It seemed like a bad idea a few days ago.

I didn't want to come here.  I had too much work to do, I had cats to tend, I had Very Important Things, none of which could be done if I took a vacation.

But thankfully, I have people in my life who push me to do things that are good for me, even when I don't want to do them (you know who you are).

So I've been at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, California for the last day and a half.  This summer has been at a relentless pace - blogging, video filming, video editing, tweeting, conferencing (virtual and one in-person), meeting with teachers from my new school...even the road trip I did a few weeks ago was relentless, covering 2,500 miles and nearly the entire length of the West Coast in a week.

And now, the start of school is staring me down.  I know many of you will have started already, either with students or with back-to-school PD.  I am lucky to have until Monday before I am expected to attend anything, and two weeks from tomorrow until the students are expected to attend anything.

And instead of continuing the relentless push for planning out the year, hammering out the details of team-teaching with someone 2,500 miles away, doing paperwork to make sure I get paid...

Instead of doing those things, I am at Asilomar, by the sea.  

And here is what I DID do:

I finished The Things They Carried.  I read parts of Price of Privilege, The Years (Virginia Woolf), Bird by Bird, and How to Think and Write about Literature.

I sat, staring at the ocean, getting sunburnt and catching the way the fog melted away above the trees.

I wrote.  What started as a one-page attempt to write a descriptive essay about a coffee shop turned into a larger creative non-fiction project.  The only reason it became that is because my collaborator read it, and saw the seed of something bigger than a coffee shop.  He cut it to pieces and made it make sense.  Then he told me to stop thinking and start writing.

Before I got to Asilomar, I had about 19 pages.  Now, after I've taken his advice (finally), there are more than 40.  Some parts are good, others are horrible, and some are great.  But what matters far more than quantity or quality is that I actually wrote.  


******


In college, I wanted to be a writer - creative non-fiction or academic, I didn't care - but through time, circumstance and several discouraging realities, I stopped writing.  Even starting this blog was daunting, because publishing for a global audience of professionals was much different than writing lessons or sample essays for my students.

For me, what it took was the seed of an idea.  And someone to encourage me, even before it was any good.  To edit parts to make them more clear, or precise, or profound, but mostly, to hear the story I was telling and help me find the voice I needed to tell it better.

*****

Because of that experience, and many more like it, I start this year, completely obsessed by one question: 

How do I get my students to experience the joy of collaboration, the freedom of writing, and the beauty of learning?

Because this summer has taught me that all three are things of great value, to be sought after and treasured.  And all three have made me a better teacher, a better friend, and a better human being.  If I can get my students to have the kind of year I crammed into the last six weeks of summer, I will feel successful (and I bet they will too).

I want them to be able to try out ideas, knowing they might fail, but if they do, there's no one to mock you.  And sometimes, the other person can make the idea a success in a way you never thought possible, and suddenly, it's ion lucidity, and it's magical.

I want them to see learning as something intrinsic to human experience.  That we are all constantly learning, whether through making inferences about the environment or other people, or reading a book, or walking through a Safeway.  That learning is not bound by the classroom walls.

I want them to see knowledge not as a capacity for facts, but as the way you use facts to make deeper meaning of your world.  When they get in an argument about whether Eucalyptus trees are native to California, or what street Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland is on, or whether the exact linguistic phrasing they used was constructivist or behaviouralist, I want them to say, "Hang on, I'll Google it."  

And if and when they were wrong, I want them to laugh it off and apologise for insulting their friend's mother.  And most importantly, I want them to take what they've learned and make meaning out of it, rather than just being content with knowing facts.  
(and yes, those are real examples from this summer...all except the insulting of mothers.)

I want them to spend hours listening to their close friend talk about how their life feels like a series of roadblocks.  I want them to give advice, some bad, some good, but do it because they care so much about the person they want the best for them.

I want them to be rooting so hard for their friends that there isn't a hint of competition anywhere.  That any victory their friend finds is shared, and more valuable than a victory for themselves.  I want them to have people to trust and who trust them.  I want them to make mistakes, and learn how to ask for forgiveness and reconcile the relationship.

I want them to have the summer I had.


*****

That is the essence of the MetaFlip.  Taking all these experiences in which we as educators and human beings find value and meaning, and making them accessible to our students.  Breaking it down into processes and showing them how to navigate through challenges and failures.  Showing them what friendship and collaboration are, especially at times where the mess threatens to overwhelm the relationship.

Building assignments that are not just personalised, but are personal.  That take the things we value - friendship, collaboration, learning, writing, reading - and presents those things to our students in a way that gives them a foothold to do each for themselves.

*****

Do we know how to do this right now?  Not quite.  But we have some ideas:

1. The projects that Andrew, Karl, Crystal, Kate and I have been working on this summer will turn in to model projects for the Blank White Page project.  Students will see our authentic products and how we created them to help them understand how to make it something meaningful.

2. In every video series, Andrew and I are aware of our process as much as our content.  We want to make the students see the process and try it out, rather than just loading them up with content and asking them to apply it on their own.  We want the end of every unit to have some reflective time about how they are doing, how their collaboration with peers has been, what they need to work on/change to make the next project even better, how they can improve the way they're learning...etc.

3. The reading will always have a component of personal education.  We will talk about concepts like ubuntu, or ion lucidity, or love or friendship.  We will show students that we don't have all the answers, but we're learning.  That is the most powerful tool in our toolkit, I think.  We are willing to fail, and then demonstrate resilience.  We are willing to try something, reflect on it, and ditch it if it doesn't do what we want it to do.  We are willing to make our lives as transparant as possible so students can see through the glass and into our heads.  It's scary, but it's exciting.

4. We have to show the mess.  Andrew and I will be team-teaching this year.  Both our names will be on the board, and on the syllabus, even if our classrooms are 2,500 miles apart.  The introduction video we do will be both of us.  We will be teaching the same skills at the same times, albiet with slightly different content to fit our own school/curricular context.  

******

We are embarking on this team-teaching endeavour because we love working together, yes.

But we are also doing it so our students can see a model of how to work with someone else.  How to make your ideas better by sharing them.  How to have fun, but still be productive.  We've never seen the other person teach (except on video), so I'm sure obstacles will arise, but I'm equally sure that we will come up with such amazing solutions to overcome those obstacles that we will remember them as blessings, rather than as trials.  

