Poetry Saturday -- The Week in Poetry

What a week. But also -- what a week in poetry.

On Tuesday, as I drove towards the beginning of the second half of the grand experiment known as Remote Learning Academy, I listened to Pádraig Ó Tuama on Poetry Unbound. I had finished listening to King and the Dragonflies that morning while I exercised and I hadn't chosen my next audiobook. Podcast time! I was a little behind on Poetry Unbound episodes. I chose Ellen Bass -- Bone of My Bones and Flesh of My Flesh. I'll wait while you go listen, if you haven't already.

At the end of his commentary, Ó Tuama says,

"I think this poem invites us to think about the power of language and how language can serve to silence or to eradicate or to erase or deny, or to elevate and acknowledge. And even within those denials, people survive with defiance, and they can raise language to an even better level of acknowledgement and public celebration about what love looks like, especially when that love and that dignity has been denied."

The words in bold/italics are what lifted me up on that drive to school, and as I wrote my welcome back message on Google Classroom, I referred to my students as "my lovelies."

In the comments to that post, AP expressed delight at being referred to as "my lovelies." So on Wednesday, I addressed them as an "Amazing Rainbow of Awesomeness." AP was nearly giddy. Would I do it again on Thursday? she asked. How could I not? On Thursday, they were "my sweet babboos" and on Friday, "Dear Ones." 

Thank you, Pádraig Ó Tuama, for inspiring me to find and create terms of endearment that infuse more expressions of love into my classroom. This is another one of those seeds that I plant, having no way of knowing if/how it will later sprout in these children's lives. But it's a seed worth planting.

Also this week, I started my Poem-A-Week project. After realizing that there are 20 weeks left in the school year, and therefore the opportunity for the close study of (just!) 20 poems, I asked the world (via Twitter) for suggestions of poems I might include. I made my choices, but then promptly chose something for the first week that wasn't part of the original plan. And it turned out perfectly. As we began a new routine of choosing reading goals and logging reading and evidence for our goals in a new and simplified digital reader's notebook (aka BOB, which stands for Book of Books, hat tip to Monica Edinger for the original idea of BOB and Maria Caplin for the digital BOB), and as I reminded myself to START SLOWLY, I chose Lee Bennett Hopkins' "Good Books, Good Times!" 

Each day we read the poem (I encourage them to read along behind their muted microphones) and then do just a little bit of unpacking together (hat tip to Tara Smith for the idea of unpacking poems). I have created a slide show for the poems and for documentation of the unpacking work. Here's the plan: on the first day, I just read the poem (projected so they can read along); day two, after reading the poem, I invite reactions/noticing; day three is meaning/craft; day four is respond/connect; day five (I haven't had one yet) might be a guest reader who will also give their thoughts about the poem. I'm making this a routine, but keeping the poem choice flexible on my end so I can be responsive to my learners and the events of the world. 

In light of 1/6/21, my choice for next week's poem might be " 'Hope' is the thing with feathers" by Emily Dickinson, or "The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry. (I think "Let America Be America Again" by Langston Hughes is too much for fifth grade, but it's the poem in MY heart right now.) Whatever I choose, it will be a way in for us to talk about the events of 1/6/21. My students weren't ready to talk on Thursday, and yesterday I invited them to give me feedback on why they were hesitant to talk about the news. I got some valuable insight. But that's another post for another day...or week. Stay tuned.

Poetry. Another seed worth planting.

Sorry to be a day late for Poetry Friday. This may be my new normal moving forward. Sylvia has the Poetry Friday Roundup at Poetry for Children. 

(If you've had trouble with your comments disappearing from our blog, I think it's because the site takes a LONG time to load. That's what happens when you have 15 years worth of content (happy belated blog anniversary to A Year of Reading)! Here's the hack: stop the page from loading before you type/submit your comment.)

Remote Teaching Journey -- Assumptions and Conversations

 

One of my new routines for this year is link to the CNN10 news for the day in an open Google doc with a table where my scholars can add their name, plus their noticing and wondering.

