January 17, 2015 · 10:44 am

Taking the Diverse Books Pledge: Keep It 100

We Need Diverse Books has issued a challenge for all readers:twitter-100-pledge (1)

From the website:

By pledging to read, 5, 10, 15, 25, or even 100 DIVERSE books.

Books where people of color can be first-page HEROES rather than second-class citizens. Books in which LGBTQIA characters can represent social CHANGE rather than social problems. And books where people with disabilities can be just…people.

This is a challenge I can get behind! I’ll list and link to the books I and my darling boy read (and provide some brief annotations) in hopes that folks will read along with us.

Books Read:

  1. Joshua By the Sea, Angela Johnson: makes me long for summer; an African American family spends a wonderful day at the beach; Joshua explores; board book, beautiful illustrations
  2. Whose Toes are Those? Jabari Asim, board book, great way for babies to play along while they find their toes
  3. Whose Knees are These? Jabari Asim, board book, similar to Toes, funny and affirming
  4. Goodnight Baby, Cheryl Willis Hudson, board book, cute illustrations, short and great for trying to get a baby into some sort of bedtime routine
  5. Pretty Brown Face, Andrea Davis Pinkney, another affirming book, though illustrations remind me of something that came out of the 70s (the father has an Afro that’s pretty dope, lol), board book; there’s a mirror on the last page so the baby can look at him/herself. I love that.
  6. The Boy Who Didn’t Believe in Spring, Lucille Clifton: one of my all-time favorite books. Hands down. Two boys, one of whom is named King Shabazz, go out in search of spring. Their quest leads them through their urban neighborhood. Wonderful illustrations, great interracial boy friendship. Delightful.

