Curriculum

Stream-of-consciousness

Sometimes teaching English language arts can be uncomfortable.

Sometimes I select books that bring up painful, divisive topics —racism, poverty, sexism.

Sometimes people question whether school is the right place for such topics.

I zip my lips, sometimes—choose safe books.

I’ve got to pick my battles, right?

I forget why I thought being a teacher was a good idea.

Suddenly, I begin to think, A teacher is not in the business of change. Education is not connected to changing, right?

Then Jerome Harste says,

“…curriculum is metaphor

for the lives we want to live and the people we
want to be….That’s what teaching is all
about. That’s what makes us come back and why
we love the title, ‘Teacher.’ None of us got into
the profession to see how quietly we can march
kids to the bathroom, or take them to lunch” (p. 26).

 

 

Collopy, T. (2013). Jerry Harste: Still challenging the curriculum, decades into his career. Council Chronicle, 23(2), 23-26.

 

I've got a question about "Geraldine Moore Poet" by Toni Cade Bambara

Toni Cade Bambara

Do you know what blew me away this week?

"Geraldine Moore Poet" by Toni Cade Bambara

I don't know where to begin with this story.

Do I focus on how it speaks to me as a teacher who needs to really see each student?

Do I mention how Bambara's images, word choice, tone serve as a primer for me?

Do I share that the last scene yielded crocodile tears?

Do I point out the lines I savored? Like "I can't right no pretty poem" (p. 314). or

"Mrs Scott had said to write a poem, and Geraldine had meant to do it at lunchtime. After all, there was nothing to it-- a flower here, a raindrop there, moon, June, rose, nose. But the man carrying off the furniture had made her forget" (p. 313).


It's useless.

I don't have the words to write about this story.

Here's my question: How on earth could anyone answer the "Questions to Consider" at the end of this story in the anthology?


Sources: Image of Toni Cade Bambara is from Google.




Thanks, Joseph.
 

“I hate school but love education”

I keep thinking about the videoclip below from Youtube. My friend Joseph sent it to me yesterday.

There have been times when I've felt like the poet.
And times when I've been guilty of what the poet suggests.

As a teacher, a mother, a learner-- I am guilty. 

from Google

As a teacher, I often wish my students would embrace the ideas we're sharing instead of thinking about grades.

As a mother, I wish I could be consistent instead of telling Z things like, "Did you do your best?" "Are you really learning?" "Follow your passion." one moment. Then, later I might say, "You've got to get these grades up." "I want you to get into somebody's college."

As a learner, I've rushed through books, lectures, whole courses, without taking the time to digest, to embrace, to savor the topic, realize the learning.

Contradictory.

Enough about me.

Here's the video.

The best article I read this week?

The best article I read this week is “Urban Fiction and Multicultural Literature

as Transformative Tools for Preparing English Teachers for Diverse Classrooms” by Marcelle Haddix and Detra Price-Dennis (English Education, 45(3), April 2013).

Please visit NOW to read my thoughts about it in terms of the writing angle. Please read the article itself to think about how (and why) you select texts to share with your students.

Never too late to learn

The year is almost over.

I learned so much about parenthood,
 prayer,
patience.
Learning doesn’t mean mastery.
I have a long way to go.
Tenth grade has been difficult for me to experience with Z.
Knowing when to step back, to let go, to offer help --it is all a crapshoot.

 I read, as I’ve often done when things in my life seem hard.
The book that helped me the most is You Can't Make Me.
This book pointed out the importance of buy-in, space, and unrelenting love.
 

Best thing I read this week?

What is your brain doing while you're enjoying a book or reading in preparation for a literary analysis assignment? Well, I don't really know.

The piece that grabbed my attention this week offers some answers. It is about what the brain might be doing when we read for pleasure versus when we take a formalistic approach to reading. The subjects were doctoral candidates who read Jane Austen's Mansfield Park

while fMRI (functional magnetic resonance images) take note.

While I've read pieces about how literary analysis is good for the brain, taps critical thinking, and such, this piece introduced me to the field of literary neuroscience.


