At the end of this semester, we surveyed our students about the technology we've been using.  The results confirmed what Andrew and I had felt all semester - it was Just Too Much.  So here's what we decided to do (and perfectly matched our students' feedback):

Google Drive will be our primary learning management system.  Students will use the form at the tmiclass website for their period/course.  Once they fill out a simple google form, they will get an email with a link to the document that has been created, shared, and named (both the document title and heading are auto-created) appropriately.  That will cut down on the hundreds of "untitled document"s crowding our drive and will keep everything organised in folders perfectly.  All students will also need a gmail, which they will create if they don't already have one (or if they don't have a "professional" gmail).

MentorMob will be where our students keep their finished (major) assignments.  All essays, projects and large assignments will be organised in their own playlist.  That makes grading easy, and helps students find things quickly.  This was the mid-semester improvisation that made the biggest difference to our ability to be technologically effective.  The students LOVED using it.  They actually started adding things to their playlist even when it wasn't necessary.  We also use playlists for each unit, named in a standard way and shortened, like this: bit.ly/tmisax1 (where SAX=course title, and 1=unit number).

Our Course Website will be where students can find missing assignments, linked to playlists, the google form for document creation, and other important links.  We maintain a blog with a daily narrative of what we're working on and what's due.

For the Blank White Page project, we will be having students create a public blog on KidBlog.  We didn't use it well this semester, but the place it seems to fit better is as a place to reflect, brainstorm, and publish their BWP projects.  We won't grade this as such, but it also allows students to work with each other much more effectively; it also gives them something that has a wider audience than their own classmates and teacher.  I will be tweeting out good entries using the hashtag #comments4kids to solicit feedback for them.  

It's so important to start using new media effectively, and this will give them a taste of that, as well as a more academic digital footprint (which is incredibly important, especially since so many Redwood students are bound for a four year competitive college).  However, we won't be introducing this until the end of the first unit so that we don't overwhelm them from the beginning.

I will be encouraging students to communicate with me through gmail and twitter, but we won't be requiring them to sign up for twitter.  However, it's always the fastest way to reach me if they have questions, so I'll do a little "Twitter 101" video to show them how it works.  We'll also need them to have YouTube accounts, but that's pretty easy with a gmail.  Finally, many will sign up for bitly or another link shortener because they find it so useful.  But it won't be required.

It still seems like a lot of technology, but we believe each has a place, and our system will allow for us to be far more organised and effective this semester.  Plus, all of these have legitimate real-world applications and will benefit them even after they leave our class.

So in about a week and a half, I start over.  Andrew and I have been brainstorming a way to start the semester, given that about 1/3 of each class will be returning students and the rest new.  I've wished more than once that I could just keep all my kids until the end of the year - we are at the point where the real amazing movement and progress is possible.

But there's no point in looking back.  It's time to move forward.

So the best idea we had was about reading.  All three of my classes are reading heavy - four to six novels in the semester.  I've really struggled with how to do reading in a way that fits with the mindset that Andrew and I have pedagogically and the context I have practically.  I don't want students to have to do all the reading at home.  We know that doesn't work for most of them, and it's often the homework left for last - many times, following 3-4 hours of homework into the early hours of the morning. 

So there has to be a way to give students the ability to use class time to read; that, paired with the ways that I'm encouraging reading rather than punishing the lack of reading, means that students won't have the stress that normally accompanies the teaching of a novel.  And part of that process is helping students explore why reading is so important.

So why do we read?  That's the question that will kick off our Explore-Flip-Apply mini-unit for all three classes.  From reading the essays from my Essay Exposition class about their experience in English thus far, it's clear that they do not understand why we're asking them to read books that have little to do with them or their lives.

Again - why are we asking them to read these books?  

It's because we believe that literature has a universality that can speak to the experiences that make us human.  Books tell us what it means to love, how to grieve well for lost love, why friendship is essential, how travel broadens our horizons.  They connect us to people with whom we have no connection, and will never know.  They show us the range of human experience and guide us through challenges and successes.

But more importantly for English teachers, literature is a vehicle to get our students to write and think critically.  Not to say that the "universality of human experience" angle isn't important - that's certainly the reason that adults continue to read after their education is complete.  But for our students, we use the characters, the plot, the setting and the writing itself to show them how we have analytical conversations, how to build a rational argument in writing, and to make connections.

But what do our students see?  They see us asking them to analyse the development of a main character.  They see us asking them to write a business letter in the voice of a character.  They see us assign reading quizzes and journals that ask them to interpret specific passages through a critical lens.

They don't see that all of those things are building their ability to become strong critical thinkers.  Is it any wonder that they push back against reading?  Is it any wonder that they don't see reading as important?

For our first unit, we want them to see both sides.  I have a feeling they can generate the "universality of human experience" answer, and that is what they will do on day one.  We will pose the question - why read literature? - we will see the reasons they develop.  Then for "homework" that first night, we will have students watch a short video where Andrew and I talk about why we use literature to teach our classes - and they will take notes.  

