A Glimpse Into Sub Life, Take 2

Simple but oh so effective 

    The school year is half-way over, and I have been in a grand total of 10 different buildings. I've taught kindergarten through 12th grade (I was only in kindergarten for an hour... thank God!), and I've been in schools with thousands of kids and in schools with barely 100.
    Today, I subbed in a middle school English classroom and during the teacher's prep I was asked to cover another English teacher's class. To be honest, I was a bit crabby at the news. I get it. We used to do the same thing to subs in our building. We were told to utilize subs to the Nth degree... use them for recess duty and lunch duty and anything else we could think of. But I was looking forward to reading the book I had brought along, and I really wasn't excited about finding my way to an unfamiliar classroom during the 3 minutes of passing time and then having approximately 30 seconds between looking at the lesson and the bell ringing.
     It all worked out. The kids were great. The lesson was a piece of cake. However, most notable was the room itself. This teacher is a rockstar, evident just by the organization of the cozy room. I thought I would share some of the teacher's rockstar-ism.
    I had to ask a girl about the tickets because those caught my attention. The student explained that the teacher gives a ticket to a student when he/she is doing something "good", and then there is a weekly drawing and the winner of the drawing earns rights to the coveted classroom rocking chair for the following week. Sweet classroom management plan. Rockstar. For sure.

This just made me laugh.

Middle school classroom management at its finest.

Such an awesome community builder. What is
more welcoming than walking into a classroom
where you feel a part of things?!

Insights from The Book Whisperer

I read The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller nearly six years ago, the summer before my first year of teaching middle school English. The title had been recommended in some other source, and I remember being mildly surprised when I found it available in the local public library. I checked it out with little expectation, and I remember devouring the book in one sitting. Many tenets of the book have stuck with me, and I decided to revisit it during this teaching hiatus of mine.

Here are the major points that stick with me this second time around.

1. Miller devoutly believes that our mission as teachers of reading is not to develop successful test takers but to develop life-long readers. She recognizes the reality of today's students. Many students do not think of reading as a fun pastime. Many students do not like reading and associate it with boring tests, boring topics, and well... just with boring. Miller believes that in order to turn the tide, we must create life-long readers by allowing students to read lots and lots of books from a variety of genres that they choose to read. She asks her sixth graders to read FORTY books by the end of the school year. She believes readers are made, not born.

2. Miller does not teach the whole-class novel. She teaches comprehension strategies and literary elements that her students apply to their independent reading books. She states, "Every single lesson that I teach circles back to students' own reading..." (35).

3. Miller uses reading inventories/surveys in her class as a way to connect students with books, and she encourages these connections relentlessly. Miller recalls a student who rejected TWENTY books that she suggested before finally accepting one skeptically. Miller illustrates the importance of refusing to give up on a kid and staunchly maintaining that all students in the class are readers.

4. Miller cites the report Becoming a Nation of Readers, which recommends that students engage in two hours of silent sustained reading a week. The only way to ensure that students read is to give them time to read in class every day. Miller starts every day with independent reading time, and this reading time is sacred.

5. Many students (and even some parents) will balk at the 40 book requirement. Miller says the key is "to celebrate milestones with students and focus on their reading successes, not their failure to meet requirements"(83).  I love the questions she uses to focus on the reading successes:
          a) Did you read more than you thought you would?
          b) How many more books have you read this year compared to last year? (She uses a sport analogy, asking her student athletes if their coaches would be ecstatic about a 200% improvement in their performance. Um yeah, these coaches would be STOKED)
          c) Have you read books that you enjoyed?

Miller offers several practical pieces of advice that I latched onto when I first read her book, and I have implemented these practices into my own classroom, and they definitely helped me run a smooth(er) reading workshop. I haven't discussed them in my post, yet they are another reason to get a copy of her book.

My biggest gripe about this book is that she gives little guidance about how to incorporate a grading system into this workshop approach. It's difficult to give a kid kudos for reading ten books by December when last year they hadn't finished even one book, and then in the next breath tell them that their efforts earn them a C. This is the missing piece for me, and I'm hoping her second book sheds some light on how she handles this.

Reading Update: The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

A dark thriller that takes you on a ride with so many twists you are definitely holding on with both hands by the end - even if you're one of those daring rebels who laugh wildly down Magic Mountain with both hands in the air and have the coolest picture in the relic shop. Even you.

Lo Blacklock is a journalist who just scored the story of her career when she's asked to replace her boss on a luxurious cruise ship and to report back on the ship, the fellow guests, and the trip. It becomes quickly apparent that Lo is unstable with a drinking problem and low self-esteem. This instability causes much skepticism from fellow passengers and crew when she claims a woman staying in the cabin next door to hers has disappeared off the ship. For various reasons, Lo persists in determining the whereabouts of this mysterious woman, and her persistence leads to dark secrets.

The writing is reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca with the prose lending itself to a constant mood of mystery and suspense. I was so absorbed in the writing that I literally shook my head a couple of times when I was transitioning from reading as if to break the trance.