Want to read it?
The piece is titled "This is your brain on Jane Austen, and Stanford researchers are taking notes."

Curious about other things I've read?

The Obstinate Pen & Writing Comics

In “Getting Student to Write Using Comics” by Mark Crilley the pull-out quote, “Drawing is easier for me, but writing is more important,” grabbed my attention because it reminded me of the last picture book I read, The Obstinate Pen. In Dormer's book, a stubborn pen refuses to write what its owner has in mind. In the end, the pen's intentions are to create visual art.

Crilley offers suggestions for using speech bubbles to get students to write. In one example, he even has two characters talking about a special pen and it's up to the student writer to describe why the pen is special. He illustrates ways to help students think about dialogue, intriguing conflict, and the story behind personal experience.  Is Crilley's advice new? Well, not really, but the way he presents it and its parallel to The Obstinate Pen makes it worth remembering for me.

What did I learn?

• His web site offers a comic strip template I can use in classes.
• I can use my lack of artistic talent to help students see it really is "all about the writing" (p. 29).
• He gives me an explicit way to discuss what separates comics from picture books.

What about the picture book?

According to the Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database, Marilyn Courtot, says of The Obstinate Pen, “The pen and watercolor illustration[s] are as amusing as the story and it will leave kids wondering where they can find such a magical pen.”

Want to read it?

Crilley , Mark (2009). “Getting Student to Write Using Comics.” Teacher Librarian, 36(1), 28-31.

“Using Biography to Teach Disability History” by Kim E. Nielsen

*What I learned last week?

The thing I read last week that grabbed my attention was “Using Biography to Teach Disability History” by Kim E. Nielsen. Nielsen urges readers to look at biographies that feature people with disabilities as historical texts.

I’ve always loved biography. I like reading them to learn more about human nature, how people live, who they love, how they succeed, and how they fail.

Nielsen asked me to do something different.

She suggested that I read biographies to examine disability.

How has the view of disability in the US changed over time?

How has the definition of disability changed over time?

How has people’s experience with disabilities changed?

Gosh. I love learning.

*I’ll be the first to tell you that I know absolutely nothing, so coming up with one thing I’ve learned in a given hour is difficult, so imagine how hard it is to settle on one thing for an entire week. Of all of the things I read last week, this one is still on my mind, so I’m happy to write about it.

Want to Read It?
“Using Biography to Teach Disability History,” Kim E. Nielsen, OAH Magazine of History, July 2009, 41-43

“Erika’s Stories"by Hadar Dubowsky Ma’ayan

“Erika’s Stories: Literacy Solutions for a Failing Middle School Student” by Hadar Dubowsky Ma’ayan is probably the best article I’ve read all week.


It makes me feel uncomfortable. Nervous. Inept. For so many reasons.

Have you ever read something and it made you remember Socrates’s quote: “All I know is that I know Nothing”?  Writing and teaching, I wonder. Really? But there is so much to learn.

The article, you ask? Stop with the self-pity and get on with it?

Well, Ma’ayan follows a teen, Erika, who appears despondent in class, “at-risk” even, but she’s actually a reader, writer, an intense communicator and thinker.

Ma’ayan tells her story and then reminds us of certain things like:

• “…the literacy [Erika] does have is deemed insignificant or dangerous” in school spaces.

• texts like contemporary realistic fiction “…can help students like Erika find connections
to in-school literacy practices and help combat disengagement.”

• Ignoring or avoiding those difficult conversations about race, sexuality, gender and the like doesn’t mean they are not happening. They are a part of the “hidden curriculum.”





Source:

“Erika’s Stories: Literacy Solutions for a Failing Middle School Student” by Hadar Dubowsky Ma’ayan,
J o u r n a l  o f  Ad o l e s c e n t & Ad u l t L i t e r a c y , 5 3 ( 8 ) Ma y 2 0 1 0, 646-654.

Something to think about when teaching revision

“Revision is talking to others and self about what’s working and what isn’t” (A.C.).

Sometimes it’s hard to get students to think of revision as more than proofreading. Maybe framing it this way is a starting point.