    The Boy Who Didn’t Believe in Spring

  7. Shades of Black: A Celebration of Our Children, Sandra L. Pinkney, Photographs by Myles C. Pinkney: a board book that describes shades of black and brown in creative, empowering language (my favorite “I am the midnight blue in a licorice stick”) that all kids need, black and brown kids, particularly. With photographs of actual children, some words you’re probably going to need to look up (well, I looked up Unakite, which is one of the words used as a descriptor), and the repeated phrase “I am Black. I am unique” this is a great book that depicts various shades of Blackness.
  8. So Much, Trish Cooke and Helen Oxenbury: A raucous celebration of family members who all come over to see the baby–well, so it seems. From uncle, to aunties, to others, this book is such fun to read. The language is reminiscent of, I’m thinking, Cooke’s cultural background, as some of the linguistic patterns seem West Indian (which makes sense given Cooke’s background). One visitor, the cousin, arrives and wants to fight with the baby, which did give me pause. Everyone else wants to hug and kiss the baby except the young cousin, who wants to fight. I imagine that we will have to have conversations about why hitting and fighting is inappropriate, eventually. However, for now, and even then, we will keep this book as one to read again and again because it is simply a delight: Black families, engaged in preparations for a great surprise, overly positive and loving.
  9. Ask the Passengers, A.S. King: I’m taking a course through a fantastic PD program called Teachers as Scholars. My seminar is about LGBTQI young adult literature in the classroom and this novel is one of the first ones I’m reading for my class. It’s an interesting concept: a young woman is in her senior year of high school, questioning if she’s a lesbian. She lives in a small town with awful parents (her dad’s a pot head and her mother is just…vile), plus her two closest friends are both in their own secret gay relationships. To get through it all, the main character, Astrid, sends her love out to passing airplanes. The book is cute for the first third but I was frustrated with Astrid and her seeming helplessness, though she gets an extra boost from Socrates and her supportive Humanities teacher. I also detested the mother. I found her so awful that she was beyond believable, but, that gives me something to talk about during my seminar. There are also two random mentions of people of color (I think Astrid’s girlfriend is Black and there’s a school board member whose race is mentioned), which absolutely confused me. Then, one of the characters disappears and reappears as the author is trying to tie up loose ends. Okay, so this book is one to add to a classroom library because it’s a portrayal of coming out, small town, lesbian. I’d imagine that this would be useful in a broader collection of LGBTQI stories.
  10. ABCs of African American Poetry, Ashley Bryan: I took to my bookshelves to start reading many of the books I’ve collected over the years to my son. This picture book has excerpts from the work of 26 Black poets. Sometimes the initial letter is not the first letter of the word (that threw me off a bit but once I realized that, it was fun to see where the letter would appear), promoting new discoveries. Additionally, the full information of the poets and their poems is at the end of the book for further reading. Bryan’s colorful, beautiful illustrations provide a wonderful pairing with the poems.
  11. Two Boys Kissing, David Levithan: I LOVED this book. The narrator–or Greek chorus?–felt like many of the friends I’ve known and loved. As the story played out, of two boys who wanted to break a record, of another couple that had been together for a while, of a different, new couple and of a lonely young man, I wanted to know every single story these kids had to tell. Every single one. I didn’t find any parts of the story contrived, and I think that’s because there’s also a part of this story that resonates with older readers, those of us who actually were around when AIDS took so many from us (and still is)…I could write forever about this book. For now, I’ll just recommend it wholeheartedly. An excellent young adult book that is also just write for grown-ups, too.
  12. Gracefully Grayson, Ami Polansky: Grayson is a boy who knows he is a girl. Living with his aunt and uncle in Chicago after his parents die, Grayson struggles to tell others what he has always known to be true. A great middle grade novel, largely because it is thoughtful and gentle and has some great examples of what it means to be an upstander when we see something wrong.
  13. Nino Wrestles the World, Yuyi Morales: In this delightful picture book, Nino wrestles various figures of his imagination in the custom of the Lucha Libre wrestlers. Nino is imaginative and Morales’ drawings are fantastic. Nino does meet his match at the end of the book, and it’s an even bigger challenge than a Lucha Libre!
  14. My Cold Plum Lemon Pie Bluesy Mood, Tameka Fryer Brown: One worry I have is that Black boys get labeled as “angry” far too quickly. Rather than helping them to use their words to express how they are feeling, they are punished. More patience! I think this adorable book will help. The Black boy at the center of this picture book uses all kinds of wonderful adjectives to describe his various moods. Readers can’t help but be encouraged to try their own descriptive words to express the many moods they’re in.
  15. Adaptation, Malinda Lo: This science fiction novel grabbed me at the beginning when birds started falling from the sky. I found it to get my adrenaline pumping as I wondered why the protagonist, Reece, had wounds that seemed to heal quickly, why she and her bestie spent time out in the middle of the desert and can’t talk about what happened. She has an encounter with another young woman that lets her explore her sexual orientation, too. Engaging, compelling, fast read for those who love Sci fi and those who don’t. I am the latter and I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
  16. Too Many Mangos, Tammy Paikai: I love it when friends give us books as gifts! This delightful picture book helps understand the gift of sharing. The illustrations feature a varied cast of Hawaiian characters beautifully drawn. Readers will also get a joyful glimpse of life as they learn about mangos and much more. This book will be in our permanent collection.
  17. Gabi, A Girl in Pieces, Isabel Quintero: Gabi reminds me of a well-developed Ugly Betty if you remember that TV show from the early 2000s. She describes herself at various times as “overweight,” “nerdy,” “Mexican,” but that doesn’t really scratch the surface. Gabi is also a loyal friend to her besties who have their own challenges (including coming out and teen pregnancy among other things), a father who battles substance abuse and a mom and aunt who don’t believe that she is actually a good girl. Oh, and Gabi is also a senior who has her mind set on going to UC-Berkeley. With an irrepressible sense of humor and a voice that rang amazingly true and reminiscent of young people I actually know, this book is one I’d consider reading as a whole class novel. It’s that good.

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January 3, 2015 · 2:53 pm

January PD Workshops for the New Year

I’ll be leading several workshops in the new year. If you’re looking for some great Professional Development opportunities, come join me!

