Speak

I just finished the novel Speak and recommend it highly for those of you that have not read it.  There is an art teacher in the novel who changes the way that Melinda (the main character) feels about communication and expression.  The teacher has each student pull a topic from a globe and they have the entire year to sculpt, paint, draw, or use any other creative outlet to express what the topic is to them.  Melinda draws the word "tree" and creates image after image after image of different types of trees until she finally comes up with a simple, slightly imperfect tree that encompasses what she wanted to create. 
How do we give our students the ability to try and fail and try and fail and try again until they are happy with their creation, all the while not judging their failures but their effort?  How can we give A's without the perfect "A work" to back our decision?  I want my students to feel like they can take risks and not be punished for them.  But how do I prove to administrators and parents that this IS learning?

Remembering My Roots

I read Jackie's blog and it helped me to remember how much I loved writing when I was younger.  My dad owns a monument shop and every weekend I went with him while he sandblasted headstones and grave markers to different cemeteries throughout Iowa.  While he worked hard for our family, I wandered the paths of stone to find a place to settle and read or write. 

The one constant about cemeteries is that they are peacefully quiet.  As long as a walked far enough away to lose the sound of my father's work I could lose myself in the silence.  I'm not sure if it was the quiet or the constant reminder of all the lives that had existed before me, but cemeteries were always a place that inspired me to write.  There is a calmness and a clarity that comes to me when I'm there.  My words flowed a little more freely, my poetry came together a little more easily, and I didn't question every word that was going into my stories.  I wish I still had those notebooks that I took with me.  It would be wonderful to see my writing when it was less inhibited than it is when I'm writing for a grade.

With my memoir I'm trying to lose those conventional thoughts that have been bashed into my brain throughout school.  I'm trying not to worry about leading the reader, but instead letting the story lead me.  I just recently axed my first memoir idea and started over.  Let us all hope that my writing takes me to a new place, that is truly me, and is inspired like the poems and stories I wrote in those cemeteries so many years ago. 

LOL, im xited. C U L8R!

As a teacher, I'm responsible for making sure that my students are competent writers.  Part of that means that they are comfortable and confident in their writing, and part of that means that they know the rules of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.  What must come first?  What is more important?

Most of my classes have been focusing on this topic lately, and I thought it might be helpful to write out my thoughts.  As a student, I would never have considered turning in any work with abbreviations, text talk, or misspelled words.  It always seemed to be an insult to the teacher that I would find that appropriate.  But then again, I didn't do a whole lot of texting in high school because there was no such thing as unlimited text message plans. 

My conclusion is this:  if my students want to use text talk or slang in their journals and private writings, then I have no need to mark them down.  If a student hands in their one pager, essay, outline, or formal paper with text talk or slang then I will correct and discuss their writing choices.  I want to set my students up for success, and I don't think it would be fair for them to leave my class thinking that writing in short hand or using slang in formal writing is an appropriate thing to do. 

Silver Lining

I've been thinking about the fact that we will all be responsible for posting grades electronically in our schools.  It is easy to sit down and think of all the reasons that I hate the person who invented power school and infinite campus, but there has to be a silver lining.

My younger brother has never been a fan of school.  He is incredibly intelligent, one of the most charismatic people I've ever known, and he would rather hit his fingers with a hammer than pick up a book.  For years my Mother tried working with the teachers to find a way to monitor his progress, and it was only through the daily emails and having my Mother sign off on his homework that our family was able to get my brother through high school.  He wasn't as lucky in college.  He failed out of two community colleges and eventually found a job where he is happy and successful.  If it weren't for my Mother's meddling and constant supervision, there is no chance that he would have graduated. 

So here is the silver lining:  the annoyance and time will be worth it if we can get one more student to graduate.  This is why we are all here.  We want our students to be successful, but not every student wants it for his or herself.  If I can have a parent or a family member fighting with me to save the student, then I'll take whomever I can get.

What really matters?

I think we all have days and weeks where we feel that our live is stressful and overly complicated.  I worry about getting my readings done, making my sales goals at work, folding all of the jeans so that they line up perfectly on the right side, keeping my house clean, and walking my dogs so they don't get fat.  But does it really matter?

I had a very special, very beautiful girl come shopping in my store today.  Keely is 14, and she was granted a special gift by the Make a Wish Foundation.  What was it that she wanted more than a trip or a concert?  She wanted to go shopping at American Eagle.  All she wanted was to be able to get out and be a normal teenager.

This girl has had more challenges and hurdles than I've had in my lifetime.  It tears me apart that this polite, sweet girl is living with the pain and fear that comes with her cancer.  When she came in she had a huge smile on her face, and asked if someone would have a little bit of time to help her find some cute clothes for school...all she wanted was to look cute for school.

Of course we all dropped the menial tasks that we were completing to help her, she was just that wonderful.  But I couldn't stop but think about how lucky I was, how I get to go home to my husband and two dogs.  I thought about how wonderful my time with Ken has been and how we get to have children in the future.  There are so many things that she'll never get the chance to do, but all she wanted was to feel beautiful.  She truly is.

There are these points in our life where we have to look inside.  I've been sitting up for hours not knowing why I can't sleep.  But I know now.  It's because I want to give her just a little bit of what I have.  A little more time.  A little more hope.  A little more.

I think Keely did more for me than I did for her.  All I did was sell her some jeans and tops.  She put my life in perspective.  She helped me see what matters.  Thank you Keely, you're in my prayers, and you're amazing. 

Need to Know, and Want to Know

My name's Renee, and I've never blogged before.  I have written in a journal forever, but never was there the audience (or at least the chance for an audience) that this publicly displayed blog holds.  Luckily it is for a class, so my thoughts will mostly focus around required readings, my ever changing thoughts about writing, and my fears of having to teach high school students how to write. 

This is my second semester in the School of Education at Iowa, and I'm so excited.  I graduated from Iowa three years ago with a degree in English and a minor in Ancient Civilizations...it just so happens that there are zero jobs for English majors, let alone a job that actually challenged and intrigued me.  That's when I started thinking about what I really wanted to do with my life.  I certainly didn't want to work retail jobs forever, and I don't have the commitment to sit down and write novels (I always quit on my books about three chapters in because I get bored with my own ideas).  Teaching was the only profession that made sense, the only profession that fit me. 

I want to teach high school English.  I want to teach Shakespeare, the Odyssey, the Great Gatsby, Robert Frost , Edgar Allen Poe, and all of the things that people claim to hate because they had bad teachers.  I find it inexcusable that we have teachers in school that make reading and writing a punishment.  Words are beautiful, and I understand that they are more beautiful for some than for others, but why can't we as teachers breath a little life into these stories?  Why can't we extract some passion from out students? 

My father has been one of my biggest inspirations for becoming a teacher.  He is so intelligent, so driven, so charismatic, but he never went to college and he hates books.  I've only seen him read one book in my entire life.  One book.  The only reason he read the book was because it was a story about a close friend of his who died fighting for our country in the Middle East (the book is Black Hawk Down, and I recommend it).  I can't remember a month when I haven't read at least one book, let alone twenty years. 

As a teacher, I want all of my students to find a passion for reading.  My ideas for reading and writing are different, but I think that they have merit.  If you can get a student to read, you can get them to write.  If you can get them to write honestly, then they can start to believe that they have something important to say.  If you can give your students confidence in their thoughts and beliefs, then they will have confidence in themselves.  If they believe in themselves, then they will have the strength to break down the barriers that life puts before them.  Reading leads to writing leads to realization, and that is why I want to be an English teacher.