the comments over at Crooked Timber too.

I love the idea of a 49-step taxonomy of “bite-size” techniques to make teachers more effective, regardless of subject matter. In shifting from college teaching to high school, that is one major difference that has changed how I think about my work: subject-matter knowledge is much more integral in college-level work, which expects a level of scholarship, while high-school level teaching requires more attention to classroom management, effective pedagogy, and emotional connection (in addition to subject-matter knowledge). I loved the story of Lemov, the introvert who transforms in front of a classroom, mostly because I, a life-long introvert, hope that transformation happens in my room too. I think the idea that a good teacher needs to be a stand-up comedian or a talented thespian is one of the ideas that keeps people out of the classroom unnecessarily. I know I will definitely be buying Teach Like a Champion, Lemov’s book about his taxonomy, when it comes out, and maybe even in hardcover, and I’ll probably read it this summer, when I always spend hours and hours thinking about how to do my job better.

Maybe it’s naïve of me, but I would love to think that we are finally going to try seriously to make teaching a seriously respected and valued profession in this country. All apologies to the doctors, nurses, priests and others out there, but I don’t know of a more important paying job for our world’s future.

Spring Break!

Mine is only a week away, and since my girls have a different school schedule, spring break is usually a staycation around these parts. I try to tackle a house project each year, but it’s also a time to rest and rejuvenate. This year, I’m going to finally cash in a gift certificate my wonderful mother-in-law gave me for Christmas and get a massage, manicure and pedicure one day during the week. I’m going to sleep, and I’m going to read for pleasure, and I’m going to cook new recipes and just relax.

In addition to resting, I’m in the mood for some new beginnings. While I’m not making any massive changes, I’m enjoying the smaller ones: a new short haircut, a new blog template, new ideas for my classes next year, and new projects at school.

It’s going to be lovely, in a very low-key, old grown-up kind of way!

How to deal with a winter that seems never-ending? Make warm-weather plans!

When we were looking at houses a few years ago, one of the assets we were really hoping to find was a backyard. We were lucky enough to find a house that does have a backyard and were willing to overlook that the yard was essentially one large fenced-in rectangle, with no landscaping, patio, deck or other features that would make it more attractive or usable. The existing fence is two-third wood and one third chain-link, which is as weird-looking as it sounds, and the yard is surrounded by trees, which means we don’t need to add shade, but are limited in what we can plant.

Since we moved in, we have made some major updates to the interior of the house and have planted bushes and flowers in the front yard, but all we’ve done to the backyard is put up a pretty basic swingset for the girls. My goal this summer is start making the backyard a more attractive place to be, especially since in the spring and summer, we like to eat dinner out there, grill and have backyard parties. Our neighbors did a backyard remodel last year, including a pergola for their deck and some pretty extensive landscaping, and I’ve been jealous ever since.

I started by thinking small, after seeing a link to some whimsical solar-powered garden ornaments. I might even let my girls pick out one or two animal statues to place around. Then I started thinking about swings– my dad has one in his backyard, and it’s always been one of my favorite places to spend a sunny afternoon. Since our back yard is pretty shaded already, we could think about a set that doesn’t include an awning, like this one, this one, or even this one. Then I started remembering how much I’ve always hated the chain-link part of our fence, and read some sites about these amazing new hybrid hydrangeas that can bloom in partial shade and would bloom from spring to early fall. I’ve always loved hydrangeas, and right now the only flowering plant in our backyard is a lovely dogwood that doesn’t bloom every year. So I started daydreaming about a hedge of hydrangeas along the chain-link fence, in several different shades, maybe mixed in with some nice green bushes so the effect doesn’t get too overwhelming. You can see how my dreams were increasingly growing larger, right? So far, some planting, some swing assembly, which isn’t too bad, but the dollar amount is steadily climbing.

So then, of course, I started having patio visions. Right now, we have a nice iron table and a bunch of random plastic lawn chairs to go around it, which sit on the part of the yard right outside the back door, which is semi-grassy, semi-muddy. The back of the house is bordered by a cracked concrete sidewalk, that has been an eyesore (in my mind) since we moved in. I’d love to break it up and get it out there altogether and then replace it with something fabulous, but even in my daydreams, I don’t see myself with either a jackhammer or a limitless backyard budget. But in my internet travels, I started to see a fair amount of articles about covering old concrete. Specifically, I saw this story about covering it in pea gravel, which other sites had called economical and relatively easy for DIY homeowners. The patio is the (modest) crown of my backyard dreams, and it really does seem pretty do-able, once you get the gravel delivered and decide how to make a border (Pavers? Bricks? Concrete edgers?)

Now, of course, that’s easier said than done. I can see my husband shaking his head right now, even (hi honey!). The most ambitious we’ve gotten with DIY projects have been painting, interior and exterior, putting together our swingset, and ripping up old carpet from the stairs. The patio will be the biggest project we’ve attempted, but so far, it honestly doesn’t look that tricky, and it seems like the cheapest solution. I think we’d get a fair amount of bang for our buck, and between two youngish, healthyish adults, I think we could do it all ourselves.

Whether we accomplish this spring and summer or only get started, it has certainly helped me while away some winter hours.

Anyway, I forget how I ended up there, but I started searching for punctuation-related items on Etsy a few nights ago and came up with some real gems:

My favorite mark of punctuation is the interrobang. Again, I say, what’s not to like? It’s graphically distinctive, it expresses “attitude, curiosity and wonder,” and since I spend much of my life with fourteen-year-old girls, I definitely see a need it would fill if we had more access to it. On Etsy, I found Interrobang necklace and among others, a set of punctuation cross-stitch patterns including the interrobang.