Teaching is hard in isolation, but teaching in a flipped class is impossible without collaboration.  There is no way you can go it alone.  The Great Myth of American individualism is that you can be wholly self-reliant, and that's the highest form of human existence.  The Great Myth of the American teacher is that they comes up with the perfect lesson on the way to school and then it changes lives in seconds...

But that's not the reality.  The reality is burnout, playing the political game, avoiding people with an axe to grind.  The reality is long, lonely hours, with too much to do and not enough time.  The reality is that half of those who enter the profession will have left it within five years.

For all those reasons, we have to fight back against these myths.  Working with someone who makes you better is far, far better than trying to struggle through on your own.  Collaboration sharpens your ideas, and magnetises them to the point that you are surrounded by so many ideas you just don't know where to start.  And then collaboration helps you find the best idea, polish it, and put it into action.

*****

But sitting here in Asilomar, I'm reminded that there will be time for all of sharpening, the collecting, the selecting, the polishing.  There will be time for lesson design, and video production, and blank white page...

...after I return.  

Right now, the only thing I need to do is model resting, relaxing, and reading.

Yesterday during the #140edu conference, I began to think about the technology that plays a large role in my life.  Here is what I use primarily:

1. MacBook Pro, 17' with the apps I use the most: Camtasia, Adobe Photoshop Suite, Chrome, uTorrent, iTunes, and VLC

2. iPad 3 (Verizon) with ShowMe, Messaging, Mail, Twitter/HootSuite, DailyBible, Flipboard, Edmodo, Notability, Instagram, Facebook, Camera, Music and Paper 53

3. iPhone 4 with most of the same apps as the iPad, Socrative and Pandora as well.

4. Web-based apps: Google Docs (including shared folders and live collaboration with the #cheesebuckets), Dropbox, Weebly to maintain this site, BBC iPlayer through Expat Surfer, UKNova, Netflix, and Hulu Plus.

Now, why am I telling you all that?  Because I believe that it tells you something about who I am as a person, as a teacher, and as a learner.  Most of my news comes from Twitter.  All of my television/screen time is through my computer (I don't even have a TV).  All of my radio and music comes from what's stored between my three devices (and a really old iPod classic) and Pandora.  Most of the communication I have with friends is through Twitter, Facebook, and messaging. 

Even right now, I have all three devices open, working on different things (streaming the final of the men's gymnastic all-around competition on BBC and composing this on the MBP, Twitter on the iPad, messaging on the iPhone).  I take all three devices everywhere, because this is how I engage with the world. 

And I'm double the age of most of my students.  If technology is so important to me, then how much more is it to them, who have had it their entire lives?

But that's not the point of this post.  It is however, sort of relevant.

******

As I was thinking through my preferences for technology use, I suddenly realised that it wasn't MY preference that matter.

In a flipped class, student-centred pedagogy is one of the three pillars.  So why am I the one setting the requirements?

Now, there my plans/goals for my students:
1. I want all students to blog
2. I want an LMS, either Moodle or Edmodo or both
3. I want to use google docs
4. I want all students to use an RSS feed for SSR time
5. I want to use a backchannel for live response
6. I want to participate in the KQED Do Now curriculum
7. I want students to collaborate outside of class time
8. I want students to watch some videos outside of class time

And there are some things I know about my students:
1. They all have gmail and google docs and like them
2. Most don't have Twitter accounts
3. They use Moodle
4. Most have their own devices to use in class
5. They are not used to using technology in class. At all.

So there are a lot of pieces of information I don't know yet.  But here's what I do know:

I need to allow my students to drive the technology in my class.  Instead of teaching them all new tools, I need to help them gain proficiency in the ones they already have and know.  When it comes down to it, I need to embrace the mess and allow my students to teach me sometimes, rather than me having all the knowledge.  I need to use their passion for technology and show them how to make it relevant to my class.  I need to put aside my preferences and be willing to not be the expert in order to better meet their needs.

So I don't have a completed plan for what technology I will use.  And that has to be okay.  I have a starting place: Moodle, Google Docs, and a BYOD policy.  And I have lots of question marks: Will I require a Twitter account?  Will I use YouTube?  Will I use Google+ hangout?  Will I use Edmodo?

I don't know.

I DO know that I don't want to give my students a worksheet asking them what they use.  Here are some ideas for how I might gather this information:

1. Have students enter the names of their technology into a Google form (much as I did at the start of this post) and then create a Wordle from it.

2. Use the start of year video to show my technology, and have students write a blog post or create a video of their own showing theirs.  Yes, this is time consuming, but I can really learn a lot from this about my students and their context.

3. Ask students to put together a photo essay about their technology use.  Turn this into an essay.  It has nice thematic links to the Snapshot of a Modern Learner article.  It could even be part of the essay on that text.

4. As the first project in Blank White Page.  Again, the video I make could be the model for this to show them what BWP is all about. 

****

I'm sure there's a better idea out there of how to do this.  Feel free to comment and tell me your ideas for non-worksheet ways you collect this information from your students.

There are exciting things happening.  And not just on my vacation.  But I'll start with those:

1. I got to meet Karl Lindgren-Streicher!  In person!  In Seattle!  Not just on Google+ hangout!  We spent a fun day talking Flipped Class and General Life Topics of Interest.  I also got sunburned...at a beach...in Seattle.  Will wonders never cease?  And since Karl and I live, like, fifteen minutes from each other, we will certainly be doing that again....although next time, probably closer to home.

2. Andrew and I have some big, big ideas to debut soon.  None are really ready for Prime Time, but the afternoon I spent with Karl yielded some amazing things when Andrew and I debriefed.  Yes, this is totally vague and general.  But you'll all know soon enough!

3. Blank White Page has gone meta.  I'll talk more about this as we get the site built, but Andrew, Karl and I have been working on our VERY OWN BWP project.  Since Andrew has never been to the Pacific Northwest, we were talking about what the armpit of California looked like (the answer? Corning).  Then we realised that instead of describing it, I could just start texting him pictures along the way - the BWP question was "What is the West Coast of America like?  How have those places shaped who you are?".  And thus was a BWP Satellite project born.  So when I met Karl in Seattle, he gladly offered to join the cause of "Show Andrew the West Coast" and the project went from "fun distraction" to "a whole new level of awesome."  We will be cataloging and posting this project when both Karl and I get home.