January 11, 2015: From Freedom Summer to Ferguson: Teaching Dr. King in the 21st Century: Boston, Simmons College

Join us for a teachers’ workshop focused on the newly published anthology, A Time to Break Silence: The Essential Works of Martin Luther King, Jr. for Students. Educators will learn close reading strategies, historical connections, and writing ideas that will enable them to share King’s work with their students and meet the demands of the Common Core State Standards.

An ELA workshop (grades 7-12) will be led by Dr. Kimberly N. Parker, English faculty at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. A History workshop (grades 7-12) will be led by Dr. Andrea McEvoy Spero, Director of Education for the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. Breakfast will be provided. All participants will receive complimentary teaching materials, including a copy of the anthology.

All attendees will be entered into a drawing for a chance to win a class set of A Time to Break Silence.

Note: Note: workshops will run concurrently. Choose one workshop when you RSVP. Space is limited to 25 ELA teachers and 25 History teachers. Register here: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/from-freedom-summer-to-ferguson-teaching-dr-king-in-the-21st-century-registration-14925047218

Tuesday, January 13: Raising an Upstander: The Power of Stories and Books, Sponsored by Facing History and Ourselves as part of the Raising Ethical Children Series, Post 390, Boston, 6-8 pm

I’ll be chatting about how to diversify your child’s library with books that feature a range of multicultural stories (primarily targeted to ages 0-12). More information is attached. Raising an Upstander 1.13.15

January 31, 2014: Teaching Dr. King in the 21st Century, Morehouse College, Atlanta

I’ll be co-leading a day-long workshop for Atlanta Public Schools teachers about the MLK anthology. Hosted by Morehouse College and sponsored by Beacon Press.

I hope to see you at one or all of these events (that would be great!). Space is limited; RSVP soon. Happy New Year!

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December 1, 2014 · 2:22 am

Poems About Ferguson

In preparation for a poetry unit that looks at the role of the poet in society, I went searching for some poems about Ferguson, MO. The Google Doc I created is a work in progress, but it’s a start. Here it is in case you’re looking for resources.

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October 28, 2014 · 12:50 am

A Little Help for Some Teen Book Joy

It’s an all-hands on deck type of situation with my classroom now. All my kids are reading, but they won’t go to the library, I can’t get a library cart for them, and the books they want to read aren’t readily available.

So, in the latest attempt to do some problem-solving, I created a Donors Choose project to raise money for books for them and some bookcases.

If people donate before November 3 and use code SPARK, DC will match the donations.

Here’s the link.

#sharebookjoy!!!

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October 13, 2014 · 12:21 am

Turn UP for Reading

Finally, I get the schedule I want: all College Prep classes. In these classes, you’ll find mostly students of color, kids from low SES, all the other kids who are underserved by public education today.

Seriously: I’ve wanted this schedule since I began teaching at this school. I have had the most success and the most enjoyment from teaching from working with this population during my career. Don’t get me wrong: it’s always the hardest work to do on all sorts of fronts, but, usually, it seems that the work matters most here.

I began the year by reiterating what college prep is: that the expectation is that students will GO TO COLLEGE. Thus, they need to be able to read and write well. When I said that the first time, I’m pretty sure I heard a student whisper to another “this isn’t Honors,” and I took the opportunity to say: l tend to teach all my classes the same, from grad students to them. That expectation is loosely true: work really hard, do your best, and you end up okay. I scaffold and help kids who need it, but I teach my CP class just like it’s an Honors class, more or less. If we can by joyful during the majority of the time while doing the work? Well, that’s incredible, too.

I knew I had to get kids reading as soon as possible. I caused a huge amount of controversy by asking for a cart from our school’s library for my classroom–apparently that’s not a policy the school adheres to. So, just when I had kids HOOKED on books, I had to take the cart away. I have always maintained a classroom library of hundreds of books (usually around 500, give or take the ones the kids don’t return), but the last time I was in an under-resourced school, I donated ALL of my books. And I have a good-sized high-interest library at home, but I am now at the point where I use those books for PD and other events, so I try not to bring them to school. That resolve didn’t last long at all once I got the kibosh on the library cart. Now, I’m in a frenzy of applying for grants (and don’t get me started on how much money our school district spends per kid…) so I can buy enough books to sustain my classroom library. UGH.

