The Sunday Times feeds my soul.

I come from Irish roots:
   from County Cork
   and green glens,
   from hills so achingly beautiful
   and desolate misty cliffs.
From lands whispered reverently across grandpa's thin lips.
 
I come from Irish tastes,
   from every meal prepared 
   with some form of potato:
   french fried, home fried, baked, boiled, 
   whipped, hashed, and pancaked.
In shepherd's pie and hearty stews.

I come from Irish storytellers,
   who wrote or lamented,   
   exaggerated tales,
   soliloquies, epistles,
Drunken ballads rehearsed in pubs.

I come from Irish Catholics,
    whose religion taught them 
    to shun birth control,
    and as a result,
    John and Carol had:
Carol Ann, Kathy, John, Mark, Patrick, Robert, Michael, Martha, Thomas, Anne, James, William, Joseph, and Mary.

I come from Irish secrets,
    from hot tempers,
    and too many drinks,
    from alcoholism and frailty, 
    from hush-hush and follow rules.
A nation mourns because of its collective silence.

I come from Irish blessings
    from Danny Boy and fare-thee-wells,
    from 'luck o' the Irish,'
    and 'Brian Barou',
    and whistling tunes from ear.

On this St. Patrick's Day I think of my grandparents,
who both left me this decade,
after 94 and 96 years of living.  

And I remember them with this blessing:

"May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand."

Until I see you again Grandma and Grandpa.
Happy St. Patrick's Day. 

I once got into an argument while conferring with a young writer.  I wanted him to revise an informational text he drafted about his dog.  He thought his draft was fine and needed no revisions.  I thought it lacked sufficient information.  Our conversation went something like this:   
    Brian:  "Perhaps you should talk about what your dog looks like."
    Boy:  "He's a pit bull."
    Brian:  "I know.  You told us that.  But what does he look like?  What color?  What kinds of                    features does his have?"
    Boy:  (sarcastically) "I think people know what a pit bull looks like."
    Brian:  "Do they?  Aren't pit bulls all sorts of colors?  Don't they all look a little different?"
    Boy:  "Sure.  I don't know.  Mine was just a regular pit bull."  

He wasn't budging.  So I moved to another page--a page in which he talks about what his dog ate every day.  His page simply said, "My pit bull has two bowls.  One bowl has dog food.  His other bowl has water."

    Brian: "Why kind of dog food does he eat?"
    Boy:  "I don't know."  (With a bit of attitude) "Dog food."  
    Brian:  "I know.  What what's the brand of dog food?  Purina, which is brown, looks a lot                       different than Beneful, which has chunks of green and orange for carrots and peas."
    Boy:  "I don't know.  Jeez.  Fine, BROWN dog food!"
    Brian:  "I'm suggesting these small changes because it makes it clearer for readers.  If you                   want to inform your reader about what you feed your dog, it's important to be
                 specific."
    Boy:  "Fine.  Whatever.  What do you want me to do?  Want me to just write Purina in                         there?"
    Brian:  "I really want you to care about the reader.  But I'm not sure you do right now."
 
He was frustrated.  I asked him to revise and he wasn't interested--which began to frustrate me. 

I'm sometimes confronted with this question: What do I do with a writer who doesn't want my help?  Typically, conferences are positive transactions.  Through questioning, writers usually discover they can make tweaks or bigger revisions because they want their writing to sing.  But, if I'm being honest, some conferences are battles.  I'm battling a writer's fatigue, his disinterest, her lack of purpose and audience, his low self-esteem.  I'm battling a desire to just get the writing done. 

During these times I have to re-evaluate my role as a conferrer.  If I am a guide for the writer-- a fellow writer offering advice--then should I make demands?  Or, do I need to simply step back and say, "Hey buddy.  This is your piece of writing.  I'm just offering suggestions.  Whether you want to use them or not is up to you.  I'm just trying to help you see this from the viewpoint of a reader."  

I know I'm right about his insufficient details, but do I continue to argue?  He just wants to finish, so he argues that he's done.  But does that make him right?  

Sometimes conferring is presented as an enlightenment--an awaking for writer and teacher.  And sometimes it's just hard, exhausting, mentally-fatiguing work.  

Conferring requires the art of restraint:
   Teacher becomes student.
   Student becomes teacher.
Teacher learns to listen.

The teacher who knows,
   asks the just-right questions,
   to push their young writers,
Towards self-actualization.

Questions like:
    Why are you writing this?
    Who are you writing this for?
    How do you think they will react?

We don't know these answers:
     Teacher becomes student.
     Student becomes teacher.
Students teach us to listen.

The teacher who knows,
    takes a breath,
    waits a moment,
And uses writers' responses to formulate an idea.

After the writer speaks, the teacher speaks:
      "I have a thought,
       writer-to-writer, 
       you might want to try."  