"No Time, No Interest, No Way!"

Remember Kylene Beer’s article, “No Time, No Interest, No Way! The 3 Voices of Aliteracy”?


I’m the no time person.

I want to read, but it’s hard for me to find time to read for pleasure these days. I now understand how my students feel.

Z feels the same way. He says that between basketball practice and heavy loads of homework, he has little time to read. He has been reading for pleasure for a few minutes during his 15 minute commute to school, but that’s hardly enough, if readers truly make leaders.



Source:

Beers, K. “No Time, No Interest, No Way! The 3 Voices of Aliteracy.” School Library Journal, v42 n2 p30-33 Feb 1996

"Ode to a Grecian Urn"

Keats has been on my mind for days. I miss English literature class. Never mind that the last one I took was over twenty years ago. I read "Ode to a Grecian Urn" because I could not remember the famous line. You know the one:
 "Beauty is truth, truth beauty---that is all 
  Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." 

Intellectual freedom

Another thing I’ve been learning this week has to do with censorship and intellectual freedom. I read “Solo Librarians and Intellectual Freedom: Perspectives from the Field,” “Issues and Trends in Intellectual Freedom for Teacher Librarians,” and “What’s New Pussycat?”


Each article was informative for different reasons.

“Solo librarians and intellectual freedom: Perspectives from the field”

• I liked that Adams told the stories of 3 different librarians who were working virtually alone to try to fight for intellectual freedom in libraries impacted by tough economic times. I left the article thinking about at least two points mentioned: which battle do you pick and who can you get on your team?



“Issues and Trends in Intellectual Freedom for Teacher Librarians”

• I walked away thinking about filters and schools and how they could be blocking helpful information and, in some cases, infringing upon intellectual freedom, the first amendment.

“What’s New Pussycat?”

• This article made me realize how far censorship can go. One person worried about saying the word pussycat while a man wanted to know why picture books about the civil rights movement are in the public library.





Works Cited

Adams, H.R.(2011). Solo librarians and intellectual freedom: Perspectives from the field. Knowledge Quest, 40(2),30-35.

Maycock, Angela. (2011). Issues and Trends in Intellectual Freedom for Teacher Librarians. Teacher Librarian, 39(1), 8-12.

Scales, Pat. (2010). What’s New Pussycat? School Library Journal, 56(8), 16.

Celebrating Bayard Rustin

I’ve been reading a great deal about Bayard Rustin this week. He was amazing to me!

I’m ashamed to admit that I was an adult when I first found out about him. As much as I tried to study black history on my own in high school, I do not recall reading about him.

I watched Eyes on the Prize a dozen times after my high school history teacher made me a copy of his VHS tape of it, but I don’t recall watching anything about Rustin.

(I was in love with Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party, so a pacifist might not have caught my eye at that time.)

Today, I am impressed by at least 3 things about Rustin:

1. He was an organizer long before he organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He started organizing against Jim Crow laws when he was in high school!

2. His Quaker faith. He believed in the values of his religion and tried to live them.

3. His unwillingness to be ashamed about who he loved. This individuality is amazing to me in a society that was nearly completely against this. How do you stand up when everyone is sitting down? You just do! It is a matter of conviction.



A number of children’s books have been written about him so our children do not have to stumble upon his story during adulthood like I did. Rustin’s story might surely encourage our youth.

Older youth might like the DVD Brother Outsider.

Did you hear Maurice Sendak on Fresh Air last week?

I’m still thinking about Sendak. 

At one point Terry Gross asked him about whether he regrets not having children and he said no because he likes to read and write. Gross  said something like, “Yes, that requires a certain amount of self-absorption.”

See? This is what I meant when I wrote Sh! I’m reading. 

Now, I don't think anyone is saying you cannot read and write surrounded by family, but these tasks do require some solitude. 

How do you learn to LOVE to read?

After a great Thanksgiving dinner, I watched as everyone in my niece’s immediate family walked out of the door clutching doggy bags. My niece couldn’t. This tween didn’t have enough hands. She was holding a stack of books to her chest so she wouldn’t drop them as she walked down the stairs.

