How to Suffocate American Diversity: A Case Study

A particularly inspirational fellow teacher and blogger, Rusul Alrubail, posted recently in response to this article.  I found her post and this article to be so relevant and so heartbreaking that I wanted to dedicate my ever-so-tiny and modest far corner of the internet to this issue for a moment. The spark notes version of this article features a school in New York's foreign language department that arranged for the US Pledge of Allegiance to be recited over the announcements in a different language each day for one week.  After the day in which a school student recited the pledge in Arabic, the school received a barrage of complaints from students and parents.  Complaints ranged from individuals saying that they had lost family in the war in Afghanistan to the sentiment that it was disrespectful to the Jewish members of the school body.  The school issued an apology and declared that the pledge would only ever be read in English in the future.

Because that's America now.  You're welcome to be here, so long as you promise not to contribute any notable ethnic diversity or nonwhite culture to our system.

I have a few, fairly separate, but mercifully brief points that I would like to make in response to this.

1)  The people of Afghanistan do not speak Arabic.  Dari and Pashto are the primary languages.  But kudos on engaging in such a thorough and consistent level of ignorance.

2)  When we start designating languages as representative of racial conflicts that are distinct to both a specific time and location, we are going to have to make some serious system changes.  The day Arabic is offensive to the Jewish population is also the day that we will unfortunately have to start eyeing German suspiciously.

3)  If anyone thinks that the brave men and women who give and have given their lives in the service of this country do so in order for us to have the freedom to limit the cultural heritage and expression of school children attempting to participate and engage in American ideals, I take extreme offense to that.

I hope students everywhere feel that they can explore their identities as Americans in light of their cultural heritage.  This is one of the factors that has made and does make America a great nation.  My heart breaks for the students who see their identities as Americans forcibly divorced from and opposed to their cultural, racial identities.

"What makes you American is not the language you speak, but the ideas you believe in" - Andrew Zink 

The Genre of Hip-Hop Literature

I work in an urban, ethnically diverse school system.  My students have a more difficult time than most connecting with canonical classics such as The Scarlet Letter, A Tale of Two Cities, and 1984 for a wide variety of completely legitimate reasons. It is no big secret that I harbor something of a grudge against the exclusive use of canonical texts in the American classroom; more on this in a prior blog post.  I am a massive supporter of bringing non-traditional, non-Western, non-canonical texts into the high school curriculum whenever possible; I think it is an extremely important issue.  In general, this is why I am so excited by and impressed with Lauren Leigh Kelly's 2013 article, "Hip-Hop Literature: The Politics, Poetics, and Power of Hip-Hop in the English Classroom." Kelly's article explores the merits of using hip-hop texts in a high-school English classroom not just as a gateway into more canonical literature, but as a "genre worthy of independent study" (51).  In Kelly's opinion, using hip-hop texts as nothing more than a stepping stone to bridge the gap between student knowledge and canonical texts only further isolates many students from accepted canonical texts while privileging the predominantly white, Western culture of the canonical texts over the diverse, multicultural nature of hip-hop music.  In order to teach literature students, particularly urban and low-income students, to recognize the power behind their own individuality, personal experiences, and cultures, Kelly holds that it is necessary to teach hip-hop texts as a literary form in their own rights without juxtapositioning them against the traditional, Western canonical works.  Kelly argues that to deprive modern students of the opportunity to analyze and study literature from this genre not only deprives some students of the opportunity for identification and creation of ownership in a text, but it robs all students of the opportunity to learn about a relevant and culturally diverse art form that plays a major role in modern pop culture.

I am a big believer in using genre awareness to teach literature and composition; I also believe that it is important for students to explore genres outside of those seen as traditionally literary.  In order to understand the social and cultural nature of genre development, it is critical to analyze both academic and well-known literary genres as well as modern, more recent genres that play a larger role in pop culture.  Kelly's assertion that hip-hop literature is a genre in its own right fits well with the definition of genre that I hope to incorporate into my classroom curriculum.

Kelly stresses at several points that non-white students often feel disrespected and isolated in classrooms that focus exclusively on texts from a white, Western literary tradition.  Hip-hop literature finds its roots in a much more culturally diverse tradition that has the potential to appeal to a swath of students that may otherwise disengage from classroom activities based on their cultural heritage and feelings of underrepresentation.  In my future classroom, I would like to incorporate texts that offer students of non-white backgrounds the opportunity to see their own images and cultures portrayed in a literary work while also offering white students a chance to broaden their expectations for and experiences with literature and cultural traditions.  Hip-hop literature provides a culturally relevant and accessible way to do this.

Finally, hip-hop texts encourage students to exercise and develop fairly complex literary skills while engaging with material that appeals to their authentic, non-academic interest areas.  I believe that it is imperative to construct unit plans in a way that helps students take what they learn in the classroom with them once they leave the classroom.  An essential goal in teaching genre theory as a gateway to literary skill is to help students understand the social and developmental nature of genres and be able to apply that understanding to genres they see in their day-to-day lives.  Analyzing the genre of hip-hop literature provides a way for students to practice literary analysis on a literary art form that they are already familiar with, have a respect for, and interact with in their nonacademic lives.

Pop Sonnets: What Happens when Katy Perry Meets Shakespeare

My classmate, fellow teacher, and blogger friend from Inside the Gradebook opened my eyes to this hidden Internet gem recently and I have not been able to look away. There exists a Tumblr account that publishes Top 40 radio hits rewritten as Shakespearean sonnets; every Thursday a new "pop sonnet" is published.  Expect to see such classics as "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper and "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry adapted into 14 lines and iambic pentameter.  Time Magazine even thinks this whole thing is worth noting.