I searched mainly for house goods and necklaces, because necklaces are the only kind of jewelry I wear regularly (apart from wedding rings). I found some cool ones using typewriter keys, like this one with a semicolon and colon. There’s also a lovely
!?@ necklace that isn’t keys, but has the same vibe. Finally, there’s a Ampersand necklace that appears to be laser-cut from an old vinyl record.

I’m not going to splurge on it all, because then I’d be that Crazy Punctuation Lady. But there’s something kind of amazing about them all, and very soon, you might see me around, wearing my grammatical love around my neck.

Today, Sophie was home from school recovering from a stomach bug, and my husband was sleeping in, so I was rushing around to get Lucy and I ready for school and ran out of time to pack Lucy a lunch. So I promised her I would bring her a surprise for lunch, and at lunch time, my sister and I went to the nearby grocery, bought her a Lunchable (the turkey and cracker kind) and brought it to her. We snuck in through the side door and up to her table before she noticed we had come in, and when she turned? And saw us? The burst of happiness on her face was so bright. And she hugged me, and then my sister, and grinned at her little stack of cheese and crackers and tiny pack of Skittles, and hugged us both again, and scrubbed her little head against us when she did, and I just about melted.

Also today, when I got home, grouchy from a long day, Sophie was so excited to see me, and clearly feeling so much better. And then while we were watching a “short show” before bathtime, Sophie asked me if she could brush my hair while we watched. And we sat there, her little fingers so gentle, twisting and stroking my hair, and then she asked me if she could take a break (of course), and she laid her sweet chubby cheek against my back and wrapped her arms around my waist for just a few moments, before the hair-brushing resumed.

Even now, though it just happened today, my eyes are watering when I write this, even though they are right upstairs, splashing in the bathtub. How much longer will we have that easy unclouded joy between us, and how will I ever watch them walk away.

On an entirely different note, Friday night I went to see Crazy Heart with my dear friend for her birthday. If Jeff Bridges doesn’t win the Oscar for best actor, I’ll be shocked– like all the reviews are saying, it’s a career capstone kind of performance, but more importantly, the entire movie revolves around it, and you can’t imagine it being played by anyone else. I was never that familiar with Bridges’ best work before this, but for this alone, his talents have indelibly marked in my mind. I can easily seeing it win the Oscar for music as well (the soundtrack is already on my wishlist, but won’t stay there for long), and it will be well-deserved, but if Maggie Gyllenhaal takes the Oscar, I think that will be a mistake. My supporting bet would have gone to Colin Farrell, who completely surprised me here and played his part with restraint and appreciation for subtle nuances. It’s the kind of movie where some archetype characters are present and there are some familiar tropes at hand, but the movie manages to surprise you and avoid some of the easier turns it could have taken. I really loved it, and am already looking forward to renting it when that time comes.

Yesterday the girls went to their art and theater classes for only the second time, and it really seems like we found a good match there, which is great considering the money they cost! We had big Brownie plans this morning for a Women in Sports Day at a local college, complete with a basketball game, free pizza and prizes and an ice cream social. But around 3 AM this morning, the weekend took a sharp turn for the worse when Sophie woke up crying from a tummy ache that quickly turned into projectile vomiting every hour until 8 AM. I moved my blanket into their room and slept fitfully between vomiting fits and then scrubbed down the bathroom once she moved downstairs to watch a Harry Potter movie and mourn her ruined day. I’m hoping it’s only a 24-hour bug, otherwise, I fear for my Monday!

Here are some of my favorite quotes on the subject:

“This manuscript of yours that has just come back from another editor is a precious package. Don’t consider it rejected. Consider that you’ve addressed it ‘to the editor who can appreciate my work’ and it has simply come back stamped ‘Not at this address’. Just keep looking for the right address.”–Barbara Kingsolver

“I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, “To hell with you.”–Saul Bellow

“Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely essential.” –Jessamyn West

“We keep going back, stronger, not weaker, because we will not allow rejection to beat us down. It will only strengthen our resolve. To be successful there is no other way.” –Earl G. Graves, founder and publisher of Black Enterprise Magazine

Having said that, when I got a rejection recently, I did not immediately react with a “go to hell” attitude, and I have not yet started looking for the right address. Instead, I moped for awhile and doubted whether or not I’ve ever written a poem worth anything or in fact should ever try to publish another poem. Then I ate some pizza, spent quality time with my husband and kids, graded a pile of papers, watched Lost–and still felt lingering feelings of failure.

But in the very act of writing this blog post, I am trying to get some much-needed perspective. Because I’m not going to stop writing poetry, and because I think trying to make my poems better is a worthy goal, and because I would like to see a poem or two in the pages of a journal someday. And because all those things are true, perseverance is the order of the day

Maybe it’s because I’m the opposite of athletic, but the Olympics have never been a big deal for me. Sure, I’ll watch a good gymnastics routine if it’s on, and I enjoy some figure skating every now and again. But I haven’t watched one minute of it this year and I don’t plan to. But as I watch my Facebook friends talk about curling and snowboard crossing and Johnny Weir getting robbed, I start to wonder again if I’m missing something.

What about you? If you’re an Olympics fan, tell me why. If not, join my new club. I’ll be over here, watching Lost and wondering if they’re ever going to explain just one piece of this enormous mythology without adding on more layers of questions and mysteries first.