tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13399101765499666962024-03-13T15:14:24.629-04:00I am a teacher et ceterateacher. learner. writer. technology enthusiast.Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.comBlogger329125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-1962754574622778862020-03-26T14:31:00.001-04:002020-03-26T14:31:09.297-04:00Read. Analyze. EmulateDuring our break from school as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, my two boys and I have been using our morning to complete <a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/2020/03/slowing-down-to-learn.html">reading and writing prompts</a>. Yesterday, we pulled our inspiration from George Ella Lyon's poem "<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=neoPAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA30&vq=kitchen&pg=PA31#v=onepage&q&f=false">Kitchen Table</a>."<br />
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In <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oZ7M9IRbSrDojfiPZYG8CMTnj2oHimJh3czxnYperLY/edit">an activity</a> similar to one I do with my high school students, I asked my boys to read the excerpt, analyze the moves that the writer makes, and emulate the style in an original work of their own. Last year while attending the <a href="https://michiganreading.org/">Michigan Reading Association conference</a>, Penny Kittle engaged us in a very similar activity using an excerpt from Alice Hoffman's book <i><a href="https://alicehoffman.com/books/faithful-a-novel/">Faithful</a></i>. In using a small excerpt from a piece of writing, students of any age are able to engage in analysis and bring those writing craft moves into their own work. Using shorter excerpts from a variety of texts gives emerging writers the opportunity to play with their writing. <br />
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In yesterday's activity, my 9 and 11 year old boys talked about repetition, imagery, and shifts in tone. These are the same concepts that my high school writers were unpacking in their rhetorical analysis of a variety of speeches just prior to our break. My high school students were tasked not only with analyzing a selected speech, but using their analysis to craft their own speech. This is what it means to use a text as a mentor. What can we learn from writers about the craft of writing? <br />
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The result of our writing endeavors yesterday with my boys were poems about our living room furniture.<br />
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By H. Ward<br />
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This chair stands where<br />
no chair has stood,<br />
where I have read for<br />
hours on end,<br />
where my father<br />
plays guitar,<br />
where my dog frequently<br />
jumps up to play.<br />
A place of comfort,<br />
learning,<br />
and fun,<br />
where I sit<br />
still,<br />
watching<br />
from the green<br />
chair.<br />
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By L. Ward<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This end table is where </div>
coffee sits in a cup,<br />
where Mary sleeps under,<br />
where my dad read<br />
the <i>New York Times</i>,<br />
where my mom<br />
grades her students'<br />
papers<br />
and where I wrote<br />
this poem about the<br />
end table.<br />
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<br />
By Jennifer Ward<br />
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This coffee table stands where<br />
a folding chair first sat when<br />
we moved into this space.<br />
Months later I jigsawed<br />
this table into the Prius,<br />
seats folded down, the two<br />
boys buckled into the front<br />
passenger seat, giggling as<br />
this table bounced between us.<br />
This is the table where we gather to play<br />
Munchkins, Exploding Kittens, Pandemic,<br />
where dad used the wax<br />
from his bees to polish<br />
out coffee cup rings that<br />
left O’s in the grain.<br />
This is the table where<br />
we lean into computer screens<br />
to chat with friends while<br />
sheltering inside during the pandemic,<br />
where we would rather be gathered<br />
together in person<br />
laughing, chatting, playing music<br />
as we had in the past.<br />
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<br />Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-44540031159841928832020-03-23T14:12:00.000-04:002020-03-23T14:12:16.051-04:00Thinking about RevisionWith this gift of time as we are sequestered away in our separate homes, I've been dipping back into my writing, rereading cringe-worthy drafts of poems and half-finished stories. Whew! I need to spend some time revising!<br />
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Writing is never finished. Walt Whitman rewrote <i>Leaves of Grass</i> five times. Former poet laureate <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/galway-kinnell">Galway Kinnell</a> never seemed to deliver his published poems the same way twice, omitting and adding lines even after the poems were bound in a book. I’ve heard both author <a href="https://www.jenniferward.org/2007/08/art-of-revision.html">James McBride</a> and poet <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/naomi-shihab-nye">Naomi Shihab Nye </a>talk about writing as rewriting. Naomi Shihab Nye said:
“If a teacher told me to revise, I thought that meant my writing was a broken-down car that needed to go to the repair shop. I felt insulted. I didn’t realize the teacher was saying, ‘Make it shine. It’s worth it.’ Now I see revision as a beautiful word of hope. It’s a new vision of something. It means you don’t have to be perfect the first time. What a relief!”<br />
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In thinking about how I go about revising my own writing and how I teach revision to my high school students, I notice a divide. And actually, in <a href="https://www.jenniferward.org/search?q=revision">rereading some of my posts on this space</a>, this divide is something that I have been struggling to bridge for a large portion of my teaching career. How do I help students invest more time in their revision process? This is going to sound weird, but our current break from traditional school as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has actually provided me some insight into revision. Let me explain.<br />
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My youngest son, Lukas, is nine years old. This past week was our first week home together as schools shut down in Michigan as a result of the spread of the novel coronavirus. On Monday and Wednesday, his teachers posted links to math worksheets and online resources for his class to access. He was assigned reading homework, encouraged to complete a creative book report, and asked by his teacher to complete and send back work that he had missed due to a recent orthodontist appointment. But what did Lukas want to do? He wanted to grab the Chromebook every chance he could so that he could add to the collaborative story that he and his buddy were writing titled "Where the Dragons Dwell."<br />
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You need to understand that when I ask Lukas about writing, he tells me that he hates it. "I hate my writer's notebook!" he complains each Wednesday night. His weekly writing pages are typically due on Thursday morning, and of course, as an English teacher, hearing him say this each week breaks my heart. But here's the thing, I know why he's saying this. I love that his teacher has students writing in notebooks each week. I also know that my son doesn't actually hate writing. He, in fact, continues to write more than he is assigned when he is given free choice on what to write. What he hates is that the feedback he has received is that he needs to fill the page and not slant his writing so that his last few lines on the page only cover 1/3 of the available space on the page. He dislikes the feedback that is focused on what his writing looks like and not on what he elects to write about. This is not feedback on the content of his writing. He enjoys writing, writing so quickly that it is a bit difficult to decipher at times, but he doesn't like when feedback interrupts his work or when it is not connected to the work. In cases when he's received feedback that he needs to write more because he doesn't "fully fill the page," he protests. He claims he hates writing and doesn't understand why he has to do it. This is also what he said when I asked him to grab a notebook so that we could write at home together this past Monday. However, later that same afternoon when his buddy shared a Google doc with the start of a story, Lukas didn't want to put down his writing.<br />
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Over the course of this past week, Lukas has added to the story, read the story aloud to his older brother a few times to get some advice, talked through most of our meal times about the progression of the story, always focused on how to make the story better. This is what revision should look like. What it doesn't look like is a worksheet or a series of required comments left on a partner's draft. What it doesn't look like is everyone working on the same "step" of writing at the same time. So when we do return to school, I have some ideas about how engage students in the revision process differently. It starts even before we begin drafting.<br />
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If writing is rewriting as McBride and Nye suggest, then conversations with students about revision strategies need to begin at the introduction of each new writing assignment. Very few published writers complete a full draft before making a tweak here or there. We revise as we go, so we cannot leave a peer-revision workshop as the last step before our students turn in a writing assignment. We must teach students to engage in revision as we go, at each step of the writing process. Moving forward in my own classroom, this will look more like the writing workshop model with students working in small groups to draft, craft, and revise. No more revision checklists or peer revision worksheets. Instead, revision needs to look and feel more organic, like my son's process of crafting the collaborative story with his friend. They use the online document to add to the writing, comments to make suggestions or ask questions of one another, and the chat to talk about where they are headed in the story. Late this past week, my son hopped on a virtual chat with his friend, and I listened in as the two talked about the upcoming chapters they wanted to write together. This conferencing got both boys engaged in the writing and revision process. <br />
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I use <a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/2014/04/recording-feedback-potential-of.html">writing conferences</a> in my high school English classes now, but typically they are conversations between the student writer and the teacher and are left toward the end of the writing process. Using my son's writing process as a model, I see that I need to help students establish similar collaborative writing relationships much earlier in the drafting process. Connecting my students writers and giving them space to organically talk about their writing and their struggles will do more to help them grow in their confidence as writers. Moving forward, I need to help my students establish trusted writing partners, peers that they can rely on throughout their writing practice, much like my Lukas relies on his writing buddy. <br />
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I'll rely on the work of educators like <a href="http://pennykittle.net/">Penny Kittle</a> and <a href="http://www.kellygallagher.org/">Kelly Gallagher</a> to guide me as I think about how to reframe writing assignments in my classes. Having the opportunity to hear them talk about their work and book <a href="https://www.heinemann.com/products/e08113.aspx"><i>180 Days</i></a> last spring at the <a href="https://michiganreading.org/">Michigan Reading Association conference</a> was powerful. And I would love to hear from other educators about your successes when in comes to engaging students in the revision process. Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-71202464421985822332020-03-17T13:26:00.000-04:002020-03-17T14:21:08.181-04:00Slowing Down to Learn<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" height="400" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vR6EFCWIP3jtPYRZecVI683uGYJOeTychRcC_Bkhb4oXKfYxC1hkf-IJfMoOt8dpkC6HJmvdRiJ4tE4/embed?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="100%"></iframe>
At this point, we are a couple of days into social distancing and staying at home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Michigan schools, like so many other schools around the country, are closed for the next few weeks. In response, educators are sharing an abundance of digital learning tools and home-schooling suggestions. I must confess, even though I am an educator and consider myself digitally saavy, this is all just a bit too overwhelming. Too many suggestions, too many lesson ideas. It's just too much! I love the passion and collaboration that is growing as a result of needing to quickly address our new learning landscape, but slow down! My own boys, now 4th and 5th graders, have received messages and optional assignments from their classroom teachers, art teachers, music teachers, physical education teachers. And although they are communicating with the best of intentions, it is overwhelming my dudes...and me.<br />
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I want to encourage my own kids to pause and reflect on this particular moment in time. Yes, it is scary. We've never lived through something like this before, and so we don't know what to expect. The adults don't have all the answers right now. But, we have the gift of time. We don't need to rush. We don't need to try to replicate a traditional school day at home. We have time to reflect and explore and learn together. So rather than trying to cram in a science lesson and a math handout and history project and a writing activity each day, we're taking it slow.<br />
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Each morning, my boys and I get up, chat, make breakfast, and take the dog for a walk. Then, I use the prompts above to guide our morning reflections. We talk about the prompt, write a little, read a little, and make something. Yesterday, after we talked about what we would like to learn in our next four weeks together, my boys and I went outside to build an epic fort. We then came inside to figure out the best tools for learning how to code. Today, we talked about the power of our hands after listening to <a href="https://kaysarahsera.com/">Sarah Kay</a>'s spoken word poem "<a href="https://bit.ly/sarahkayhands">Hands</a>." My boys and I completed a writing activity that had us writing our own poems about a something special that we've held in our hands. After viewing the<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34452745"> photojournalism piece posted by the BBC on Tim Booth's photography</a> of hands, my boys wanted to take a black and white photo of their own to add to their writing piece. So we discuss, we write, we read, we create. And that's enough for now. We don't need to fill every moment. We have time.<br />
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Feel free to join us and use the prompts above. I will add new prompts each day. We'd love to hear about what you are learning, reading, and making during this time.<br />
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Remember, we're in uncharted territory. It is okay to not have the answers. It is okay to slow down.Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-8290150542366743132020-03-14T11:39:00.000-04:002020-03-16T21:37:28.589-04:00Self Care ChallengeWow! What a week this has been. Things have been moving very quickly, and in my Michigan school district, we suddenly find ourselves out of school through April 12th, a full month away from school. The impact of COVID-19 is unprecedented, and as a result, we are all in uncharted territory.