The next day, they will be in the computer lab and will be introduced to Google Drive and the AutoCrat script* we'll be using to create new documents for each assignment.  Once that is set up, we will compile the notes students took the night before onto a collaborative note-taking document.  The idea is that they start to develop note-taking strategies that will serve them well in college.  They will not often need to take notes in our class (rarely is there direct instruction, rarely is note-taking required while watching a video, and rarely do we assign ANY homework, let alone a video with notes) but working on collaborative documents will set the foundation for the CO-Lab partner work we will do later.  Then they will work on a reading timeline for their own life.  

The last two days of the mini-unit will be a Socratic Seminar (with collaborative note-taking, live during class and a backchannel discussion**) on why reading literature is important for high schoolers and a short vignette about a meaningful literary experience, positive or negative, from their own life.

The hope is that showing them that reading is about more than getting a grade, hearing about heartbreak, analysing a symbol, or memorising plot points will help them see the relevance of the reading we'll be doing.

The next portion of the unit will be watching Derren Brown's Apocalypse, which plays with the notion of a zombie apocalypse and uses a strong literary reference to The Wizard of Oz...yet another reason to read: so you understand references in popular culture.

I'd love to hear your reasons for why people should read literature.  Having a list of reasons for our video that draw from our PLN would be amazing.

*The amazing thing about this script is that students fill out a google form on the tmiclass.com website, then get emailed a document that is automatically shared with us, dropped in the correct folder, and titled with a standard naming convention.  It's pretty much the coolest thing in the entire world.  Second to collaboration, I guess.


**During our Socratic Seminar at the beginning of the year, I introduced a format I used for reading and watching movies last year and wrote about here on the blog.  Essentially, I open a todaysmeet.com thread, and display it on the front board.  Students then choose inner circle - talking - or outer circle - participating on the todaysmeet thread.  Then there is one students responsible for bringing in the interesting ideas from the students in the outer circle.  Started using this structure in September, and students have loved it and told me that it drastically lowers the anxiety associated with how they have been graded for discussions in the past.

My brother wants to be a writer.  He has lots of time on his hands.

So I put together my entire Essay Exposition course so he could work through it unit by unit (it was part of his Christmas present, actually).

In the spirit of giving, here's what I did.  I will use this structure again if I get to teach this course next year (it's probably my all-time favourite class to teach, actually) but I will make some improvements to give them more feedback in 1:1 settings.

Now, you lose a lot without all the discussion we had.  This is just the reading we did and the writing we did.  There were daily discussions and frequent seminars on all the reading assignments and workshopping the students' writing.  

If you use these assignments or ideas, please credit both me and Andrew Thomasson.  Almost all of this is straight from the tmi shared brain.

To see the unit plans, follow the link.  If any documents are not available, comment here or send me an email.

And Merry Christmas everyone!

When I told my colleagues in the English department what I was doing - giving intense and personalised feedback on all major writing assignments over the semester - for my Essay Exposition final, they overwhelmingly thought one thing:

Those kids will NEVER read it.

As English teachers, we know how frustrating it is to read essays for hours, make thoughtful comments, and then hand back the papers that have only one letter students care about.  After they see the letter written in red at the end, they often discard the comments.

That was so foreign to me when I started teaching.  In high school and college, I was almost as interested in the comments as I was in the grade.  And I always read the comments first, and tried to figure out what the grade would be before I got there.

Why did the feedback mean so much to me, and so little to my students?  

So I did something drastic: I stopped giving them a grade on their essays.

I taught an Essay class where they never got a grade for a piece of writing.  I gave them credit for meeting the requirements, yes.  But never for the quality of their writing.  And contrary to what many people would think, I don't have all A's or F's in my class.  I have a pretty even spread, pushed towards the higher end - as expected in a class where students voluntarily sign up to take a class where they write dozens of essays.  I had one F (in the high 50's), two D's, a handful of C's and the rest A's and B's.

That being said, I wanted them to divorce grades from writing.  I wanted them to have the freedom to explore the topics and voices they didn't yet own.  I wanted to see the creativity they had, not the structure they had learned.

So what did they do when I gave them the intensely individual, focused and detailed feedback form?  The one that I spent 30-60 minutes on per student?

When I handed them back, there was several moments of near total silence.  They read what I wrote.  They shared with their group members.  They came to ask questions about what I wrote.  I didn't find a single feedback paper on the desks, in the trash, or on the floor in the hallway.

And not one of them asked about their grade.  

Instead, we had conversations about their writing.

One of the proudest moments of my career.

This is the second post from my Essay Exposition class.  This student, Leila, wrote a beautiful final essay on the purpose of school and what changes need to be made for students to be able to get the best possible education. 

It was a synthesis essay - they had to include vivid descriptive narratives (in italics) alongside their arguments.  Leila did a great job and I wanted to share her essay, unaltered (except for paragraphing to make it more readable on this blog).

Please leave comments - I'll pass them on to her.

**

Sitting down at my desk late at night - the once clear surface cluttered with textbooks, worksheets, and eraser shavings - I often contemplate, what is the purpose of all this? I imagine that in the inception of the concept of school, the creators had the best intentions in mind. 

The idea is amazing - to be able to engage in a worldwide sharing of knowledge we have come to known as teaching. 

They hoped to grow their community and world through education that would translate to scientists with great inventions, business leaders with wit and skill, and writers who scour the human soul and mind to expose our flaws and flatter our successes. 

