Three R’s of Summer: Reading, Researching, and Reflecting

by Beth Rogers Notes from the Classroom

Today I was at the library with a stack of books when I saw a little one from our elementary school. She recognized me, and her face lit up as she said hello. Then her eyes grew big.

“That’s a lot of chapter books,” she said, as she noticed my pile of books.

“Yes, it is,” I said, smiling. “I love reading.”

“I do too!” she exclaimed as her mother proceeded to check out at least 30 picture books for her and her brother.

Reading

My summer = lots of reading. I am always on the lookout for great reads. I have a list on my phone that I am always adding to when I get recommendations from friends. I also look at blogs, Twitter feeds, and summer reading lists that are published from a variety of sources. I try to balance this with professional reading: technology articles, trauma informed, social justice . . . just a few of the things we are working on in our district.

My personal favorite is reading books that I can recommend to students. Nothing is as powerful as putting a book in the hands of a child and saying, “I read this and I think you’ll love it. Read it and then we’ll talk.”

Researching

As I do my professional reading, it invariably leads me to research. After all, the more you know, the more you want to know.

In addition, I tutor students over the summer and am constantly seeking new information that might help me understand my students’ struggles and find ways to help them. Summer is a great time to follow link after link . . . to fall down the rabbit hole because you actually have the time to do so.

Reflecting

One of the luxuries of summer is having time to reflect on my professional practice. While we do this throughout the year, summer is a great time to look back and really take time to reflect and revise for next year.

I love to get together with other teachers and make informed decisions about changes going forward. Even more, I will often find myself taking notes on my phone when I’m riding in the car (not driving!) on summer trips. It’s as though my brain finally can relax and my creative thoughts can really flow.

Whatever it is that renews you this summer, do it. Teaching takes so much out of you–even though we all say it’s worth it. Maybe your three R’s are relax, rest, and recharge. (Mine will be for a few weeks at least!) Enjoy your time–you deserve it!

Beth Rogers (@bethann1468) has taught in the elementary setting for the past 11 years. During this time, she earned her Master’s in Educational Technology from Michigan State University. This year, she is in a new position: Instructional Technologist K-12. This gives her the unique opportunity to work with teachers and students, district wide, to incorporate technology into their teaching and learning, in ways that engage, enhance, and extend the learning. She has already already begun to work with multiple classrooms to engage students in blogging, and to help teachers understand the power of this platform. At home, she lives with her husband, sons, and an anxiety-ridden German Shepherd who requires inordinate amounts of time and attention.

Reflections on Technology and Literacy

by Beth Rogers Notes from the Classroom

As I think about literacy in our classrooms and what I have observed this year, a few things stand out.

A big one: We must teach our children keyboarding skills.

Though we have a program that students can use at any time, we must be intentional about regular practice if our students are going to become proficient typists. This is important not only because they are now assessed as writers by the state through typed text, but also because we are living in an increasingly digital world. Moreover, when students struggle to type, they are not able to fully express their thinking and often give up before they have written all that they have to say.

The Benefits of Google Docs and Classroom

When students have the ability to use Google Docs with ease, multiple things happen.

They are able to receive feedback from their teachers easily and respond to it accordingly.
Collaboration with peers is instant.
They have a digital portfolio of their writing that will follow them year to year.

Teachers can use Google Classroom for assignments, which makes assigning and collecting student work both organized and incredibly easy. (I so wish I had known about this amazing tool years ago!) At the end of the year, teachers can “return” all assignments to their students, which removes the files from the teacher’s Google Drive. The original assignment stays with the teacher, so it can be used in the future.

Capturing Student Voice with Digital Portfolios

Our district has been working for the past few years on using portfolios as part of telling the story of student learning. We have teachers who have been using just binders, others using just digital tools, and still others a combination of both.

The platform that we have chosen for digital portfolios is Seesaw, and I couldn’t be happier with what this offers students. Within Seesaw, students can upload a piece of digital writing; take a picture of a piece published with paper and pencil; or even use Shadow Puppet to capture multiple pages of published writing (great for our lower elementary students).

The best part is this: They can record themselves reading and reflecting on their writing. Adding a student’s actual voice to a piece of writing is incredibly powerful for both parents and teachers. Suddenly, you can hear inflection and enthusiasm that doesn’t necessarily come through otherwise. When students are asked to reflect, they will often say more than they would if they were writing.