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During our time away from school, we have an opportunity to reconnect with our families and take care of ourselves and one another. For those that are interested, I created the self-care challenge for my high school students. Feel free to make a <a href="https://bit.ly/selfcarebingo" style="color: rgb(10, 21, 122) !important; text-decoration: underline;" target="_blank">copy of this document</a> for yourself and your students. Highlight each of the challenges as you complete them. Use the comment box below to tell us how your self-care challenges are going!<br />
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Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-22602532904640603812019-11-03T13:14:00.000-05:002019-11-03T13:14:47.245-05:00Reading RoutinesFridays are our reading days. It's my favorite day of the week.<br />
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This past Friday, as the temperatures dipped and snow swirled, we declared it our first "Snuggle Up and Read Day." We had hot water so we could mix up some hot cocoa, cookies to dunk, and we found a comfy place in the room to record our reading goals for the coming week and spend the class hour reading.<br />
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We begin the class hour each Friday by adding up the number of pages that had read in the past week and added it to our weekly reading log. Students can select any style of text to read - realistic fiction, poetry, self-help, memoir, graphic novels, dystopian. At the close of each month, I reward students who have met or exceeded their weekly reading goals each week during the month (thank you, <a href="https://www.herbandfirepizzeria.com/" target="_blank">Herb and Fire Pizzeria</a>). After eight weeks time, we break our weekly routine to share our books and learn about more potential books that we add to our "To Read" lists. Finally, we end each Friday class hour with "First Page Fridays."<br />
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What is "<a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1HYEMFxosQQ79WQcBlZF8TF-uyM9Ci5ZclsGGF9YYwIU/edit#slide=id.g62bb637014_0_0" target="_blank">First Page Friday</a>"? As students wrap up their reading time, I use the last five minutes of our Friday class time to share with them a little about a book that I have enjoyed. I briefly introduce the author and a summary of the story, and then I read students the first page of the book. In a few short weeks, my students will take over and begin to share their favorite books.<br />
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This week I shared <a href="http://madwomanintheforest.com/" target="_blank">Laurie Halse Anderson's</a> nonfiction poetry book titled <i><a href="http://madwomanintheforest.com/book/shout/" target="_blank">Shout</a></i>. Many of my high school students have read one of her early books, <i>Speak</i>. <i>Shout</i>, intentionally titled to follow in the footsteps of <i>Speak</i>, focuses on Anderson's early struggles with silence and her journey to find and use the power of her voice. It is a devastatingly beautiful text, one I was excited to share with students. And, to add to the excitement, I also got to share with students that our school will host a visit with the author come spring! At the close of the day, I was able to give away a copy of the book to a student in each of my classes (thank you for making this possible, <a href="https://firstbook.org/" target="_blank">FirstBook</a>). And to top it all off, we heard from Ms. Anderson on Friday! I posted a picture on <a href="http://www.instagram.com/wardsworldghs" target="_blank">our class Instagram site</a> of our cozy reading day activities alongside page from <i>Shout</i> about "hygge", the Danish idea of comfort and connection. The author took a moment to write us a "comforting" reply.<br />
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I love our Friday reading routines! <br />
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Cross-posted at <a href="http://www.msward.org/updates/november-03rd-2019">msward.org</a><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #525252; font-family: "lato" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: justify;"></span>Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-44139666494281589052018-03-21T17:23:00.001-04:002018-03-21T17:34:49.779-04:00Learning Communities are Built on RelationshipsI don't yell.<br />
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Okay, if you ask my own children, they might tell you something different, but when it comes to my classroom, you'll find me most days guffawing and giggling more than anything else. I've been known to cackle so loudly that they can hear my laughter echo down the hallway.<br />
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But today, I yelled.<br />
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Over my years of teaching, I have come to realize that my philosophy of classroom management starts with building relationships. We start that very first week of school by constructing a social contract for our learning community. I ask for student input on what our learning and behavior expectations should be. We have candid conversations about what respect looks like, both from the teacher and from students. When I talk about the classroom, it is <i>our classroom</i> and <i>our learning community</i>. We work together. It is not <i>mine</i> or <i>yours</i>. And it doesn't take long before students are using those same plural pronouns to talk about our class. We reserve the opening moments of every class period to share out what things are happening in our lives. We share our highs and our lows. I know my students. I listen to their struggles. I try to provide a space that is flexible, comfortable, and safe.<br />
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And so when conflict happens, I rely on the strength of those relationships to lift us up. If a student is off-task, I just need to quietly come stand beside her and ask how things are going. That's usually enough to help redirect her back on task. On the rare occasion when anger fills our classroom, when someone uses profane language, or calls someone a name, I can usually get the situation under control quickly by pulling the student aside and trying to understand what is at the root of the issue and help the student see another's point of view. I point out the tenets of our social contract. This is what respect looks like in our classroom. This is what empathy looks like in our classroom.<br />
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But today I yelled.<br />
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Not at first. At first I tried to calm down an irate student by pulling her aside. I tried redirecting. I tried separating. I tried getting the class back on task.<br />
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And then I yelled.<br />
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It is not how I like getting control of my classroom. It feels like a broken trust.<br />
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But I know that it will work out. And I know that because as students walked out of class, I heard apologies. Students apologizing to one another. Students apologizing to me. I saw students offering to help others. After school a student stopped by to see if I was okay. He was checking on me. It will work out because our relationships still build the foundation of our learning community. Our walls may have shook this afternoon, but our relationships remain strong.Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-29036070522796556782018-03-09T10:00:00.000-05:002018-03-09T10:00:56.381-05:00Time to UnplugOMG! How did I end up on the <i><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/seven-things-to-do-on-national-day-of-unplugging" target="_blank">Daily Beast</a></i>?!<br />
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<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/seven-things-to-do-on-national-day-of-unplugging" target="_blank"><br /></a>
Okay, not really. My hair is longer. But those glasses are spot on.<br />
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Seriously though, when the sun goes down this evening, it will mark the start of the<a href="https://www.nationaldayofunplugging.com/" target="_blank"> National Day of Unplugging</a>. And for much as I love technology's ability to connect my students and me with authors, writers, and experts of all varying kinds, an over-reliance on our smartphones, tablets, and all manner of digital devices can have a detrimental effect on our ability to connect in real time.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. Kowal meets with my Public Speaking students in February 2017.</td></tr>
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My friend and communications expert <a href="http://blogs.umflint.edu/cas/2016/12/08/faculty-spotlight-christopher-kowal-of-um-flint-communication/" target="_blank">Dr. Chris Kowal</a> has done quite a bit of <a href="https://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/article_53b02f5e-2778-5bec-b043-142fe2f46603.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share" target="_blank">research</a> on this matter. A nonverbal communications scholar, Chris studied people's body positions as they engaged in using their smartphones. The study, conducted at Purdue University, concluded that our curled-up body position when using smartphones leads to stress. In a 2016 article in <i><a href="https://www.purdueexponent.org/campus/article_53b02f5e-2778-5bec-b043-142fe2f46603.html" target="_blank">The Exponent</a></i>, Chris stated, "...we need to be aware of how we use our smartphones."<br />
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And he's not alone in this call for moderation. About this time last year, the American Psychological Association (APA) released a <a href="http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2017/technology-social-media.PDF" target="_blank">report about American's use of digital technologies and their increasing rates of stress</a>. According to the report, nearly one-fifth of those surveyed reported that digital technologies were the source of "very or somewhat significant" stress in their daily lives. Similar surveys have been conducted by Gallup, the Milken Institute, and the Pew Research Center. And there's a growing body of research on <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171130090041.htm" target="_blank">cell phone addiction</a>.<br />
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Now, don't get me wrong. I love my technology. To be quite honest, I would not be the educator that I am today without the connections that I have fostered in digital spaces like Twitter and Facebook. Or what about all those fantastic donors who have provided my classroom with books and Chromebooks and cameras through online networks like <a href="https://www.donorschoose.org/teacherward" target="_blank">DonorsChoose</a> and <a href="https://www.pledgecents.com/cause/kkchbn/march-book-madness" target="_blank">PledgeCents</a>. And Skype and Google Hangouts/Meet have connected my students with editors, authors, biologists, poets, and fellow students from all around the globe. Technology has transformed my classroom in amazing ways. However, that said, we all could use a break from that constant connection.<br />
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I'm old enough to remember a world prior to cell phones, prior to people being to get in touch with you whenever or wherever you happened to be. In college, I would hop in my car, windows rolled all the way down, radio blaring, and make the hour drive to the Lake Michigan shore. Alone. If someone needed me, it had to wait until I was back in my dorm room. In a similar sort of way, this is why I have always loved camping, being in the great wide open. No need for televisions or phones or tablets or laptops when there are so many open spaces to explore. In a world where digital connections are ubiquitous, it is refreshing to be reminded of the real-life connections that we might be missing out when we walk through the world with earbuds in and our faces looking down at little glowing blue screens.<br />
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So, take the 24-hour challenge with me. Unplug from your devices for one day. Who knows, maybe you'll find more powerful connections in real-life. At the very least, unplugging might help us to find a bit of balance in how we are using technology in our daily lives.<br />
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Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-53811608830991754582018-03-07T14:07:00.001-05:002018-03-07T14:07:50.590-05:00The Gift of the Unexpected Snow Day<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">view from my window this morning</td></tr>
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Ordinarily, if there's even a whiff of snow in the forecast, my boys and I have spoons nestled under our pillows, our pajamas on backwards, and ice cubes floating in all the toilets in our house. But this morning, as I was trying to convince myself that I didn't need to get up early, that 10 more minutes snuggled in my flannel sheets was worth the rush I would face later, my phone made the familiar <i>buzzt, buzzt</i> of an incoming text message. My fellow tenth grade honors English teacher shot out a quick text about how we could post a part of our plans on our Google Classroom pages. "This shouldn't put us too far behind schedule," she texted.<br />
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Wait! What? We have a snow day!<br />