They hoped to enrich the lives of the people for the better of the community, and everyone would benefit. 

After all these years, birthed from an idea that reflects true humanitarianism, where are we now? 

I see students showing disdain as they make their way to their hard plastic desk in Pre-calculus, and dragging their feet into their chemistry class, knowing an hour long lecture is imminent. I see this and I ask why: 

Why is it that these students don’t find beauty in education and learning? 
Why don’t they see the bright colors and the actions of molecules of a chemical reaction dancing around their head? 
Why don’t they marvel at the images that only the greatest writer can bring to their mind? 
Where are we guiding the future world when most of the student population shows such disgust for learning? 

Something has gone terribly wrong when the future CEO’s, doctors, and scientists dread the official institution of learning. Where is the inspiration? Our education system is plagued with insurmountable problems and no effective solutions.

The true purpose of school is to grow truly passionate people. The kind of people who look at a previously unsolvable, giant math problem with a sparkle in their eye. People whose lips curl into an excited grin when healing a patient back to health. People who gaze dreamily into literature and poetry, admiring the beauty in words that was carefully woven by the author. Any institution that does not inspire learning into the hearts and minds of students is one that murders education and is slowly killing the childish curiosity that lies within each of us.

The real flaws in the education system begin with its failure to spark the desire to learn in its students. The system as is must be mostly scrapped in order to grow true scholars who are worthy of the fantastic world they will be inheriting. The biggest problem nationwide with the system is the method of teaching ideas. All students have experienced first hand a teacher whom they grow to loathe after countless weeks of the same, boring instruction. Not really learning anything but instead cramming knowledge into their aching brain then releasing it into the air after a test. My experience with chemistry at this school has not been the best and it has been purely my personal love for the subject that I have cultivated myself that has kept me at it.

I remember walking timidly into class one morning only to expect that, yes, she was yelling at another kid again. Probably for no good reason. My 14 year-old heart beat rapidly as I passed the demon and scurried to my seat. The students on either sides blurred in my focused vision, extra peripheral details in the hope to make it to my seat without a snarky comment. I opened my notebook quickly so she could not pick on me for that fact and others rushed to do the same. 

I didn’t realize it then but now, looking back, she had us all truly under her thumb. It was like a dictator to her subjects, you didn’t dare to ask her a question. The powerpoint lecture droned on, and I found myself looking up at the periodic patterns and trends with awe and the bonding types with curious eyes but I realised I wasn’t really learning. The teacher would click to the next slide, read the bullets with slightly different words, wait for us to copy down some important words, and then move on. It was a rhythmic beating; click, read, copy, click, read, copy... and on and on. It was synonymous with the pulse of the clock, ticking away the chance for a valuable lesson. 

I imagine it was aimed to dig the concepts deep into our brains through some sort of repetition. No topic was ever explained and I can see how difficult it was for those who didn’t particularly like chemistry. I imagine they struggled with the lack of inspiration, the inability to ask a question for fear of the rage that would lash back at them. It was like a silent drowning. No student who wishes to understand should feel like this. Teachers must be people who enrich the learning process, who aim for true understanding instead of high marks on a standardized test. Questions should not be shut down because of a lack of “time” but instead entertained and deeply thought about for the expansion of our curiosity. Where will the world go when children are taught that questions are a nuisance and that they take time away from the “real” learning? This is something in the institution that must change. There is no way the children who are to handle the future can be trained with this low level of education. We must raise the standards of our teachers in order to get a higher level of knowledge and achievement out the other end.

Imagine sitting in English class, just like you have for the last 97 days and just like you will for the next 83. This class has become a rut, a routine, of reading a book then writing an analysis and then moving to a new book. The chosen material is boring and rarely stimulating, nothing you would have chosen on your own. There is no deep and beautiful language, no crazy cliffhangers that let you imagine, no real suspense that you used to enjoy in your personal reading. But there’s no time for that. You have hours of homework waiting for you at home, college research, SAT studying, ACT studying, summer internship applications, AP tests to start preparing for, SAT II Subject tests to choose and get ready for, Finals...It’s all too much. You find that this book in your hands is your only relationship with literature. 

It is believed by some that the behavior of a person is a collection of their experiences. One can be changed, be moved by a single book - even a single line. One’s whole life can be put into perspective by an incredible novel. An English teacher holds more power than they may know. They have the power to inspire, to change, to enlighten, but also to distress and to discourage. 


In my hands I hold Macbeth by Shakespeare. I know its reputation. It’s supposed to be one of the greatest pieces in literary history. It is by Shakespeare after all so it must be amazing, right? I open the old and cracking book to the right page and am completely blown away by the language. It is one of the most beautiful things I had ever read, but I only had a vague idea of what it all meant. And I felt that was what made it even more beautiful. I felt like the romantics felt, for the first time in my life - as a science geek - being perfectly fine with something I didn’t completely understand. My senses overwhelmed by the complexity in tongue, the meanings that drifted into my open mind that directly related to me. I felt the old worn covers between my fingers and felt like I was part of a long dynasty of readers who experienced this book, and each one in a different way. And that to me was absolutely incredible. 