4. With Andrew's encouragement, I've started writing some creative non-fiction.  It has been really rewarding and I want to (again, as always) publicly thank him for not only encouraging me, but making the first draft of what I wrote readable to someone who is not in my head.  Writing is something I gave up on years ago, and it's been fun to remember all the reasons why I loved writing so much.

Here are some NON-vacation updates:

1. The Research Paper Writing series is pretty much done!  I'm still editing the final conclusion videos (and I'm half done!), but all the prewriting, drafting, and introduction videos are posted to our YouTube channel.  We think they started getting better around video 4, but we're proud of the progress we've made.

2. Next on the agenda is the first in our flipped reading strategy collaborative video.  We will introduce a writing strategy and then walk through a text and a literary analysis essay.  That series will start soon...as soon as we can get a functional wifi connection and some time.

3. We have posted another Conversations in Flipped English video on YouTube.  This time, it's about keeping the humanity in flipped English class.  The first in the series is found here (on Content vs. Process flipped videos).  We hope you find them helpful!  Here is our ENTIRE Flipped Professional Development archive as well.

4. As we finalise our plans, we will be posting the first unit plan Andrew and I plan to teach (that we wrote together).  It covers the basics on technology, what a flipped class is (for students/parents), reading and writing basics, blogging, working in a collaborative group, using peer feedback and group evaluation to develop norms, etc.  It's in (near) final draft, so you should see it here soon.  It is our intention to post our curriculum material and videos for free, so that as many teachers as possible can see that English is flip-able, and is something they can do without throwing out everything they've ever done. 

******

That's about it for now.  I'm looking forward to a few more days on the road, then the Flipped Class workshop in San Jose on the 2nd (and meeting Crystal Kirch in person, finally!), followed by a mini-retreat to have some time in solitude, then coming back rested and throwing myself into preparing for school!

I have loved reading all the comments from people here, and I'd also love to hear any questions you have about flipping English, or topics you'd like Andrew and I to cover in our next Conversations video.  And I really hope you all are having a beautiful summer, which is at least as full of family, friends, and fun as it is of flipped class work. :-)

Here are some things we've accomplished in the last few days:

Planned the first unit for two of my courses.  

Have a really good idea about where it goes next, as far as unit planning

Finished filming the Research Writing series, except for a tiny part about quoting vs. paraphrasing

Edited the Introduction videos 

Expanded the Blank White Page project to two cohorts


And here are the things that are even more important:

Bonded with a friend and had the kind of conversations that define the next 30 years of our friendship, not what has already been.

Planned an epic roadtrip up  the California coast to Seattle (with a day trip up to Victoria).

Took a walk late at night in Marin, with a good friend, and talked about everything we don't normally make time to talk about.  And there were times of silence, listening to the owls and watching the bats fly over.  And those silent times were just as important as the talking.

Started reading The Things They Carried.  Not because I am teaching it.  Just because I want to (okay, and Andrew assigned it to me).  But 99% because I want to read it.

***

That last list is WAY more important than the first.  And it's the reason I am having the best summer of my life.

I don't know a single teacher who hasn't, deep down, wondered if they were doing a good job.  I don't know a single good teacher who doesn't think that constantly.

Some doubt that more than others.  In fact, some of the best teachers believe that they are failures, and wonder if they even should be in the profession at all.

I stake no claim for being a great teacher; I've never been happy with the job I'm doing in my classroom.  For years, I've masked it with a completely fictitious act of over-confidence or with a tendency towards perfectionism (the socially acceptable form of always feeling not-quite-good-enough).  But deep down, it's there.  Lurking, rearing up whenever I feel most vulnerable.

It's the blessing and curse of the reflective teacher: you are always thinking about how to make your classroom better, but you're always struck by just how far you have to go before you are where you want to be.  It's an exhausting place to be in, emotionally, physically, and professionally.

And while I don't trust teachers who say their class is perfect, I also don't trust teachers who say they are doing a bad job.  Because here's the thing:

Learning is messy.  Teaching is messy.  Life is messy.

When we hide that, we hide the reality of who we are and what we do.  In a weird way, we have to show how much of a mess we are to show what a good job we're actually doing.  And in a flipped class, if your class is not a little chaotic then it's not truly student-centred.

Part of the partnership Andrew and I have built is on the premise that we never "hide the mess" - from each other or from our students.  We believe that it's essential to show students how we fail and then try again and then fail again and then eventually (maybe) succeed.  We want them to see us fail because it shows them how NORMAL it is, and that the acceptable response is not to give up, but to get up.  To slip and not be buried.  To fight and not be defeated.

In any educational movement, including the flipped class movement, there are people held up as "experts," but here's what I have learned: there are no experts.  We are all constantly learning, and if we stop learning, we stagnate.  And if we stagnate, we become irrelevant and ineffective...which is death to the classroom, and certainly does not an expert make.

While I see the value in there being people who are willing to put their information out there (I am a blogger who claims to know something about teaching in a flipped English class, after all), I think it's also vital to stop perpetuating the myth that they are (and I am) doing an amazing job and should be revered and held in awe. 

Put even more bluntly: if you don't show me your mess, I'll assume you're lying or irrelevant.  Because the mess is there, whether I can see it or not.

Some of us have been lucky enough to have had some of the mess cleaned up by years at good schools.  That's where I'm coming from.  I went from being a broken teacher, disillusioned with teaching and with everything that wasn't about the relationship between me and my students, to someone who was suddenly a valued and respected colleague.  It helped me clean up my metaphorical living room, even if the rest of my house was still a mess.

But San Lorenzo was the school that taught me how much I had to give and how much I actually stole from my colleagues by not sharing with them.  It was there that I first learned that in the act of sharing your curriculum, you actually are sharing your mess alongside your ideas.  And when it isn't thrown back in your face, but rather taken and made better just by the act of sharing and collaboration, you start to wonder why you held back for so long.