Not only is this an incredible way to investigate literary interpretation and adaptation in the high school classroom, it is also a great addition to any study into the affordances and constraints of the Shakespearean sonnet as a genre.  The pop sonnets follow the genre norms flawlessly: three quatrains and a couplet following the abab, cdcd, efef, gg rhyme scheme, 14 lines, and iambic pentameter.  The author uses Shakespearean vocabulary, turns of phrase, and register, making these pop sonnets a fun and creative way to get students who are new to Shakespeare used to his style and language.  The practical classroom applications for these creative and funny poems are extensive.

We'll never know for sure, but I think Shakespeare would be a huge fan of pop sonnets.  He looks like the kind of guy who would have gotten a real kick out of all this.

Shelfie Time

I swiped this idea from my good friend's blog, Breaking Grad(School), which just featured a super fun shelfie post for World Book Day.  I loved it so much that I figured I'd keep the shelfie love coming. Seeing as how my computer's spelling autocorrect programming clearly has no idea what a shelfie is, let's turn to an age old source of cultural wisdom and insight for further information:

Shelfie: A picture or portrait of your bookshelf. Showcasing literature IN ALL IT'S GLORY! (This term was originally defined by author Rick Riordan).

Thank you, Urban Dictionary.  

I love this idea for a blog post primarily because my bookshelf is my favorite thing about my apartment.  My husband, sister, and sister's boyfriend built it for me from Home Depot supplies using a series of pictures I found on Pinterest.  It was a birthday present and I take every opportunity to share its glory with the world.

My bookshelf is full of things I love dearly, most of which are books.  I do have small stashes of books on smaller bookshelves scattered throughout the house, but this baby is my main library station. Most books are organized topically.

• We have my academic and critical theory books by Barthes, Judith Butler, Austin, and Foucault.  This isn't necessarily where I go for beach reading, but these guys are lifesavers when I need them.  That carved wooden cup was a wedding gift from a dear friend; her father carved it before passing away and I consider it one of my treasures.  

• My husband and I have no shame in regards to this shelf of nerd books.  We actually have two different shelves of nerd books.  These are the books that are presentable enough to be out in our living room.  The other shelf is too embarrassingly nerdy to be out in public, so you can only imagine the percentage of dragon/wizard content in the ones we are too ashamed of to have out where they might be seen.  There's a pretty good Tolkien showing here accompanied by some Game of Thrones novels and Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, masters of fantasy fiction lore.  As for the coral, when I was 7, I spotted it on the bottom of the ocean floor while snorkeling. My mum, in a moment of badassery, free-dove down to the depths of what my 7-year-old mind understood to be at least 200 feet to retrieve it for me.  This was when I knew that girls could be just as wild and fearless as boys.

• This is a bit of a miscellaneous shelf with a bobblehead Martin Luther keeping things cool down on the end.  My little army of C.S. Lewis books lives next to Martin, because I think Martin Luther and C.S. Lewis would have been friends in real life.  One of my many books on the Palestinian/Israeli conflicts is tucked in there alongside some gems I have read in my grad classes (Zadie Smith, Toni Morrison, Lynn Nottage, Wole Soyinka).

• The Nortons and the anthologies.  I'm a grad student studying English; this shouldn't come as a real surprise to anyone.

• Mostly classics (Jane Austen, Dickens, Bram Stoker, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky) with a few modern winners in there.  Let me take a second to stress how amazing John Darnielle's Wolf in White Van is. John Darnielle is the lead singer/songwriter for the band, The Mountain Goats, and to say he has a way with words is putting it lightly.

• These are a sampling of my old leather bounds.  My uncle and aunt collected old leather bound volumes from bookstores around the country; my younger self obsessed over them.  Once in awhile they would let me have one and I always hoarded them jealously, awarding them a place of great honor in my room.  Once I reached the age at which I could obtain them for myself, I began my quest in earnest.  Over the years, I have accumulated several vintage leather bounds like the ones shown here.  This shelf carries Maupassant, Ibsen, Longfellow, Tolstoy, Marlowe, Dumas, and Poe.  It also carries my tiny wooden elephant from a trip to a pharma conference in India.

• This is the science shelf!  These handbooks all saw heavy use when my husband and I were engineering undergrads together; he still pulls one down from time to time.  That's an award my husband won for being a genius, a butterfly from our honeymoon in Costa Rica, and a Crooke's Radiometer that I stole from a closet at Lawrence High.  No one was using it...

• These are most of my cookbooks.  Because I am good enough at cooking to love doing it and bad enough to 110% require very clear recipes to follow.

I'll stop here, but only because I can't imagine you're still reading this.  Also because I believe my dog is chewing on something that I want to keep.  Thanks, Breaking Grad(School), for the fun idea.  And I hope to see what's on all of your bookshelves as well!

Bonus bookshelf: Photo Books in Apple Crates

Alternatives to the Canonical Heavy-Hitters

Behaviorist B.F. Skinner wrote “We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.  Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement.  Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.”  In this short quote, Skinner captures what I believe to be the lion’s share of where things are going awry with the literacy educations of students entering high school.  Our culture holds fast to a particular list of books that we feel any American student needs to have exposure to in order to qualify as truly literate and educated.  We shape much of our teaching policy and curricula around this list and how to best communicate it to students.  Generally, this list is referred to as the Western canon. Hemingway, Melville, Dickens, Hawthorne, and a host of their white, male colleagues preside over this canon with a certain rigidity that seems to have held our classrooms hostage for many years now.  While I hold these authors and their works in the highest esteem and often personal affection, I will be the first to say that I did not enjoy Melville’s “Moby Dick” in high school.  If the only books I had read in high school made me feel like Melville’s did, then I might never have grown to be the true lover of Shakespeare and Conrad that I am today.  My proposal, then, is that we explore the possibility of teaching a love of reading to our students in a way that will train them for lifetime literacy.

