#WWWW

I do my best thinking in the shower.

This fall it was in the shower that #WWWW was born.  My grandfather had just died, and I was thinking of family memories I would like to capture in writing.  (He had a way of saying, "Well, Kim!" that made me feel like the only person in the room.)  I was lamenting the fact that I rarely get time to write for myself while being a full-time teacher and a full-time mom.  Soon I realized that my students probably feel the same way.  While I provide lots of choice in terms of genre and topic, students rarely get complete freedom with their writing.  "Why not give it to them?" I thought.  They can still achieve academic objectives through this writing, and maybe, just maybe, they will learn to enjoy it a bit more.

So Write Whatcha Want Wednesday (#WWWW) was born.  This year in my dual-enrollment College Composition class, each student has created and designed his/her own blog.  Students are blogging about sports, music interests, and random teenage drama.  Some of them have created unique themes and worlds where fictional characters are created and random words generate engaging short stories.  One high school senior weekly adds a chapter to her own personal search for a biological aunt who was adopted as an infant.  They are truly writing what they want with an authentic audience in mind.  I’ve compiled all of their blogs on a shared Symbaloo, and I also tweet their posts, hoping to increase their audience.

Each Wednesday as students file into my room, they see #WWWW on the daily agenda.  Most Wednesdays there is a palpable buzz in the room when students remember they get to write for their blogs.  “Oh yes!  It’s Write Whatcha Want Wednesday!”  Some days students come with ideas in mind, ready to get started; other days they sit and think before they put finger to keyboard.  

Some of my students struggle with the complete freedom, something unknown to them in the academic world.  (The former grade-driven, tell-me-what-to-do high school student in me can relate.)  For them I provide lists of prompts and conference about a possible topic.  Still, they write.

And I write, too.  Inspired by my students, I started my teaching blog because I knew that I, too, needed to refine my voice and write for a specific audience.  I don’t post just on Wednesdays, but I am taking the conscious time to work on my own writing, to model that the process is never perfected.

From #WWWW blog writings I have been able to pull mentor sentences with voice and style.  I’ve learned more about my students’ personal interests and motivations.  I’ve seen their writing change and grow as they write for an authentic audience.  (Of course they frequently check their blog stats!)  And I realize that giving up my ownership as a teacher has been a small price to pay.  I selfishly hope that the fluency and freedom find their way into their assigned essays as well, that perhaps the excitement will spread from Wednesday to the days we work on research papers and This I Believe essays.  For that, time will be the tell.

We would love to grow our #WWWW network.  If other teachers have some spare time on Wednesdays, give your students freedom and share our hashtag.  You will be amazed at what they produce for Write Whatcha Want Wednesday!

Kimberly Witt weaves words and wrangles students at Okoboji High School. She loves tea, cardigans, early bedtimes, and other grandma-like interests. She is not, however, a grandma. She blogs at teachhappy.weebly.com.

November Invitation to Write: "What's New?"

The November “Invitation to Write” is here!

This month the ICTE faithful want to know what you’ve tried new this year. What new activity, new classroom setup, new organizational strategy, new technology, or even new attitude or approach to students have you attempted so far? Did you bring something back from the ICTE Conference that you’ve used? Have you learned something new from a colleague? From a student? What have you altered in terms of your grading philosophy, the way you provide feedback, or how you handle the enormity of the paper load? What have you added to your routine? Perhaps more importantly, what have you removed? This can be changes you’ve made that directly affect students, or ways you’ve altered your approach to the profession and strategies you use to energize yourself. 

We want success stories, failures, reflection, and advice. Mostly, we want to hear your voice writing about your journey in your classroom.

As before, submit your piece through our submission form on the ICTE website or via email to shannondykstra@gmail.com. Suggested length is 400-600 words, though it is certainly a flexible framework. We look forward to sharing your work on our ICTE Teacher Page and publicizing it through our Facebook Group and Twitter account. Put together a piece this week, and invite one other person on your staff to do the same. Let’s all get better together.  

Shannon Dykstra

ICTE Online Content Editor

I Should Have Closed My Laptop

I should have closed my laptop. Why didn’t I? It’s not complicated. I had convinced myself that what I was doing was really important. I was Skyping with a group of teachers to show them how I use a digital tool to document school work. For them, it was possibly useful. For me -- a second-year teacher -- it made me feel self-important. Enough so that I missed a pretty big opportunity. I lost sight of what mattered.

But when a student from the previous year came in to say hi, I should have closed my laptop. I should have told the teachers on Skype that I needed a minute, or as long as my visitor wanted to chat, and closed my laptop.

But I didn’t. I gave Malorie a half-hearted wave and mouthed, “I’m on Skype. Sorry!” to her. I cringe every time I think about it.

The greatest thing that can happen for a teacher is to have a former student come back to see them. That is visual, tangible evidence that the teacher made an impact.

And I wasted that opportunity.

So, Malorie, feel free to stop by again sometime. Catch me up on where you’ve been and where you’re going.

