Pop Sonnets, Shakespeare, and Student Teaching

The last time I blogged, it was January, and I was blogging about my word for 2017: balance. Apparently, part of pursuing a more balanced life has been learning when to give myself space for rest because I have really fallen behind in blog updates. The past two months have been filled with learning and trying new things, and I'm so thankful for every opportunity I've had to grow in my classroom practice.

This semester, I've had the unique experience of having a student intern from a nearby university in my classroom. This is my second time to host a student intern, but it is my first time to have an intern as a high school teacher. It has been a truly wonderful experience! You become so much more self aware and reflective of your own teaching practices when you are trying to make your work transparent throughout the day. It's also been so much fun to work with Katie on integrating technology into her teaching. For her first solo teach, she challenged students to create a Mannequin Challenge of "The Pardoner's Tale" from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The kids loved interpreting the text in this modern context, and the activity really forced them to break down the poetry and determine what was happening in the tale. We tweeted a sample of their work, and you can watch it here.

Just this past week, Katie completed her first solo week of teaching with my senior Honors British Literature classes. I was so proud of her for choosing to teach a unit on Shakespearean sonnets that incorporated challenging content and new technology for both her and the students to learn.  She challenged students to write their own Pop Sonnets. If you've never seen Pop Sonnets, they're AWESOME! Here's the link to the Tumblr account. Students chose popular songs from today and translated them into the Shakespearean sonnet form, complete with correct rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter. It was probably one of the most difficult things we've asked students to do this semester, and they were so frustrated at first. Often, honors students are used to picking things up easily at school, and while they may find a challenge like this interesting, they often quickly become frustrated when it doesn't come to them as easily as many of their academic endeavors do. It's a really great opportunity for students to flex their growth mindset.

After composing their Pop Sonnets, each student then posted their sonnet to a shared slide presentation and created an accompanying recitation track with background music in Garageband. This was a really fun and creative way for them to present their sonnets to the class at the end of the week and see who could guess what song had been translated into English sonnet form.

Here are links to the slide decks of Pop Sonnets that they created this week:

• Pop Sonnet Slide Deck 1
• Pop Sonnet Slide Deck 2

Test yourself and see if you can guess what songs they were interpreting as sonnets!

While some were more successful than others, I was so proud of the effort that every student put in to this project and even more proud of the respect that they showed to my intern teacher this week. My heart swelled with pride at how Katie navigated both her successes and struggles this week. Being a teacher requires so much juggling of tasks and time, and helping a student teacher navigate all those tasks in a day is a big reminder about what a big job we all do in classrooms day in and day out. Katie handled this week with a tenacity that made me so excited about her future in the classroom. She's is going to be a great teacher!

More than anything though, this past week served as an incredible reminder of how much I love teaching kids every day. I missed being with my students so much! I just love watching them learn and grow and work to their full potential. I love being there for all of that, and I love learning alongside them. I really do teach some incredible kids, and I'm excited to get back to work with them tomorrow!

Hey 2017, My One Word is Balance

In reflecting back on 2016, I couldn't be more filled with gratitude for the people and opportunities and experiences that came into my life, both personally and professionally. I travelled, I worked really hard doing a job I love and am passionate about, I got engaged to a man that makes my heart so happy, and I ended the year looking back at all these things and thinking about how quickly time rushes past us. All of the small, sweet moments and big, exciting occasions of 2016 make it special, and they make me excited about what 2017 will bring with it. They also make me want to not move so fast. This is why my resolution for 2017 is BALANCE.

I have always struggled with balance. I'm the kind of person that wants to hurtle into everything and figure out how to give all of myself to everything all at once. That, I have found, is very exhausting. It also makes it really difficult to truly give my best to all my commitments. When I'm busy trying to do all the things for all the people all of the time, I just end up needing to take a nice, long nap instead. Because of this, I really want to attempt a commitment to balance in every area of my life this year. 

I want to make time for my own wellness; that means quiet moments to unplug and be still. It means going to the gym when I'd rather do basically anything else. It means not filling every moment of my day from the time I wake up until the time I can't stay awake any longer. Stillness is something that I think I have long undervalued. I want to get better at quiet. 

I want to make time for relationships. This past semester, in particular, I would catch myself getting so caught up in the tasks of the day that I wasn't making the time for kids that I needed to make. If a kid asks me to read his fan fiction, I need to read it, give feedback, and support his writing. If girls come to my room just to hang out during lunch because high school is hard and kids can be mean, then emails and To Do List tasks can wait. All the busyness will be there after the fifteen minutes it takes to listen to them and remind them that there is a big, incredible world out there to conquer after high school. The same is true of personal relationships. This year I am so excited to get married, and I want to be present in every moment of this exciting time. I don't want to rush through any of it because every moment is an incredible gift. 