I am not suggesting that we torch the Western canon in the modern classroom.  Many of the teachers I have spoke with have reiterated the institutional importance of classic works in the classroom.  Several of the teachers I have discussed this with truly enjoy teaching the classics in certain circumstances.  For better or for worse, the classics are not something that we can ignore for the sake of our students, who will have to operate in the existing educational system.  I am suggesting, however, that we accompany this canonical education with authentic, enjoyable reading that falls outside of the hard lines of the canon.  I am suggesting that we explore ways to integrate everyday literacy and love of reading into the traditional, canon-based curriculum that we use today.  I am suggesting that we communicate in every way possible to our students the things that really matter about literacy.

The route I would like to follow in investigating this potential would be to search out accessible, non-canonical texts that have the potential to either pair with or, in certain situations, replace classical texts in the high school classroom.  If we can find a way to achieve our literary educational goals while integrating books that high school students will enjoy, relate to, and engage with, then we might be able to revive the idea of loving literacy as a lifelong skill.  Literature that might be able to achieve this goal would have to come from a more diverse background.  As opposed to the white, male authors of the canon, this supplementary literature would be authored by women or by multiethnic writers.

In our progressively diversifying classrooms, utilizing literature from a variety of ethnic backgrounds has been shown to increase the potential benefits for kids of non-white cultural and ethnic backgrounds.  Research shows that texts which relate directly to a student’s life and background are more likely to engage and appeal to them.  Florze-Tighe’s research demonstrated that culturally authentic literature notably enhanced the language development and thought processes of African-American children.  If we know this, as teachers, we need to be proactive about searching out texts that our multiethnic and female students can engage with and relate to on an authentic and personal level.  Our classrooms cannot be relatable and accessibly only for the white, male population.  Reading from strictly canonical classics can often make a curriculum inaccessible for even the white, male students.  I propose we explore creative ways to integrate modern, multiethnic, and female literature into the high school classroom without compromising our academic and curriculum standards.  In the words of Salem State University's Chair of English Theresa DeFrancis, “We need to stop spending all our time teaching our students stuff written by dead, white guys.”

I have created a list of sample, canonical texts that are traditionally used in the high school classroom.  From this list, I have researched and generated complementary literary titles that would pair well with these works.  My intent in creating these sample lists is to indicate the potential that exists to engage alternative learners, multicultural students, and female learners from a variety of backgrounds in ways that are meaningful to them without compromising the traditional values of what is considered to be “literacy” in the existing academic community.

Canonical Text	Alternatives/Complements
Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter	Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson explores societal expectations surrounding female sexuality using strong symbolism to represent female and adolescent identity and themes. The Outcast by Jolina Petersheim is a modern retelling of Hawthorne’s novel placed in an Old Order Mennonite community. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is a graphic novel exploring religious and cultural ideas of female identity through the eyes of a young girl growing up in Iran.
Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath	The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls is an honest exploration of modern-day homelessness and poverty. Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende chronicles the story of a Chilean woman who leaves her home to travel to California and join the transient and feverish culture of gold rushers in 1849.
Orwell’s 1984	Feed by M.T. Anderson tells the story of a young boy living in a mechanized, dystopian future. Y: The Last Man by Bryan K. Vaughan is a graphic novel chronicling the story of the last surviving man navigates a dystopian world dominated entirely by women.
Dickens’ Great Expectations	Feed by M.T. Anderson tells the story of a young boy living in a mechanized, dystopian future. A Step From Heaven by An Na. Young Ju and her family emigrate from Korea to the United States, where they struggle to make their way.  The story follows Young Ju’s personal development from a young age until she heads to college.
Melville’s Moby Dick	White as the Waves by Alison Baird is a modern retelling of the classic told from the perspective of the whale. Moby Dick: The Graphic Novel by Lance Stahlberg is a graphic adaptation of Melville’s tale.

Ultimately, our students will leave our classrooms with whatever skills and knowledge we help and direct them to attain.  While I personally am very motivated to see my students graduate with a working knowledge of several of the most important classics in the Western canon, it is more important to me that my students know how to relate to, engage with, and respond meaningfully to a literary text.  It is critical to me that they know how to and desire to read texts in order to learn more about their world, the people around them, and themselves.  My ultimate goal is not necessarily to teach great books.  In B.F. Skinner’s words, my goal is to teach a love of reading and I would like to explore ways in which our academic community can do that for our increasingly diverse body of students.

Pay Me in Mangu

I don't think anyone goes into teaching for the cash. For those of you who were considering it, let me save you some hassle; it's not a particularly lucrative field.  While it has been daunting to watch my engineering paycheck dwindle into a high school teacher's salary, I can honestly say that, what my job lacks in financial incentive, it makes up for in a host of other ways. I am not entirely sure that it is possible to itemize or quantify the kinds of benefits that come packaged with this line of work.  They range from a kind note from a supportive coworker to snow day glee that rivals that of my own high school years.  Personally, I find my happiest compensation comes from my smart and hilarious students.  Sometimes they give me the best nicknames (O.G. Kelley - the Original Gangster, Elsa, Miss Frozen, D-Money, Miss K-Swag.  It's an embarrassingly long list).  Sometimes they abruptly understand something I say and ignite with possibility. Sometimes they stop by their local bodega on the way to school, pick me up some mangu for breakfast, and bring it to my first period class so I can try the breakfast they love.

One of my major goals is to stay sensitive to the small, non-monetary ways in which I am compensated for my work.  My paycheck is minimal, but the love, fun, and community I enjoy with my fellow teachers and students would dwarf any paycheck anyways.  The list of ways in which my work is quietly and warmly rewarded is endless, but, in a way, I think the mangu says it all.

