Thanks to the prompting of my friend Allison, another English teacher in our great state of Iowa, I published a version of my last blog post in Saturday's Des Moines Register. You can read the original blog post here and the newspaper version here. I learned a few lessons from this publishing experience, so I thought I would process that here. Revision is Hard The Register wanted 700 words, and I started with more than 900. Ironically, I repeatedly tell my writing students, "You're not married to your words." As I started pushing the backspace key, though, I felt like I was breaking marriage vows. Truman Capote once said, "I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil," but apparently that's easier to believe when you're preaching it to students. I eventually (and painfully!) made it to 722, and thankfully the editor agreed to make that work. Humility is Key I didn't sleep well Friday night because I knew that my op-ed would be in Saturday's paper. In the early morning hours, I tossed and turned, picturing my name in print. I woke up early to look at the online version before we purchased a print copy, and I was proud of what I saw. For some reason, I imagined that friends and family members would respond to seeing my article published. I played out fantasies of emails from hometown acquaintances and phone calls from family members. Instead I heard positive remarks from a few adoptive mom friends and teacher acquaintances. I received a few random emails (some encouraging, others not) from strangers. My dear sweet husband and children were supportive, but looking back now, my initial fantasies are laughable. If I ever attempt to publish again, I will set the bar of my expectations noticeably lower and stay ever-so humble. Writing is Brave This lesson is one I learn every time I click "post" on a blog post, but even more so, I saw this in the companion op-ed piece that was published next to mine. Elliot Smith, a high school junior from Valley High School in West Des Moines, wrote an eloquent, courageous piece about racism in his school. It's one thing for me to write about the way I see implicit bias play out in our small school, but it takes a much greater level of bravery to call out peers in a statewide publication. As a teacher, I want to see that same risk-taking in my students. Revision, humility, bravery. That might be my writing process in a nutshell. Pour it all out on paper in a brave and bloody mess, mush it around and take the scissors to it, and then share to the world with no expectations. Yes, that sounds about right. And now I'll click "post" again.
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It's a new semester and a new group of students participating in Write Whatcha Want Wednesday (#WWWW), and I'm beyond excited.
Given an authentic audience, freedom, and time, my students radiate brilliance. More students created themed blogs this semester, so the students are really getting a chance to show off their passions. Some examples: Kenny is writing about survival. Morgan is writing about tattoos. Thor is writing about all science-related topics. Jayden is writing about a fictional trip around the world. Shaelyn is exploring her faith. You can follow along with all of our blogs using this Symbaloo. Nov. 23: How did your Attitude of Gratitude work out - tell us about it.
Update : Well, on a personal level, I failed at sending more postcards. I was more successful, however, at getting my students to express gratitude. Update 2: On Veterans Day my English 2 students shared journals of gratitude, and I was overwhelmed by their thoughtfulness. I shared several of their writings on this earlier blog post. Update 3: My College Comp students are currently working on gratitude blogs. Some of them have posted already, so I'll share some of their links here. This morning at church our pastor was lamenting the fact that he didn't think we say "thank you" as much as we used to, and while he may be right, I hate that teenagers get the erroneous reputation of being ungrateful. Because they really can be. I'll share some links here, and as the rest add their blogs, they can be found at our class Symbaloo. Cory's Corner: "It seems silly to be thankful for something so simple, but I'm extremely thankful for the times I spend laughing with my friends and family. Sometimes it's easy to take for granted the moments where you laugh until your stomach hurts." A Blog of Unfortunate Events: "i am thankful for my high school and all my teachers and classes i am glad i feel well prepared for college" Solicitor's Weekly: "With Thanksgiving up and coming, I'll be awfully busy relaxing and spending time with family. SPEAKING OF THANKSGIVING, I'd like to take this time and digital space to make up a list of the first fifty things I'm grateful for that come to my mind.