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Sure enough, school was closed today because of dangerously icy road conditions. I didn't see that coming. I certainly could use a day off to catch up on some grading that has been lingering in my book bag untouched for a few days. But, there will always be papers to grade and lessons to plan, snow day or not. So today, I made the decision to simply enjoy this unexpected gift of a snow day.<br />
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I spent the morning watching the sun come up over our snow-covered yard, watching fat flakes float from the tree limbs outside my kitchen window as I made pancakes and eggs for my boys and husband. We got ready slowly this morning, chatting, goofing around, connecting. And then after my boys boarded their bus, two hours later than they usually start school, I hit the treadmill. Time to get those steps in. I read a book that has been sitting untouched since January. At the moment, I'm sitting in front of my fireplace crafting this blog. And you know what? I'm relaxed. On a Wednesday afternoon.<br />
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I'm not worried about what has been left undone, about how much still needs to be planned, organized, graded, what emails I have yet to return, what paperwork I need to turn in. These things seem to consume my daily life. I rush from class to class, activity to activity. Don't forget to... Be sure to... Make certain you... I have to-do notes on my phone, in my planner, oftentimes even written in ink on the palm of my hand, always so much to accomplish in the span of a day. There never seems to be enough time. And yet, there always is.<br />
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Things that must get done usually do. Those that don't quite get done on time tend to work themselves out. And what seemed so important in the moment is forgotten by the close of the month. Will this matter in a year? Things move so quickly in our classrooms, and it is easy to get overwhelmed, both for teachers and for students. We are all so rushed. As educator John Spenser has said, we are <a href="https://youtu.be/l6y3KCuyfzI" target="_blank">wearing busy like a badge of honor</a>. But it's not. It does not make us better teachers, better students, better partners, friends, or parents to take pride in how busy we are. It does no good to repeat that trite claim that there just isn't enough time.<br />
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It took me many years as an educator to learn that I needed to let somethings go. So today, I'm letting go of my to-do lists, if just for a little while, to enjoy this unexpected gift of time.<br />
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I find comfort in the poetry of Whitman:<br />
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<i>I exist as I am, that is enough,
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<i>If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
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<i>And if each and all be aware I sit content.
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<i>One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
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<i>And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years,
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<i>I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.</i></blockquote>
Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-54730133183213182362018-03-06T09:46:00.002-05:002018-03-06T09:46:49.056-05:00Why is This Working?This is not the first time that I have taught students how to blog.<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-27OnFfiFwWg/Wp6pYCeInSI/AAAAAAABFaA/L_Q29vlzCy4VWQEabPQPDqR34c0fd9_rQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180306_094010104.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-27OnFfiFwWg/Wp6pYCeInSI/AAAAAAABFaA/L_Q29vlzCy4VWQEabPQPDqR34c0fd9_rQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_20180306_094010104.jpg" width="240" /></a>For many years, I had my <a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/search?q=havpassion+blogs" target="_blank">tenth-grade students create blogs for their project-based research projects</a>. We connected with writers and with experts on their topics. Some students spent hours exploring other blogs, using them as mentors for their own writing, making sure their posts were loaded with images and links to entice readers. But inevitably, this would be the exception and not the rule. Most of their blogs read like mini-essays, each post written in a typical five-paragraph format.<br />
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This semester, something has changed. But I'm not quite sure how or why.<br />
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My seniors have started blogging to reflect on their reading of a "banned book." They selected a book of their choice from the <a href="http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics" target="_blank">American Library Association's</a> list of challenged books. We will spend the month of March digging into issues of censorship and reader's rights. My students are reading everything from <i>Huckleberry Finn</i> to <i>Looking for Alaska, </i>and although they have only just started their blogging adventures, I'm noticing a difference in the depth and the quality of their reflections.<br />
<a href="https://twowritingteachers.org/2018/03/06/day-6-sol18/" target="_blank"><br /></a>
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Take for example this morning. Cheyenne is reading <i>American Psycho</i>. She came up to my desk and asked, "I want to include lines from my book in my post, but I'm not really sure how. The writing is much more dense and dark than I expected." We got to have a conversation about what she thinks might most benefit her readers, and think through the best approach for including lines. Should she type up a paragraph from the text, blocking out particular words so as not to offend some readers? Or, should she take a picture of a page in the book and simply post it along with her annotations written on the page?<br />
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Madeline just asked, "How should I cite this?" We've been talking about ensuring that we give credit to the original writers and artists. Students are including specific passages, evidence, images, and links to other news articles and writers.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dRhHN-1KFG4/Wp6pYFI9KgI/AAAAAAABFaE/ViT9USnmwmgt2MRr7INt5QbA0r5B2593QCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180306_094037725.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="200" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dRhHN-1KFG4/Wp6pYFI9KgI/AAAAAAABFaE/ViT9USnmwmgt2MRr7INt5QbA0r5B2593QCLcBGAs/s200/IMG_20180306_094037725.jpg" width="150" /></a>So why is this blogging experience working out so much better than earlier years? I need to spend more time reflecting on this question, but my initial thought is that this time around I spent much less time instructing students how to set-up our blogs and much more time pointing out what good bloggers do. We looked at more examples than I had in year's past, and I started the first week by having my students comment on one another's first posts. In doing so, not only did they receive feedback on their writing, but they also had an opportunity to explore how their peers had designed their online spaces.<br />
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In short, I spent less time on instructions and more time on having students get hands-on with writing.<br />
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And here's how their looking so far. We would love your feedback on their blogs! Simply hover over the images below to access links to my students' blogs.<br />
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<img class="alwaysThinglink" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/1026138577592909825/1024/10/scaletowidth#tl-1026138577592909825;'" style="max-width: 100%;" /><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/jse/embed.js"></script>
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<img class="alwaysThinglink" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/1026172394680614913/1024/10/scaletowidth#tl-1026172394680614913;'" style="max-width: 100%;" /><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/jse/embed.js"></script>Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-88001531923487413682018-03-02T15:22:00.000-05:002018-03-02T15:22:06.091-05:00Whatcha Reading?It's quiet. Occasionally I hear the plastic crinkle of a plastic-encased library book as a student flips the page. Brad is engrossed in <i>Looking for Alaska</i>. Alex, sitting next to him, is just starting to dig into <i>The Handmaid's Tale</i>. Alyssa picked up <i>The Perks of Being a Wallflower</i> just yesterday, and it already looks as if she is halfway through the book. I can tell from the expression on her face that she is deep into this story, empathizing with Charlie. My Independent Novel Studies students have just started our study of banned and challenged books, and our room is silent. If I break in now with some instructions, I know that I will get pushback. "This is a reading day, Ward." Let's read!<br />
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And this is why I love March.<br />
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March brings with it our <a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/search?q=march+book+madness" target="_blank">March Book Madness bracket</a>, with students voting each day for their favorite books, pitting classics against contemporary YA novels, until one book reigns victorious just before our spring break begins at the close of March. For students that vote, we are giving away signed copies of books each school day in March. The number of students that voted yesterday compared to today has already doubled, and it's only lunchtime. The school is buzzing with talk of books. Who will win today? <i>To Kill A Mockingbird </i>or <i>Where the Red Fern Grows</i>?<br />
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Teachers have<a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/2015/02/building-community-of-readers.html" target="_blank"> hung signs outside their doors</a> declaring their current reading choices. Students, high school students, are excited to share today their favorite titles for <a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/2014/03/read-to-me.html" target="_blank">Read Across America Day.</a> "My mom would always read that story about the nutbrown hair to me right before bed. What was the title again, Ms. Ward?" <i>Guess How Much I Love You.</i> "Yeah, I loved it. I memorized the words before I could read it."<br />
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My students are readers. In part this is because our district has placed an emphasis on independent reading and choice, from kindergarten all the way through senior year. My students, whether AP-bound honors sophomores or struggling junior students, know that reading is a priority. They have grown up with books always at the ready. They have their regular reading days each week, when they are encouraged to dig in to a novel of their choice. And don't you dare try to take that time away from them. It is quiet now, not because they are bored or sleeping. It is quiet because we are all immersed in the pages of a good book.<br />
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This is how you build a culture of reading. This is why I love March. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to my book.Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-56061367720365068872018-03-01T09:51:00.001-05:002018-03-02T12:22:46.753-05:00Let the Blogging Begin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The only sound in my room at the moment is the crisp clicky-clack of 224 fingertips typing. And then Cheyenne can't contain herself any longer. She turns and whispers excitedly to Madison, "I can't tell if this is supposed to be dark funny, or if I'm misunderstanding this. So, there's this guy..." And she goes on to explain in a whisper that grows into a conversation why it is that she has gotten sucked into her book. Her banned book.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image by <a href="http://emilypodsiadlikk.weebly.com/" target="_blank">Emily Podsiadlik</a></td></tr>
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<a href="https://twowritingteachers.org/2018/03/01/day-1-sol18/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="150" data-original-width="150" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9siSc7jlmkc/VPfD5vygYgI/AAAAAAAAdzQ/oGVAUSF6fRgW4Thene7-sXgHMoN5gRL1QCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/sol.jpg" /></a>My Independent Novel Studies students, mainly seniors, just started our unit on banned and challenged books. We've explored the <a href="http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks" target="_blank">ALA website of banned books</a> and discussed their <a href="http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill" target="_blank">Bill of Rights</a>. We've combed the library shelves for challenged books that pique our interest. This morning, my students are blogging, many for the first time, on their reading of a self-selected "banned" book. Cheyenne is hoping to get some feedback on her reading of <i>American Psycho</i>. <a href="http://emilypodsiadlikk.weebly.com/" target="_blank">Emily</a> calls me over. "Ms. Ward, you gotta read my last paragraph. I created a hashtag!" #blogon. She's also posted a picture she snapped of her and a friend engaged in a staged conversation over a book. They are loving this. I am loving this. The excitement is palatable.<br />
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So let the blogging begin!
