5 Top Posts of 2019

The difference a decade makes: Essenburgs at the end of 2019 and 2009 (constant: my sweater!)

Personally significant events of the 2010’s for me included gaining 2 sons-in-law, becoming a grandmother, losing my mother, moving twice, and blogging. This blog’s inaugural post I wrote 7-1/2 years ago. The 344 posts I’ve written since then have been transformative for me, disciplining me in reflective practice, cementing my identity as a writer which makes me more effective as a writing teacher, and keeping me closer to the digital divide. The past 2 years around this time I’ve reflected on my blog’s most popular posts of the year (see here for 2017 and here for 2018). What posts did readers find most interesting in 2019?   

#1: “Writing toward the Answers” (7/12) This was a “doing what I teach” post—a poem I wrote this summer as I processed the grief of a number of losses both significant and more trivial. While it felt so personal that I hesitated to publish it, in 5 months it has shot to my 3rd most-read post. The poem uses the analogy of the answers in the back of a math textbook to explore the difference between knowing the right answer to life’s conundrums and living the struggle: “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.” 

#2 “Nurturing Questions” (3/1) Teaching is so much more fun when the students are formulating their own questions and seeking or constructing answers to them, rather than hunting for answers to the teacher’s questions. But this takes some intentionality: “I suspect it has something to do with modeling, a bit of competition, acceptance that there are a variety of types of questions, and a lot of practice.” This post  explored what that looked like in the juniors’ study of The Scarlet Letter. (This topic seems to be perennially interesting, as the post “Who’s Asking the Questions?” from 2018 is #10 in my all-time list.)

#3 “Trying Online Book Discussion Using Workshopping the Canon” (7/19) This was a 2-for-the-price-of-1 post—a review of a new process (using a Facebook group for a book discussion) and of a professional book (blending class study of a single text with a workshop approach to supporting texts). 

#4: “Differentiating Process Helps Students Assimilate New Concepts” (4/26) Sometimes I struggle with how to access different ways of learning when English class is about the skills of reading, writing, speaking. The point is, when the skill is the target, there are no options, but when a concept is the target, there are many options. Here’s an example from my AP 11 class. (Differentiation, too, is a hot topic, with “Baby Steps in Differentiation” from 2017 at #7 in my all-time list.)

#5: “When I Work Less and Students Learn More” (5/10) Was this a click-bait title? No—because it’s true! The internet is full of resources we use as adults when we want to learn something. Here are some ways I connect students with those resources rather than creating my own. “I was impressed again with the beauty of the teaching hack of directing students to real-life resources. 

• It saves me having to create things. 
• It connects class to life. 
• Advice seems so much more authoritative coming from a real-life person (as opposed to your teacher). 
• Students gain access to tools they can continue to use long after they’ve lost all Mrs. Essenburg’s handouts.”

As soon as I’d written the first sentence of this post, I realized I could actually link blog post titles to each personally significant development of the decade. While I’m not sure what the next decade or even year hold, I know that a disciplined practice for processing both the big challenges of living faithfully and the daily challenges of teaching effectively will help me grow through them. For the time being, that will continue to include this blog. Will it always? Who knows! A decade ago I probably hadn’t heard of blogging, let alone imagined myself doing it. Maybe there’s another unimagined platform out there I’ll be using!

Practicing Presence and Joy at Christmas

With a dinosaur in my pocket and a 3-year-old by my side, I set out in the late afternoon twilight on a walking tour of the neighborhood Christmas lights. I ended up with a half hour of pure delight. “Grandma, I LOVE this! It’s so beautiful!” He breathed, transfixed. Then unable to contain the emotion, dashed down the sidewalk singing at the top of his lungs, “Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh!”

A word about the dinosaur in my pocket: It’s a plastic stegosaurus. My grandson holds a pterodactyl. His favorite game is anything involving me and these 2 dinosaurs. Even reading books frequently involves the dinosaurs. Being from the distant past, they have little background for most of what we’re reading. So they ask many questions. (It’s great fun to listen to a 3-year-old’s explanation of what an airplane or a stoplight or a telephone is!) So here we are, walking around the neighborhood, showing our dinosaurs Christmas lights.

“Grandma, where is your guy?”
I’ve tucked it into my pocket again so I can have my phone camera out for capturing the moment.

“Grandma, you have to show him!”
So we stand in front of a lighted house, holding our dinosaurs at the end of extended arms to give them a good view, squeaking to each other in tiny dinosaur voices, “Look! Isn’t it beautiful?” “Yes, it’s beautiful!”

The light-lined walk up to a front door beckons, and he’s halfway up before I can grab him. I remind him to stay on the public sidewalk. 