Portfolios Help with Reading Fluency, Too

Similarly, we have used the record function for reading fluency. I have had students ask if they can practice before uploading a recording–a teacher’s dream. Parents hear fluency checks throughout the year, and thus conversations at conferences are easier.

We also use Seesaw for student reflection at the end of texts. These can take any form the student wishes, and often students will take a picture of their books and simply talk about their thinking.

In tandem with Seesaw, we used Screencastify with 5th graders, who were able to create book trailers using Google Slides and then upload the files to Seesaw. (We used this to publish personal narratives with pictures as well!)

Where We Go from Here

We are already busy planning for next year: keyboarding, blogging, Google applications, and more. There are so many possibilities.

But at the heart of this are our students. Our driving question will always be: “How we can help students move forward and be the best readers and writers that they can be?” The answer is complex but we will keep striving to put all of the pieces in place. Technology + good instruction is a nice place to start.

Putting the L back in PLC

by Beth Rogers Notes from the Classroom

PLC–this acronym is known (and often not loved) by educators far and wide. For most, PLC time is a once-a-week meeting with their subject area or grade level that usually becomes consumed with to-do’s and data; very little professional learning is actually happening during these times.

As a result, teachers often walk away feeling like they have more to do and less time in which to do it.

So where does learning come in? This can happen during professional development offered by the district, through book studies at the department or building level, or through teachers’ attending conferences or trainings on their own. But this usually takes away the community aspect of PLCs. We all know how important it is to think and toss around ideas with other educators; it is this process that truly makes us grow.

This year I am in a new position and while we have a PLC time every week, I find that our time does not always lend itself to study and discussion. What I have noticed is that, to fill the gap, I find myself spending more time reading online, following twitter feeds and blogs, and engaging in both face-to-face and virtual dialogue with others to push my thinking. Even though I am just getting started, I am creating my own PLC and I love it.

Building a Community with Twitter

Twitter is an amazing resource to get you going on creating your own PLC. Be intentional. Find someone that you admire in education–from educators to researchers to authors such as:

Ron Ritchhart (@RonRitchhart)
Howard Gardner (@DrHowardGardner)
TED Talks (@TEDtalks)
John Schu (@MrSchuReads)
Natalie Lloyd (@_natalielloyd)

With these feeds, you’ll find links to blogs, resources, and articles to stimulate your thinking and connect you to like-minded educators. This is also a great way to find materials to take back to your team to begin to create the PLC that you would like to have. I only use my Twitter account for professional content, so I only follow people or groups that are going to enrich my feed.

Finding the Time with Twitter

On top of everything else, it can be hard to think about work when you are not working. (Actually, work is pretty much all teachers think about when they are not at school!) I know that I will spend time on social media when I have a few minutes of downtime in the evening. There are usually posts on Facebook that I might save for later that are related to school, but when I click over to Twitter, I get posts of substance that elevate my thinking.

These Twitter posts lead me down paths to resources that I can apply to my practice and share. The beautiful thing about this is that it doesn’t take up hours. I suppose it could, but given the concise nature of Twitter, I have a pretty good idea right off if I’m going to click more or not.

But what about People?

While all of this is great, I have still found that the best collaboration and growth comes from face-to-face interactions. I have been able to work this year with our subject area coordinator for Social Studies and Science, and we have shared incredibly rich conversations and thinking. I attended Design for Deep Thinking at the Whole Mind Design Studio with a teacher from our junior high school, for instance; the event broadened my understanding of her work and the implications for our work at the elementary level.

If there are people in your district whom you respect, want to learn more about, or who make you think “Yes!” when you hear them speak at meetings, reach out. Make connections. You will grow and be happier. I promise.

Diverted by Cranes: A Story in Pictures

by Lauren Nizol Notes from the Classroom

Spring is one of my favorite times of year. Everything is in bloom. People are friendlier. There’s a certain renewal that the season brings.

And that’s why after a long day of teaching, I often hit the woods.

Here’s where I started to obsessively take tree pictures. Just imagine me gushing at the crisp blue and billowing clouds.

And here’s where I got scared of cranes blocking the trail. (They seemed rather territorial.) Initially, I started this hike pounding the ground. After all, I had to take this rare opportunity for exercise.

But the trail didn’t want this of me, and the cranes made sure of this. So I turned around, allowing my walk to be diverted by cranes.

After my detour, my mind started to soften and release the tension from the day.

