Keep It Fresh

Merry 10 days until Christmas Break!  I'm currently in countdown mode, and so are my students.  That much is obvious when you watch them try to sit still in class.  It seems like the world's most impossible task these days.  I can't complain too much since I'm the same way, though.  I made all my copies for the entire month of December the week after Thanksgiving.  Can you say antsy?  Anyway, despite the antsy behavior, my students this year have miraculously managed to avoid the "second quarter slump," a term I coined last year when I realized all my students decided to give up on being productive students who turn their work in from Thanksgiving to the end of the semester.  This group of kids has managed to turn everything in (mostly) on time, and they have done it (mostly) with smiles on their faces.  Thankfully, we're currently studying Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, the only novel in our current curriculum that I also taught last year.  It's been a huge relief to be able to finally pull something out of a filing cabinet that I worked really hard on last year and actually put it to use again.

I did add one new assignment this December that I had never done before, though, and I must say that I think it's my new favorite.  This year, I volunteered to pilot a "bring your own device" policy in my classroom.  I haven't had much of a chance to put it to use quite yet because I also have a classroom set of iPads.  This means that there's no point in kids bringing their own devices for most class activities.  (Sidenote to teachers reading this: I realize that I am totally blessed by the educational technology gods to have all these resources.  I swear I'm not bragging).  Anyway, I finally decided to use my BYOD privileges this month for an extra credit project using the social network Instagram.

Each week, my students post pictures of English/language arts related things from the real world.  Last week, they had to find a grammar or spelling error, and they did a great job! They even caught my spelling mistake when I sent a homework reminder text home one day.  It really seemed to alert them to the grammar around them.  This week, starting today, they can turn in a picture of a simile, metaphor, pun, or oxymoron.  So far, I have received some super cheesy puns, and it has absolutely made my week.  Every time I check my phone, I seem to have a new notification about a picture someone has posted.

Probably my favorite part of this project is how excited my kids have been about it.  When I accidentally misspelled a word in their homework reminder text, a student posted it to Instagram almost immediately after the text was sent.  Then, three students commented on the picture using our vocabulary words of the week!  I love when I can trick my students into being English nerds.  It's my favorite. Anyway, the lesson I learned in all this is to keep it fresh.  I was so excited to keep my lessons and handouts from last year to teach A Christmas Carol this month, but I ended up being way more excited to do something new and fun.  What a great reminder of why I love being a middle school teacher. And now, let the Christmas countdown continue...

I'm So Thankful

I normally begin an entry by apologizing for my hiatus if I know it's been a while since the last time I wrote. But I've decided that, at least for this year, I'm going to have to stop doing that.  If I apologize every time that it's been too long since I last blogged, then I'm going to end up started every single entry with an apology.  This year has just been so busy!

Amidst all the busyness, it can be so easy to get overwhelmed.  I have spent a lot of time this semester just trying to keep my head above water when it comes to school and grad school.  It's just a LOT.  I know I've talked with several teachers in my building who feel the same way this year.  Implementing a new curriculum is hard work.  Implementing a new curriculum and having a family, friends, and a life outside of work can be even harder.  However, it's doable.  It's just more doable when you find a light at the end of the tunnel on which to focus.  We all need a little beacon of hope in our day-to-day.  Mine is Christmas break.  Only four more weeks :)

In addition to finding that light at the end of the tunnel, I think it's important to pause in the midst of all the chaos and deadlines and memos and due dates and remember to be thankful.  Today, I want to reflect on why I am thankful.

I am thankful to be surrounded by wonderful people at home, at work, and in my community.  I know there are many people who don't have a support system to lean on when things get tough.

I am thankful to have a job that, while sometimes exhausting and frustrating, is rewarding and exciting everyday.  I know there are many people who don't have a job at all.

Above all, I have recently decided that I am thankful for enthusiasm.  Enthusiasm, in many ways, is a lost art.  I think that as people become adults and slide into the grind of working, they lose their enthusiasm.  I realized this week, as I was reflecting on my thankfulness, that enthusiasm is one of the qualities that I adore in middle school students.  If I ask them to come get their graded papers ninja-style, they do it with gusto.  If I ask them to sell an Industrial Revolution invention to the class like the Oxyclean man, they make up a cheer about the piano on the spot.  If I have a bad day, they write me letters of encouragement and put them on my desk when I'm not looking.  When you're thirteen, you still see the fun and the excitement in the little things in life, and you latch onto that fun.  To me, that's something worth emulating as an adult.  I want to be as enthusiastic as they are.  I want to encourage them when they have a bad day.  Most of all, I want to continue to be inspired by my students.

In the middle of all the craziness that 2012 had brought with it, I am immensely grateful to be teaching the group of students that I am teaching this year.  What a blessing to be surrounded by so much enthusiasm.  I hope it's contagious.  I'll definitely be needing to catch some in order to make it to Christmas.

Living to Work

I am the worst.  It's been a month since the last time I had a chance to sit down and write.  Let me just tell you that it has been one busy month.  I feel like my life recently has been one giant to-do list after another.  A friend told me recently that the key to not getting overwhelmed by everything is to realize that we really are living to work.  We spend 90% of our time at work, and so it's better to just accept the fact that sometimes, or a lot of the time, it's going to take over our lives.