There is a concept very close to my heart that drives at this same idea.  It derives from the Bantu word, "ubuntu."  It is the South African driving principle that affirms that, "I am who I am because we are." People are people THROUGH other people.  There is no such thing as being alone.  We are all interconnected, and as such, we must act accordingly.  We may not see the ties that bind us together, but that doesn't mean that they are not there.

In America, we've never really had this concept, let alone valued it the way my South African friends do.  In fact, it's so foreign to us that we are genuinely surprised when people make choices that are not in their own self-interest.  And yet, according to ubuntu, acting in the interest of others IS acting in self interest, because when someone else is exalted or esteemed, we all are exalted and esteemed.

On the flip side, when one teacher is disillusioned and broken, we are ALL disillusioned and broken.

And that is the state most of us are in.  Is it any wonder that schools are so broken and students are so disillusioned?

And yet.  By showing all of you the mess underneath my thin veneer of competence, I'm hoping to give you some hope that by embracing the mess that is our lives and profession, we can become something better together than we can alone.

Andrew and I named this blog Ion Lucidity, partially as a joke.  

But we were recording a few nights ago, and suddenly, it didn't feel like a joke anymore.  As weird as this sounds, it became the exact phrase we needed to explain what had happened in a single moment.

I'll back up a little bit.

We had spent hours planning a complicated shoot that included topics on which neither of us are experts.  When we started filming, my physical exhaustion and his mental exhaustion was palpable.  I can hardly watch the footage because of how present that exhaustion is.  

After about 20 minutes, we did our typical stop and check-in to see what else we still needed to cover.  And we did something that we do far more than work:  we just talked as friends.  It was an attempt, for a few minutes at least, to try to hold on to our last bit of sanity.  Through that conversation, it became clear we needed to start the recording over from the beginning (this is something that happens regularly in our partnership...which explains the many, many 13 GB Camtasia files on my hard drive).

So we started over.  And that's when it happened: we reached Ion Lucidity.  The ethereal moment when we went from exhaustion to clarity, solely through the act of conversation and collaboration.

Here is something I know: We are so much better together than we are alone.  By working together, we have ideas that are better than any either of us had alone.  It starts from incoherent rambling and flowers into something neither of us expected or imagined.  

And not only are we lucky enough to work with each other, we have been so fortunate as to find other like-minded educators to share our mess with us. 

But what I barely understand is that they care so much that they refuse to leave it that way.  They jump in and help figure out how to make the mess visible, and by doing so, exorcise it for good.  To loosely quote the Avett Brothers,  they love me for the person I'll become, not the person that I am.  That is something beautiful and incomprehensible.

Here is something else I know: the only word other than Ion Lucidity that makes this concept make sense is ubuntu.  

And here is what I believe more than anything: There is a magical quality to collaboration that allows you to be so much greater than the sum of your parts.  It allows you to see what was obscured when you tried to view it alone.  It pushes you beyond where you could ever imagine going.  It supports you when you feel like you will be crushed under the self-doubt and failure.  It reminds you that you are never a failure...it is just your mess becoming visible.

And it is there that we are most powerful: When your mess is visible to the world, people recognise their own mess in the midst of yours and it becomes okay to show theirs too.  And by the simple act of sharing, you are living ubuntu; the ties that bind you to everyone else go from being invisible to being so obvious you wonder how you've missed them for so long.

And you wonder how you ever lived without seeing them, because your life is so much more rich and full than you could have ever imagined.

Call it collaboration, call it Ion Lucidity, call it ubuntu...it doesn't matter.  It replaces that deeply held belief that you're not doing well enough with something even better: the realisation that when you AREN'T good enough, there are people who will love you anyway, and will help you be far better than good enough.

In the last post, I talked about Guiding Principles for flipped reading instruction.  This is now two posts because someone...who will remain nameless...told me that it was too much for one post (he's right, of course.  I just spiral out of control when I'm excited about an idea. Or fifty).

Today, I'll deal with the last Guiding Principle, particularly as it applies to shorter works (GP 3):

4. Flipping reading has to be about process and skill rather than content

For my Essay and Exposition class (an 11th/12th grade English semester-long elective):

• Units are roughly a week, but part of a larger sequence, planned using Understanding By Design, and incorporating my adaptation of Ramsay Musallam's Explore Flip Apply structure:

            Explore Flip Apply Explore Apply Assess

More on that in a minute.

• Students will be about 75% self-paced. Monday will be the one day that is rarely/never self-paced.  
• We will read a short text together on Monday - the class focus is on essays and creative non-fiction.  This includes selections from Essay Connections, The Orwell Reader and The Blair Reader, as well as Me Talk Pretty One Day.  Because I realise that is VERY different from what most people are teaching in US English classes, I've done my example here with two poems, which at least are easy to modify for your own context.
• After reading together and assessing basic comprehension, students will either work alone or in groups to look at theme/structure/style/whatever the focus is.  This will usually take the form of inquiry.  
• • Sample Inquiry/Explore Questions (again, these are 11th-12th grade level, but could be adapted for lower levels):

• • What common structures can you find in the language in the text? 
    
  • skill: analyse impact of author's choices on text, analyse impact of word choice on text, CCS 11.3-11.4
  • Example with one text: What patterns can you find in the LANGUAGE (i.e. only the explicit/literal words in the poem, not the inferences you might make) in "Red Dust"?  
  • Example with two texts: What patterns in the language are found in both "Red Dust" and "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"?
  • How is the idea of (x theme) developed in the text?  
    
  • skill: determine theme and trace development, CCS 11.2
  • Example with one text: What explicit words and implicit ideas/inferences in Philip Levine's poem "Red Dust" would lead you to believe that the author is writing about sorrow?
  • Example with two texts: What explicit words and implicit ideas/inferences in "Red Dust" and "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" can you find?  What common theme can you draw from those patterns?
  • Compare (x text) to (y text).  What do you notice about (x) pattern in the text?  
    
  • skill: analyse author's choices and development of theme in two texts, CSS 11.2-4
  • Example (with two texts, obviously): What do you notice about the patterns related to mortality in "Red Dust" and "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"?  What is similar?  What is different?  Which (in your opinion) delivers the theme/impression most effectively?
  • What [figurative language/literary device/poetic meter/etc.] is used in the text?  What patterns do you notice?  What inferences can you make about the text based on those patterns? 
    
