You Might Be a Writer

I keep "mission control" at the back of the classroom near a window.   The inside walls of my room are gray, so's the carpet.   Even the sky's been gray this week.   That's what made this writing opportunity just about perfect.

I was at my desk and some kids were nearby turning in papers and chatting.   At the exact moment I turned towards the window, a huge black bird swooped down from the gray sky, showing off a serious wingspan before landing just feet below.   My eyes widened at the sight, and I snapped my head around to see if anyone else had noticed. 

Yes.   I turned to see a male student with eyes as wide as mine.   "A bird!" he exclaimed.   Then he went to his bookbag and pulled out his second quarter two-sentence journal assignment.

At that moment I got another rush on top of the bird sighting.   I just saw one of my students become a writer.   He's been working at it for a while; his writing is improving exponentially.   I hadn't yet seen everything gel in a way that let me know that he could fly on his own.   

Swoop.   There it was!   

For second quarter, I gave my writers a list of 20 people, places and things to observe over the course of the nine weeks.   They were to "write hot" and not rely on memories alone.   (Yes, I know.   Some of my kids are going to fake every last one of those 20 two-sentence entries.   But some of them won't.   And magic will happen.)

Here's the list: 

things

bird

four legged friend

mode of transportation

gift

music

drink

food

weather

injury

something unusual

something electric

people

child under 5

high school student

adult over 40

places

parking lot

inside a library or bookstore

grocery store

inside a closet or wardrobe

view through a window

inside a drawer

So what did he write?   
Here's E.S.'s two-sentence observational journal about a bird: 

"The black feathery beast glided from the roof.   

It realized there was no food and continued on its search." 

Here's the encore for tonight. Just because.

Where Tanner's From

If this post's title sounds familiar, it's probably because you remember an entry from a while back, Where Malik's From.   See the original writing assignment here.

I'm just stopping by to remind all of us that writers bloom throughout the year.   I get a whole lot of flowers in September, but I also get some children who are seeds, bulbs and tubers...and planted at different times.   That's pretty normal in 8th grade.

There's a whole lot of research about boys and language arts instruction, so go ahead and read it.   Don't discount what you know to be true from firsthand experiences either.   There's not one magic key that unlocks a joy of writing for boys.   The young men who are most successful in becoming writers with my style of teaching have these commonalities:

They listen to mini-lessons on writing skills.

They practice these skills in small bits of writing.

They then work these skills into larger pieces of writing.

They welcome feedback.

They recognize that writing is a craft.

They get downright metacognitive about their use of language.

They believe that the world around them is to be examined.

They know that a final draft means edits and revisions, not simply neatness.

Before you think that I am a "my way or the highway" kind of writing teacher, I'd like to say that I don't think that I am.   I can't be certain, but I am pretty sure that if I were reviewing student writing with Stephen King, Anne Lamott and Natalie Goldberg-- we'd at least recognize and agree upon bad writing when we saw it.   And...yeah...it's totally okay to see some bad writing from 8th graders.   I mean, they're 8th graders.   Sheesh.

I center September around some of Laura Robb's mini lessons for writers and Nancie Atwell's lesson on narrative leads.   If I can get kids using specific nouns, strong verbs, a variety of sentence starters, PARAGRAPHS, effective narrative leads and a unified topic...I feel pretty ding dang good about that.

(Pardon my shouting.   I'm still teaching perfectly kind children how to paragraph narratives.   It's December.   It hurts.   My eyes are bleeding from the dreaded BIG, FAT PARAGRAPH.   I might write a song about it.   Never mind.)

Back to Tanner.   He came into class on day one with a strong work ethic, unmatched tenacity, a kind spirit and some sharp writing skills.   Even so, his mom is pretty impressed with his current interest in getting all of his words in the right spots.   I sure do wish I could just let you see all of his various writing work from this year because he's a perfect example of a talented, developing writer who fits all of the qualities I listed above.   

Check this out.   Remember the two-sentence journal assignment I borrowed from a class I took at William and Mary?  Here's one of Tanner's entries, "It's the time of year when the smell of corn chaff and diesel fuel fill the air.  Visibility soon becomes low as the farmer takes the combine for another round."   You better believe I asked his permission to write that gem down for other grasshoppers to see.   It was feng shui perfection on the white board.

Here's where Tanner's from:

I’m from sunglasses in the rearview,

From tie straps and duct tape,

I am from eggs in the nesting box,

(Dry and Warm with a surprise inside)

I’m from orchard grass,

The yellow poplar,

Whose leaves fall every year just for me to collect.

