The children have been out of school for about two weeks now, but my summer is just getting started. This is the first summer since I began teaching that I haven't taught summer school. I just got so antsy for something new during the spring semester that I decided I would spend the month of June working with grownups instead of children. It's been interesting. Since school let out so late this year due to a very snowy and icy winter, there really wasn't even a glimpse of summertime before we started completing professional development to get ready for next year. Our middle school is going to a more interdisciplinary model next year, and I'm so excited about the literacy connections and cross-curricular teaming we'll be doing next year in seventh grade! I work with some truly awesome, open-minded educators. After a day of interdisciplinary productive struggle, our middle school English department met the next day to explore PARCC.
We decided the best way to begin the day was to take a PARCC practice test on the website. Here's what's funny about my teaching so far. After my first year of teaching, I knew I would have to basically start from scratch in order to implement Common Core. But after last year, I just knew that this summer would be a breeze!! We'd be able to keep most of the curriculum and materials we created in place! All of our hard work would be so worth it when our English department was lounging by the pool all summer this year! Then, we took a PARCC test. I know that the purpose of CCSS and PARCC is to increase rigor and prepare students for college, and after taking the test, I definitely think that's what it does. I also think we're going to see a pretty significant implementation dip in test scores. All I can say it, that test is hard, ya'll. Our students have never written literary analysis essays in seventh grade before because, honestly, who writes literary analysis essays in seventh grade? In many respects, middle school English will essentially become a writing class to prepare students for college and career readiness (and to prepare them not have a panic attack when they take their first PARCC assessment).
After my initial panic subsided regarding how I will shepherd my students toward a mind space where they can all not only identify tone in two poems but also write a coherent essay comparing the tone of the two poems and explaining how figurative language contributes to the tone, I took a deep breath and decided that, ultimately, it's all going to be alright. I really do believe that my students need to know how to write an analytical essay. They need to be critical thinkers and writers. They need to be able to analyze literature and argument and research in order to succeed in a college classroom and in life. Ok, maybe they won't need to analyze literature to succeed in life, but they'll definitely have to be able to do it to pass freshman lit class. I'm always up for a new challenge, and this, apparently, is my new challenge.
The thing that inspired me most during this somewhat stressful two days of planning for PARCC was the fact that no one on my team really freaked out. Sure, we all got a little stressed and questioned how this increased academic rigor would play out in our classrooms. How will analytical writing look in SPED classes? inclusion classes? Pre-AP? How can we scaffold this skill for students who are struggling to write a paragraph? what about students who struggle to write a complete sentence? These are all valid questions and we're still trying to figure out the answers. But what I love so much about the awesome ladies I work with is that no one threw up her hands and said, "This is impossible! My students could never do this! This test is too hard!" Instead, everyone took a "how can we make this work attitude." I think that says a lot about our school culture and the high expectations we hold for the kids we teach.
So I am telling you the story of how we panicked, got over it, and got to work for two reasons. First, because if you are a teacher, I encourage you to take a PARCC test, no matter what content area you teach. It's going to take a unified, whole-school approach for students to succeed. Second, I hope you'll learn from our stress, skip that part, and go straight to the part where you figure out how to make this work for your students. Even though it seems overwhelming, these are necessary skills, and I know that if students receive quality instruction in these skills beginning in middle school, they will be more prepared for college.
Finally, I hope your summer is off to a fantastic start! Hopefully, I'll be basking in the glow of summer break soon, too.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Monday, June 2, 2014
Teaching "The Pedestrian" and the Art of Unplugging
Today marks our last week of school, and I got to spend last week teaching one of my favorite short stories, Ray Bradbury's "The Pedestrian." If you've never read the story, here's a link to it. It's the story about a guy named Leonard who still goes on walks, even though the rest of the world is addicted to television and can't leave home. I think this story holds great significance for the students that I'm teaching now. When I teach this story, I allow students to read it on their own first and draw their own conclusions about what's going on in Leonard's world. Then, I show them this animated version of the story on Vimeo. The story is a great way to teach foreshadowing and has a lot of suspense, but students who struggle with comprehension find the video really helpful in decoding the story.
