Dakota Writing Project

By Greg Dyer, University of Sioux Falls

Eisenhower Hall. Kansas State University. Late 1980s. Advanced Composition. Donald Stewart sits cross-legged at a student desk—near the door, as if blocking our departure. He attempts to explain a chapter from the textbook, a chapter on Grammar B. (Though the term “Grammar B” has stuck in my memory and shaped my tastes for nearly thirty years, I could not have defined it for you until I pulled the textbook—The Versatile Writer, written by Stewart—from the shelf after starting this reflection.)

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Romano, Tom. “Breaking the Rules in Style.” Writing with Passion: Life Stories, Multiple Genres. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Heinemann, 1995. 74-92.

—–. “Evolving Voice Through the Alternate Style.” Writing with Passion: Life Stories, Multiple Genres. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Heinemann, 1995. 93-108.

Stewart, Donald C. The Versatile Writer. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1986.

Weathers, Winston. An Alternate Style: Options in Composition. Rochelle Park, NJ: Hayden Book Company, 1980.

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Like most days, I sit on the left side of the classroom, along the bank of windows. Three of my classmates write “Dear John/Jane” letters on the chalkboard. It’s not you. It’s me. There is no good way to say it. There are plenty of bad ways, however. We laugh a lot, and I don’t nod off once.

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A crot (crots, plural) is an obsolete word meaning “bit” or “fragment.” […] A basic element in the alternate grammar of style, and comparable somewhat to the “stanza” in poetry, the crot may range in length from one sentence to twenty or thirty sentences. It is fundamentally an autonomous unit, characterized by the absence of any transitional devices that might relate it to preceding or subsequent crots and because of this independent and discrete nature of crots, they create a general effect of metastasis—using that term from classical rhetoric to label, as Fritz Senn recently suggested in the James Joyce Quarterly, any “rapid transition from one point of view to another” (Weathers).

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I write an essay using lines from a Langston Hughes poem as an organizing structure. (Having just dug the paper out of a file, I find Stewart’s end comments have been lost. Having read roughly a thousand essays in first-year composition courses, I see that the organization was the only distinguishing feature of the essay. ) It was the first time I felt like a writer.

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In Caney, Kansas, I sit behind the teacher’s desk as the high school students in my advanced composition class work on a meditation essay. The assignment is pulled straight from Stewart’s The Versatile Writer. (Most of us teach like we were taught, after all.) A year later, after teaching junior high for a year, I submit my resignation and return to graduate school, where I will discover that I learned nothing about writing pedagogy when I was an undergrad. Sitting along the bank of windows, I saw everything through the lens of a student. Sometimes the lens of a writer. Never a teacher of writing.

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A Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

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A new graduate student, I walk into the office of Gay Lynn Crossley, whose comments during the practicum sessions for graduate teaching assistants consistently strike me as insightful and generous. Opening up possibilities in student papers that I did not perceive. Having no vocabulary for talking about writing in ways similar to Gay Lynn, I can only ask her what I should be reading. She hands me a five-page bibliography that continues to occupy a prominent space in my desk drawer.

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Berthoff, Ann. Forming, Thinking, Writing: The Composing Imagination. Rochelle Park, NJ: Hayden, 1978.

Elbow, Peter. “Closing My Eyes As I Speak: An Argument for Ignoring Audience.” College English 49 (1987): 50-69.

Gass, William. “On Talking to Oneself.” Habitations of the Word: Essays. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985. 206-216.

Macrorie, Ken. Telling Writing. Rochelle Park, NJ: Hayden, 1970.

Murray, Donald. A Writer Teaches Writing. 2nd Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985.

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From a letter of recommendation written last week, for a recent graduate seeking a position in a nearby high school:

As a writer, RecentGradA is the best with whom I have worked. Her versatility, her work ethic and her voice are distinct and unique. She sets her standards high, but is willing to take risks in order to grow as a writer, a thinker, and a person. Many of us who teach writing have heard ourselves assert that a writer “needs to know the rules before breaking them.” Seldom, however, do we gain the opportunity to work with writers who have reached that point in their development. RecentGradA is one who provided me that opportunity. I truly believe she could have a career as a writer, and I have—selfishly, I admit—often desired to see her undertake that pursuit.

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I’d like to encourage everyone who reads this reflection to do two things:

First, I invite you to use the commenting function connected with this post to share a crot or two from your own development as a teacher, a scholar, a writer.

Second, given that most methods courses at the undergraduate level can allot little more than a week to the teaching of writing, I hope you’ll look around your school and invite new teachers to apply to the Dakota Writing Project’s Invitational Summer Institute. If the 2008 deadline has passed by the time you read this piece, start lobbying for the 2009 summer institute. While I’m exceedingly grateful to be teaching at a university, I can’t help but wonder how much more rewarding—how much more effective—my teaching in Caney, Kansas, might have been if Mrs. Faulkenberry or Mrs. Sullivan had been able to welcome me into a community of “teachers teaching teachers.”

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by Sue Morrell, NBCT
Wagner Community School

http://www.artchive.com/index.html
This site allows students to see, literally, the connections between story and artwork. For example, students might look at various artistic renderings of the Greek myth of Icarus, and compare those to the poems and to the legend. The possibilities are endless. It is free (right now, at least), and it has a wide variety of material.

http://www.short-stories.co.uk/
An excellent resource for all kinds of stories – fiction and non-fiction. This site allows students to do online reading, shared reading inquiries, and searches for particular genres.

http://drama.eserver.org/plays
Need a different translation of a classic work? Want students to examine the format of a play? Here’s a great online resource for scripts available in the public domain.

http://ise.uvic.ca/index.html
Internet Shakespeare Editions provides access to a wide variety of Shakespeare text, including plays and poems, links to information about the playwright and his times, and other excellent resources.

http://wilearns.state.wi.us/apps/default.asp?cid=18
The Wisconsin Literary Association and Reading Network Source is a good resource for teachers of all content areas. There are links to strategies, home-school connections, and other valuable teaching resources.

http://www.literacymatters.org/about.htm
This site addresses teachers, parents and students concerned about improving literacy skills for middle school and secondary students who are struggling to succeed. Like the WiLearns site above, it provides ideas about strategies that may work with readers who struggle to make sense of fiction and nonfiction text, or who are not motivated to read.

http://en.openphoto.net/
The Open Photo site offers free images – non-copyrighted material. Students can use these to enhance their projects in a variety of ways.

http://www.edutopia.org/
Edutopia is the site associated with the George Lucas Educational Foundation. It’s a great source of creative ideas. The articles feature projects and programs that will not only blow apart your idea of what it is possible to teach and to learn, but will also inspire you with innovative educational strategies. Super professional reading site!

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/
As long as you do not alter these handouts and aids, you are free to use them for classroom instruction. They are excellent! Why reinvent the wheel?

http://www.coe.uh.edu/digital-storytelling/tools.htm
This is an excellent, all-purpose site with many links to relevant resources for students and teachers alike. Consult it before you begin a digital storytelling assignment.

http://thisibelieve.org/index.php
My curriculum includes the teaching of essays, of course. To help students to understand how necessary it is to have passion about a topic, I have them link to this NPR site and listen to several of the 3-5 minute essays. The text of the essays is also included with the audio version, thus providing the ability to analyze structure. These become the models for my students to record their own “This I Believe” essays.

http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/omag_ocut.jhtml
I discovered this by accident, but it’s an excellent resource to spark student interest in a topic or in an author. This woman talks to lots of important people. You can listen in on this site to her “cuts” from live interviews. I used it first to help students see and hear Elie Wiesel, the author of Night.

http://www.oscars.org/teachersguide/index.html
This is an invaluable site for teaching media/film literacy. Downloadable PDF documents provide guides to screenplays and script writing, animation, lighting and sound effects, etc.

http://english.uiowa.edu/nonfiction/readinglist.html
So, I went looking for a resource to help my students think about non-fiction reading. Sue William Silverman’s Contemporary Creative Nonfiction Reading List is comprehensive and intriguing. I’m handing it off to my senior College English students for their final research project.

http://www.liu.edu/cwis/CWP/library/workshop/citmla.htm
This is an MLA citation source. I like the colorful approach used by these site designers because they help students differentiate the pieces of the bibliographic entries.

http://www.oslis.org/secondary/
The Oregon School Library Information System contains both student- and teacher-friendly information, including scoring guides and rubrics for various kinds of written and oral projects, research strategies, a link to “Citation Maker,” and an evaluation of internet sites page.

http://www.scholarshiphelp.org/scholarship_essay.htm
This site is a must for teachers of seniors. It includes advice for getting recommendations, assessing skills and keeping a log of accomplishments, preparing applications, and writing scholarship essays.

