Ode to Summer
How I'm reflecting and preparing for the coming school year, and some unsolicited recipe-sharing.
Practicing
With it being summertime, my teaching “practice” isn’t as active as it would be with a classroom full of students. That being said, I’ve still found ways to expand my practice.
The biggest way that I’ve been expanding is through reflection. I’ll be at a new school this coming year, and having just finished my first year teaching, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to take with me and what I want to leave behind.
My phone policy of last school year is something that I want to leave behind. At least certain aspects of it. For example, I relied heavily on external incentives last school year to get my students to respect my policy. There was a weekly raffle for individuals, and a term prize for the class with the best collective track record for respecting the phone policy. It became exhausting for me, and it actually felt like the importance of the policy and my rationale for it became swallowed up in the proverbial carrot that I was dangling in front of my students’ noses.
I learned a lot about motivation when I showed this TED-Ed video to my students at the start of our second semester last school year. And now, as I’ve been practicing my summer reflections, I’ve realized that my external motivators surrounding the phone policy were actually demotivating factors for many of my students. Thanks to the book Distracted by James M. Lang (which I plan to dedicate an entire post to later), I’ve become converted to the idea that engagement is the surest cure for off-task behavior, including cell phone use, in the classroom. Much more effective than trying to get rid of distractions. If class content is designed in an engaging way, students are more likely to be motivated towards it instead of away from it. Of course nothing is a cure-all, because we are all motivated by different things. But instead of failing to trust my students and presenting them with enticements in an effort to persuade them to respect my phone policy, I want to trust my students by presenting them with rigorous learning opportunities that will test their abilities and provide them space to grow. After all, coddling is patronizing but learning is exciting.
As for things that I want to take with me:
(1) My daily exit ticket called a “TQE.” I got this idea from a veteran teacher at a district training I attended at the start of last school year. I later learned that it’s a derivative of a teaching strategy used in this Coming of Age lesson by Facing History, and coined by Marisa E. Thompson as a solution to shallow reading. I give each student an index card that they will use for the entirety of the term, and then I ask them to write down either a Thought about what we learned in class, a Question that they still have, or an Epiphany (“ah-ha” moment) where something resonated with them. They record their chosen T, Q, or E on one line of the card, and I write a brief response. It’s my favorite part of the day. I get to learn from my students and see how they think. After learning about using TQE as an annotation strategy, I may try to expand this exit ticket and better utilize it as a learning activity in the classroom.
(2) Writing journals, although I anticipate their role looking a bit different with this coming school year. I am once again inspired by Teaching History in that I want to make using writing journals a more active part of class. Last year, my students only really used them at the start of class. It felt disconnected from everything else we did. In my undergraduate study, Dr. Deborah Dean, one of my favorite professors, gave us writer’s notebooks and had us engage in response to daily writing prompts, but she also used our notebooks as places to practice grammar principles, sentence structures, and ultimately create an expanded writing project based on one of our original entries. I tried very imperfectly to incorporate aspects of that training in my own classroom, but it fell pretty flat. I think I was afraid to encroach on a writing space that I wanted to be uniquely my students’ own. This year, I aim to make writing journals not just a space to journal, but a space to learn.
Experiencing (or, Meeting Goals)
I’ve had various goals this summer that have met with varying degrees of success. My goal to hike three times per week is stuck somewhere on the pages of my June calendar, and my goal to do daily morning yoga is very on-again off-again. But I’ve recently decided to eat healthier (prompted by one yearly physical and one gallbladder ultrasound), and that goal is extremely satisfying to meet.
My particular dietary needs require that I eat low-fat foods and far less sugar, as those are the foods that seem to irritate my gallbladder and my unfortunate intestines. So thus ends my love affair with Trader Joe’s frozen mac-n-cheese, much to my chagrin; please go eat some for me. But I have discovered a few wonderfully delicious recipes that sit well with me and make me excited to eat, both of which are important factors for me to continue eating healthily. And because they make me feel good, I will now share a few of them with you whether you want me to or not:
Jennifer Aniston Couscous Salad - this was a recipe shared by one of the TAs on a study abroad I went on two years ago. It is divine.