But my romantic idea of creativity in personal analysis did not last long. My teacher called the class to attention and began writing Shakespeare quotes on the board for the class to “translate.” My eyebrows ruffled in confusion. I knew what I thought it meant, but was that was he was looking for? I stumbled over the first couple, almost missing the meanings completely. “To The Last syllable of recorded time,
 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 
The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
 Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
 That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.” I see beauty in just that. There is no need to translate it into simple prose, it almost takes away from the loveliness. As the Macbeth unit went along, I got terrible grades on every single quiz because I couldn’t remember the color of Lady Macbeth’s robes or who Macbeth was directly talking to when he spoke a cryptic phrase in a room full of 3 others. I was so frustrated. So defeated. I vowed I would never pick up Shakespeare again for all the scars it had left me. 

English class should be solely about creating more worldly and intelligent individuals, capable of analyzing themselves and the world around them. Exposing them to ideas and never-before-seen literary masterpieces and asking them what they think.  Opening their eyes to new possibilities and making them passionate. We don’t raise a Hemingway by memorization of frivolous details. We don’t inspire a Bradbury by translating once beautiful, descriptive language into dumbed down prose. The English system must reevaluate its goals in order to breathe life back into the cooled coals of the curriculum.

Unfortunately for us students, the purpose of school is not always the reality. Instead our reality is clouded with the number one stress in a teenager’s life – grades.  I constantly find my head throbbing with a headache after looking at my slowly dropping grade in AP US History. My terrifyingly fluctuating grade in AP Chemistry. 

My fingers clutching the computer mouse as I slowly scroll down to the verdict of this week. Thousands of pixels rushing by my eyes, none bringing the reassurance that I so desperately need. Hoping that clicking refresh will somehow change the digitized disappointment. I sit in the dark at my desk, long past the bedtime my eyes and brain urge me to follow. My weak fluorescent light brightens a small circle on my desk, I feel like a fly, bound to that light for hours, even more glued to my computer screen now. The thought of a crabby college admissions officer looking over the few average marks and shrugging, throwing my entire life into the “meh” category. 

This is the ultimate driving fear. The fear that keeps me up at my desk into the late hours of the night. 

Working for a grade. A letter: A. 

It is as if all of my existence in the school system can be described in a single letter. Is that all I am? Is that all I can show to colleges about who I am as a learner? I find myself getting discouraged with a B grade. There is no reason to try anymore if it is impossible for me to get the A. No longer is there a drive to learn. I can see that most kids come to school for credit and credit alone. The drive is for the grade to get into college so we can drive to get more good grades to get into graduate school and to eventually graduate and get a great job. There is no desire to be worldly or philosophical. No pull to be the best there ever was. Just to make it to that next small step directly in front of us. Schools today do not stress the ideas of true educational success in making your own path, in being innovative and a great thinker. If you do not fit in with their system you are an “average” person, if not worse.

Can students really be assessed with anything  more humane than a scantron, or is everything merely black or white, true or false? In the face of a 1984-like classroom experience and unmemorable lessons on literature, what is expected to be left of the once curious child? I see a student beaten to the ground by the unfair system and although eager to learn, hindered by grades and inadequate teachers. 

For me, these changes would mean the difference between heart-wrenching stress and enlightenment. I would mean a teacher who encourages their students to explore outside of the classroom with internships and educational opportunities, not just what they need to know for the next test. 

I feel like my entire being revolves around my grades, they are what define me. And that is a sad and terrible way to think. 

I want to be much more than a one page resumé, and the key to that is reform to the educational system. 

Our children’s future - and sanity - depends on it.

Tonight I don't have much time to write.  

But the reason why I don't have time is important:

I'm reading every major assignment my Essay Exposition (SAX) class has produced.  I'm going through 22 assignments, including a 4-10 page final essay about the purpose of school and how Redwood should be changed to meet the purpose of school more accurately.  All of them have been added to a Mentor Mob playlist that the student manages, and hosted through a master MM playlist that I manage.  It's a system that makes it really easy for me, but is also helpful for them.

Then, after I've read everything (much of which I haven't read - I worked with them intensely on just a few select pieces through the semester) I'm giving them feedback on specific essays (both on paper and as comments on their Google Docs).  I'm analysing their voice and how it's changed.  I'm seeing so many amazing sentences, paragraphs, ideas, and structures that it's pretty easy to tell them how much they've improved and how good I think they are now.

Is it crazy to try and give them feedback like this?  Probably.

But if any teacher had done this for me at any point, I might have gotten much better at writing much earlier in life.

Here's what I'm noticing:  I really really like their writing.  And the assignments did just what they were intended to do - make them a better writer with better ideas and better ways of expressing those ideas.

Here are the writing assignments from the semester:

• 3-5 page definition essay on a memorable experience
• 2-4 page photo essay about literacy
• 2-3 page Snapshot of a Redwood Learner essay
• mixed media format Blank White Page project
• short Narrative List (similar to McSweeneys lists)
• 2-3 page Style Alike Essay on a McSweeneys piece
• 1-2 page New Food Review
• 4-10 page musicology project (with a YouTube playlist of all the songs)
• short Clearing the Attic prompt
• 1-2 page observation piece
• 2-3 page Your Choice Assignment #1
• 2-3 page Your Choice Assignment #2
• 2-4 page If You Really Knew Me essay
• 2-3 page Reading Timeline and Vignettes
• 100-500 word Exploded Image
• 300 word Write Something New (i.e. write something. anything. that's new)
• 300 word Exploded Image on the topic of homework
• revised writing conference piece (a choice from any of the essays we wrote)
• 4-10 page final essay on the purpose of school
• 2 page evaluation of the course
• 300 words-1 page analysis of their writing voice

Wow.  That's actually a lot.  And that's not even everything they wrote. 