Hiking slows my thinking down. I get away from the treadmill of my day, and I let my mind “wander lonely as a cloud.” I notice things more–like this bud just waiting to unfurl.

I thought of taking a trail that I realized was too long if I was going to make it to school pick-up. So I started running. And here the trail spoke again: slow down.

And when I slowed down–look what I found!

Baby cranes!!

Suddenly, all the stops and starts were worth it, even if they did lead to some rethinking and rerouting.

Often we meet standoffish cranes in our classrooms. We want to turn away. We want to avoid working with them because they take us out of our comfort zones.

But underneath every standoffish crane is a fluffy little chick who just needs to be gently shepherded.

The cranes I could never quite escape were much like a challenging student; there’s no avoiding either.

Afraid of the cranes no more, I took a wide arc off the trail for a moment and then took a series of baby crane pictures because I just couldn’t help myself (who can?!).

And thanks to the cranes, I even found my way back to my favorite tree!

Lauren Nizol (@CoachNizol) is an MTSS Student Support Coach and Interventionist at Novi High School. She has eleven years of classroom experience, teaching English, IB Theory of Knowledge and English Lab. Lauren completed her undergraduate degree in History, English and Secondary Education at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and her Masters in English Education from Eastern Michigan University. She is a National Writing Project Teacher Consultant with the Eastern Michigan Writing Project and an advocate for underperforming students and literacy interventions. When she’s not teaching, Lauren often runs for the woods with her husband and their three sons/Jedi in training and posts many stylized pictures of trees on Instagram.

A Poetry Competition to Best March Madness

by Mike Ziegler Notes from the Classroom

A poetry bracket, from P.S. 32

My March Madness bracket came close this year–it would’ve been so sweet if my alma mater had managed to take the championship and win me some local bragging rights, but alas.

But you know how it is when you come so close–you feel like magic slipped through your fingers. Maybe that’s why I have such high hopes that my sleeper pick poem “Big Grab,” by Tony Hoagland, has the chops to beat out tourney-favorite Billy Collins with his signature poem “The Lanyard.”

Yep. Poetry Madness. It’s a thing now.

We found it on Twitter (you can find lots of stuff on Twitter, like this, this, and this) and now three of my colleagues and a few hundred juniors in our classes can’t stop cheering for verse.

Poetry Madness has swept our high school’s juniors like a joywave, washing away the sweaty melancholy of SAT testing week.

The best part is how easy it was to assemble a bracket and get our classes engaged.

The concept is simple:

Find yourself an empty bracket–preferable an Excel document that will make voting easy.
Grab yourself three or more colleagues and tell them to brush the dust off their favorite poetry collections (or scour YouTube for their favorite slam poets performing).
Select enough poems to fill up a bracket with head-to-head matchups (we went with a field of 32 because 64 poems would have spilled us well into the following month, but be as ambitious as your time allows!).
Try to match up the poems in interesting ways–maybe one corner of the bracket is haiku and another is slam; or maybe “the classics” are always pitted against modern works in the first round.
Never EVER tell the kids who chose what poems: My students are having as much fun trying to guess which poems sound like the stuff I’d like as they are with voting on the poems themselves.

Another reason not to tell them? This is a great entryway into discussing the styles of various poets casually: When the kids do beg me to tell who chose a given poem they loved (or loathed), it’s fascinating to hear what they see in the poem and why they see it reflected in one or another of the teachers from our department. It also gives some of your poetry holdouts a different reason to buy into the competition–they’ll come around to the poetry eventually. In the meantime, they’ll be intrigued by the idea that you’ll be the teacher-poetry picking champion if they vote well.

The last step is to crown a champion.

We were still in the first round in our tournament, but there was already talk of a little party at the end, where all the classes that participated could get together to celebrate the winning poem–and the teacher who picked that poem. Submit your winning teacher to the “honor” of doing a dramatic performance of their poem. The kids will eat it up and get one more dose of a piece of art they collectively crowned the best of the bunch.

Make sure you make the tournament about celebration and art for art’s sake. You should absolutely ask the kids what they think of each piece, but resist the urge to iamb their pentameters or rhyme their couplets. See what happens when you just let them absorb a whole bunch of poetry about which they know only this: One of their teachers loves this piece of art.

About a week into our “tournament,” I could already feel the change in energy for our students. Kids who know me but don’t have me for a teacher were asking me about the brackets. Kids were picking friendly fights with each other about close matchups between two closely matched poems. My colleagues were talking trash every time they saw me in the halls, claiming (inaccurately) that one of THEIR poems was sure to be crowned champion when clearly one of my poems was bound to win.