Jake the Snake: "My grandpa is constantly helping me with little things I like doing. He lets me use his shop, even when he has a project in there he is working on. We do things together, I help him, and he helps me." I came here today to tell you that #WWWW has been a smashing success and because of my brilliant idea, I have now been inducted into every imaginable Teachers Hall of Fame. The new addition at our high school is actually going to be named after me. Except it's not. We're four weeks into Write Whatcha Want Wednesday. Really, I love it, but as is true with all great teaching ideas, I have encountered a few downfalls. Want to take a guess at the #1 disadvantage? Here's a hint: It's pretty much always the #1 reason we avoid trying new things in our classroom. Drumroll please....... TIME. It is hard to give my students enough time to engage completely with their blogs. Our Wednesday class periods are shortened already, and then by the time we do our usual freewriting, word work, mini-lessons, and announcements, I can usually give them approximately 19 minutes for Write Whatcha Want Wednesday. So I guess it's turned into Write Whatcha Want Wednesday (ataveryhurriedpace). I plan to address that next week. Because this is important to me, I need to give time for them to process as well as produce. Still, they are creating some masterpieces, rushed or not. I can't wait to share a few with you. I'll start by sharing our Symbaloo. Here you can find links for all of their blogs together. They haven't all selected an image to represent their blog yet, but the links are all stored in one location at least. And it's prettier than a list in a Google Doc. And now for a few week #4 highlights. I've mentioned her before, but over at Mallory's Musings she writes about the "lasts" experienced as a senior in high school. I think we all can relate. "As my All-State Honor Band auditions are rapidly approaching, it is becoming more apparent to me that this is my last year to do a lot of things that I love. Being a senior in high school is really fun and exciting, but soon I will have to leave every thing I know. Sports, speech, music, friends. It's all becoming very real, very fast." You also want to check out Finding Cynthia Vance. This student is sharing her personal journey of searching for a biological aunt who was placed for adoption as an infant. Each week she adds a new chapter. As an adoptive mom, I'm fascinated to watch this story unfold. Sprinkles McTurnip uses a random word generator each week to find a subject for a short short story. Last week's "Fleas" was clever as is this week's "Cheque," written entirely as dialogue. "Good afternoon. Your total is $354.43. Will you be paying with cash, card, or cheque?" "I'm sorry, what was the last one?" Over at Cory's Corner, she shares her experience giving back at a homeless shelter in Sioux City. I love how candid she is in describing her awakening process. "All my life I've just kinda went along with the stereotypical reason that people are homeless because they have an addiction which has taken over their lives. After serving and working alongside some of the homeless people my thoughts have changed. Each one of us can become homeless in the blink of an eye. We never know when disaster or tragedy will strike leaving us without the necessary amount of money to provide for ourselves." Finally, check out Kaycee's Kadence. Each week she shares a recent obsession (this week: skinny jeans) and a musical pick. She also gives some good publicity for our fall musical, Bye Bye Birdie. "I absolutely love musicals... I have for years now.... Not only being in them, but watching and singing along. Well I think that everyone should watch at least a few musicals in their lifetime." So maybe our hashtag isn't trending yet. Maybe their blog stats aren't through the roof. Maybe that's not what it's about. My students are writing about their passions and with voice. And that, my friends, is what #WWWW is all about. Today was the National Day on Writing. For those of you unfamiliar, NDOW is sponsored by NCTE, the National Writing Project, and The New York Times Learning Network as a day to celebrate all forms of writing. In years past I have used mini writing marathons in my classroom, created various low stakes writing experiences, and shared writing with my students. Every day is a day for writing in my classroom, but I never want to miss the opportunity to celebrate that with my students. And this got me to thinking about my own writing process and experience, just exactly WHY I write. Why do I freewrite with my students multiple times a week? Why do I keep a blog even though I have approximately six readers? I write to connect. During our first months as a family of four, the jubilation was matched by moments of serious fear. As I experienced my own personal Dark Night of the Soul, I found solace and comfort in a community of other adoptive bloggers. Through our writing, we became family, and our words are the glue that holds us together years later, even after many of us have given up our blogs. Saying goodbye to my previous blog, Like the Love, was a necessary sacrifice. While my readership here is much lower than it was at the former blog, my goal is still the same: to connect. I write to think. Joan Didion says here, "I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear." When I'm stuck on a certain teaching unit, I freewrite for a few minutes as I search for a new direction. Clarity comes. It might take time, but writing serves as the catalyst. When I'm struggling with a certain parenting problem, I reach out to my other adoptive mom friends in writing. As I process and produce the words to explain the situation, I oftentimes reach a revelation even before they have a chance to give advice. I write to model. I want to show