Middle Sex

So today I brought in those 33 copies of LEO for the class. And of course the children promptly all turned to the classified ads for "GayMates" in the back. Of course. Why would I have thought of that? And this just after a lesson on homophones where I made them break down the word to its roots to understand that "homo-phone" means "same-sound." Let your imagination carry you to the giggles and little comments I had to calmly redirect period after period that day.

Aside from the rife homophobia I find within this demographic (though, I should note, the occasional student does stand up for gay rights when other students make hateful comments, and for a twelve/thirteen year old, especially with such a minority and controversial opinion, that's impressive to say the least), there's a very normal discomfort/curiosity about sex in general. Naturally, I don't feel comfortable discussing the subject, but I really feel someone should be talking to these kids. I wouldn't mind teaching sex education, to my girls anyway, within a structured protocol, divorced of all religious affiliation, open and honest.

I'm not trying to undermine a parent's role, but what about the kids whose parents don't talk to them about sex? Since I've been teaching I've known of at least four girls at my school who have gotten pregnant before high school. I also heard one eighth grade girl say to a teacher, who said she was planning to have a baby in a few years: "Plan to have a baby? What you mean plan to have a baby? You can't plan it!"

I don't know if the lack of sex ed in my school is the result of a state, district or school policy. I do know that religion still influences the law in Kentucky to such an extent that you can't buy alcohol before two on Sunday. And I know that far too many of my girls have wound up with children before they themselves are adults.

I may be biased, but I think education is the obvious answer.

Writing Territories

Nancie Atwell teaches her students that adults write for a variety of reasons. In her book In The Middle, she identifies various topics, audiences and forms as her "Writing Territories." This week, I also plan to share my own writing territories with my students to demonstrate that writing is a life-long skill.

I'll share with my students my published poems, short stories and all of my rejections. I show them that just because you're turned down, you shouldn't give up submitting work for publication. I'll also share with them the letter to the editor I had published this week in LEO Weekly, the local "alternative" periodical. The article I wrote in response to was about school busing, and we'll read the original article before my letter. I'll then have them write in response to the issue, and we'll begin practicing persuasive writing techniques, clear articulation, focused paragraphs and idea development. I'll allow the students time to share their opinions in base groups or with the whole class, depending on time, and continue building our community of writers.

I'll then have my students make lists of their own "Writing Territories" in the Journal section of their binders. They'll be able to turn to these lists whenever they're having bouts of writer's block throughout the school year.

Nancie Atwell's best practice writing instruction will improve any classroom - Title I or otherwise. Combined with lessons in code-switching and a structured management system, her lessons and philosophies work well in a classroom such as mine, where students long to have choice, ownership over their writing and an ability make their voices heard as they intended. A friend sent me the following link to a Times article about Atwell today. Enjoy! http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/books/30reading.html

Make-up Work System

On any given day, five to ten of my students will be absent. My school has an attendance incentive in place - be at school, on time, every day for a week, and wear jeans (instead of uniform pants) on Friday. Still, absenteeism, and sometimes truancy, remains a problem.


Because I can't keep up with all the students who are absent, and I don't want to take class time away from my other students to catch them up, I designed a student-run make-up work system. I used a hot glue gun to attach five folders to the wall in the back of the room (Monday through Thursday, and Last Week.) I also attached a small white board above it. Every afternoon, I put any hand-outs or work sheets in the pocket folders, and write important notes about the lesson on the white board. Students are then responsible for going to the make-up work folder, getting what they need and asking their group members for help in completing the assignments.


There is another folder in the back of the room to turn in made-up assignments. I accept late work at any time during the grading period, although I don't necessarily give full credit. My policy is 10% a day, not including 2 extra days for excused absences. Also, if a student has a family crisis of some kind and cannot complete an assignment on time, I tell them to come explain the situation to me and we may be able to work out an extension, depending on the circumstances (i.e., baseball practice is not an excuse for late work.)


Because so many of my students are "at risk" for dropping out of high school or failing their freshman years, I think it's crucial to teach them responsibility by means of working with them rather than against them. Have a rigid policy that doesn't allow for make-up work or late work sets kids who may have difficult home lives up for failure. Many of my students care for younger siblings or family members while their parents or guardians are working late to make ends meet. Are they necessarily "irresponsible" if they don't get their homework done? No, but they do need to learn how to balance their responsibilities. Teaching in a school like mine may mean teaching life skills, such as prioritizing and multi-tasking, in addition to literacy and writing instruction. Compassion is also critical for teaching students to be successful.