Also, any success I've had in this course was due entirely to Andrew Thomasson, who taught me how to do all of this, helped me design and teach the course, and even did writing conferences with me and my students.

Okay.  Back to work.

Today's post comes from a student in my Essay Exposition class.  His name is Justin.

He wrote his final essay - changes he would make to our current educational system - and his response was so good it needed to be posted here.  

So here's his work.  I will pass on any comments to him.

**

Now, of all the classes that have been offered to me over my years as a student, my interest in English has continuously been on another level from the rest. Mainly due to a mixture of my appreciation of reading and love for writing, accompanied by my burning hatred for math and science. The examination of underlying meanings in everyday text as well as the exploration of numerous writing techniques have never failed to capture my imagination. The teachers are generally very knowledgeable and the class as a whole, very engaging. But it seems that nowadays its not too hard for English classes to lose their edge. More often than not, the class gets wound too tightly into a dull knot of repetitive essays, most of which get a quick letter grade and some nice comments scribbled into the margins. 

Then, there's the reading. The tortuous chapters written by the likes of Shakespeare and Homer that seemingly hold our minds upside down while they’re beaten repeatedly until thoroughly deformed. And where does this torture lead us to? Just another 100 page essay, 9 out of 10 times requiring a loaded explanation of the “purpose” of the text. And once more, the only clarification we are given -  the assurance that we are even in the ballpark of understanding these texts - is just another letter and a “nice job” scribbled in illegible red ink. 

I don’t see how through this structure we can grow as readers and writers. With no constructive feedback, no instruction, and no one-on-one interaction, how are we to even know if our ideas are legitimate, or our opinions well-driven? As students in High School, we need clarification from our teachers, and from our class. It provides us with necessary confidence and keeps us out of the dark. 

In my personal opinion, the best way to achieve this, is through transforming the dynamic of English classes to make them more discussion-based. Based on personal experience, there is no better way for me to learn about any given topic, than through an interactive and free-flowing Socratic Seminar. Especially in an English class setting, the most efficient way to gain understanding of a text or writing style is too share ideas and opinions with classmates. Through sharing, deep discussion, and occasional healthy debate, it is nearly guaranteed that each and every student will come out with enhanced knowledge and useful clarification over the subject matter. 

This is vital understanding that can not be provided through letter grades and mere margin comments. 

Picture this:
“Everyone who wants to participate, jump in the circle, and those who don’t, get out your phones and sign into the discussion on the screen.” 

I don’t really get why kids actually choose to stay out. If you’re going to go out of your way to elect a writing class, what’s the point of sitting out of a seminar on what makes a good essay? I ponder it over for a few seconds before I hop over the chair situated conveniently in the circle. 6 other apparently brave souls take their seats as well. Ms. Morris looks over us from her podium, and initiates the conversation. 

We start with a small idea; something simple, maybe even obvious. We all acknowledge it, and then get rolling. That's the beauty of a Socratic Seminar - that it really doesn’t matter what you say, because there is no wrong answer. We build off whatever is thrown out. The discussion expands, straying away from grammatical topics and moving towards ideas about the task of connecting to a reader. Within each general topic, we throw out personal experiences, various attained opinions, and friendly acknowledgement. The digging continues, leaving nothing off the table of discussion, listening to one another with open minds and valuing their input. 

Something peculiar takes form in these conversations. The freedom we create for one another melded with the common commitment to explore deeper meanings, connects us in a manner unrealized by those outside the circle. We are not merely spitting out artificial chatter in hopes of impressing the teacher; on the contrary, we are building off the opinions of one another, working as a unit to gain understanding. Transitioning through debates, laughs, and agreements, we experience a learning tool that for a reason, especially puzzling to us in the moment, is rarely used nowadays. 

Eventually the discussion does come to an end, the bell does ring, and the day does continue. But after a rejuvenating class session like this, I feel engaged, and turned off at the idea of sitting through a lecture in my next class. Unfortunately for me, the clock works on its own schedule, and the teachers, by their own agenda...

I've been thinking about beginnings and endings a lot lately.  The nature of my current assignment is that I only get a semester with my students, then I hand them over to another teacher for the remainder of the year.  I do get to keep some, but they are shuffled into different periods and courses.  I also am teaching three brand new courses - one of which has never existed at Redwood, and perhaps has never been taught in any high school context.

I think about where my students started.  Where Andrew and I started.

We had so many ideas.  So much hope.

And we failed SO much.

When the semester started, we had TECHNOLOGY and MASTERY and CROSS-COUNTRY COLLABORATION...

...but we forgot to build a classroom community that could sustain those major changes.  We forgot that our students needed to know us, not just be in the room with us.  We forgot that our students needed a reason for the technology we were using, rather than just being told it was important.

