A Quote for the Classroom

"If you've survived your childhood, you have enough material to write about for the rest of your life."

Won't this Flannery O'Connor quote make for a great poster for my new classroom? I'm so excited to get decorating in one short month!

Writing Prompts

I promised awhile back to share some of the writing prompts I picked up at the Highland Summer Writers' Conference I attended last month at Radford. That day is here! 

Both of these prompts come from the poetry week taught by Joseph Bathanti. I've found that teenagers, much like the rest of us, can be very intimidated by poetry. Having them write their own is a great way to help them access other poets. Poetry writing in the classroom will also help me achieve one of my goals for the coming year: help kids see themselves as writers who write for the sake of creativity and fun. Both of the prompts take a little explaining and have some examples, so I'm going to put them after the jump.

Dear Ms. Thornton

Dear Ms. Thornton,

I want to say that I am sorry. I just want to let you know some things. First is that when I came to your class I thought you were kind of weird. But that's how I feel about all my teachers at first. Then I learned that you care but we were blinded by stupitity and obnoxiousness. Over the past month I think that I've seen you trying to reach out and help us. I think that the talking is going to stop. Second being in your classroom helped me realize when there is a time for fun there's also a time for work. It's not always possible to mix the two in a way that's not distracting. You have helped me grow up. You have helped me see that what I was doing was distracting and that it needed to stop. I now realize now that ou are a very interesting, fun teacher. And that just as much as I think I need respect, so do you. And if you're wondering, my mom didn't make me write this. I felt responsible, too. So, I just want to say sorry. Senseriously.

Your new friend,

J

Where a Poke is a Bag

Another student work sample from one of my really talented poets. I got this activity from Linda Christensen's Reading, Writing, and Rising Up by way of my wonderful high school English teacher.

Where I come from everyone has a truck,
There is always work to be done.
Where you judge by actions not appearances.
Biscuits and gravy is a famous meal.

The food is homemade and made from scratch
and the towns are small
Where ever'body knows everybody.
When the weather is nice
Everyone drives a classic.

Money isn't given, it's earned
By the work of your hands and sweat of your brow
Where respect is easier to lose than earn.

Where the flag is flown high
And in God we trust and we believe.
Where the mountains are home
During deer season.

Where are come from guns are owned with pride
And we dare the government to take them
Where you warsh dishes, worship the Lord,
And your neighbor lives down the holler.
Where I come from a poke is bag.

Does Student A have some things to learn about active voice? Sure. But that sort of self-reflection of home language at fourteen impresses the heck out of me.

Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive

Thanks for all the Facebook, e-mail, and real life love, friends! As one teacher friend reminded me, I'm still doing good things in my classroom and I should make sure to celebrate those, too. The other day, a student opened up to me about some tough stuff. I felt really honored that she felt like she could trust me just to talk. Another left me this great note before we left for Spring Break (on one of the cards we generally use to send good news home to parents):

Ms. Thornton,
You are the best ever. You might be groutchy (sic) some days, but that's okay. I forgive you. :) If I could send this to your mommy I would. I'm sure she would be proud to know you're amazing. I <3 U!! Oh, and have a good spring break!
<3,
K.

Isn't that lovely? I'm so blessed by so many of my students! Today in eleventh grade, we read children's books to learn about Transcendentalism. They sat in a circle around my chair and we discussed some of the class and gender issues with the movement. Tomorrow we're reading "Song of Myself" and then writing a "Song of Ourselves" to hang up in the hallway. I love that we can be playful and creative in that class!

I also think it's worth pointing out that this is the second semester in a row where my smallest class is also my highest achieving and most fun. Anecdotal, sure, but there it is.

Kony in the Classroom

Everyone managed to finish Things Fall Apart despite our previous problem at least well enough to pass the test. I combined a take-home multiple choice test I brazenly borrowed from the internet along with an idea of Carol Jago's. She has students write poems in parts as one way to respond to literature. We dusted off Greg Orr's "Gathering the Bones" together and reminded ourselves of what good poems do (I had a lot of questions about rhyming, sadly). They then wrote their own-seven part poems that summed up some of the major themes and characters of Things Fall Apart and the work most of them turned in was both creative and accurate. I especially loved one student's re-writing of the theme song from Fresh Prince.

After they finished their tests, we watched Invisible Children's video about Joseph Kony. I know you readers out in internet-land have access to Teh Google and probably saw the video before I did, so I'll spare you a summary. Then we read some of the criticism about Invisible Children's methods and discussed if how privilege affects our way of understanding problems and possible solutions. One kid at the end asked what did any of this have to do with Things Fall Apart since it deals with Nigeria and Kony was most active in Uganda (points to that kid for knowing the difference!). Another student piped up that they were both about the ways in which Europeans cut up boundaries without understanding what's going on with the people who actually live there.