Louder Than a Bomb

Whenever something scores 100% on rotten tomatoes, it has my attention.  When that thing scoring 100% is a documentary on an urban poetry competition and secondary education, it pretty quickly acquires my passionate and unwavering love. Louder Than a Bomb follows the lives of Chicago high schoolers who participate in their  schools' poetry teams.  The teams are all preparing to compete in the upcoming annual slam poetry contest, Louder Than a Bomb.  Throughout the documentary, we are invited to witness the incredible effects of teaching students to access and share deep emotions and intense experiences via spoken word poetry.  The students featured in the documentary for the most part did not claim "poet," "writer," or "reader" as one of their identities prior to joining these clubs.  They are generally not the students whose personal interests and identity choices naturally align themselves with verbal and artistic expression.  And yet, under the influence of dedicated and skilled teachers, they come to lay claim to a form of expression that is beautiful, powerful, and entirely their own.  The poetry they create is genuinely stunning.  The way that poetry informs and shapes their paths as students is even more so.

I can't imagine anyone from any walk of life watching this film without taking something away.  That being said, this film is full to the brim of wisdom for educators in particular.  It's a powerful reminder that even the most unlikely of students can create beautiful works of art and achieve great things, but they need the faith of their educators.  We need to believe they can achieve and we need to gently and loving push them to do so.

Below is a preview for the documentary, but my advice would be to just go right ahead and watch the whole thing.  It packs a punch.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81hXGdFF6TQ[/embed]

You can watch the full film on Netflix, Amazon, and what I'm sure are a wide variety of other locations.  Trust me on this one; it's a good use of your time.

Boston actually has their own LTAB competition that has been going on for 3 years now!  They have yet to set a 2015 date, but, when they do, they have all kinds of different ways to get involved and support the event.  You can also check out Boston's 2014 LTAB Facebook page for footage of last year's finals, which were truly impressive.  At the very least, it's an event that every teacher in the greater Boston area can and should stay informed on and aware of!

The Cool Kids

Every school has them as far as I can tell.  They are the super popular, sharply dressed social butterflies who stroll down the school halls like they own them.  And, in a way, they kind of do. I go back and forth on my feelings about the cool kids.  Sometimes they can use their power for good.  Sometimes they're a real pain.  It's just a mixed bag when it comes to adolescents endowed with an unmediated ability to influence the lives of their surrounding adolescents.  What I can say, though, is that I have my own, internal list of cool kids.

These are the kids that I get to know over time, during the quiet moments of the school day.  They are smart, funny, mature, and just really cool.  We can talk about books, movies, life, school, politics etc.  They understand things.  In a deeply ridiculous classroom moment of chaos or disorder, I can often meet their gaze across a room and share a "this is absurd" eye roll.  They are cool.

The crazy thing about these very cool kids from my internal list is that, more often than not, they fly well below the radar.  You probably won't find them center-stage.  I often see them reading alone at lunch or sitting quietly in the back of the classroom.  They aren't usually candidates for homecoming king or queen.  In fact, unless you seek them out or allow yourself to be available in a quiet moment, you probably won't even really get a chance to connect with them.  I don't know why this is.  I have some ideas, but I don't know.

What I do know is that the kind of cool that they have is made of something strong and rare.  High school is bizarre, but they have somehow found a way to carve out honest, creative, and unapologetic identities for themselves.  They just rock who they are and they mean business.  They pursue their interests and they don't try to change anything about themselves in order to fit societal or peer expectations.  They take school seriously, engaging in real learning, asking challenging questions, and pushing themselves intellectually.  They are kind, bold, and courageous.  They are also easy to overlook sometimes in the disorienting squall that is the high school social system.  In an environment where their brand of coolness isn't necessarily a high-value commodity, they are often lost in the shuffle, silently looking around for some reassurance of their coolness from someone outside the system.  I'm learning that I have to keep my eyes open for the quiet opportunities to pull up a chair, ask a question, and spend some time getting to know the cool kids.

The Vocabulary Binary: Silent Killer of Word Knowledge

I have loved learning and experimenting with new vocabulary from a very young age.  My home videos pretty frequently depict me awkwardly and intentionally fitting one of my newfound words into a somewhat contextually irrelevant sentence; I pretty much just wanted to be on film using my new word.  Because of my general interest in words, my love of varied reading, good instruction, and what I'm sure are a host of other factors, building a flexible and diverse vocabulary was never something that I intentionally focused on.  It just sort of happened.  In my experience, when something happens easily for you, you rarely know how or why it happened.  You just know it happened. For this reason, I don't have many explicit strategies for teaching or learning vocabulary.  I don't have a list of tried and true activities or ideas that students can try to strengthen and develop a meaningful vocabulary.  I was never explicit or intentional about my vocabulary acquisition, so I don't know how to teach others to be.  I do remember being in school and having worksheets that required me to look up definitions in a dictionary, copy them down, and then use them in a sentence.  I would memorize those things and then take a quiz, where I was required to fit the vocabulary word into a second, different sentence.  If I could do this, then the word was categorized as one that I knew and I could move on to a new vocabulary list.  I remember liking the vocabulary lists, because I liked new words, but I don't ever remember any of those worksheet activities helping me to lay hold of the ability to use those vocabulary words in my day to day.  I actually remember being a little frustrated at one point, thinking, "I'm good at vocabulary!  Why am I not remembering these words?  I have the definition.  I have a sentence it goes in.  I should remember this!"  Learning vocabulary came naturally to me, except when it was framed in the very formulaic vocabulary tradition of the classroom.

