photo via Unsplash |
The World Itself is Not Ponderous
Two PUBLIC SCHOOL teachers who read. A lot.
photo via Unsplash |
The World Itself is Not Ponderous
Photo via Unsplash |
As I work with teachers across grade levels, many are thinking about how to build community and create a space that is safe and inviting for important thinking and conversation. Whether they are in person and social distanced, whether they are hybrid and have their kids both live and in remote spaces or whether they are fully remote, this is something on every teachers' mind, as it is every fall. So much of the fall is often spent building community, learning how to have thoughtful conversations, building on one another's thinking, learning to disagree and learning to support claims and ideas with evidence. This year is no different in that regard.
Spencer's New Pet by Jessie Sima has been a great wordless book to share early in the year. Mary Lee reviewed the book a while ago and I fell in love with it this spring when I shared it with my 5th graders.
If we want our students to talk about books in critical ways, if we want them to be able to talk about issues in our world, if we want students to learn to grapple with ideas, agree, disagree and grow their thinking, I find that wordless picture books are perfect tools for inviting students into this work early in the year.
This fall, I've been fortunate to work in a few Zoom classrooms, supporting teachers in their work with students. Spencer's New Pet has worked so well with several groups of students. I find that it is a book children (and adults) of all ages engage in joyfully. And it provides so many natural stopping places to notice and celebrate thinking and talk. Because there are very few words, the book is accessible to everyone and children are anxious to share thinking as there is so much to notice in each illustration.
This book was good for several reasons. It helped start discussions around these important behaviors and strategies:
Spencer's New Pet is my most recent favorite wordless book, but I have several and I am always on the lookout for a new favorite to share with students. Sharing a few wordless picture books over the first several weeks of school helps build an intellectual community of talk and collaborative thinking. Here is a link to some other wordless books that are perfect for remote learning.
image via Unsplash |
How to Be a Poet
by Wendell Berry
(to remind myself)
i
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.
You can read the other two sections of this wise poem at the Poetry Foundation. I'm sharing it today as a reminder to myself. Maybe you needed to hear that, too?
Kiesha has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Whispers From the Ridge.
The struggles of remote teaching and learning are real. Figuring out how to hold onto best practices with 29 students on a Zoom call is tricky at best. But as always, educators are figuring it out! I am amazed at all that teachers are doing to make this the best possible experience for students of all ages.
This week, Seth's Godin's blog post, Self-Directed, Project-Based Learning got me thinking again.
Since spring, I've been reflecting on my experiences with remote teaching. As I work with teachers now, I continue to think about what worked and what didn't when we moved to remote teaching last year. I am also thinking about the possibilities and surprise joys that came with remote teaching and learning. One thing I discovered was that Writing Workshop was an area that allowed me to offer choice and good teaching while making sure to meet required standards. I see how much is possible with remote teaching when it comes to writing.
I wrote a bit about it here after learning a bit from Julie Johnson on the blog this spring. I created a board for students that focused on writing choices and also met the standards that needed to be covered. Each choice led to a slideshow specific to the genre that helped kids do a bit of their own study while still having the support of our live writing workshop sessions.
I was mostly focused on providing choice and independence at that point. But once I opened up possibilities for kids, so many more good things happened.
Writing Workshop in a remote learning setting reminded me of the thing I know but sometimes forget when I am caught up in the day-to-day work of teaching--the more I let go and the more choices I give students, the more authentic and rich their writing experiences are and the more they learn and grow. The more choice and ownership I gave to students, the more they were able to do as writers and the more they were able to surprise me with their brilliance.
When given the choice, lots of time, and response from both home and school, students came up with so many great ideas:
One big lesson for me was when one of my students shared her process in creating a podcast. She had enjoyed the podcast series The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel and wanted to create her own fiction/fantasy podcast. We met several times in small groups and one day she said, laughing, "I spent all day yesterday looking for just the right sound effects. I found so many apps and so many sound effects. I wanted to find the perfect ones!" (You can listen to the podcast, "Sabrina and the Unexpected Fortune" below.)