Next, I ask students to raise their hands if they can think of a way that this story, written in 1951, can apply to life today. Every hand in the room goes up. Today's students are very aware that the world is addicted to technology. After reading this story, I had my accelerated classes read this CNN Tech article about embeddable technology. It's a great modern-day connection and makes Bradbury's story (and his fears about technology) seem applicable in today's world. Many of them noted that, while Bradbury set "The Pedestrian" in 2053, the technology addiction he was warning against is very much a problem in 2014. Many of them wrote about the negative side effects of technology, including the changing landscape of socialization that we're all experiencing. Seriously, who ever thought that families would have to develop a "cell phone policy" for the dinner table?
While my accelerated classes focused on debating the ever-present threat of being taken over by technology, I chose to focus on creating narrative with the rest of my students. We debated and discussed the same themes and issues in "The Pedestrian," and I asked my students to write the story of the "21st Century Pedestrian." Here's what one student wrote on his class blog:
The year is 2115; the government doesn’t matter anymore. There are no crimes or wars for them to deal with. Nothing is the same. No street lights are on. The city below is dark, broken, and dirty. After the cars started hovering, no one was on the ground. They are all up there; I see them, forgetting about the worries of life, especially after the phones got smart enough to control everything. Humans have no control, no say in what they will do today; the machines do everything for us. They have tried to make me a slave to the technology, but I know better.
We have lived in a world where we rely on a phone to remind us to say hi to our grandma and not to forget milk when we're shopping. No one ever thought that we wouldn’t have control over a piece of plastic with wires, but this is life. If only we had taken the time to set our phones down, go for a walk, and talk to a stranger, maybe it would be different.
There are few like me. The ones that refused the technology, or maybe they just couldn’t afford it. After they took over, they basically built a whole new world, burying the old one in dust and scrap parts. Very little lives on the ground. Most are up there, with there heads in the clouds. They're like zombies, glued to the screens of light, no one exercising. They're all fat and unhealthy, like the being lifted out of bed by a mini crane fat…yeah.
Tokyo and China were the first to go, then the U.S. Africa is fine; no technology there to rule. We have no control over our world. We saw this coming, and we ignored it. Now there is no going back. This is the end...or is it...
If you think about it, this student is probably not that far off track. How many times in the past week have you had a face-to-face conversation with someone while staring at your phone at the same time? I know I'm guilty. This week, as we wind down the last few days of school, I'm going to take some time for a little face-to-face, "old school" interaction. I'll be sad to see this group of students leave our middle school, and I need to soak up these last few days for the wonderful time that they can be. Happy almost-Summer, everyone!
Next, I ask students to raise their hands if they can think of a way that this story, written in 1951, can apply to life today. Every hand in the room goes up. Today's students are very aware that the world is addicted to technology. After reading this story, I had my accelerated classes read this CNN Tech article about embeddable technology. It's a great modern-day connection and makes Bradbury's story (and his fears about technology) seem applicable in today's world. Many of them noted that, while Bradbury set "The Pedestrian" in 2053, the technology addiction he was warning against is very much a problem in 2014. Many of them wrote about the negative side effects of technology, including the changing landscape of socialization that we're all experiencing. Seriously, who ever thought that families would have to develop a "cell phone policy" for the dinner table?
While my accelerated classes focused on debating the ever-present threat of being taken over by technology, I chose to focus on creating narrative with the rest of my students. We debated and discussed the same themes and issues in "The Pedestrian," and I asked my students to write the story of the "21st Century Pedestrian." Here's what one student wrote on his class blog:
The year is 2115; the government doesn’t matter anymore. There are no crimes or wars for them to deal with. Nothing is the same. No street lights are on. The city below is dark, broken, and dirty. After the cars started hovering, no one was on the ground. They are all up there; I see them, forgetting about the worries of life, especially after the phones got smart enough to control everything. Humans have no control, no say in what they will do today; the machines do everything for us. They have tried to make me a slave to the technology, but I know better.