I promise: this time, I’ll close my laptop.


Russ Goerend: Husband, dad, teacher, son, writer, reader. Having fun with all three. Some other stuff, too.

A Reminder About Why We're Here: A Letter to My AP Students

To My AP Students:

Today I asked you to read a letter that my friend, Mrs. Paulsen, wrote to her students. I want to write to you now, and explain why we’ve gone away from the syllabus and the canon of classical literature here in AP class to read this letter.

Her letter is not to you, nor is to me. It is not about our classroom or about any poetry that we’ve read (until now). I believe it to be essential reading anyway. For in her words I see what is true, and I want to share that truth with you.

You don’t know what it’s like to lose a child you were expecting, but I do. You don’t know what it was like to be an adult and watch the Twin Towers fall, over and over again on TV, everywhere you went, hoping for a different ending every time; but I do. You don’t remember watching Bono at the Super Bowl, and you don’t still have some of the same chills every time you hear the song; I do. You don’t know what it’s like to be vulnerable in front of students, to walk that line between being a real person and being a bullet-proof god of academia, to share and to not share and to risk and to just pray that you won’t lose it, not today, even though a wound is bleeding more and more by the minute. Or what it’s like to be in Mrs. Paulsen’s classroom, to watch her with her students, to receive a glimpse of her heart in all that she does. You don’t know. But I do.

But there are other words in this piece that do resonate with you. I know there are, because it’s a great piece; it’s why I’m having you read it. For you know things that I don’t know. You’ve seen things that I haven’t seen. And you read her words, and you’re reminded of them all over again. They become real again. And that might crush you under the weight of emotion, make you jump for joy, warm your heart with the idea that you are not alone in this world, or simply make you turn up the corners of your mouth in a knowing smile. Or you will read it, widen your perspective, see me differently, and we’ll all be better.

The piece, when it was written, was not about you and me. But now it is. Now it’s in our hands. Now it enters through the eyes, worms its way around our brains, electrifying connections all over in times and places and emotions that we remember and even some that we don’t. If we let it, it keeps travelling all the way into our souls. It becomes ours. It speaks of something true that perhaps we knew but didn’t know we knew.

My class is better because of Mrs. Paulsen. And so I talk to my friends, my friends the English teachers, my friends the science teachers, my friends the accountants and the construction workers and the travelers and the parents and the jobless and the writers, because they are better than me. So much better than me. And if I can rub up against them, rub up against their life experiences and their lessons and take some of them back to you, then we all gain.

But that’s also why we do what we do in here. Yes, we are analyzing literature and finding meaning and breaking down authorial strategies in preparation for attempting to please the AP gods deciding your exam fate. But we are also helping you to live. For on some page, you will read about Elizabeth Bennett’s frustration or will or sass, and you will see your own. You will find your own goals and dreams and illusions of success in Gatsby and Death of a Salesman and hear about how they are a shiny, ghostly mess. You will read poems, new poems and old. They will speak to you about pain, about love, about how impossibly hopeless it feels to know that time and space cannot be manipulated, no matter how hard we try. You will find yourself somewhere in those poems. And while you don’t know it today, you will find the you that exists ten years from now, somewhere on that page. Some line, some phrase, some word will be yours. It will help you live. It will reinforce that you are alive right now.

And one day while we are writing in class, when I ask you to steal a sentence from another writer, make it your own, and see where your writing takes you, you will get it just right. Not the whole page. Not even the whole paragraph. But you will get one line or two just right, and you will share it with the person next to you. They won’t tell you this, but that line of writing will do for them on that day exactly what Mrs. Paulsen’s writing did for me.

We are in this class to live. Don’t ever forget that. In the middle of all the FRQ’s and the multiple choice practice and essays of analysis and the chapters of 18th Century literature that frustrate you, as you seek your “A” and the academic immortality of a high GPA, remember why we’re here. And I promise to work hard to remember that too.

- Dykstra           

Shannon Dykstra teaches American Lit and AP Lit and Comp at Mason City High School. A passionate UNI Panther and collector of various graduate degrees, Shannon also is an avid Steinbeck, C.S. Lewis, and all things Calvin and Hobbes disciple. You can read his meandering prose at his blog "Prone to Wander" or follow him on Twitter @Dykstra PTW.

On Love, Death, & Poetry Infections: A Letter to My 9th Grade Students

by Jenny Cameron Paulsen

Remember, about a month ago, when I burst into tears while reading Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem “You Know Who You Are”?  So, about that.

That was not in the lesson plan.  

You’re smart, so you already know that.  I talked about this then, but it's taken some time and distance from the event to gain perspective.  I needed to explore the emotions that surfaced and write my way to understanding about the power of her words.