The role of the teacher expands to:
     co-writer, co-reviser, co-editor,
     From a snippet of silence,
     Grows learning.

When we confer,
      we must first listen,
      before we speak because:
Those who know do not speak,
Those who speak do not know.

My childhood yard was once filled 
with dozens of orange trees,
a neighborhood built in the middle of a grove,
each house retaining most their trees.

In spring, orange blossoms blossomed.
White, waxy, poking through leaves,
in small clusters of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6.
Making the way for fat round oranges in winter.

And when winter came, 
we reaped the harvest.  
Fresh, pulpy orange juice, 
squeezed into pitchers, cut with water.

Dad paid my siblings and me,
a nickel for every rotten orange
we picked off the ground 
and threw into a green garbage can.

We were rich in winter.

One surviving orange tree stood
in our fenced backyard,
One last survivor made it through
the frozen genocide of 1983.

The lone survivor was my mother's sanctuary.
Hidden in the back yard, behind the house,
she escaped to Eden, 
and smoked cigarettes.  

Her routine was ritualistic.
She said, "Kids, don't come outside,
I'm going to be on the phone,
and I need privacy." 

She dug into her purse,
excavating a Virginia Slim, 
a pink lighter, a peppermint Mento,
and a travel-sized Estee Lauder bottle of Beautiful.

She still does this same routine,
although it's in a different house,
one that faces an intracoastal,
and instead of an orange tree,

She smokes behind a Sabal Palm.

Second grade, age eight.
   This is the year I would:
   Rise from the kneeler,
   Crawl down the pew,
   Walk up the aisle,
      And enter into the secret society of Eucharist eaters.

We practiced for this moment all year.
   The teachers, using un-transubstantiated wafers,
   taught several lessons, 
   on how to receive the Host.

The mini-lessons included:
    How to walk down the aisle (prayer hands),
    How to hold out your hands (right hand, under left),
    How to touch the Eucharist (a simple pinch of the thumb and forefinger),
    How to eat the Eucharist (let it dissolve, never chew),
    How to give thanks (sign of the cross, facing the alter),
    How to walk back to the pew (solemnly, quietly),
    How to reflect (kneel, pray).

Perhaps the scariest lesson was this one,
Taught by a ferocious nun, 
   who, in a thick Malta accent, declared:
"If you drop the Eucharist on the ground, you are not to pick it up off the ground.  You are to get on your hands and knees, bend down, and EAT IT OFF THE FLOOR!!!"

Practicing Communion was a homework assignment that needn't be assigned.
We practiced every day,
    at lunch time, after school,
    with Cheez-Its, Wheat Thins, Triskets,
    and Cheetoes that stained our fingers.
One friend was the priest,
The other the Eucharist receiver.
We held up the mighty Wheat Thin and declared,
    "The Body of Christ."
    Followed by an "Amen".  

One friend, Rachel, was scolded for sacrilege
   When a Catholic neighbor caught her practicing with a friend
   using Vanilla Wafers.

Then the moment came when I would perform this sacred ceremony,
    before mom, dad, sister, brother, grandma, grandpa, aunt, and uncle.
    I wore my finest plaid, checkered sports coat.
    And I sat through three-fourths of the Mass with sweaty palms,
    Worried that the Host would dissolve right into my hands.

I walked down the aisle, towards the alter.
I held out my hands, looking down at the ground.
I felt the wafer placed firmly into my hands by Fr. Patrick Henry.
My shaky right hand separated from the left, 
    and I pinched the Host with my thumb and forefinger,
    bringing it to my mouth, to rest on my tongue,
    and to wait for the unleavened bread to melt. 
I faced the alter,
    made the sign of the cross,
    walked back to my pew,
    knelt down,
    and prayed a sigh of relief.  

I entered into the Communion community. 

At age 5 I entered first grade,
     already a reader.
         Charles Schultz taught me.

I spent hours upon hours upon hours
     Reading along to books.
          The voices of my friends were
          etched into the grooves of each 45.
     The needle scratched to life the voice of
         Charlie Brown instructing:

"Hi. I'm Charlie Brown. You can read along in your book as you listen to the story. You'll know it's time to turn the page when you hear the chimes ring like this: (sound of chimes ringing). And now we present Snoopy Come Home."
     
I connected most with Linus and his security blanket.
    I had a stuffed dog named Frederick.
    He went everywhere with me--
        in my backpack to school,
        sitting aside me in the grocery cart at the store,
        hidden in my shirt at church.
Concerned about my attachment,
    my father held Frederick over a garbage can.
    And despite my pleas and screams he declared,
    "Sometimes we have to say goodbye to our friends."

Whenever the cruelty was too much, the Peanuts gang saved me.

I hated Lucy.
   She lured Charlie Brown with the promise of kindness.
   And every time he saw the good in her,
       Every time he decided to trust her,
       Every time he gave her a second, third, fourth, tenth chance,
             She ripped the football away. 
Just once I wanted Charlie Brown to say:
"Sometimes we have to say goodbye to our friends."