What cannot be overlooked, however, is that THE KIDS ARE READING BOOKS!! Yes, lots of books. 12. That’s the completely arbitrary number I came up with and told my students that they needed to read that number of books in addition to our whole-class texts. Why not set a big, hairy audacious goal? I mean, geez, what do we have to lose? Even if they come nowhere near close to 12, they’re going to read something because I’m going to make sure of it. Seriously. And we are going to have a huge party at semester’s end where we do, indeed, turn up for reading. Reluctant readers are my jam. I’ve worked with them for years, so their lines of “I haven’t read a book in years,” or “I don’t read,” or “there’s no book I like,” is sort of like music to my ears.

Gauntlet thrown.

Once they say those lines, I get busy. While there are so many great books out there, I think we tend to forget the old reliable, tried and true ones: Tears of a Tiger by Sharon Draper, First Part Last by Angela Johnson…I’m not going to list them all, but I might try to put some ones at the end of this post just in case folks are wondering. What is important to note is that there are books out there for every single kid. You just have to get the books into their hands. Which means, too, that, as teacher, you have to become THE BOOK PERSON. That is both a great honor and a daunting one because it’s all I can do to stay one step ahead of them.

I’m now consumed with the idea of Reading Ladders: I want to get students to increase the complexity of the texts they read. The idea is that each book they read should be just a bit harder. The thing is, with kids who aren’t big readers, every rung has to be just right, because they’re quite fragile, these young people. If it’s too hard, they’ll quit. Not interesting enough. Done. Boring? Kiss of death. And just when I might hope we’d get some momentum going? We have to begin again. And, as I tell them often when they’re on my nerves: we don’t have time to waste, particularly when we’re trying to make years of gains in a semester.

How do I pick the rungs on the ladders? While students read during our daily self-selected reading time (20 mins. every day), I conference with 3-4 students, working my way around the class every two weeks. I conduct a Status of the Class conference before reading time begins and students report the page they’re on. I can coax, praise, ask questions during that time. If a student isn’t making enough forward progress, I make a point to chat with them during the conference to figure out what the problem is. Students are also required to read at least 20 minutes outside of class daily. I’m trying to get them to develop a habit. 20 minutes of their own teenager time is HARD to devote at the beginning. We talk about how we can get to 20: 5 here, 10 there, 5 more…reading on the bus, trying to read before bed, between technology time…I am relentless in turning my classroom into a literacy community as quickly as possible. I have a wall as they walk out entitled “Reading Suggestions.” I read a lot and I also read a lot about books, so if there’s something I think a student will like (based on reading surveys and conversations), I put their name on a Post-It with the book suggestion (my life is written on so many Post-Its in my classroom). I model reading, which is sometimes hard and sometimes easy. I got caught up in this chick lit book, Big Little Lies, that was on a 2-week loan from the library. It was SO GOOD that I extended reading time a couple of times so I could read. I told the kids that I even put my son to bed a half hour early so I could finish the book. They loved it!

It was a true story. Couldn’t put the book down. I also remembered how fun it is to be caught up in a book, where all you want to do is read, not be disturbed, slow down so it doesn’t end.

All kids need that feeling. And the ones I have this semester are starting to feel it. With the exception of 5 or 6, all the rest have finished at least one book already, and many are on to their second or third. We have momentum. I am terrified about what is going to happen once we begin a whole-class text study, but I have some ideas about how to approach it (and I’ll write about those, too). I am also worried about how I’m going to come up with books and how I’ll find time to write the grants I need to write…

For now, though, the books are in the kids’ hands and they are READING. And there is so much right in that.