  • skill: determine meaning of words and how word choice impacts the text/theme, CSS 11.4
  • Example: Levine uses intense juxtaposition throughout the poem "Red Dust" - what controlling impression does that create?  What word patterns help you understand the controlling impression?
  • What personal experience have you had that you can relate to this text?  Explain the connection and how it relates to the text using specific examples of the language in the text that made you think of the connection. 
    
  • skill: cite textual evidence to support a claim, CSS 11.1

After they read and complete the inquiry task, we will discuss those ideas in class.  This may bleed into Tuesday (or homework for Monday night), depending on the length of the text.

• From there, students will be self paced, using roughly this format:
• Skill: Video on technique/theme/style analysis (flip)
• Practice Skill: Complete task that builds skills with a similar text (apply)
• Process-Teacher Model: Video on choice of texts with guiding questions (explore)
• Practice Process: Analyse text of choice (apply)
• Process-Student Model: Write/do project to show mastery (assess)
• Work on WBP project, either as homework during the week or with left-over class time (explore/flip/apply)

I didn't want to break up the flow of that list, so here are some additional details about those steps:

The work will be completed in order, but it can be done in class or at home, as the kids find easiest/most productive for them.  They do have to be working during class time, but not requiring the videos for homework makes it more self-paced and asynchronous.  There will be a "Watch" station so they can view the videos during class.  

There is potential that some students can skip the skill/practice steps if they can demonstrate mastery.  No point in making them build a skill they've mastered, right?  In that case, the assess phase would have to show mastery AND excellence, since they are now challenging themselves beyond basic mastery.  The will probably end up also having masses of time to work on WBP, which is okay with me.

I'm using these loose definitions for the skill/practice/process terms:
[note: these are VERY under-construction.  Feedback appreciated]

Skill: anything that builds a necessary reading, writing or thinking skill.  Usually modelled explicitly in a video.

Practice Skill/Process: anything that allows a student to work on the skill or process.  It will usually be a reading assignment, a conversation, or a piece of writing.  This is the skill-building stage that allows students to move towards mastery.  This is the step I will be most directly involved in during class time.  I will be working with students individually or in small groups.

Process-TM: these are videos that I'll make with Andrew Thomasson where we model the writing process, a reading strategy, or have a reflective conversation.  Whatever process we model, students will be expected to show mastery of in the Process-SM phase.  If we show a reflective conversation, they will be expected to have a reflective conversation.  If we show writing, they'll be expected to write.  Etc.  

In this example, we will talk about the three texts as a preview and walk through the beginning of each text, showing the beginning of the process we expect them to finish (like marking up figurative language and analysing the impact on tone).  This will evolve as we start trying it [as of now, we've only hazily talked about it and this is probably the most complete description he's read at this point...so Andrew, if you have feedback or think this is a stupid idea, we can/will talk about it more...].

Process-SM: this step is where the students use the exact same process Andrew and I modelled in the Process-TM to show that they've mastered the process AND skill taught that week.  So in the unit I've outlined above, students would have to film themselves (alone or in a team) walking through the process we modelled on a brand new text, or they could mark up the text in writing or in a VoiceThread.  That would be assessed, and if students need to go back to build mastery, they will repeat the Skill/Practice steps with more explicit guidance from me.


*****


This is overly reductive, but using that model means that the content you use (i.e. what you read/watch/talk about) doesn't matter NEARLY as much as the process and skills you're building.  You can read a Cornflakes box and make it work in this format if you're clever enough.

I also know that I tend towards overly complicated systems and structures.  It always gets more simple as I bounce it around with Andrew and the rest of the Cheesebucket Posse.

I've spent a considerable amount of energy this summer trying to figure out this difficult problem: How do you flip reading instruction, particularly in a self-paced, asynchronous mastery environment?  

I don't know that I have an answer yet.  But I have thoughts.  These thoughts were HEAVILY influenced by lots of people (yes...the usual suspects).  In fact, let me make that more explicit.  These ideas are not mine.  I can't claim them and I refuse to claim them.  They only exist because of the amazing people on Twitter who process with me constantly.  They only exist because of the webinar we had last Tuesday.  They only exist because of Andrew Thomasson and Karl Lindgren-Streicher.  Andrew said it better here...and that's how things tend to work.  I talk forever and in circles, and then he just puts it so simply and beautifully, in a way that is perfectly understandable and yet so profound that I just shut up and agree with him.

So I agree with him.

That being said...writing "we" instead of "I" just sounds weird.  So mentally, when you read "I" know that there are multiple "I"s represented in this amazing collective of colleagues.

I'm going to start by listing the general ideas, then I'll give specifics after the list.   This got really, really long.  And it's probably confusing to anyone outside my own head.  For that I apologise in advance.  

Guiding Principles
1. Flipped reading is more than "reading at home" and "talking about it in class."
2. Flipping reading requires way more creativity than flipping grammar or vocabulary or even writing, and it greatly depends on instructional context.
3. Flipped reading works better with shorter texts than with longer texts.
4. Flipping reading has to be about process and skill rather than content.

Explanations of those Guiding Principles

1. Flipping reading is not reading at home and talking about it in class.
This pops up every now and then, and I just have one thing to say:
How is it flipping when you're just following the commonly accepted instructional paradigm?  That's not flipping.  That's traditional.  

So stop saying that is flipped English...please?

You can read Troy Cockrum's thoughts on the matter here.

2. Flipping reading requires creativity and depends on instructional context.
The first part is obvious - the reason there are VERY few strategies for flipping reading is because conceptually, it's really difficult to get your head around.  It takes creativity, which is where the Explore Flip Apply model comes in (more on that later...and there are tons of entries if you look back through my post history).

The second part, about instructional context, is really important.  What will work with me at Redwood High School is not what worked at San Lorenzo High School, and it may not work in your school either.  I don't know.  You're the teacher, thus you're the expert on how to teach your kids.  I can only tell you what I do, and give you guiding principles for how to structure your units and instruction.