my students what my personal writing process looks like, even when it's messy. And by sharing my writing with them, they can hear my voice. Even now as I sit with my laptop watching The Voice, my oldest son asks, "What are you doing?" I can honestly answer, "I'm writing a blog because I really enjoy writing." I write to represent. Many of the marginalized in our world are without a voice. I must use mine to stand for them. Whether it's speaking out against the systematic racism that still takes place in our country or sharing my own personal experience with adoption ethics, writing creates a platform. I write to stand there. I write to remember. Hidden in a drawer I keep a dusty collection of journals that chronicle the heartaches and hoorays and everything in between from the past fifteen years. Oh, they are an embarrassing treasure. In Paris during college it was a cracked orange notebook. In the margins I doodled the name "Damien," the object of my unrequited 19-year-old affection. During my early years of teaching it was a spiral journal that I decorated with magazine cut-outs. The lined pages contain early freewriting with students where I thought through lesson plans, grumbled about assessing student writing, and planned my nightly menu. I recently finished reading Still Alice by Lisa Genova, the story of a 50-year-old woman faced with early onset Alzheimer's. Now writing to remember takes on a whole new meaning, for one day these words may serve as my only memory. I write. Because I can't imagine life without words. Why do YOU write? I would love for you to share your thoughts in the comments. I have a confession to make: I would have hated #WWWW as a student. When I was a 10th grade Biology student, Mr. Freed accused me of being an "academic prostitute." In other words, I would do whatever it took to get an A. And he was right. For me at that time, it was less about learning and more about my GPA. Write Whatcha Want Wednesday would have paralyzed me. "Just tell me what to do!" I would have whined. That grade-infatuated girl is long behind me, but I do empathize with the students who fear the freedom that #WWWW gives them. I completely understand that this type of writing assignment will not be everyone's favorite, so for those students I do provide a list of suggested prompts. Several of them use those prompts and still produce strong, voice-filled writing. Mallory's Musings, for example, provides a beautifully simple list of happiness.
Other students are taking the freedom and running with it. Over at Just Josiah, a blog dedicated to travels, we learn about the beauty of Hawaii. "Though the sights are magnificent, it's the culture and way of life of Kauai's people that truly captures my heart and makes it impossible to let go." Jake the Snake provides a weekly recap of football here in Northwest Iowa. "We got on the board when I kicked a 16 yard field goal to put us up 3-0, then I caught a touchdown pass thrown by Matt Eckard. And after that right before halftime I kicked a 50 yrd field goal, a personal best in a game." One of the most unique blogs comes in the creative characters at "Are You Going To Finish That Croissant?" "Hello my name is Sylvester Black, the perfect combination of both Sylvester Stallone and Jack Black. While not being an expendable pawn for my military superiors, I am a music teacher at a very nice school." Finally, That One Blog offers some (ironic?) advice about writer's block. "Have you ever not known what to write about? Don't lie, we all have. Today is one of those days for me. I cannot, for the life of me, think of a single topic to write about. It's even hard for me to write about how I have nothing to write about." I have another confession to make: I am so very proud of the writing that we're producing through #WWWW. I do my best thinking in the shower and in my dreams. The title for my blog came to me in a dream. I had been thinking for awhile about starting a teaching blog. When my husband and I started our adoption process a few years ago, I started a personal blog. I made some of my closest adoptive mom friends through that blog while also honing my writing skills. That blog dissipated for various reasons, but I found myself missing the blogging experience, the intentional audience and purpose. For the past few years I've had my College Composition students create their own personal blogs, and this fall I decided I needed to blog with them. But what to call it? Titles and names are, after all, very important. And then my dream. I had a teaching blog called Teach Happy. It fit my teaching philosophy, and it was simple. So here I am. My idea for #WWWW came in the shower. My grandfather had just died, and I was thinking of family memories I would like to capture in writing. (He had a way of saying, "Well, Kim!" that made me feel like the only person in the room.) I was lamenting the fact that I rarely get time to write for myself while being a full-time teacher and a full-time mom. I soon realized that my students probably feel the same way. While I provide lots of choice in terms of genre and topic, students rarely get complete freedom with their writing. "Why not give it to them?" I thought. They can still achieve academic objectives through this writing, and maybe, just maybe, they will learn to enjoy it a bit more. So Write Whatcha Want Wednesday (#WWWW) was born. Each student has created and designed his/her own blog. Students are blogging about sports, music interests, pet peeves, and random teenage drama. It's authentic writing for an authentic audience, and we would love for you to join us. I'll soon share some of their links here. Join us in the #WWWW movement. Let's get our hashtag trending! |
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September 2020
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