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October 12, 2014 · 11:52 pm

Winning a Literacy Award

…and, I’m back! I was named a MA Literacy Fellow over the summer. My project is to create what I’m calling the Black Literary Society during this next school year. The goal of the organization is to connect all students in our school to Black literary traditions. We’ll have monthly themes, explore literary luminaries, read some books in a book club, and generally nerd out over literature. This might be the most fun EVER!!!

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January 26, 2014 · 12:45 pm

Sophomore Slump

Once you reach a certain age, you really shouldn’t blame other people and circumstances for your personal decisions. I have a pattern of staying in places for two years, then moving on to something else. While it was easy to rack up reasons for those decisions: too suburban, too this, too that, I missed teaching in urban schools, etc., (and I’m mostly talking about teaching here), what has become most clear is this:

I love the first year in a school: it’s full of possibility, you can try new things, the kids are all new, your colleagues offer the potential for new discussions and learning–rose colored glasses fully activated. Near the end of that year, though, you realize that the current place has its own challenges and, while they are challenges in this new space, they really aren’t that different from what you left.

Thus, when I roll into year two, the glasses are off and the papers are stacking up, and the job gets hard and I, usually, get an itch to do something else. I miss the new. It might be some mix of my being a creative and loving the challenge of figuring something out, but, now, I understand that by leaving, I really haven’t given myself a chance to figure it out.

Until now.

So I’ve dragged my heels mightily in objection to teaching AP Lit. I was able to get away with it last year, but my department head dropped the hammer and said I had to do it this year. I have my issues with the AP: primarily that it becomes this test-driven industry that really doesn’t mirror ANY of the freshmen lit classes I took in college or, well, ever. And then, too, I am not the lover of literature I was in college or since I began teaching. I love writing, and teaching kids to write well, but I can take or leave most texts as long as kids read SOMETHING.

I had this interaction with my former department head at NCTE in November, wherein we essentially made peace, but I think about that interaction often because that two-year sabbatical in the suburb taught me more about TEACHING LITERATURE than I was ready to admit.

Herein, I condense those lessons:

  • My colleagues were brilliant about how to get into a text: how to teach it upside down, around and through, to all types of kids. I think if anyone wants to know how to do “close reading” they should start with these folks, because, essentially, close reading is simply what good readers do.
  • They created some amazing materials–that they readily share with me, STILL. Perhaps this is why I am not fearing traveling back in time with Hester Prynne and The Scarlet Letter. Perhaps.
  • Most importantly, they taught me that this stuff takes time to learn: that you can’t just do two years and leave in a fit of annoyance or a desire for the new. You’ll never get it. Thing is, I don’t think I ever would have come to that understanding if I stayed there. I simply wasn’t comfortable and I felt like I needed time to come to that. But I see it in my practice: how strategies and skills that I thought I would never be able to do (and there are many) now seem natural (ish). The way I approach a text, which used to be much more about activities, I am sure, now are about clearly focused objectives that matter to mastering the material. OMG–I am finally becoming THAT teacher.

Don’t get me wrong, though: the struggle is real and daily I ask myself a thousand questions, but, at this moment, I’m content to remain HERE, in this school, and attempt to figure them out.

See: growth can happen. Now, let me get back on this scaffold.

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January 18, 2014 · 11:45 am

De-Tracking: Harder, So Much Harder Than It Looks

The first semester is about over and, after being entirely consumed with getting this class to run, I have a moment to catch my breath. Here’s what I’m thinking at the moment:

The goal was to create a class–Honors Prep–that took a small group of students that had some desire to enter Honors English 10 classes and prepared them through learning and mastering parallel skills. Thus, that meant that essentially everything I teach in my Honors class, they do in their prep class–the only difference is that sometimes I took more time to scaffold the skills, I used a lot more encouragement and tough love, eked out a bit more patience, and did a whole lot of wraparound stuff. In the process, I tried to document as much as I could so I could think about writing it up for others who might want to try such an initiative in his/her own classroom.