A Middle School Teacher’s 1:1 Reflections

by Anne Moege, Mitchell Middle School
NWP Professional Writing and Technology Retreat ‘06

“Thank you for calling the WWLI (Wonderful World of Laptop Initiatives) hotline. If your idea of technology integration means showing students PowerPoint presentations of your class notes, press 1. If you’ve never heard of the terms ‘wiki,’ ‘blog,’ or ‘discussion board,’ press 2. If you have lost your Internet connection, have no idea where your students’ ‘X:’ or ‘H:’ drives disappeared to, or need other technical assistance, press 3. If your students inappropriately use or abuse their computers in and/or out of class, press 4. If you’re harboring anger because you wanted a Mac and ended up with a Dell, press 5. If you refuse to support your colleagues in their technology endeavors, stay on the line until a customer service representative is available.” And then begins the encouraging music: Wilson Philips’ “Hold On.”

Holding on . . . that’s precisely the decision several of my colleagues and I made as educators a year and a half ago when my middle school, one of the lucky few, was awarded a 1:1 grant in early June of 2005. This grant provided each of our seventh-grade students with his or her own laptop computer. I may make light now of the early challenges we faced, but most days, an 800 number to a technology hotline would definitely have come in handy.

At some point during the ’05-’06 school year, I’d heard through the middle-school grapevine that our superintendent had written a 1:1 grant, but I, quite frankly, hadn’t given much thought about the implications. By spring of ’05 the “word on the street” was that our district intended to drop entirely our twelve-week computer exploratory classes for both seventhth and eighth grades. One computer teacher was moving, and the other decided to retired, but with the news of not filling those positions, my ears perked up. Finally, within the last month of school, we began the planning process in the event of grant approval, and two technology committees (one at the middle school—mainly PC users—and one at the high school—mainly Mac users) were put into place to visit with the assistant director for technology from the local technical school to discuss the platform we would adopt and how the technical school would provide our tech support. By then, I definitely wanted to know more and volunteered to serve on the middle-school committee.

Because the committees met separately, I can relate only what the middle school’s committee voiced concerns about; for example, how would we proceed with laptop distribution, what types of restrictions would students’ computers receive, and what specifics would be included in our computer policy? However, the major outcome of our separate meetings was the decision to adopt a Dell platform, mainly due to the technical institute’s recommendation based on the skills of their network systems people and the structure of the existing network. Adopting an alternate platform would take time, technical tweaking, and training, and time was something that was not on our side. The ultimate vision became this, though I don’t really think the committees’ input had much to do with this goal: our incoming seventh graders would keep the laptops from seventhth through ninth grade; then in tenth grade, they would receive new computer (most likely a Mac) so that by the time they graduated from high school, they would have experienced both platforms. A column in the local paper by our superintendent in mid-May confirmed the exciting grant prospects; all we had to do next was wait.

During a curriculum mapping workshop in early June 2005, our principal announced officially that our district had been awarded the grant, bestowing upon each of our seventh-grade students a Dell Latitude D510 to be used, well, basically like a textbook—to be hauled from class to class and then home and utilized for assignments and homework. By now, I was hearing a good deal of skepticism over the probability of immature 7th graders being able to handle respectfully a $1,000+ laptop. Then there was the reality that, although we would have tech support, all staff would be responsible for teaching students basic computer skills and integrating technology into our curriculum without any computer teachers or integrationists around for guidance. In order to do that effectively, we’d need some training, which would most likely cut into our precious, limited summer schedules.

Still, my enthusiasm for computer accessibility and creative ways of using the laptops far outweighed my doubts. I was tired of fighting for the computer lab (and not winning), and I knew enough about technology to handle teaching students some basic computer skills while we worked on language arts-specific assignments. Fairly new to the district but not to teaching, I was ready to take on a type of leadership role, using my students as “guinea pigs” to try some fresh, innovative strategies and then share successes and failures with other colleagues. I definitely knew I didn’t want to do what everyone else would be doing. Sure, I could do this. Wait . . . innovative things? Not just word processing and PowerPoint?

To meet the challenges that lay ahead, approximately ten other colleagues and I answered the call to be trained to help train the rest of the staff. Here was my opportunity to learn some new ideas and then, a step out of my comfort zone, to teach teachers for the first time (even more daunting when they might be a tad hostile as we were strongly “encouraged” but not “required” to give up eight days of July to be trained). Unfortunately, the first few days of our five-day training led by a Dell representative from Texas started roughly. We muddled through online lessons via the Dell Co-nect site—lessons like “Introduction to Laptops,” “How to Use Office XP,” and “Top Ten Internet Resources.” There was absolutely nothing wrong with reviewing these topics, but the bigger question wasn’t being addressed. Exactly how were we supposed to use the computers with our students? Finally, frustrated by lack of direction and knowing we needed to fill the expected two eight-day sessions with something relevant, we told the Dell rep what we thought our staff would need. We trainers, of course, really had no idea where to start, but it seemed logical to begin with the basics. The trainers, for the most part, knew about the Office XP products (Word, Publisher, PowerPoint, Excel) that students and staff would utilize, but would all of our staff have practiced them enough to be able to teach students how to use them? With this question in mind, our training group then developed two four-day training segments based on the Dell Co-nect site’s lessons for using Word, Publisher, PowerPoint, Excel, digital images, and our district’s intentions for using shared folders. We breathed a sigh of relief and hoped for the best.

Our “blind leading the blind” training ended in July. School started the third week of August, and students received their computers the final week of August during two evening information sessions, which parents and students were required to attend in order to learn policy information, sign policy forms, and, of course, receive the prized laptop. Thus, our laptop experience began.

Numerous issues arose early on to emphasize our inadequate preparation, including server issues, security issues, break-down issues (the Dells were the ones eventually recalled due to faulty batteries), and tech-support issues (one poor guy for our whole middle school). One concern stood out above all of these, at least for me: students voiced that if they were never going to use their computers, why did they have them? We could fix server problems and computers and implement policy changes eventually, but there was no convenient here’s-how-to-integrate-technology 800-number for us to call.

In retrospect, we probably did the best that we could, given the implementation time frame, but with the laptop initiatives becoming more and more prevalent across the United States (in my state of South Dakota, for example, twenty high schools are piloting laptop programs during the 2006-2007 school year based on the Governor’s South Dakota Classroom Connections laptop initiative), it’s important to examine and share the successes and failures of the laptop experience in order to reevaluate how to go about effectively implementing a 1:1 initiative, training teachers for their new roles, and understanding technology integration.

This year my school district, in a sense, has been given a “second chance” to “get things right.” In May ’06, our high school was named one of the Governor’s pilot schools, so our laptop initiative, which has now shifted to a Gateway platform, extends from grades seven to twelve. And during our frustrations, triumphs, and self-examinations of the past year and a half, I’m absolutely certain the high school and middle school staffs have learned a great deal. Thus, although I am but a novice in this whole “wonderful 1:1 world,” I consider the following assortment of comments—based on my students’ and my 1:1 journey—to be a rudimentary “help line” for those about to give the 1:1 a whirl.