“Why?”

“Because that sidewalk belongs to the people in that house, and we don’t know them.”

“We could introduce ourselves!”

Somehow I dissuade him, though he isn’t entirely convinced. At the next house an inflated snowman stands on the front porch. The child tenses to take off again, so I wave and call out, “Hello, Mr. Snowman!” The child does the same. Then he says to me conspiratorially, “He’s not answering. He must not be real.” I whisper back, “What if that whole house is filled with a family of snowmen!” His eyes glitter as he breathes back, “Yeah!”

Now it’s time to start supper, so we turn toward home, but I’ve just spent 30 minutes really, fully present in each of them, present to the person next to me, present to beauty and wonder and a child's effervescent joy. May you find such moments in your holiday time—your own version of a Christmas light tour with a dinosaur in one hand and a 3-year-old in the other.

So You Want to Know about Japan?

Sinter Klaas gifts to the family--yeah, we're a little into books...

"But Mom, you always have lots of books to recommend!" My daughters, who are both in the baby-having, child-rearing stage of life, were dumbfounded when I told them that I had no baby books to recommend to them. Nope—at that stage in my life, I was in Japan without Amazon. Someone loaned me a second-hand copy of the first edition of What to Expect When You're Expecting. That's it.

On the other hand, I've been asked several times recently what books I'd recommend on Japan, and I do have an answer for that. Are these really the best books? I don't know. They are just some that I have found interesting and insightful as I have lived out my 30+ year history as a foreign resident in Japan. For what it's worth, here they are.

History:
Japan at War: An Oral History, by Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook. I can’t recommend this book enough. This compilation of interviews by a husband-wife team of historians introduces English speakers to the actual experiences of a variety of Japanese people—from students to soldiers to parents; on the home islands and abroad; at the beginning, middle, and end of World War 2. I was particularly struck by several things. One was the control of information by the government—hard to imagine in this Internet age. Another was realizing where historical fiction gets its sources—I recognized one interview from Manchuria in 2 pieces of fiction I later read (The Narrow Road to the Deep North and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle)! 

Culture:
Bushido: The Soul of Japan, by Inazo Nitobe. Written in 1899 by a Japanese Christian in English to explain Japan to the West and convince western Christians that the samurai code of ethics [bushido] could be seen as the equivalent of the Old Testament for the Japanese—the law that prepared them for Christ. While Japanese culture has changed a lot in the last 120 years, it is interesting to trace the lingering effects of the values Nitobe lists: rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, sincerity, honor, and loyalty.

The Secrets of Mariko: A Year in the Life of a Japanese Woman and Her Family, by Elizabeth Bumiller (1995). A fascinating glimpse into the life of a Japanese housewife. I once had a student with a Japanese mother and an American father tell me, “Reading this book helped me understand my mother so much better!” A western journalist interviewed a Japanese housewife once a month throughout one year. Times have changed somewhat in the 25 years since the book was written, but a lot still holds true. 

Fiction: 
Shiokari Pass, by Ayako Miura, a well-known Christian author. A best-seller when it was written in 1968 and later a movie, set around 1900 in Tokyo and Hokkaido. It is fiction based on a real-life event. Miura’s fiction fascinates me for how she seems to take the values from Bushido (see above) and say, “What might that look like in the life of a Japanese character grappling with Christianity?” (See the next book as well.)  

Lady Gracia, by Ayako Miura. Living around 1600, right before the closing of Japan to Christianity, the title character was a historical samurai wife who converted to Christianity, but the details about her life are scant. In Miura’s fictionalization, I enjoyed the character’s search for answers to her ethical questions as well as a story that for the first time helped me make sense of the relationships of the various war lords of this chaotic and pivotal time in Japanese history. I actually like this one even more than Shiokari Pass, but it is unfortunately out of print, so sometimes it’s available used for $20 and sometimes for $200 (or more!). Or if you visit me or my daughter or my mother-in-law, one of us would be happy to loan it to you.  

After Dark, by Haruki Murakami (2008). Moving into the present, Murakami is currently a popular writer in Japan. I’ve read a number of well-known Japanese literary writers, and they seem unrelentingly bleak to me. Murakami’s characters are odd-balls who don’t eventually succumb to the system, but stay slightly apart, questioning society and looking for real connections with their neighbors. This one follows a cast of characters through one night in downtown Tokyo. I’ve read it with my10th grade class, and they’ve really enjoyed it. (Warning: The weird thread of magical realism isn’t for everyone, but makes for great classroom discussion!) 

