Learning about Poetry: Making It Active and Visible

The classroom is charged with the energy of learning—students collaboratively working with text to build meaning. These are the teacher moments that give me joy. This week it happened with 6th and 7th graders and poetry. 

We'd prepared. I’d given students a toolbox consisting of poetry reading strategies (see this blog) and literary terms for talking about poetry. I’d modeled using the toolbox to read “Fog” by Carl Sandburg (the “I Do” phase), I’d coached the whole class through using it on “Foul Shot” by Edwin A. Hoey (the first step of the “We Do” phase), it was time for a little more independence. 

Group poster annotations are a great way to involve all students in collaborative meaning making with text. I made enlarged prints of a new poem (“To a Daughter Leaving Home” by Linda Pastan), assigned groups of 4 to each print, and gave each group 4 different colored pens. Each group was to read the poem together, however they decided to do it. Then each student was to choose a pen, sign their name on the poster with that pen to identify their contributions, and then work to make meaning of the poem, putting on paper what their brains were doing. This could include anything from circling important words to asking questions to sketching images the text made them envision. I wanted to see all the colors—evidence of everyone’s brains at work. 

This can be done as a silent discussion—only writing. I allowed the students to talk this time. Most of the groups were having productive discussions as they annotated, and it allowed me another window into their processes and another opportunity to uncover and correct misunderstandings as I listened in. 

I learned a lot from observing their annotations:

Every group got the basic idea. An adult is teaching a child to ride a bike, an imagined disaster, a farewell, and the juxtaposition of excitement and sadness. I actually was really encouraged by this.

There were several misunderstandings. One sketch showed a figure on the back of a bike—I realized they didn’t know the word lope and so glossed over the line “loping along beside you.” One student read “When I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle” and asked “Is eight a.m. or p.m.?” It hadn't occurred to me that that could be read as time as well as age. I addressed these misunderstandings while students worked so they could correct the misunderstanding, and I told them what a good thing it was that they had expressed their question or interpretation.

Students noticed different things. One sketched “the curved path of the park” and one sketched the simile at the end: “the hair flapping / behind you like a / handkerchief waving / goodbye.” One noted, “It's all one sentence,” and another drew dividing lines for all the punctuated pauses. One perceptive student asked, “Why does it say ‘leaving home’ and not ‘learning to ride a bike’?”

Students' own stories influenced their understanding. At least 2 groups assumed it was a father doing the teaching, and more were careful to say "parent." Though they were quick to identify the poet as the speaker in previous poems, here no one said, "Hey, the poet's name is Linda, so so she's probably the speaker, so it's probably the mother." One student imagined the crash was into a wall. When I asked him if he'd run into a wall when he was learning to ride a bike, he said, "Yes." I do want students to make connections between a text and their own experience as an extension of the text, but I don't want their experience to unintentionally distort how they read the text. 
 
The next day I took the exercise one step further. I hung the posters on the whiteboard with magnets, well spaced, and had the students study them—one minute on each poster—noting how each of the other posters was similar to or different from theirs. Then, they returned to their seats and I asked the class for their observations.

I pointed out how uncovering misunderstandings is really important developing a correct understanding. The sketch of the rider in the seat on the back of the bike showed me the need to teach a vocabulary word. The question about eight a.m. or p.m. reminded me that phrase “at eight” could be time or age, though in context age is more relevant. So ask the question, sketch the image, boldly make mistakes so you can learn.

As they discussed the student’s question “Why does it say ‘leaving home’ and not ‘learning to ride a bike’?” these 6th and 7th graders formulated the idea that the poem is a memory, written maybe when the daughter turns 18, or gets her first job, or goes to college. Wow—I wasn’t sure they’d get it—empathy for their parents as they gain independence. But there you go! 

What is so effective about using group poster annotations?