1) Teacher training for technology integration means more than reviewing Office products. We can encourage teachers to start small and integrate gradually. We can suggest that they take a look at what they already do and find areas for technology integration. But what if they don’t know where to start, what to try, or what technology integration is? I recently read a newspaper article where Georgia teachers were struggling with how to go about technology integration after two years of 1:1 implementation. Once teachers were given laptops and told basically to “go with it,” one wondered what “go with it” meant; was there a website she could go to?

In my middle school’s case, eliminating the computer exploratory placed our teachers in the unique position of having to teach computer skills. I believe that’s one reason we felt it was important to review the Office products during our first teacher-training sessions; we needed to be able to teach skills our seventh graders might not have been exposed to during their sixth-grade computer exploratory to ensure computer basics were covered prior to their entering high school. Still, during my initial computer training experience, a small voice nagged me to dig deeper. The only Office product most of my fellow trainers and I hadn’t been familiar with was Movie Maker (software that allows one to create and edit movies using images, narration, and music), though I’d had minimal exposure to digital storytelling (stories combined with a visual multimedia element) during my Masters coursework and could immediately see the possibilities for this more “sophisticated” software within my classroom. What else was out there? Where could educators go to find promising educational products, preferably free or at least inexpensive?

Coincidentally, the Dakota Writing Project, based at the University of South Dakota, Vermillion, and affiliated with the National Writing Project, sponsored an electronic writing marathon during the time of our computer training. The opportunity, which involved exploring a variety of online writing spaces, lasted three weeks in July and three weeks in January. The experience proved so helpful that I signed up again for the summer ’06 session. My eyes have been opened not only to more about digital storytelling but also to Nicenet (an Internet classroom assistant), weblogs (online journals), del.icio.us (an online tool for collecting and sharing favorite websites), Tapped In (an online space for educational professionals to share with and learn from each other), and wikis (collaborative websites that users add to and edit). The great thing about these spaces is that they do not apply solely to my content area of language arts. Teachers and students of all content areas and levels can benefit by exploring these and other online spaces.

Since our laptop experience broadened to include our high school this school year, the district brought in David Warlick—an educator, author, computer programmer, and owner/consultant for The Landmark Project (a professional development, web design, and innovations firm in Raleigh, North Carolina)—to speak to us at our all-staff in-service prior to the start of this school year. His presentation opened the eyes of many as he shared what literacy and learning mean in the 21st Century: in short, students will need to be able to research effectively (expose the truth); use that information effectively (employ information); share their ideas in writing effectively (express ideas compellingly); and use information ethically (ethics). The Landmark Project site alone includes scores of technology ideas and resources, but had I not been introduced to David Warlick, I might not have ever stumbled upon his site. Just as Warlick encouraged us to guide our students to becoming effective researchers, we, too, need help in filtering through everything the Internet offers. Districts need to give teachers the time to search for and to develop ideas and should also determine ways of sharing “what’s out there” with their staffs. However, regardless of whether or not a district is able to hire integrationists or consultants, teachers must be willing to learn on their own. Overall, training should be ongoing; teachers should always be seeking, experimenting, and evaluating.

2) Create a learning community with staff. One way to share “what’s out there” is to get teachers actively involved with training, in-services, and so on. I applaud my district’s willingness to allow its teachers to plan and facilitate the past two summers of teacher technology training. Who better to explore, discover, implement, and share ideas than those who are using the technology? Granted, our first training summer sessions weren’t all they could have been. But by our second “go-around” of teacher training sessions, our technology committee and staff had a much clearer vision about what our computer training could or should include.

For example, as a result of my technology exploration through the electronic writing marathon, this past summer, I was able to pass on what I’d learned about Nicenet and del.icio.us. Other colleagues who’d explored on their own presented what they’d discovered about interactive websites, Quia (a “create-your-own” educational materials website), and Inspiration (graphic organizing software).

In addition, though our district hired a technology integrationist this year, several staff members have continued to take active roles in sharing technology information. These colleagues often email our staff links to interesting sites (such as a live webcam of an African watering hole, a blogging article from USA Today) or technology “toys” (i.e. a cordless, optical-air mouse). We’ve held before- and after-school mini-sessions covering areas the staff wants more information about, for instance, reviewing how to use shared folders or certain Quia elements. After my students and I dabbled with blogging this fall and winter, I passed along our experiment to English department colleagues, who are eager to try blogs with their students.

Although our middle-school staff continues to face challenges, we have, in a way, established our own “hotline.” Yes, we have a technology support individual, but his hands are often full.

One colleague down the hall requested and wrote down the directions for “fixing” when a student’s “X:” drive seems to have disappeared. I, of course, asked for a copy! A colleague next door inquired about synchronizing issues that plagued her students early in the year; again, she shared what she learned with the staff. An eighth-grade language arts teacher hosting a high school foreign exchange student asked me for advice about setting up a Nicenet class with the purpose of discussing topics with freshmen at the exchange student’s school in Norway. Because our staff has been working and learning together, how convenient it has been to be able to call on a teacher down the hall to answer questions when they crop up!

3) Learn from your students. Let’s face it; when it comes to technology, the kids often know more than we do. Still, it’s difficult to “let go” of our teacher control and allow the students to teach each other and their teachers. When my “first-year laptop seventh graders” and I tried Nicenet, a few students were unable to log in, and their frustrations and mine grew. Finally, one boy checked into the Internet security settings (nope, I didn’t know much about that at the time), determined the appropriate setting, and then the students were good to go. Later in the year, a student wrote his Nicenet response in Word, explaining to me that he wanted to check his mistakes first and then copy and paste his response into Nicenet. Why didn’t I think of that? This, too, eliminated the panic that ensues on the rare occasions when students post a response only to be faced with the ominous words “this page cannot be displayed.”

In addition, during our digital storytelling experiences with Movie Maker, students helped each other add time to specific portions of their projects or work through the steps of saving the project as a movie, giving me, essentially, several aides in the classroom. When we were exploring “tracking changes” in each other’s writing, a student showed me how to “Tile Windows Vertically” or “Horizontally” so that students could see the edited rough draft and work on the final draft at the same time.

This year I’ve given more responsibility to and learned even more from my kids. Before attempting blogging with my students, I showed one or two students out of each of my classes how to post writing and upload images during their student-responsibility block (SRB) so that when we got to those points during class, they’d be ready to help. Now when hands fly up during an activity, I often have students stepping in saying, “I can help him” or “I’ll show her how.” When I didn’t know how to go about a blogging task, I passed the quests on to interested students: “figure this out and let me know how to do it.” My bloggers have taught me how to compress a “too-large” image so that it can be uploaded to one’s blog and how to adjust settings so that a blog’s comments will not be “off.”

Finally, I often ask my students for feedback. Last year I was curious if using Nicenet would improve my students’ attitude toward writing. I discovered that although nearly all of my students expressed that they enjoyed using Nicenet and the majority felt that their response writing improved in quality, attitudes toward writing didn’t change much. One student pointed out that “writing is writing no matter what.” Recently, students finished a research unit that involved more aspects of Nicenet: following a class schedule, conferencing, adding documents, and link sharing. Once the unit wrapped up, I asked students for input so that I could better prepare for my next attempts. I learned that some students liked that they were asked to work more “independently” and enjoyed sharing links with classmates to “cut down on” the amount of time it took to find websites relating to their research topics. Some would have preferred discussing the topics face to face while others liked conferencing with students from my other language arts sections. Next year when I tackle the research unit, I know I need to carve out more time for explaining how to add a document, thanks to students’ suggestions.

4) Be flexible, patient, and prepared. Just because my students now have daily access to laptops, we do not always have it “made in the shade.” Example A: Two or three (or four) students per class are without computers because the laptops are being repaired (which can require as little as an hour or as much as several weeks’ time, depending on the computer’s “injury”). What do I do with those students? Example B: Students diligently working at a website are suddenly “kicked out.” What then? Example C: Students can’t access their work on a certain drive (“It was there at home, but now I can’t find it”). Now what? (No, you don’t need to remind me that “technology is great . . . when it works”.)