Research found in the book Adolescent Literacy in the Era of the Common Core by Jacy Ippolito et. al. made some top notch points that are particularly relevant for classroom vocabulary curriculum.  The insight explored in this chapter of the book is essentially that "word knowledge is not a bimodal outcome - words are not 'known' or 'unknown'." (64)  There are several levels and intensities of knowing or not knowing a particular word.  These levels and intensities shift as we accumulate more experience with seeing, using, and understanding the word.  We need to see the word in different contexts or disciplines and use it in different ways in order to understand the nuances and subtle connotations it carries and brings to the text. Being able to regurgitate an academic definition of a vocabulary word is not really going to help anyone.  And being able to fit that single vocabulary word into an arbitrary sentence is definitely not going to result in very high levels of knowing the word.  "Only after multiple exposures and opportunities to discuss the word may we come to a semantically precise understanding of a word" (65).  In short, knowledge of vocabulary words accumulates over time as the learner builds understanding.

Expanding on the idea that vocabulary knowledge is cumulative and not bimodal, Ippolito's book makes a related, potentially even more valuable point.  Vocabulary knowledge is not always explicit.  "Powerful vocabulary teaching does not just teach words explicitly" (81).  Knowing a word doesn't always mean that a student can immediately spit out a dictionary definition or use it in a sentence.  Sometimes knowing a word for a student means that they understand the connotations and mood it brings to the text, they understand the sentence the word is used in, but they cannot define the word explicitly.  This type of understanding shouldn't be undermined by labeling the word with the binary "unknown" and discounting all the knowledge that the student has acquired up to this point.

Ippolito's book recommends fostering an awareness for this accumulated understanding of vocabulary by implementing a word scale.

"1-I've never heard the word before.

2-I've heard that word before, but I don't know what it means.

3-I think I know it, and it has to do with...

4-I know what it means and can use it in this context.

5-I know lots about this word, including other meanings." (80-81)

A word scale like this not only helps students pinpoint their level of knowledge and where they need to strengthen understanding, but it also values the amount of understanding they have accumulated around the word up to this point.

This attitude towards vocabulary acquisition is particularly helpful for ELL students. Instead of having them memorize definitions and sentences in an unfamiliar language, this ideology allows students to draw on contextual clues, possible cognates in their own language, and inexplicit understanding. This can be very empowering and can help endow ELL students with the courage to grapple with unfamiliar words.

Recognizing the value and importance of inexplicit knowledge of a word as well as varied levels of knowing that word has the potential to empower students to explore vocabulary, synthesize their accumulated knowledge, and make educated analyses of the words they encounter.  It situates vocabulary knowledge in the real world, as opposed to some awkward, parallel universe in which you will have to fit unfamiliar words into awkward, random sentences.  It has the potential to shift a classroom's attitude towards vocabulary from rote, decontextualized memory exercises to complex, intellectual deciphering and learning.  It seems like an attitude one would take towards vocabulary if you wanted to look back over your vocabulary acquisition timeline and say, "I don't actually remember how I learned all these words.  I just know them."

Pros and Cons

I work in a public school district, making this my February break.  I don't have to go to work this week!  This is a pro. I am a grad student taking 3 classes while working full time.  My vacations are spent entirely on homework.  This is a con.

I get to work on my homework in this coziest of spots with the most delicious of chai teas.  This is a pro.  Possibly two pros if you count the chai as its own pro.

Overall, the situation nets at least one pro.  Life is good :)

What's In My Bag: The Teacher Edition

This is my teacher/tutor/paraprofessional/grad student bag.

It's seen some things.  It also doubles as a pillow in dire circumstances.

I was reading Blu Chicken Ninja's 'What's In My Bag' post and I thought it looked like fun.  So I went ahead and emptied out the contents of my own bag before leaving for work on a standard school day last week:

I confess that the daffodil in the glass bottle is not something I store in my bag.  It's just there for aesthetic purposes. 

Tazo Tea Mug: because a day without tea is most likely going to be the worst and this mug is one of the few that I own that can be trusted not to leak all over my things.

Apple: because I love apples and stereotypes of teachers who like apples.  Also because our lunch period isn't until 1:10pm, so I am generally in mighty need of a snack by the time noon rolls around.

Eos Lip Balm: I am a lip balm addict.  I will use this at least 15 times before the school day ends.

Pencil and Pen: I like the old fashioned, yellow school pencil.  It does the job.  Same goes for my plain old black Bic pen.

Moleskine: because I have a terrible memory and this is where I store my lists, schedules, and spontaneous thoughts.

Wallet: because my teacher bag is my surrogate purse.

Library Passes and Schedules: I always have a small stack of papers relating to that particular school day.  They are usually sub plans, passes to the library, or my schedule for tutoring that day.  This bag has a small file pocket that I can slide papers in for safe keeping.

Chocolate Bar: because you never know when you're going to need a solid bribe.

Post-its: of different colors and sizes.  I won't even bother telling you what I use these for because there isn't enough time in the world to compile that list.

Multi-colored Tiny Highlighters Shaped Like Pill Capsules: this is a throwback to my days in the pharmaceutical industry.  A vendor handed these out at one of their training session lunches and I think they are probably one of the more valuable things I took away from my time in the biopharma sphere.

USB: Most of my students email me their work for correction or feedback, so I store most of it on this USB for when I get small stretches of free time to sneak in some review.  This keeps me from having to tote around huge binders full of work.

Books: my Robert Frost poems for short down times, my super soft leather Bible, and a textbook for my Salem State methods class.  You never know when you'll get a free period :)

Overall, I'd say this is a pretty representative sampling of my bag contents on any given school day.  I'm sure that when I become a real live teacher with my own classroom and classes, this teacher bag will need to prepare itself to be carrying much more in the way of binders and lesson plans, but, until then, this little buddy does the trick just fine.

Gems and Winners

It would be an absolute travesty to have a blog about my journey from engineering to teaching without dedicating at least one post to the battalion of supportive individuals who march and have marched alongside me.  So much of who, what, and where I am is a product of the love, support, and friendship I have been blessed to receive from the lovely people around me. The good news is that today is Valentine's Day, so let's do this! As a grad student, I have found myself in a cohort of the smartest, most dedicated scholars, professors, and teachers I think I have ever had the honor of working with. They love what they do and they pursue knowledge in their disciplines with focus and commitment.  In the throes of their hectic, academic lives, they always have time for an encouraging word, challenging feedback on work, or a beer. I can't think of a better group of people to grow and learn with.  They keep me sane.