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<img class="alwaysThinglink" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/1026138577592909825/1024/10/scaletowidth#tl-1026138577592909825;'" style="max-width: 100%;" /><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/jse/embed.js"></script><br />
<img class="alwaysThinglink" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/1026172394680614913/1024/10/scaletowidth#tl-1026172394680614913;'" style="max-width: 100%;" /><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//cdn.thinglink.me/jse/embed.js"></script>Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-55823148750443566082018-01-05T15:21:00.001-05:002018-01-05T15:21:26.176-05:00One Word for 2018: ListenFor the past couple of years, I have taken time at the beginning of the new year to reflect on the past and set some goals for the coming year. It's time to come up with my <a href="http://oneword365.com/" target="_blank">#oneword</a> for 2018. I'm not one for resolutions. They sound so...well, resolute. So final.<br />
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Instead, I focus on finding <a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/2017/01/one-word-for-2017-resonate.html" target="_blank">a touchstone word,</a> a word that serves as an inspiration and call to action for what I want to accomplish and who I hope to be in the coming year. Last year, my word -<a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/2017/01/one-word-for-2017-resonate.html" target="_blank"> <i>resonate</i> </a>- kept me focused. My word - resonate - helped me connect with the texts, the ideas, the people, the actions that resonated with my beliefs, values, and priorities. If it didn't resonate, it was time to let them go. This was not always easy. It meant letting go of some negative thinking about myself, about my physical appearance, letting go of projects and idea that I had been working on for years. And while that sounds easy to do, when you've latched onto an idea or thought for so long, it is difficult first to recognize it as a habit, and second to release it.<a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/resolution" target="_blank"><br /></a><br />
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This coming year, I hope to build on what I have learned from my focus on what resonates. To do this, I have to get better at listening. This includes listening to myself, listening to my loved ones, and listening to the voices of others. Listening does not mean that I need to agree or accept. Instead, listening is the act of acknowledging. And while I hear my voice, the voices of my loved ones, and those of others, I am not always so good at honoring and acknowledging those voices. I hear up until the point that I have thought about how to respond. This is not listening. This is waiting for my turn to talk. Listening, really listening, is an act of compassion and empathy. This is what I hope to cultivate in 2018.<br />
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Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-59107245528186008762017-08-08T13:53:00.000-04:002017-08-08T18:28:44.962-04:00Evolving Space<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My classroom space is in a constant state of revision. I make changes to my space, my layout and design, based on the learners sitting in my room. <br />
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When I first started teaching, my student desks were grouped as pods, my teacher's desk angled to face the door at the front of the room. And this worked. Until it didn't.<br />
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A number of years ago, I had a tenth grade student suffering from debilitating migraines. Her doctor and later her neurologist struggled to make sense of the severity of her migraines. But what my student knew was that overhead florescent lights seemed to trigger the onset of her blinding headaches. She struggled to make it to class. School is filled with blinding bright white lights. I wanted to find a way for our classroom space to be a safe haven. And me, not that far out of college at the time, had a plethora of cheap floor lamps cluttering my one bedroom apartment. So rather than clicking on those big industrial lights, I lugged those lamps into my classroom and purchased inexpensive table lamps from my local thrift store. I hung white string lights around my bulletin boards and dangled them from the ceiling. And not only did the change in lighting seem to help my student suffering from migraines, but other students seemed to appreciate the less institutional feeling of our classroom space. Murmurs of adding a reading nook with a rug and couch - "you know, like the ones we had in elementary school" - started to come up in conversation. And so my classroom evolution began.<br />
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Over the years, I have added new pieces to my classroom space - a bench here, some pillows, a stool, a couch there - to accommodate the needs of my learners. My classroom now features a variety of different spaces. There is a reading nook with a couple of couches, pillows, a rug, and chair situated next to my bookshelves for a comfortable place to read. There are two desks facing one another near my back window, a perfect spot for a one-on-one conference. My teacher's desk, a hacked Ikea bookcase on casters, is at the back of the room without a chair. It is a counter to hold my computer and teaching materials and to host informal conversations, but I don't spend much time there, so there is no need for a chair. I have a combination of tables and chairs, traditional desks, comfortable benches, and pillows around the room which my students move between throughout our class period depending upon what task we are focused on. My classroom set-up has evolved over the last few years. In changing from traditional rows of desks which I started with, I honor the needs and stories of the students in my learning community, but my classroom also reflects my evolution in thinking about teaching. My teaching is less about me being at the front of the room and more focused on space for my students to collaborate. My room reflects that change.<br />
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The classroom environment is sometimes referred to as the "<a href="http://www.hermanmiller.com/research/solution-essays/rethinking-the-classroom.html">third teacher</a>," influencing the ways in which students engage in the learning that happens in our spaces. The environment reflects the priorities of that class. I need my classroom to support active learners. <a href="http://learning%20is%20not%20a%20spectator%20sport.%20students%20do%20not%20learn%20much%20just%20sitting%20in%20classes%20listening%20to%20teachers%2C%20memorizing%20prepackaged%20assignments%2C%20and%20spitting%20out%20answers.%20they%20must%20talk%20about%20what%20they%20are%20learning%2C%20write%20reflectively%20about%20it%2C%20relate%20it%20to%20past%20experiences%2C%20and%20apply%20it%20to%20their%20daily%20lives.%20they%20must%20make%20what%20they%20learn%20part%20of%20themselves./">Chickering and Erhmann </a>write about the need for students to get hands-on with their learning. A learning space should reflect that idea. "Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing prepackaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write reflectively about it, relate it to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves."<br />
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A couple of years ago, I had an opportunity to put this idea into practice when I redesigned my learning space to reflect some of the brain research coming out. Students need flexible learning spaces to encourage active learning. Educators Erin Klein, AJ Juliani, Ben Gilpin, and Robert Dillion hosted a classroom redesign contest on their site <a href="http://ajjuliani.com/classroom-design-next-level/">Classroom Cribs</a>, selecting my classroom as one of the grand finalists. “Redesigning spaces to maximize learning is primarily a shift in culture and mindset,” they write in their book <i><a href="https://us.corwin.com/en-us/nam/redesigning-learning-spaces/book248007">Redesigning Learning Spaces</a></i>. It was at this time that I moved my teacher's desk and podium away from the front of the room, and spent more time creating spaces where students could collaborate and share.<br />
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These days, my room is loud. And I need it to be. I see my students for only 55 minutes each day. I need my students to use this time to collaborate, to connect, and to create. Teaching in a rural district means that many of my students don't have the means or time to travel after school to meet with a classmate to work on a project. Some of my students drive as much as 30 minutes to get to school each morning. Many of my students work after school jobs. Some work more than one. The classroom is the place where my students have time to connect. I view my classroom as a workshop. This is my students time and space to "make what they learn part of themselves."<br />
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And that can look very different for each student. George needs to move. He's one of the EI students in my classroom. He knows that he sometimes needs to remove himself from a conversation. Sometimes he needs to move into a conversation. He needs a chair he can pick up and move. Michael doesn't. Michael needs a corner, maybe a pillow to lean on, so that he can put on his noise-cancelling earbuds and write his blog post. Hannah and Abby need chairs right next to each other, not across from one another, so that they can share a computer screen while they craft an email together to gather information for their research. I need a flexible space to reflect all the various ways in which my students learn.<br />
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<br />Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-67260197628057972342017-08-05T18:55:00.002-04:002017-08-05T18:56:24.530-04:00connectED<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I had an opportunity to participate in a panel discussion about the impact of social media in education this morning on the campus of the University of Michigan at Flint. Students in their graduate program for Educational Leadership met this morning to discuss how social media has changed professional development for educators. And, Saturday mornings are the perfect morning to discuss this! I got to mention how awesome <a href="http://www.evolvingeducators.com/satchat.html">#satchat</a> has been for growing my <a href="https://www.edutopia.org/blog/how-do-i-get-a-pln-tom-whitby">PLN</a> and exposing me to new and innovative ideas in education.<br />
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I also was excited to share how I use social media to amplify my students' voices and connect them to other thinkers around the world. Our world has been flattened by technology.<br />
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But this is old news.<br />
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Instead, I was surprised to hear about the level of push-back that these future administrators faced. Many of the educators in the room spoke about their districts having strict policies against connecting with parents online. Connecting with students online was out of the question, as the districts they currently worked in had clear board policies against using social media in the classroom even at the secondary level.<br />
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Perhaps it is because I have immersed myself in technology and love sharing how social media has connected my learners with authors, experts, real readers, and classrooms around the globe that I forget that there still exists fear about how young people are using connective technologies. I am not naive. I know that students need to be taught digital responsibility and that irresponsible behavior online can have dire real-life consequences, but locking the box on social media is not doing anyone any good. How can we teach digital responsibility if we do not allow our educators and students to access it?<br />
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I hope that I was able to share today ways in which social media has helped make the <a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/2013/06/from-mgmt.html">walls of our classroom more transparent.</a> I loved sharing some of what I have learned from <a href="http://www.jsanfelippo.com/">Joe Sanfelippo</a> (he's actually in town on Monday for <a href="http://macul.org/mindshare">MACUL's Mindshare</a>!) and <a href="http://leadingmotivatedlearners.blogspot.com/">Tony Sinanis</a>'s work: "<a href="https://us.corwin.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/64289_The_Power_of_Branding_Ch_1.pdf">As lead learners, administrators, and educators, it is our responsibility to transform the thick brick barriers surrounding our school buildings into clear, transparent walls of glass.</a>" Social media helps teachers and administrators connect with our most important stakeholders. It also helps us clearly articulate our story. The story of <i>our </i>schools.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" height="389" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zyKOKHhNcCDjnIi2eOn0P1uUqpq52CvoitlGib-NYMo/embed?start=true&loop=true&delayms=10000" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="480"></iframe>Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-48477176027096634172017-07-20T15:19:00.000-04:002017-07-20T15:19:01.290-04:00Speed Dating to Find Your {Book} MatchI've got books on the brain.<br />
