“Ms. H, these answers are all right here in the text.”

Let us pause for a monumental moment of celebration. All year long, I’ve been working with my seniors on their ability to infer, interpret, and analyze. It used to be that if the answer to a question was not fact-based or found right in the book at hand, my students could not handle it. After months and months of discussion training, open questions, and constantly asking students to find and explain their own truth, they are finally getting to be pros at thinking for themselves. (I think they might even like it!)

I realized this today when I gave my students a simple worksheet that featured background information about the history of African American oral tradition. It featured questions afterward that were more of a “reading check”–each answer could be found on the sheet without much trouble. As my students began to work on it, they were actually confused by it. One raised her hand and said, “Ms. Harter… these answers are all right here in the text.”

“I know,” I replied, “I’m just checking to see if you understood the reading.”

“Really?” she asked, “That’s it?”

More kids started to look bewildered and added things like, “So… this isn’t asking what we think; it’s just asking for the simple answer?”

“Yes,” I told them, cheering in my head. “But don’t worry, tomorrow will be back to normal with some nice questions that are impossible to answer in less than a paragraph.” They smiled and groaned–but I know they were secretly relieved.

I finally did it. They are finally starting to think and crave the opportunity to give and support their own ideas. HOORAY! Once you get there, you can’t go back. Once a mind is opened, it gets sick of simple data processing with no heart and no meaning.

Just a Phase

Behold, a nifty little graph given to me by my district mentor:

I thought this was rather entertaining, especially considering the current time of year. Apparently, I’m m0ving swiftly from survival mode into “disillusionment”, which looks like an all-time low as far as morale is concerned.

I’m pleased to say that I don’t feel anywhere near the bottom of that valley. Every day is a new chance to learn, to test my strength, and to hang out with my students. While I do submit to the idea of seasonal changes (especially losing light here in the Midwest) having a real effect on the attitudes and inspiration of people in general, I’d like to redraw this graph to a steady uphill climb. We might slip along the way, but we’re building on the progress we’ve made, and every step brings us closer to the top.

As I say so often, struggles do exist. BUT, we first year teachers that plan on staying… we have to be stronger than the statistics.

Doing Some Things Right

There are good days. There are really good, rock solid days.

…and there are bad ones.

Like many seasoned teachers before me, I now understand that every day in the teaching world is like a little microcosm unto itself. Yes, sometimes it’s possible to feed off of inertia built up early in the week, but more often every day seems different, a clean and wonderful slate to fill. (In my case, literally, since I have an old-school slate chalkboard.) Of course, that slate-filling doesn’t always go according to plan.

But when I have an off day of teaching, I like to think of things that have happened which affirm my belief in myself as a teacher, and nothing speaks truer to that than the words of my students themselves. While I’ve had my share of resistance, I’ve also caught a few young scholars that really “get” the ideas and messages that I’m so desperately trying to get across Monday through Friday.

One senior who is an AP student is taking my regular English section as an elective because she loves my class and the way I teach. Having left Rufus King for “lack of challenge,” she considers my discussion-oriented literature class at MSL intriguing and “awesome.” Bless you, child.

Another one of my seniors named me the “first teacher to make English not boring.” You might as well have handed me eighty dollars. “You make things actually interesting,” he says, “You’re the best teacher ever, you know?” And I respond with my trademark, expressionless, “Oh, I know.” Bemused as they are by my no-nonsense, intense demeanor, my students have no idea how inside I’m yelling, “HECK YEAH!” when I hear things like that.

One girl in my Writing Lab class raised her hand one morning to ask, “What is this? Why do you teach like this? It’s new, it’s different… Where did you get this? Is it just all you? Because it’s amazing.” I told her the truth: that “this” is heavily influenced by the writing workshop model of Nancie Atwell, as well as my college level writing center work, but that also–yes–it is part of my teaching philosophy to be a teacher that asks students every day to think, work together, create, with me by their sides just until they can stand all by themselves. At that point, I can just sit back and smile, knowing they’ve got it.