• All students are involved—they each have a pen, and their color needs to be on their poster—not just the handful that participate in whole group discussion.
• Students are active—better than passive.
• Students have time to process—this helps incorporate new learning into existing schema and makes learning durable. 
• Students show their thinking—which develops as it is expressed and invites response.
• Students collaborate—we are smarter together than alone, building on each other’s ideas. 

Next week we’ll write our response poems, students writing about a time they took a step of independence. For an extra challenge, they can write it from the perspective of an adult in their lives. They’ll use a lot of vivid images and active verbs, and end with a simile. I can’t wait to see what they come up with. (For more on writing beside mentor poems, see "Learning by Doing: Poetry")

How do you make learning active and visible?

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P.S. For anyone who carefully read all the photos and was wondering: I never did get to the bottom of the involvement of a granny, let along an 8-year-old one, but I suspect it was playing with the observation of the words "a daughter" rather than "my daughter." Not truly on point, but some sort of language arts respect is due to a third language middle schooler for noticing and playing with articles.

P.P.S. For more on annotation, see my post "Using Annotation as Assessment, Formative and Summative."

Building Reading Identities with To-Read Lists

"Sometimes I finish a book and I’m bored because I don’t know what to read next." The sixth grader looked at me with wide, candid eyes as he made that comment. It was the first English class of the new academic year. I could not have planned and paid for a better segue from the “reasons for reading” discussion we’d been having into the book tasting activity we were about to do, and the stack of blank “to-read” charts I was about to hand out before the activity (see photo above). I also could not have asked for a better motivation for myself to follow through more consistently on helping students use these “to-read” charts to build and reflect on their reading lives.

This isn’t the first time I’ve handed out “to-read” charts. Last year we started them at the beginning of the year with the book tasting, and they’re supposed to have at least 3 books on their list by the end of the period. Then at the end of every trimester when students all did a book talk on a good book they’d read that term, I suggested the audience have out their “to-read” list and write down any titles that appealed to them to read over the post-term break. 

However, at this point, there were always students who say, “Is it okay if I just write the titles in my notebook? I don’t have that list any more.” And then when we reflected on the term’s reading, many students said, “I don’t remember all the books I’ve read.” So I showed them the monitoring list I took once a week of the book and page number everyone is on. Clearly, I haven’t been teaching them to use their “to-read” list well.

I determined to try again this year. Over spring break I watched a YouTube conversation between some of my reading/writing teacher heroes: Penny Kittle, Kelly Gallagher, and Donalyn Miller. I was so inspired that I went back and started rereading Kittle’s classic Book Love: Developing Depth, Stanima, and Passion in Adolescent Readers (2013).

One thing that struck me was the importance of teaching young people to choose their own books. If students compliantly read only what is assigned, then as soon as no one is assigning anything, they won’t know how to choose for themselves. Even me handing a student a book from my classroom library that I’m pretty sure they’ll like is not empowering them to choose for themselves. What will happen when there’s not a teacher there who knows their interests and reading level and can magically provide a book that fills the bill? 

Keeping a “to-read” list of some sort is a thing that good readers do. Maybe the list is only mental. Maybe it’s on a piece of paper on the refrigerator or in a notebook. Maybe it’s electronic. Mine is on Goodreads, and also in the save function in our school’s online library. That’s why I’ve had trouble, I think, getting students to consistently use the paper list—because I don’t. So I think I’ll have to use a paper list. I really need to cull that list anyway—I just realized it has 222 books on it. Maybe I’ll transfer the top 10.

Why do I want my students to keep a "to-read” list? 

• So they don’t forget titles they’ve heard and thought, “Oh, I’d love to read that!”
• So they know where to go next when they finish a book.
• So they build a list of books they’ve read in order to reflect on it and feel satisfaction, track patterns, set goals, and see growth.
• To help me monitor who has not yet developed a reading identity. 

Some students came out of that first day activity with a to-read list of 15 books. Some had to be pushed to get the required three. One student still has only one—the one he’s reading. I know who I need to keep recommending books to. 