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During the second week of class, when not everyone in our tenth grade English class knows each other well, I surprise students with speed dating. Speed dating books, that is. The students walk into our classroom to find the desks grouped into tables, covered with tablecloths, and decorated with centerpieces featuring flowers, candles (LED candles), "menus," and a large stack of books. This is our speed-dating day to find our {book} match. Not only do students get to know one another better through this activity, but they also learn more about specific genres found in our classroom library and select their first independent reading texts. At the close of the semester, this activity was rated by students as one of their favorites, so I thought I would share how I set up this activity with my high school students in case others want to give it a try with their students this fall.<br />
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One of the first questions that I've got from other teachers about this activity has to do with the books themselves. How did I select my genres? Where did I get all my books? So let's start with the most important aspect of this whole activity - the books. Looking at my classroom library and what my students have been gravitating toward the past few years, I established "<a href="https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/0B5zt98U2j09ReVhfWFIzbWV0Yzg">menus</a>" for each table featuring a different genre. I have seven tables around my room, each featuring a different genre - realistic fiction, historical fiction, dystopian novels, poetry, graphic novels, self-help, and creative nonfiction. The "menu" gives a brief description of the genre, which the students will record on <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cdM-7O4sAYpSeuAK1vD6ijTUBae0549tVYsSSwjw-vE/edit?usp=sharing">their handout</a> in addition to taking their own notes about the genre based on what they notice about the commonalities found in the books at their selected table. But where did I get all these books in the first place?<br />
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It can be difficult and extremely expensive to stock your classroom library with high-interest YA novels. New books are expensive. So, here's where I've picked up many of mine. First, hit your thrift stores. During August, the local thrift store near my home used to have $1 bag days. You pay $1 for a paper bag and stuff it with as much as you could. I would show up the first day of the sale and pick through all their books. During the summer months, it is easy to pick up inexpensive books at thrift stores, yard sales, and block sales. This was how my library got its start. <br />
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Later, one of my former students became the teen librarian at our township library. And Shelly hooked me up! Librarians go through their collections two or more times a year, and if a book hasn't been checked out for an extensive period of time, that book needs to go in order to make room for new titles. Shelly, my local hook-up, would call me up any time she had collected five or more boxes of books. She'd let me pull any titles I wanted and the rest the library would sell. Your local librarian is not only a fantastic resource for helping you learn about emerging authors and new titles, your librarian might also be able to help you stock your library! Invite them into your classroom to give a book talk to your students. Get to know your local librarians!<br />
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My most recent discovery is <a href="https://www.firstbook.org/">FirstBooks</a>. If you are a teacher or librarian in a high poverty district as I am, you likely qualify for deep discounts on books through FirstBooks. It will take you between 10-15 minutes to<a href="http://www.fbmarketplace.org/eligibility-faqs/"> complete your application</a>, and if you qualify, you can order individual titles or titles in bulk. My first order is arriving this week. I ordered 13 books - everything from <i>The Book Thief</i> to <i>I'll Give You the Sun</i>, <i>Lily and Duncan</i> to <i>An Ember in the Ashes - </i>for just under $60. And through their <a href="http://www.fbbookbank.org/">bulk book program</a>, you can get a bulk order of one title for FREE! You just pay for shipping. Right now you can get a carton of 24 copies or <a href="http://www.fbbookbank.org/the-maze-runner-movie-tie-in-edition-maze-runner-book-one"><i>The Maze Runner</i></a> for $8.40! <br />
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So, now that you've got all sorts of books and genres in your classroom library, what else are you going to need to set-up your Speed Dating Books activity? I purchased a few rotating picture frames from Ikea to use on each table as the "menu" holder to display the genre found at that table. If you are near an Ikea, the <a href="http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30151035/">Tolsby picture frames</a> comes in packs of 2 for just $.99. Then, I created a "menu" (I print out two so that I can display them on each side of the frame) for each genre using <a href="https://www.canva.com/">Canva</a>. Here are my <a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5zt98U2j09RVkpBMnpMWnFDT2c">menu cards</a>.<br />
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Then, to add ambiance, I picked up a pack plastic table clothes, some small LED candles, pulled a few candle holders from around my house, used a <a href="http://www.joann.com/">JoAnn Fabrics coupon</a> (and my teacher discount) to get a bunch of fake flowers, some Hershey Kisses sprinkled on each table (get it? Kisses? Dating?) and viola! You have a restaurant-style setting for your classroom, perfect for your speed daters!<br />
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The room is set up, your books are carefully displayed, now what? As students walked into my room, I handed them a <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cdM-7O4sAYpSeuAK1vD6ijTUBae0549tVYsSSwjw-vE/edit?usp=sharing">Speed Dating Scorecard</a>. I let my students self select the tables they moved to first, but you could easily copy the scorecard sheet on different colors of paper to establish groups. If you need six groups, copy the scorecard onto six different colors of paper. Students find those with the same colored sheets to become a group. I let my students self-select their first table, and then they moved as a group to the next table.<br />
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On my projection screen, I show a classroom timer. Students have about five minutes to record notes about the genre at their table by looking at the "menu" cards and by perusing through the books and talking with their group members. In that time, they need to select one book on the table to "date." Then, I start the timer. Students have five minutes to flip through and read some sections of the book to figure out if they would like to "date" it further. At the close of five minutes when the timer goes off, students complete the ranking section and notes for their "date."<br />
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By the close of class, students will have delved into five genres and "dated" five books. In the following class days, I go over our independent book reading, how we log our pages, and how we will be completing book talks, all inspired by Penny Kittle's book <i><a href="http://booklovefoundation.org/">Book Love</a></i>. We return to our Speed Dating handout throughout the semester when we are looking for our next book to read.<br />
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If you do a similar activity with your students, I would love to learn from you! What works for you? How do you inspire independent reading in your classroom?Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-71759546833276297122017-04-03T10:47:00.002-04:002017-04-03T11:49:50.977-04:00Amplifying Student VoicesFor a few weeks now, Karter has been getting up earlier and earlier. He'll wake at 3 AM and drive 40 minutes to the farm. He's helping to transition the dairy cows to a different milking time. Every few days, they're moving the milking time back just a little more in order to transport the cows later in the month to a new farm. Dairy cows are very particular about when they are milked, and so a delicate, well-timed transition in milking times makes this move possible. Once the cows are moved, Karter's job on the farm will be over, and he'll have to look for a new job. He comes to journalism class after working a full morning on the farm.<br />
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Allen has been living on his own for the past two years. He's an emancipated minor. In Public Speaking class last week, he gave a moving speech about what it is like living on your own at seventeen. Contrary to how much his peers complain about their parents, he described the alternative as a lonely, sometimes dark place.<br />
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Sara has a one year old daughter who's blood recently tested high for lead contamination. They can't figure out where her daughter would have been exposed to lead. She's just received her third doctor's opinion and has missed 29 days of our journalism class.<br />
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I cannot count the number of students that I have sitting in my classroom who at one point in time have been in "the system" with Child Protective Services. "After you've been in 'the system'," Bethany says, "CPS follows you. They track you until you are 18, sometimes showing up at school to ask the same questions they did 10 years ago."<br />
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I have students working two or more jobs in order to help with their family's expenses. I have homeless students, orphaned students, sick students, students teetering on so many different precipices. I work in a Title 1 school with over 50 percent of my students receiving free and reduced lunch.<br />
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I work in a rural school.<br />
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In some ways, the students that I work with are no different than those that I worked with earlier in my career in a more affluent area outside of Philadelphia. Students want to be heard, valued, and understood. They all are struggling to understand their roles, identities, and purpose. Rural or urban, suburban or somewhere in between, adolescents everywhere want to know that their voice matters.<br />
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It is the particulars of their experiences that have power. But my students are so in the thick of their own stories that it is hard to see outside of them. They don't see themselves as unique, as having stories to tell. My students can tell you in great detail how to field dress a deer, how to restore a '57 Chevy truck, the best places to find refurbished auto parts, how to clip a goat's hooves, the best rivers to kayak, how to catch air snowboarding. But this is just what they do. "These are not stories," they tell me.<br />
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Until we start to unpack these experiences. Why did you chose to restore that old Chevy? Isaac tells us that it was sitting in the yard after his grandfather passed away. Together Isaac and his dad worked to bring it back to its former glory. Isaac tells us stories about what it is like to work side-by-side with his dad. He has these memories that tie him with the men in his family. His grandfather, his dad, and now Isaac have all worked on this machine; their histories are tied to this truck. It is by far, the most memorable vehicle in our student parking lot, shiny robin's egg blue with wooden rails lining the back bed. "It's road ready, but I wouldn't say it's road safe. Kinda like my grandfather," Isaac says. There's another story there just waiting to be shared, and you can hear it in his voice.<br />
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Opening up space for stories in our classrooms is powerful not only for the authors but for the community of learners in our classes. Stories are powerful when they are shared. I have watched stories transform my classroom community, whether we are <a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/2016/03/keepin-it-real.html" target="_blank">telling fictional stories </a>or sharing our <a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/2014/10/opening-up.html" target="_blank">personal truths</a>. Yet by the time I see them in my high school English classroom, so many of my students do not see the value of their stories. "I have nothing," is a chorus I often hear at the beginning of the semester after introducing the first writing prompt. My student writers shut down for so many different reasons. They have been told or shown that their stories do not matter, that their experiences are not valued. They do not readily trust my voice coaxing them to share. They do not see their words as having any power.<br />
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Until they do.<br />
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It takes a few weeks, sometimes longer, until the stories start of pour out. And then they flood our classroom. They change our classroom. They connect us. About a year ago, I started to look for resources outside of my school that might help to amplify my students' voices. I want my students to not only see the value of their words <i>inside</i> our classroom but how powerful they can be for a much wider audience <i>outside</i> the walls of our school. We work to publish our words on large platforms like <a href="http://www.teenink.com/" target="_blank">TeenInk</a> and <a href="http://www.figment.com/" target="_blank">Figment</a>, both fantastic resources for students interested in publication. However, they are large sites, featuring hundreds of new submissions daily. Stories change over quickly and can easily become lost. So, we started our own space.<br />