I don’t accomplish my goals every day. I am not the best teacher every day. I do, sometimes, feel totally tired out and confused. But once in a while, on a great day, I am The Best Teacher. And that’s what it’s all about.

Real Talk about Urban Teaching

I have the great honor of being part of a wonderful community of new teachers, the same ones that I “grew up with” during my last three years of college, most of whom are now out in the work force. I respect them all tremendously and I’m especially psyched about the large amount of us that have made the choice to teach in the city of Milwaukee. We are urban teachers. The new urban teachers.

My point with this post is simply to say this:

Urban teaching is not a picnic of idealized, homogenized, hands-neatly-folded-on-the-desk, wide-eyed congeniality. However, neither is it what so many people seem to write it off as: a headache, a lost cause, a poor choice, or (God forbid) a waste of a college education. Urban teaching is waking up every day knowing that you are serving others, that you are choosing to prop the door open for young people that want to be let in, that you are building a community of many colors and classes, that you have the power to–for a set amount of time each day–melt away the overpowering real life that comes knocking much too soon for many of your students. It’s hard, hard work. But it gives a meaning to your work that is ten billion times greater than the highest stack of Wall Street paychecks. Plainly stated, it ROCKS.

Too much, we new teachers end up apologizing for our idealism. One friend of mine in particular brought this up recently, after joyously admitting how much she loves and admires her students at one of the most notorious, “dangerous” schools in the city. She’s refusing to look at her kids with a closed mind. She feels like she’s changing the world. Is she wrong to feel this way? Am I? Some seasoned (read: jaded) veterans might say so, mocking our naivete.

But you know what I say to that? Screw it. This world needs idealists. So we’re here. And we’re here to stay.

Idealism = Reality from an enlightened and courageous point of view. Go with it.

Student No Longer

Today was my final day of student teaching–my transition day from an intern teacher to a licensed professional. I feel very “floaty”…   Reality hasn’t sunk in yet.  But it’s there, somewhere in the back of my consciousness: I’m done. Walking out of the doors of the school where I learned how to really step up and teach felt so strange. It’s amazing to me how a place that seems so large and generic upon first visit turns into a home. Here’s a shot of my (now empty) classroom, where so many frustrations, questions, and breakthroughs occurred.

In the spirit of celebration, here are my favorite final moments with each of my classes.

Ninth Graders

For my final unit with my freshman, I had them create a literary magazine. They worked through a series of five writing projects (character sketch, poetry, comic, flash fiction, and editorial), and then did extensive revisions based on my comments, their own ideas, and the feedback of their peers. They then selected one or more of their projects to publish in a class literary magazine, which I put together with their artwork, biographies, and introduction. On the last day of class, each contributor got a bound copy. We then squeezed our 32 desks into a circle and each writer who wanted to could read from their piece. They wanted to stand in the middle of the circle, so I said, “why not?” It was so charming to see these precocious, vibrant, sassy kids get their moment with all eyes on them, reading their own writing with flashing eyes and lilting voices.  They were so proud, and it did my heart good to see these kids stand in the spotlight, seeing their original words on the page, important and real.

Twelfth Graders

My senior class, which really became a family this last nine-week session, has been an absolute joy to teach, so I was very sad to see them go a week earlier than my other students for graduation. Their final exam was on a Friday, and I spent the weekend glumly denying the fact that I would miss them terribly. But on Monday, they came back! Nearly my entire class came back–bearing food and cake and gifts as a surprise party for me. It was so much fun to let down serious teacher mode for that final, extra day and just enjoy the company of my students for one more 90-minute class. I was proud to announce that every last student passed English 12, and many of them with flying colors! I was so honored and touched by the awesome party that they threw for me. As we sat, celebrated, and shared our plans for the future, I could do nothing but smile. I’ll end this post with the letter that they wrote for me–no doubt I will never forget my very first group of seniors!