March Madness basketball teams and works of art probably don’t have a lot in common. Except maybe this: Sometimes we only care about one for a fleeting moment, but when that moment is buzzing with the right kind of energy, it doesn’t really need to last much longer.

Michael Ziegler (@ZigThinks) is a Content Area Leader and teacher at Novi High School. This is his 15th year in the classroom. He teaches 11th Grade English and IB Theory of Knowledge. He also coaches JV Girls Soccer and has spent time as a Creative Writing Club sponsor, Poetry Slam team coach, AdvancEd Chair, and Boys JV Soccer Coach. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Michigan, majoring in English, and earned his Masters in Administration from Michigan State University.

Some Favorites from 2018’s Youth Media Awards

by Bethany Bratney Book Reviews Notes from the Classroom

I’ll let you in on a secret. My favorite holiday is not on any national calendars. It doesn’t coincide with a school break. And only a few people I know celebrate it too.

It’s the Youth Media Awards ceremony, which takes place during the American Library Association’s Midwinter conference each year.

The leaders of ALA’s youth and teen divisions host a live webcast as they announce the year’s finalists and winners in Youth Media Award categories like the Printz, Morris, and YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Awards. Like many other librarians, the announcement of the YMAs sends me into a frenzy–locating, reading, and purchasing these lauded titles for my students. I have been making my way through as many of them as possible over the past six weeks and have discovered some gems for my staff and students.

We Are Okay, by Nina LaCour (Printz Award winner)

The Michael L. Printz Award is given for excellence in literature written for young adults. It’s the big, all-encompassing award. I wanted to check out We Are Okay immediately because I think it came as a bit of surprise to many people.

The book follows the character Marin, as she prepares to spend her first winter break of her college career alone in her New York City dorm. Her grandfather, with whom she has always lived, has recently passed away, an event shrouded in sadness and a distinct sense of mystery. She is expecting her best friend, Mabel, to arrive to spend a few days, but the anticipation of this visit is also heavy with tension and complicated history.

The novel’s mood is soft, subtle, and often somber. Yet LaCour artfully builds suspense in her characters’ experiences, creating a novel about those parts of ourselves we share openly–and those that we keep hidden.

The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas (Morris Award Winner, Coretta Scott King Author Finalist, Printz Finalist, and Odyssey Award Winner)

One of the books that received copious buzz in the YA book world this year, The Hate U Give follows 16-year-old Starr as she tries to find a balance between her modest home life, in a neighborhood full of other African American people from similar backgrounds, and her fancy suburban prep school, where she is always a racial minority and frequently subject to racist and tokenizing prejudices.

When Starr sees her childhood best friend, Khalil, shot by a police officer under the auspices of public safety, she finds herself in an entirely new internal battle. Does she remain quiet, knowing that what she witnessed was a horrible crime deserving of punishment? Or does she speak out publicly, putting herself in the spotlight for scrutiny and the always-disappointing public opinion?

No one in the book universe was surprised to see this title on so many lists. It’s a gripping, gritty statement about police brutality that our young people need to read.

Saints and Misfits, by S.K. Ali (Morris Finalist)

An equally welcome voice in the Morris race (the award for debut YA authors) is found in the character Janna, the Muslim Indian-American hijabi teenager at the center of Saints and Misfits. The sheer lack of representation of Muslim experiences in YA literature would make this book a necessary addition to the pool, but Janna’s voice is what caught my attention. She finds nuance while describing her strict adherence to a conservative religious lifestyle, while maintaining a teenage girl’s life.

Saints and Misfits is an honest, contemplative story with a surprising amount of humor–and tremendous heart.

The 57 Bus, by Dashka Slater (Stonewall Award, YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist)

You might have seen my colleague Megan Kortlandt’s post about giving this book away. She bumped it onto my radar, but when it popped up on two awards’ lists, it became a priority read. Totally worth it!

The 57 Bus is the story of two teens, one of whom set the other on fire while riding the bus across Oakland, California. It’s a story that captures people’s attention quickly because of the sheer horror of the event. My students want to read this book immediately after hearing the premise.

What makes this book incredible is the way that Slater writes about each kid with such detail and care. She delicately delves into two complicated worlds–those of non-binary gender identity and of violence-riddled life in a troubled neighborhood—allowing us to see the people who live in them.