I've read this poem many times.  But reading these words for an audience, reading them aloud on a sunny day in my classroom, your faces bright with expectation, I was surprised to find new emotions surfacing.  Like the poet, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and longing for my world to be simpler.  Maybe bringing this state of consciousness  to the poem made me feel more vulnerable than usual.  When I reached the line, “Because sometimes I live in a hurricane of words / and not one of them can save me,” my skin tingled in recognition at this beautifully simple metaphor. Did you feel a visceral reaction to those words as well?  Did you feel like the poet had somehow seen inside your heart and mind?  In my mind, my own “hurricane of words,” safely contained in my navy notebook of poetry scribbles, threatened on the horizon.  Perhaps because I thought I had lost this precious item, and I rediscovered it recently. Perhaps because I was nearing the anniversary of a crippling sorrow.  Perhaps because I know what it's like to wake up sobbing at three in the morning, and the only way to relieve the agony of the images whirling and haunting every moment, asleep and awake, is to write them down, to try harnessing the storm in the desperate hope that pinning the words to the page will save me from their unspeakable power.  

As I read through the previous paragraph upon revising, I almost removed that last sentence, afraid it might be too raw and confessional.  Then I remembered a quote from Neil Gaiman, shared at our English teaching conference this week by my treasured friend Kirstey Ewald, a teacher in Charles City: “That moment [while writing] when you think, just possibly, you are walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind, and what exists inside, showing too much of yourself . . . that is the moment you might be starting to get it right.”  And so I let the sentence stand.  Because as a writer, I want to get it right.  And if I expect you to take risks in your writing, I should show you how.

Return to the poem: as I read the line “not one of them can save me,” the familiar sting of beginning tears surfaced.  I know you heard my voice hitch. Most of you suddenly sat up straighter.  But I sailed on to the next line thinking, “Keep it together, Jenny.  You cannot lay this burden at their feet.”  

Then I read, “Your poems come in like a raft, logs tied together, / they float. / I want to tell you about the afternoon / I floated on your poems.”  A different afternoon of bright blue sky surfaced from the darkness of memory: stepping out of the hospital in Iowa City and sinking into the front seat, my husband and I both mute, numb with the grief of leaving without our first born, our twin daughters Lucie and Lillie, who emerged too soon from the womb, perfect and still.  The sunlight blinded—it could not pierce my personal darkness. On Saturday afternoon, September 15, 2001, I was in dire need of a raft of poems. Four days in and out of labor.  Four days of watching planes explode into the Twin Towers.  Four days so surreal and singular in all my personal history, they are singed into my memory with vivid, scarring clarity.  When I saw that particular patch of blue sky in my mind’s eye, I crumbled.  I knew I’d need a great deal of courage to finish reading the poem to you as I struggled for composure through hot tears.  My hands trembled, and my voice wobbled dangerously, but I swam on through the words, hoping a raft would float by in the torrent.

The raft appeared, in both the past and the present, when I reached the lines, “Suddenly I felt the precise body of your poems beneath me, / like a raft, I felt words as something portable again.”  My voice strengthened in the present while remembering the past:  I was sitting on my couch, ten days after 9/11, seven days after the death of my daughters, watching Bono on television.  Vulnerable without his usual sunglasses, sang  "Walk On" as if written only for me:  “And if your glass heart should crack / And for a second you turn back / Oh no, be strong / Walk on, walk on.”  Yes, my glass heart had cracked.  That was exactly the image that contained all the grief I could not say.  For the first time in ten days, my heart lifted with hope, as if a raft had floated under the current and popped up in exactly the right place.  There was a moment of stillness in the storm.  It happened again in February when U2 performed “Beautiful Day” at the Super Bowl: “The heart is a bloom, shoots up through stony ground.”  Two heart images capturing both fragility and resilience.  Two messages of hope.  This is my raft.  These are my “portable” words I carry with me when I’m overwhelmed in the hurricane.

I’m not the only one for whom U2’s music is a raft.  In David Levithan’s lovely novel Love is the Higher Law, written about the events of 9/11, a number of New York City characters connect with U2's music, in addition to the work of many other artists, to make sense of their world after devastating change.  The character Peter says, “The song I latched onto most, the song that I would play ten times in a row because I needed to hear it all ten times, was ‘Walk On.’ It was that unexpected, almost religious thing: the right song at the right time” (119).  If you are looking for song lyrics to use as rafts, like all Levithan’s works, this book is full of them.  It’s one of the reasons he’s a favorite writer of mine.

Back in the classroom, we arrived at the end of the poem, Nye’s words echoing Bono’s: “You keep walking, lifting one foot, then the other, / saying ‘This is what I need to remember’ / and then hoping you can.”  We all experience survival mode, where existence narrows to one foot in front of the other, and we chant our personal mantra over and over inside our heads to get through.  We make our world simpler in order to survive it.  This is the understanding of the poem I discovered in writing this letter to you.  Hold on to this truth when the world threatens.  Focus entirely on the next step only. And then the next. Do not dwell on the whole journey ahead.  This is how to combat the paralysis of fear.  In the famous words of Thoreau, “Simplify.”