Over time, I learned to be a Snoopy--
     to be my own Flying Ace,
     and use my imagination to take me to war zones,
        less dangerous than the one at home. 
I sat upon my bed,
     and imagined dodging bullets from the enemy,
     eventually becoming the hero
        celebrated back home.
My imagination was boundless.
It needed to be.

Charles Schultz taught me to read,
   but he also taught me lessons about life:
        Kindness despite cruelty,
        Loyalty despite betrayal,
        Persistence despite failure,
            And never, never, never giving up.

Each Sunday morning,
    when I get that thick stack of newsprint,
    I turn to the comics section,
    and get a visit from an old friend.

My father was wrong.
We don't have to say goodbye to old friends.

The dad of my neighborhood friend
    had a stuffed hammerhead shark
    mounted on the wall of his office.
   
The shark scared me shitless.

I thought it could swim off the wall,
    race across the sea-shag carpet,
    and attack me.
   
I ran down the hall
    as fast as I could,
    my back pressed against the walls,
    sprinting past the office
    and into the safety of my friend's room.

The entire time we played,
    I plotted my strategy,
    to back out of the house,
    without getting eaten.

I don't remember the friend.
I don't remember the dad.
I don't remember anything else about the house.
But I remember the shark.

And 38 years later, I'm still scared to swim in the ocean by myself.

The 42 year-old me,
   looks at 3 year-old me,
   and sees:

The blond hair,
    that eventually turned brown,
    thinned after college,
    and finally fell out.

The big acorn eyes,
    that still change colors,
    facilitating between blue and green,
    a calm ocean, a verdant glen.

The canyons under the eyes,
    that have grown deeper, and more pronounced,
    tired from the constant climb,
    of a career that runs like a hamster's wheel,
    publish or perish,
    wash-rinse-repeat.

The smooth forehead,
   free from worry,
   now wrinkled with the concerns of:
       a child's learning disability,
       a child's plunging self-esteem,
       a mortgage payment,
       an aging car,
       parents growing older,
       time passing too quickly.

The thin-lipped smile,
   that still grows across an older face,
   now with deeper laugh lines,
   from years of:
      laughing easily,
      finding funny,
      and appreciating life's levity.

The 42 year-old me,
    looks back at 3 year-old me,
    knowing that life is half over,
    and yearning to make the second half--
         matter.

To break the monotony of their day,
     my mother, and her best friend,
     ate breakfast at the dinette within Schnucks,
     before they did their grocery shopping for the week.

At age two, I was the last remaining child at home,
     and my mom dragged me along.
     She placed me in a highchair,
     and pushed M & Ms into my mouth,
     to pacify my potential cries.

Mom and Sue drank their coffee,
     and gossiped about neighbors,
     complained about husbands,
     laughed about kids,
     and commiserated in their shared exhaustion. 

Both held college degrees,
     but here they sat,
     and shopped,
     and lamented about lives that might have been.
    
Two women sat,
     trapped in the cultural norms,
     that imprisoned them in homes--
     tethered to irons,
     soaked in raw beef,
     smothered by loads of laundry,
     glued to brooms,
         sweeping away the dirt.
         And wishing they, too, could be swept away
                 to a different kind of life.

​For years I’ve started every class by asking students to Write into the Day.  I compare it to the first moments of yoga when I sit cross-legged, close my eyes, clear my brain, and breath.  Writing into the Day serves the same purpose.  It’s our breathing onto a blank page so we can clear our heads and place ourselves into the mind-space for writing.
 
Our first couple times of doing this, students ask me, “What should I write?”  Without trying to sound contrite, I respond, “Whatever you want.  But you must write/draw/doodle something.” 
 
Sometimes I offer a suggestion: “If nothing comes to mind immediately, write your ABCs in a font you wish existed in Word.”  It’s the magic of meeting pencil with page that matters.
 
We only spend five minutes doing this focusing exercise, but I believe these five minutes are essential in establishing ourselves as writers within a writing community.  For five glorious minutes, the room quiets, pencils/pens/crayons/markers scribe, and thoughts that once swarmed in our heads now exist in concrete manifestations. 
 
Over the years, my students and I have written in multiple genres and for multiple purposes in these five minutes—writing that has included:

• To-Do lists (for work, for home, for life)
• Reflections (on teaching, on learning, on decisions we’re making in life)
• Hopes (for ourselves, for our families, for our children)
• Regrets (what we should have done and what we will do differently next time)
• Fears (because they always lurk in our minds)
• Poems (about events that are best conveyed in this form)
• Letters (that might be sent or stay in our daybooks forever)
• Notes (of something important we heard that we don’t want to forget)
• Goals (for the day, the week, the year)
• Doodles (because sometimes the best form writing takes is a drawing)

 
This year, I’m pairing Writing into the Day with Writing out of the Day.  I believe giving time for students to reflect on their learning is the single, greatest gift I can give them as learners.  It allows them to make a record of their progress.  It allows them to see that each class session is an opportunity to grow.  It’s a powerful time for e-VALUE-ation when the learner gets to find VALUE in their learning.
 