The fact is, we have to be flexible, we have to be patient, and we have to be prepared. Ideally, each of my students would have a computer every day of school, but unfortunately, that is not the case. My school did have some extra laptops to be loaned out, but they’re all—well—loaned out. So I do try to have a “Plan B” for my “computer-less” scholars, such as providing a hard copy of an assignment, letting them work with a partner, allowing a trip to the library’s lab, or even letting them move on to another activity. If the Internet “acts up,” I can always divide my class into groups, one using a website while the others read independently or work on another activity, and then switch the groups after a certain amount of time. To avoid wasting precious class time, I quickly learned that if I could troubleshoot some of the common computer issues (i.e. a student’s computer not synchronizing or reconnecting a student to our school’s wireless network), I wouldn’t need to send a student to the “tech guy.” However, I also learned that I did need to give students time within class to use the technology, not dump it on them as homework only to be greeted the next day with “I just didn’t get how to do this, so can you show us again?”

Even during our second year, we still are getting used to how the technology works and how we should work with it. Each day carries a variety of challenges that try our patience, and it’s not uncommon for a teacher to bring up a problem we’ve never before encountered. When my patience runs thin (symptoms my students easily recognize, such as my jaw tightening, fists clenching, and comments about another gray hair), I force myself to refocus and praise my kids for their patience. We don’t give up. Instead, we move on. We try again later. We stay positive, and, eventually, we figure things out.

5) Separate “skinny rabbits” from “fat rabbits.” A few years back, an educator from Iowa spoke to our staff at an in-service; one point she made was not to waste energy on small issues (which she eloquently called “skinny rabbits”) and to be able to tell the difference between the “skinny rabbits” and “fat rabbits” (matters of true importance).

Often, the laptops were, and still are, the hot topic of conversation at lunch or team meetings. Staff members grumbled that students weren’t caring for their computers and their computers were often “in the shop.” A few kids were bypassing security barriers, getting to sites they weren’t supposed to be on; thus, they’d lose computer privileges. One teacher stated she was about ready to give up because three or four students were computer-less each day. In addition, the server, at times, didn’t cooperate when students were using the Internet for research or posting discussion responses, or it took forever for students to log on. Some of the rooms’ LCDs projected slightly off the screen; when could that be fixed? The most common complaint, though, was displeasure in students’ computer settings: wobbly arrows, a hidden start menu, funky fonts everywhere, and background pictures changed multiple times a day.

As I listened to and participated in these conversations, the Iowa educators’ message resurfaced in my mind, and I began to categorize my own “skinny rabbit” laptop issues and “fat rabbit” laptop issues. I asked myself, despite their irritating nature, which “skinny rabbits” could I handle in order to focus on the bigger picture? Surprisingly, I came up with quite a few, including wobbly arrows, funky fonts, and all of the other “cosmetic” experimenting middle-school kids do; my LCD being projected a couple of inches off both sides of the screen (like the tech guy didn’t have enough on his plate); and computer-less students (if three didn’t have them, that means 20-some still did). Yes, these were skinny rabbits, a little annoying, but skinny.

But, shortly after I had shared Nicenet with the English department at my middle school, one colleague emailed me concerns. Her students had discovered the personal messaging element. Was I aware that students could send messages that the teacher couldn’t see? And how would Nicenet know if the person creating a class was really a teacher? Some of her students might create their own class as a space for discussions with friends. Oh no, this was a “fat rabbit” issue! Immediately, I voiced my concerns on the Dakota Writing Project’s E-writing discussion board at Tapped In. The project’s co-director soon responded with far less emotion than I had expected, stating, “Personally, I don’t see that as a bad thing,” and provided the link to an article called “Letting Go: Online Collaboration and Communication in the Classroom.” Okay, my students would experiment in ways I hadn’t anticipated; I wouldn’t be able to “control” that part of their learning. Eventually, I managed to place that concern on the “skinny rabbit” side.

Though there are still times I question the “control” issue (remember my students are blogging this year?), I remind myself that technology experimentation is all part of the process, for teachers and students. Plus, I have “fatter rabbits” to fry—like continuing to explore with my students’ blogs, planning a digital story for second semester, and getting a discussion set up for our Gathering Blue novel.

For the past year and a half, my district has embarked on an extraordinary roller coaster ride into a world that, honestly, hasn’t always been all that “wonderful.” We implemented quickly, only to find out just as quickly how much we didn’t know. Thankfully, much of our staff has “held on” and continues to explore and experiment, evaluate and share. And in many ways, being involved in a laptop initiative has rejuvenated my love for and excitement about teaching. I have been challenged to rethink what I do in the classroom, to discover new ways of doing things, to grow personally and professionally. There will be no answer-all 800-number in this laptop world, but because many of my colleagues have pulled together, I can always check with a colleague down the hall.

A glimpse into a year in the life of a fifth-grade teacher teaching science

by Lindsay Sorben, Ellis Middle School , Austin, Minnesota (formerly at Bennett County in South Dakota); DWP Regional Liaison

“Miss Sorben, what button do I push?” —Internet Explorer.
“Miss Sorben, my computer doesn’t work” —I’ll be right there!
“Miss Sorben, my computer just locked up.” —You’ll need to force-quit.
“My password won’t work!” –It’s case-sensitive. You need to type everything exactly.
“What’s case-sensitive mean?” —Grrrr!
“Where’s the internet?” —On the task bar on the bottom. The “E” or the compass icons.
“What’s an icon?” —A little picture.
“Miss Sorben, I need your help!” –I’ll be right there!
“How do I force-quit?” —Open Apple Q.
“Huh?” —These two buttons.
“Miss Sorben, a new student just came in! Does he get a password, too?”

Meanwhile ( back at the ranch), your fellow teachers stand in front of their classes, smiling and enjoying the great lesson they have planned for their classes. Your scream, though only heard in the magical subconscious of every teacher in your building, produces unseen smiles as they thank the goddess of teaching that they are not in that computer lab with you.

Taking risks is often a scary thing. It holds the uncertainty of success and the inevitable mistakes made along the way. Onlookers watch in awe the forerunner traveling to defeat and, possibly, wonder if they should be taking that leap themselves. But for the pioneer, the walk is sometimes painful as he visualizes his goal, sees the obstacles, and wonders: why am I doing this?

In the electronic age of instant information and video games, it is often challenging to engage our students in the lessons and activities that we prepare for their learning. Students want visuals. They want pizzazz. They want us to dance around and do cartwheels (although this may not always work). They want to be entertained without having to leave their cushioned couches. How do we answer to their cries? How do we answer to our own cries for help in teaching hi-tech kids?

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” We can be creative with how we present our information to our students, but we can’t always make them apply what they’ve learned. We’ve got standards to reach. We’ve got deadlines to meet. And we better make sure that no child is left behind in the battle.

While participating in an online writing marathon with the Dakota Writing Project, a branch of the National Writing Project (a professional organization that promotes teachers teaching teachers how to write and teach writing), I began brainstorming ways to integrate today’s technology into my classroom curriculum. As part of an inquiry project with it, I used Nicenet.org as an instructional tool for science.

I taught science to both classrooms of fifth graders, with about fifteen students in each section. The site has a message center for the students to correspond to one another. Initially, introduction into the program was gradual, but the ever-present demon of time became a huge factor in the success of our usage of the Internet Classroom Assistant (ICA). It was going to be a learn-as-we-go kind of project, but availability of computers and computer lab times became crucial. Not only that, the amount of time allotted to the teaching of science (shamefully) was sacrificed in order to accommodate for schedule changes and to allow for math and reading to have their necessary time. (Social Studies was another loser in the game of scheduling).