How will I help students better use their “to-read” lists this year? 

• I’ll continue doing a 30-second book talk a day at the end of the first 10 minutes of independent reading and encouraging students to add the title to their list if they find it interesting. I'll do this for at least the next 2 weeks.
• I’ll keep my own paper “to-read” list, just like the students, by prioritizing 10 books from my Goodreads list and online library saves.
• I’ll incorporate a “to-read” list check-in into conferences every three weeks (not just the first day of class!)

"I don't know what to read next" is never something I've said. Or if I've said it, it's been because there are so many books I want to read that I can't pick which one. Because I've always kept a mental "to-read" list. It took reading Penny Kittle to help me realize this is a tool good readers use that can be taught to help students build reading identities. And it took that sixth grader's comment last week to put a human face on the need for "to-read" lists. My commitment to follow through more effectively on helping students use their lists well is to that student.

How about you? Do you keep a "to-read" list? Do your students? What do you find helps students build a reading identity?

Starting Well: Remembering Who My Students Are

I want to love my students like a novelist loves her characters. That probably needs some explanation. 

During spring break I enjoyed watching some sessions from this year’s Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin University. Eight years ago I got to attend this biennial gathering of diverse writers in person with my daughter who was on the student planning committee. I got to travel to Michigan, sleep on the couch in my daughter's student apartment for the week, and meet her three roommates. Though the festival was cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic, it was held virtually this year, which is how I could participate from Japan.

One of the sessions I watched was with Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko, a novel about four generations of a Korean family in Japan. Ms Lee shared that when she builds a literary world and peoples it, she has to love every character she creates. Even the ones who make bad decisions, who hurt themselves and others. Because she understands their backgrounds, motivations, experiences, and perspectives, she loves them even as she deeply mourns the wrong and damage they do and have done to them. She shared how difficult it was to do this with 200 characters. And then it struck her that God does this with billions of souls. There are many aspects of God that are beyond my comprehension. I just realized that that depth of emotional capacity is one of them.

Still, I want to try. I want to try, to the extent that I am able as I bear God’s image, to understand and love as God does, the students who will enter my room for a new school year on Monday. Or at least as well as Min Jin Lee loves her characters.

This was brought home to me half a decade ago when my first grandchild’s birth coincided with my first day of school. How I hoped that when he walked into his English classroom any given year in the future, his teacher would know how special he was. How I hoped that I could be the teacher that I wished for my grandson, for other people’s grandchildren.  

And now it is the beginning of another school year. Another new batch of students will walk into my class on Monday. How can I get off to a good start in loving them and building with each of them the kind of relationship that will model God’s love to them and give them a secure foundation for learning this year? Here are four ways:

• Engage in regular prayer: I’ve made a stack of index cards with their names on, and I’ve prayed through the stack of cards once already.
• Cultivate genuine curiosity: Wondering what makes the individuals I’m praying for tick—like Min Jin Lee does for her characters. What gives them joy? What worries them? What do they want out of school this year, and what do they expect out of life? How can I help them connect what we’ll do in English class to life?
• Ask good questions: Jennifer Gonzales has a great 4-Part System for Getting to Know Your Students (Cult of Pedagogy) that includes ideas for breaking the ice, taking inventory, storing data, and doing regular check-ups. I've used it, and it's really helpful. See this blog post for my results.
• Share my story: One thing I initiated two years ago when I started the school year online at a new school was introductory letters. I wrote one to the students introducing myself, and they wrote one back to me. (It also doubles as an initial reading and writing assessment!)

I'm looking forward to Monday and meeting students--those individuals deeply loved by God and by their family--each with their own gifts, stories, and blind spots. I'm looking forward to learning who they are and how I can love them and help them learn this year.

How about you? How do you see your students? How do you want to love them? How do you start and maintain those relationships?