I had a couple issues with the writing. The conversations between Lo and her lover seemed stilted. The subplot of their relationship either needed to be more developed or lessened because some of these scenes just sounded out-of-tune. In addition, the author lives in London and the story is based in London, and some of the British-isms escaped me. I realize this is a conceited complaint, but it was one problem I had with the book nevertheless.

The language and the sexual content wouldn't make this appropriate for middle school, and I would never assign this as required reading in any classroom, but I could see it being recommended as a fun read for more mature high schoolers.

Reading Update: Monster by Walter Dean Myers

This is one quick read. I literally read it in about two hours on a wintry January night. For those reluctant readers, especially those middle school boys, who might be in your classroom, this would be a great pick. It's short, it's intense, and it has a strong message.

Steve Harmon is a 16-year-old accused of murder, and the book starts with him sitting in a jail cell preparing for his trial and it ends with the outcome of the trial - which I won't give away.

The format of the story is a film script, which I can't say I enjoyed. I found the camera angles and "stage directions" distracting, and I found myself skimming these lines to get back to the plot. I could see some middle schoolers struggling with these excerpts and finding them distracting, too.

The book would fit well into a unit about identity or truth. There is some language in the book that could raise concern, so I would clear it with the admin and get parent permission if you make it a required reading in your class.

Reading Update: Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

My sister recommended this book to me many years ago, and for whatever reason, I never got to it. I truly believe it was divine intervention that caused me to finally pick up this book when I did. With six months of marriage under my belt, I am by no means wise in the means of wedded bliss but I do believe that being married brings a different- and valuable- insight to this read.

The topic of love is inexhaustible. Unrequited love. Platonic love. Devoted love. Fleeting infatuation. Intoxicating love. Lustful love. Jealous love. Selfless love. In his book, Marquez explores so many facets and helps to broaden my understanding in how love can take many forms throughout a lifetime and to question the idea that there is one true definition of love.

I think most of us are aware of the theory that Disney romance and the conventional notion of love portrayed in Hollywood films has left many generations with an unrealistic impression of love. According to the big screen, it's breathtaking and giggly, and the loving couple sails into an everlasting forever that is all smooth sailing.

Marquez reveals the "realness" of love. It's messy. It's painful. And yet, it's oh so worth pursuing. Two particular passages stood out to me, and I don't think they would have been so poignant to me prior to marriage.

"In the end they knew each other so well that by the time they had been married for thirty years they were like a single divided being, and they felt uncomfortable at the frequency with which they guessed each other's thoughts without intending to, or the ridiculous accident of one of them anticipating in public what the other was going to say. Together they had overcome the daily incomprehension, the instantaneous hatred, the reciprocal nastiness and fabulous flashes of glory in the conjugal conspiracy. It was the time when they loved each other best, without hurry or excess, when both were most conscious of and grateful for their incredible victories over adversity. Life would still present them with other mortal trials, of course, but that no longer mattered: they were on the other shore" (272). 

This passage stands out to me because a strong marriage, in fact a strong relationship of any kind, is built on kindness, honesty, and consideration. Yet, it's so true that any long-lasting relationship is not going to be smooth sailing. There will be choppy waters, and enduring those difficult times are indeed worthy of celebration and a sense of achievement.

"Over the years they both reached the same wise conclusion by different paths: it was not possible to live together in any other way, or love in any other way, and nothing in this world was more difficult than love" (270). 

The context of this passage is that a husband and wife, Dr. Juvenal Urbino and Fermina Daza respectively, have appreciated the contributions of the other. Dr. Juvenal Urbino attempts to carry out his wife's daily duties around the house, and this intelligent, successful man experiences utter failure by 11 a.m. Obviously, times have changed, and women's contributions to the home and to the marriage aren't restricted to household errands and chores, but I think the point illustrated here is critical. I think it is important between a husband and wife to discuss one another's "roles" per se and not only to ensure that things get done but to be aware of what one another is doing. If you're not aware, you're not appreciative, and if you're not appreciative, things can fall apart.

Practical Considerations:
Using this book with middle schoolers? No way.  I would even be reluctant to put this book in the hands of high schoolers because I don't think many of them have the life experience to fully appreciate Marquez's messages. In addition to the maturity of the content, Marquez's prose is difficult. He reminded me of a South American version of Hawthorne. Using this book as a gift for newlyweds? So going to happen.

The Literature Workshop: Authentic Interpretations

Here are some of the highlights from Sheridan D. Blau's chapter "Where Do Interpretations Come From?" in his book The Literature Workshop. In this chapter, Blau addresses the need for students to build confidence in their ability to "interpret" literature on their own.

"Scholes (Robert Scholes 1999) urges teachers to rescue literature from test makers and from student indifference by helping students see how it speaks to them as human beings rather than as test takers and technical analysts. And the first step toward that goal, for many teachers, he says, is to drop those writing assignments that focus on technical features of literary works (irony, theme, symbol, ect) " (102).