We have lived in a world where we rely on a phone to remind us to say hi to our grandma and not to forget milk when we're shopping. No one ever thought that we wouldn’t have control over a piece of plastic with wires, but this is life. If only we had taken the time to set our phones down, go for a walk, and talk to a stranger, maybe it would be different.
There are few like me. The ones that refused the technology, or maybe they just couldn’t afford it. After they took over, they basically built a whole new world, burying the old one in dust and scrap parts. Very little lives on the ground. Most are up there, with there heads in the clouds. They're like zombies, glued to the screens of light, no one exercising. They're all fat and unhealthy, like the being lifted out of bed by a mini crane fat…yeah.
Tokyo and China were the first to go, then the U.S. Africa is fine; no technology there to rule. We have no control over our world. We saw this coming, and we ignored it. Now there is no going back. This is the end...or is it...
If you think about it, this student is probably not that far off track. How many times in the past week have you had a face-to-face conversation with someone while staring at your phone at the same time? I know I'm guilty. This week, as we wind down the last few days of school, I'm going to take some time for a little face-to-face, "old school" interaction. I'll be sad to see this group of students leave our middle school, and I need to soak up these last few days for the wonderful time that they can be. Happy almost-Summer, everyone!
Monday, May 19, 2014
Teaching My Student Bloggers
I've been really struggling to write recently. The year is winding down. I'm tired. My students are tired. We're all ready for summer break to hurry up and get here already. This slow march toward the last day of school is compounded this year by the addition of five snow days to the end of our school calendar, making everyone even more antsy than they might otherwise be at this time of year.
Even though I'm counting down to summer right along with the children, one thing I have really enjoyed about this last nine weeks is blogging. After giving Google Drive a try with two of my six classes when we returned from Christmas break, I decided that after Spring Break I was going to try using Kidblog for my students' journaling in the other four classes I teach. Instead of grouping students into blogging groups by class period, I split up all one hundred-ish students into two blogging groups of fifty or so students each. This gave them an opportunity to enjoy an expanded audience and to read writing from peers of all different ability levels.
From the first day I introduced Kidblog, I saw a huge difference in the engagement of my students, especially my reluctant writers. I've learned that some of my students struggle with writing simply because they haven't developed all the necessary motor skills over time. Writing with a pencil in literally a painful experience for them. Typing, however, removes this burden and allows these writers to truly express themselves. Others struggled because I was their only audience, and that gets old after awhile. I raised the stakes when I told my students that they were becoming "published Internet bloggers." This meant that their peers would be reading their work, and that meant it needed to be worth reading. Finally, the simple novelty of knowing they were writing on an iPad or personal device rather than in a notebook seemed to intrigue my students.
Over the past quarter, I've seen a definite improvement in the depth and breadth of writing that my students are composing. I recently had my summative evaluation for the year, and I told my principal that one area of teaching that I've worked hard to improve since the start of my career is my writing instruction. Everyone's writing process is different. Yes, there's the general process of brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing, but not everyone follows the same process successfully. I feel like this year I've hit a much better stride in my writing instruction, and I've seen a noticeable change in the way my students came to me as writers and in the way they are leaving me as editors and authors of their own work and the work of their peers. I truly believe that a major part of that improvement has been the implementation of technology in the writing process. It's much easier to workshop with students and check in regularly when I can access their work anywhere, from my phone or iPad. It's been a really cool experience that I've enjoyed immensely.
So, yes, I'm ready for my sweet seventh graders to be eighth graders. I'm also so incredibly proud of the way I've seen them grow intellectually this year, and I'm confident in the fact that they're leaving me as better learners. And that thought is just the positive, happy realization I need to get through the next two weeks!
Happy Monday!
Even though I'm counting down to summer right along with the children, one thing I have really enjoyed about this last nine weeks is blogging. After giving Google Drive a try with two of my six classes when we returned from Christmas break, I decided that after Spring Break I was going to try using Kidblog for my students' journaling in the other four classes I teach. Instead of grouping students into blogging groups by class period, I split up all one hundred-ish students into two blogging groups of fifty or so students each. This gave them an opportunity to enjoy an expanded audience and to read writing from peers of all different ability levels.