In the midst of my excitement of getting students to see the internet and science in two different, merging lights, other teachers watched, smiled and nodded, and carried on with their regularly scheduled classroom programs. “You’ve gotta try it!” I would say to my colleagues. “Yes, Lindsay, that’s nice,” would be their reply. How could I convince them that they should be integrating technology into their classrooms? How could I show them that it really isn’t so intimidating or that it really doesn’t take any more time than what is already needed in the classroom?

With only thirty minutes of technology being taught a week, I knew that there had to be something done so as to not cheat my students out of possible experiences. Seeing the varying possibilities through our DWP E-Writing Marathon, I didn’t want my students (or teachers) to lose out on what was out there. Nicenet became my medium to write with technology, a baby step. But even more so, the journey that I took in using it became more valuable as I continue to integrate technology and writing into my classroom.

My adventure began in September with the setting up of the Nicenet online classroom. I thought it would ease the students’ usage of the new learning tool by already having student logins and passwords assigned and ready for use when the time came to sign in for the first time. I typed them out and saved them, knowing that the day would come with someone (and probably more than one) forgetting a password.

Other loopholes that I had to get through were permission for the students from their parents to use the internet and the arrival of new students to the fifth grade. It took weeks to collect all of the permission slips. By the time we started using Nicenet, there were still a handful of students who couldn’t even be in the lab with us. Finding alternative assignments and keeping them on task during my introduction to Nicenet was a challenge.

New arrivals often came unexpectedly and sometimes on days when Nicenet was in the plans. It caused two problems: 1.) Did they have their internet-use permission slip?; 2.) Could I get them a login and password by class time? I did as any teacher does in those situations, I “punted.” No permission slip meant an alternative assignment, and a login and password would either have to wait or be assigned during a planning period (or lunch period) before class.

In order to set up my science classroom as a classroom that uses writing to learn, I begin my year with Thinkbooks. They are basically journals the students use to write down thoughts and questions pertaining to what is being studied. I often post a question or statement on the board for the students to respond to, and they spend the brief minutes at the beginning of class and write down their thoughts. It’s a tool that I use to assess understanding and to give them a chance to think about what they are studying.

A month of using Thinkbooks passed before trying Nicenet. Science was scheduled in the afternoon. Fortunately, at the time of my introduction, the computer lab in my upper elementary wing was available for use. In it was an LCD projector and enough computers to accommodate both sections of students.

The first issue to arise was the use of software. We are a Macintosh school with both Internet Explorer and Safari software. Students began opening Internet Explorer. Soon after running, however, the computers began locking up, causing the students to have to shut down their computers and start them up again to open Safari.

With the chaos of software somewhat out of the way, we had just enough time for the students to log onto the website. Students were exposed to case-sensitive “hiccups.” Voices of “it won’t work,” “what’s this” or physical frustrations were heard in the lab. With patience and perseverance, we marched onward toward our goal until all were finally logged on.

The LCD projector proved to be an almost necessary piece in introducing the students to Nicenet and in giving them a visual “walk-through” of what the site contained. Our first stop was the Messaging center. I had posted a question to the students, asking for their thoughts about science so far. I demonstrated how to respond to my message. All followed well. Whew! The fruits of my labor!

The first day’s plans were almost too much for my fifth graders to handle with the stress of actually logging onto the site. Once the students were onto the website, they were a little apprehensive at first but got excited at the thought of getting to “e-mail” each other messages. Ha-ha! Motivation for learning! It was at this time that I gave them the disclaimer that the Messaging feature was only to be used for “scientific” things, not for personal messages; and I had access to all of their accounts and would know if they were using it inappropriately.

The first few trials of Nicenet left me exhausted! I was troubleshooting. The students were impatient. Computers were locking up or passwords were lost. Students had difficulty typing or typing well. Not until later in the year, thank goodness, did the students start abusing the Messaging feature. In the early stages of its use, when most of the problems emerged, the computer lab was vacant at the times I needed it, but, as the semester progressed, the computer lab became less and less available and was given precedence to reading classes over my science class.

I was able to establish the use of Nicenet through our Ecosystems and Astronomy units in the first semester. I exposed them to the Conferencing feature and the Assignments feature. Students had a difficult time following the written directions in Assignments. They either didn’t want to take the time to read it or they wanted me to talk them through their assignment. It was a feature that I had used only a couple of times. In retrospect, fewer, smaller steps should have been built onto larger steps to promote their independence.

Conferencing was supposed to be the magical tool that brought our great minds together, with open discussions about science and what we were doing in class. It became a carnival of writing, some thoughtful, some just haphazard words typed out. Few students read what their classmates wrote, and even fewer actually responded to their classmates’ postings. What I did get, though, was a collection of students’ understandings of science. It became another assessment tool.

Link Sharing became most valuable during our Astronomy unit. Students were expected to perform investigations about an astronomy-related topic or concept. During those investigations, the class researched their topics on the internet. The Link Sharing feature was a tool for them to use. I posted links on the site that they could explore that may or may not have led them to other sites for their research. The Link Sharing also provided an easier way for me to get the students to navigate to certain websites instead of expecting them to type URLs that were long and cumbersome.

We finally got most of the wrinkles ironed out with software and computers halfway through our experience. That’s when I saw results of using Nicenet for thought processing. It could have been student maturity, or it could have been the habit of processing their learning in writing. The students’ replies to my Conferencing topic about Astronomy were deeper than their short responses to their feelings about science at the beginning of the year. Some were metacognizant. Some were analytical of their efforts. Overall, their writings were beginning to become just that: writing!

In my investigations i have had a lot of fun.I have got a lot of experience about astronomy now.While i was researching i had a lot of fun.I got to roam around on the internet it was really cool.The construction of my or our final project turned out pretty well, we made a model of crab nebula.My classmates projects were really cool i liked jeremy and patricks the best. —Fifth Grade Student (1)

And their writings were improving! Early Writings of a Fifth Grade Student:

I liked the experiment that we did today.It was really fun. I hope we get to do more fun experiments this year. —Fifth Grade Student (2)

Later writings of same fifth-grade student:

I had a really fun time learning about astronomy and making projects. It was easy researching.The resource I used most was the internet. It was kind of hard and kind of easy to make our project.It was better than I thought it would be. I thought my classmates projecst were cool and they took their time. —Fifth-Grade Student (2)

And then it happened (ominous chord). Just after completing the students’ reflections about Astronomy and their investigations, a new schedule for the computer lab emerged, throwing yet another wrench in to my trial of using technology. At the time of the schedule change, science was from 1:45-2:45. The computer lab was going to be occupied until 2:20, leaving less time to devote to Nicenet. We visited the lab when we could. My topics were simplified for the time.

A light bulb came on after a month of playing cat and mouse with the computer lab. Through a grant (for reading), the school purchased a mobile lab unit with Mac labtops. Aha! I had my answer. With only a couple of months left of school, we began using the laptops instead of the computer lab. By this time of the year, we were in a time crunch and were only able to log onto Nicenet a couple more times.

Curious to know how the student felt about using Nicenet, I asked them their thoughts on getting to use computers and using the website. The majority of students agreed that they enjoyed it. They recommended its use for future fifth graders. The classes liked the idea of not always having to do “real work.”

I don’t look back on this trial as a failure. I think that this “experiment” was very much a success. 1.) It integrated technology into the classroom; 2.) The students were writing(!); 3.) The students were writing in science(!); 4.) Very few, if any, complained about having to perform the tasks set up for them while in Nicenet; 5.) It became a tool for assessing the students’ understanding of the subject matter; 6.) Students were having conversations through writing; 7.) The science classroom was self-motivated; 8.) By the end of the year, I had a couple teachers inquire about Nicenet and one teacher who told me, “You know, I really should be doing something like this with my students.” I got as far as showing her the website and how to set it up!