Nonfiction can be challenging for many students, but this is an accessible piece in which everyone can find pieces of themselves or someone they know.

Have you read any of this year’s award-winners or finalists? I’d love to hear from you about your favorites!

Bethany Bratney (@nhslibrarylady) is a National Board Certified School Librarian at Novi High School and was the recipient of the 2015 Michigan School Librarian of the Year Award. She reviews YA materials for School Library Connection magazine and for the LIBRES review group. She is an active member of the Oakland Schools Library Media Leadership Consortium as well as the Michigan Association of Media in Education. She received her BA in English from Michigan State University and her Masters of Library & Information Science from Wayne State University. Bethany is strangely fond of zombies in almost all forms of media, a fact which tends to surprise the people that know her. She has two children below age five, and is grateful at the end of any day that involves the use of fewer than four baby wipes.

Aligning Spaces, Strategies, and Assessments for a Powerful Student Voice

by Guest Blogger Notes from the Classroom

Note: This post was originally published on April 11, 2018, on ASCD’s inService Blog.

Every student in every classroom has a voice. Students’ voices come from their understanding of who they are, in what they believe, and why they have these beliefs. Within the context of education, student voice can be broadly defined as individual perspectives and actions of learners.

We believe that bringing out student voice is not a one-time happening; rather, it is a process, in which we, educators, need to carefully guide our students. Student voice is deeply connected to children’s understanding of who they are as individual beings. Because of this, nurturing student voice requires adult attention on many levels, including personal, academic, and social. There are three main areas of teaching that need to align in order for students to feel empowered to discover and share their voices: learning spaces, teaching strategies, and assessments.

1. Creating Physical Spaces that Promote Student Voice

Student voice is increasingly being considered a vital component of shared decision-making in secondary classrooms. If we truly believe in the value of students as co-designers of their learning, we first have to listen to their voice through giving them choices within the physical environment of a classroom.

The layout of furniture and learning tools should be determined by the anticipated types of learning and individual students’ needs: room for collaboration, conferencing, small groups, anchor charts, norms, mentors/models, student charting, and even separate independent practice space.

As the year unfolds and students have experienced various seating arrangements, offer them the opportunity to choose their own settings. For example, students understand that collaboration is an important aspect of our class so about half of the tables are arranged into groups of four to six students. Why only half? Because when asked, some students expressed that sitting in a collaborative group is distracting when working independently or during direct instruction. Students advocated for some of our tables to stay in a group of two or face toward our large window.

A growing population of students also seems to be performing better if afforded movement, including standing during the class period. Thus, a standing table was incorporated into our classroom. In addition, a low table with legless swivel chairs is available to students who need room to stretch out and move without distracting others.

Not only does asking students to be co-designers of their physical environment promote shared decision-making, but it also invites them to reflect on themselves as learners.

2. Choosing Strategies and Projects that Help Students Find Their Voice

Creating learning experiences that connect to real life opportunities, student interests, and authentic audiences can ignite voice, choice, and ultimately, learning. There are endless ways to incorporate such experiences in our classrooms.

This year, instead of starting the new calendar year with drafting extensive New Year’s resolutions, students engaged in the #OneWord2018 project to express in one word what mattered to them in 2018: a single virtue, challenge to overcome, or passion. They viewed a clip from The Today Show about stamped washer bracelets created by jewelry maker Chris Pan, searched the trending hashtag, and considered how their #OneWord might impact their lives and lives of those around them. Students had the opportunity to craft a washer bracelet as a daily reminder of their goal; many of them added to the trending Twitter hashtag.

Another example of an assignment that promotes student voice and choice and can be used in a number of settings is the Storytelling project, originally done in a college freshman composition class. With the premise that every person has a story and can teach us a valuable lesson, students were to tell a compelling story about an average person in their life. They were given a choice to interview anyone they desired through the lenses of discovering one important experience that shaped this person in who she or he was today. Students had to create their own questions, schedule interviews, take notes or record their conversations, create a verbal sketch of their subject, and finally, write a profile featuring the person and his or her story. At the end, they were to share their stories with their subjects and receive feedback. This project gave students a lot of freedom to think and be creative with their own story. More importantly, it gave them an opportunity to figure out why their person matters and share their voices. This project was also impactful in the way that it created bonds between people and brought valuable perspectives to both interviewers and interviewees.