Ultimately, my goal in Writing into the Day and Writing out of the Day is to make writing an every day routine.  It’s the routine that allows us to see how much value writing can bring into our lives.

The new semester beckons and the promise of new faces (with fresh writing ideas) enters my undergraduate class focused on teaching young writers.  A mentor, Don Graves, whispers his advice every time I begin anew: The first thing you do is write yourself.
 
Before I introduce myself, the content of the class, or the purpose of our time together, students open to a blank daybook page.  Our composing process begins.
 
First, we brainstorm.  I read aloud a simple book: My Map Book by Sara Fanelli.  Fanelli is an artist who created this whimsical book in 1995 and it contains a collection of drawings mapping various aspects of her life.  It includes maps of her town, neighborhood, day, tummy, family, dog, face, and heart.  It reminds me of Georgia Heard’s excellent book Heart Maps (2016) in which Heard offers a simple tool (Heart Maps) to help students find topics close to their hearts for writing.  
 
After I display a couple of pages, I stop and ask students to choose a map to draw.  They spend five minutes creating a quick sketch.  Then they find a partner they do not know, and share their drawings (and stories) with a stranger.  After five minutes, they are no longer strangers.
 
We move back to our seats and view a couple more pages of Fanelli’s book.  We pause, turn to a fresh page, and draft a second map.  Again, we have choices.  And Fanelli provides us several models.  After another five minutes, we find a trio of peers and share again.  We say our names, we tell our stories, we bond. 
 
I finish Fanelli’s book.  Again, we draw.  Again, we meet new peers.  Again, we share.  Again, we make connections. 
 
Finally, we turn our drawings into writings. We take a snippet of a drawing and turn it into a memoir, a poem, a biographical sketch, or whatever genre our topic needs as its form. I write alongside my students as we work to build our writing community.  And after many minutes, we share our drafts with peers.
 
I ask two brave souls to bare their souls to the whole class in an Author’s Chair.  They tell their peers the type of response they seek and we respond accordingly.  When they finish I thank them.  I know how vulnerable it feels to share a piece of your heart aloud.  I know the risk involved in the exposure.  And I appreciate their bravery. 
 
In sixty short minutes, a classroom of strangers becomes a classroom of acquaintances.  In a few weeks we will morph into a classroom of friends.  By the end of the semester we will be bonded forever by this brief interlude along the timelines of their lives.
 
How do we build a community of writers?  It’s simple. We write. And we share.  All of us….together.  

I find myself drawn to authors
     Who write honestly about their lives.
     The joyful, the horrific, the messy in-between,
     Obsessive prose that consumes their lives,
     Resulting in pages vibrating with voice.
 
I have many mentors,
     but I have just one hour,
     to write this Tuesday-afternoon-blog. 
     Time is ticking,
     So here are authors who first come to mind:
 
Bill Bryson finds the humor in the subtlest of objects--
     From him I learn to look for life’s minutia.
Anne Lamott finds light within the darkness--
     From her I learn to find hope in the hopeless.
Erik Laarson finds stunning events from history
     and infuses them with real, human emotions.
     From him I learn that we live history.
     And one day, we too will be pegs on a timeline.
Toni Morrison writes about lives so different from my own.
     But are our lives really all that different?
     Don’t we all travel down different pathways of pain?
Isabel Wilkerson writes about a Great African-American migration,
     About the South when I live--
     About the escape of those who felt trapped by it--
     And she teaches me a history I should have learned in high school.
Pat Conroy rewrote his childhood over and over again
      Hoping to make sense of it.
      I don’t know if he ever did.
      I don’t know if I ever will.
Ernest Hemingway, the opposite of Conroy,
      Wrote simple, direct, and unadorned.
      There’s so much we can say,
      In just a few well-connected words to form a sentence.
Harper Lee, with just one book,
      (I don’t count the second)
      Never expected the success that came with Mockingbird.
      She taught me that you write what you know--
      And sometimes the whole world resonates with it.
Langston Hughes, my GOD, LANGSTON HUGHES!
      Montage of a Dream Deferred,
      Mother to Son,
      Still Here.
      I learned it’s okay to be jealous of a writer’s talents.
 
This list is short,
     Too short--
     One day I'll add more,
     Mentors who speak to me when I read their work,
          And admire it from a distance--
          As a fellow writer reading away, just traveling through.
           