Over the past quarter, I've seen a definite improvement in the depth and breadth of writing that my students are composing. I recently had my summative evaluation for the year, and I told my principal that one area of teaching that I've worked hard to improve since the start of my career is my writing instruction. Everyone's writing process is different. Yes, there's the general process of brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing, but not everyone follows the same process successfully. I feel like this year I've hit a much better stride in my writing instruction, and I've seen a noticeable change in the way my students came to me as writers and in the way they are leaving me as editors and authors of their own work and the work of their peers. I truly believe that a major part of that improvement has been the implementation of technology in the writing process. It's much easier to workshop with students and check in regularly when I can access their work anywhere, from my phone or iPad. It's been a really cool experience that I've enjoyed immensely.
So, yes, I'm ready for my sweet seventh graders to be eighth graders. I'm also so incredibly proud of the way I've seen them grow intellectually this year, and I'm confident in the fact that they're leaving me as better learners. And that thought is just the positive, happy realization I need to get through the next two weeks!
Happy Monday!
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
How to Really Appreciate Teachers
This week is Teacher Appreciation Week. Even though I am a teacher, I tend to spend this week reflecting on how much I appreciate my teachers, both past and present, rather than spending my time thinking about how I should be appreciated more often. To be totally honest, if I spent my time thinking about how I needed to be more appreciated by my former and current students, I'd probably think myself into another profession. Above all else, teaching is a service profession. I didn't choose my job because I looked forward to lots of perks and incentives; I chose it because I wanted to make the world a better place, as cliche as that may sound. Anyway, enough of that little rant...
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I want to take a moment this week to thank my teachers and let them know that they are the many reasons that I love school enough to want to spend all my adult working days in a school building. In first grade my mother took this picture of me in Mrs. Buckley's classroom. I'm sure she had no idea at the time that I'd grow up to write on a chalkboard everyday.
Mrs. Buckley loved all her students. I'll never forget when she attended my birthday party that year. I still have the sterling silver jewelry box she gave my as a birthday gift. There are two significant things about this story. The first is that I adored my teacher enough to want to invite her to my birthday party. The second is that she showed up. Mrs. Buckley truly loved her students, whether they were in her classroom or not, and that can do more for a student than any amount of content or pedagogical knowledge.
In middle school, Mrs. Boone was my sixth grade teacher. She taught social studies in a way that made world history come to life. We created our own mummies and turned our classroom into an Egyptian tomb. Mrs. Halley was my seventh and eighth grade English teacher. She taught me how to write my first research paper and introduced me to How to Kill a Mockingbird, The Outsiders, and The Diary of Anne Frank. These two women taught me what it is to love your content area so much that you can't help but breathe life into it as you share it with students. Their vibrant enthusiasm filled up their classrooms every single day. As a teacher now, I realize how exhausting that can be, that conscious decision to fill each day in your classroom with excitement. I appreciate them more now than I probably ever did in middle school.
In high school, my teachers taught me that being an expert in your content area is important, but building relationships with your students is what really hooks them on learning. Coach McCullough, thank you for introducing me to Zora Neale Hurston and Their Eyes Were Watching God. Janie will always be one of my favorite characters. Thank you even more for having a Risky Business cardboard cutout of Tom Cruise in your classroom and for being so funny and approachable. Sometimes, the most important quality a teacher can have is a smile that lights up a room. Thank you, Charlotte Miller, for teaching me how to write. You made my life very difficult sophomore year of high school, but you also made my life in college much easier. Thank you, Dr. Fontaine, for making me a better human being and teaching me history in the process. You are the only teacher that I have shed a tear for as we parted ways. You can never truly know the impact you had on my life. Thank you, Father Fred, for teaching me physics and giving me LOTS of extra credit opportunities to supplement my lacking scientific thinking skills, but more importantly, thank you for your booming laughter heard all through the halls of my high school.