Dear Miss “H”,

From the gracious and humble bottoms of each and every one of your senior students’ hearts, we all thank you for being a well-crafted teacher who understood us as youthful and changing teenagers that needed a little bit of guidance and direction, because, let’s be honest, we are all approaching adulthood at a steady pace and we are very much scared out of our minds at how the future is going to be. We have all had a good time in this class. Even when we all doubted that we were going to like Hamlet, you showed us otherwise. After reading Hamlet, I kind of have a little more willingness to live, to be, to not die, to not sleep, to not dream perchance, but to be awakened and take action. And I will do just that, but after summer vacation of course! We congratulate you on your award for teaching and once again we thank you for being the best student teacher ever!

What’s “English”?

I visited Wordle.net to help me out with today’s post, which is about the English classroom. The word images above and below show the many interrelated concepts/activities that I teach and expect in my classroom.

Last week, I devoted an entire class period to discussion on thematic, characterization, and inference-based questions on the novel The Outsiders which my students just read. They were confused! I was not handing them a worksheet. I was not looking for correctness. I was not telling them to be quiet. All I was asking for was a respectful, engaged discussion. I even put the desks in a circle (in this classroom, that’s radical). I stressed that discussion skills are important to learn, and that talking about our reactions or ideas about books is a big part of what English is all about. I was so proud of them–they really got into it, and I got so much participation, even from students who barely ever speak up. I was shocked that this was such a new type of activity to my eighth graders. They are still being weaned from their steady diet of sit-quietly-and-fill-this-out worksheets.

I am beginning to understand that some English teachers focus on one or three skills for the year and assess these skills with worksheets and tests. But “English” is so much more than that! It’s more than comma usage and the five-paragraph essay. English is…

1. Learning the language itself, its rules (what they are, what they’re for, when to follow them, and when to not), its effect (how to organize sentences and paragraphs to create different reactions), its words (an extensive vocabulary with words for any purpose or occasion), and its history (anything from etymology to linguistics to connotations).

2. Learning to compose in such a way that one can speak from the heart through the flawless execution of Standard American Spoken English as well as honestly from one’s home dialect. Wielding writing for creative, expository, persuasive, and reflective ends. Achieving clarity and a true voice through the written word.

3. Learning to speak about literature and culture. Having discussions and debates with peers reflecting the lively exchange of ideas that come up through reading, whether these ideas harmonize or conflict. Respecting the opinions of others while firmly supporting one’s own. Contributing to and collaborating with a community of scholars.

4. Daring to think and to express those thoughts in ways that haven’t ever been done, personally or categorically. Standing alone, willing to say: “I think ________ . Here is why.”

5. Deciphering, understanding, and interpreting the beautiful mysteries that authors create with our language, through metaphor, symbol, allegory, ideological lens, and theme. Letting others speak to us and through us, and speaking back.

6. Conducting research to answer a question worth asking. Learning to locate and utilize sources such as books, articles, online sources, films, images, personal interviews, letters, and observations to help answer this question.

6. Seeing literature, art, film, culture, and ourselves as texts.

P.S. For a better, more official list than mine, view the standards set forth by the National Council of Teachers of English or the state.

Navigating our Textual Universe

My definition of text:

Something. Something that can be read, pondered, and interpreted. A written work, an image, a film, a song, a feeling, a portion of time–all these are texts, but only if we allow them to be so. It is our job, struggle, and obligation as human beings to read the universe. Texts are what help us make sense of it. They enlighten, instill, impassion. They confuse and frustrate. They escape us and chase us down. They are the footnotes to our lives, dreams, and history.

Texts are physical records of meaning. It is my job as a scholar and teacher to guide others in deciphering the texts of others and in creating their own. My highest aim is to convince others to seek their own truths. There is information, knowledge, and wisdom all around us. Let’s unfold it.