As a teacher, I have been consistently floored by the community that educators seem to form. In my experience, people who teach tend to have the kindest of hearts. They give of their energy, time, and love to serve and support the students in their lives.  Their daily goals include the betterment of others; those others are often kids who have a very real need for friendship or just some extra love. These teachers carry their beautiful calling out in every aspect of their lives. This has been hugely challenging and encouraging to me. The mentoring wisdom and advice I've received from veteran teachers is gold. The amused commiseration and positive feedback I am able to share with fellow new teachers has been a source of joy, laughter, and stamina for me.  I'm humbled by the kinds of people the teachers in my life prove themselves to be.

When I told my friends about my decision that engineering was not the right fit for me and that I was going to leave my well-paying, stable job to go back to school in order to teach high school English, I was greeted with nothing but heartfelt support, hugs, and high fives.  No words of doubt, discouragement, or incredulity even entered the conversation.  My magnificent friends immediately responded with excitement and prayers for success in my new path.  I'll love them forever and will never be able to repay that gift of confidence in an unsure time.

My family is small, but it packs a punch.  One of the many awesome things about my family is that they think I am the best at everything.  To be fair, the feeling is pretty mutual.  What this means for me is that, in every decision, struggle, or success, I have a little group of cheerleaders who are sharing the ride with me and who don't bother to entertain the slightest shadow of a doubt in my ability to succeed and make a difference.

Ultimately, my faith is my core.  Valentine's day is a day about love and I love believing in a God that loves love as much as I do.  I'm thankful for the things I learn about love through my faith and how those things inform and shape my role as an educator.

At the end of the day, I just hope I'm known by the company I keep, because I run with a crowd of gems and winners.

10 Teaching Facts I Learned From My Dog

I don't mean to say that my students are animals.  That would be disrespectful, demeaning, and completely untrue.  What I definitely will say, though, is that there are certain things about having a dog that prepare you for working with large groups of hormonally unstable adolescents.  Forgive me if my list blurs the distinctions between canine and teenager.

1) Almost everyone will work much harder when incentivized with snacks.  This might seem trivial at first, but snacks make things exciting, fun, and delicious.

2) Sometimes you need to pause the teaching to give a little love.  Obviously high standards are important and we want to push our students outside their comfort zones to optimize learning.  But there comes a point where everybody needs a pat on the head and to hear that you think they are awesome and like hanging out with them.  Learning can resume with much more success after this.

3) If the skill or material you are trying to teach seems irrational, disconnected from reality, or totally pointless, no one is going to be very motivated to do it.  However, if you can explain or demonstrate how this skill or material is relevant and how it might be used in day-to-day life, interest levels skyrocket.

4) If you can make learning a game, everyone learns approximately 10,367 times faster.  This is a scientific fact.

5) Real learning does not happen overnight.  It is a slow, painstaking process with lots of mini successes, failures, and relapses.  If my dog miraculously excels at a particular task I just showed her, I should not be disappointed or surprised when she struggles with it the next day.  I should just be grateful for the positive learning opportunity we started out on.

6)  Sometimes you have a student that will always struggle with a particular behavior or skill.  This does not mean that they cannot have great success in related tasks.  99.2% of the time, if I drop a piece of food on the floor in front of my dog, she will not eat it without permission.  That number will never be 100% and it does not mean that she can't be trusted to hang out in the kitchen with me while I make dinner.  Perfection is a fool's errand.

7) You will undoubtedly be cleaning up shit at some point.  Learning is hard and students are messy, both literally and figuratively.  These are the facts.  At some point, someone is going to have an accident on the living room rug and we are just going to have to clean that up and move on.  Be ready for the shit.

8) You have to know your students.  I can read my dog's expressions and moods like an open book.  I know when she's distracted, hungry, focused, or excited.  I know what things make her nervous, what environments jazz her up beyond recognition, and what snacks she will jump through flames for.  I use this information to design a teaching plan that is effective for her.  I am much less effective when teaching a dog that I am unfamiliar with.

9)  It is important to set everyone up for success.  Don't assess or test a new skill in a scenario where you think failure is likely.  Practice and challenges are great, but I don't take my dog out to a new place she has never been and try out a command that she doesn't know particularly well just to see what happens.  I don't want her to get used to failure or feeling overwhelmed.  I only test a skill when I know that, given appropriate focus on her part, she can absolutely succeed in the task I set.

10) A good teacher is clear, fair, and consistent.  Don't be confusing or unpredictable.  Show up as the teacher they know and trust every time, every day.

In conclusion, if I love my students as much as I love my dog, we're all in a good place.

Perks of Being a Grad Student

As a student in Salem State's MA/MAT program, I am somewhat constantly studying, reading, and writing about new things in the world of teaching, literature, and composition.  Mostly because of my position as a student and minimally because of my age, many of the pedagogies, theories, technologies, and ideas that I am engaging with are pretty new and relevant.  The net result here is that, without much independent motivation or initiative, I stay pretty up to date on what is happening in the world of education.  I am trying new software, reflecting on new pedagogical ideas, and constantly challenging what I think I know about teaching (which, admittedly, is essentially nothing); I'm doing all of this in the company of dedicated, brilliant, and passionate teachers and aspiring teachers.  It is unquestionably amazing; I can see and feel my relevance, ability, and versatility stretching and expanding. Enter stage right: the problem.

At some point in the hopefully near future, I am going to complete my degrees and graduate.  At some point in the hopefully very distant future, I am going to age right out of my twenties and into a time in which instinctive harmony with technology and modern adolescent culture is a distant memory.  I've hung out with my mom; I know how this works.