Any opportunity students have to share their ideas outside of our classroom walls grows their understanding that not only do their words matter, but that we, educators, believe that their words can make a difference. Encouraging students to submit writing to contests, newspapers, magazines and, when possible, inviting parents and community members in as an authentic audience are all ways to show the importance of student voice. Depending on the assignment, visitors may simply serve as listening ears; other times, they may be able to offer valuable feedback about students’ creative ideas, book recommendations, business plans, writing, presentation skills, and other aspects of student work.

3. Redesigning Grading and Assessments to Encourage Student Ownership of Their Work

How we approach grading student work tells them a lot about what matters in our classrooms. There are two areas that we need to consider if we wish to show students that their voice is important: making students part of their own assessments and shifting the focus from grading the final output to assessing the entire work that goes in a specific project or assignment.

Making students part of their own assessments

Involving students in determining what skills should be assessed and how they should be measured is one way to promote student voice. In a 7th grade Language Arts classroom, students examined several versions of one particular assignment: some were exemplars, while others exhibited beginning and developing skills. Students determined how closely each example met the task, as well as strengths and shortcomings of each one. Based on these noticings, small groups brainstormed components and skills that should be present within the task and assessed on the rubric. Students came together as a whole class to compare drafted rubrics, make compromises, merge, revise and even delete some components. In the end, the process captured each student’s ideas, as well as deepened their understanding of a specific genre.

Students’ choices are also important in selecting how they can best communicate their understanding of the topic or task. Giving students the option of a written task, constructing a piece of art, or creating a project using technology highlights student strengths and passions.

Assessing the entire work that goes in a specific projects

To continue the example of the Storytelling Project, the entire preparatory work that went into writing a profile was assessed along with the final essay. To put more emphasis on the process of voice discovery, students were to produce a Profile Portfolio, which consisted of interview questions and notes, sketch notes, first and final drafts, and students’ own input in their assessment–their end-of the-project reflection. Every component was worth a specific amount of points, and omitting one would mean a lower grade.

After sharing their writing with their profiled person, students reflected on the meaning of this project and writing process to them as writers. A quote from one student’s reflection captures the discovery: “My grandpa and I had a lot of fun doing this journalistic writing project. Yet, he did not help me write it sitting by the computer; he did help me write it in word. His words were powerful to me. We both learned a lot. He learned that his words can be sent down to other generations and then permeated throughout the world. No matter if it is on paper or not. I learned that a story isn’t just a story. It depends on what one wants to see in it.”

In a strategic environment, teachers afford students opportunities to choose where and how they work, interact with one another, share, reflect and document their thinking. As a result, students simultaneously develop their subject-specific know-how and form better knowledge of who they are as learners and individuals.

Arina Bokas, Ph.D., is the editor of Kids’ Standard Magazine and a writing instructor at Mott Community College, Flint, Michigan. She is the author of Building Powerful Learning Environments: From Schools to Communities. Connect with Bokas on Twitter.

Monica Phillips is a Language Arts teacher and ELA Department Chair at Sashabaw Middle School in Clarkston, Michigan. She also serves as a Professional Learning Community coordinator and facilitator for secondary teachers in her district. Connect with Phillips on Twitter.

5 Ways I Sneak Poetry into My Rhetoric Class

by Hattie Maguire Notes from the Classroom

Full disclosure: I’ve never thought of myself as a poetry person. I taught a lot of Debate for the first half of my career and then I shifted into AP Language and Composition. I’m argument, research, rhetoric. Not poetry.

It’s not that I dislike poetry–I loved studying it in high school and college–but the way I studied it has never meshed with the curriculum I teach.

In the past few years, however, I’ve found poems popping up at just the right moment, providing exactly the messages or skill lessons my students need.

Here are five ways I sneak poetry into a rhetoric class:

A Way to Begin Tough Conversations

Though I sometimes avoided hot topics as a young teacher, there is little today that I’m unwilling to discuss with my students. Still, I try very hard to reign in my own opinions because whether I like it or not, many students see me as the person who holds the position of power in the room. What I share with the class shows what I value, and I must be careful how I use my voice.

For me, poems are often a good starting point because their arguments are less explicit than those you would find in an op-ed. Recently, my students read and responded to the poem “Playground Elegy,” by Clint Smith. The poem makes an argument, but it also gives students a way into the discussion that is less intimidating–relatable imagery of a common childhood experience. In my class, this shared imagery gave them some common ground to begin a discussion about race and violence.