Now, I work in a wonderful middle school, full of teachers who are dedicated to their students and their profession. Thank you to my colleagues, who listen to me vent on frustrating days and listen to me celebrate when things go well. Thank you all for sharing your practice with me and for pushing me, whether you realize it or not, to be better at my job each day. I am so fortunate to work in a place with such a positive school culture, a place where everyone is constantly raising the bar.
This week, please take a moment to really thank a teacher. Don't buy him or her a gift card to Starbucks or a box of donuts, although those things would surely be appreciated. Instead, take the time to find a teacher who changed things for you or put you on a path in life or made you work harder than you thought you could, and tell that person thank you. That will mean more than anything else possibly could.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
That Moment When You Know Your Lesson was a Win
This week, we started an interdisciplinary unit that our literacy team developed with the 7th grade science team. Our students read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle, one of my favorites! In English class, we get to focus on elements of writing, like tone, mood, style, and syntax. Because science helps us out by doing a lot of in-class reading, we're really able to dig in to the text and do some close reading and analysis. In science, students study the solar system and discuss the ways that science fiction bends the rules of true scientific fact. Overall, I think the kids really enjoy this unit, and it's definitely one of the teaching highlights of my year.
Yesterday, my lesson focused on descriptive language. We began the lesson by looking at a passage from a new book I'm reading, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender. Here's the passage:
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The corner of Maple Street was alive with fragrances. Kids would congregate outside to see who would get the treats. When the door opened, the heavy fragrances of fresh flour and strawberry icing and the vivid clinks of the cash register polluted the air. Kids were bribing their parents for one more scrumptious treat that made their mouths water. The sound of the unfolding of brightly decorated candy wrappers was heard by all ages. Through the glass, you could see the heat of the freshly made dessert all waiting for the kids.
The alley is a great place to get hurt. Rats eating out of the trash; fire in barrels. Homeless people hug the wall for comfort. Gangs looking for trouble and store owners ready for anything. Trash litters the alley floor, leaving only an unhealthy habitat.
Serene and beautiful, calm and quiet. The woods call, as the wind talks to the slightly swaying trees. A babbling brook teaming with life, gently sounds as it flows over the rocks. You can smell the flowers from the not-so-far away meadow. They smell sour and sweet. The colony of bees buzzes, for the honey is sweet, but the journey is treacherous. The shapes of fish blocked by the fading shadows of the weeping willows, a place tucked inside a land dotted by river bends.
The dusty baseball field is old. The bases are worn and battered from all the sliding. The spotlights are cracked and losing their light. Three bats, all dented, lay against a rusty metal fence. The lights shut off as the sun sets after a long day at the ballpark.
In the afternoons, I go to a place of peace and quiet. It is a place with two softhearted people who love to help search for requests. It's a place with the smell of wood and paper, and a hint of coconut pie. When I look around, I see people sitting in bean bags, enjoying themselves. I see people touching the smooth texture of words. I sometimes hear people whispering to themselves, or the bubbling of the fish tank filled with goldfish swimming while their fins glitter in the light. The place I go to is the amazing library.
As she stood on the ledge, she could feel the cold steel of her foot blade pressing up against the bottom of her smooth baby soft skin. She could smell the polluted air of the big city. She could hear the planes soaring high in the jet streams, and the task force rushing up the stairs ready to fire the 300 degree metal shells into her cold, weak body. Blood dripping slowly from her wounds. Slowly she leans forward and dives, the wind rushing over her, and the dark shirt she got on a warm Christmas morning flapping in the wind. Then, right before she hits the ground, she wakes up in her safe bed.
What I love about each of these paragraphs is that they're so different. You can see a little slice of each student's personality in the way that they craft their writing. What I loved about this lesson was that each student was totally engaged in the process. They worked hard to search for strong examples of description because they wanted to post the best pictures on the board. They took their time and revised their writing because they wanted to make it on my blog. In this case, technology wasn't the center of the lesson; beautifully crafted writing was. Instead the technology served to create an authentic audience in each step of the lesson, and that's just the way it should be.