My niece, H, loves to read, and when I called her over to check out her stash, she had an interesting mix: The Holy Bible ( a youth edition), Jerry Spinelli’s Love, Stargirl, and Mitch Albom’s Have a Little Faith, to name a few.

H loves Judy Moody, Wimpy Kids, Judy Blume, and so many others.

But wait, the others do, too.

My teenaged niece, T, made this clear to me a few months earlier, “Aunt K, we all read, but we just don’t read like H does.”

“I see. There is a difference between appreciating books and loving them the way she does,” I said.

But how did this happen?

They all had their own little libraries.

They were all read to.

Tired of Teaching?

Photo from flickr

Setting: Church fellowship hall after service

I am chatting with my mom when retired teacher Mrs. Peoples comes over with a huge smile on her face. She starts talking about teaching.

She wasn’t my elementary school teacher, and I was quite envious of her students, even though I remember all of my own teachers fondly.

Anyway, we talk about Mrs. Peoples’ retirement after thirty years, and she says, “I still get up early. I say, ‘Just let me hear a bus, Lord.’ I want to act like I’m still going to school, going to teach.”

She turns her attention to me, “How many years do you have now?”

“Well, this is my seventh at O, but I had a few more before coming here.”

“Oh, you’re just getting started, then.” She smiles, and her face says, trust me, but her mouth says, “Listen, just have fun with it. Go in there and have fun.”

I smile because I’m happy and because hers is so infectious. “I will Mrs. Peoples. I will.”

And, you can, too.

Classroom Management

  The other thing (I blogged about Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome last week.) I want to remember from The Queen of Education is chapter 5, “Down with Detention.”

I might ask students to read and discuss this chapter with me because she models how to use discipline to teach problem solving, not punishment and control. I looked at the chapter as both a parent and teacher.





Here are some of the things I think Johnson suggests that will be helpful to me and the future students I share information with about teaching:

1. Talk to and see the individual; exercise an ethic of care.

2. Stop being so quick to punish. Do more questioning to find out the cause of behavior.

3. Give students autonomy/choice when it comes to their behavior and the consequences.

Z teaches K how to use the Nook, again and again

Setting: Barnes & Noble


K: (Feeling accomplished.) Look at my new wallpaper.

Z: Use one of your beach pictures.

K: I don’t know how.

Z: (In his teacher voice.) Here, let’s download one from Facebook.

K: Oh, I like it. (She frowns.) I don’t want all of that stuff on my Nook homepage.

Z: Mom, they are your books and apps.

K: (She’s not having it.) I don’t care. I don’t want all of my business on my first page. (She gets up.) I’m going to ask the Nook salesperson how to delete these.

Z: Whoa, Mom, keep it in the family. (He takes the Nook determined to work this problem out for K.) These are your apps. (He holds his finger on each one for a few seconds and chooses the option to hide them.)

K: That’s better. If I want my apps or books, I’ll go to the page where they are. They don’t need to be visible in both places.

K is happy she learned how to get rid of the images on the homepage; the problem had irritated her for a few days.

K: I downloaded solitaire!

Z: (Not impressed.) That’s good, Mom. They are going to charge you for that.

K looks up with more dismay.

 
K still hasn't read anything longer than a picture book on the Nook and now she's playing games instead of reading.

Z teaches K how to use the Nook, again

Setting: Barnes & Noble


K clicks on Facebook and sees all of these friends she doesn’t even know. This has happened before and she didn’t know what to make of it.

K: Who is Sara___? Is she my friend?

Z looks up from his laptop.

Z: What? Oh, Mom, I forgot to logout.

K: (with dismay) These are YOUR friends?

Z: Yes.

K: (more dismay) Where are MY friends?

Z: Mom, you must login.

K: Oh. How do I do that? How do I get to my homepage?

Z: Here, let me show you.

K: (Happy now.) Oh, I like this view better.

Z: (In his calm down; you can’t be serious voice.) Mom, all handheld devices have that view.

Notice K has very few books and she's spending more time on the Internet than actually reading.