When things didn't work according to our Master Plan, we had two choices: give up or fight back.

Well, really we had four choices: give up on everything, give up on each other and just go it alone in the classroom, fight back against each other and let that destroy our classroom along with our relationship, or to redouble our efforts and fight side-by-side to fix the problems.  

We chose side-by-side.  And after a lot of hard work - on ourselves, on our partnership, on our friendship, and on our practice in the classroom - we started to turn the corner.

Today I saw evidence of that.

3rd period has been my most challenging class in many ways.  I have 2 sets of identical twins, a 35% SPED rate, 6 girls out of 30 students, and a group who seemed to fight me every step of the way.  But today, we had a final seminar about the nature of humour, on the course and what they learned, and what I should do next semester so my students can get an even better teacher and classroom.

Here's some of what they said:

• You guided us in this course, but we were the ones who were driving the curriculum.  Whatever we needed, you helped us find.  Whatever we were interested in, you used it to help us get better.
• After our "Come to Jesus" talk in October (the one where we established the norms we needed for class to run successfully), we all started to feel like we were responsible for our learning.  We knew what we were supposed to do, but you didn't force us to change. We established the patterns of change for ourselves and you helped us take ownership of those changes.
• We've never had a course in English where we felt like it was relevant to our lives in the way this one was.  Everything we did in here was helpful in a way that we can translate to other classes, to college and to careers.
• We got to decipher what made something funny - and instead of killing the joke, it allowed us to understand it better.  And we got to produce funny stuff - including a pretty epic Socratic Seminar todaysmeet thread from this final discussion, that became a true work of humour in and of itself.
• The writing we did in this class was much more creative than the writing we've done before, but we also get the freedom to try out different styles and voices and see how they fit for us.  We got to take risks, and we didn't have to be afraid that our grades would suffer.
• All that being said, we expected this to be a joke of a class (pun intended, obviously).  We expected it to be sitting around, watching YouTube videos, and not doing much. But this class wasn't an easy A - you had to work really hard and learn a lot to get an A. The pace was really fast, but if you used class time well, you would never have to do any work out of class.

Their message was clear:

This class was successful because WE were successful.  Change a few things to streamline the process.  But we learned, we took ownership, we were inspired, and we wish we could keep going until June.

Me too.

**

I didn't have to stand up and lecture to teach them something of value.  I also didn't have to make them write 10 pages essays to get them to be analytical and critical thinkers.  I didn't have to push them to be creative either - I just had to remove the restrictions that kept them constrained.

I'm not saying that this semester was a complete success.  

There was one more thing that happened today that reminded me of why I teach this way.

It's a student that hadn't talked to me much.  He always did the work, but sometimes it felt like he was a little checked out.  He came in after school today and told me that he wanted to get the chance to tell me personally how much the class had meant to him.  He learned a lot, he appreciated me and the way the class was run, and he really hoped he would be in my class again next semester.  We looked up his schedule and both were pretty excited to see that he was staying with me in San Francisco Stories next semester. 

This all happened while I was on the customary afternoon G+ hangout with Andrew.  Andrew said that he wished he had been faster so he could have recorded it because it crystalised exactly what we wanted:

A student who had been transformed by our class.

And in a few weeks, we start over.  But we start with a few kids just like him, bought in, passionate, and skilled, we will get a pretty good head-start.

I've always loved writing, but I haven't always been good at it.

And I've never been good at teaching writing.  I think that's because I never was taught how to write.  I was given writing instruction, sure, but the attitude of my teachers was that writing was something you just got better at when you practiced more.  They focused on helping me develop my ideas and not so much on how to structure those ideas so they made sense to the reader.

That might be giving them too much credit.  I don't remember ANYONE telling me how to write.  I do remember being encouraged to write on a variety of subjects in low-stakes assignments, but that was mostly in college English classes.

I also remember my creativity being discouraged actively, mostly in high school.

My high school grammar teacher (we spent half the year in literature, and half in grammar) would give us daily journals.  We had to write 20 lines, and the topics were things like, "Imagine sliding down a hill" or "What is a song you like, and why do you like it?"

So I decided to start writing an epic short story.  One that would incorporate the topic every day, but would be about this community of elves.  Ones that had mysterious adventures, like sliding down hills while composing their own inspirational tunes.  Where characters were developed and put in situations where they could be tested, or they could demonstrate their true nature.

After two weeks, she collected our journals.  I waited for her feedback anxiously, as I believed my Elf Soap Opera was my greatest writing achievement yet.

I still remember what she wrote at the bottom of the last journal entry:

This is not appropriate and if you continue to not write about the assigned topics, I will give you a zero on every one.  In fact, I will give you a zero if you even use the word "elf" in another journal.

I cared too much about my grade to push it any farther.  But it was just another event, in a long string of events, that convinced me that I needed to stop believing that people would understand me or see me for who I really was.

I got an A in that class.  But my writing didn't improve; in fact, my confidence as a writer dropped significantly, as a result of having a teacher who meant well, but couldn't see me as anything except a kid trying to get out of an assignment.

I never wrote on a creative topic again in high school.

**

I had forgotten about that until a student in my Essay class mentioned that he had done something similar and had a similar consequence for it.  He asked me what I would have done if he had done that for my class.  My answer was simple: I would have written him a comment that told him what I liked about it.  If it didn't meet the requirements of the assignment, I would ask that he make sure he did that next time.