Cafe Zupas’ new protein bowls have quickly become a favorite, and the Nourish Bowl is my #1 for sure. But since eating out gets pricy very quickly, I’ve gotten good at gathering the ingredients myself. Here’s a copycat recipe, but I typically do my own variation of the bowl with Panera Bread Fuji Apple Vinaigrette (I found mine at Walmart).
Good old classic smoothies. My Ninja Bullet is currently my favorite kitchen appliance, and my favorite recipe is as follows:
One whole banana, frozen
One whole sungold kiwi, with the peel still on
4-5 medium strawberries
A big heaping spoonful of plain greek yogurt
A cup(ish) of Trader Joe’s unsweetened vanilla almond milk (or Fairlife fat free milk, if I need more protein)
One tablespoon of chia seeds, if I feel like I need the fiber
It’s so creamy and delicious, all natural sugar, and helps me pack in some good nutrients.
There’s also been a lot of trial and error. I’ve experimented with healthy chocolate chip cookies, and with faux-cheesecake fruit cups, and I can’t say that either of those things have made the “save the recipe” list. That being said, there’s something invigorating about trying new foods that fit within the dietary parameters that you need to respect—even when you don’t end up trying them again. Constraints inspire creativity. It’s a principle I’d do well to remember when planning assignments for my students.
I will say, since being more intentional with what I eat, I’ve noticed that I’m a lot less bloated, I have more energy, I get hangry less often, and I sleep better. It takes strategy to make sure that I am getting all the nutrients I need, and it’s incredibly satisfying when I succeed—especially when I can feel the difference. I just feel good. Healthy. Funny how that works.
Also, I can testify that water truly is the key to success. It’s something I was told long ago, but I was apparently never even close to drinking as much as I needed to in a day. Now, tracking my water to meet my daily goal has helped me see an improvement in my gut health. If only I’d listened to that simple advice earlier.
Learning
I mentioned above that I want to write an entire post dedicated to the book Distracted by James. M. Lang. I took so much from that book, it’s hard to distill it into one essential takeaway—but the more I think about it, the more I think that my biggest takeaway was the need for classroom community.
I think that my TQE exit ticket is one small way that I tried to implement community last year. I read my students’ thoughts, questions, and epiphanies, then I personally responded to each one. I got to know them better in that way, and it felt like a mini conversation. But I was always hiding behind the index card, never really talking face to face with my students about their real lives.
There are a few things I want to try implementing this year.
I want to arrange my students’ desks into the small horseshoe shape. Two desks at the top, and two along each side, with space in the middle. This website calls it the “mini u’s” shape. I like the arrangement for its versatility, and how it encourages students to talk to each other. That may seem counterintuitive for a teacher to want, but I’ve realized that community is just as much about students’ relationships to each other as it is the relationship between teacher and students. I was amazed that so many of my students didn’t know each others’ names by the end of last school year! And so they need to get to know each other, and so they need to face each other.
I want to give daily get-to-know-you questions that each “mini u” table will discuss together. If they can have discussions about low-stakes topics, and get to know each other in the process, they will be a lot more comfortable and engaged with discussing more academic topics when the time comes.
I want to call each student by name when I call on them. I was shy about this last year. Maybe I was afraid I’d get the students’ names wrong—and I did a few times! But I think there is something magic in hearing our names spoken. It allows us to feel seen, like we contribute to the space we’re in and like we matter. Lang talks a bit about this in his book, and even says that he encourages students to refer to each other by their names when building upon one another’s comments during discussion. I want to emphasize the importance of names, model using names, and expect the same of my students. They need to feel like they are contributing members of a community, and that their presence is valued.
I want to talk to students before class starts. I want to stand at the door, or walk around the room, and ask questions or give compliments or otherwise engage in conversation in those few minutes we have before instruction begins. I think it’s important that students view me as their teacher and not their friend, but I also want them to see that I care, and that I know them. Once again, I want everyone to be seen.
