I love a good problem. Problems that seem to have impossible solutions seem to be the best puzzles to try to solve in the field of education. Something like getting Math teachers to love writing or eliminating tracking in student schedules or figuring out how to motivate the one student that seems like no strategy, plan, solution, or special team can figure out a plan to help. The problem that I am trying to tackle involves English teachers and how to take in, process, utilize, and implement grading practices/feedback during writing instruction and in the day-to-day ELA classroom. 

The post is titled "The Reason I Would Leave Teaching" because the reason I am going to discuss is the only and main reason I would ever consider getting a different profession. I could easily go to nonprofit work or even sit behind a desk. I wonder sometimes what it would be like to pee whenever I wanted to or to be able to go on a lunch hour to a spot "around the corner." These are luxuries that teachers don't have. And many reasons that teachers leave do not involve my main reason for contemplating leaving. In fact, I am in love with classroom management. I love tough kids. I see many teachers leave the profession because they are not getting the support when it comes to classroom management or organization. I also see teachers leave due to pay, working conditions, lack of supplies, lack of support from administration, class sizes, etc. Eddie B Comedy offers some amazing jokes about teacher issues and the Michigan Education Association wrote a pretty great article titled "The Disappearing Educator." I often give this article to interns to make sure they know what they are getting into in terms of this profession.

Creative writing camp got done almost a week ago on June 30. If you remember my last post, Third Coast Writing Project and the McGinnis Reading Center teamed up to do something awesome this summer: reach out to kids to develop skills and have fun with reading and writing at Western Michigan University. The second week was all about the revision of drafts of creative works of fiction. This post will include the goals for the week, show a sample daily breakdown, highlight some amazing pictures/highlights, and show a key peer revision skill called clockwork editing. 

The McGinnis Reading Center and Third Coast Writing Project Camp for Young Writers have teamed up this year to put on a MEGA reading and writing camp! We had our first week this past week with Middle Schoolers focusing on WorldBuilding: Taking the Scenic Route. Students started to create the elements of their own worlds focusing on character, setting, plot, and conflict.

What is it that students want?

This was the question I asked my sixth graders in an alternative assignment to giving them an end of the year survey. I know some of the usual answers that sometimes we as teachers don't take as seriously (and maybe should) and I also was hopeful of the answers that may seem surprising and shocking. I have included both in this post to start a conversation. 

The past week has been a whirlwind of starting to wind down and say goodbye to the 2016-2017 school year. Students finished their Common Growth Assessment writing test and also their last blog post. The final days are both bittersweet and painful. Mainly because everyone wants a break, but also because it isn't any fun to say goodbye. 

Yesterday, I posted about my Greenbelt Writing project with my General English 6 students. We found joy, freedom, and love for just sitting down and writing. Now, on the same Sunday in April that I decided to toss out my old game plan, I was also faced with another dilemma.

I started to write this post and something distracted me. I looked at my calendar and then back to my blog post. Calendar-blog-calendar-blog. Where did the month of May go? I am amazed at the utter loss of time and also trying to balance that feeling that almost all teachers I know get in the month of May. You know the feeling. We look at each other with empathy. We make jokes. We give words of wisdom on social media and to each other in person. We try to see the light at the end of the tunnel that is summer. However, especially with state testing in May for many of us, it can get difficult to find joy. 

If you haven't picked up on my vibes that I have been throwing out so far...the Achievement Gap is my nemesis. Not the kind that you read about in text books. Not that kind with data...necessarily. The kind where my general English Language Arts students and my advanced English Language Arts students are more than 3 grade levels on average apart from each other in terms of reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. 

I finally finished written feedback for the last round of second submission rough drafts of an MLA Research Paper. While I love research papers, the idea of feedback makes me cringe because it is 1.) time-consuming at school 2.) time-consuming at home and 3.) soul-sucking because it forces much needed reflection. I am always thinking about what could have gone...better. I also ALWAYS am thinking about the state of academic writing that contains little creativity and ingenuity. So, the lightbulb went off.