The first day I added this to our schedule (Thursday this week), there was a story about housing in LA and how homeowners are converting two car garages into apartments. I made the assumption that this would not be an engaging part of the news show for 10 year-olds, but recommended it as connected to our social studies standards on the topic of Economics.

In our end-of-day Google Meet, I shared how surprised I was that many had connected with that news story in their notice/wonders. One girl piped up that she found it fascinating because she wants to be an architect. Another loved that people did this not just for the money, but to help people have a home near their work.

Lesson: Never Assume.

In a writing workshop lesson under the doc camera, we began creating our identity webs this week. As I made mine, I talked about identity as the story we tell about ourselves. When I meet someone new, one part of my story often begins with, "I am a teacher." 

I went on to explain that identity is also the things about us that people see, and I added "woman" and "kind of old" and "white skin" to my identity web. I explained that I often don't think of my identity of "woman" until I am in a place where that stands out, at the car repair shop, for instance, where I am likely the only woman there. I encouraged them to think of the parts of their identity that others see.

On Friday, we watched this video about Ibtihaj Muhammad, which led to conversations about the meaning of the words stereotype and bias, and then I read aloud The Proudest Blue. 

Lesson: My commitment to be an antiracist teacher will not be revealed in big splashy announcements about my commitment, but rather in all the small conversations we will have (planned and unplanned) throughout the year. Being an antiracist teacher is a way of life, not a lesson plan.

The Things That Matter

photo via Unsplash

I saw a tweet this morning encouraging us all to be historians -- open our notebooks and capture these times on paper in a format most likely to be "pass down-able." We should record our responses, our feelings, our points of view. I'm going to do that, AND I'm going to log bits of the journey with distance learning here as well. I started with my (very rough) poem, which was written Thursday and shared yesterday.

Here are some thoughts from the last day of face-to-face learning yesterday:

More than anything, my students crave the assurance that some semblance of our routines will continue. Will we have read aloud? Yes! I can do that with Screencastify. Will we do Poetry Friday? Yes! We can find poems online (especially at The Poem Farm) and share them with Flipgrid. Will we have morning announcements (my Social Justice Club wrote the features for Women's History Month)? Yes! I have access to the doc with the Women's History features and I can share them with Screencastify or FlipGrid. Word of the Day? Yes! Birthday ritual (singing in 7 languages) for the two who will have birthdays? Yes!

On Monday, we will receive direction from Central Office and begin working on the nuts and bolts of how to make Distance Learning happen. No matter what, I'll work to keep our routines intact.

One Little Word -- Inspired by Our Classroom Routine

We change desks every two weeks in Room 226. Students' morning work on moving day is to move all their belongings out of their desk (or box) to a stack on their chair (or stool or nearby their spot at a standing table). Then we clean and disinfect (hooray for Clorox and Lysol wipes!) our old abode so the new tenant will have a fresh start. (Embedded life skill: clean the apartment so you get your deposit back!) With all of the students seated in the meeting area, I pull sticks to "assign" seats. First stick pulled chooses a spot at the first table, next stick sits at the stool table, then the clock table, the red chairs table, and the blue chairs table, and back around again until all the sticks are pulled and everyone has a new spot. (Pairs of students volunteer for the two standing tables.) So, every two weeks, students get a new table group and a new view in the classroom. I am not in charge of creating a seating chart and therefore, I am not in charge of behavior--they are. In reality, the spot they are assigned is mostly just a predictable place to put their belongings. Seating is flexible during most every work time--they are also in charge of their learning zone.

We've added a new spin to this bi-weekly routine. I wrote about it a few weeks ago, and it was #12 in last year's 31 Teaching Truths. We choose a new word to BE for the next two weeks. The person who chooses the word gets to determine the style of the lettering and decorate the poster. So far this year, we've been positive, fierce, focused, persevering, love (not be loving, but actually be love), courageous, flexible, and confident.

In 2019, instead of choosing One Little Word for the year, I am going to spend more time with each of the words we choose for our gallery of what we will BE.