Starting Well: Remembering Who I Am

If you’re a teacher, you know all about the dreaded back-to-school dreams. Even if you’re one of the rare teachers who doesn’t have them (I think I’ve talked to two of those), you’ve been in on conversations with colleagues sharing their nightmares. 

Here’s how mine go. I’m standing in front of the first class of the year as the bell rings, and I’m flipping frantically through the textbook trying to figure out what the class is. Or I’m rushing through a maze of halls and stairways in increasing bewilderment, unable to find the classroom. One memorable dream started out fine—I was in the right classroom, I knew what I was teaching, and the students were sitting attentively in their desks. But as I talked, the room began expanding. Students started murmuring, then talking, then standing up and walking around. I talked louder. Trees began sprouting between desks. By the end, we were outside, and the students were zooming around on ATVs, paying absolutely no attention to me. 

Recently I had a brand new type of pandemic-induced back-to-school dream. At first I was at my desk, unpacking (we really were getting ready to move into a new school building) and organizing for the new year. Then it was time to gather with other teachers for the first meeting. The principal stopped me and asked me to put on a mask. I was mortified to discover that I, indeed, was maskless. How did I not have a mask on? Here in Japan, mask wearing is the social norm as well as school policy. I rifled through all my pockets—pants, jacket, backpack—and came up with handfuls of cloth masks, but not a single paper one, the only kind we’ve been wearing for the last 3 months.

Why are these dreams so common for teachers? Do lawyers dream of finding themselves in front of a courtroom to defend an unknown client? Do surgeons dream of being prepped and ready to begin a surgery no one’s told them about? Maybe so. Maybe it’s a human condition first documented when Adam and Eve hid from God in the Garden. We’ve been hiding our insecurities, fears, and failures ever since, and our dreams expose them. 

Here’s how I think it goes for me. Teaching is a very public job. That’s sort of the point: It isn’t teaching without a roomful of students. On top of that, teachers tend to be idealists—it’s why we went into the profession, to make a difference. So we have high expectations of ourselves to be good, to be perfect, to not fail any of the people we’re trying to help. In the process, I’ve done a lot of comparing myself to veteran teachers—especially in my earlier years. (It’s one of the delights of aging for me—becoming more comfortable in my skin with my gifts.) 

I’ve also found that getting comfortable with my own learning process helps. It starts with discovering and acknowledging the places I need to grow—whether that is knowledge (like Black American history or Ukraine), or new technology and strategies for online instruction, or new teaching areas (like English as a foreign language) or levels (like elementary). Then reading, studying, discussing in order to grow. Then trying experiments—some of which will work better than others. Finally reflecting on those experiments, frequently in this blog.
       
But before, after, and around all those things is prayer. Prayer acknowledges that my core identity was never about who I am as a teacher, but who I am as a beloved child of God. This is what Holy Week reminds me of this year as it coincides with the start of the new academic year here in Japan. In his book With Open Hands, Henri Nouwen writes about prayer and how it opens us to the paradox Jesus talked about, that clinging to what seems to be life produces death, but abandoning oneself to death actually results in abundant life: 

Praying means giving up a false security, no longer looking for arguments which will protect you if you get pushed into a corner, no longer setting your hope on a couple of lighter moments which your life might still offer. Praying means to stop expecting from God that same small-mindedness which you discover in yourself. To pray is to walk in the full light of God, and to say simply, without holding back, “I am human and you are God.” At that moment, conversion occurs, the restoration of the true relationship. Man is not the one who once in a while makes a mistake and God is not the one who now and then forgives. No, man is a sinner and God is love. Conversion makes this obvious with a stunning simplicity and a disarming clarity.

This conversion brings with it the relaxation which lets you breathe again and puts you at rest in the embrace of a forgiving God. The experience results in a calm and simple joy. For then you can say: “I don’t know the answer and I can’t do this thing, but I don’t have to know it, and I don’t have to be able to do it.” This new knowledge is the liberation which gives you access to everything in creation and leaves you free to play in the garden which lies before you.