A Way to Examine Writers’ Choices

Poetry also provides quick mentor texts for discussing a writer’s choices. In September, George Clooney wrote a poem about the take-a-knee movement. The poem is a simple one, but provided a quick study in analysis. Why a poem? Why repeat the word “pray”? What’s the impact of the final line?

We could accomplish a lot analytically in ten minutes. A longer piece might have taken the whole hour to wade through. Again, there was an argument, too. After our analysis of the discussion, we were able to shift naturally into a discussion of the argument Clooney was making.

A Way to Process Big Emotions

Sometimes poems aren’t for arguing or analyzing, though. The day after the Parkland shooting, I knew I needed to address it with my students. Tricia Ebarvia of the Moving Writers blog encouraged me to just write with my students, and suggested several poems as a prompt. We ended up writing in response to “The Way It Is” by William Stafford and my students considered what it means to hold onto a thread and keep going when things are difficult. The notebook writing they did that day helped them process a lot of emotions and fears that they hadn’t had a chance to work through.

A Way to Spark Research Questions

In addition to argumentation, my students also do a lot of research. Poems can serve as perfect sparks for research questions because they often leave things unanswered. Students are used to having research topics, but when they have research questions, I find their thinking, researching, and writing becomes much more complex.

For example, after reading “Gate A4,” by Naomi Shihab Nye, and “Broken English,” by Rupi Kaur, students had all kinds of questions about the extent to which language impacts our daily lives and the way we interact with one another. Had I just asked them to research, for example, whether or not the United States should have a national language, many would have never examined the murkier, more complex areas of the topic.

A Way to Blow Off Steam

Last week, following the SAT test, my juniors were burned out. I shared a funny tweet I’d seen riffing on the William Carlos Williams poem “This is Just to Say” and explained how that had become a meme. To give our brains a break, we wrote our own poems. Though I had only intended to give their brains a little break, this, too, turned into an easy (and fun!) lesson about a writer’s choices. What’s the impact of that giant long line? What was the writer trying to accomplish and why is it successful?

In the introduction to her book Poems Are Teachers, Amy Ludwig Vanderwater explains that “poems wake us up, keep us company, remind us that our world is big and small. And, too, poems teach us to write. Anything.” Regardless of the course you teach, there is a space for poetry. I’ve found lots of spaces in my course and I’d argue (see? It’s my thing) that you can, too.

Hattie Maguire (@teacherhattie) hit a milestone in her career this year: she realized she’s been teaching longer than her students have been alive (17 years!). She is spending that 17th year at Novi High School, teaching AP English Language and AP Seminar for half of her day, and spending the other half working as an MTSS literacy student support coach. When she’s not at school, she spends her time trying to wrangle the special people in her life: her 8-year-old son, who recently channeled Ponyboy in his school picture by rolling up his sleeves and flexing; her 5-year-old daughter, who has discovered the word apparently and uses it to provide biting commentary on the world around her; and her 40-year-old husband, whom she holds responsible for the other two.

Launching into Poetry with “Love That Dog”

by Beth Rogers Notes from the Classroom

As a 5th grade teacher, I would always have students moan, eyeroll, and state either dramatically or smugly, “I’ve read that book,” when I would pull out Love That Dog, by Sharon Creech.

“Yes, I’m sure you have,” I would reply sweetly. “But never the way you are going to read it with me.”

An Adventure in Reading and Writing

I always tried to carve out two weeks in the spring for this text, and use it as a reading and writing experience.

As readers, we were able to infer quite a bit about our main character, Jack, and his teacher, Miss Stretchberry. We could easily select character traits and defend them with evidence from the text. We were able to think deeply about Jack and the changes we saw in him as a learner and a person.

We also got to experience poetry in multiple ways: from our own experience and Jack’s experience, and using poems as mentor texts for writing. I will tell you this: No matter if they had read the story before, or even heard it before, my students always ended up loving this experience.

How It Works: Reading

If you are not familiar with this story, it is a must read. But please, please read it this way:

When Jack first mentions a poem within the text, stop immediately and read the poem. (As a teacher, I would project the poem at the beginning of our Language Arts time, read it aloud, and then immediately go into the text to hear what Jack had to say about it.) Then process as readers what is happening in the story and the poem. I had post-its throughout my text about the poems, as well as the stopping points where I wanted students to reflect.

Surprise–Writing!

After each day that we read a new poem, my students would be tasked with using the poem as a mentor text. We would spend some time talking about the structure and meaning, and because I taught students with a wide range of abilities, I would always have scaffolds in place to make these structures were accessible for all students.

