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.

Awesome!

So there's a blog of 1,000 Awesome Things that has now been turned into an Awesome book.   What a great idea.   What would your eighth grade self identify as awesome enough to celebrate in writing?

I have to admit that I gave out homework over a weekend, but it was merely for students to ponder on the awesomeness of their world.

Together we examined Neil Pasricha's  Picking the Perfect Nacho Off Someone Else's Plate, Old, Dangerous Playground Equipment and The First Scoop Out of a Jar of Peanut Butter.   I also rattled off a few of the other topics featured in the blog that would be accessible to teens.

We focused on tone, voice, point of view, sensory imagery and audience.   Keep your tone positive and your voice conversational and upbeat.   Use second person point of view to pull your reader in.   Rely on sensory imagery to recreate the awesomeness of your chosen topic to your reader.   And your choice should have broad appeal.   When the majority of people read your entry, they should be able to connect with your topic.

Yes.   Some folks got right down to it when it was time to write.  

And some people sat and sat and sat and sat.   If you are in the latter group of writers, I expect you to have paper on your desk and a pen/cil in your hand.   If after a reasonable amount of time you are still in the latter group of writers, I want you to list the five senses and start brainstorming some favorites.   Usually this does the trick.   Usually.

In giving feedback on the first draft I found that writers needed the most help with crossing over into second point of view and creating a meaty snapshot of their experience.   This is the first year I've tried this activity, so I'll be able to add in more supports for next year.   We had so much fun.   This lesson is a keeper.  

It's also something that I had willing students submit for immediate publication.   I mean, who doesn't want a Wall of Awesome in their classroom?   And that's the thing about trailers ..it's pushpin heaven.

Imagine your 6-word memoir here.

Do you remember listening to National Public Radio's 2008 story on Smith magazine's call for six-word memoirs?   Did you try it out?    It's not too late.

What would your young writers say about their years on this earth?   How would they sum them up in six?  

If you've tried the two sentence journals, maybe this would be a good starting point.   Write a two-sentence memoir.   Reduce it to six words.   Of course, be open to complete revisions that include shifts in focus.

They're so tiny, you can post everyone's work in your classroom at the same time!

Where Malik's From

Not so long ago I told you about a poetry exercise called Where I'm From.   I found it in Nancie Atwell's book Naming the World: A Year of Poems and Lessons.   I have to tell you that it is my favorite writing activity that I have ever done with my students...ever.  

Why?   The students dug deep.   They thought about themselves.   They talked to their families.   They revised.   They edited.   Many even allowed me to make copies of their poems to put in a binder to share with classmates and teachers.   Some were asked to publish their work in the school literary magazine.   I wanted to publish one here for you to enjoy as well.

A big part of what I like about Atwell's book is the fact that she has published student samples alongside the bona-fide, gen-u-ine poem that inspired the lesson.   The poem I chose to share with you, with his mother's permission, is written by a young man who has a natural ear for language.  At the same time, he would agree with Thomas Mann's statement, "A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."  

Malik is about the craft.   His poem was a process.   Believe it.   I was there.   His first draft was flat but intriguing.   I know when he's "in the zone."   But I hadn't seen it yet with this activity.   It took having the poem knocking around in his brain for a day for the pieces to start falling into the right places.   He opened with a general line about slavery and moved quickly to the next subject.   I had a feeling that there was more there, but he wasn't able to come up with it until he had a chance to talk with family.   He did.   The poem really opened up after that.   See what you think.

“where i’m from”

i’m from slaves working in the hot fields of gloucester
to whites only and piles of found jewelry.
i’m from farming crops and hard work to
“when will we be free from this misery?”
i’m from families being torn apart
to  wondering if relatives will be found,
dead or alive.

i’m from newport news to a family of 5
i’m from "that’s dope" and billy jean,
to the greatest love of all.
i’m from the the jeffersons and moving to the eastside,
to finally getting a piece of the pie.
i’m from the sweet taste of butterfingers
to playing with barbies and kens.
i’m from the witches and mysteries
to playing softball in the warm dusty summer of ’90.
i’m from stacks of poems and books,
to barking dogs and purple soda.
i’m from a ripping eye and pain,
to doctors working to fix it.

i’m from a lost boy living in hawaii
to a military woman with no children.
i’m from that boy found and loved
to that woman who’s now a mom.
i’m from a calm, peaceful place
to the concrete jungle of new york.
i’m from winters spent in maine
to the sunny city of los angeles.
i’m from the flow and rhyme of a
lonely soul,
to slick rick reading
a
fairy tale.

Enter Writing Contests

Isn't it great when we can broaden our writers' audience?   If we want to nurture passionate writers, it's a good idea to send their writing outside of your classroom from time to time, with their permission.   Owl magazine sponsors a variety of creative contests.   If you are a Virginia high school teacher, check the Superintendent's Memos every Friday for occasional scholarship opportunities.   The local newspaper may run seasonal contests with categories based on age.   The public library may also do the same.