As I gazed into your faces and saw your discomfort and empathy and tears, those of you who could still look at me instead of away, I knew I would have to tell you my story.  And that would require more courage and heart than I felt I had in reserve.  But I owed you an explanation about the power of words, especially spoken aloud, to trap us in a hurricane or lift us like a raft.  About the stealthy way grief sneaks up on you, unaware, and wrecks your heart, and sometimes your lesson plan.  

Words can haunt, and words can heal.  This is why we read and write: this interaction between the reader and writer, and all the connections, memories, and emotions he or she brings to the text.  What you bring to the text is as important as what I bring to it, and what the author brought to it.  John Green even says his books "belong to their readers now, which is a great thing—because the books are more powerful in the hands of my readers than they could ever be in my hands.” I hope you felt this power as you read along with me, your own images flashing in your mind.  I know you all have your own rafts.  When you are feeling brave, I hope to hear about them someday.  Because the only thing more powerful than what we each bring to a text, the only thing more powerful than a text by itself, is the meaning we create together from our shared experience of reading and discussing it.

Please know that I was uncomfortable, too.  There is nothing more terrifying than laying your fragile heart bare in front of a crowd.  A week later, I was worrying I hadn’t handled it well, (to be honest, I’m still worrying), and I felt ashamed I hadn’t contained my emotions and protected you from them.  I regretted laying my heaviest burden on your unsuspecting young shoulders.  And my dear friend and writing coach, Shaelynn Farnsworth said, “Don’t you think it would’ve been worse to cry and not tell them why?”  Yes.  No doubt.  But, it would’ve been better not to cry at all, I thought, trying to channel the strength of Matt “it-doesn’t-count-unless-the-tears-leave-the-eye” de la Peña.   But my tear ducts are apparently not macho enough nor deep enough to contain the well of my sorrow and shame.  

Speaking of Matt de la Peña, it’s only in writing this letter that I finally discovered my answer to his two word assignment imitating this sentence from "Steady Hands at Seattle General" by Denis Johnson: “When I look back at my life all I see are wrecked cars.”  My replacement for "wrecked cars"?  Blue skies. These two words could take me to a lot of places as a writer: the layers of possible meanings, the irony in associating blue skies with sadness as well as happiness, the various significant blue sky images I remember throughout my life. What do you think? Have you discovered your two words?

Later in the day, I received a serendipitous tweet from Shaelynn, (retweeted from Bud Hunt, @budtheteacher) with a link to a Naomi Shihab Nye video, “The Art of Teaching Poetry.”  In the video, Nye talks about bursting into tears at a dinner party while listening to a guest recite a Longfellow poem from memory because she was so moved by its “exquisite beauty.” So, I’m not alone.  Bursting into tears while reading or listening to poetry might be a thing.  I feel a little better.

What Nye said in her video rings so true to me.  “What gives us a relationship with poetry, it’s our love for the poems that we’ve known, what they’ve done for us.” Absolutely! I want you all to strengthen your relationship with poetry, to find poems to love, and to share them with our learning community. While the most pervasive form of poetry in our culture is song lyrics, I hope to add other kinds of poetry to your reading life.  You are living at a time with unprecedented access to poetry.  Read as much of it as you can.   (Start at Poetry 180 online.)  When you do, Nye suggests,  “Find places of real love within yourself for lines, for voices, for topics, for ways of writing, for styles that will help you create an atmosphere where poetry becomes contagious.”  YES!  That’s exactly what I want!  A poetry infection.  Don’t you?  Maybe not, but I will continue to share the poems I love with you, no matter what emotions steal up and mug me while reading.

Finally, Nye suggests rather than worrying about “getting” poetry, we should approach it from a curiosity standpoint, asking:  “Do you like it? Where does it take you? What does it make you think of?”  Using this approach as a teacher involves some risk.  It’s messy and unpredictable, but your answers are interesting and thoughtful and worthy of exploration.  It’s what makes your one-pagers on poetry so much fun to read and think about.  One of them is never the same as another.  Many of you are worried though, about “getting it.” Or more likely you're afraid of not "getting it" right. Some of the most beautiful poems I carry with me mystify me.  I can’t say I “get” them, but I love certain lines.  (For examples, check out any e.e. cummings poem or Shakespearean sonnet.)  What matters most is your willingness to travel with a poem.  Thinking in a “getting it” mentality is destination-focused.  To change your thinking about poetry, consider that it’s more journey-focused.  The obstacles, the sidetracks, the traveling companions, and the scenery along your journey of reading the poem are all of far more interest.  Besides, every poem has multiple destinations of arrival.  Choose your path.  Pay attention en route.  Report back about where you end up.