Less is More

As I'm grading their homophone tables, I have to practice strict self-discipline: correct no grammar or spelling other than the homophones we've learned.

For example, Lisa writes, "There is too many people here." Her answer is correct and goes unmarked because she used the correct "there" and the correct "too." If I were to mark her paper for subject-verb agreement (which we haven't learned, yet), she could possibly be either overwhelmed or discouraged and less likely to learn the grammar rule later.

It is especially careful to be use "the red ink" sparingly in the Title I classroom, where many students' home languages differ from the formal "Standard" English we teachers need to teach them to be successful in higher education or the work place. Lisa, for example, is a native Spanish speaker, and many of my other students speak in English grammars that are specific to African Americans or lower SES (socio-economic status) Southern whites.

I always have to bear in mind my specific objectives: this lesson was to teach them how to differentiate between homophones and spell them correctly. They know the perimeters, and in order to keep them safe and on board, I need to stay working within them.

Homophones

My students this year seem to be slightly more immature than in past years; also more innocent. I love Elijah's fascination with sharks, and the way Dakota swings his legs under the desk, and how eager they all are to please me. (I do not, however, love when they can't focus for the bathroom noises LeMorris is making in his armpit, or when I have to repeat the same directions - not exaggerating - seven times because they're never all listening at once.)

I recognized their lower collective maturity level immediately, but I did not know what this would mean for lesson planning and instruction. In past years, my students were able to follow a grammar lesson of direct instruction, and copy notes from either the board or my projector - nothing extensive or elaborate, just a T-chart with different homophones and their definitions on either side.

But not this year.

On Tuesday, when I taught the lesson, I never had them all at the same time. I understand kids this age need to move - and they were squirming - but in the past they've been able to handle one day of direct instruction (with discussion of course) when they needed it. In this case, they needed that basic low-level knowledge: they just needed to identify and define the homophones before we could go on.

Needless to say, I was dissatisfied with the lesson. Today I followed it with a lesson on homophones much more appropriate for this group and their needs. I created a two-column table in Microsoft Word with the homophones I had seen misspelled in their letters in rows. I left enough space for them to define/use the homophones in sentences. First, they worked alone to see how much they remembered. After a few minutes, I paired them and had them work through the rest together, and discuss the answers they already had to be sure they agreed.

When they were finished, they edited their letters together to see if they had any misspelled homophones in their writing.

They all did a fabulous job. Expectations were clear, and with the team-wide implementation of the CARE program, I had very few who took issue with with whom they had to work. A brief pep-talk about respect and the fact that they didn't have to be best friends with their partner, just able to figure out the answers helped the few who needed extra prompting. As students finished early, I had them read their individual reading books silently, and those who didn't finish editing the letter were assigned it for homework.

The Context Timeline

Each year I find my students' gaps in historical perspective astounding. They're frequently interested in Black History, and we often read poems by authors such as Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Sorjourna Truth and the speeches and letters of Dr. King. Yet, it's rare that a student can tell me when (approximately) slavery ended, or when and why segregation ended, or how the two relate. This year, when asked, "Who knows anything about the Civil Rights Movement?" One student raised his hand and said, "When they dumped the tea into the harbor?"

It is important that my students understand the historical context within which these - and other works of different historical significance - were written. Not only that, but it is important to understand the historical distance between various time periods from each other and from the present. I have the "Context Timeline" running along the back wall near the ceiling. As we read works that are either set in a particular historical period, or that were written within a particular historical period of significance, we'll hang these colored index cards on the timeline to put an order to history.

Incidentally, it's also a good springboard for mini-lessons on why the 18th century isn't the 1800s, the more inclusive purpose for using C.E. and B.C.E., and the youth of our nation. While I know I don't teach social studies, I think it's important for teachers to cross curricula whenever they can.

Student Letters

As I'm reading the letters my students wrote me in response, I'm recording each individual students strengths and weaknesses, but mostly focusing on where they are deficient. This inventory will direct my lesson planning over the next unit. I plan to introduce code-switching this week, and begin mechanics instruction with a lesson on homophones. We'll make a list of homophones (and other commonly confused words) and keep these in the "Wonderful Words" section of our binders. Some of the most comonly confused have been "then" and "than" and "your" and "you're."

Many of my students have also requested group work in their letters. As I continued to read an idea struck me: I want to organize a differentiated mechanics lesson, so that students are heterogeneously grouped in regards to their mechanics skills. That is, Kobe* who's demonstrates knowledge of apostrophe use but doesn't write in complete sentences could work with Destinie who isn't using apostrophes, but uses commas and periods appropriately. I would assign one to teach the other their respective strengths. I'm not sure it would work in partners though, so what I think I'll do is have students lead small groups and then remix for each skill. I'll be sure to have every student in the role of student-teacher at some point. A lot of work on the front end for me, but I think it will be worth it.