I am fortunate that the United Jewish Community of the Virginia Peninsula sponsors an annual Holocaust essay contest for school-age children.   In addition to recognizing winners with a certificate and check, the winners are honored at the annual Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance) ceremony.   The UJC even sends congratulatory letters to students who were picked as finalists.   AND they send the teacher who submits at least a class set of entries free books.   Yes, free books.   Teachers choose from a list of titles.   Those books then become part of your school's library.   If you talk other teachers into participating, with a little patience you can build up a set of Holocaust-themed levelled books.   If you don't see the title that you want, e-mail the sponsors.   They will seriously consider your request. http://www.ujcvp.org/holocaust_ed.php

One year, after we watched the Paper Clips documentary about Whitwell, Tennessee's 8th graders' ongoing Holocaust project, my students wanted to do something special for their school.   Using the Internet, we found out that they were moving into a new building with a new library.   We e-mailed the UJC to see if they would send us a "sampler" of all of the middle school titles instead of a class set for us, so we could donate them to Whitwell Middle School.   They enthusiastically agreed.    We packed them up, decorated the box with watercolor butterflies and paid it forward.   Find out about the paper clip project here http://www.oneclipatatime.org/

And let me tell you this.   After the tornado relocated my classroom to a new school, two members of the UJC stopped by the front office with the books my students earned this year, Han Nolan's If I Should Die Before I Wake.   On the box was a handwritten note wishing us well.   Writing creates communities.

If publication is something that you feel strongly about, get a copy of the latest Writer's Market.   The amount of information in that resource will be more than you could ever need.

Finally, if you ask your students to enter a contest that has an adult writers category, enter!   They will love to see you workshop your piece.   Take it from start to finish in front of them.   Let them give you feedback.  What a great opportunity!
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How about dusting off some of your writing skills and entering a current contest?

Here's a helpful site --->   http://www.pw.org/grants

Post-It Publishing/ AU

Pow!   In honor of Saturday's Free Comic Book Day, here is Post-It Publishing in an Alternative Universe (AU for you insiders).   Okay, I actually used this Friday in the here and now, but you'll understand the AU in a hot minute.

You've probably seen that e-mail forward that claims to contain horrific samples from high school student essays.   We writers know that some of those sentences were so bad, they just had to be composed by experts.   Here's a link to a cnn.com article that includes some of the awesomely bad selections:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/01/28/bad.student.writing/index.html

If you are too impatient to click the link, enjoy the following sampler:

She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes

just before it throws up.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city

and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

The hailstones leaped from the pavement,

just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

After the 8th grade state writing assessment, we should be able try our hands at writing some of the worst short prose ever, for fun and competition.   I gave them each a copy of the 25 rotten blurbs and read them aloud.   We then broke all of the rules while writing with different genres in mind.   Romance, science fiction, fantasy, suspense, etc.   You get the idea.

Create a sentence or two that would never be published in a particular genre.   Adding genres to the assignment helps narrow students' ideas and focus their understanding on what a particular audience is expecting from the author.

In short, you have to know how to do it right before you can get it truly, deliciously wrong.   Repetitive language, inappropriate tone and diction for a genre and your audience, awkward comparisons that simply jolt your reader out of the text with a laugh...   Bad, badder, baddest-- that's what I'm talking about.

Yes, your English teacher is asking for your worst writing, but you are not in an AU.   Here's a Post-It.   Let's Battle!

Note: This Battle works best with average to advanced students, particularly those with quirky senses of humor.   You know, the kids that laugh at all of your goofy jokes.

Thanks to foreign language teacher Sandra Phillips for forwarding me an e-mail containing all of those baaaaaaaaaad examples.

Item #3 that does NOT need replacing: It was a sentimental favorite.   I found it at a yard sale.   The seller saw me setting aside all of his Willie Nelson LPs and mentioned that he had a van full of records in his back yard.   I found a sealed copy of a fly LP with this little jewel inside.   It's funny to see kids trying to pop and lock in between classes.   It's always good to know how to pass the flow.   Just don't ask me to battle with my hip hop moves.

Post-It Publishing

Yesterday's post was all about the 2-sentence journals that I tried with my students this year.   Once we got rolling with a few mini-lessons on word choice and imagery, I thought that I should create an opportunity for students to share their work.   Writers will usually sharpen their writing when their audience grows from one teacher to 25 classmates.   I introduced the idea of....The Battle.

Battles usually took place on Mondays.   Students could choose any of their journals from the previous week to use for the competition.   They could make final edits and revisions in preparation for showing their work to their classmates.

I gave students yellow Post-It notes for their final copies.   They put them in a stack on a chair in the front of the room.   My original plan was to "publish" the notes by sticking them to the huge white board at the front of the room, so they could browse through their classmates' gallery of entries.   Post-It notes do not stick to my white board for more than five seconds.      

Plan B: I fired up my document camera, and placed the entries in heats of four.   I tried to group them topically.   If four students wrote about their cats, I put them in a set together.   By popular vote, students chose one of the four to make it to the final round.  

Winners were awarded something ridiculous.   I would find an old kids' meal toy or grope around in my desk for something obscure.   The stranger, the better...as far as the kids are concerned.   A checker that had been long separated from its brothers was one of the most coveted awards.

As time went on, the Battles were intensified.   Some entries did not make the initial cut.   If that week's journals were supposed to include sensory imagery, and it wasn't there, it's fair to all contenders that you do not allow that journal to compete.   I would not advise you to ever make any cuts because of spelling.   If you've been teaching for a few years, you know that some of your best writers sometimes have the worst spelling for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with laziness.

Please also remember that the idea is not to have a writer embarrass his or herself, so using the same color Post-It notes for the class helps with anonymity.   Also,if you know that a child is sensitive about spelling or handwriting issues, it's fair for you to help him/ her by doing the spelling/ writing...not the composing though.   It is a competition.
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Shazam! It's Free Comic Book Day. Find out where to celebrate here http://www.freecomicbookday.com/