Lessons learned:

  • You have to build an intentional literacy community: you have to help kids see themselves differently. I did that, first, through some growth mindset and resilience work (this video by Will Smith is awesome) and having students write their own resilience narratives about a time when something was hard but they kept going. Also, you have to help them build their reading skills explicitly. That meant I had to go back to my strategies of what good readers do and TEACH THEM that it’s not about reading Spark Notes but about actually making meaning of the text on the page. And then we had to read a lot of books, so we did: Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Purple Hibiscus, Merchant of Venice and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Additionally, they read and wrote about a weekly news article (Article of the Week, adapted from Kelly Gallagher), did some study of rhetorical appeals and read some articles from The Atlantic by Ta-Nahesi Coates, and read daily in-class for 25 mins. (that’s for all classes, Honors and Prep).
  • Take the time to teach them how to write an argument: they hate writing. Still do, after a semester. But, they have a better idea about what makes a solid thesis statement and how to structure an argument. We wrote and revised papers, talked about writing, I modeled my own writing…that’s a work in progress, but they’re coming to see writing as just another part of what intellectuals in school do, and, since they are intellectuals, they can write papers, too.
  • Reveal the ghost in the machine: The Prep-Stars (my nickname for them) have all kind of misconceptions about what happens in Honors classes. I had a plan to have them conduct some observations to disabuse themselves of those notions but time got away from me. Instead, I was explicit about explaining what the HN kids do, and that’s usually being really good at “doing school.” That means, they act interested even when they’re not, they tend to do their homework consistently, they read the books (or not, usually Spark Notes), that they, essentially, play the game. They’re a bunch of fakers, actually. The Prep kid were kind of shocked by those revelations, but I think it helped them to realize that the only thing separating them from those kids was quite surface.
  • Give them a chance to shine: Look, I’m tough. I know it. I don’t offer empty praise and I tend to only celebrate excellence. But, I had to remember, if they don’t KNOW what excellence looks like, then I had to celebrate the steps they achieved to reach excellence. Thus, when they mastered explicit skills (look at the analysis in this paper–that’s Honors work right there, I might say), we’d clap it up, or made some amazing comment, we’d take a moment to relish in the moment. I baked cupcakes for the team that put together the best director’s playbook for Merchant. I called their parents to share praise. We went to Yogurt Land on the day before holiday break to celebrate kids who were doing well. I have been reminded how much, too, relationships matter with them.
  • Reflection counts: When the class began, I had them write weekly reflections about how they were doing, what they noticed about themselves as developing scholars, what they needed to do differently or keep doing. They were always serious and thoughtful, and from those reflections, I could help to keep them accountable and to help them stay on track. I would also be reminded that things were actually going better than I tended to think. Phew.
  • This is a one-shot deal: Look. This semester has been exhausting. For the most part, the majority of the kids should do well in Honors when they move into that class in a week or so. I’ll move into a support role, meeting with them, conferencing with them, staying in touch with their parents about how to keep them moving forward (my student teacher, who has been co-teaching with me in the first part of the course will take over full-time for the second part of the course). I’m not going to do this class again, though. Nope. Because it’s about changing the broader systems. I’ve always known that, when I set my mind to something, I can usually get it done. But I’m just one teacher in one classroom. On the fifth floor. Around me is a system that relentlessly tracks kids into Honors or CP. As we all know, most of the kids in CP are kids of color and other underserved kids. I wanted to do something that would make me not so complicit in what was happening, but I have realized that I can’t. This is one group of kids that had this pilot experience. Unless the broader school system changes, unless people actually OWN UP to the process being racist and classist, then I am just one person standing on the shore attempting to sweep the ocean back with a broom. And I’m simply not interested in being that person anymore.

Score: The system-1, Me-0

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November 26, 2013 · 10:05 am

Between Tweet Summaries, Shylock’s Defense and Sour Patch Kids: Places Where Learning Happens

I’ve been away for a bit to help with the National Council of Teachers of English annual conference, which was ultimately a wonderful success. While it was a good amount of work, the conference came at exactly the right time: my morale wasn’t particularly high, I was frustrated with administrative structures, annoyed that larger class sizes have slowed my ability to know my kids as well as I usually do, and concerned that the overall vibe of myself and colleagues was one of low morale, too.

