Twitter Chat Debut: Another Way to Connect

I learned two things last week: 

• Participating in a Twitter chat can be like trying to drink from a firehose. 
• There is no reason for any teacher to feel professionally isolated with a smart phone or computer and internet access.

I know the analogy is no longer fresh and original, but this week I got a new appreciation for it. When members of the National Council of Teachers of English have one hour to discuss via 140-character tweets 6 questions (plus introductions--see #NCTEchat) on Workshopping the Canon (yup, same as the Facebook discussion I wrote about in my previous blog), the tweets fly. I’ve tried coming up with a more original analogy—bottling a tsunami, riding a stampede, wakeboarding with a cruise ship, tobogganing Everest… but nothing else quite captures the feeling of so much good stuff coming at me so fast that it’s nearly impossible to catch any of it. Luckily, it gets captured in an archive on Wakelet (another new e-toy to explore). 

By the time I’d composed one tweet to post, the top of my feed told me that 26 new tweets had been posted. And by the time I’d finished reading those 26, 11 more had been posted. I felt like Lucy working at the chocolate factory, trying to clear the conveyor of candies coming too fast to box, by stuffing them in her mouth! 

 
Several factors didn’t help my confusion. My interface hadn’t yet updated to include the helpful little quill pen icon the directions told me was for composing a tweet (see lower left of screen shot)—that update came the following morning. In addition, though I’d roughly pre-written a few answers, I hadn’t counted characters, so I was chunking and revising on the fly. Finally, it dawned on me when the hour was nearly over that one good reason to re-tweet anything that catches my attention is to more easily find it again later—like book recommendations, article links, or infographics. Yes, I can comb the archive, but I hadn’t fully appreciated how enormous that archive would be! Next time, I’ll be better equipped. 

There will be a next time, because in spite of how overwhelming the deluge of opinions and information felt, it simultaneously felt like connection. Like swimming in a sea of collegial experience—or surfing in it! In those few brief moments of staying on my board and in front of the curl. Yes, I think I finally found my analogy for usefully harnessing a vast power. 

I’ve literally lived on an island where English is a foreign language, with only a handful of other English teachers at my school. Attending the annual conference of the NCTE isn’t a great option (benefit: a couple days of meetings; cost besides money: 24 hours transit on each end, 12 hours’ jet lag, pre-trip sub-lesson planning and post-trip ascertaining what actually happened). However, a Twitter chat is. There are also many other ways I’ve maintained professional connection and growth:

• Professional memberships (NCTE, ASCD)
• Blogs to follow (Cult of Pedagogy, Three Teachers Talk)
• Newsletters (Education SmartBrief, Culture Translator)
• Books (see my reading list for this summer here)
• Blogs to write (see my New Years’ reflections on what and why I blog here and here)
• Book discussions with colleagues (not only on Twitter and Facebook, but also in real time, see this blog)

Besides living on a literal foreign island, there are other factors that can deter professional connection and growth. And there are ways to connect and grow in spite of the obstacles—some that I’ve listed, and more. What works for you? What else would you like to try? It could always be a Twitter chat!

Trying Online Book Discussion Using Workshopping the Canon

Learn at least one new thing every week. That’s one of the engines for this blog: to challenge myself as a person to keep growing wiser, not just older, and to challenge myself as a teacher to live the talk of being the chief learner in my classroom. Every week I have to have something to write about.

My new thing for this week is joining a Facebook book discussion. This is a two-for—I get to process a professional book (Workshopping the Canon by Mary Styslinger) with colleagues, and I get to experiment with a new format. Real time, face-to-face book discussions have been an important part of my professional life (see this blog), and I’m excited to try one on a social media platform. 

Workshopping the Canon is about helping students access the richness of traditionally taught works of literature (think To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Letter, and Hamlet) using workshop strategies. That is, by creating a thematic unit; compiling a variety of associated texts (articles, poems, short stories); reading aloud together; giving students prompts, strategies, and time for connecting to the text; digging into the literary aspects; and discussing it all with peers. I’m affirmed to find that I do much of this in many of my units. I’m excited to have a format for publishing (here on my blog) the units I’ve been teaching and a list of even more resources, prompts, and strategies for those and future units. And I’m challenged both to expand what I already do and to think about incorporating choice book clubs with more accessible works on the theme of the canonical work. If you’re a secondary English teacher, appendix B alone is worth the price of the book—it’s a chart of a number of canonical works with accompanying unit foci and essential questions plus a plethora of supplemental texts.


We’re only on the second week of 4, but I’m already wowed by the potential of the format. Because I’ve worked at small schools, to have the possibility of more than 3 participants, the books I’ve used have had to apply to a broad range of subject areas and grade levels—like Making Thinking Visible, or How to Differentiate in the Academically Diverse Classroom. And it’s been great to hear the stories of a kindergarten teacher, a middle school social studies teacher, and a high school biology teacher and get the sense that we all have the same goals of for our students of, say, curiosity and competence. But for professional reading focusing on my specific subject area—English Language Arts—this blog has been my only way of processing and accountability. And suddenly, I have another one. And 83 colleagues with whom to process! I have to find a balance that though I can’t interact with all of them, I (and everyone) will benefit more if I do interact with some of them. If I were to facilitate a group like this for, say, secondary English teachers in international Christian schools in Japan, that would be a much smaller group than interested members of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). 

Next step? I may try my first Twitter chat—hosted by NCTE on this book. 

What have you learned this week? Have you ever tried a book discussion on a social media platform? Are you a secondary English teacher interested in trying one? If so, let me know!