In that moment I realized that the things we know that are important to any writing workshop (time, choice and response), were already so much a part of this pandemic life. Even though we provide these things in the classroom writing workshop, much has been taken away over the years because of time constraints, district mandates, state testing, etc.). In school, time for writing is limited, but because students had extra down time due to the pandemic, writing became playful and fun and so authentic. They could spend as much time as they needed or wanted to on parts of the process. They were able to go above and beyond in areas of writing that they wanted to. It seemed so authentic. I know that when I write, I sometimes get caught up for hours on one word or on one sentence. Or I work to try to find the perfect image to go along with a message. This is the fun of writing on some days.
When I met with small groups, students weren't talking about their writing pieces as something they were doing for school or because of school. They started talking about their plans for summer and how they might build onto the work they had done so far to write more. They were choosing to use their summer to continue work on some writing projects as they knew they'd have lots of time. So many of them were living their outside-of-school lives as writers.After reading Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram Kendi realized how much I don't know about history. So, I set out to learn more. Early this summer I picked up the book Lifting as We Climb: Black Women's Battle for the Ballot Box by Evette Dionne thinking it would be a quick read. It is not long and meant for middle grade/middle school.
I thought I knew a lot about women's rights but realized immediately that this was not going to be a quick read. I realized that what I knew was VERY limited and that there were so many women whose work I did not know.
And then I started seeing so much about the 100th Anniversary of women's right to vote and so much of it left out the important fact that not all women were given the right to vote at that time. The fight for voting rights was not over.
I don't know enough about this but I know that there is a lot I have to learn. So, I decided I had to build my own text set and approach this a little differently. I needed a bit more background knowledge, some highlighters and lots of pieces to read and build understanding over time.
One thing I have learned is that when I build a text set for myself, it also works well in the classroom and when I am working with teachers to plan. When I learn, I have better resources to share with students. And I must admit that so much of what I learn about history lately is from incredible books written for children. These are the kind of text sets we need to build--for ourselves AND for our students.
There aren't a lot of books out there about people other than those we hear about often in the fight for women's right to vote. But there are several.
None of these books have all of the info or all of the voices so I will have to be a critical reader, asking myself these questions as I go. I need to really think about what is missing and who is included in each of these books. And I won't be finished learning when I finish this text set. It will be only the beginning but I am hoping it builds enough background knowledge for me to have a better sense of history.
Maybe if we build text sets like these, students today won't have to unlearn and relearn history the way that I have had to.
Here are the books I plan to read over the next several weeks or months. And then I'll go back to Lifting as We Climb.
Equality's Call: The Story of Voting Rights in America by Deborah Diesen
This picture book explains the sequence of the fight for voter's rights and that it is continued work. The simple text is great to show the events and battles fought for voter rights and there is information at the end of the book that adds more.
Finish the Fight: The Brave and Revolutionary Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote by Veronica Chambers and the Staff at the New York Times is a 100-page book that is told in narrative. The book begins with the words..."Here are some suffragists you may have learned about..." (above images of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other white women). "...but there are lots more you should know!" above images of a much larger number of women who were part of this fight. This book is filled with information, artifacts and photos and is written for middle grade/middle school readers.
History Smashers: Women's Right to Vote by Kate Messner
If you don't know this new series by Kate Messner, it is a great series for middle grade, middle school and anyone who is relearning so much history. This one on the Women's Right to Vote is an important one for this topic. These books are chapter book length (about 200 pages) and filled with information that we may not have learned. There are also many great resources that can be explore independently after reading. The tone of this series is conversational and accessible.
Voice of Freedom: Frannie Lou Hamer: The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement by Carole Boston Weatherford is a picture book biography. I am truly alarmed at how few picture books are out there about BIPOC women civil rights activists. And even few specific to women's right to vote. This one is a great one and I hope we get more published about important BIPOC women.
Ida B. Wells: Let the Truth Be Told by Walter Dean Myers is a picture book biography that tells about Ida B. Wells' life as an activist. Although this book doesn't focus solely on the women's right to vote, it does include many of the causes Wells fought for as well as events in her personal life.