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After connecting virtually with an editor at <a href="http://www.teenink.com/" target="_blank">TeenInk</a> in December of 2016, a group of students and I started <a href="http://miteenwriters.com/" target="_blank">MIteen Writers</a>, an online and print literary magazine for teen writers in Michigan. We wanted to have a space to showcase the unique stories of writers from this state, to amplify the voices of mitten state teens.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The amazing MIteen Writers editorial board</td></tr>
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So, the editorial team sat down and brainstormed what we wanted to publish, how our site should look, and who we hoped would access our online space. Our conversation with the editor at TeenInk helped us think through how we should design our submission guidelines, how many pieces we should post, and how we select pieces for publication. We launched our website in December of 2016 and shared it with the directors of most of <a href="https://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/doc/findasite/completelist.csp" target="_blank">National Writing Project sites in Michigan</a>. Within the first week, we had poetry submissions from Grand Rapids, Cheboygan, Portage, Kingsley, and more. In fact, we were a bit unprepared for the number and quality of submissions that we received. As we started to get off the ground, we had to meet regularly and figure out a system for who would review which pieces and how quickly we could respond to submissions. Our biggest challenge was not in getting the site started or getting the word out, it was in answering each of the submissions. To be honest, we are still struggling to keep up with the number of submissions that we've received but this is a great challenge to have. It speaks to the need for such a space. Over the past two months, we've received so many fantastic stories, essays, photographs, and of course, poems, which makes up the bulk of our submissions. <br />
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We've heard from students in small schools in northern Michigan, schools with graduating classes of under 100 students. We've heard from students in the suburbs of Grand Rapids and from schools just outside of Detroit. Students write about their experiences, their particulars, about what connects us as Michigan writers. This great peninsula has so many stories to tell, stories of heartbreak and of joy, of harsh winters and sandy summers. Our stories matter. We're excited to have created a space to amplify the stories of our unique peninsula.<br />
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<br />Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-46313784444380209932017-03-11T12:41:00.003-05:002017-03-11T12:41:57.300-05:00Having PresenceI'm bummed. The last couple of mornings I have rolled out of bed with a headache and sinus pressure, my second big cold of the winter season. But this morning marks the first time that I've had to pass on what has become a Saturday morning ritual - community yoga.<br />
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Over the last six months or so I've been practicing yoga two, three, sometimes four times a week. I have my regular teachers at the local YMCA that I love, but I have also enjoyed community yoga, dropping in to take a class with a different studio nearly every Saturday. And here in Grand Rapids, also known as Beer City USA, I have fun attending yoga at different breweries. Last weekend, 104 of us took to our mats at Perrin Brewery. And this morning, I was planning to attend one of my monthly favorites, a yoga session at Founders Brewery with one of my favorite studios. I have the tickets. I was ready to go. But I woke up this morning feeling knocked down by this lingering cold.<br />
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I am someone who pushes myself, always looking ahead, planning for the next lesson, next unit, next event. Yoga has taught me to slow down, to be present for the present, attend to how I am feeling in the moment. So although I am bummed about not attending one of my favorite yoga sessions this morning, I also grateful and aware of just how practicing yoga has changed me.<br />
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Six months ago, I would have pushed myself and attended this morning's sweaty session, coughing and sputtering my way through, coming home tired, drained, and likely worse for wear. Instead, I recognized this morning that I needed to slow down, take an easy morning at home with my family to nurse my cold. And I am so glad I did. <br />
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This morning, my boys decided to dress in their suits for no particular reason. My eldest grabbed his recent library find and curled into a corner to read. My youngest announced proudly that he was dressing up in order to play a special session of Dungeons and Dragons with their dad. My eldest quickly agreed that this was the best idea his younger brother had ever had. The game is still going on. My boys are sprawled on the living room floor in front of the fireplace rolling die and talking about cobalts and hobgobblins. I love listening in on their conversations. They are building a world together, crafting stories. My youngest is drawing a map. My eldest is contemplating strategies. And I am grateful for this moment, for being present. <br />
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So often I find that I am rushing. Rushing to get to work, to pick up my children from school, to get to practice, or the store, or the bank, or the... But this rushing around creates so much tension, so much stress both for me and for those around me, my family and my students. I have learned through yoga to slow down, breath, and let the present be a present, a gift. Rushing around, being busy all the time, does so much more harm than good. Being present, having the presence of mind to slow down and be grateful for the moment I am in, takes practice.<br />
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I am reminded of a powerful video that <a href="https://twitter.com/spencerideas" target="_blank">John Spencer</a> animated about a year ago asking teachers, really asking all of us, to stop wearing busy like a badge of honor. <br />
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This morning I am grateful to have the presence of mind to be present.Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-30387150700575983872017-03-10T23:00:00.000-05:002017-03-11T09:41:37.155-05:00Lucky to Love School<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Wild winds whipped across the mitten state on Wednesday. By 10:30 in the morning, I had received a text message and email that my sons' elementary school was without power, but not to worry, everyone was safe. A few minutes later, my high school's lights flickered, and we were suddenly without power as well. A student handed me his cell phone. "My mom just texted me this. Apparently there's a portion of someone's roof in our front yard." The winds took off the roof of an elementary school in a neighboring county and left nearly a million people in Michigan without power, over 350,000 people in our area of West Michigan. Schools across our area were closed on Thursday due to the power outages, both mine and my sons' schools included.<br />
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By Thursday afternoon, many in the area had their power restored, including my home and my high school. However, Thursday evening a friend texted me that he didn't think our kids would be going to school on Friday either because the elementary school still did not have power. Friday morning, it turned out he was right when I received a text that once again the elementary school was closed. Time to make alternative childcare plans.<br />
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So my two young sons packed up their backpacks and headed to school with me this morning. My first grader and second grader have been to my classroom many times when the big kids were not there. They have helped me set up my room in the summer and lug books up to my room on breaks, but today was the first time that they were in my class when it was filled with high school students.<br />
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My student teacher and I start each one of our classes the same way with a daily check-in that we call Lo-Hi's, an opportunity to share a low that has been impacting us or a high that we want to celebrate. It is our way of learning more about what is happening in our students' lives outside the classroom as well as a way to build connections in our learning community. Students hear who needs support and who would like affirmations. Today, I shared that I was excited to have my two helpers in the class with me, and when students asked why my sons were in our classroom, my eldest would pipe up with an explanation of why their elementary school was closed. "Lucky!" my first period chorused. "Lucky!" my second period class murmured. "Luck..." my third period class started to say when my eight year old broke in.<br />
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"Why does everyone say that we're 'lucky' because our school is closed. It's not lucky. I like my school."<br />
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My third period class went quiet.<br />
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The same thing happened in my other classes throughout the day, and I could tell that both my sons were getting frustrated each time that my students said they were lucky to be out of school. In later classes, my youngest son joined in. "We missed book fair today and library time." <br />
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My boys love school. They love learning. They love their teachers and talk about all the funny and amazing things their teachers share with them. At one point during the afternoon, my boys were starting to get a little antsy and asked me to print out some "homework" for them. They wanted to be working on something like the high school students. They came home today excited. Over dinner, my eldest told me that he can't wait to be a high school student because it looks like fun.<br />
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Today reminded me of a quote by Sir Ken Robinson (who coincidentally will be in Michigan next week!): "All children start their school careers with sparkling imaginations, fertile minds, and a willingness to take risks with what they think." At what point in their academic careers do we educated students out this? Why do students start to say that they hate school.<br />
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I know that many of the students in my classes do not hate school. Some do. But I also know that for some of my students, school is the only place they can count on regular meals. School is where some of my students will find a supportive friend or teacher to comfort them through a difficult time. School is where some of my students will be challenged and told that they are capable of more than they give themselves credit. School is where some of my students are excited to be earning college credit or job training towards a career they are passionate about. For some of my students, school is the stable center of their lives. And yet, even these students chime in with "lucky." It has become part of our culture to hate school, specifically high school. <br />
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So how do we change this? How do we change the dominate narrative that school is a place we are l<i>ucky</i> to get out of, <i>lucky</i> to have an unexpected day away from, <i>lucky</i> to leave behind? I know there are no easy answers. My students' responses today are developmentally appropriate. By the time they are seniors, we want our students to think of themselves as confident, self-sufficient members of our community. They are ready to move on. They want to move on. This is what teachers want to hear. But I also heard in my students' chorus of "lucky!" that school is not a place they value. This breaks my heart. I don't want my students to hate school. I don't want my sons to learn that school is something to be hated. How do I create a classroom culture where students feel lucky to love school?Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-27860898849101772452017-03-08T10:53:00.001-05:002017-03-08T10:57:02.115-05:00Why My Words Matter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've fallen off the blogging wagon. This month I am participating in the <a href="https://twowritingteachers.org/" target="_blank">Two Writing Teachers</a> <a href="https://twowritingteachers.org/2017/03/08/day-8-sol17/" target="_blank">Slice of Life blogging challenge</a>. Each day during the month of March, participating students and teacher bloggers are sharing a slice of their daily life, writing a small moment to share with readers. I have been so impressed reading the daily posts from educators and especially from students. There are multiple classrooms - high school, middle school, even some elementary school students - who have written, posted, and responded to others every single day so far.<br />
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I have failed.<br />
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But here's the thing. I am okay with that. <br />
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There was a time when every misstep, every shortcoming, every time I fell short of my goal, I would spiral into an anxious little mess. Self-deprecating comments easily came to my lips, and I would let the mantra of "good enough is not good enough" loop like an earworm through my brain.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flickr image by Pierre Metivier</td></tr>