This adventure is not over. This is only the first leg. In my nine months of obstacles and challenges and mini successes, I began something. I jumped over a road block in my teaching that will only get smaller and smaller the more I take on these new battles. And when I meet a new road block, I won’t sweat it. I’ll take in stride. Keep my patience, and trudge onward toward my goal. Isn’t that part of what we try to teach our students? Perseverance?

My students thought, reflected, wrote, typed, studied, discovered, communicated, listened, and learned. A student reflects, “What I think about science is that we write a lot about science and that we do a lot of hard work!” They hadn’t been exposed to something like this before. This was their beginning, too. I gave them a taste. Just a taste of what’s out there. It may springboard into their own adventure, or just may make things easier for the next teacher who attempts the unheard of.

My challenge to those apprehensive teachers watching that pioneer face her doom? Take some chances. At least a few little ones at a time. Take the risks to make you better and to make your students better, accepting mistakes as part of the beauty of learning.

Why choice is valuable

by Karen Rahn, Rutland Public School

A simple vocabulary assignment with my juniors opened my eyes to the value of choice in the classroom, and I have been experimenting with this idea ever since. I was giving yet another long list of vocabulary words for the class to learn and then be tested on in a few days, the usual, predictable lesson, which allowed me to have a grade for the grade book. The students and I had come to look at these vocabulary lessons as a necessary drudgery that we just had to endure, like swallowing a foul-tasting medicine. I thought, okay. let’s shake this up just a bit, and told the kids that I only wanted to test them over 15 of the 30 words, and that they, as a class, would decide which words would be on the test. I told them to look through the words and pick what they, individually, thought first, and then they could compare lists and whatever the majority wanted would be it. The class woke up and began really looking at the list of words. Once we started putting the lists together for one master list, they had to make some choices due to “ties.” This was when I saw authentic cooperative learning take place over vocabulary words for the first time in that class. They actually discussed the words’ meanings and came up with a rationale for which words would be best to have on the list. We all felt better about the day’s lesson, and the test scores on the following Friday were much improved.

This experiment caused me to think back to my studies in Jim Fay and Foster Cline’s Discipline with Love and Logic, and even though this was not a discipline area, I was making connections with their discipline philosophy, using choice and my assignments. Part of their philosophy states that “Choices provide opportunities for children to hear that we trust their thinking abilities” (54), and in doing so, it builds self-confidence and a better relationship between teacher and student. It was clear to me that using choice in learning as well as discipline was something I wanted for my classroom.

Our lives and the lives of our students are filled with choice. How a choice is made depends on which need the chooser is addressing. William Glasser says in his book, Choice Theory in the Classroom, “We always choose to do what is most satisfying to us at the time.” (21) People make choices according to their needs, These needs, according to Glasser, can be summed up as five basic needs inherent to every individual: to survive, to belong, to gain power, to be free, and to have fun. (25)

What does this mean to us as teachers? According to Glasser, “The more students can fulfill their needs in your academic classes, the more they will apply themselves to what is to be learned” (33). Once students are applying themselves, the teacher is able to be more of a learning guide rather than the authoritarian figure or fireman-putting out fires in the classroom at every turn.

Jonathan C. Erwin, faculty member of The William Glasser Institute since 1995, draws heavily from Glasser’s Choice Theory in his book, The Classroom of Choice: Giving Students What They Need and Getting What You Want. He states that a teacher’s first job is to be a manager, and that means, “…first creating the conditions for students to be interested in learning or performing, and then providing the structures, strategies, and activities that will encourage quality learning and quality performance” (5).

Freedom to Choose

The first axiom of William Glasser’s Choice Theory is: The only person whose behavior we can control is our own. (Choice Theory) The teacher is a manager of the classroom and he/she cannot make a student do anything. Only the student can choose to do or not do the assignment that you, the teacher, have so lovingly and painstakingly created for him/her. The more a student is screaming, “You can’t make me” the more he/she is saying, “I need more choice/control in my life.”

Students often feel that they are being forced into their education; therefore, there is little buy-in. As Glasser pointed out, we all have a need for freedom, a feeling of being in control of at least some aspect of our lives. Giving choices allows students to feel that they have a say in the direction of their education. So how do we as teachers use this idea, this need, to our advantage? If students truly feel that they are being given actual, meaningful choices, their freedom needs are being addressed. They are much more apt to do the assignments that they are given a say in because, they chose them. The buy–in will more likely be there for them.

So does this mean that the student is taking over the classroom? In his book, Erwin says, “In the interests of maintaining an orderly learning environment, providing choices does not mean students have license to do or say anything they want” (16). He states that his main goal is to help “…create the conditions in a classroom so that teachers and students can meet their needs effectively without coming into conflict”(18). Faye and Cline also point out guidelines to this effect: “Always be sure to select choices that you like. Never provide one you like and one you don’t because the child will usually select the one that you don’t like” (55). This means opening yourself to broader possibilities; look for real choices and be willing to try something different. In doing so, you may find that you will be addressing your own need for fun through variety!

Implementing Choice

There are millions of ways that the teacher can offer choice in the classroom that address the needs of the students. The following is a lesson that I presented to the Dakota Writing Project as a demonstration in choice. It is an activity that could be adapted to many classes with a little creativity. While the following assignment encourages group work, it is also rich in individual choices. This lesson covers several of Glasser’s stated needs: belonging and a sense of power through group work, freedom to make choices, and fun with collaboration and technology.

Exploring Journalistic Writing

Much like the real newspaper world, this activity will be a combination of both group and individual work. You are encouraged to bounce ideas off each other and have fun with the possibilities, but remember that you are under a time restraint, and efficient group work will help you have the time you will need for the individual assignment.

1. Each group looks over the scavenger hunt picture list and makes a plan for getting the pictures they need. A minimum of five pictures will be needed, but you may get more if you wish. More pictures mean more choices, but no extra credit, so budget time wisely.
2. Take the pictures. Remember that at least one person from your group needs to be in the picture with the item. You have a maximum of twenty minutes for this part of the activity. If you finish sooner, then you have more time for the writing part of the activity.
3. Download pictures and choose a picture to write a news article about, one person per picture. Copy the picture file to your jump drive and take it to you computer to work with.
4. Each person needs to write his/her own story to go with the picture he/she chose. Include headline, story, picture, and caption.
5. Edit! You may work with your group on this part of the assignment also. Watch your deadline.
6. Meet your deadline for publication. If you finish with yours early, you may want to help others.

The real-world connection, time constraints, and handouts provide the necessary structure, while encouraging a quality product. Collaboration in the news world is a necessary survival skill; a reporter depends on others for ideas/leads, photography, and editing; hence, the authentic lesson is inherent.

Students quickly find creative ways of handling the assignment, and creativity takes over. They actually love sharing their stories and “publishing” them on the board for all to see. I don’t find myself dealing with the “Do I have to?” query or other complaints because they are engaged in working together and making choices. The buy-in comes quite naturally.

The Power of Choice

Choice shapes my classroom. The more I work choice into my lessons, the more I am convinced of its power. As I read books such as Erwin’s The Classroom of Choice and Glasser’s Choice Theory in the Classroom, I am even more confident in the directions that it has taken me, knowing that there is actual research behind what I stumbled onto in my vocabulary lesson so long ago.

Works Cited

“Choice Theory.” Home page of William Glasser Institute. 15 May 2006. William Glasser Institute. 29 Jun 2006 .

Erwin, Jonathan. The Classroom of Choice: Giving Students What They Need and Getting What You Want. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2004.

Fay, Jim, and Foster Cline. Discipline With Love and Logic Resource Guide. Golden, CO: The Love and Logic Press, 1997.

Glasser, William. Choice Theory in the Classroom. Revised. New York: HarperCollins, 1988.

by Connie Jensen, Gayville-Volin Public School

If someone were to walk into our school cafeteria on a particular day, they might see twenty-five third graders eagerly reading, writing, visiting or doing an art project with an equal number of senior citizens. The visitor’s presence would probably go unnoticed, as the two generations have eyes only for each other. This unique relationship began seven years ago as a result of my concern over comments I’d heard my third grade students make regarding older community members. I realized that senior citizens are an untapped free resource available in my small rural community that could help build some strong ties between the community and the school. Being a life-long member in this community, I knew what these senior citizens, my friends and neighbors, could offer my students, yet I never fully expected what I actually received.