Kahoot is a site that creates fun learning games for kids in the classroom. I didn't think much of it when I first heard about it from the social studies teacher on my interdisciplinary team. Now, i'm addicted. Here is how it works: Kids get a technological device (1:1 is key because they need to be able to play) that can be a phone, an iPad, or a chromebook/laptop. However, there are also group/team options. The game site gives a code for the kids to log in with using a numeric password. Then, the fun begins. They get to choose a username and enter the game. If a student chooses an inappropriate username, the teacher can simply click on the name to make it disappear and have the student try again. This is genius. When all the players are loaded in the game, the game begins. 

Thus, despite being rainy, I was thinking of ways to use flowers as a guide to help students of writing with personal narrative assignments. It also seems very "springy" of me to do. Not only are flowers beautiful, but their scent and how they seemingly "pop-up" in different aspects of life can help the writer get in tune with themselves. All four of these "flower power" prompts/activities that will be talked about in this post can be used in combination with each other, or they can be used as stand alone assignments to get students talking and writing about their own lives. Remember, identity work is they key to getting to know the writer. Nothing is more powerful than the personal narratives that bind a classroom together. 

My pre-intern is ending his time working in my classroom, and I have asked him this question: "Are you sure you still want to be an English teacher?" I asked him this question with a hint of sarcasm, but also one of seriousness. The Michigan Education Association published an article about "The Disappearing Educator" that I think all teachers and those involved in education should read. Where are we going? The answer is leaving teaching and not choosing to become a teacher in the first place. We have all heard the statistic in education about teachers leaving before they reach five years. I would argue that teachers are in jeopardy well beyond five years. Put us on the endangered species list. 

The only thing I remember of my grandmother is her hands. I was four when she passed away, but I am also said to be just like her. If you hold up her 15-year-old school portrait and my 15 year-old school portrait, they are mirror images. Besides the physical make up of our bodies, we are also said to have the same mannerisms....grit, determination, and being way too stubborn. Our story is many peoples' stories. One of the reasons I love talking about writing is the commonalities we have in being human. Now, I won't ever know my grandmother, but I use the stories that I hear to get to know her on a deeper level. 

This post and I go back. Wayyyy back. I have been dreading to officially write this post because of how strongly I feel about this topic. I'm going to get to the point. Here is the main question: should students be taught MLA or Modern Language Association standards in the secondary classroom? If so, when? How old? Now, before I go making some folks angry about MLA, I want to go on record. I do not care if you teach MLA or APA, but one of them needs to be taught, and I would argue that the sooner the better is the most beneficial when it comes to education and developing young writers. 

I hope you are ready for some great reading! These authors-to-be took this assignment to a whole other level. By focusing on critical literary elements like plot, character, conflict, and setting, students were able to express themselves creatively. I paired this with a simultaneous academic piece so students could write in both modes: creative and academic. The creative mode focused on them making their own Dystopian World after reading Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. They also did a compare and contrast academic piece focusing on modern American Society vs the Dystopian World setup by Westerfeld in Uglies.  This second piece contained contained cited evidence, formal tone, etc. 

The research unit is my favorite unit of study, but it is also the toughest for a variety of reasons. Students are granted the freedom to do their own research and not given all of the materials needed to produce a piece of writing (our curriculum is heavy novel based with literary analysis). In sixth grade, they get to choose from a list of topics that are focused on a theme. Choice is still an option, but with limitations. Students need freedom in their writing to make choices, yet restrictions to allow for structure with the assignment.

The main components of the checklist include lessons on:

1. Plagiarism

2. Source Evaluation

3. Resource Location

4. MLA Formatting/Other Format

5. Great Student Exemplars

Essay Packet: a workbook for students that contains all the steps of the specific essay assignment included; life saver for the teacher of writing; communication method for parents

In part 5 of the Compare/Contrast Essay Series, we explore the beauty of rough draft feedback.

Time for the handing back of rough drafts! Students have put together their introduction rough drafts, body paragraph rough drafts, and conclusion rough drafts to form a first draft of their Compare/Contrast Essay about the topic:

Is our modern American society more similar to or different from the Uglies Dystopian Society/World?

My love-hate relationship with technology in the classroom continues as I reflect on the use of Padlet for conducting a peer review. I like visual feedback. I like looking at how different people respond to writing, and I like seeing how different teachers use feedback to help their writers improve. Students created their first rough draft of their Dystopian Compare/Contrast Essays for a peer review after they participated in a Conclusion Workshop.