In addition to being informative, many of the letters are moving and inspirational. Here's my favorite letter so far; an honest critique of writing instruction from a student's perspective. (I'm including it unedited.)

Dear Mrs Yost:

Waz up, as you already know my name is D'ajawna. Im a pretty laid back, happy go lucky person. I'm not saying I dont care for school because I do. I want to be something in life. I'm just saying I want to make excellent grades and get out of school. And just have fun doing it.

I also like reading and writing just as much as you. I really love urban books and a selected few. I just like how some books are so detailed you can see it in your mind. Also I think writing is in my blood because my mother is a poet and a really good one. So I think me growing up and seeing her passion for writing inspired me to become a great writer just like her, but I get writers block ALOT, and thats what slows me down.

I remember when I was in fifth grade I had wrote a poem called My Mother's Daughter but my teacher edited it as she would say, and she cut out real heartspoken words and she basically ruined my poem, so when I read it over it didn't even look like my poem. I didn't want to write anything else for her class.

D'ajawna Larson

*All the names of my students are changed to protect their privacy.

Classroom Library

For the past five years, I've scavenged yard sales, retiring teachers' classrooms, library closeouts and used book stores to build up my extensive classroom library of young adult literature. I also invite my students to donate books they've read to the library for my future students, and award them extra credit points for doing so.

I have a library sign-out sheet, hanging on a clipboard on the peg board where I keep my clipboards for each class. There the students write their names, the book title, and the date as they check out their books. They can then take the books home with them until they're finished. Because I require them to read for at least 30 minutes each night and record their reading on a "reading log," these books prevent students from making the excuse "I didn't have anything to read."

The shelves are stocked with a diverse array of titles and authors, from what I consider "classic" children's/young adult literature to more recent works. I buy and shelve any book that will keep my students' attention - so long as they're school appropriate. I learned the hard way that I must carefully police what my students donate. Two years ago a student brought in books from his mother's bookshelf. While they were popular among my students, I got into a bit of hot water when an angry father called to complain the book his daughter was reading contained inappropriate adult material. *Oops!*

I've never been one for censorship, but I've also never been one to overstep a parent's wishes for his or her child. Since then, I've gathered up any books that a parent may find controversial, but which still hold literary value and may capture my students' interests, shelved them on my professional bookshelf behind my desk; I now require a parent permission slip for those books to be signed out.

Clipboard System

In order to stay organized and manage behavior simultaneously, I have a clipboard system in place. Each class period has a clipboard with the class' roster and space to write for each day of the week. (I just made a table in Microsoft Word.) I keep attendance on these rosters, keep track of participation grades, and record student behaviors or academic struggles. It's great to have it all right in front of me for parent-teacher conferences, and the students - who have an opportunity to regain participation points for corrected behavior - frequently ask what their participation grade is for the week. I keep the boards organized and out of the way on a pegboard I got at a home improvement store.

Word Wall

This is my new take on an old favorite: the Word Wall. Near the ceiling I post language arts vocabulary words (memoir, sensory details, metaphor, etc.), but there are also three bulletin boards below it devoted to powerful words to enhance student writing. We have "spicy adjectives," "precise nouns" and "sizzling verbs." The students find the words in their reading or peer's writing, or I find them in their writing and ask them to post them on the wall. The words are then added to the "Wonderful Words" section of their binders. This year, with JCPS's implementation of the CARE for Kids program, we'll do "jazz hands" every time a student uses one of these powerful words.

Classroom Set Up - Part I

My classroom set up has not changed much from last year to this year. I have two goals in how I arrange my classroom: one, I want my students to be able to use every square inch of the walls as a resource to further their independence and critical literacy skills, and two, I want the classroom space to run its own systems in the most effective, efficient way possible.


These are some photos from around my room. I have the steps of the writing process above the computers to remind the students of the most common steps to creating a piece of writing. As we read Ralph Fletcher's How Writers Work, I'm constantly referring to these steps - physically and verbally - so that the students begin to put them into practice, consciously.



I organize my board so that the students always know what to expect from each day. I have the date at the top, the "sponge" (activity they must complete when they first come into my room), objectives (more for my administrators than my students), the daily agenda for both literacy (reading) and language arts (writing), the plan of the week for both classes, the "exit slip" (closure activity the students must complete at the end of the day's lesson), and reminders about homework, etc.