“The hard silence between frustrated people always feels cluttered. But holy silence is spacious and inviting. You can drink it down. We offer it to ourselves when we work, rest, meditate, bike, read. When we hike by ourselves, we hear a silence still pristine with crunching leaves and birdsong. Silence can be a system of peace, which is mercy, easily offered to a friend needing quiet, harder when the person is one's own annoying self.”
--Anne Lamott
Book 18 of my 52 Books a Year Challenge

Teachers abound in Yolanda’s prekindergarten class.   When Joshua announces his need to create a house, Jazmin and Katie answer the call. 
 
Joshua:  I need to make a house.
Jazmin:  I know how to do it.  Here…let me do it for you.
Katie (interrupting):  I can teach him.  You do it like this (makes a house on her paper).  You make a square.
Jazmin (angry) to Katie:  That is not how you make a house!
Katie (defensive):  Yes huh.
Jazmin:  That’s a little one.  I do big ones.
Katie (angry):  That’s how you make a house Jazmin!
Jazmin:  Joshua…look…this is how you make a house.
Joshua:  Okay.
Jazmin (gives Joshua a blue crayon): Here..use this.
 
            Jazmin and Katie confront each other in this exchange with Joshua. Jazmin is the “house-drawing” expert in the classroom and her classmates know this.  “House-drawing” is part of her writing identity.  And she is proud of her ability to successfully draw homes.  Katie, who just learned how to make homes (mostly by watching Jazmin) intrudes on Jazmin’s writing territory.  Homes are Jazmin’s domain and Katie is a trespasser.  Eventually, Katie backs off and allows Jazmin to take charge.  But this short burst of conflict reveals the power struggle that happens when young children take ownership of certain written symbols.
 
            How do students negotiate power and identity in a writing classroom?  In a classroom where peer teaching is valued and encouraged, interesting conflicts emerge.  Students who create symbols that are admired by classmates relish in their classmates' desire to learn from them.  But such peer teaching comes at a price.  When kernels of knowledge are offered to others, and imitation becomes the standard practice of the learner, the peer-teacher becomes less defined, less identifiable.  Jazmin is not the only house-maker in the class.  Katie now joins her.  Jazmin must battle to retain her authority and she is successful in this exchange.  Joshua retains Jazmin's counsel and Katie backs off.  Jazmin has held on to her power….for now. 

In a fifth grade classroom Jack, Brandon, and Bo engage in a peer revision group.  Each boy shares his writing and asks for specific feedback.  Jack shares his alien story and wants to know what he needs to add to make the alien invasion more exciting.  Brandon shares the next chapter in his growing graphic novel and asks the other boys to help him make it more funny.  And Bo discusses his informational how-to about various skateboarding moves.  He has five cool moves illustrated and labeled and needs ideas for other moves.
 
When the discussion dissipates I lean in and ask, “I noticed some great discussion happening in your group.  What did you learn from one another?” 
 
Jack, “I wanted the alien invasion to be epic.  I already had about 1000 ships landing and the aliens taking over the Earth. And Brandon gave me a good idea about the aliens having these huge, ginormous eyes and whenever a human looked into their eyes the aliens would have mind control.  So I am going to add all sorts of ways the aliens started controlling the humans. And turned them into their slaves!”
 
Bo, “And I got some new skateboarding move ideas.  I already wrote how to do an ollie, a grind, a carve, a goofyfoot.  But Brandon told me about a kickflip so I’m adding that to my book.  And he also explained a McTwist to me.  So I’ll put that one in there, too.” 
 
I wondered, “What the heck is a McTwist?” 
 
Brandon, “Oh, well when you’re up on a ramp, you like launch yourself up really high and hold your board and turn around like 3 or 4 times.  I can’t do it yet.  But one day…”
 
I ask, “So, normally you confer with Ms. D about your writing, but today you had a chance to talk with one another about your writing.  In your experience, what’s the difference?”
 
Brandon, “Ms. D is a great teacher and she has a lot of great ideas to help you with your writing, but she doesn’t also get my humor.  So, when I’m working on my graphic novel I don’t think she really knows how to help me make it funny.”
 
Bo, “And she has NO IDEA about skateboarding!”
 
The boys laugh until Jack speaks poignantly about the difference between a teacher-led conference and a conferring led by a group of peers.  “Ms. D knows a ton about writing.  A ton!  And she gives us lots of great ideas about beginning a story or ending a story to keep readers into it.  She’s really good at telling us places where she’s lost and where we need to add stuff.  But there’s a lot of things she doesn’t know that Bo and Brandon know.  Like, she really has no idea about skateboarding, but we do!  So we can give Bo much better ideas about other skateboarding moves.  That’s why we like meeting in groups.  We can teach each other.”

We teachers don't have all the answers.  That's why we need to make space for many teachers in the classroom.  Sometimes, the best teacher for a boy writer is another boy writer.

