Today's sacred writing time and teaching demo have lead me to truly question what the heck I've been doing for the past several years.

Seriously.

I met with a friend for coffee after RCWP today.  I told him that each day I was here, my mind had been blown.  And this is true.  I feel like this RCWP has come along and saved not only me, but the hundreds of students that I will teach in the second half of my career.  

Because sometimes I really feel like I've been just spinning my wheels.  Working my tail off, but getting nowhere.  And changing nothing.

And then I see these women in my group...and it's like they already knew this stuff!  They understand literacy and rhetoric and know how to use words like pedagogy...right out of undergrad!  They know how to incorporate grammar into writer's workshop and how to use mentor texts...and what in the heck have I been doing with my stupid grammar worksheets for the past three years??

Part of me is jealous that I didn't get this in my teacher training.  And the other part of me is thankful because how would I have survived the next fifteen years??  

And then all of me wants to dig in and change the whole dang system.  I don't know what else to say.

Every time we are prompted to write, I resist.  Today's teaching demo was about using iMovie to create an assignment on allusions.  I didn't want to, but it went very well, and in the end I decided it would be a great assignment to have my students do with The Odyssey.  Since I am going to have my tenth graders do the This I Believe project, I need to have a good one for English 9.

This afternoon's discussion of Standards for Authentic Achievement and Pedagogy brought up a lot of interesting points.  I definitely agreed that an ideal assignment will be authentic, but there should be value placed on the "prior knowledge" assignments that we often need to do with our students to give them that broad knowledge base that they could bring to their authentic assignments.

I am constantly frustrated at the inauthentic nature of much of what we do in school.  I have spent several years spinning my wheels and jumping through hoops that really do not improve my students' achievement in any measurable way.  The assignments I have been grading for the last few years certainly will not help them much outside of the walls of a typical American secondary school.

Like me, many of my students have become accustomed to just doing what is asked of them, and not asking themselves what should be done to demonstrate learning.  The discussion we had today simply encourages me to continue to think critically about what I have students do in my class, and in what ways I can make the work they do more authentic.

Today's demo lesson was AMAZING.  It was so complete and so thoughtful.  Alexa shared a warm up that demonstrated the use of AAAWWWUUBBIS words to get the ball rolling, then had us participate in AAAWWWUUBBIS searches and scavenger hunts through mentor texts.  Finally, we paired up to work on writing a short story about monsters that gave us an opportunity to use AAAWWWUUBBIS.  I am going to use this idea like crazy.  It can be used to encourage students to write using prepositional phrases, adjective phrases, and noun phrases.  It can work with FANBOYS.  I just hope I don't over use it.  It can be adapted to so many things in the classroom.

I also enjoyed our sacred writing time since it allowed us to go back to a piece we had already written and do Express Lane edits.  What a fantastic tool.  This can also work as an AAAWWWUUBBIS follow up.  

We are all struggling a little this week and feeling overwhelmed since pretty much all of us are trying to still get through the reading.  Last week felt good because most of us had finished Lamott's book before the week began.  This week, many of us are reading Crafting Digital Writing and Mechanically Inclined in our spare time.  If there is one book I wish I had read before the SI, it would be Mechanically Inclined.   

Since the last log entry, I realized that I struggle to start things, I get going like crazy in the middle, then I have a very hard time finishing things.  Working in our writing groups has been very helpful...I wish they were around me all the time to give me guidance and feedback.  I thought I was almost finished with my This I Believe piece and my response to Bird by Bird, but I realized that they both needed a stronger finish.  We had already moved on to some other things, and now I am struggling to get back to those pieces to wrap them up.

This morning, when we re-read Bedhead looking for how the punctuation and conventions affected our reading, I was skeptical at first.  I didn’t really want to do it again.  Then I noticed and started writing down.  I was blown away at how challenging it was to try to use this punctuation as a model, but I loved it!  I love the potential ideas for what I could do with it in my classroom!  I love the beginning of the conversation about conventions that it will begin!  I did bring up a potential problem with grammar teaching in context versus grammar teaching from handbooks.  I got the answer I wanted. J

The visualization was another big moment for me.  I really loved the window assignment.  It brought me to so many beautiful memories, and it may have given me a way to talk about my memories of my dad.

I learned so much from my writing group today too.  With my group’s encouragement, I am eager to work further on a piece I thought I was done with.  My group’s thoughtful comments gave me several good ideas to work with.  

At first, I wasn’t really inspired to write much about the whole hair topic.  But then I remembered a particular hair catastrophe that my mom saved me from back in high school, and I was on a roll.  I did love the use of the children's book as model text, though.  I should have brought up the sensitivity around the issue of hair that African American students feel. 

I love the idea of using digital voice recorders in the classroom!  This is definitely on my to-do list.  I can already see what a valuable tool these will be for my students for revision.  I also think I want to try recording myself assessing their writing.  I actually think it might be kind of fun.  I am eager to review podcasting tools and techniques since it has been several years since I have done anything with it…and I really want to use this for the final draft of at least one of my students’ projects.

In our discussion of Bird by Bird, I realized that I wanted to bring the teacher back into my reflection that I had written. 

Finally, the webinar was helpful.  The best thing I got out of it was the wiki for the book.  I am definitely going to read the book while using the wiki to look at the tools he recommends.

Today was a little bit rough, actually.  I have been struggling with the whole how bad do I want to do this whole writing thing.  Lamott wrote a glorious book, but I am not Lamott writer right now.  Again and again the chimes went off in my mind of I get this and I get this…but it was also intimidating.  I have never even written fiction!  I was intimidated and worried that I hadn’t done enough to prepare myself.  I was tired, and I got lost on campus AGAIN!  
As usual, I am initially resistant to every writing topic.  But be positive!  Be open-minded!  I didn’t want to write about bullying and it just makes me sad to think about my own girls someday getting bullied, but I ended up finding a few good possible starts during the sacred writing time.  I really like the writer’s notebook and am eager to work with this and think about how I can use it in my classroom.  
I loved the activity with the Venn diagram and the Writing Next piece.  I need to look more into this and give it to my administrators…and think more about how a writing curriculum could work within that framework.  
Finally, when brainstorming topics for the This I Believe piece, I came to a great one and I am very excited about writing more on it.  I definitely plan on doing more with that piece.  Besides being fueled to write about the topic I’ve chosen, I am eager to do this with my students next fall.

From the Writing Next I want to know more about creating collaborative writing groups in my classroom so that students are better at revising their writing and giving constructive feedback.  Summarization, inquiry activities for writing also.