As I thought more and more about my particular situation—small rural school, relatively small classes, and zero start-up cash—I needed proof to show my principal the potential effectiveness of my idea. Chris Benson and Scott Christian said it perfectly in Writing to Make a Difference:

When considering community-based learning, the most useful model of community is one that helps students acquire knowledge and understanding that can only come when they look someone in the eye. There are lessons about consequences and responsibilities that students can learn most effectively when they are dealing with another human being in their community. (24)

I had my rationale. Living and learning in a community should go hand-in-hand. Not all learning needs to come from the school setting, nor should it. Real life learning continues beyond school walls. That was the tie-in I needed. I considered the ideas in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s book It Takes a Village . . . to raise a child. Certainly, senior citizens support the school with tax money and fund-raisers, but raising a child goes beyond that. This was a way for them to give back to a younger generation who needs to know the recent history of their community. What better place was there to accomplish this?

Getting Started

Convincing my principal was easy. I proposed meeting once a month throughout the school year for ninety-minute sessions. The students would not miss any core classes, and the first year they only missed forty minutes of PE once a month. She expected me to keep her informed on topics covered and any problems encountered. I mentioned that I wanted to include an article in the community newspaper to emphasize the school-community connection. I promised that the janitor would not have extra work to prepare for or clean-up after our buddy gatherings. My principal felt I was on to something, and the fact that it cost the school district nothing to implement was a bonus. She cautioned me about the selection of senior citizens. I assured her that I would only contact people I knew. Since our school is a consolidated school, I made sure to invite seniors from both communities. I was pleased when the principal gave me her approval.

My first task was contacting twenty-five area senior citizens. It took three Saturday and Sunday afternoons explaining and defending my plan to friends and neighbors in my community and others in the area. I contacted people at church, on the phone, or in person over a cup of coffee. A few turned me down because of prior commitments, and some did not want to commit for that long of a period. But, I got twenty-five to commit for the year-long meetings and even another five who were willing to be a substitute in case one of the seniors could not make it. My confidence grew.

It wasn’t hard to involve my third grade students. Children are always game for something new, and my students didn’t disappoint me. They, too, had lots of questions that I tried to answer to the best of my ability. I had planned it in my mind, and I just needed to pull it all together in reality. I knew I had to make the very first session impressive. I wanted both the third graders and the senior citizens to have a memorable gathering and to be eager for more.

The “Hook”

For the first session, I decided to use Tomie dePaola as the featured author. I collected about thirty-five books from area libraries and put them in baskets. While reading Chicken Feet in My Soup, I found a recipe to make bread dolls that Tomie dePaola’s Italian grandmother had made for him as a child. I knew I had found the “hook!” I contacted our school cook and asked if she would prepare an extra batch of bread dough for our project. She is a trooper and was willing to cooperate. Had she not agreed, I was going to bring frozen bread dough. So our September Senior Buddies was falling together with relative ease.

About a week prior to the gathering, I asked my students to write letters introducing themselves to their prospective Senior Buddies. This took a couple of days to complete, but the Senior Buddies enjoyed receiving the personal contact from their little buddies. In the letter, I also included a step-by-step direction sheet laying out what we would be doing and the time frame that we would need to follow. I encouraged the senior citizens to arrive about ten minutes early so I could troubleshoot any questions they might have.

Senior Buddy Day

Excitement grew as the special day approached. I told my students the expectations I had for this endeavor. The seniors were our guests and should be treated as special company. Therefore, only company manners would be used. Students not using company manners would be excused to the principal’s office for the remainder of the session. I explained the schedule in complete detail for the third graders, also. I wanted no surprises. After visiting with the senior citizens, I am not really sure which generation was more nervous.

The appointed time came, and the two buddy groups met. Since the seniors knew a little bit about their little buddies, the welcome period went well. Because the buddy session needed to be completed in a timely fashion, we proceeded with making the bread dolls. This involved making two ropes of bread dough into a long rope and a short rope. A raw egg was placed on the table and the smaller rope butted against the egg forming the body. The longer rope went around the egg and braided into the shorter rope. Since many of the seniors were comfortable with bread dough, they immediately felt at ease helping their little buddies. The next step was making features on the egg face with a permanent marker. Then the bread doll was carefully transferred to a baking sheet and given an egg yolk/water wash. While all this activity was going on, I was walking about taking pictures of the groups. No one seemed to even notice me because they were so involved in making their bread dolls. No two bread dolls looked alike, but no one seemed to care.

When a baking sheet was filled, I started baking the bread dolls in the school kitchen. The buddy pairs cleaned their areas at the table and chose a dePaola book to read. It was fun watching the interaction. Some pairs took turns reading; some read in unison; some had only one buddy reading. It didn’t matter. They were reading and communicating on another level.

As the wonderful smell of bread baking sifted through the cafeteria, excitement rose. It was hard to stay focused at times. My job was getting the bread dolls baked as quickly as possible. When the baking was completed, I brought out the finished products. Everyone was amazed at how cute the bread dolls looked and how good they smelled. I continued taking photos of the buddy pairs with the completed bread dolls. Smiles radiated from every group.

The bread dolls were wrapped in waxed paper, ready to go home. The seniors wondered how many bread dolls would actually make it home. The students returned to the classroom to ready themselves for dismissal as the senior citizens departed the school. The next day at school, I had my students write thank-you letters to their Senior Buddies. It wasn’t hard to compose the letter, as each student had something important to write about. But the foremost question was: when is the next Senior Buddies Day? Then, I knew it had been a success!

Future Ventures

That was my first experience with Senior Buddies. The rest of the year involved a variety of activities. I had an abundance of pumpkins in my garden that year, so I brought a pumpkin for each student. Their Senior Buddies helped estimate height, weight, and circumference and how many seeds the pumpkin contained. After the estimation was complete, the pairs used exact measurements of the same. The best part was watching the buddy pairs dig into the pumpkins and retrieve and count pumpkin seeds. Then the pumpkin was carved into a jack-o’-lantern ready for Halloween. It was messy, but the conversations proved that connections were being built between special friends. In December, we read Dr. Seuss books and watched the movie cartoon How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The buddy pairs exchanged small hand-made Christmas gifts. In January, we created poems. I provided examples of several types. The buddies created and illustrated the poems they composed together. March inspired us to create windsocks. In April, we read the condensed versions of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books in the buddy pairs. Next, each team chose a particular scene from the book to illustrate on a block of paper. The blocks were assembled into a Laura Ingalls Wilder “quilt” that was proudly displayed by the third grade students. Our May session was a time for celebration, which included a PowerPoint presentation that I had compiled using all the photos I had taken at each gathering.

All had gained a new lifetime friend. The buddy pairs had built a strong connection. It was very evident from the letters the students wrote to their Senior Buddies each month. The connection was felt by the senior citizens, too. Senior Buddies had proven successful.

Other Themes

The six years following have included a great variety of themes. I had no particular guideline for choosing what theme to use for Senior Buddies. Sometimes the theme was based upon interests of the class or topics that the class was studying. At times, I chose a theme around an area of strength in the class, or sometimes, even an area of weakness that needed more practice. Some of the topics used were a monthly trip around the world in which we studied a different continent each month, or another time we created a manners book that the Pilgrims might have used. One time we learned about the different kinds of penguins and how they survive the vicious cold in Antarctica. Often, themes were a selected children’s author or a topic like spiders or sea animals. When we were studying poetry, the students presented a program of choral readings. Making a patriotic booklet about Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln during February was another fun activity. Once, the students presented a play written by the class and adapted from a student’s story. Every month’s topic was new and different, which created a lot of interest. However, I have used the bread doll activity each September to kick off the year because it is a great way to get the year started in a positive way.