This past month, as I scrolled through my Twitter feed, I saw a post by Tanny McGregor about sketchnoting.  As part of Smokey Daniels’s new book The Curious Classroom, Tanny offers her beautiful sketchnotes to summarize the information contained within each chapter.  Her sketches piqued my own curiosity.  So, I began to explore.  First, I started sketching myself. 

Then, I watched Tanny’s and Shawna Coppola’s video from their #EdCollaborative talk:

As I watched the video, I sketched notes:

I started to bring sketching into my reading life as well.  This past week I read The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan.  This book features 8 characters—4 mothers and their 4 daughters.  Each chapter is told from the perspective of each.  And within each chapter were slice of life stories.  To keep each character straight in my mind, I decided to draw sketches as I read. 

In my doctoral program at the University of Virginia I took a seminar on Comprehension.  And the one thing that I took away from that seminar was the concept that comprehension happens during the act of reading.  So, to have students write responses to questions after they finished reading a text doesn’t necessarily capture the thinking that happens while engaged in reading.
 
At ILA this summer I am co-presenting a session about Infographics with Katie Kelley and Lindsay Yearta.  I’ve always thought of Infographics solely as digital acts.  But I was wrong.  Sketchnoting, when done by hand, is also a form of presenting information graphically.  And I thank Tanny McGregor for teaching me this.

This blog post was inspired by two Twitter followers: Tanny McGregor who introduced me to Sketchnotes and Dan Meyer who made a recent post about tips from presenters: http://blog.mrmeyer.com/2017/presentation-advice-from-14-of-my-favorite-presenters/. 

Here are my tips--in graphic form!

Today I played around with Reflection in a Kindergarten Writer's Workshop.  I have four categories of questions I like to ask writers at the end of a workshop:

• Looking Back Questions (e.g. What did you learn?)
• Looking Forward Questions (e.g. What are you going to do next?)
• Looking Inward Questions (e.g. How do you feel about your work today?)
• Looking Outward Questions (e.g. How do you think your writing compares to others?)

This morning I wanted writers to Look Inward so I asked, "How do you feel about yourself as a writer?"  The children thought, reflected, drew, and wrote their feelings about themselves as writers.  Their responses were illuminating. 

A writer's act of reflection is actually a form of authentic assessment for me.  Each reflection teaches me something about writers and gives me insight into their thinking. If a child is bored and yearns for the energy of friends, I need to make sure to position him in a space surrounded by friends who might give him the jolt he needs.  If a child is nervous about writing, I need to know why and what I can do to help alleviate her trepidation.  If a child feels happy about herself as a writer, what is happening to make her feel this way--and might she offer suggestions to peers to help them foster this feeling within themselves?

Primarily, reflection is a self-evaluative act so the writer can step back and think inward.   But it's also an assessment act that teaches me something I need to learn from my writers.

I wonder: In what ways do you reflect with your students?  How can we make reflection a daily part of their Writer's Workshop?

Last week I volunteered in my son’s classroom.  They are working towards publication and his book replicates the structure of Alison McGhee’s book Someday.  My son writes a page about what he imagines his life will be someday, and explains how he’s working towards that goal today.  He has only written a couple pages so far, but his pages include: Someday I want to be a professor and Someday I want to be a published author.  As I flipped through the pages of his book, tears filled my eyes.  I looked over at his teacher and she whispered, “He wants to be just like his daddy.”
 
When I read his beautiful pages, the tears that formed in my eyes were tears of fear more than anything else.  They were tears of trepidation.  My son struggles in school.  Born seven weeks prematurely, he has struggled since the moment he breathed his first breath.  His twin brother, always impatient, forced him out of the womb before he was ready.  I didn’t realize how hard it is for little boys to catch up to their peers when they are born prematurely, but our nine years with my son tell us that prematurity has a profound effect.  He has struggled to keep up with peers since day one.
 
He’s in second grade now, and even though he repeated kindergarten, he still lags behind his peers in reading and writing.  He didn’t start speaking until he was four, and three times a week he spends time with a speech teacher.  When he’s confronted with new information he needs to hear it a few times before he understands.  His spelling attempts reveal how he hears the words in his head.  I’m a literacy professor so I know about levels and benchmarks and where children should typically be at various ages.  I know he’s not typical.  He has an IEP, and receives a variety of school services.  Each year I sign forms that remind me he’s exceptional rather than typical.
 
The word exceptional is a difficult descriptive word to take when I think of it ascribed to my child in a school context.  It fills me with worry for his future.  No parent wants a child to struggle through life and I fear his exceptionalities might hold him back from being a professor, or author, or surgeon, or whatever dream that leads him to a passionate, fulfilling professional life.  I worry that the adjective that defines him in school might define his identity.  Will a lifetime of struggle in school exhaust him from reaching his dreams?  Will he persevere?
 