Writing toward the Answers

Writing is not only what I teach, it’s what I do. It’s not only a way of communicating to others—it often starts as a way of tracing the spoor of a thought or an idea or an emotion, tracking it to its den, making friends with it, and letting it speak to me. Sometimes the end product will also speak to others. Most often, it just sits in my journal. Once a week, it turns into a blog. Sometimes I dabble in poetry. Last time a poem found its way into my blog was here. 

I’m again processing some losses—from big ones like my mom’s death 3 years ago (yes, still, see here as I reflected on reading and death and here as I reflected on writing her eulogy) to smaller ones like the ocean view out our apartment window and the books that didn't make the packing cut. My faith tells me the answer: all will be well, but sometimes my heart is still working through the process of coming up with that answer itself. And that is okay because I have a good Teacher and a community to help when I get stuck. For the analogy, I am indebted to Dr. Jeanne Jensma.

The Answers in the Back of the Book

Neat columns of tiny italic answers
started on page 531 of the geometry textbook:
Angle-Side-Angle, 
A squared plus B squared equals C squared,
23 cubic feet.
A replica of that list of odd-numbered answers
was not the goal of the class.
To master the understanding offered
I had to laboriously work the process,
wrestling with theorems, shapes, proofs, formulas,
discipling my brain to the mathematical discipline
until I could come up with them myself. 
And when my answer didn’t match the one in the back of the book,
I reworked the problem,
asked questions,
studied the text,
watched a friend or a teacher work it, 
until finally—eureka!—
amid eraser crumbs, 
smudged notebook paper, 
and graphite-scented fingertips
the process led me, too, 
to the answer I knew had been waiting all along 
in the back of the book.
Why did I expect that life would be any different?

How Do I Find the Time to Read?

Two days ago I was riding the elevator in my in-laws’ retirement community, and a tiny white-haired woman got on carrying a copy of Pachiko by Min Jin Lee. My reader antennae began quivering as I ventured, “Have you read that novel?” 

“Oh, yes!” the woman bubbled. “I just finished, and I didn’t want to stop reading!” We chatted briefly through the remaining descent, and when we got off and she turned toward the library and we turned to the outside door to go for a walk, my husband said, “30 seconds and you found a kindred spirit.” 
 
A friend recently asked me how I make time to read, and what I’d recommend for more effective reading. What a great question! Since I couldn’t conceive of a way to whittle my answer down to a Facebook reply, I promised her a blog. Here it is.

I make time to read because I love to read. I love to read both for the experience of the books themselves and also for the community of other readers that shares that experience. The tribe of people who recommend books, discuss books, and take my recommendations. So if you want to grow your love of reading, be on the lookout for other people who love reading—people in your life or online. Get recommendations, talk about books, recommend books. 

Find a book you enjoy. The recommendations are important because they will help you find a book you enjoy. Everything is easier if you enjoy it, and harder if it’s a grit-your-teeth duty. If you want to develop a reading habit, find a book you enjoy. Brain exercise is like physical exercise—if running doesn’t work for you, try biking or Pilates. Don’t feel like you have to read Moby Dick or Anna Karenina. Get recommendations from friends, librarians, booksellers, and online resources. Feel free to abandon books that don’t capture your attention. I used to feel a moral obligation to the author to finish every book I started. But with gray hair has come the wisdom that there are too many good books available to bog down in one that is slowly suffocating my desire to read.  

Because I love to read, I naturally gravitate to reading. Still, in the busyness of today’s world, habits and intentionality protect and increase time to read. My go-to for free time is a book—hard copy or Kindle. I carry one with me to read during wait-times: in the doctor’s office, before the concert starts, waiting for the bus, during commercials while watching with Jeopardy with my parents-in-law. (Audio books also count, but I don’t have a significant car commute, and I can’t seem to focus on pure audio input—but I know people who listen while they clean house or cook.) Being an empty nester, I deeply appreciate that without children’s homework and bedtime routines to supervise, I can look forward to reading in the evening after supper as well as on weekends and vacations. 


Some people advocate setting a time for starting habits: I will read for 15 minutes during my lunch. (Again, like exercise.) My husband went through a period of setting a clock alarm for 7:30 p.m., and when it went off, it was time to set aside the computer and pick up a book. Once the habit was well established, he no longer needed the alarm.

Another way reading is like exercise is that stamina is built over time. You don’t go from couch potato to marathoner over night. In the same way, even with a book you enjoy, don’t expect to read for 2 hours on Saturday if you haven’t read a book in the past year. But also, if you lose concentration after 10 minutes, don’t give up. Ten minutes is better than nothing, and 10 minutes a day adds up over the year. And after a week of 10 minutes a day, try edging it up to 15 minutes. If you get up to 20 minutes a day, 5 days a week, that’s nearly 87 hours per year, or more than 10 books that you wouldn’t have read otherwise.

Remember the book Pachinko that started this whole ramble?  I loved Pachinko because as a long-time resident of Japan, I know a bit about Japan, but this book helped me understand the family history of many of the Korean friends and students I have known in Japan. And then it sparked this elevator connection. And then later that same day the friend to whom I’d given my copy of Pachinko when I left Japan last month messaged me. She had just finished the book and wanted to share her excitement. The following day, I had lunch with another friend, and she said, “I’ve heard a lot about this book Pachinko. Should I read it?” 

This is my tribe. I love them. Join us.

P.S. Need more motivation? Try this article: “10 Benefits of Reading: Why you should read every day.” Lana Winter-Hebert. Lifehack. 4 June 2019.
P.P.S. Need more specific ideas for carving out time? Try this article: “8 Ways to Read the Books You Wish You Had Time For.” Neil Pasricha, Harvard Business Review. 10 April 2019.