Nothing like a conference full of good ideas, friendly faces, chats about books, favorite authors and everything else to change that! What is also important about conferences, and about this one in particular, is that NCTE got introduced to an entirely new audience of younger teachers, or teachers who had been teaching for years but had not been to a conference. I realized how much belonging to a professional organization matters. Already, being back in my school, the teachers who attended (my whole grade level team and most of the grade above me) have been simply ebullient about sessions they attended, new information they learned and are eager to try…there’s a spirit of re-invigoration.

Given that I’ve been away for a few days, I was not necessarily looking forward to returning to my classroom. I worried that my desk would be a mess, kids would have completed none of the work I’d left for them to do with their sub…overall chaos would await me. Luckily, none of that was the case. Desk was orderly, kids were happy to see me, wanted to know about the conference, if I brought them anything (books, books, books), and they turned in the work they completed. (That’s another story about how quickly I will get that all graded–I have to get better about these things).

My student teacher attended the conference. She’s been a great colleague because she actually has the time to observe what’s happening in class between students and me, between students and other students, etc. As is typical of a new teacher, most of her observations focus on behavior and classroom management. I don’t know if you remember, but this is the year I’m piloting a class with a group of sophomores that have a desire to enter Honors English classes but need some skills work (academic and habits of mind). While it’s by far my most difficult to teach, it is my joy every single day. I can see why she gets concerned with their behavior: they talk out, they get off task, they get me off task (I got caught up in a conversation about “Scandal” that was about 10 minutes too long, but it was so compelling…), they sometimes don’t do their homework, they can be resistant, they take everything personally…

So yesterday, on that first day back, after she voiced her thinking about students, I had to remind her about all the reasons I’m quite pleased that these kids are going to be ready to enter Honors in January. I had to give her a different way of looking at student progress that extends beyond classroom management.

In short:

  • We administered the Gates-McGinty reading assessment to get some sort of data about their current reading levels. Once I got the results, I asked the kids if they wanted to know their levels, reasoning that it’s just one type of data, and it’s good to be well-informed, because then you know where you can improve. While a few of them are reading on the post-high school level, many of them are hovering around middle school, but I told them that all they need to do is read more challenging books and write a lot, and they would raise those levels in no time. They just needed to be persistent. Add to that that I told them they needed to read 15 independent reading books over the course of the semester (why not set goals that are ambitious? If they read 10, I’ll be happy; what’s good to know is that they are all reading), in addition to the core texts. Lots of them like reading YA (who doesn’t?), but I told them that they needed to balance their reading diet with some more challenging texts (I have a great analogy that involves Doritos). Thing is, when you make such recommendations to kids who aren’t big readers, you best be ready to start pushing books at them. I’ve been bringing my books from home (I used to have a really great classroom library that I tend to donate to teachers when I leave schools, so I’m not at my current levels, but I still have some good ones), but we also have a fantastic school library. We read for 20 minutes to start every class, and kids go to the library when they need to. Yesterday, five kids needed to go, so I went with them. They wanted to read more challenging texts, and I was tired of them saying that and returning with YA, so we had a spontaneous trip, which yielded some new books and new interests. I also remembered that librarians don’t know all types of kids–my school librarian was recommending texts that I knew they weren’t going to read, or ones that were too challenging at the moment, or too…boring, so I had to pull books myself for them. But that’s progress! They want to read, they want to improve, they are on the path to becoming readers, and I need to step my own game up because they need my help.
  • To get some semblance of a status of the classroom, I had kids write a Tweet summary for an assigned act and scene from our current all-class text, The Merchant of Venice. After having arguments about characters and spaces, they summarized key points, used hash tags to emphasize the most important parts, and created a review sheet for their peers. More progress: they can distinguish between what is most important and what is interesting. 
  • On that same note, they then had to re-read Shylock’s defense and argue if he was a villain or a victim. It’s now become habit for them to remind themselves and each other to include textual evidence to support their claims, and to analyze that evidence. They would have just written their opinions and turned it in a few months ago.
  • I was at the candy store after school yesterday and ran into three of the kids from that class. It’s so great to see kids in environments outside of school, when they are themselves, and funny, and free. I made some fuss about scholars and Sour Patch kids and being happy to see them (why not make a fuss over them? Can’t be sure if anyone else will, so I make sure I do) before they wished me well and made their way into the evening. What is most important, too, is that they see themselves as part of a community of achievers that extends beyond what happens on the fifth floor. That community will see them through.