Here’s the thing: My son is exceptional.  Whenever someone passes by him walking a dog, he smiles and asks, “Can I pet your beautiful dog?”  He holds doors open for strangers.  He says “YES!” whenever I ask if he wants to try a new adventure.  He can shoot out of a starting block in swimming and launch his lanky, skinny body across the pool faster than most.  He can patiently put together a complicated Lego set.  He says, “Thank you” generously.  From his speech teacher to his reading interventionist, to his classroom teacher, to his Sunday school teacher, every single person who interacts with him tells us the same thing, “I absolutely love that sweet soul.”  He is loving and warm and sympathetic and caring and funny and charming and handsome as hell.  He’s….well….exceptional. 
 
As I type this, my beautiful boy sits across from me at my wife’s childhood home.  He’s playing on the ground while the ocean horizon illuminates his silhouette.  He pauses for a moment and glances at me.  My eyes float up above the screen to meet his.  A broad smile stretches across his face.  A smile stretches across mine.  His heart is full and so is mine.  So, instead of worrying about Someday I think I’ll stay here in the present for a while.  I’ll focus on Today.  Today my little boy is exceptional in so many ways.  And that’s what I choose to embrace.

(This is Part 2 of Lessons Learned from the Slice of Life Challenge.  I posted Part 1 yesterday.  This challenge has been a powerfully profound writing experience for me.  Thank you to the incredibly innovative teachers who envisioned this project and had the persistence to continue making it a reality year-after-year.)

Lesson 6: Writing is Art
Too often we think of writing as a science,
    Sentences constructed with subjects and predicates.
    Capitals at the beginning, punctuation at the end.
A collection of nouns and verbs and adjectives and adverbs,
Combined to fit in perfect, neat packages.
     Well, to hell with that!
 Writing is an art,
     Art that is beautifully subjective.
     And the best artists break the “rules.”
I want to read art that is:
     Memorable,
     Thought-provoking,
     Shocking,
     Soul-crushing,
     Heart-breaking,
     Heart-pounding,
     Joyful,
     Scary,
     Creative,
     Enlightening.
Show me a teacher who values those qualities in writing,
And I’ll see a classroom of students writing like warriors.
 
Lesson 7:  Choice is a Fundamental Principle of Writing
In this challenge, every day was a new possibility.
No one told me to write--
     About this topic,
     In this genre,
   For this audience,
   For this purpose. 
I was the decision-maker.
Some days I relished in endless possibilities.
Other days I just wanted someone to tell me what to write.
    But I know—choice is my job as a writer.
    And that doesn’t mean choice is the easy way out.
Abundant choices provided some of my biggest challenges.
 
Lesson 8:  I Didn’t Need a Rubric to Assess my Writing
I would have felt constrained if:
    There was a narrow rubric hovering over my posts,
    There were components I had to include in each piece,
    I had to tell my story “across multiple pages,”
    Points were taken off for not including “linking words”. 
In an effort to raise the standards of child writing,
In what ways do the standards restrict child voices?
If standards were applied to my posts,
    So many posts would have been silenced.
And, I would have never made it 31 days,
    If each piece was judged by an outside, sterile, objective rubric.
I think it’s time for us to rethink our practice of using rubrics
    To respond to student writing.
    Rubrics don’t measure anything worth measuring.
 
Lesson 9:  Writers Need Communities
What a gift it was to have the warm embrace of a writing community,
    To have fellow writers offer encouragement,
    To have fellow writers nudge me forward,
    To have fellow writers excited about a published post.
    To have a fellow writer say, “I see you.”
Writing is lonely.
For hours it’s the writer, the screen, and a collection of jumbled thoughts.
    So, when those thoughts coalesced,
    It’s was a gift to have the community respond.
 
Lesson 10:  When We Write Meaningfully, Our Lives Bleed onto the Page
Ernest Hemingway said, “There’s nothing to writing.
      All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
This month I saw blood across many blogs:
      Husbands who passed away too soon,
      Children growing up too fast,
      Retirements soon approaching,
      Worries about losing identity,
      Fears about a country many no longer recognize,
      Joys about joyfully exhausting work,
      Hope about what tomorrow brings,
      Happiness in a life well-lived.
We write because we have something to say.
And in a world where many feel like their voices are tempered,
     This slice of life challenge let’s writers roar.

(As we approach the end of the #SOL17 challenge, I’m feeling reflective about the lessons I've learned from participating.  My last two slices of the challenge are reflective ones.  I've learned 10 important lessons from this challenge.  Today's slice is Lessons 1-5.  Tomorrow's slice will be Lessons 6-10.)
 
Lesson 1: Writing is Exhausting Work
Some mornings I woke up eager to write. 
Some mornings felt laborious. 
        Some days I knew exactly what to say. 
        Some days it took hours to unscrew the cap of my thinking.
If this challenge were a marathon,
    And I was completing the last mile,
    I would be limping towards the finish,
         Tired and exhausted,
    But so satisfied that I ran towards risk and reward.
  