When I flipped Night last year, I made videos of myself reading the text.  We had Today's Meet live discussions in class as the videos played (basically, it allowed me to participate in the discussion and manage the room instead of trying to read + do all of that).  Then students compiled theme and figurative language examples in separate Today's Meet threads and on Edmodo.  Then we did a lot of writing and discussion questions.  We watched a lot of related documentaries and film clips to give context.  We discussed them all.  I had a few skills videos, but not many - probably because the skills were mostly higher-level and based on lower-level skills they had learned earlier in the year (either on video or back before the flip, by direct instruction).

I consider that unit flipped.  But a lot of people wouldn't.  This is why we need to come to a common understanding of what flipped English is and isn't.

It also leads to my next Guiding Principle:

3. Flipped reading works better with shorter texts than longer ones.  
Jessica McGrover lays out in this post why this is true.  When you're having students flip a longer work and go at their own pace, they will inevitably do what you want them to do and end up working at their own pace.  And you can't have discussions about the book unless kids are at roughly the same point.  Imagine trying to discuss the theme of fate verses free will in Romeo and Juliet when one student is in Act I, scene v (after R&J meet), another student just finished Act III scene i (where Mercutio/Tybalt are killed), and another student just finished the play.  Unless you explicitly give them permission to talk about the entire play (which "ruins" it for the student in Act I), you are going to have frustrated students and a flat discussion.  Which ruins the whole experience of collaborative conversation.

The plan I've got for my flipped classes this year is to have some strategies for flipping shorter texts, and some strategies for flipping longer texts.  

Read the second part of this entry here.  It was way too much content for one post.

Before I tell you about my exciting unit plan, I'd like you all to go read my friend Andrew Thomasson's NEW BLOG.  Follow him.  He may not have much there yet (he literally built it in a couple of hours today) but he is definitely an amazing writer.  Just sayin'.

On to the main post.

So I got my first REALLY GOOD IDEA about teaching the Essay and Exposition class to which I'm assigned this semester.

I was reading this awesome article.  If you haven't read it, go read it now.  

Thinking through all the typical "first day of class" activities, one thing I just can't NOT do is have them write something describing themselves.  But I hate the way I've done it in the past.  Either I give them a million guidelines and it sounds more like a shopping list than a "here's who I am" letter, or I give them few guidelines and they turn in five lines that describe their epic love for sleeping, hanging out with family, and video games.  

That's when it occurred to me that I could have them write an essay in the style of "Snapshot of a Modern Learner" as their "introduction letter" assignment.  Then this unit plan just fell together in no time.  It's based on a (slightly asynchronous) mastery model, and the bell schedule is M, T, F 55 minutes, and one 90 minute block day (either W or Th depending on the class).  

As always, please tell me what you think about it.  




Unit Plan in the Explore-Flip-Apply Model


Explore:
Students can put the article into categories like I just did (see the bottom of this post if you care to know how I analysed the text).  I will either:

1) Give them four categories (description of action/inaction, and description/antithesis of self).  I will then ask them to add one more category they see in the text to those four categories and justify their choice.

2) Tell them to find their own categories of language and justify why/how they see them developing in the text.

General "inquiry"-type questions:
--Which categories have more?  Why?
--Within the categories, what language patterns do you notice?  
--Why are those important?  
--How do they tell you about the author’s purpose?

They will then write that up into a textual analysis blog entry.

Flip Video Sequence:
1. Finding and analysing patterns/themes
2. Text preview/model conversation questions [for the three options of texts]
3. Essay guidelines for Snapshot of Me as a Learner

Apply:
--Students read another text and apply patterning to it.
--Students have a reflective conversation or write a blog post about the patterns in the piece (similar questions to the ones in the Explore phase)
--Students write their own “Snapshot of Me as a Learner” essay

******

So those are the activities and how they fit into the Explore Flip Apply model.  But I still needed to understand how it looked in a week.  So here's what I mapped out:

Unit Outline
Monday: explore activity (including textual analysis blog entry), first video as HW

Tuesday: debrief video and check for understanding.  The task in class is to read and pattern a second text, and then create an analysis similar to explore phase, so students who can do it on their own will do so (or they can self-select into groups).  Students who need more guided practice (based on my CFU or self-identified need) will work with me on [possibly an easier version of] the same text, with scaffolding along the way to help them prepare for the next activity.

At the end of class, we'll have a short discussion about the patterns they found, which will allow me to assess understanding and assign remediation as necessary.

HW is to watch text preview video and come to class ready with which text they are most interested in reading

Block day (90 minutes): debrief video and give out the text to students based on their own choice. Divide into stations/groups based on chosen text.  After reading and patterning, students will do one of the following:
1) pairs/small groups that have reflective conversations and film it (advanced) 
2) write a blog post about the text and comment on others’ posts, or 
3) re-watch the patterning video with guided analysis questions that will lead into writing reflective questions 

HW is to watch the video on starting their SOMaL essay (many students will probably finish early in class, and therefore will watch the video and start the essay that day)

Friday: debrief video and write essay in class. If students are not ready, they can continue the tasks from block day or work on their Blank White Page project.  If necessary, they can finish the essay over the weekend.


Required tasks for the week:
--Analysis of SOML article and one more short article (everyone does the same)
--Textual analysis blog post
--Watch three videos with CFU assignments (probably an embedded google form) 
--a third [student choice] text/pattern assignment and assessment [have a reflective conversation or do a reflective writing on the second text - students who need remediation may use the guided notetaking, but it won't give them the full 85% for the week]
--write a short definition essay (Snapshot of Me as a Learner)

Grading/Mastery:
If students complete all of that work to the required standard in the week, they get an 85% in classwork (if they fail to complete it to the standard, they will earn lower than 85%). 

To get the last 15%, they need to either 1) show at least "an hour's worth" of work on the BWP project, complete an additional task (like finding another model text and doing a reflective blog post/conversation) AND they must show excellence in the writing task.

The Snapshot of Me as a Learner writing task is on a mastery grading system.  They will not “pass” this unit until they get at least a 75% on the essay.  They can complete as many revisions as they wish, up until the end of the quarter (8-9 weeks).