This was in the context of a discussion about how writing instruction is done here at the school.  What my students said was that, at this level, there are just expected to know how to write already.  They said that, other than a few comments on essays and a grade, they hadn't had much instruction in how to improve their writing.  They knew how to write a five-paragraph essay.  But when asked to do a creative topic, they would completely blank out.

They started naming things they wished they could have had in their English classes:

• individual writing conferences, where they are given specific feedback on what to improve and how to deal with problems they struggled when writing in general
• freedom to write something without obsessing about a grade
• the ability to explore interesting ideas without worrying about how many sentences in a paragraph, or how many paragraphs were required
• instruction on how to take their ideas and make it work in writing
• help in developing and honing their voice as a writer

Basically, the exact same goals I had for them at the start of the class.


We did one-on-one conferences (took three weeks of class time), and when I asked them if that had been helpful (and worth the three weeks it took), they said it was probably the most helpful thing we did all semester.

I disconnected writing from grading.  Nothing they wrote for me received a grade (with three exceptions, which I'll talk about in a minute).  If they completed the assignment, they got 100%.  If they didn't complete it or it didn't meet the requirements, it got a 0%.  My theory was that frequent writing practice would build their confidence and ability, and that they had to stop seeing writing as a transaction; good writing evolves and develops, and the idea only ever grading first drafts is not attractive to me.  

Andrew Thomasson and I do a lot of writing together (like, at the same time in a shared Google Doc), so this has really helped me refine my theory on writing instruction.  We have written numerous guest posts (including one next week for the 12 Days of Dreaming project over at Educational Dreamer) and what we have found is that our first drafts suck.  Sure, they say what we think we want to say, but they never say what we NEED to say.  It takes a lot of refining (and often starting over altogether) to find the version we think represents us best.  If our first draft was published, it would be far less than mediocre, and not even a glimmer of what the final product ends up being.

I apply that principal to my students - some drafts are worth refining, and others aren't.  That's why the three assignments I am actually grading are:

1. The essay they chose to have a writing conference on.  Their task was to revise it after their conference, given the feedback and discussion we had.  I only graded it on the things I asked them to work on.  Most of the time, that was a bit of structure, a bit of organisation, and a bit of concept.  
2. The final essay, which is a synthesis of about 50% of the writing they did over the entire course.  It included short descriptive vignettes, which Andrew and I call an "Exploded Image."  It included making an argument and supporting it with evidence.  It included a narrative structure that used elements of a narrative toolkit we developed.  So in effect, I'm grading their ability to perform all those various tasks successfully, as well as their ability to synthesise the information.
3. Their analysis of their own voice and how it has developed in this class.  The assignment is here if you're interested.  It yielded some interesting results.  The reason I'm grading this one is that I want to see their analytical ability, as well as their ability to find patterns (another of the course mega-themes).

Those are the only assignments graded in a more traditional way.  The rest is credit/no credit.  My students told me that it was liberating to be able to write without worrying about points being deducted for a misspelled word, or an incomplete transition.  They also said it allowed them to try on different styles and experiment with ideas that aren't typically found in an "academic" writing assignment.  Some of those yielded the most successful pieces of the semester for my students.

As to helping them find their voice and develop their ideas, the way I did that was through a lot of discussion and feedback.  We wrote every essay in class.  During that time, I would work with individual students on how to best get across their idea and how to make it sound like their authentic voice.  We also had collaborative partnerships, where students would help each other by reading and making comments on ideas only - not on grammar or spelling or other mechanics.  Sometimes they would comment on structure and organisation, but mostly it was about helping the writer develop ideas.  We had discussions about purpose and audience, and how style influenced and was influenced by both the purpose and audience.  I showed them my writing, and they took it apart.  We did the same with some of theirs.

Here's what I didn't teach:

1. That writing should be a single draft activity, where we write something then move on to something else
2. That structure is more important than content
3. That the five-paragraph essay is valuable
4. That all genres of writing are the same, and use the same structures
5. That there are strict rules that all writers follow
6. That the most important thing is completion
7. That writing is an individual activity
8. That we should never experiment or try new ideas
9. That there are "right answers" in writing
10. That the teacher is the audience for all of their writing

I have the great privilege of teaching students who have a lot of training in basic essay structure, who have great vocabularies, and who have great academic behaviours.  Their struggles are more with anything that is different from what they are used to - they haven't been asked to be creative or collaborative much, unless it's in structured ways.

I know that this is probably more freedom than many teachers have, and that my students' academic background is much stronger than most.  But I also see that their writing at the beginning of the semester has improved dramatically.  They went from writing five-paragraph-style essays, and now have much more complex systems of organisation that will serve them well in college.  Their descriptive and observational writing is so much stronger, and vivid.  

And they feel something I never felt in high school: that their voice, what make them unique, is valued by a teacher.  That they can be themselves - even if that is something still in the process of being developed and refined.  That they don't have to worry about a grade and can take risks.  That they have peers who understand and support them, and will help them become better writers.

That their writing is, like them, a work in progress.