That's why I have recently decided that it's so important that, at least occasionally, we get paid to play.  I decided this after I did a couple activities with my students this week that felt like getting "paid to play."  On Tuesday of this week, I had to figure out a way to teach color symbolism is a meaningful, memorable, and somewhat concrete way to a group of 7th graders whose abstract thinking skills are still developing.  This ended up turning into a little game I created on the fly that I will henceforth be calling "Color Symbolism Charades."  I gave each student a color symbolism chart and asked them to choose one color and study its positive and negative associations.  Then, they had to draw a picture that represented that color and its associations.  When the students brought them back the next day, I was simply going to have them present their drawings.  After a few kids in 1st period sleepily shared their pictures with the class, I decided we needed to wake up a bit and make this a guessing game.  I told the student to describe or act out their picture and have the other students in the class guess which color they had chosen using their chart....

Talk about engagement!!  I was quickly left out of the game as the students guessed each other's color symbolism, explained the color symbolism to people around them and excitedly participated in the game.  I think I could have left the room, and they would have kept playing.  I couldn't help but smile at how awesome it was that my students were being totally nerdy and yelling competitively about color symbolism.  It was music to an English teacher's ears :)

After finishing color symbolism, I decided it was time to get in the Halloween spirit.  I turned off the lights, playing scary music, and read a scary story to my class today.  Of course, then they had to analyze it for the five elements of a short story, but not before they had the opportunity to get a little scared.  One student even said, "Ms. Herring, you have a great scary story voice."

Anyway, I say all that to say that not all jobs allow you to get "paid to play," but a lot of times my job allows that.  Grading's not always so fun, and instruction can't be exciting every day, but on the days when the kids are so excited they could keep the lesson going on their own, or on the days when I grade an essay with such vivid voice that I can't help but smile from ear to ear, I know that I'm getting paid to play.  It's on those days that I feel ok about living to work.

I Think Those People Lied....

I think people lied when they told me that this year would be easier.  Last year, everyone kept saying things like, "Next year will be a breeze!"  or "You feel overwhelmed this year, but next year will be so worth it!" or "Just wait 'til you have all this planning done, and you can pull it out of you filing cabinet and copy it."  Lies.  That's all I can say.  I think that maybe this is because last year I was too naive to realize I should be more overwhelmed.  Or maybe it's because I realize now that I thought last year was great, but I could have made it so much better.  Either way, I know that Common Core State Standards have increased my working week hours considerably since the year started.  And I haven't pulled one thing out of my filing cabinet.  Dangit.

Now, I am not complaining, I promise.  I know that you read that first paragraph and thought, "get over yourself, girl.  Life's tough, work's hard, just quit complaining and get down to business."  I agree 100%.  I came home Monday evening from work feeling very sorry for myself.  In my "poor me" state, I was totally prepared to mourn my sorrows in a blog post, but I stopped myself.  I realized that I needed a couple of days of perspective before I blogged about our new curriculum and my new year.  Trust me, had I written this on Monday, I would have lost all two of my avid readers.

Anyway, what this week of perspective-taking made me realize is that, yes, I'm coming home tired at night, but I'm also coming home more excited about what my students are achieving.  I shared my plan for our first research essay in a team meeting this week, and someone on my team commented about what high standards I was setting for all my students, whether they be regular ed. or Pre-AP.  I thought about that and realized that not only do I set the bar high for my kids, but I set the bar high for myself, too.  This year wouldn't be harder  than last year if I didn't think I could outdo today what I did or taught yesterday.

My favorite quote of all time is a Margaret Thatcher quote that says, "Well-behaved women never made history."  We all have to break a few rules to get to the root of where we want to be, but there's also a great Thatcher quote that I found a lot of comfort in this week: "What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose."  I know, without a doubt, that I am passionate about what I do.  Even if I get tired, and even if I have a frustrating day, I have never woken up and not wanted to go to work.  Seeing the light bulb go off in my students' minds gives me a sense of purpose and excitement.  I absolutely adore those moments of cognition. 

I'm not changing my mind.  Everyone did lie when they said this year would be soooooo much easier.  However, I am apologizing publicly for even taking one moment to feel sorry for myself.  What I've done before is not enough.  I can only hope that what I will grow to do will be better, not easier. 

Wisdom from the Middle: People are Like Vending Machines, and Other Exciti...

Wisdom from the Middle: People are Like Vending Machines, and Other Exciti...: Last week my classes began reading  The Diary of Anne Frank .  Technically, Anne's diary is a nonfiction narrative, not a novel, but it's ou...

People are Like Vending Machines, and Other Exciting Analogies

Last week my classes began reading The Diary of Anne Frank.  Technically, Anne's diary is a nonfiction narrative, not a novel, but it's our first extended text of the year.  When I read the book this summer, I began thinking about what I wanted to focus on and how I wanted to teach the book. There's really no exciting plot line since it's just the musing of a 13-year-old girl.  However, I was struck with the character development that takes place over the course of the text. Anne goes from being an egocentric, childish young adolescent to a thoughtful, strong-willed young woman whose musings have guided thousands of readers to embrace cultural tolerance.  Having said all that, I decided that I would briefly breeze through comprehension each day and focus heavily on analyzing Anne's growth as a character and the qualities that make her relatable to my students.