How Women Won the Vote by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
This book focuses on the part of the story we know best but it does include information on the discrimination women of color faced in this fight. The way this is embedded in the story is helpful to understand the way the events played out. This book includes photos from the events from history.
There are several good online resources that have been published recently so I started a Padlet for myself (and whoever else is interested) with recent publications on the topic. Teen Vogue is a great source for relearning history so there are some articles from that publication. I have also found some podcasts, etc. that look promising. I'll keep adding resources. I am looking specifically for the pieces of this story that I don't know, people who I haven't learned about.
image via Unsplash |
Dear Candy Corn,
Thank you for your jolt of too-much sweetness
at the end of a too-long day
that was packed with too-much
of just about everything.
I have had enough.
One small handful of you,
one day like today.
I have had enough.
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020
Carol has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Beyond Literacy Link.
Even though 2020 has not been a great year, it has been a good year for middle grade books. I am always on the lookout for books that would make great read aloud or great books for book clubs. I think it's important that books we share with our students have lots to talk about and several entry points for middle grade students. This summer I read several that I'd put on my possible read aloud list. And of course, they would all be great additions to the classroom library. I think all of these are good for 5th grade. Some are good for 3/4 while others can work in 6th.
What Lane? by Torrey Maldonado is a new favorite. This is a short book with so much pack in. Stephen is is in middle school. He is biracial and is beginning to experience how he is sometimes treated differently because of the color of his skin. The book is well done for middle graders. It has great characters, real issues and invitations to think and talk about the ways racism show up.
When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller is a book that will appeal to a variety of readers. Lily and her family move in with her grandmother who is ill. Her grandmother shares a story with her and Lily meets a magical tiger. Themes of family and grief are embedded in a story of magic based in Korean folklore.
Dress Coded by Carrie Firestone is perfect for readers starting middle school. Molly and her middle school friend are tired of getting in trouble for dress code violations that seem sexist and unfair. So, Molly starts a podcast to tell the stories of what is happening with their school dress code. The book does a good job of making visible some of the issues with a focus on the way girls dress and is well done for 5th/6th/7th grade readers.
Clean Getaway by Nic Stone is another short book (I love a short book for read aloud that gives readers lots to think and talk about.) In this book, Scoob takes an impromptu road trip with his grandmother. This trip becomes quite an adventure with a few history lessons along the way. Scoob also learns a lot about his grandmother.
I am a big Phil Bildner fan and love all of his books for middle grade students. A High Five for Glenn Burke by Phil Bildner is another book with so much to talk about and one that will appeal to a variety of readers. Learning about the story of Glenn Burke, a gay baseball player in the 70s, and then sharing the story with classmates helps 6th grader Silas, share the truth about himself.
The List of Things that Will Not Change is another brilliant book by Rebecca Stead. Again, another short book with so much to think and talk about. Bea's parents are divorced but she feels confident about the list of things that will not change--promises her parents made when they divorced. But even with that list, changes are in Bea's future as her father is marrying his boyfriend who has a daughter. Stead's writing is incredible and all of the characters are characters that will stay with readers for a long time.
Stand Up, Yumi Chung by Jessica Kim is a fun read. Yumi Chung wants to be a comedian but her parents want her to focus on school. She finds a way to practice comedy and make new friend but her parents will not approve. In the meantime, her parents' Korean barbecue restaurant is struggling and Yumi's sister is being distant. There are great themes and great characters in this one.
From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks is a book with another character who will stay with readers. Zoe 's father is in prison. She has never met him but starts communicating with him in letters. He assures her that he is innocent of the crime that put him in jail so Zoe wants to find out the truth.
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.
image via Unsplash |
heavy humid air
a skunk was surprised nearby
exclamation scent
©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020
This will be the year that I'm almost drowning almost all the time. But I've made a couple of promises to myself. I will write a bit (even if a few words) each day. I will maintain my exercise. Earlier this week, I composed this poem in my head as I walked in the early morning darkness. A two-fer!
Heidi has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at my juicy little universe.