Yesterday, my lesson focused on descriptive language. We began the lesson by looking at a passage from a new book I'm reading, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender. Here's the passage:
After analyzing this passage together and discussing the use of sensory imagery to create a full experience for the reader, students used a QR Code to access a Padlet wall, where they posted pictures of descriptive passages from chapter 3 of A Wrinkle in Time. We used the Padlet wall examples to discuss the various ways that authors use language to create imagery. Finally, my students used theses model passages to write their own descriptive paragraphs. They could write about anything they wanted, real or imagined. The only direction I gave them was to be descriptive without using "fluffy" language or using too many words. Below are some of the passages they wrote:
The alley is a great place to get hurt. Rats eating out of the trash; fire in barrels. Homeless people hug the wall for comfort. Gangs looking for trouble and store owners ready for anything. Trash litters the alley floor, leaving only an unhealthy habitat.
Serene and beautiful, calm and quiet. The woods call, as the wind talks to the slightly swaying trees. A babbling brook teaming with life, gently sounds as it flows over the rocks. You can smell the flowers from the not-so-far away meadow. They smell sour and sweet. The colony of bees buzzes, for the honey is sweet, but the journey is treacherous. The shapes of fish blocked by the fading shadows of the weeping willows, a place tucked inside a land dotted by river bends.
The dusty baseball field is old. The bases are worn and battered from all the sliding. The spotlights are cracked and losing their light. Three bats, all dented, lay against a rusty metal fence. The lights shut off as the sun sets after a long day at the ballpark.
In the afternoons, I go to a place of peace and quiet. It is a place with two softhearted people who love to help search for requests. It's a place with the smell of wood and paper, and a hint of coconut pie. When I look around, I see people sitting in bean bags, enjoying themselves. I see people touching the smooth texture of words. I sometimes hear people whispering to themselves, or the bubbling of the fish tank filled with goldfish swimming while their fins glitter in the light. The place I go to is the amazing library.
As she stood on the ledge, she could feel the cold steel of her foot blade pressing up against the bottom of her smooth baby soft skin. She could smell the polluted air of the big city. She could hear the planes soaring high in the jet streams, and the task force rushing up the stairs ready to fire the 300 degree metal shells into her cold, weak body. Blood dripping slowly from her wounds. Slowly she leans forward and dives, the wind rushing over her, and the dark shirt she got on a warm Christmas morning flapping in the wind. Then, right before she hits the ground, she wakes up in her safe bed.
What I love about each of these paragraphs is that they're so different. You can see a little slice of each student's personality in the way that they craft their writing. What I loved about this lesson was that each student was totally engaged in the process. They worked hard to search for strong examples of description because they wanted to post the best pictures on the board. They took their time and revised their writing because they wanted to make it on my blog. In this case, technology wasn't the center of the lesson; beautifully crafted writing was. Instead the technology served to create an authentic audience in each step of the lesson, and that's just the way it should be.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Reflections on Benchmark Week
Well, we all survived ACTAAP testing last week. The children worked hard and checked their work and did their best each day, and every afternoon we celebrated their hard work and success. I even danced in a teacher talent show. Despite all the efforts of our school to make the week as "fun," or at least as bearable, as possible, I struggle every year with my feelings about standardized testing. In fact, I was in a terrible, negative mood during my last two weeks of work. Standardized testing makes me feel like a sell-out. I feel like I'm compromising my beliefs as an educator, my beliefs about what makes a good classroom learning environment, and my beliefs about how we can best assess students' progress and knowledge.
On one hand, I firmly believe that a standardized test cannot and will not yield the most accurate measure of my students' success. It's also the furthest thing from authentic. Yes, adults have to take standardized tests to enter some professions; teachers take the Praxis; doctors and therapists take board exams. But once we all enter the work force, no one is going to ask us to fill in a bubble sheet during the work day. I would rather my kids be measured by the way they can authentically apply their knowledge and skills, not by how they can regurgitate information.