As a teacher of writing, I have lamented (and have heard lamentations from many other writing teachers) the lack of engagement and critical thinking that my students display in their writing. I twist every little sentence out of them, and by the end of the writing unit, I've been put through the wringer as much as they have. I'm exhausted, and I still don't feel like the student writing shows what my students can do because the ideas (and even some of the words and sentences) are mine - if I'm being honest with myself as I grade. What would my students do if I asked them to reflect authentically on a piece of literature and to write about their own personal interpretation? Would they have the confidence to do so? Would they flounder in a bewildered manner, beseeching me for an interpretation because the freedom and the faith in their thinking would be so unfamiliar to them? Blau argues that we should build confidence in our students by giving them the freedom to think about their reading and to form their own interpretations of the literature.


"First, it (the workshop) usually shows students that they are experienced interpreters of stories and that interpretation is not an activity that necessarily requires specialized training in English classes. Second, they see that their interpretations did not tend to focus on literary devices, and that what they did have to say was generally more important to say and more respectful of the story as an engaging narrative than any schooled observations they might have mechanically offered about literary devices" (114). 

Are we de-valuing literature when we ask our students to read a narrative and then ask them what they noticed about the tone? Didn't the writer intend for a more purposeful response than that? Literature seems to me to be one of the most natural subjects to lend itself to relevancy as students make their own connections and their own interpretations, yet we as teachers so often ignore this teaching opportunity. In addition, we want our students to think, and yet so many of our lessons and assignments strip our students of authentic thinking opportunities because we merely ask them to regurgitate what was lectured in class or what can be found on Sparknotes. I get the dilemma here. We often provide those stilted prompts because we have standardized tests to prepare these students for. They're going to see questions about tone, theme, symbolism, irony, ect. and we need to get them ready for those questions. Yet, Blau challenges us to expect more of our students and to prepare our students for bigger and better things than questions on the standardized test. By asking them to build confidence in their own interpretations, we're preparing them for a life of critical thinking and joyful reading.

The Literature Workshop: Thinking in the Writing Assignment

I stumbled across The Literature Workshop: Teaching Texts and Their Readers by Sheridan D. Blau when I was perusing Kelly Gallagher's Web site. On his blog, Gallagher had listed his top 15 favorite professional texts, and Blau's book was near the top of his list. I added the title to my Amazon wishlist, Christmas arrived, and this unpretentious text is my favorite gift from the holiday season. It's a rather small volume as professional texts go, and there's nothing flashy about the book, but whoofta, is it a gold mine of ideas!

Blau titles Chapter 7 of his book "Writing Assignments in Literature Classes: The Problem" and his analysis is so spot-on that I decided to dedicate a blog post to the illuminating chapter. Blau laments the lack of thinking found in so many secondary students' writing, and I am quick to agree that after I've read 20 class essays and still have 80 more to go, they've all started sounding the same. The ideas in the students' writing do not veer from any of the "safe" topics that were discussed in class, and very few students promote any independent thinking of their own.

Although it's easy to point the finger at the students and groan, "Ugh, they just won't think," Blau aptly notes that the way in which a teacher frames the assignment generally produces the papers it deserves. Touche.

I find at the middle school level, much of my instruction is focused on structure rather than content. My rubric contains criteria such as "a clear topic sentence in each body paragraph is supported by at least two pieces of textual evidence adequately explained". Many students at the middle school level require the scaffolding that I automatically provide with Step-Up to Writing outlines, and yet I also have had many students over the years who are ready to fly. They're ready to deviate from the formulaic writing prescribed by Step-Up because they "get" how to organize their essay. They're now ready to explore and experiment.

So there's framing mistake #1 on my part. Upon reflection, I think I have focused too much on structure, and in doing so, have stifled the importance of thinking. My second mistake is the stuffy prompts I often assign such as "What is the theme of this story?" Sounds open-ended enough on the surface, but if you've been in the classroom, you would know that we have beaten theme statements over-the-head relentlessly for probably near two weeks, and students have been buried in discussion about theme so that by the time students start drafting, it'd be difficult for them to come up with an original theme that has not already been discussed.

I'm curious if any other middle school English teachers (or perhaps high school teachers, too) find themselves focusing more on structure rather than on thinking? I'm also curious if anybody feels like I do in that some students have become reliant on the teacher to provide outlines and despite having "written" a handful of essays would be at a complete loss if the teacher didn't provide a graphic organizer complete with RDFs and Explains.

It's these very students who make me most reluctant to push students off the diving board into the "thinking pool" because I fear the lesson/unit/project/assignment would drown with a satisfying gurgle. How do you train students to think and ease them in, starting in the baby pool and moving steadily to the deep end? What's too much scaffolding and what's not enough? These are rhetorical questions, I know, because there is no right answer. Each class is different. Each student is different. But these are the questions I grapple with in my pursuit to provide the best learning experience for my kids.