I’m from fishbites and pellet guns,

From Pride and Horton,

I’m from the bluecollars and the hardheads,

From “How ya whole family doin’?”

I’m from “American born and Southern by the grace of God.”

I’m from Genesis and Communion,

3 inch slugs and ram rods,

From the man who died for our sins,

And the 10 commandments.

From the gray uniform stained with blood,

Whose owner long gone from Earth,

Waits patiently in the Promised Land for the ones who honor him most.

For the Win

Bubble wrap.   Don't you just feel joyous already?   I ordered some bars of Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap, and they came nestled inside bubble wrap.   Two of my favorite things in one box!

So while I was gathering a few odds and ends to throw in my reward drawer at school, I grabbed my new plastic stress reducer to take as well.   I'm cutting it down to 3 x 5ish pieces to make it last longer.

Today we battled our two sentence journals for the amazing reward of BUBBLE WRAP!   Yes!

Apparently there's an app for that, but you can also pop some virtual bubbles here.   Nothing beats the good old tactile experience of smooshing those little cells and irking someone else's nerves though, does it?

I haven't always had a reward drawer.   Kids loved it when I fished around in my old desk or the corner closet until I found something ridiculous and undesirable.   Ahhhh.    I remember when I found a lonely checker and the whole class broke a sweat trying to earn such a enviable trophy.

I don't give out prizes every day, but when I do, they're cheaper than cheap.

Anne Lamott's Back Pocket

There are so many reasons I heart Anne Lamott.   Inspirational. Conspiratorial. Practical. Comical. Spiritual. Commiserational.   Is that last one a real word?  Well, you know what I mean.

All of her books are worth your time, but I want to focus on one chapter from Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.   "Index cards."

Isn't it fun to find out how particular writers practice their craft?   Ms. L. uses index cards to capture ideas from everyday life that sometimes evaporate if you don't have a pen and scrap of paper with which to capture them.   She keeps index cards in a flock all around her house and her car, but it's the one in her back pocket that interests me most as a writing teacher.

For those moments that you take your students to a band or chorus concert, a speaker, a play, a field trip or even to the cafeteria, the index card in the back pocket can be a fun way to capture writing outside your classroom.

In my dreams, especially now that I am teaching inside a trailer, I can hitch my classroom to a truck and drive my writers to a creative hot spot, teeming with the energy of everyday life.  

In reality, the closest place full of vibrant, teen power is the cafeteria.   The index card provides a great tool for quick, observational writing without intruding too much into their free time.   I have a class that is split by lunch, so it's a great opportunity to try out this technique.   The assignment was to create a two-sentence observation of a food item...using the old show, don't tell technique.  And no one complained.   Hmm.   A few crafty souls even worked in some figurative language into their work.   It was fun to display their work after lunch and get such a thorough, varied report from a familiar location.

The Real Anne Frank/ Part 2

After teaching "Anne Frank" for 13 years, I finally feel like I'm getting into my groove.   What's that?   Slow learner?   Well, maybe.   In the case of teaching real life stories that are enveloped in so many complexities, there's always room for improvement.  

If you read the first edition of The Real Anne Frank, you will remember my frustration with the Goodrich/Hackett and Kesselman texts.   In short, that which makes Anne of the real diary so compelling never seems to surface.   You'll also remember my excitement over the BBC miniseries.

This year I decided to mesh the two and add in a bit from the 1959 play.   This should work for you in classes where students read at or above grade level.   You will need to simplify it further for students who are are struggling readers.

In short, I introduced Anne by way of the BBC.   We watched the miniseries up to the point of the bathing scene.   I chose 10 of Anne's early diary entries for students to read, focusing on identifying conflict.   Students wrote a friendly letter to Anne offering advice on navigating her personal relationships with her family and the VanPels.   10 more entries were selected for a vocabulary exercise.   Each entry also represented an important plot point.   Students then used our laptop lab to visit the Secret Annex.  

We read the play from the cake scene to the date scene, because it's middle school.   Kids love the big date.   Okay, maybe I love it more.   That awkward first kiss is exactly the type of romance that some teenagers need to see, so they can relax a little.   This is the moment in the play when students really see themselves and their friends.   After this scene, writers draft a journal entry that Peter could have created to sum up the evening's experiences.

You may have also read the two sentence journal blog entry.   That's what we did with the last 10 teacher-selected diary entries.   Again, I chose 10 diary entries with important plot points.   The students stepped into Anne's point of view, determined the most important topic of the entry and condensed it into two sentences, capturing Anne's voice.

We then returned to the end of the play.   Students read Anne's real last diary entry.   I read aloud from  Miep Gies's account of the capture and the return of Mr. Otto Frank to the Annex.