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And then I started to see this type of thinking replicated in my high school students. Not all that long ago, I heard my six year old son call himself "stupid" under his breath when I corrected him on a math problem he was working on at home. I watch my young sons and my students fall into the same thinking traps that I do. I watch them let a missed answer, a missed grade, a missed honor snowball into a global sense of failure. <br />
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It took time for me to recognize how my own words and actions might be framing the thoughts and actions of the young people I work with. How can I inspire and encourage resilience if I continue to be so critical of myself?<br />
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I had this same conversation with my student teacher just the other day. She is an amazingly talented undergraduate who is working hard to take over my multiple preps and get to know my 150+ students. Having just finished our first unit in our honors tenth grade English classes, which she designed, she is in the midst of grading 57 elaborate multi-genre projects. I hear her make fun of herself in front of the class when students ask if they are graded. It is something that many of us do. It is good not to take yourself to seriously. However, I have learned that if you vocalize more self-critical comments than positive ones, it does impact how others interact with you. We have talked about how to frame the instructions she gives in the classroom, how words really do matter. Even in seemingly simply, seemingly benign situations, how we choose to use our words can frame how those around us interact with one another.<br />
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I have been accused of being overly enthusiastic, positive to the point of being Pollyanna-ish. But here's the thing: I would rather my students, the world, view me as a positive force of good rather than a pessimistic, self-critical complainer. If I want my students to view themselves as positive forces of change, then I need to view myself as one, too. If I want my students to talk about themselves as strong, empowered, resilient learners, then I need to provide them opportunities to use language to reflect on how they have made changes and learned from mistakes. If I want my students to succeed, I must be an example of how to make mistakes, acknowledge failure, and move on.<br />
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In January, I bought myself a gift, a bracelet engraved with a quote from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." I wear it every day as a reminder that I am resilient, that I am enough.<br />
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"I exist as I am. That is enough."</blockquote>
Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-4190214016823357252017-03-03T13:04:00.000-05:002017-03-06T13:26:58.236-05:00Interviewing History<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I love how chatty they are when they come back into the common area at Green Acres Assisted Living facility. My Public Speaking students planned and prepared throughout our week together for this interview and have just finished recording their interactions with the residents of our local retirement facility. Working in partners, they prepared questions to learn more about the childhoods of our local senior citizens. Then, my students used the <a href="http://storycorps.me/" target="_blank">StoryCorps app</a> to record their interviews. And now that their interviews are complete, they can't stop chatting about all they have learned.<br />
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<i>"Did you hear that they have been married for 73 years?"</i><br />
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<i>"Her husband died just a year after they were married."</i><br />
<i><br />"Her family's home burnt to the ground and her brothers, sisters, and parents all living together in a tent until they could afford to rebuild their home."</i><br />
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<i>"He lived through the Great Depression."</i><br />
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<i>"Did you see all the World War II medals he had."</i><br />
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It was easy to see they were nervous when we first entered through the double doors of the facility. They chatted nervously with their partners, a bit apprehensive. But 20 minutes later as they emerged from their interviews, students could not wait to share all the surprising connections and stories they had heard. My high school students were excited to share the stories they had heard.<br />
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"Ms. Ward, I'm sorry we're late. But when she mentioned that she had lived through the Great Depression, I just wanted to hear more, so I asked her a few more questions and lost track of time."<br />
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My students wanted to sit with our elderly residents and learn.<br />
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This is the value of connecting our local community to what is happening in our schools. We learn with one another, from one another. This is what school should be.<br />
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<i><b>You can hear some of the stories that we've collected over the past year by rolling over the image below and clicking on the individual interviews you'd like to hear.</b></i><br />
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<iframe width="650" height="325" src="//www.thinglink.com/card/759000739195387904" type="text/html" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen scrolling="no"></iframe>Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-85993861451985199212017-03-02T21:10:00.003-05:002017-03-02T21:10:58.990-05:00Mad About Books<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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By 8:00 this morning, already 30 students and staff had voted, and our poll had only been open for 15 minutes. There is a buzz about books in our building. Even the principal popped by to chat with me about books at the close of first hour. "Have your read <i>Unbroken</i>? So powerful!"<br />
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This is the third year I have organized a <a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/search?q=march+book+madness" target="_blank">March Book Madness </a>bracket for high school students and staff. During the month of February, I sent out a Google form survey for all our students and staff to share their favorite books. This year, we received over 140 suggestions. The books that were recommended more than once made it onto our final bracket. And then yesterday, March 1, our voting kicked off.<br />
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A large poster went up in the hallway outside my door to display the contending books and let our community know how to get in on the voting. Our first day of voting, a choice between <i>Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone</i> and <i>Paper Towns</i>, was an easy choice for our community. We are not a group of muggles at Ionia High. We're into some serious book magic. Harry won easily among the 36 students and staff that voted. And then we got to draw a name from those that voted to win a signed copy of Austin Kleon's <i>Steal Like an Artist</i>. The winner? A special education teacher in our building.<br />
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And I think that's where the buzz began. Because by the close of first period this morning, I had already surpassed the number of voters from the day before. Students and staff passed me in the hallway and tapped me to ask, "So you're really giving away signed books?"<br />
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Yup.<br />
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We connected with <a href="http://jayasher.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Jay Asher</a> online who is sending us some books. And <a href="http://rutasepetys.com/" target="_blank">Ruta Sepetys</a> is signing books for us. And <a href="http://www.ernestcline.com/" target="_blank">Ernest Cline</a>. And <a href="http://www.tiffanyschmidt.com/" target="_blank">Tiffany Schmidt</a>. How? Twitter! How have we built book buzz? Twitter! I've been tweeting authors from my classroom account to ask if I can send them books to sign for our giveaway. When they've responded, I've read them aloud in class. Students start talking about authors. About books. And then they've joined in, talking about authors and books online and in class. We created a hashtag to talk about books online - #IoniaReads<br />
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So by the close of today, we were mad about books. It seems quite fitting since today turned out to be World Book Day!Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-53644652204962982962017-03-01T16:03:00.003-05:002017-03-01T16:03:47.422-05:00The Connection between Innovation and Ignorance<br />
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It's the first day of March, and in addition to being the start of our <a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/search?q=march+book+madness" target="_blank">March Book Madness challenge</a>, it also marks the start of the month long blogging challenge hosted by <a href="https://twowritingteachers.org/" target="_blank">Two Writing Teachers</a>. <a href="https://twowritingteachers.org/2017/03/01/day-1-sol17/" target="_blank">The Slice of Life (#sol17) blogging challenge</a> is in its tenth year and invites bloggers of all ages to <a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/2016/03/slice-of-life-blogging-challenge.html" target="_blank">share a small slice of their day</a>. Why a small slice? As author and educator Ralph Fletcher writes, "The bigger the issue, the smaller you write," with the idea being that our voice becomes clear when we focus on a unique, peculiar detail. "Put forth the raw evidence, and trust that the reader will understand exactly what you are getting at."<br />
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In the midst of my second hour class, my tenth grade students working to peer revise their multi-genre writing projects, I received "the call." You know, the one that every parent dreads. My son's elementary school was calling to let me know that he was sick at school. And so the scramble began to find subs and make arrangements to go pick him up.<br />
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That's how I found myself snuggled next to him near the fireplace watching TED talks this afternoon when we both should have been sitting in our respective classrooms. He would pick a talk, and then I would. I selected Sisonke Msimang's talk titled "<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/sisonke_msimang_if_a_story_moves_you_act_on_it" target="_blank">If a story moves you, act on it</a>," and my son picked Sam Kass's "<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/sisonke_msimang_if_a_story_moves_you_act_on_it" target="_blank">Want kids to learn well? Feed them well</a>." As we scrolled through the TED site, my son saw the picture and title for Alejandro Sanchez Alvarado's talk titled "<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/alejandro_sanchez_alvarado_to_solve_old_problems_study_new_species" target="_blank">To solve old problems, study new species</a>." <i>Mom, we have to watch this one! What is that even a picture of?! </i>And by the time we got just a few minutes into the talk both of us were hooked, especially when Alvarado declares: "...if you don't feel like a complete idiot most of the time, you're just not sciencing hard enough."<br />
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Alvarado calls his audience to run toward ignorance: "We actually need to bring all of our intelligence to becoming stupid again - clueless before the immensity of the unknown. Because after all, science is not really about knowledge. Science is about ignorance. That's what we do." Both my son and I loved this. His warm head resting on my arm, my son whispered, "We have to be detectives." And he's right. <br />
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Alejandro Sanchez Alcarado ends his speech saying, "We scientists need to teach our students to long for the endless immensity of the sea that is our ignorance." I couldn't agree more. Innovation will emerge from our ignorance. We must teach our students to be comfortable with the unknown, to dwell in it, to question it, and propose interpretations and solutions. Innovation comes from inquiry into our own ignorance. Our students need more opportunities to develop their own lines of inquiry, and this means that teachers must be comfortable with being uncomfortable, with not having all the answers. Because, to adapt the old adage, if we teach as we have always taught, students will only ever learn what they have always learned. That is not innovation. That is just tradition.<br />
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We, students and teachers, need to recognize the potential that lies in our own ignorance. It is our opportunity for innovation.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" mozallowfullscreen="" scrolling="no" src="https://embed.ted.com/talks/alejandro_sanchez_alvarado_to_solve_old_problems_study_new_species" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="640"></iframe>Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-88080711598229418732017-01-30T10:35:00.001-05:002017-01-30T12:57:40.703-05:00Why Project Based Learning?Regular readers will recognize that I'm relatively new to the Project-Based Learning (PBL) method of inquiry outlined by <a href="http://bie.org/" target="_blank">BIE</a>, but not new to the approach. Looking back on the <a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/2008/01/research-matters-or-making-research.html" target="_blank">Cultures Projects</a> my high school students completed nearly a decade ago when I asked them to research an issue currently facing a non-western culture, do something to help that issue by connecting with organizations working on it, and then present their research to our school community, I can see clear connections to the PBL approach in my earlier curriculum designs. Whether you call it project-based learning, authentic assessment, passion-driven inquiry, connected learning, or flipped learning - all of these approaches circle back to the idea that students are at the center of their learning. Students need choice in their inquiry topics and voice in how to share their work with a real audience. Voice. Choice. Purpose. These are the cornerstones of the project-based approach.<br />