The kids loved this. We would write multiple versions using the same mentor text and they were excited to publish and share their writing. Many would ask to publish theirs on their blog pages or to hang theirs in the hallways. This excitement was contagious and carried throughout the month.

A Springboard

This text was a great springboard into exploring a variety of poetry styles. I also used A Kick In The Head, An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms and A Poke in the I, A Collection of Concrete Poems to further our study and writing. There is a little something for everyone in these books so it is easy to bump things up for students who need a challenge.

Spring is a great time to explore Haiku as well. Take a walk, notice some things in nature, and write! The structure is a good way to talk about word choice as well. (It doesn’t hurt to review syllables either!) There are many examples of haiku out there. I stuck to making them about nature but you can do what works for your students!

There are so many resources out there to explore poetry with your students in April. Check out 30 ways to celebrate, the Poetry Foundation, Scholastic Poetry Resources, and listen to ordinary Americans reading poetry at the Favorite Poem Project. (Be sure to preview first.)

I hope that you will dive in and explore this month–there is so much to discover. You’ll be amazed what you find.

Books to Bust Your Reading Slump

by Bethany Bratney Book Reviews Notes from the Classroom

Surprising librarian fact: many people assume that I love every book that I try to read. I wish that were the case. In fact, somewhat regularly, I find myself in the midst of a reading slump, reading several books in a row with which I just don’t connect.

Reading slumps can be deadly. They kill your desire to read, making you feel that any other pursuit might be more fun or productive.

But with time and practice, I have found a few techniques that can help me to break out of a reading slump. I find they also work pretty well on reluctant readers, who themselves may be in the middle of an epic, life-long reading slump that they now consider the status quo. Here are some slump-busters to try with your students (or yourself):

1. Try a book in a new format, preferably one that reads quickly.

Verse novels are becoming more common and have been quite popular with my students. The sheer amount of white space on any given page, combined with text that addresses topics in a more direct way, makes verse novels fast paced. This appeals to all kinds of readers.

One excellent verse novel that has been very popular with students across reading levels is The Crossover, by Kwame Alexander. It’s a coming-of-age verse novel that involves sibling rivalry, parental relationships, school drama, and grief. The main character, Josh and his twin, Jacob, are talented basketball players, so there are some excellent basketball scenes that could be read out of context. It’s also quick, engaging, and touching. I don’t think I’ve ever had a student dislike it.

2. Go back to a topic or genre that you’ve been neglecting.

I found myself caught in a mini-slump last year, during a period of heavy realistic fiction and professional reading. I didn’t necessarily dislike these, but I needed to refresh myself with something I hadn’t tried in a while.

Enter Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire. This fantasy novella is filled with tremendous characters, fascinating backstory, and heaps of whimsy. I had been so caught up in big, heavy doses of reality that this little fantasy novel was a breath of fresh air.

Don’t get me wrong here: trying something totally new that you’ve never tried before is not a good strategy for sloughing off a slump. But returning to something that I had been missing was just what I needed to get back on my reading game.

3. Choose something funny.

It’s only been a few years since I realized that sometimes my slumps are not really about reading at all.

There have been many times in my life when the book that I was reading hit a little too close to home. I enjoy books about social movements, but sometimes the issues in my books pile on to the issues in real life, and that brings me down. I find that I’m not eager to get back to my book because it’s upsetting me or making me anxious.

This is the moment for a funny book. The playful tone in The Upside of Unrequited, by Becky Albertalli, really gave me a boost. The characters are all people I wish I knew in real life, and I found myself rooting for them. There is a sense of hopefulness imbued in the story, and the main character, Molly, has a charming, slightly self-deprecating voice that made me snort-laugh on at least one occasion. A funny book may not solve the world’s problems, but this one reinvigorated my spirit and fed my inner reader a hearty portion of comfort food.

4. Pick something that everyone else has LOVED

There is a risk of ending up with something that disappoints because it’s been over-hyped. Yet it can be very satisfying to pick up a book that everyone’s been talking about, and then to become part of the conversation.

Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere has been weaving its way through my high school (and the country) since the fall. It’s an adult novel, but the inclusion of five teenage main characters grappling with familial and community expectations has made it of great interest to my students.

In the end, even the most avid reader is bound to hit a slump occasionally. I’d love to know about readers’ favorite books that have helped them break out of a reading rut!