At the same time, I want my kids to feel successful, and knowing that they could be labeled "Basic" isn't going to make them feel great. While I want my classroom instruction to be authentic, inquiry-based, and student-led, I also feel the need to give in to the culture of testing that is so prevalent in our society. It's difficult to reconcile these two lines of thought. I fully supported my students this week in their work. I did everything I could to pump them up and get them excited, and I want their performance to reflect well on my school and on my instruction. Most of all, I want them to know that I'm proud of them.
But in spite of all that, there's a part of me that feels like sticking it to the man, like telling the children that this is just one big week of data collection, and I'm over it. My students are unique, intelligent, wonderful individuals. Each of them is more than a student ID number and a test score, and I hope that our education system can someday move to a system of accountability that celebrates their different learning styles and needs and honors the professionalism and craft of teachers. For now, we made it through another year of standardized testing. Time to focus on finishing out the year with our science fiction unit. Looking forward to another week of teaching and learning!
On one hand, I firmly believe that a standardized test cannot and will not yield the most accurate measure of my students' success. It's also the furthest thing from authentic. Yes, adults have to take standardized tests to enter some professions; teachers take the Praxis; doctors and therapists take board exams. But once we all enter the work force, no one is going to ask us to fill in a bubble sheet during the work day. I would rather my kids be measured by the way they can authentically apply their knowledge and skills, not by how they can regurgitate information.
At the same time, I want my kids to feel successful, and knowing that they could be labeled "Basic" isn't going to make them feel great. While I want my classroom instruction to be authentic, inquiry-based, and student-led, I also feel the need to give in to the culture of testing that is so prevalent in our society. It's difficult to reconcile these two lines of thought. I fully supported my students this week in their work. I did everything I could to pump them up and get them excited, and I want their performance to reflect well on my school and on my instruction. Most of all, I want them to know that I'm proud of them.
But in spite of all that, there's a part of me that feels like sticking it to the man, like telling the children that this is just one big week of data collection, and I'm over it. My students are unique, intelligent, wonderful individuals. Each of them is more than a student ID number and a test score, and I hope that our education system can someday move to a system of accountability that celebrates their different learning styles and needs and honors the professionalism and craft of teachers. For now, we made it through another year of standardized testing. Time to focus on finishing out the year with our science fiction unit. Looking forward to another week of teaching and learning!
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Sharing Some Spring Break Reading
I rarely post Book Talks on the blog, but I spent a lot of my spring break time reading. One of my goals this year was not only to read more consistently but also to share what I read with others, particularly my students. I'll be Book Talking these four books tomorrow, so I thought I would share them here as well. All of these books would be considered "young adult," but some appeal to a younger age group than others. I really enjoyed each of these books for different reasons. Each of the book titles is hyperlinked to its page on Amazon, so if you think it sounds like a good read, buy it!
The first book I read what When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. Originally released in 2010, this book is about a young girl named Miranda and her journey to solve a mystery. It's set in the 1970s in New York City, and Miranda and her single mom are trying to find their place in the world. In between going to school, dealing with bullies, and coming to terms with changing friendships in her life, Miranda is helping her mom prepare to be a contestant on $20,000 Pyramid with Dick Clark. This is a short, quick read, and just as the age of the main character suggests, the book is aimed toward a younger adolescent audience, probably 4th-7th grade. However, don't take that to mean that the book is juvenile. It has a well layered plot and rich, complex characters that deal with real life problems. I found myself thinking about how relatable these characters would probably be to my students. Stead does a great job of building suspense as Miranda unravels her mystery. Another thing I loved about this book is that Miranda's favorite book is A Wrinkle in Time, one of my favorites and one of the books we read in my class. This was a great little read that would definitely draw in reluctant readers from the start.
The first book I read what When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. Originally released in 2010, this book is about a young girl named Miranda and her journey to solve a mystery. It's set in the 1970s in New York City, and Miranda and her single mom are trying to find their place in the world. In between going to school, dealing with bullies, and coming to terms with changing friendships in her life, Miranda is helping her mom prepare to be a contestant on $20,000 Pyramid with Dick Clark. This is a short, quick read, and just as the age of the main character suggests, the book is aimed toward a younger adolescent audience, probably 4th-7th grade. However, don't take that to mean that the book is juvenile. It has a well layered plot and rich, complex characters that deal with real life problems. I found myself thinking about how relatable these characters would probably be to my students. Stead does a great job of building suspense as Miranda unravels her mystery. Another thing I loved about this book is that Miranda's favorite book is A Wrinkle in Time, one of my favorites and one of the books we read in my class. This was a great little read that would definitely draw in reluctant readers from the start.