Balance is hard for a lot of reasons, but I think the biggest reason it's hard for me is that I don't want to miss any opportunity. Saying "No" is just not something I am good at doing. But I think learning to stay in my lane is part of finding balance, and I'm excited to explore what that looks like this year.

BreakoutEDU: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

TODAY WAS SO FUN! I've been wanting to try a BreakoutEDU game in my classroom since last spring, and this fall, I talked my librarian into purchasing five BreakoutEDU boxes.  I've been looking for opportunities to integrate these games into my American Literature curriculum all semester, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn felt like the perfect opportunity for students to flex their problem solving and communication skills!

If you've never seen a BreakoutEDU box, the idea is pretty simple. Buy a box and a bunch of locks, and build a series of clues and riddles that guide students to open each lock and, ultimately, open the box. On the BreakoutEDU website, they provide an open source list of everything you need to build your own box, and all the games they've built are FREE to use, which is always great! The escape room games that are popping up in cities around the country have a similar premise. With the game in class, you're just asking students to break IN to something rather than OUT of it.

I searched Twitter and the internet in general and couldn't find a pre-made game for Huck Finn, so I decided to make my own. I was a little nervous to dive into this since I'd never built a game before, but I think it helped a lot that I was working from a piece of literature. I was able to create codes for the locks that related directly to the text. This required students to go back into the literature and do some close reading and problem solving to determine the codes for each lock.

I also met with our district's technology coach, and she gave me some pointers, based on games she had built for other classes. All of my lock codes were linked to QR codes that I hid around the room. Students had to scan the codes to gather clues, complete quizzes, view resources, and puzzle out the meanings and significance of each clue. This was hilarious to watch! I had 7 foot tall basketball players sprawled out on the floor to scan codes hidden under desks.

 

What was probably the most awesome about this activity was that literally EVERY kid was engaged and excited. I had students that I've been struggling to engage all semester that were running around the room to make sure their group hadn't missed any clues. Students really had to work together and encourage each other in order to solve all the clues and open the box. And even though they didn't all complete the challenge, they didn't give up and quit. They worked through their frustrations. In each class, I had at least one group break into their box, but I had more students that were not able to complete the challenge. It was awesome to see the way these groups were still proud of their hard work, even if they were a little frustrated that they couldn't work their way through all the clues.

In past semesters, I've implemented the Spheros in our study of Huck Finn, but this semester it felt right to do something a little different. We had used the Spheros with both early explorer narratives and Hamlet, and I really wanted to see what would happen if we used this strategy. What happened is that students dug more deeply into Huck Finn, worked together, dealt with frustrations, and had a lot of fun. I'd say that's an end-of-semester success!

Heart Work is Hard Work, But It's Necessary Now

I have been struggling for a couple of weeks to write. My feelings about what's happening in our world right now feel so big. In a time of what should be healing and unity, it seems that every day brings more division and anger, more sadness and fear for so many Americans.

The consolation and brightness and hope I found this week at NCTE is that while times may seem dark and struggles may seem insurmountable and division may seem too deep a chasm to bridge, there are thousands of teachers across this country who are ready to advocate for students, to create safe spaces for reading and writing and dialogue, for healing. It is my job to support and encourage and love every kid that walks in my room, and I refuse to let angry, hateful rhetoric dampen the joy of learning in my classroom. I am one voice, but my voice matters. The voices of my students matter. And it is my hope that I can create an environment for them where they feel safe to speak their truths, to be themselves, to express their fear and sadness at an America that isn't giving all of them a fair deal right now. 

I've tried hard in the last year to keep my opinions to myself because, as a teacher, I feel it's my job to teach students to think for themselves instead of thinking like me. I don't want to upset any balances. But my job is bigger than teaching novels and poems and writing. My job is teaching character, principles, love, acceptance, diversity, understanding. Diane Ravitch challenged teachers at the opening session of NCTE to "speak out as an advocate, quietly if you must and loudly if you can." I can't be quiet anymore, not when I think about walking into school on November 9 to the sight of two Hispanic girls embracing and crying and talking about their fear for their families, their worry of if they'll stay together. I can't stay silent when our first amendment freedoms feel more important than ever. We must stand up for kindness, for justice, for love of our fellow man. 

In one session, Georgia Heard reminded us that "teaching is heart work. In a world that feels fractured, coming back to our heart work can bring us back to center." I'm inspired and challenged this week to come back to the heart work of what I do. It's not about the mechanics of a text; it's about the soul of a text. It's about valuing the unique qualities of every child and giving them wings because "hope is the thing with feathers," according to Emily Dickinson, and every. single. child. deserves the opportunity to hope in a better, more beautiful future. 