I just read a preview of a presentation (via Facebook status) from our art teacher Mr. McCormick where he observes how our culture is immersed in media violence and death while creating a “societal disconnection with real death.” I like the way he always pushes me to think deeply and differently.  It only occurs to me now, after reading about this idea, that while I’m anxious to protect you from a quiet and personal death, we are reading and discussing a book narrated by Death, about one of the most violent times in world history: WWII.  My personal tragedy seems small, almost inconsequential in this context. There’s an irony in this tension between the personal and political.  Most of the great works of literature you’ll read in school are tragic.  But to speak of the deaths that may personally haunt us is taboo.  I am wondering why we teach so many tragic narratives in school, yet the life skills associated with management of fear and grieving, perhaps our hardest human work, are not taught.  As suggested by Mr. McCormick, art, in all its forms, can be a way of owning and harnessing our grief and fear.  Perhaps we can explore these ideas together.  If we all, like the character Death in The Book Thief, are “haunted by humans,” why do we suffer in silence?   Chew on that and get back to me.

So, this letter was also not in my lesson plan.  But I have hope that something within it will reach you.  Because I don’t want you to feel compelled to respond, or like we have a Great Wall of Awkward between us, I wanted to discuss how you might  respond to this type of letter.  Well, it’s not an assignment, so you may leave it behind and never think of it again.  But I hope you don’t.  If you are moved to do so, you could write one back at some point in the future.  You might share a line that got you thinking and where it leads.  You could lift a line and write your own story.  Maybe write a letter to someone else and see where it takes you.  If it makes sense to do so, you might refer to something within in it during a discussion or one-pager.  But for now, please tuck it into your notebook and think about the power of words.  That is all I ask.

Thank you for traveling with me on this journey even though you weren’t sure where I was going.  To be honest, I wasn’t sure either.  But I’m happy at our place of arrival.  Keep this raft from U2 stowed away in your reserves:  “Walk on / stay safe tonight.”

And here’s one more raft especially for you from me:  Make wise choices.

Mrs. Paulsen

Jenny Cameron Paulsen teaches English (and knitting) to 8th and 9th graders at Holmes Junior High in Cedar Falls, Iowa. A graduate of Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa, she writes bad poetry in her steno notebook and sometimes blogs about life as a teacher at 2020teachervision.blogspot.com. Follow her on Twitter @JennyPaulsen555.

Dear Jordan

Dear Jordan,

I know you think of me as your “second Mom,” and I’m not sure how I ever landed in that role. I never intended to be anyone’s mother; I don’t envision motherhood in my future. But I guess you’ve seen many things in me over the past few years that I’ve never been able to see in myself. You make me a better person and teacher because I have to live up to what you already think I am.

I didn't like you at first, but you knew that already. You didn’t listen and you blurted out all the time and I sent you in the hall during the first week of school in your seventh grade year. You were a top student and a hard worker, but we butted heads and you rubbed me the wrong way. It’s okay; I’m hard to please.

When you came back as an 8th grader, things changed. I share more of myself with students in their second year, and you realized we were more alike than you’d previously thought. Maybe I always knew we were alike, and I was scared to see those parts of me reflected back. We’re both searching for mothers to love and accept us, and we both can’t quite stop from wanting that connection. We both don’t like what we see when we look in the mirror. We both would rather read and write and daydream than live in the real world.

Our personalities are also incredibly different. You spend volunteer hours trying to organize my classroom, and I can see the vein pulse in your forehead when you drop by to visit and see the hurricane wreckage of my desk. You love to get involved and spend time around others, and I’m just learning how to do that as an adult. You are organized and dependable and you take charge. Sometimes I wonder why you look up to me so much. You can juggle more than I can, even though you are half my age.

I know I’m probably not supposed to say this, because you are a student and I am your former teacher, but you are special to me. You are someone that I hope can be my friend someday, instead of just teacher and student. I am your second mom, but you were the first student who has been anything near my “daughter.”  I can’t wait to see you grow into the amazing person I know you will be someday. I am filled with pride that I have had a tiny part in forming who that person ends up to be.

Thank you for not giving up on me just because you moved on to the high school and left me behind. Thank you for being the president of my unofficial fan club and the person who has so often made me realize that what I do matters. Thank you for being you.

With Much Love,

Hauptsteen

Missy Springsteen-Haupt cannot seem to decide which of her three last name combinations she likes best on any given day. She is an expert in the art of awkward writing and has never met a run-on sentence she doesn't like. She blogs at themrshauptsteen.weebly.com.

A Recap of Winning Beginnings

Our first Invitation to Write, on the topic "Winning Beginnings," has been a pleasure to share with you over the past couple of weeks. Talented educators and writers from across the state have contributed their reflections, ideas, and advice, providing for the rest of us inspiration and a reminder that we are not alone. I wanted to take a minute to recap where we've been and encourage you to read, reread, and share what these teachers have contributed. 

Beginnings: "One of my favorite parts of teaching is the idea that we get New Year's twice a year, whereas those suckers with "real" jobs only get them in January. The resolutions I make in August are similar to the traditional ones; they're designed to make me better. Except in January, most resolutions are self-centered, focusing only on me as a person. In August, my resolutions focus on how to be a better teacher for my students."

Day 1 Activity: "I never start my year with rules or procedures. . ."