In an effort to guide my students through a character analysis this week, I used a model that I learned in a grad school class last year called Synectics.  It's basically an extended comparison model.  The purpose of the Synectic is to pull students as far away from the original concept as possible before finally bringing them back to that original concept.  Thus, by the end of the lesson they are comparing the original concept, Anne Frank, to something that they never, ever would have compared her to on their own.  It's a serious exercise in critical and creative thinking, and it forces kids to struggle to find answers, which I think is an important skill, especially for kids who are used to always having the right answers.

I did this lesson with three classes, and they each found their way to three different final comparisons.  One class ended up discussing how Anne Frank is like a mechanical pencil.  Another group analyzed how Anne Frank is like a copier.  By far, the most interesting (and difficult) final comparison was explored by my 8th period class; Anne Frank is like a vending machine.

I'll admit.  I was nervous for them.  How on Earth would these kids be able to explain to me the ways that Anne Frank was like a vending machine?!  Did they even have vending machines in 1943?  We finished the lesson, and I sent them home to think about how they would explain their final comparison the next day in class.  Today, I was astounded and impressed by their connections:

Anne Frank is like a vending machine because she is full of both good and bad things.  Some things (qualities) we like about her and some we don't like.  Sometimes she's happy (good things inside) and sometimes she's angry (bad things).

Anne Frank is like a vending machine because she gets shaken up and pushed around, like when you push the vending machine around to try to get what you want.  That's how the other people in the Annex push Anne around.

Anne Frank is like a vending machine because sometimes people push her buttons, and a vending machine has buttons that you push, too.  Mrs.  Van Daan pushes Anne's buttons and makes her angry a lot.  

Anne can be both sweet and salty with her moods the way a vending machine has both sweet and salty things inside.

Have I mentioned how awesome my students are this year?  I was truly impressed by their thinking and their willingness to jump out of their comfort zone and go for it.  As I read through their answers tonight while grading, I came to the conclusion that maybe we're all a little bit like vending machines.  We're all full of thoughts, ideas, stressors, and other "stuff" that can be either good or bad for us.  Sometimes we get shaken up over something that didn't go our way, or we feel pushed around by someone in our personal or professional life.  I know I'll be the first to admit that I have both sweet and salty moods, and it is best not to be around for the salty ones.  I think the biggest way we're like vending machines is that we get out what we put in.  If we take the time to fill ourselves up with positivity, good thoughts, choices, and actions, then we'll get out of ourselves a more productive, happy life.  So this week, my wisdom from the middle is that I am, indeed, like a vending machine, and I'll only get out of myself the product of my input.  I better make sure it's for the best.

Reasons 7th grade is Awesome

Oh, Labor Day weekend...there is something about a Monday off work that lulls me into a false sense of security.  Last night, I had completely convinced myself that I was all ready for this short week.  Alas, at 11 p.m., one of the teachers on my team emailed me her part of our discussion questions, which reminded me that I, too, has discussion questions to write.  Oops....

Fortunately, the questions were written and all was well today at the middle school.  One thing I've noticed about this particular group of students is their willingness to please.  I tried from Day One to build a rapport with all of my students.  I truly do believe that a mutual respect goes a long way, but I have been both impressed and amazed by how promptly this group of kids, whether low or high achieving, has turned in their assignments and prepared for class.  I mentioned this to my principal last week, and her response was "well maybe they want to impress you..."

Maybe they do want to impress me.  Maybe they just have very involved parents.  Or maybe I'm just getting to a place where I have enough guts to back up my classroom policies.  Last year, I had a homework policy, but I also was a big softy when it came to late work.  I would rather a kid turn something in a month late and learn something than never turn it in at all.  I guess I'll never know the reason why these kids are so awesome, but I sure hope they keep it up all year.  It's making my school life so wonderfully pleasant right now.

In addition to their excellent on-time-homework-record, this group of students also possesses a stellar collective sense of humor.  Today, in an effort to quietly hand back papers during 8th period, I asked the students to come get their papers "silent Ninja style," which meant that they were required to be both stealthy and silent.  I am not lying when I tell you that those boys were sneaking behind chairs and silently karate-chopping their way to the front of the room.  One student even did a forward roll out of his chair to get his paper, and I didn't even care because it was absolutely silent.  Silent Ninja paper hand-out was the most quiet I had in my classroom all day.  I think this is a perfect example of why I adore 7th grade.  There's still a sense of wonder in learning and a desire to be silly and play and be a child.  At the same time, they want the respect that comes with growing up.  They don't want to be babied, and that's important for me, the girl who professes to be neither a shoe-tier or a hand holder.  So I guess there's really no "wisdom from the middle"in this entry.  There is only a renewed realization that I am so very blessed to have this job and to feel perfect for my purpose.  There is no better realization to stumble upon anew each day.