Additional Texts I'm Considering for this Unit:
--Myth of Latin Woman
--The Key to My Father
--Sanctuary of School
--Mother Tongue
--Why I Want a Wife
--On Being a Cripple
--Why I Write (Weisel) 
--Fat
--Shrouded in Contradiction

All of these are from either Essay Connections or The Blair Reader, both of which are class texts.  I'd also love other suggestions, so long as they are readily available and around the 12th grade reading level (higher is preferable actually).

*******

I had one more additional revelation while I was writing this unit.  I don't have to have all the students read the same texts, because as long as I offer different choices in each unit, they never have to read the same text twice.  So if a kid reads "Mother Tongue" in this unit, when we do the "Politics of English" unit, they will just read another of the choices.  I just need to have the "Explore" text not be an option for any of the self-selected options in any unit.

If you want to know what that paragraph looks like at midnight, here it is for your enjoyment:

AAAAAHH!! I don’t have to use diff texts for diff units if there are choices every time!!

Yeah, I'm not all that grammatically correct past 11 PM I guess.  I forgot that was in there, until I was sharing a draft of this document with my good friend Karl, and he laughed at me.  To be fair, I'd laugh at me too.


*******

If you're interested in my textual analysis of the article, here you go!


Stylistic Notes about the Article:
[I left my own stylistic notes in because I thought it might help you understand my pattern system a little.  Sorry if they are unintelligible] 

Style: paragraphs have contradictions/parallels in them, all in present tense, except for when referring to what he “learned” in his history project; switches to imperative in the end (they MUST); the definition of himself is built implicitly throughout, but finally defined explicitly in the end (reverse pioneer - important defining language), becomes an argument at the end.  It really blends a whole lot of styles - narrative, observation, definition, argument and evaluation
Patterns: Santos/He is always the subject of the sentence; language of disconnection/connection, he thinks/they think/the reality is; mixing what is/isn’t “acceptable”, language of involvement but not creation

The thesis/antithesis in this article is interesting - maybe make a list of competing descriptions?

Linguistic Patterns in the Text:
These are the patterns I notice in the way the text is constructed.  These are literally just copied and pasted from the article.

HE DOES:
Santos sends approximately 125 texts per day. 
He sneaks his phone into his classes either in his book bag or his jacket and 
is online just about all day. 
He posts messages to Facebook during class. 
He looks up answers to definitions of words online. 
He checks sports scores, 
plays games, 
posts his location so his friends can find him easily, and 
streams music through an app on his phone.
Santos opens books and is frustrated when he can’t click on the words or pictures for more information.
Santos listens to his teachers lecture, feeling strange that he can’t pause, rewind, fast-forward, or have anytime access to the information
Santos often helps them when his teachers have trouble with technology or web tools
He knows how to bypass his school’s internet filter and often helps his teachers access Youtube videos to aid in instruction.
he can articulate every detail if you ask Santos what he DID for his History project, 
he recites the definitions to a couple of the words he defined.
Santos participates in school as if it were a giant check-off list
he is always DOING something
When he finishes one task, he moves on to another. 
He does okay, though
When Santos is assigned a big task at school, he goes home and creates a Facebook group around it. 
He shares what he finds on the topic with others and they share back. 
He creates his own opportunities for collaborative learning. 
Santos knows where to find information
he knows where information lives: everywhere
He is more likely to find and copy information without attribution
He learns about these things at night on his own.

HE DOESN’T:
Outside of school, he doesn’t separate technology from other activities. 
think about [technology] because it’s always available.
When asked to give an example, he falters. 
He’s not necessarily always learning at school,. 
His grades are better when he’s interested in what he is doing at school, and marginal when he’s disinterested. Unfortunately, that happens more and more often as he gets older.
He does not necessarily discern what information is relevant and 
he doesn’t necessarily know what he needs to learn from the information. 
he is not likely to connect ideas and create something new from it.

HE IS/WILL BE:
he is misunderstood.
he would be really good at developing Augmented Reality programs or designing nanocircuitry that would enable the creation of incredibly small computing devices
Santos is connected to kids in China, England, Germany, and Australia
he is translating the language with an online tool so that they can effectively communicate
He is connected to these kids because of a mutual interest in nanocircuitry. 
Santos is a good kid. 
Kids like Santos are reverse pioneers, navigating worlds that everyone older than them values. 
he is constrained by system frightened by “what ifs” rather than magnificence of “what could be.”

HE IS NOT:
Santos is not an enigma, 
His parents think he would make a good lawyer or doctor. Santos thinks. He told the Career and Technology teacher at his school what he was learning. The teacher handed him plans for a canned cardboard rocket project.
he isn’t thinking about distances or time when he interacts. 
Santos is not being adequately prepared for the world he will graduate into, at least in school.

HE THINKS (or other thinking tasks):
He accepts the role he has at school, like most of the other kids, and like most of the other kids, Santos thinks that school is largely a time machine.  
He leaves his world and goes back in time at 7:30 AM Monday through Friday. At 3:30 PM, he re-enters his world.
Santos recognizes that the topics he is really interested in are largely blocked/ignored at school. 
He thinks it’s funny that he goes to school to learn a few things that he will be tested on, but don’t really represent his current or future worlds. Santos believes he learns more outside of school than he does inside of school.
Santos knows that they are accountable for specific content, delivered in ways to help him maximize his score on state assessments
he stays up late at night to learn about nanocircuitry, w/a worldwide cadre of like-minded peers.
Santos knows that technology doesn’t move backwards

HIS TEACHERS:
His teachers can’t dismantle his reality to maintain comfort in their professional practice. 
His teachers are going to have to embrace all that modern learning means, though, act on it with purpose, and make technology as ubiquitous as a pencil. Right now, 
His teachers mean well, but Santos knows that they are accountable for specific content, delivered in ways to help him maximize his score on state assessments, which leaves little time for anything that would matter to him in a meaningful way.

Thesis: If kids like Santos will become the future innovators, then they need opportunities to innovate with the tools and technology of tomorrow, not yesterday.

So one of my biggest challenges in switching from my home of four years, San Lorenzo High School, to my new home, Redwood High School, is that I will now be in charge of planning my own curriculum.  I used to do that, but when I moved to SLz, everything was planned collaboratively.  It taught me a lot about scaffolding and structure, and I am SO thankful that I learned so much while I worked there.