While I look forward to the wisdom, experience, and tempered stability that comes with age and years of classroom time, I can't help but entertain an uneasiness in the back of my mind.  How will I stay relevant?  How comfortable should I get with certain pedagogical ideas or theories before I decide to update or adjust them?  How much of my time should I divert from one-on-one work with students or reflection on student work to research in my field or to challenge my current ideas?  Is my rate of growth and learning intended to decline to some degree once I transfer out of graduate studies and into full time teaching?

I recognize that the answers to these questions are different for everyone and that I may be unable to answer them for myself until I progress further along on this path.  I just want to be sure that I am developing the habits and lifestyle necessary to sustain at least some level of constant growth and expansion throughout my teaching, even once growth and expansion are no longer academically required of me.  I always want to be equipped to meaningfully address the academic and personal requirements of students who enter my classroom.

Getting to Know You: A Fun Idea for a Writing Assignment

In one of my classes the other day, we were discussing writing assignments.  What makes them good or bad?  What's the goal of a good writing assignment?  How can we generate an assignment that will draw out different styles, personalites, and comfort levels within a class? How can we structure assignments help us get to know our students better? These are the kinds of questions we were batting around.  Unfortunately I am not bold or smart enough to attempt to answer those questions in this post; however, I will share one my favorite ideas for a medium-stakes assignment that came out of this class discussion. The following is a poem by Ted Kooser:

Abandoned Farmhouse

He was a big man, says the size of his shoes

on a pile of broken dishes by the house;

a tall man too, says the length of the bed

in an upstairs room; and a good, God-fearing man,

says the Bible with a broken back

on the floor below the window, dusty with sun;

but not a man for farming, say the fields

cluttered with boulders and the leaky barn.

A woman lived with him, says the bedroom wall

papered with lilacs and the kitchen shelves

covered with oilcloth, and they had a child,

says the sandbox made from a tractor tire.

Money was scarce, say the jars of plum preserves

and canned tomatoes sealed in the cellar hole.

And the winters cold, say the rags in the window frames.

It was lonely here, says the narrow country road.

Something went wrong, says the empty house

in the weed-choked yard. Stones in the fields

say he was not a farmer; the still-sealed jars

in the cellar say she left in a nervous haste.

And the child? Its toys are strewn in the yard

like branches after a storm—a rubber cow,

a rusty tractor with a broken plow,

a doll in overalls. Something went wrong, they say.

I love this poem and I think it is a fun and achievable way to encourage close reading and inference.  An assignment that we thought would be fun to accompany this poem would be to ask students to compose their own poems about a place that they spend a lot of time in.  What would that space say about them?  What things would a stranger find that would provide hints as to what they valued, excelled at, or struggled with?  Just to toy with the idea, I came up with a stanza for my own poem:

EMPTY BEDROOM

She is messy, say the little heaps of clothes from the floor

But she is careful with her books, point out the shelves full of neatly ordered volumes.

A row of colored glass bottles in the window throw colors around the room

While telling all about how she loves beauty and colorful designs.

She has a big dog, says the giant brown dog bed from the far corner of the room

But the white hairs in the bedsheets chime in to say that she prefers the dog to sleep with her.

She likes to be alone, the white door quietly suggests

while a wall of framed photos points out that she loves many different faces.

It is not too lonely here, say the dog hairs and the photographs.

It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be! The assignment could be used in a variety of different ways.  It could be used to get to know students better, to encourage regular writing and self-expression, or to investigate the genre of poetry.  I'm going to file this one away for a rainy day :)

Learning Spaces: Part Forethought, Part Frivolity

As an illustrious tutor/substitute/paraprofessional at Lawrence High School, I have yet to truly lay claim to my own classroom space yet, but I am just ITCHING for that sweet sweet day.  Because I have some pretty badass classroom decor ideas, if I do say so myself. I know that everyone learns differently, but, for me, the space I am in plays a major role in how I learn.  My belief is that a stimulating, comfortable, and academic-feeling (definitely a real thing) classroom environment sets a tone for the students that enter.  I would like my classroom to set a tone of creativity, appreciation for beauty and peace, respect for work that has gone before ours, celebration of the work that we create and the different learning styles represented, and a certain reverence for reading and discovery. In my ideal and totally wishful world, my classroom would feel like some vintage and cosmopolitan library in which a mad scientist was storing up all her findings about life as it is and was and has been.

As any studious, dedicated, and partially insane future-teacher would, I obviously started a Pinterest board for this momentous future event.  I've included some of the highlights below, but I would LOVE to hear from current or aspiring teachers on your experiences with classroom design, how you see it affect your students, and what you have done that you feel worked!

And now, for my unrealistic classroom decor dreams that I will work with irrational dedication to achieve:

A Blog Within a Blog: Blogception, if you will

I wanted to use this blog to share the link to an earlier blog that fulfills one of my resolutions for the grand old year of 2014: my resolution to chronicle through a Year of Words.  The resolution started out as a daily commitment to read and blog my reflections on something I was reading that day.  It ended up being something slightly more sporadic and less defined than that, but, ultimately, I consider my resolution kept. The spirit of the resolution found its substance in my desire to develop and model a deep pursuit and love of reading in my own, daily life.  I wanted to have an honest way to show my students how reading can be meaningfully integrated into our day-to-day.

This idea initially came to mind for me after reading Kelly Gallagher's book, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About it.  Gallagher values a genuine interest in and enjoyment of reading over many of the traditional ELA classroom pedagogical goals.