Students spent a second session with laptops to Google questions that still lingered.   I also provided a list of 20 names, places and events related to World War II and the Holocaust for additional research.

For the duration, I kept a variety of books on related topics in the room for students to peruse during independent reading time.   Sneetches, Yertle the Turtle, Maus, and this year I added Andrew Clements's A Million Dots.   No, it's not really about the Holocaust, but you've probably figured out where I'm going with this.   By the end of Clement's picture book, you will have seen, yes, a million dots.   Imagine that each dot is a person's life.   Multiply the dots by at least six.   It helps quantify the incomprehensible.

Throughout our Anne Frank unit, students read M.E. Kerr's Gentlehands independently.   When they were finished, they wrote a paper in which they argued whether Grandpa Trenker was a static or dynamic character using support from the text.  

 


Soon we will most likely watch Paper Clips for another perspective, but that's probably another blog entry.

2-Sentence Journals

Thanks to Dr. Jim Beers and his team of mastermind educators, I had the wonderful good fortune of attending the Eastern Virginia Writing Project at the College of William and Mary a couple of summers ago.   One of the instructors, Emily Pease, was so amazing that I just had to find a way to be her student for a little while longer.   The next fall term, W & M offered a graduate level class called "Teachers as Writers," and guess who the instructor was.   Yep, the brilliant Emily Pease.   Jackpot.


This is one of her ideas, and perhaps she got it from someone else.   Now I'm passing it on to you.   It's the 2-sentence journal.


Even writers do not find it easy to make time to write.   I have always loved the idea of a diary and still do, but I don't use one...ever.   Sure I've tried, but every time that I would read over one of my entries, I would roll my eyes and tear the writing into confetti for the circular file parade.


Emily Pease brought our class tiny marbled composition books the size of a memo pad.   Two sentences for each twenty-four hour period seemed like something that I could do.   Besides, when someone nice and reasonable asks you to do something, you do it.   Right?


To make it work for me, I would draft on any scrap of paper I could find.   I would first list about 5-10 words that reminded me of what took place during the day.   Then, I would choose one topic to focus on.   Two sentences are not long.   It's like composing a haiku.   Every syllable counts, and you want to create a small image of a fragment of time.   The cornerstone of good writing, I believe, is "Show. Don't tell."   I would write, re-write, edit and revise.   It was only two sentences, so I found it easy to go through the complete writing process in one sitting.


Yes, I used this in writing class with 8th graders this year.   Here's what I was looking for when I assessed their diaries.   The first two weeks of school, I was happy to see what they thought were two sentences.   I taught vivid language.   I then looked for evidence of that lesson.   I moved on to "Show. Don't tell."   I expected them to follow.   We tried some sensory imagery and a lot of voice.   We learned about fragments and run-ons...and when you could use them for effect.   We wrote in third person omniscient for a week, so we could step outside of ourselves.   You see how flexible this assignment can be?   You can mold it to be an extension of a mini-lesson for independent practice.  


8th graders still can't drive...legally.   That's why I priced tiny journals over the summer and bought them in bulk.   I then sold them to my students at cost, 50 cents.   Of course, I took I.O.U.'s since most 8th graders are not financially independent.   Sure, they could write two sentences anywhere, but I liked the idea of the students having a "book" of their own.   Also, when I collected these notebooks, I was not asking for their main writing notebook (where I required them to write their drafts for insurance purposes as well as having enough space to go through the writing process).


Will this be a huge, unparalleled success for you?   Maybe.   But let me take a moment to remind you of one of the most insightful statements concerning writing.   It's a classic from Thomas Mann.   "A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."   Your writers will produce some stellar material.   So will those dear students who have the gift of listening to instruction and believing your advice, even if writing is not their favorite subject, yet.  


There will also be those students who slap down two lines in 10 seconds flat, and think they are ready to be published alongside Pulitzer Prize winning authors.   You'll be able to convert some of them over time.   You probably won't be able to convert all of them.   Alas.


I'm taking this idea with me to my next classroom, and I hope to iron out some of the speed bumps I found when implementing it this year.


Tomorrow I will tell you about a technique I used to jolt my 8th grade writers into more thoughtful crafters of language.
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The honeysuckle is beginning to bloom, making me long for summer.    If you are local and would like some flowers of your own, there will be a fundraiser for the tornado victims of Gloucester County in Grafton tomorrow.   Follow this link for details: http://www.dailypress.com/news/york-county/dp-nws-york-tornado-fundraiser-20110505,0,6313392.story