An Epilogue to a Former Disaster: "I was very invested in my students’ lives and I took their struggles, both academic and otherwise, personally, and I forgot that teaching is much more than just throwing creative darts against a wall hoping for a bullseye.  Even if they are creative darts, you can only survive chaos for so long."

Do and Do Not; You Can Always Try Again Tomorrow: That list in your head? It’s in my head too. It never goes away. Teaching is a vocation with an inexhaustible spring of inspiration. Channeling that inspiration can be in turns exhausting, intimidating, and exhilarating. 

Why I Assign Seats: "As I run down the hall to homeroom, my skirt starts to slip, but I hold it in place with one hand as I step through the door. The bell rings. I look around for a friendly face. Mr. Sprott stretches to see over the podium, glances at his seating chart, and his nasally voice says, “You must be Brenna Griffin. You’ll sit there behind Lindsey Greenwood.” I quickly slide into my desk.

     "It is the first time that morning that I know who I am."

Cheesy But True: "It’s time to take a deep breath, to remember why I teach, to remember what motivates me, to call upon that impalpable yet interminable energy. The source of that intangible vivacity is not impalpable at all. It walks, it talks, and I can attach names to it." 

The Lure of the Distant: "I teach, I have a graduate degree, I volunteer, I have a family—in short, I feel that I am very accomplished. However, the aforementioned conversation still pushes me to wonder: What does one have to do to establish his or herself as “doing something”? More importantly, how can teachers make students feel that they're always doing something worthwhile with their own lives?"

To the First Year Teacher: "First year teachers, at least the ones similar to me, like to pretend as though they have everything together.  Admission that you don’t makes you feel like a failure.  The result is 'safe teaching'—lack of risks, over-planning, and far too much over-analysis of lesson plans."

Blending the Passion of Poetry with the Common Core: "Of course, no one became an English major in hopes of having to prove how the teaching of Frost or Soto or Dickinson meets with a set of educational standards.  However, as it turns out, so many standards can be effectively addressed with the likes of James Weldon Johnson or Jorie Graham." 

Thanks to all our writers once again. We're still looking for contributors on our current topic, Letters to Students. Let's keep the writing coming. We all have much to gain from each other.

- Shannon Dykstra

ICTE Online Content Editor

Blending the Passion of Poetry with the Common Core

Ever feel like you need a pardon for using Poe?  That it’s time to dismiss Dickinson? This summer I had the privilege of instructing my first class for the State of Iowa AEA: “Teaching Poetry and the Common Core.”  I originally created this class because I love poetry.  Furthermore, we all know that many language arts educators fear for the future of poetry instruction in relationship to the Common Core; the ELA standards certainly emphasize the importance of “informational texts.” Fortunately, the Iowa Common Core Standards for ELA also specifically mention and encourage poetry instruction, even offering examples of “text exemplars” (suggested poems for each grade level).  Don’t get rid of Roethke yet. As language arts instructors, we can and should still promote poetry.

After examining the Core Standards for Reading, we found that many of them would provide an obvious and interesting match for poetry.  Consider RL 11-12.1: “Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.”  This encourages teachers to ask the questions about poems that lead to meaningful discussions.  Along with a Core-friendly discussion of language and technique, we can easily move onto the emotional or cultural issues addressed in the poem, and encourage the students to engage on a personal level.  We do not have to compromise the quality and depth of our poetry discussions. As Petra Lange, language arts instructor from Roosevelt High School noted, “When analyzing the standards to determine which could be used in poetry and finding all of them could, it further solidified my understanding that the core can be used to defend best practices that are occurring in the classroom already.”

Of course, no one became an English major in hopes of having to prove how the teaching of Frost or Soto or Dickinson meets with a set of educational standards.  However, as it turns out, so many standards can be effectively addressed with the likes of James Weldon Johnson or Jorie Graham. There is so much to be learned about language and theme from poetry analysis.  One class participant, Christie Wicks, an English teacher from Valley Southwoods, wrote this about the value of poetry instruction: “If [it] does not speak to the power of knowing how to use excellent diction, the nuances of  phrasing, succinct writing, and precise tone of voice, I don’t know what does.”  In addition to this, reading poetry with students should always be a meaningful experience, mostly because we are sharing art.  Like you, I want to see this genre shared with future students, and encourage you to continue exploring the beauty of poetry:  keep inviting Byron and Angelou back to the classroom. 

Tracy Tensen has taught English in Iowa classrooms for over twenty-five years, currently teaching composition at Gilbert High School. Passionate about poetry, Tracy has memorized over twenty poems, and is all too eager to recite them.

To The First Year Teacher

At the beginning of every school year, I am always reminded of the first-year teacher version of myself.  With each passing year, she gets further and further away, but her eagerness is deeply implanted in my memory.  To say I was an anal-retentive, first-year teacher is a massive understatement.  Each day I hand wrote a lesson plan complete with approximate lengths of time each segment would take.  I laughed recently as I came across my plan book—the first day of school was broken down, literally, to the minute so as to be sure that there would be no wasted time.