It's easy to write about my successes here on this blog.  Celebrate the things that are going well.  Conveniently ignore the things that haven't gone so well.

And despite my success in building a completely student-centred classroom in four periods, I still had one that Just. Wasn't. There.

So going in to the final block period of the year, I wasn't happy with their progress.  They needed me to manage their behaviour still.  They still asked me about grades, constantly (which Drives Me Crazy). And their grades were the lowest of any of my classes.

Something had to change.  So I sat there, watching them take the final quiz for the novel, Indian Country.  It has actually been a massively successful unit.  We've had very interesting discussions, they've reflected a lot, engaged with the characters in the novel, and they've been encouraged to read, rather than being punished for not reading, or doing it out of fear of failing or falling behind.  But I'm still the one directing the learning;  it's not anything like my other classes, where they show up and just get right to work, sometimes without me even asking.

I felt like a failure, sitting there in front of my students who were pretending to take the quiz seriously but really wanted to just get it done and talk about the stress of finals, the drama of relationships, and the holidays that are quickly approaching.  

But I had an idea.  One that worked in the other classes.  I knew the other classes were FAR more ready for the responsibility when I handed it over.  And even knowing that, I decided that I was going to just let go.  Get out of the way.  And see what happened.

I told them that my other classes had been in control for longer.  I asked them why they thought their class wasn't ready.  We talk too much, they said.  We aren't motivated enough, they said.  We don't know the rest of the class (outside our group), they said.

But they were wrong.  Here's the REAL issue: they have never been asked to take control of their behaviour or education.  They've been punished, coerced, manipulated, guilted, and pushed.  They've rarely done something out of their own drive; most of the time, they've needed someone to drive them.  They've never been asked to be creative...well, that's not entirely true.  They haven't been asked to be creative for a really long time.  When I said that, no one argued.  They actually agreed with me.

So I told them we were going to do something about that.  They had the rest of the period today, class on Friday and Monday, and the two hour final.  They had to write their final essay during that time.  But otherwise, they could design the final activities and plan how to use the class time for the rest of the year.

Then I sat down.  With little expectation.

For about ten minutes, the groups just talked, as usual.  A few good ideas were suggested in those individual groups, but they weren't listening to each other.  So I decided to give them one bit of help.  I walked over to Andrew - the only person who regularly stood up to lead the others and take control; he did it through a unique, unexpected and engaging personality.  And people listened when he talked.  I told him that he was the main hope if the class was going to do something productive together.

He accepted the challenge and I sat back down.  Again, I had little expectation of something productive happening, but Andrew IS pretty awesome (seems to be a pattern that's true of most Andrews I've met).

He went up to the front and asked everyone what they wanted to do.  They came up with several options for a whole-class project - a rap cypher, a music video, a collage...

And after lots of discussion, the two best (most popular) ideas emerged:

1. A Socratic Seminar on the Big Ideas - the meaning of life, what love really is, human nature...all the things we had talked about all semester.  They thought they could finally draw some conclusions now that the course was almost over. 
   
2. An Album - they each would have two pages (both sides of one 8 1/2 x 11), and one side would be for a writing assignment about what they learned in the course.  The second side would be a collage, either digital or on paper, to represent Who They Are as a person. 

They planned out the rest of the days of the semester - start the writing today, write the final essay on Friday (as planned), work on the image part of the album on Monday, and on the final day, compile the album, have the seminar, and bring food to share.

I added a few modifications: I told them I thought they should make the album digital so that they could always have access to it.  I also told them I'd like them to include the one assignment for the class that they were most proud of - a project, an essay, or even a journal or their Blank White Page project.  I told them that, with the help of Mr. Thomasson's Desktop Publishing class, we could put it all together so that videos would be embedded, and the pages linked together coherently as a webpage.

The one flaw in the plan for doing a group project was that some people had started their own individual final project.  I asked them for a solution, as most people were way more excited about the group project.  They suggested that if people completed their individual final project in addition to the album, that they could replace their lowest grade, or a missing grade for any assignment from the semester.  I thought that was fair - trading a project on which they spent time and effort and that showed something they had learned was a fair trade for a missing journal assignment, or quickwrite, or class discussion.

I don't know how this will turn out.  Their final project might be something that doesn't show mastery of learning, or pride in their work.  It may fall to the eight students who tend to carry the class anyway to make it successful.

**

It's hard to admit that I have one class that requires a teacher-centred approach, discipline, and has traces of point prostitution.  So what is really so different about this class?  Students didn't sign up for the course because they liked the subject, and the ones who did were more interested in the teacher they had last year and whom they expected to be teaching the class this year too.  The students didn't understand or like each other, and many face fairly overwhelming problems in their own life and academics.  Their skills were lower than most of their peers.

So relationships, passion, skills.  That's what the difference is.  That's why they never got to ownership of learning.

Their lack of those three don't excuse their performance, but they do help explain it.  And maybe, just maybe, this project will ameliorate those divisions and show them just how much they are capable of when they commit themselves and invest their personality and individuality into their learning.  Maybe this project will build what they lack in relationships, passion and skill - it is, in fact, entirely their own design and creation.

Here's hoping that I'll remember this class less for my own failure, and more for their tremendous success in this project against pretty significant odds.  

Because there is finally reason to hope they can make it.