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I have had the opportunity the past couple months to teach the PBL approach alongside my principal to interested teachers in my building during our faculty meeting time. We've crafted driving questions, discussed group dynamics, and brainstormed community connections for our authentic audiences. A number of teachers are getting ready to try their first PBL designed unit in the coming weeks. Excitement and anxiety are swirling. And not just for our teachers. This is not only a new approach for teachers in our building, but it is an entirely new approach for our students as well.<br />
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In anticipation of sharing the PBL approach with my colleagues, I designed a <a href="http://www.jenniferward.org/2016/12/getting-our-hands-on-nature.html" target="_blank">mini-PBL project</a> for my tenth grade honors students as an example of what the PBL process looks like in action. In November, my students and I took a hike, circling around our school, wading through milkweed meadows and climbing pine trees. Why? For our unit on texts focused on the theme of "The Natural World." We were looking for inspiration. Students read works by Barbara Kingsolver, Emma Marris, Walt Whitman, and more. We used our texts as mentors to guide our thinking and inquiry. And then I presented our driving question: "What is a local environmental issue that you can address?" We used our nature walks as inspiration to look carefully at what was impacting our local environment. We noticed butterflies and bees, trees and bats, garbage and water pollution. So we had to do something to help.<br />
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Why project-based learning? Here's why:<br />
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And, here's why:<br />
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Students have real purpose and real audiences for the research they took on. My students taught elementary school students, interviewed hunters, built beehives, made posters to stop littering and promote recycling, tested our drinking water quality, and so much more.<br />
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This is what learning should look like.Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-85391123113831978432017-01-12T11:14:00.001-05:002017-01-12T20:48:45.237-05:00One Word for 2017: RESONATEAt the start of the new year, even though school was not yet back in session, my student editors and I kicked off our literary magazine. But this is not your ordinary school literary magazine. Instead, we were inspired to start a state-wide online and published magazine to showcase teen poets, writers, essayists, and artists in our great Mitten State. We call ourselves <a href="http://miteenwriters.org/" target="_blank">MIteen Writers</a>. And to inspire the many writers in our state, we started an <a href="http://instagram.com/MIteenwriters" target="_blank">Instagram account to share daily writing prompts</a>.<br />
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<b>Our first prompt:</b></div>
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For the first day of the new year, let's start with just one word. Grab your notebook and brainstorm a list of touchstone words. Which will you select to be your #oneword for 2017? Your one word should serve as an inspiration, a reminder, as a call to action for your year.
Share your word below, or better yet, snap a pic of your brainstorm and word selection. We can't wait to see what your #wordfor2017 will be!</blockquote>
When our classes resumed last week, I brought this prompt into my high school classroom. Unlike last year, when I had the students brainstorm in their notebooks and then share their one word on a sticky note tacked to the cabinets in my classroom, this year I had my students add their one word to an index card. Why the change? Because last year their touchstone words lived in my room. And they lived in my room for only a portion of 2016. Come June, our words were stripped from the walls and tossed into the trash in order to ready the room for a new batch of students in the fall. For a word, a resolution, or a mantra to have power, it must be present. It must be ubiquitous. <br />
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So this year, we added our words to index cards. We decorated our cards, shared them in a gallery walk around the room, and then we tucked them away. Some students stuffed theirs into the folds of their wallet or the front pouch of their backpack. Others asked for tape to add theirs to the inside door of their locker. Still others planned to tape theirs to the mirror at home, pin it to the wall near their bed. <br />
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Mine - "grow" - stayed tucked in my writer's notebook for a few days. I had made my list, just like I asked my students to do, and selected my word. But I knew something wasn't ringing true. It didn't feel like my word quite fit. It was headed in the right direction, but it wasn't a perfect fit.<br />
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It wasn't until this past Sunday afternoon, when the yoga instructor at the Y asked us to set our intention for our afternoon practice that I figured out what it was. Sitting cross-legged on my mat, she asked us to let our intention rise as one word inside us. <i>Let it resonate.</i><br />
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And that was it. That's my word.<br />
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<b>Resonate.</b><br />
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<i>Grow</i> was on the right track. I wanted a word for 2017 that moved me into new spaces, into innovation. But my hope for 2017 isn't that I grab for a wild variety of ideas and watch them grow, hope they grow. Instead, I needed a touchstone word that called for me to be intentional, to have vision, to ensure that my actions resonated with my priorities and that priorities resonated with how I was spending my time and energy.<br />
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<b>Resonate.</b><br />
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It is a word that calls me to reflect on how I am helping my students' voices resonate in our world.<br />
It is a word that asks to me pause, to consider what I am asking of others, what I am asking of myself.<br />
It is a word that inspires me act with empathy, with compassion.<br />
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"Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of others. When we meet someone who is joyful, we smile. When we witness someone in pain, we suffer in resonance with his or her suffering." - Matthieu Ricard</blockquote>
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Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1339910176549966696.post-43172715238987479692016-12-08T11:30:00.000-05:002017-01-09T20:56:59.795-05:00Getting our Hands on Nature<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/emma_marris_nature_is_everywhere_we_just_need_to_look_for_it?language=en" target="_blank">Emma Marris's recent TED Summit talk</a> has me dipping back into Richard Louv's <i><a href="http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/" target="_blank"><span id="goog_1819413475"></span>The Last Child<span id="goog_1819413476"></span> in the Woods</a></i>. I remember reading and connecting with Richard Louv as part of my summer institute experience with the <a href="http://www.pawlp.org/" target="_blank">Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project</a>. His book, asking how we can foster our future environmental stewards, remains vivid for me. Examples shared in his book of running through the woods as youngsters, imagination hand-in-hand with a do-it-yourself creativity, creating forts and capturing frogs, perfectly capture my childhood.<br />
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Back in June, I had the good fortunate of sitting just nine rows from the front of the stage to see <a href="http://emmamarris.com/" target="_blank">Emma Marris</a> share her talk in Banff, Alberta, at the <a href="https://tedsummit2016.ted.com/" target="_blank">TED Summit</a>. I scribbled furiously in my notebook as she presented. And there was this moment toward the close of her speech in which she mentioned the wild space growing on an abandoned rail trestle above the streets of north Philadelphia when it all clicked together. <br />
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I know this space. I have driven by it without thinking of it many times. You can see it when you are riding the Media - West Trenton train (although I still think of it as the R3 line). What Marris highlighted in her speech was the juxtaposition of all the life found in this abandoned space as compared to the concrete school playground that abuts the trestle. And this got me thinking about my own students in rural mid-Michigan. <br />
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My students have a different awareness of nature compared to those students I taught in the suburbs of Philadelphia. And yet, it is not quite as different as you might imagine. Yes, the winters here are much more harsh. My Michigan students are quite used to temperatures that dip below freezing and wind gusts that make it nearly impossible to see the road as a result of drifting snow. Some of my students live on farms. In fact, there is a small farm on the campus of my school. Students learn to cut the hooves of their goats, care for piglets, and even castrate the animals. Many of my students are hunters or have family members that are. A good number of my students, boys and girls, know how to field dress a deer. Teaching in the suburbs of Philadelphia for thirteen years, I know that I can count on one hand the number of students that had even heard of the term "field-dress".<br />
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But here's the thing. When I started my second unit with my current tenth grade students just a few weeks back, a unit focused on our relationship to nature, very few of my students reported spending a regular amount of time in nature on a weekly basis. I asked students to think about how much time each week they spent in nature. The response was overwhelmingly, "Each week? I'm not in nature each week." But here's the thing. They are. For as much time as my students report spending on homework, sports, video games, binge watching Netflix, they are also outside. They are hunting on the weekends, waiting for the bus, practicing on the soccer field, running each afternoon on the country roads near their home. My students defined spending time in nature as time that a person went hiking or visited the state recreational area near our school. Nature was something that a person went to visit, not something found in our backyards. And my guess is that this is also true for how my previous students in the Philadelphia area would define nature.<br />
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This is the point that Emma Marris made in her TED Talk!<br />
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So as we started our second unit of study, we needed to get hands on with the nature around us. And that started with a number of trips outside. We walked through the milkweed meadow across from our school. We played with the goats in the barn. We grabbed our writer's notebooks and went outside, exploring the impact our school structures made on the local environment. Rather than focusing on dissecting the literary elements of the texts included in our unit's study, we opted to use our readings as mentor texts meant to help us explore our driving question: what is a local environmental issue that I can address? We turned our unit on the nature around us into a project-based learning opportunity that culminated in authentic research and local action. <br />
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It's research week for us, and we've been getting hands on with our research! On Wednesday, our tenth graders used a Google Hangout to learn from Ms. Ondrea Spychalski, the Water Projects Coordinator at the <a data-cke-saved-href="https://wmeac.org/" href="https://wmeac.org/">West Michigan Environmental Action Council</a>. Then on Thursday, we used a Hangout to learn from <a data-cke-saved-href="http://emmamarris.com" href="http://emmamarris.com/">Ms. Emma Marris</a> (check out the videos below). Students also interviewed staff and volunteers at Ionia's animal shelter on Thursday as they volunteered their time. On Friday, we have a crew of students cleaning the vacant lot in town across from our McDonalds, teaching Rather Elementary students about trees and bees, and we have a group canvasing local businesses about their recycling habits. We are learning hands-on!<br />
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<b>Connecting with Ms. Ondrea Spychalski from the West Michigan Environmental Action Council</b><br />
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<b>Connecting with Emma Marris</b><br />
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Jennifer Wardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01459363843692965338noreply@blogger.com0