A few weeks ago in a conversation about our words (not during the actual choosing ceremony), I tossed out the word WIERD in honor of our ongoing celebration of diversity, but was gently redirected by one of my students. He suggested that UNIQUE would be a more positive expression, one without the negative connotations. (So...maybe our quick little practice of lining up shades of meaning in synonyms is starting to stick?) Let the record stand, though, the words that are chosen are theirs, not mine. And yes, kids are starting to hoard words, hoping to be the next one chosen.

Lo and behold, the word that was chosen for this round was, indeed, UNIQUE. Perfect word, actually. It was the theme of the talk they heard on Monday from author Jason Tharp! So for the next two weeks, we'll celebrate all that makes us one-of-a-kind.

#nerdlution writing for today

Routines and Rituals and Giving Oneself Permission to Veer

I'm eating the last of my birthday cake as I write. There's a trio of unfrosted sugar cookies waiting when I finish the cake. Permission has been granted to veer from the bowl of yogurt-granola-flax seed that is my typical breakfast. This veer feels a little decadent, mostly because I'm telling the world that I did it. Being in a breakfast routine is something that is hardwired for me. Growing up, we had a scrambled egg, toast, milk and juice for breakfast every school day morning. (This may not actually be true, but it's what I remember.) On Saturdays, Mom let us veer -- we could eat whatever we wanted for breakfast. And it was all kinds of fun (plus it felt a little decadent) to heat up a can of Campbell's vegetarian vegetable soup and eat it right from the pan while I watched Saturday cartoons.

So the power of both the routine and the veer were instilled in me early.

That slice of birthday cake I just finished (YUM!) was a veer. The traditional cake that I make for birthdays is a three-layer from-scratch tower of chocolate. Making that cake has turned into a routine. I wanted to try something new this year. Years ago (gasp -- I just looked at the recipe -- in 2004!), I saved a recipe from Oprah's magazine for a cake whose picture made me drool: "Triple-decker triple threat: chocolate, buttercream, and ganache." I think it's fair to say that back in 2004 I didn't have the baking skills to tackle this cake. But now, almost 10 years later, I was ready to try two new things: buttercream and ganache. If you've never made either of them, they are really fun on the first try. You kind of know what they're supposed to be like in the end, but for the longest time, neither of them resembles that outcome in any way, shape, or form. Then...suddenly...the glop becomes creamy buttercream! Suddenly, the melty mass becomes silky ganache!

So veering is good, because when you get off the beaten path, you learn new things, and learning is fun!

Those sugar cookies I just finished were a veer. Thirty (still kills me to say this)...THIRTY years ago, in my first year of teaching (when I was twelve) I made cookies for my students to decorate. Gingerbread people. One of my students revealed that he had never decorated cookies. I promised myself that as long as I taught, my students would decorate cookies every winter so that if ever there was another child in my class who hadn't decorated cookies they would have that chance. For twenty years, I made gingerbread. And used only two of my extensive collection of cookie cutters -- big gingerbread person, little gingerbread person. This was more than a routine, this was a ritual. But even a good ritual can use a veer. Ten years ago, I decided I wanted to use more of my cookie cutters, and make a different kind of cut-out cookie. So I switched to sugar cookies and now my students decorate people (last year a student made JFK and this year we had Obama), and rhinos, polar bears, bats, doves, chickens, USAs, pigs, flowers, and snowmen (just to name a few without getting up to look). I give my decorators bowls of homemade white icing...and food coloring. While many have decorated cookies before, very few have ever made their own colors of icing. Fun, fun, FUN!

So sometimes you need to veer even the most beloved ritual to keep it fresh.

*  *  *  *  *

And now exactly 30 minutes of writing time is up for today's #nerdlution. Here's what I love about the routine of writing for 30 minutes every morning:

1. I often have no idea what I will write about when I sit down and put pencil to notebook page. I LOVE the surprises that come as I write!

2. It was scary to sit down to this blog post and have no idea what I was going to write about until I admitted to my off-the-beaten-path breakfast. But, I LOVE the surprises that come as I write!

3. I actually have the beginnings of a Choice Literacy article waiting for me to work on tomorrow. And even though I have an outline, I know I will still be surprised by the way it turns out. I LOVE the surprises that come as I write!

4. To summarize: I LOVE the surprises that come as I write!