I listened to so many incredible speakers at NCTE, and I left feeling challenged, not necessarily to change my pedagogy but more strongly than ever before to amplify my voice as an educator. We must teach our children that the only way to repair the fractures in the fabric of our nation is to build bridges instead of walls, to listen instead of rant, to share our personal truths instead of parroting a party line. I will be an advocate for kindness. I will be an advocate for fact-checking. I will be an advocate for empathetic listening. I will use my one voice for loud and relentless love for people. What will you do? 

Putting a Dent in the Universe

This summer, at the Apple Distinguished Educator Global Institute in Berlin, we were challenged to consider how we could put a dent in the universe. That's a big question. At the time, I really felt strongly that I wanted to make that dent, that kind of big global impact, through my work with pre-service teachers at the University of Central Arkansas. However, as the year has progressed, I've found my passions shifting into my high school English classroom.

Don't get me wrong, I'm passionate about working with pre-service teachers, and I'm excited about the work I've been able to do with my Models class on unit planning and instructional strategies. I'm excited about the progress we're making this semester. I'm just really feeling like the dent I want to make on the universe has a lot to do with "denting" the universe enough for my 11th graders to see that they are not isolated learners, and are instead, part of a global community. 

As I started this year, I found myself constantly noticing how disconnected my students felt from their learning, especially since they are, literally, constantly connected to each other. They talk in the halls, they check Facebook before class starts, they update their Snap Story as soon as they walk out of school at 3 o'clock. They very rarely unplug. And yet, many students still lack connection in their lives. For some of them, they lack connection as they deal with difficult family situations, others struggle to connect with peers, and still others feel a huge disconnect from what they're learning in high school. The "why do I have to learn this" argument has to be addressed. We are failing kids that will not seek out higher education if we don't find ways to bring the real world into the classroom and prepare them for a future and adulthood that's looming very close. I am finding that a growing portion of my students are feeling this way, especially as the rising cost of higher education leaves more and more students feeling helpless to avoid college without large amounts of debt. 

So I decided I needed to make a dent in the universe that brought the real world into my classroom and made learning feel like necessary, important work, and I decided to do this through research. Research is an often dreaded piece of an English class, so I've decided to make it my mission this semester to show students that we do research all the time. We do research every time we Google something, and we discern the reliability of a source every time we decide to "fact check" with a second website. In this case, I wanted students to see that research isn't typically the end goal. Often, we use research as a means to an end, as a way to learn how to do something. 

We started by reading these articles about using 3D printing and virtual reality to preserve world landmarks. Many of our world's most incredible historical and cultural sites are at risk of being destroyed due to national disasters, war, and acts of terrorism, and even those not at risk are still too far away for students to take a field trip and see them in person. Preserving these places digitally provides greater access to each site. Next, I asked students to choose one landmark to research and argue why that landmark is significant enough to be digitally preserved. Finally, I asked my students to create their chosen landmark using Minecraft or SketchUp and a 3D printer. 

This is definitely the biggest research project I've ever taken on, and I was so excited and SO nervous about how my students would respond. They could get excited and jump right into this, or they could get overwhelmed and shut down on me. Fortunately the minute I said "Minecraft and 3D printer" my kids were pumped! Bringing a real tangible product into the research process created a "hook" for students. They knew they had to complete a successful research paper in order to begin the design process, and that has been incredibly motivating for many of them. 

In addition to bringing all of these global landmarks into the classroom, we've also been able to make the world a little smaller by partnering with another classroom for the peer editing process. Fellow ADE Richard Perry is a huge inspiration to me, and he's been kind enough to partner his students with mine to work as peer editors in the writing process. Our kids have "met" each other using Flipgrid to send videos back and forth, introducing themselves and discussing their research papers. Watching how excited my kids are to receive feedback has me just about giddy. It's created an opportunity for them to receive honest, objective feedback, and it's teaching them that they can seek out resources outside of the classroom. Once the writing process is complete, students will also hear from fellow Canadian ADE, Marc Gobeil about the design process and the incredible design work he and his students are doing. In all of this, I hope I'm bringing the "learning universe" a little bit closer to my students in my classroom. 

Working through this research process with my students has been exhausting and awesome and rewarding. Their final research papers and projects in Minecraft and Sketchup will be turned in at the end of next week, but I just couldn't wait to share all the hard work we've been doing this month! The final step in this project will be for students to share their digitally recreated landmarks with a global audience, so please be watching Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram for their work! I'm so proud and excited to share all of it with you and keep on creating that dent in the universe. 