Progress happens, but sometimes it occurs on such a minute scale that we can miss it. I told my student teacher that we needed to remember those signs, and we spent a moment recounting those and others, just to make sure we don’t get so bogged down in the other stuff that we forget that these kids are moving forward, and that I just know they’re gonna do it. Don’t get me wrong, there have been moments over these last few months where I’ve wondered if it was going to work, but then, something like that happens: I either run into a kid outside of class who wants to show me something they’re reading, or invites me to come see her in the school musical, or submits what is a fantastically written paper, and I remember: we are going to do it, and for that, I’m grateful.

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November 1, 2013 · 10:16 am

Why Am I Exhausted? Oh Wait, I’m Teaching Huck Finn…

When I decided to teach Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to my sophomores, I decided to for several reasons, many of them about the importance of the text as “American” (whatever that means), and also because the character Jim presents all sorts of conundrums. I also wanted them to come to their own conclusions about whether the text should be taught in classrooms (the culminating debate for the text). That Huck can’t quite resolve the conflict between his conscience and his heart is just as compelling, and, while at the center of the novel, there are numerous other angles that also provide interesting moments of analysis.

I also remembered when I taught the text a couple of years ago that I was absolutely worn out once we got done with the book. With the last 12 chapters to go, I’m feeling that same way, and have been thinking about why.

The additional layer that often gets overlooked in these discussions about appropriateness, N-words and the rest is how much background knowledge you have to build for kids AND how much correcting of historical inaccuracies you also have to resolve. Students are as naive as Huck when it comes to thinking about Jim, and–this is where I understand why I have to teach this text and be on my game every single time I work with the kids–they will remain that way unless you help them think of him otherwise.

They want to call Jim illiterate. They want to say that he’s not “smart”. They want to think him illogical. They also have questions about enslaved Africans: would Jim have known his family in Africa? They ask with a genuine interest.

They also think they know everything about slavery because they saw Django Unchained.

I want to pass out, but I can’t.

I have been building text sets out of necessity (ah, the mother of invention) to give them a broader understanding of the lives of enslaved Africans. I’ve shown clips from Skip Gates’ newest documentary, The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross which talks about slavery and fugitive slave laws (and if you don’t cry when you watch the story of Margaret Garner, well, then…), pulled from slave narratives, Frederick Douglass, historical documents, etc.

I am cobbling together supplemental texts as quickly as I can, which is fine. It’s just…frustrating and disheartening and, yes, exhausting. Teaching HF is fraught with my own internal conflicts: is it worth reading a text that potentially takes so much out of me emotionally, through analyzing Huck’s conflict amidst the historical setting and contradictions? Is it worth having to correct so many plain-wrong misunderstandings about enslaved Africans, about romanticized notions of slavery, of fighting to help them see Jim as a person (before that all goes to hell when they reach Phelps’ farm)?

I would say yes, though I’m uneasy.

I think, too, that I’ve come to the point that I think this text should be taught as interdisciplinary, with a History teacher who can set to rights the wrongs that kids have internalized. And I’m not putting this work off on a History teacher; rather, I simply think that the more kids have the opportunity to learn counternarratives, and apply them to texts to broaden or correct their (mis)understandings, the better critical thinkers, writers and people they can become.

Because the struggle is so real right now, and I have never been happier to know that tomorrow is the weekend and I can shore up my own courage before returning down the Mississippi River with them on Monday.

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