The person who prays not only discovers himself and God, but in the same meeting discovers who his neighbor is. For in prayer, you not only profess that people are people and God is God, but also, that your neighbor is your sister or brother living alongside you. For if your conversion has brought you down to the bottom of your human nature, you notice that you are not alone: Being human means being together. (58-59)

I read these paragraphs frequently, to remember that, whatever crazy start-of-school teacher dreams may come, I am forgiven and embraced by my Father God, along with my colleagues, and this is the joy and peace I have to offer my students.

Reading Experiments with an Online Library

“I never thought I’d see you so glued to your phone.” My husband has repeated that bemused observation a couple of times recently. The attraction isn’t FOMO or social media. It’s books. 

You may be able to walk into a US public library any day of the year and access thousands of English books. Here in Japan, it’s not so easy. So I was intrigued when a colleague who teaches at another international school introduced me to an online library that she was excited about.   

Thus, one of the big markers of my past academic year became my school's joining the consortium last spring, making thousands of books available to our students and staff. I’ve learned a lot by reading widely on the library myself, advertising the available riches to students and staff, and doodling around in the admin sections to figure out how to use the online library even better.

I’ve enjoyed the library personally for both learning and recreation—from Barak Obama’s memoirs of his presidency A Promised Land, to the fascinating nonfiction Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, to the intriguing mystery The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, to background for the current Russian aggression The Gates of Europe, A History of Ukraine. 

I’ve also discovered many great middle grades books to recommend to students—from Finding Junie Kim to Amari and the Night Brothers to While I Was Away to Phoebe and Her Unicorn. While the data says I’ve checked out 149 books, they’re not all 400-page novels (or histories). A number of them are elementary books I read just to be able to recommend them to students. (Another blessing of the library—I was teaching elementary English language arts for the first time ever, so needed to expand my repertoire!)

To what extent has it been used by other people than me? In the past year since we got the library, as a small school with a majority of Japanese first language speakers, we’ve had 1,314 total loans of 600 active titles to 170 active patrons.  Modeling reading, recommending online books, and making time in class for reading helps. I do those things, and 8 out of 10 of the top patrons have been me and 7 of my students. 

I’ve also experimented with recommending books beyond my class. In the past, I’ve made posters of books available both in my classroom library and online. This spring break, I learned how to make banners on the school’s library splash page recommending spring break reading for elementary, middle school, and high school. My goal over the break is to change the titles every week. Once the school year resumes, I won’t have the time for that (or the books!), but I’m envisioning monthly themes, like refugees (a current topic), friendship (always a hot topic), memoirs (we all need heroes).

Actually, I am old school, really preferring a physical book for many reasons. However, when the available library is digital, one learns. That’s the chief benefit: Availability. Other benefits: 

• Cultural fit: When you’re using public transportation frequently, digital is easier.
• Exigency of the times: Every time we’d go to online school due to Covid, I’d remind my students of the online library and ask whether any of them needed to be reminded of their passwords. I always got a few takers.
• English availability: We have extended spring, summer, and Christmas breaks. Access to English books is a great asset for sustaining English fluency.

The last day of the academic year before spring break, I announced to my students that I wouldn’t be giving homework over the break. They burst into cheers. “But,” I cautioned them, “What do you think will happen to your English if you don’t use it at all for 4 weeks?” They suddenly looked very sober. “However,” I continued, “because you are all readers, and because you have access to the online library, you will read. Because you want to. Not because I make you.” 

I’m looking forward to posting new book banners on the library splash page on Monday. I’m looking forward to seeing what students have read when they return. And I’m looking forward to continuing my current online library book, Lessons from the Edge: A Memoir by Marie Yovanovitch, former US ambassador to Ukraine. 

What online libraries do you and your students have access to? How do you use and advertise them?