But Redwood isn't just asking me to plan my own curriculum - they want me to plan curriculum for three different upper-division electives (for 11th-12th graders) at a college level.  Seriously.  Last night, I brought some of the texts I'm using over to my church home group, and everyone said something like, "That's for high school students?  I didn't read that until nearly the end of college!"

One of the biggest challenges is a class called Essay and Exposition.  It's not quite an AP class, but it's still the "best and brightest" in the school who sign up.  

That being said, I was reading a fantastic article by Mike Fisher, called Snapshot of a Modern Learner.  If you haven't read it, you should.

The basic premise of the essay is that the modern learner approaches learning differently than school offers it.  

That got me thinking...what if I had students read the article and then write a portrait of themselves as a learner in the style of Fisher's essay?

It serves myriad purposes:

• working on style imitation, which is a goal of the class
• it tells me about them and their own learning context
• it leads into the unit on definition essays

It also ties in nicely with my White Blank Page project and the goals of a flipped class.  I think part of why I'm freaking out about this year is because I want to have something planned out fully and I don't.  But I also know that personalisation is a major factor in my flipped class, and without knowing the students, I don't know what they need.  Those two competing forces have made my head a really unpleasant place the last few weeks (and I'm sorry to my friends who've had to hear verbalise the neurotic personality inside my head).

In fact, Crystal Kirch, Karl Lindgren-Streicher and I were talking about planning for the year last night on Twitter.

Planning for a flipped class is really, really hard.  And even more so in English.  I mean, I can prepare content (see: Thomasson and Morris Instruction), but I can't prepare for what they know and what they will need to know.  That is only compounded by the fact that I have a very vague sense of Redwood's school culture and student makeup. 

******

I'm not sure how this post descended into my own insecurities.  It probably has to do with the fact that, as a learner, I always feel like I should know more than I do.  I always feel like I am so far behind everyone else that I'll never catch up.  There are reasons for that (none are relevant for the purposes of this post), but it certainly impacts how I teach.  

I think I need to write my own "Snapshot of a Modern Learner" essay first.  

Patterns are everywhere.  Whether we realise it or not, our life is dominated by and surrounded with patterns.  

Teaching students to harness the power of patterns to help them make sense of reading, writing, and critical thinking gives them a toolkit that will allow them to understand the entire world.

The way I teach my system, which I simply call "Patterning," is fairly straight forward.  And what I realised is that it's Explore-Flip-Apply without me even knowing it.  There are two systems, one for shorter works (generally it works best with non-fiction), and one for longer works.  I'll describe my system for longer works first, and I'll address the other system in another post soon. 

I could go on and on in words, but I think it's much easier to understand Patterning if you look at this document:

That is the first page in Virginia Woolf's The Waves.  You can see that we found and traced seven patterns.  Some of those are the ones that I showed them (shapes and colours), and the rest are student-found patterns.  

Here are the instructions I gave:
Anytime an author uses a word, it is intentional.  They thought about that word and the way in which it fits in to the entire work.  They use related words, phrases, images, and ideas to create patterns.  In this section, there are lots of patterns - your job is to find them.  If you think it's a pattern, it probably is.  

Then I give them about 10 minutes and instruct them to mark them in different colours.  A requirement of my class is that they have 5-6 colours of highlighters.  Short of having all my students on iPads with Notability, I'm not sure I can make that part digital...yet.

After they found patterns, they shared out with the class.  You'll notice that some patterns intersect, but that's okay.  I love using Virginia Woolf for this exercise because her writing is so freaking intentional.

*******

In a novel, I'll sometimes give them the patterns ahead of time, and have them trace them through the work.  Here's an example from Toni Morrison's Beloved, which I taught to 11th graders in summer school last year:

You can see the pattern groups at the top of the page.  

Yes, I photocopied the entire book for my students.  But it only took 30 pieces of paper for the whole novel because I put 8 book pages on a single sheet of paper.  And I wasn't allowed to bring them from my school to the SS school site, so it was the best option I had.


After we read a section, I would give students time to find ANY evidence of their pattern and highlight it.  Then they would choose their Crystal Quotes - the one or two quotes per section that best illustrated their pattern.  When they were ready, they would come mark them on the class copy.  After all groups were ready, we marked them up as a group so all students had all the Crystal Quotes for every pattern in their packet.


You can probably see the +5 next to some highlighting.  The way I motivated groups to find the best quotes was that I chose two  Crystal Quotes of my own, and if they chose the same ones as me, I gave them extra credit points.


********


So basically, they're finding evidence of a theme, but I'm not using the word "theme" because it's unnecessary.  And when the time comes to write the essay for the novel, they have already selected all of their evidence for a variety of themes.  


I'm sure I'm not explaining it perfectly, but that's my system.  My kids find it incredibly useful, because finding "patterns" is so much more concrete than "analysing a theme" or "choosing evidence to prove a claim" (but it's the same thing).


This system also fits in to my first day activity (White Blank Page - if you haven't read it, you should!).  When I pull them out to do their video interviews, I'm looking for their ability to make inferences and find patterns.  We'll cover the explicit vs. implicit evidence, finding patterns in their own life and in the world around them, and how to apply that to reading, writing, and thinking.  


I'll probably show Derren Brown's AMAZING TV show, The Heist to show them how  one person manipulates others using only patterns.  I am (not so) secretly in love with Derren Brown (side note: he's British, but some of his work is about to be put on Hulu!!!!  You should definitely check him out...you will be entertained and amazed).


Then we'll use those skills in the research unit and in the White Blank Page project I talked about in the last post.  And thanks to Karl for posting the Google Doc description we (really, he) wrote.  I didn't have permission to share it... :-)

In terms of how to use this in my flipped class, I think I'll push all the "here's how you use this system" to video, and then have them mark it up for homework, rather than in class.  That way we can spend class time discussing and analysing the text.  If my guiding question is "How do I use my face-to-face time most effectively?" then I think the best use of in class time is not having them highlight for 30 minutes.

In the next post, I will probably cover my text-coding pattern system.  Probably.