Odds and Ends
My niece’s favorite thing to ask my husband to do (other than to play the “monster game”) is to tell her a “free lakes later story.” She means “Three Weeks Later,” and it is a very specific type of story that follows a very specific pattern:
First, my husband begins by saying, “Until… three weeks later…” and then proceeds to tell a story about the whole family going on vacation, or navigating the jungle, or walking down the street, or swimming at the pool.
Next, something fantastical happens. Like, a swarm of eagles begins to attack us. Or a giant shark begins to emerge from the center of the swimming pool. Or a flying saucer beams down from the sky.
Next, my niece (who we will call Rose) magically appears at the center of the fantastical activity. She might be riding an eagle, emerging unscathed from the mouth of the shark, or be one of the aliens on the flying saucer. But revealing Rose’s presence in the story always follows the same pattern:
Husband: “Suddenly, we saw someone riding one of the eagles. Can you guess who it was?”
Rose: “It was Rose!”
Husband: “It was Rose!”
And then, usually, Rose proceeds to do something heroic, like saving us all from the swarming eagles or confusing the aliens enough to send them away. But that will always be followed by a plot twist that takes Rose away from us again. Sometimes she is captured by thieves or a cunning octopus, sometimes she simply lets her curiosity get the better of her and she disappears on her own flying saucer before we can follow. But the story always ends the same:
“And we never saw her again.”
“…Until… Three weeks later…”
And so the story is a never-ending cycle of Roses’ heroics, mysterious disappearances, and serendipitous re-appearances.
These stories are one of the things that endeared me to my husband while we were dating. As I’ve gotten familiar with them, their structure fascinates me because they are consistent. It’s easy to tell what is and is not a Three Weeks Later story. I have learned this by trial and error, because sometimes when my husband gets tired of telling stories, my niece turns on me and asks me for my own “free lakes later story.” Let me tell you, some of the stories I have told were not up to muster per my 5-year-old niece because they didn’t fit neatly into the pattern that I have since identified.
Maybe I’m so attuned to identifying the patterns within a genre because that’s the very thing that I teach my students to do. Whenever I introduce a new genre of writing, such as a research paper or a literary analysis, I always give my students a few exemplars or “mentor” texts. I have them do exactly what I did with my niece’s favorite stories: I have them determine what does or does not make a piece of writing fit within the given genre.
For example, I have learned that in Three Weeks Later stories, Rose’s final disappearance is always accidental. She either gets taken from us, or goes wandering off before we can catch up with her. I once told a story in which we all left her at the beach, and my brother-in-law was able to point out that abandonment is not usually how a Three Weeks Later story ends.
For my students, I have them make two columns on a piece of paper: a “Must Have” column, and a “Could Have” column (I also learned this practice from Deborah Dean.) As they look at the examples of the new writing genre, I have them identify features that all exemplar texts have in common. These are the “Must Haves.” They will notice things like, “all literary analyses have thesis statements” and, “all research papers cite their sources.” Sometimes they will notice things about structure, tone, style, grammar, etc. Then in the “Could Have” column, they write down things that some of the exemplar texts include, but not all of them. If they are looking at argumentative essays, they might notice that one considers the opposing viewpoint, but another one does not. That observation could go in the “Could Have” column.
Dr. Dean used to say that this process could truly apply to any genre. I experienced that truth while comparing wedding invitation designs to be able to design my own, googling resume examples while attempting to write my own, and now even while listening to my husband tell stories to our niece as I prepare to tell my own. I guess this is what we teachers mean when we say that we try to teach skills and strategies that apply beyond the classroom.
Positive Miscellany
For today, just a quote. One that I feel relates very well to the need to teach in an engaging and passionate way:
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."
- Antoine de Saint Exupéry, author of The Little Prince
I loved the entire post and am excited that all the different aspects of your life get to mingle together in this space. I'm definitely planning on adapting the TQEs into my practice, and I'm excited to see what changes you make with the notebooks. Good luck with the school year starting soon!