When I look around the room at the faces of first-year teachers each year, I remember how I secretly cried on my way to school that first day out of sheer terror.  I remember how I would leave PLC meetings, take a deep breath at my desk, and proceed to Google search everything my English partners had discussed that I knew nothing about.  I remember feeling like there was no way I would ever keep all the plates spinning at the same time.

I’ve come to learn that plates break.

But, first year teachers, at least the ones similar to me, like to pretend as though they have everything together.  Admission that you don’t makes you feel like a failure.  The result is “safe teaching”—lack of risks, over-planning, and far too much over-analysis of lesson plans.

Here’s what I say to you, fellow anal-retentive, terror-ridden souls (please tell me I’m not the only one!): You bring something to the table.  Maybe it’s your vision for classroom management or your desire to take risks when it comes to instruction.  Maybe you have a knack for inspiring kids to read or have great ideas about how to better incorporate writing into the classroom routine.  Whatever it is, bring it to the table.  No one expects you to have all the answers or to do everything right.  No teacher has all the answers or does everything right (and if they say they do, I suggest you keep a healthy distance).

I’m four years on the other side of that panicky version of myself, and I see now that my best in the classroom is not the same as perfection.  Sometimes a lesson ends 15 minutes before the bell rings which lends itself to a great conversation about books—what I’m reading; what they’re reading.  When I don’t know what someone is talking about now, I ask.  Shocker: it saves a great deal of time.  When the spinning plates start to feel like too much, I hand some off, slow some down, and toss some away.

But periodically I’ll still time crunch a lesson for good measure.  Old habits die hard, you know?

-Molly Finkman
After four years as a ninth grade English teacher in Ankeny, I have made a shift into a literacy interventionist position which is both exciting and nerve-wracking all at once. For me, it’s all about learning, and I often feel as though I have learned as much, if not more, as the students at the end of a given year. In my spare time, I’m usually reading or writing--all healthy, predictable, and cliché pastimes for an English teacher.

September's Invitation to Write

The September Invitation to Write theme is “Letters to Students.” I find as I begin the year, I have much that I want to say to current students, past students, individual students, groups of students, and even my own children as students. I want them to know my goals for them, what I expect from them, and my mistakes, fears, and dreams. I want them to read about the pride I have at what they have become, or the potential I see, or all the life advice that I try to cram inside the cracks in the literary curriculum. This month, therefore, we invite you to write a letter. Write it to one student or a group of students, be they past, present, or future. Be funny, serious, or reflective. Write about what they need to know about themselves or about you.

Last year I made a personal goal of writing and mailing 25 physical letters, and I accomplished that goal. I received some back in the process. There is nothing quite like the anticipation of receiving an envelope in the mail that you know contains words important enough to write down, stuff, stamp, and send. I remember quietly going down to my office to read them, uninterrupted. They were my treasure chest to open, to examine, to reread. Through those letters I felt closer to the sender, like I understood them better, understood that they found me an important enough investment of their time. In that spirit, write to your students. And share with us, who will also feel valued in the process.

Please submit your letters to our Online Submission Form. They will be published in October. Again, we’re looking for a general range of approximately 300-600 words.

I also encourage you to submit other writings as well. We’re still looking for book reviews to share, narratives of your experiences, great teaching ideas, etc. Those of you engaging in the 30 day blogging challenge are encouraged to share the best of those with us on our site as well. Just write, share, and enjoy the professional community.

- Shannon Dykstra
ICTE Online Content Editor

The Lure of the Distant

It's hot. It's only Tuesday. It's early in the year, just far enough in for the novelty of missed friends to wear off and the weight of deadlines to become cumbersome. It's my first year of teaching, and I sit in the back of the yearbook lab, helping edit and design pages. As it does everyday, discussion centers around those in the yearbook and those who are now out of it.

“Whatever happened to Becca Anderson*?” Amy, a senior, asked. She blindly stared into the void space on the computer screen in front of her nose, not glancing up.

“Oh, she is some public relations person out West now. She works with celebrities planning events,” Danny responded, also not looking up from his screen. “Did you see the pictures she posted at Caesar's Palace with Ozzy Osbourne last week?”

“Yeah. She's a prime example of someone who’s actually done something with her life.” Alexis declared, her voice dripping with disdain aimed at everyone in the community who hadn't, in fact, moved out of town our small, rural town.

I sat there, pretending to be working, but feeling slighted. I was here. I was accomplished. Wasn't I doing something with my life, too?

***

A crux in education: developing an answer to the “what is success?” conundrum. It has been five years and this conversation still sneaks into my conscience. What does it mean to “do something” with one’s life? Is life something that one can tangibly take out of a box and throw around? Is it something you can lose, like the old saying “If my life wasn’t attached, I’d lose it”?

I teach, I have a graduate degree, I volunteer, I have a family—in short, I feel that I am very accomplished. However, the aforementioned conversation still pushes me to wonder: What does one have to do to establish his or herself as “doing something”? More importantly, how can teachers make students feel that they're always doing something worthwhile with their own lives?