Selecting Sound Bites

On Monday, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to co-teach a lesson with Dr. Michael Mills. It's my second year as a high school teacher and my third semester to teach American literature. While I have some lessons that I really love, I definitely have others that I have a tougher time getting excited about. Let's be honest, historical speeches probably weren't at the top of your reading list when you were seventeen, and I have a lot of those in my very traditional curriculum. It's a constant challenge to find new ways to make these texts relatable and engaging for my students, and this lesson ended up feeling like a real win!

We started off this week talking about Patrick Henry's speech to the Virginia Convention, more easily recognized as the "Give me liberty, or give me death" speech. This speech provides a great opportunity to teach rhetorical analysis and persuasive appeals; however, it can also be really dense, and the vocabulary is pretty advanced. I was excited when Dr. Mills brought a different perspective to the lesson.

He talked to my classes about how persuasive speaking and political speaking have evolved. As average people, we typically don't hear an entire speech or an entire press conference; we hear the snippet that the media found most interesting, most important, or sometimes most inflammatory. Similarly, we may not remember all of Patrick Henry's speech to the Virginia Convention in 1775, but we do know that famous last line.

We modeled close reading and annotating strategies on the last paragraph of the speech since it's the most familiar piece. Then, we divided the speech into five sections and asked students to work with a partner to analyze the persuasive appeals in their assigned section of the speech. Finally, we asked students to find the "sound bite" in their assigned section. If they were members of the media, covering this speech in 1775, what snippet would they decide to share with the masses? This speech called for revolution, and a revolution needs buy-in from the people. We reminded students that this line should feel "retweetable" or repeatable, just like "Give me liberty or give me death."

Finally, students used Adobe Spark Post to create posters of their selected sound bites, which they shared to a Padlet page, so all my classes could see each other's designs and ideas. This gave us the opportunity to talk about design principles as well, and I was thrilled with the results. I love how easy the Adobe Spark apps are for students to learn and use. This was their first introduction to Spark Post, and my kids loved it! I can't wait to introduce them to Spark Page and Video in future lessons. You can see their posts here: https://padlet.com/jherring/liberty

And here are a few of my favorites...

One of the things I love most about this lesson is that it is so adaptable. I was talking to my department head today about this lesson, and she got so excited about it that she's going to have students do a similar activity tomorrow with a speech from Julius Caesar as they analyze Cassius's persuasive appeals to the Romans. I think you could just as easily adapt it to other works of fiction or nonfiction to have students identify and illustrate theme statements or main ideas. Asking students to illustrate as well requires them to look more deeply at an idea and determine how best to convey that idea not only through text but also through image. 

So needless to say, my week is off to a great start! Looking forward to seeing where our learning takes us next! 

Reflections on iPadpaloozaOU

The first two weeks of school, as always, have been a whirlwind of activity as students and teachers settle in to the schedule of school. This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend and speak at iPadpaloozaOU in Norman, OK. What I loved about this conference was the fact that the entire day on Friday was devoted to providing authentic professional learning to pre-service teachers.  Anne Beck, Dr. Terri Cullen, and the faculty at the OU College of Education are creating such incredible opportunities for these undergrads to engage in their profession, even before entering their own classrooms. I loved getting to speak with these students and watching them engage on Twitter and build their own professional learning networks. We even took a selfie in my green screen session.

We spent a lot of time in this session actually working with apps and experiencing the green screen, and we even took some pictures with Beyonce, which I thought was hilarious.

The best part of this day was the general sense of excitement and enthusiasm. You could feel it in the air. These junior and seniors are so pumped to be teachers! It makes my heart so happy to know that these are the people that are coming into our schools and are preparing to make a difference in the lives of students. As the morning keynote speaker on Friday, I spoke to this audience of about 150 pre-service teachers about the importance of creating a safe haven for all students in our classrooms. Technology can help us foster that sense of community as it connects us to students in new ways and allows them to share their lives and learning experiences with us as teachers. I know that teaching my students to blog and journal with technology has given me so much insight into their interests, passions, fears, and joys. Teaching my students to code with Sphero and create with iMovie has built their confidence and helped them to see their own awesomeness in the classroom. Being with these soon-to-be teachers on Friday just got me so excited to get back into my own classroom and make this year the best year yet!  

On Monday, we had our first lesson with the Spheros, and I wish I could bottle up the joy and excitement I saw on those kids' faces! When you can get a kid that excited over reading early American literature, it feels like a real teacher win. As I reflect on the past few days, I can't help but feel a renewed sense of passion for what I get to do every day. It's a privilege to learn and create and improve every day with these kids, and I can't wait to see where this year takes us!