“To become a lifelong reader, one has to do a lot of varied and interesting reading.” ― Kelly Gallagher

He feels that one of the best ways he knows of to teach students about reading and writing is simply to model how he approaches those disciplines.  This blog was my attempt to model active, interested reading for my students.  I reflected on poems that connected with what I was going through that day, works I had written back in college, excerpts from books I was reading at the time, and a variety of other compositions that made their ways into my day.  I strove to model real, critical thought on the texts, demonstrating confusion, ambiguity, uncertainty, personal enjoyment, and contextual research in response to different things I read.

Overall, I consider the blog to be a success and a resolution I am glad to have kept.  I was able to share the blog with many of my students.  We had some great conversations about why I wanted to undertake this resolution, what some of my experiences had been, and about some of the specific texts I had blogged about.  In retrospect, I find that the following quote from psychiatrist Karl Menninger captures what I hoped to achieve in my Year of Words.

“What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches.” ― Karl A. Menninger

I want to be a teacher who can model good practice with my unfiltered and organic life habits.  I want to be a teacher who follows their own advice and isn't afraid to share that undertaking with her students.  If I plan to tell students that it is worth their while to make room in their hectic and ever-shifting lives to read and write a wide variety of interesting and exciting things every day, I had better be able to say that I speak from my own experience.

So feel free to take a look (My Year of Words) !  This blog is, at points, a little old, outdated, and most definitely features some things that I would currently say differently; however, what fun is documenting your reading and critical thinking if not to go back and look at how much smarter you are now :) ?

Post Script:

While I see the Year of Words blog as a fun and overall positive experience, looking back on it, I definitely can identify many things that I would do differently.  Primarily and unintentionally, my blog heavily privileges traditional, printed compositions.  Just the title, "A Year of Words," sort of suggests that compositions that are not comprised of words are not necessarily worth interacting with critically.  This blog was started well before I began my interest and study into multimodal compositions and texts.  Despite the fact that many of my posts feature photography, oral presentations, or multimodal videos, my reflections on these works demonstrate no real thought on the role of digital writing or multi modality in modern day composition and reading which is, honestly, totally uncool of me.

On a secondary note, I think, despite my efforts to demonstrate genuine confusion in wrestling with different works, there were times where I sort of subconsciously made my confusion sound smarter than it was.  It's still tough for me to let my students see me flounder or not know who an author is or not be totally sure what a reference means.  This, again, is totally uncool.  If I'm going to ask students to wrestle with uncertainty and to be comfortable with having unanswered questions in their reading, it's pretty important that I show them that even teachers do that kind of thing.  My efforts at appearing almighty in my mastery over English Literature are helping absolutely no one.

I am 100% judging my 2014 self.

Let's kick this whole thing off with a tampon commercial, am I right?

I am actually being completely serious.  I found the most amazing tampon commercial today.  Admittedly my plan was not to get things started with a commercial for feminine products, but this ad just grabbed me this morning and I thought, "Well, I guess that's the kind of thing I'd like to blog about." Feast your eyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs

One of my most foundational beliefs as a teacher is that we need to empower every student equally, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, or socioeconomic status.  Unfortunately, in my albeit limited experience, the evidence of gender bias against female students is a constant, heavy, and silent weight in most of the classrooms I work in.  In no way is this a comment on the skill or lack thereof of any particular teacher I have worked with.  The reality of the academic culture in which young girls mature today is one that tells them that their male counterparts will most likely be quicker and smarter than they will, that the skills they develop are intended for different long-term applications than the skills of the male students, and that their academic achievements are really just secondary goals to seek after once they have assured their sexual desirability in the eyes of their male peers.  There is a general consensus that the phrase "like a girl" means "not very well" or "weakly" or "hilariously bad."  The network of beliefs, misconceptions, and genuine ignorance that supports this devastating reality for our young girls is vast and has diffused into every nook and cranny of the lives we lead.  The image of the empowered female student is illusive, apparently contradictory, and seemingly impossible to project or explain to the courageous and gifted young girls who enter our classrooms.  That image only grows more translucent and insubstantial with age.  Despite and because of these overwhelming odds, I find myself desperate to find ways to give each of those girls access to identities as strong, smart, and powerful young women.

Doug Buehl's book, "Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines" discusses the academic identities students inhabit while in our classrooms and how teachers have the  humbling and critically necessary capacity to impact those identities.  "Academic identities can be fluid rather than static, and the instructional context can make a dramatic difference for developing and shaping students' conceptions of themselves" (Buehl 8).  Buehl goes on to investigate "the crucial role of language and dialogue in their [the students' academic identities] development and maintenance" (8). Students are hearing verbal and nonverbal dialogue in every facet of their lives that suggest the female lack of potential and inherent inferiority.  They may even be hearing it from themselves; Buehl discusses that many student identities are formed based on what students are telling themselves about their own performance, work, and potential.  This leaves a mighty responsibility on the shoulders of the aware and passionate teacher.  We can "reinforce or challenge" what students are hearing about themselves (8).  The cues we give, the words we choose, the behaviors we exhibit are all means of communication with our students.  They all act towards forming those students' identities.

For me, one of my foremost goals is to ensure that all the signals I send to the female students in my room are those of confidence: an unflinching confidence in their ability to perform and in their capacity to overcome the odds stacked against them.  Practically, this means encouraging the crowd of silent, but studious girls in the back of the room to share their input and work with the class.  It means silencing the chatty male student when he interrupts a silent, halting contribution to class by one of his female peers.  It means celebrating the bold and courageous female student who demands that her opinion be considered.

Gender roles and biases are complex and they absolutely hurt and repress for both male and female students; I clearly don't mean to say that all my male students are patriarchal maniacs (although I most definitely have a few of those).  But the pressure placed on young girls specifically is daunting and tragic.  This tampon ad nails it.  And it nails what has to happen: a redefinition of femininity.  Our girls need "like a girl" to mean something good, fierce, and worthy of attention and we need to work to make that a reality.  For what it's worth, Always, I will buy my tampons from you.