Lesson 2: Writing Requires Us to Form Habits
My typical #SOL17 routine was this:
    I woke, took the children to school, made my coffee.
    I sat, in my brown Lay-Z-Boy chair, and faced a blank screen.
Certain mornings, the writing flew out of my fingertips.
Other mornings I lingered.
    On these mornings my fingers thumbed through photographs
         In search of inspiration.
Occasionally, but not often, I wrote at night,
     After my children went to sleep. 
     But my mind is foggy then and not as sharp as the morning hours.
         It is, however, more reflective. 
And some of my more personal pieces came out after the sun set and under a blanket of stars.
I formed a writing habit that I want to continue even after this challenge is over.

Lesson 3: When Teachers Write, We Learn Lessons to Carry into our Classrooms
If there were days I felt too tired to write,
   There will be days my students feel too tired to write.
If there were days I struggled to draft,
    There will be days my students struggle to draft.
If there were days I felt too blind to re-see my writing,
     There will be days my students feel equally blinded.
Because I write, I better understand my student writers. 
I don’t need a set of prescribed lessons telling me what to teach next.
I just need:
      awareness of my own process,
      observation of theirs,
      rich discussion,
      thorough note-taking,
      thoughtful reflection and analysis,
      and the knowledge that comes when I play around in different genres.
These are the important lessons I learn because I’m a writer, too.
 
Lesson 4: Writing Every Day Makes Writers More Aware of the World
Yesterday, as I walked my beagle Blanche, I observed:
     The blossoms emerging from the dogwoods,
     The blue jays and robins returning to the trees,
     The creek overflowing from the thunderstorm the night before,
     The sweet smell you can only sniff in a North Carolina and Virginia springtime,
     The crack of a bat from softball practice in the ballpark behind my house.
         The sights, sounds, and smells of spring in the South.
And, each sight, sound, and smell I experienced I whispered to myself:
      Oh!  I could write about that tomorrow!
When we write every day, the things we typically overlook,
     Become writing possibilities. 
Writing every day makes us more present and more aware of the world around us.
 
Lesson 5:  Writers Need and Yearn for Response and Thrive when They Receive It
Each day, I felt a little nervous when I clicked “Post”
     Worried about two things:

1. Will anyone read and respond?
2. If they do, what will they think?

Each day, when I go an email notice from a Responder,
My heart raced a little faster,
      Because I was excited someone read my writing. 
I’ve come to depend on the energy I get from response.
     Upset when I only got 1 or 2 responses,
     Elated when I got 5 or more.
I didn’t realize how much importance I placed on an audience response,
Until I took this challenge. 
Now I know:
     This challenge is as much about reading and responding
     As it is about writing.
All writers need and yearn for response,
     And thrive when they receive it.

(Coming tomorrow: Part 2 of Lessons I've Learned)

It seems adults aren’t the only ones expressing rage these days at our government.  Max, ten years old, is pissed off too. 
 
In South Carolina where Max lives, a legislator proposed a bill that would require all public school students to wear uniforms.  Democrat Cezar McKnight proposed the bill in January stating, “…peer pressure causes students to ask their parents to spend large sums of money to ensure they can wear designer clothes to school on a regular basis.”  It also states, “…students have, regrettably, used particular articles of clothing on occasion to identify themselves as members of certain gangs, to the detriment of discipline and safety at their schools.”  There’s a provision in the bill in which children who receive free or reduced-price lunches will be given five sets of uniforms.” Of course, the uniforms will be free as long as there is money in the budget.  We all know how that typically works out for constituents.
 
Max heard about this proposal on the news and he immediately began to voice his rage to his mother.  She offered a simple suggestion: “Well, the best way to speak out is to send a letter to the congressman who proposed the bill.”  With a pressing purpose for writing, and an authentic audience to receive his ire, Max marched to the kitchen, grabbed a pencil, and wrote.  His letter, written entirely by himself, is attached.
 
After a brief introduction, Max lays into the congressman with his concerns.  First, he worries about his status amongst his friends.  He needs to prove to them that he did, indeed, get a Miami Dolphins T-shirt for Christmas.  After all, knowing which team has your loyalty is important in boy culture.  It’s what you use to rib a friend for a loss or hate another friend for a win.  For many boys, who they cheer for on any given Sunday says as much about who they are than it says about who they cheer to victory.
 
In boyland, your word is your bond.  So if you tell friends you have something and they respond, “Prove it!”, you better damn-well prove it.  Max knows this.  And he pleads with his congressman to not make a liar out of him. 
 
For many boys, verbal expression takes a back seat to physicality. A swagger says more than a speech. The wardrobe must match the attitude. “Nobody would know me,” is Max’s plea to not strip him of his identity. 
 
We writing folks talk about the power of choice in writing topics, audiences, and purposes.  Sometimes we forget how much those same foundational principles apply to all aspects of a writer’s life.