The next book I read on my break was Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. OH MY GOSH I LOVED THIS BOOK! I don't typically get into historical fiction, but this book dragged me in from the very beginning. It is the story of two best friends who meet in the British Royal Air Force during World War II. I hesitate to say any more than that because the order in which information is given to the reader is part of what makes this book so awesome. This book came out in 2013, and I noticed on GoodReads that it appears to be the kind of book that you either intensely love or don't like at all. I will say that while the book focuses a lot on planes and flying and used lots of technical language with which I wasn't familiar, I found myself focusing a lot more on the intimate friendship of the two main characters. While the backdrop of this story is World War II, and it is obvious to me that the author did her research, I feel like this is less a story of war and more a story of the lengths to which we will go for the people we love and adore. It's a story of loyalty and faith and goodness in the face of evil, and it made me cry a lot (in a good way). I haven't read the companion novel Rose Under Fire yet, but I'm a little afraid to read it because I loved this book so much that I'm not sure the companion novel can live up to it. While I loved this book, I do feel like it was a little mature for some of my 7th graders. I probably won't keep it in my classroom library, but I have a few students who are really interested in this time period, and I'll probably check it out to them.
The third book I read was so much more than I thought it would be. At first glance, Zombie Baseball Beatdown by Paolo Bacigalupi looks like a "boy book" through and through, especially with the brightly illustrated zombie head prominently displayed in the cover art. This book is the story of three boys who discover a zombie apocalypse taking hold in their town and then take a stand for survival. Because of the way the cover was illustrated, I thought this book was going to be written in the style of Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid series or James Patterson's Middle School: Worst Years of my Life. However, I found when I opened the cover that this book was all words and no pictures. Despite the lack of pictures, this book reads fast and is full of action. It would be a great transition book for students who are stuck on Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Big Nate books. In addition to its place as a kind of transition book for reluctant readers, I also loved that this book was so much more than a silly zombie book. This book tackles real issues, like immigration and food quality, and it does it in terms that a seventh grader can understand. I also loved that this is a great example of true science fiction. It's a story about human beings, solving a human problem that was created by taking science too far, and finding a human solution. Overall, I was really impressed with this book and found myself having a hard time putting it down. I think I'll probably have a hard time keeping it on my classroom library shelf, too.
The last book I read over spring break was Hollow City by Ransom Riggs, the second book is the Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series. I read the first book in this series when it first came out, and I felt like it was good, not great. Then, a few months later my book club read it, and they overwhelmingly disliked it. When the second book came out in January, I was hesitant to buy it because I worried that if I didn't love the first book, I probably wouldn't love the second one either. However, I decided to give it a try over spring break, mostly because middle schoolers love these books. The creepy old photographs that correspond with the story are brilliant, and they keep kids so interested in the story. Despite my skepticism, I feel like Ransom Riggs ironed out some of the imperfections of Book One in Book Two. Hollow City picks up exactly where the first book left off. The children are running away from their home to London in order to save the world of peculiardom and their beloved protector, Miss Peregrine. Obviously, their journey is far from easy, seeing as it takes a solid 400 pages to tell the story, but the troubles they meet along the way are dangerous and interesting and kept me turning pages for two days straight. I felt like the pace of this book was much better than the first one, but part of that was probably due to the fact that so much had already been explained in Book One. A third book is coming out, so there isn't a lot of resolution at the end. Instead, it takes a wonderfully unexpected twist, which I really appreciated. There's no better way to keep a middle schooler reading than to leave them totally hanging at the end, and that is exactly what Riggs does.
So there's my spring break reading in a nutshell. Hopefully, my students will come back with book recommendations, too, so I'll know what to read next. Wishing everyone a wonderful week!
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