I have my students keep binders in my room to stay organized. In the binders we have three tabs: "wonderful words" (vocabulary and spelling), "grammar/notes," and "journal." They keep their binders in separate bins for each period. Binder clerks, assigned every three weeks, pass out the binders at the beginning of class.

Working folders are kept in the white drawers, and they hold student drafts as they move through the writing process.

Letter of Introduction

This week was mostly general house-keeping and drills to ensure classroom management (how do we walk/talk in the hall; how do we enter class; how do we start class; how do we exit the classroom; how do we get a pencil; etc., etc.) Still, I managed to get my introductory lesson in, which is a letter I wrote to my students:

August 17, 2009

--------- Middle School
-----------------
Louisville, KY -----



Dear 2009-10 T.T. Knight Seventh Graders:

Welcome aboard! I’m very pleased to introduce myself to you as your new language arts teacher for the upcoming school year. I know you’re probably wondering who I am – if I’m nice or mean, lax or strict, fair or unfair and if I’ll be able to make learning fun. Hopefully, as we get to know one another, you’ll see that I’m going to work hard to be the best teacher I can be – and ask that you’ll work just as hard at being the best students you can be.

First and foremost: I love to read and write. The whole reason why I became a language arts teacher is because I am absolutely crazy about the written word. I find that language can unlock doors to the soul; it can unite us in a common humanity with people we’ve never even met before. Books, magazines, websites and the newspaper can take us places we’ve never been. Through reading whole worlds are opened up and the imagination is set ablaze with new creative ideas. That’s also what I love most about writing: you can let your imagination run like a wild fire. When I am able to express myself clearly through writing, I feel like a heavy weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Writing is a great stress reliever once you feel confident enough to do it regularly.

When I was your age I wrote in a diary and hid it all over my house. My step-sister, Suzie, and I used to make a game out of trying to find each other’s diaries. One time she found mine and used it to blackmail me; I had to buy her ten dollars worth of candy to get it back. My favorite books at that time were The Diary of Anne Frank, Johnny Tremain, The Pigman, The Outsiders, and anything by Roald Dahl or Laura Ingles Wilder. I also liked books by Christopher Pike. Since then I’ve read more young adult fiction, and I really like books by Walter Dean Meyers and Jerry Spinelli. If you have any good recommendations, let me know. I trust my students’ taste in reading!

My hope for this year is that you will all come to appreciate reading and writing as much as I do. Maybe some of you do already. Maybe some of you are still a little unsure about these activities. I hope you will have the courage to take risks. It’s only by taking risks that we ever improve. For me to start teaching was a risk. How did I know the kids would actually listen to me? Who the heck was I to be telling them how to write? But the more I taught, the better teacher I became. My students actually teach me all the time. I’m sure I’ll learn a lot from you this year as well.

I’m looking forward to hearing who you are. Here’s to a great school year!

Best,


Ms. Yost

We discussed the letter, formal writing, formal letter format, anecdotes, transitions, and italics. The students then wrote formal letters back to me. From these letters I'll jot down what each student is struggling with (apostrophe use, sentence structure, paragraph development, clarity, etc.), and use this information to create my future lessons.

I'm Back.

Classes began last Thursday in Jefferson County - Louisville, Kentucky's public school district. By the weekend I knew I was going to forgo my previous plans to begin studying for the LSAT. For as much as I hate the little things I hate about my profession (and I'm slowly realizing this is my profession, not just something I'm doing after college before I find my career), nothing negative can compare to how right it feels to work with these kids. Besides, most of what I wanted to get away from in education would probably find me in any job (e.g., incompetence, red tape, disorganization, brutal hours) and I might loose some of the most important things to me (e.g., working with kids, especially disadvantaged kids, getting to know a community other than the one I live in very well, doing something I know I can do well, working with the written word all day, free summers, solid benefits, etc.)

I realize it's still the "honeymoon" - just one week into the new school year, but I'm in this strange sort of zen mode - I know what's coming, and I feel like I could teach forever. Last year was such a rough year. From my reading over the summer, I realized I was suffering from serious "clinical" burn-out. I came into this year thinking it would be my last. Now I feel suddenly and strangely certain that I was meant to be a Title I middle school teacher - despite all the frustration and lack of societal respect that come with it. ("Wow, what a noble profession." )

David Pucket, a former middle school teacher and now board member of the NMSA, spoke at our opening professional development meetings this year before the students came back. He said, "High school teachers are passionate about their content; elementary school teachers are passionate about their kids; middle school teachers must be passionate about both" - to be effective.

So true. So glad it came back.