Extra, just for fun—suspense/mystery by western authors, but seem accurate to me as a 30+ year foreign resident of Japan:
Japantown by Barry Lancet (series of 3). The main character is both Japanese and American, an antiques dealer specializing in Asian art who keeps getting pulled into the business of the Tokyo investigative service he inherited from his father. I gave this to my kids for a recreational taste of “home” once they’d started adulting in the US.

Betrayal at Iga, by Susan Spann (Shinobi Mystery book 5). This is a series set in the late 1600s Japan, where a ninja and a Portuguese priest get cornered into solving mysteries. (The ninja is secretly assigned to be the priest’s bodyguard, but his cover is as his translator.) I started with #5 because I came across it on a Kindle sale. I went back to 1-3 because my daughter reserved them from the library, and I was on leave, missing Japan, and preparing to move to Kyoto on my return, which is the setting of the first 4 of the books. They’re sort of fun and full of cultural, historical, religious, and philosophical tidbits.  The interplay of the priest and the ninja as they negotiate each other’s points of view is interesting.

Whatever it is you are curious about, may you find many good books to read!

No More Isolation: Growing a Virtual Professional Learning Network

Thirty-two years ago I went to Japan to teach in a small international Christian school. I might have felt, professionally, a little isolated. Then came Amazon. It was almost unbelievable to be able to buy any English book I wanted with the touch of a button and have it in my hands in a couple of weeks! Now there are Kindles and a whole Internet full of professional connections, from journals and memberships to blogs to Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook. I discovered today that there is a Facebook page for teachers of The Crucible—talk about a specific resource! As long as one has a device and Internet access, there is no longer any reason for professional isolation. 

A virtual professional learning network (PLN) can provide all the community and support of a trip to a major conference or a huge school with a vibrant department. I've rather blundered my way into the PLN I've developed, so if you're already convinced you need one and are looking for an organized approach, go straight to the Edublog series here. It’s a set of 7 blogs that will guide you through the steps of building your own PLN. I came across it doing a Google search to make sure I was using the right term. I’ve bookmarked it because it looks like a resource I want to go back and review myself.

What I can do here is just reflect on a few of the amazing online resources I’ve been experimenting with recently—a Facebook group and an online course—and share a little of the joy. 

I found out about the Crucible Facebook group in another Facebook group I recently joined: Creative High School English hosted by Betsy Potash of the Spark Creativity website/blog/podcast. When I joined the group in October, there were 10,000-some members; now membership is 11,657. People ask about everything from how to handle a discipline issue to what short stories can pair with a given novel to project ideas. From all my life being the only teacher of my grade level subject area at my school, to having thousands of other 10th grade English teachers and their expertise at my fingertips is truly a gift!

The story of how I discovered this group illustrates the organic way my PLN grows. Cult of Pedagogy is one of the core blogs I follow. Last spring it featured Betsy Potash and one-pagers with a link to 4 free templates with rubrics from Betsy’s site Spark Creativity. To get the free materials, I had to sign up for Betsy’s newsletter. Then early in the fall, that newsletter advertised a book discussion for In Search of Deeper Learning she would host on her Facebook group. So I joined the group in order to participate in the book discussion, and I found this whole great new community resource! Someday I may explore some other Facebook groups, but between this one and the online course I’m taking, I have all the input I can fruitfully use for now.

The course—for lack of a better word—is Angela Watson’s 40-Hour Teacher Workweek Club, which I also found out about from Cult of Pedagogy. The goal of the course is to help teachers attain better work-life balance. It provides materials and guidance for everything from scheduling to back-to-school night to differentiating lesson plans to handling homework and beyond. It does this through a year’s worth of weekly podcasts/pdfs on different topics, curation of scads of online resources, and membership in a Facebook group where one can find further support. (I haven’t even gotten around to joining the Facebook group yet—I’m so busy just reading the pdfs and exploring the curated materials.) 

As opposed to the Creative High School English Facebook group, there is a cost for all this help. However, I think it is so well worth $149 for eternal access to all the excellent materials. In fact, while I think just the guidance and curating is worth it, the sticker price of materials available for purchase online that are made available free to club members far exceeds the membership cost. For the college or school that wants to put feet to its concern about teacher retention, this club should be a part of the final semester of every teacher training program or made available to every 2nd year teacher. (I think the first-year ones may be too busy!)

There are still so many ways I could better utilize my virtual PLN--like joining more Twitter chats (I tried my first this summer) and making more thorough use of my organizational memberships in NCTE and ASCD. I'd also like, someday, to actually attend an NCTE conference. In the meantime, I have more than enough opportunity to stay professionally connected and growing.

What parts of your virtual PLN do you find most invigorating to your professional practice right now? If you're feeling un-invigorated or isolated, how might you access a virtual PLN to help?