“The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive,” John Burroughs said. “The great opportunity is where you are.” In that same vein, it is important for students to note that, no matter where life is located or what it involves, opportunity for success is everywhere they go.They will all move to different areas, both physically and mentally. Those that are in the Midwest may be in Australia later. Those who are atheist may become Christian later. And yes, those that are Democrats may—dare I say it—become Republicans later. All of these may be inverted; life is change. But in each of these places and perspectives, students have enormous opportunities for success.

It's now time for school to start yet again. Another new beginning. Students will come into class, sit down, and feel the hands of the clock tick their time away. This year, it will be different. This year, I will have a response to the conversation. My response will be in the simple questions about college and future plan discussions (Why do you need to move away to do that?) and the daily attitude I bring into the classroom (Of course today is a great day! I'm here! I'm with all of you!).

It's finally becoming clear that for students to feel successful, like they're “doing something,” we—their teachers, mentors, and coaches—also need to make our own successes clear. If teachers are positive and enthusiastic about their own successes, students may see that it doesn't matter where they live that makes them, it's how they choose to perceive their opportunities.

*All names have been changed.

Anna Westermeyer is now in her fifth year of teaching secondary English Language Arts. She received her B.A. in English Education ('09) and her M.A. in English ('13) from Western Illinois University. She teaches at Hamilton CCSD #328 in Hamilton, Illinois, and lives in Keokuk, Iowa. She welcomes email at westermeyeram@gmail.com.

Cheesy But True

Winning beginnings. How can a teacher win before she crosses the finish line? Isn’t that like counting your chickens before they hatch? I get it; the right attitude at the starting line is essential. A confident, positive, ready to show the world strategy sounds like the correct approach. But isn’t that how the hare began his race against the tortoise? And besides, that is absolutely not how I am feeling as the days leading up to the new school year seem to quickly dissipate.

I am facing some intriguing changes as I prepare for the new year.  And questions scurry through my brain like a mouse through a maze with the promise of a cheesy reward. A new principal sits in the corner office at our school. A dark cloud has perched itself over our high school for more than a year. Will our new leader bring back the sunshine? The new English curriculum, aligned with the Iowa Core, greets teachers and students this year. How will the students receive it? How will we teachers present it? Can we remain positive and persevere through this high pressure system? Three English teachers new to my district join our department of five. Will they find me congenial and helpful? Will they be effective in the classroom? I am teaching two classes new to me: English 12 and AP Literature. Will I be able to motivate my students to learn and succeed? Will I be able to tap into students’ personal gifts and convince them that they are indeed essential members of my classroom? And two questions that truly leaves me wondering: Am I up for the AP challenge? Will I be effective as a teacher of this class?

I, like so many other English teachers, have not taken the summer off. I have been writing L to J tests, I have taken the AP training, and I am engrossed in the process of preparing. I guess my current efforts resemble that of the tortoise. I need to call upon his tenacity, his drive, his will to succeed. However, I am also concerned that this slow and steady pace will put my students to sleep and leave me with course outcomes and components untaught and untested at the end of the year. I fear that once the chaos of the year is upon me, I will be unlike the hare or the tortoise, and will more closely resemble the mouse scurrying through the maze trying to remember where I put that quiz or expo marker.

It’s time to take a deep breath, to remember why I teach, to remember what motivates me, to call upon that impalpable yet interminable energy. The source of that intangible vivacity is not impalpable at all. It walks, it talks, and I can attach names to it. That ebullience belongs to my students. Like almost all educators, my students stimulate my desire to teach, to wake up every work day morning, to haul my tired body into the school building. Their collective minds inspire me. I cannot control the cloud hanging over my school. I only know it will dissipate in my classroom. With the assistance of my students, winning beginnings take all forms and attitudes. Sometimes I will be tenacious, sometimes I will be confident, and sometimes I will scurry around looking for those cheesy rewards. So bring on the challenges of the new school year. As long as my students continue to learn, continue to greet me with their frank questions, and as long as I am able to create an atmosphere where everyone is welcome to show and use their individual geniuses, my beginning will assure that they, my students, are the winners. So I will indeed count on all my eggs to hatch into students ready to tackle life in the twenty-first century.

Robin McHone Hundt has been teaching for almost 20 years, ten of those in Glenwood. She has taught sixth through twelfth grade English, Communications, and Journalism classes. Prior to moving to Glenwood, Hundt taught in Virginia Beach, VA; Des Moines, IA; Atchison, KS; Kearney, NE; and Council Bluffs, IA. This year she is teaching English 12, AP Literature, and Communications. In addition, Mrs. Hundt coaches the mock trial team She graduated from the University of Iowa with a double major in journalism/mass communications and English. Before becoming a teacher, she worked in public relations, advertising, and printing. Hundt earned her English teaching certification from Virginia Wesleyan University. She is married to Bryan and has three children: Jimmy, 23; Sami,17; and Allie 14. She also has an ancient German Short-hair named Gauge.