Finding a Way to Educate

I've recently started to follow the #edchat and #engchat conversations and several educational websites like EDSITEment on twitter. It's amazing the amount of resources I have come across in just a few weeks. It can get almost overwhelming. It can get almost depressing.

I work at a small, rural school. I don't have ipads, and clickers, and nookcolors. I don't have mobile labs and classroom computers for students to use. I don't havea technology rich, everything-at-your-hands media center.

This past week my seventh graders were working on small group projects. It would have been amazing for them to have access to classroom computers for completing digital timelines or media rich slideshows. I read about teachers who have their students blogging, creating digital presentations, and sharing everything on a classroom website. And I get a little discouraged that my students aren't doing those things.

It is so easy to sit back and look what I don't have and use that as an excuse for not doing. This article at Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension sums it up nicely. It's EASY to make excuses for not doing.

And?

So?

Suck it up!

I may not have the dream set up, but here's what I do have - bright students who have a desire to do and learn; a social studies teacher next door who agrees that the more we work together, the better our students will learn; a principal who understands that learning doesn't always need a quiet classroom; a library-media specialist willing squeeze everything possible from her limited resources.

I also have a room full of students who have, for the last week, followed directions, worked as a peer group, read to determine the author's key points, summarized information, argued their opinions, made compromises to keep the group working, paced themselves to meet deadlines, did some self-evaluation of the project before turning it in, and left on Friday asking, "What are we doing next week?"

speed writing

This year I've taken on a new challenge. I'm teaching facilitating a creative writing class. It's completely a trial and error process. I have no frameworks, no guidelines, and thankfully, from my students, no fear. The class is a great mix of ten 10-12 grade girls. And just from the interaction between them in class, I would say it's a success.

In the beginning, I was afraid that I would run out of things for them to do - that I would be constantly scrounging for lesson ideas. Just the opposite has happened; we have so much to choose from that we can't decide which to do next. The girls are full of ideas, there are good websites/blogs about writing, and I've even come up with a few ideas myself. We start most classes with 10 minutes of freewriting. One day a week we read; for now it's been independent reading of each students' choice, and most of them are reading a book assigned in their English classes.

Currently we are speed writing. It's my version of speed dating. Each person is given a different story starter and 4 minutes to begin the story. The timer buzzes. The stories move to the right, and the timer begins. With each move of the story, 1 minute is added to the timer to allow time for reading. With 11 of us writing it took three 45 minute class periods to move the stories back to the original writer who then had 15 minutes to bring the story to a resolution. 

I found a list of story starters, chose 11 that would provide a good variety and randomly assigned story starters to writers. Because we wanted to waste as little time as possible with passing papers, we moved tables into a square. Every one sat in the same spot each day. At the end of the day stories were turned face down so that the next day we would be ready for a quick start. We also made a pact that the stories would not be discussed between writing periods - this way no one would "give away" the story to someone who hadn't gotten it yet. And as far as I know, most of them kept the pact; I may have confessions otherwise over the next few weeks.

I don't think we have the beginnings of a great American novel in one of those stories, but we have started something great. When the last timer chimed on Friday, these authors were eager to discuss their stories. They pointed out problems in plot. They analyzed time lines. They questioned characterization. They argued logical resolutions. And they wanted to "fix" things that others had done to their stories, or they apologized for things they had done to others' stories. Also, they are excited to share the stories in class this week. And they only had a few minutes to discuss them on Friday. I think this week may get loud. And that will be fine with me.

I would love to hear any advice or suggestions you might have about teaching creative writing.