30.

There is a school dance tonight.  Dance days are notoriously crazy.  Here, they only come about three times a year, so the kids get really excited.

When I was student-teaching eighth graders six years ago (yikes, has it really been that long?), I used to remind myself that when I was in eighth grade all I wanted to do was socialize.  And I was a compliant, good student.  So when the kids crane their necks to (from their perspectives) inconspicuously mouth words about their plans for this evening, I try to take it in stride.

We read on Fridays for most of the period as I take independent reading very seriously.  I read too.  This morning in my writing elective when I remembered it was a dance day, I worried a little about how productive the students would be.

As the day developed, I realized I had no cause for concern.  This post is nothing but a sort of wonder at how a whole mess of eighth graders can burst in from the activity of the hallway, take two minutes to find a quiet place on the carpet (I have at least four boys who love to lie under tables), and willingly enter the world of a book.  This is not a few kids in each class.  This is all but (maybe) five of my 105 students.

I am grateful that I get to watch them like this.  I don't think many adults ever get to experience teenagers this way.

29.

I didn't teach today as I was in a building leadership meeting.  I will instead share with you this awesome poem.

28.

I am so lucky to do what I do--to be able to see my students' thinking developing on a daily basis.

We just set independent writing goals for the quarter.  Each student selected a genre and one or more areas of his/her craft and mechanics s/he wanted to improve.  They will also design their own rubrics (of course, I have to approve them) to think about what quality work in each of the areas means to them.

I have a really strong writer (we'll call her Emily) and I was so grateful to read her goals and rubric.  She plans to write fiction.  She wants to work on showing not telling and creative sequencing.  The thing that got me, though, was specific, straightforward, and insightful her rubric was.

For example, her "A" for showing not telling is "Perfect amount of sensory details but not too many.  Same with showing not telling" and her "B" is "Too much showing not telling so story becomes confusing."

For a struggling writer, her rubric would need to be more specific.  But she doesn't need it.  And she totally gets that you have to have showing AND telling to move a story along. 

That is pretty sophisticated stuff.

27.

You should really listen to this song in the background while you read this post.  If you read slowly, the timing might work out perfectly!

Several weeks ago, I moved into my newly renovated classroom.  I'm naturally disorganized, so I enlisted the help of some of my students during their study halls.  Two girls unpacked all of my school supplies into drawers and carefully labelled the contents of each.

My classroom hammer (which fondly reminds me of my Grandma's philosophy that every kitchen needs a hammer) received a special place in its own drawer, labeled exuberantly, "HAMMER!"

Fast forward to a day last week. I'm on the side of the room with all of said drawers, bent down at a desk, helping a student.  In my peripheral vision, I see movement toward the drawers.  Michael is "sneaking" with an exaggerated tip-toe. I turn around.  You never know what can happen.

I nearly miss it.  My eyes pan back and forth, eventually finding the yellow sticky note next to the "HAMMER!" label.  It now reads "HAMMER!"  "TIME!"

My friend Nancy used to say that she never belly laughed as much when she wasn't teaching middle school.  There is truth in this.

26.

With the start of a new semester, I asked the kids to look over their work from first semester and reflect about the growth they'd made, as well as set goals for the new semester in their reading and writing.

Last week, I wasn't feeling like a great teacher.  I was second-guessing some of the choices I'd made.  For me, teaching is constant reflection and revision, which is a blessing and a curse.

The first several questions are about their work and goals as students.  There is so much good stuff here.  Examples:
"As a writer, I've really improved at putting scenes and details in my narratives.  The evidence for this is my _____ narrative."
"I've already read more books this year than I did for all of last year.  I actually want to read now."
"I need to make reading more of a priority.  I should read instead of watching TV."
"I have to work on making my thesis statements clear because right now they are too long and confusing."

One after another, they amaze me.  These are kids who have grown as readers and writers and know a lot about what they can do and where they need help.

For the first time in my teaching career, I ask for mid-year input.  I asked them to be kind but let me know if there were things they really liked, were confused about, or wanted me to change.  I was nervous.  It reminds me how they feel getting graded all the time.

Some of my favorites:
"I've never had a class that was run, graded, and taught like this before and I really like it."
"I would love for you to give us even more reading time, but I don't think it's going to happen."
"Maybe you could print instead of writing in cursive because sometimes I can't read your handwriting."

I fear this post might not be very interesting to read, but today rejuvenated and reinforced so many of my choices.  The students were so wise, productive, and kind.  Sometimes I wish the general public could see the teenagers I do.

25.

I got married in June.  I thought I wanted to take my husband's name.  It turns out that professionally, it's not working for me.

This week, at the beginning of a new semester, I declared my intention to return to Ms. MyName.

The kids reacted in lots of funny ways.  Many were concerned about my husband's feelings.  Some thought I had problems with my in-laws.  Overall, though, their desire to honor my request has been really sweet.

The best reaction: "This changing-your-name-stuff is going to come in really handy for your next crime spree."

24.

Because my students have Martin Luther King, Jr. Day off, we took today to honor and recognize the difference one person can make.

We read four paragraphs from "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."  I asked kids to mark lines that stuck out to them, and the we shared them.  I use a response technique in which students take turns (sometimes organized, sometimes not) just reading individual lines they marked.  If someone "steals" your line, read it anyway.  There is power in repetition.

The lines that I heard over and over again today:

"Justice too long delayed is justice denied."


(split into parts) "When you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people..and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of 'nobodiness' then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait."


"I would agree with St. Augustine that 'an unjust law is no law at all.'"


Powerful words.  I hope they stick.