Livin' the dream, y'all. Livin' the dream.

Student Work Sample

Sorry for the hiatus, friends. We're on the block system at my school, so I got to start a whole new school year in the middle of January. Things are finally starting to settle down into a routine.

Every six weeks, my students turn in a short paper where they respond to a number of (hopefully) creative prompts about whatever book they've chosen to read. The following is a response that lost a few points on conventions but gained a lot in hilarity while responding to The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian.

If I had to have pizza with a character from my book, it would be Gordy because he is smart. I would ask him about math, science, and computers. Just to be a nice and try to get him to talk. Then, after all the boring things about school are done, i would get him to do my homework because I need someone to do my work that doesn't have anything to do. If he does not want to do it then I will bribe him and if that does not work I will wipe his face with the pizza.

If it turns out bad, then I will order more pizza and make him eat till he is fat then order two more and tape slices to his face because h is a loser. Then I'd slap him with pizza because he is boring. Then we would get kicked out and never be able to come back until we are ninety-nine. The end.

Finding the Switch

Those of you who know me have heard me talk a lot about the light switch analogy when it comes to teaching kids who have been put in lower-level classes. Humans are born curious. Watch any baby try to stuff things in his or her mouth for an afternoon and you will see that we enter this world wanting to know all we can about it.

So, it broke my heart when one of my students asked at the beginning of the year, "What kid likes to learn?" She had so obviously been surrounded by other kids who felt like school wasn't for them, she had concluded that her classmate's feelings were the norm. Another teacher in my department and I started talking about curiosity switches. Everybody has a switch. When you get here, it's usually on. Something in your life--parents who don't read or read to you, a teacher who is mean, a friend who teaches you to de-value learning--can turn it off. The switch is firmly off for most of my last block class.

You might remember, careful blog reader, that we did a project exploring survival during a zombie attack in October. The switches were on then as students worked diligently in groups, problem-solved, and gave creative presentations on how they would stay safe. I've been searching for another project that would capture that same spirit ever since.

Yesterday, I had the students who had just received their writing test scores read this account of a successful school board member who nearly failed his state's standardized tests. We used this text to analyze author's purpose because we knew it would be on the reading test coming up in January. We also began a conversation about how we are smarter than the test makers. We know the scores matter in that they're required for high school graduation, but past that, we don't need those numbers to validate any one as a scholar or a person.

The students talked (mostly) one at a time. They asked each other questions. They never suggested my greatest fear--that because of this conversation, they wouldn't try to pass the next standardized test they have to take. I spoke very little. Accountability and testing aren't bad, my students concluded. The tests they're asked to take just aren't designed well.

"You know, you're the only teacher in this whole school who would let us talk like this," said the same girl who once told me no kids likes learning, "and it's really made me think."

(I don't think she's right about the other teachers. Most teachers seem to feel similarly about the tests. I'm just glad English gives me leeway to use conversations like this to sharpen our critical thinking skills.)

By her own admission, I made a student think critically. It was almost as good as the zombies.

Student Work Sample

Students were assigned an oral history project in which they interviewed an older member of our community and recorded a story about the person. Student W. asked if he could "embellish" his story about his grandfather. I told him that's what storytellers often do. This is what I got (with permission to share):

Robert Edmund Harrell was created long ago in an underground laboratory, roughly below Siberia. He was made by the will of the Earth God, fusing rock and magma to form the greatest hero the world has ever known. Once the Moon God of the Earth's God's shenanigans, the Moon God constructed his own abomination, Jeffery. Jeffery and Robert Edmund Harrell fought for years, which created the oceans and continents. Eventually, Robert Edmund Harrell prevailed and saved the world from evil Jeffery's wrath.

A few years later Robert Edmund Harrell became very lonely and was looking for a mate he could carry on his legacy with. He found a human named Janet Compton and decided that she would be the best choice. Together, the populated the planet and maintained peace until around the year 1939 when a large war began. The United States of America wanted to control Robert Edmund Harrell because he was a very strong ally to have and if controlled well, could mean victory or defeat for the country. Robert Edmund Harrell realized quickly the position he was in. The United States was smart, but not smart enough to outwit Robert Edmund Harrell. He took control of the country from the inside, disguising himself as a regular human being. His goal was to force every country in the world to worship his power, and what better way than to start with one of the most powerful countries in the world.

By 1945, Robert Edmund Harrell had successfully taken over the United States of America. However, his action were being noticed by many people from around the world. A group formed called POTATO.

This is a rough draft. More to come. Names changed to protect the hilarious.