Problems Encountered

Few new ventures happen without hitches, and the same goes for Senior Buddies. Occasionally, a senior citizen needs to cancel due to an appointment or church activity. Once in a while, a senior feels too ill to join the group. That’s when I use my senior citizen substitute list to call another buddy. However, in the seven years, there have been very few serious problems. What I’ve found is that the senior citizens will actually schedule their appointments around the Senior Buddy Day. That’s why I schedule them about the same day every month, working around school holidays and early dismissals. For our school schedule, the third Friday of the month works best. Of course, we have to divert from that once in awhile, but that date usually works. If a student is absent on buddy day, I call his/her buddy to notify them. But there are generally very few student absences because third graders do not want to miss Senior Buddy Day.

Benefits Received

My initial expectations for Senior Buddies have been surpassed. The community connection along with the joys of creating friendships between senior citizens and third graders has been most rewarding. Students now look to older citizens as the wise sages they really are. Benson and Christian (Writing to Make a Difference) state, “We can structure learning environments that reinforce the ethical and interpersonal lessons we try to build into our assignments. We can make opportunities for students to grow as participants in a group and as citizens of a community” (23). Senior Buddies has accomplished that. Seven years later, it is still growing stronger. As soon as my new third grade students arrive in the fall, they quickly ask, “When does Senior Buddies start?” If that isn’t validation, I don’t know what is.

Work Cited

Benson, Chris, and Scott Christian. Writing to Make a Difference. New York: Teachers College Press, 2002.

Reading-writing workshop and American literature

by Nancy Kampfe, Bennett County High School

It’s May 10, 2006. Seniors have been counting the days remaining on their handmade, red wooden calendar since Easter. Seven days left of high school. Every student is present. A quiet buzz can be heard as students listen to friends read drafts and offer revision suggestions. Laughter breaks out intermittently when a shared experience is related from a unique perspective. Laptop screens evidence memory book chapter tweaking to make every photo fit closely within the text. The mood is intense, focused, but low key—nobody panics. Three-ring binders filled to overflowing with extras (photo collages, saved elementary writing, high school award certificates) groan and stretch to hold ten or more chapters of students’ lives. Nobody asks to use the restroom; nobody whines about a draft left behind at home, in his or her vehicle, or in a locker. A short line forms at the color laser printer near the teacher’s desk. Banker’s file boxes stuffed full of students’ draft folders sit atop stools because we have run out of counter space.

“You will be proud of me, Mrs. Kampfe,” Chelsi says. “I revised that family history chapter. I saw what you meant; it didn’t make much sense to me either as I read through it again. Now I can follow all the branches of my family tree, and I only shared information you wouldn’t know by looking at the family tree chart.”

“Good for you, Chelsi. I knew you would find a way to make that chapter more readable,” I respond.

Going back to my scanning of drafts, revisions, and required elements, I realize this has been a truly enjoyable senior fourth quarter. Few plagiarism issues, fewer “lost” drafts, absolutely no missing binders at all. Everyone writes with passion, with voice. Students who usually don’t hand in assignments at all, let alone on time, write thoughtful, funny, interesting narratives about previous times in their lives. Analysis of what those experiences mean to them now, as seniors, is mature and insightful.

A lump rises in my throat as I realize how far this group of seniors has come, how much I will miss their willingness to try every new strategy I discover, their fun-loving sense of humor, their absolute respect for me, their guide, as they navigate the waters of reading and writing and learning. We have spent a relaxed year in this classroom, in spite of the controversy raging outside our door due to budget cuts, RIF policies and teacher negotiations gone to impasse. We have written more than ever before. We have read and discussed a wider variety of books than ever before. We have blogged, we have visited Tapped In, we have written freewrites until our hands literally ache. We’ve written Jolly Rancher poems, created Kit Kat Valentines, and shared handfuls of White Cheddar Cheezums when the hungries attacked before our 12:30 lunch break. We have become partners in learning. This eighth year of reading-writing workshop in junior-senior English at Bennett County High School has transformed this classroom.

But it has not always looked like this.

* * * * * * *

When I returned to secondary education in 1985 after a thirteen-year child-rearing break, I was THE secondary English teacher at Crazy Horse School, just eleven miles from my farm home. One of the first eye-opening discoveries I made was that students of the eighties were not at all like the students I had begun teaching in 1968. These students wanted to know why we read the authors I chose, and when were they ever going to use this “stuff.” And they were quite adept at faking both reading and writing. So, even though I “covered” the American Literature anthology, and I assigned essays and research papers, I knew my students were not readers and they were not writers.

But English teachers teach the canon and use the literature anthologies stacked in classroom cupboards; English teachers assign writing and determine grades. So in spite of my conclusions otherwise, I did it, too, telling myself that the only problem was a lack of motivation. I told myself that these students could be helped to care about American literature even though they found little in their lives to help them connect to much of it. I decided that these students did not want to write because they had too often only written responses in workbook blanks, thus convincing themselves they could not write anything else. These students had also endured a succession of new English teachers every term for the past four years. I tried a variety of teaching strategies, kept the focus on reading and helped my students make baby steps toward becoming writers. By the end of my fourth year at Crazy Horse School, progress was being made, especially among students who had been my students all four years. Over that four-year period, my students and I discovered that daily reading and writing can make a difference. Daily reading and writing cause a transformation: we discovered we can become better at both.

When I decided to apply for, and later accept, a position teaching sophomore speech, junior and senior English at Bennett County High School in Martin, I thought everything would be different in a public high school with mostly “White” students. More students completed their assignments. More students cooperated with my insistence on more writing than had been expected of them previously. But students’ writing was boring and all but dead; essays and research papers put me to sleep. A few students in each class did the reading and discussed it with me. The rest engaged in a variety of behaviors all focused on appearing to be reading while not reading at all. I knew I was doing something wrong; I just did not know what.

Then I discovered a copy of Tom Romano’s book, Clearing the Way, published in 1987, in one of my classroom cupboards. As I read that book, I began making connections to my students who did not want to write, did not want to read. Romano suggests that if students are offered the choice of writing about a topic of their choice, writing rapidly and frequently in ten-minute stints, their comfort level with writing improves. Romano says the goal of this frequent and regular writing is “fluency and self-confidence—the parents of voice (8).” Romano also suggests that students should do much more writing than I would have time to read and “correct.” In addition, he says most of school writing should be writing done without “formal” concern for grammar and usage, that students should write most often as a way to think and learn (9).

After reading Romano, I began asking students to write journal entries about anything at all. I told students I would not read everything they wrote; I would read only the entries they marked for my attention. I used Romano’s suggestions for a quantity grade: Three pages per week earned a C; four pages a week, a B; and five pages per week earned an A journal grade. Freewriting, exploratory writing and expressive writing were all part of the journal writing requirement, so producing five pages of writing per week was not usually difficult. Sometimes I provided topics; other times I gave total choice to students. Students who focused on grades and just getting it “done” worried more about doing more than someone else than they did about what they wrote. No two students brought the same size journal, possibly in an attempt to actually write less for the same grade as someone else earned. So began the games. Students wrote larger than their usual handwriting size so they could say they had written more; they wrote lists of things they did each day, rather than discuss, think, or reflect. Others bought pocket-sized notebooks rather than the 70-page spiral bound notebooks I requested. Some wrote two-three sentences on the page, and others refused to write anything at all. So I had to do what Romano suggested, tell students they could not pass the class without doing the journal writing, nor could they pass without giving the journal writing an honest try at thinking and reflecting. I bought 100-page composition notebooks for a dollar or less when discount stores put them on sale prior to school’s opening. I then re-sold them to students at my cost, or suggested students could buy their own composition notebook, usually at a higher cost when purchased locally. We did most writing in class, brainstorming topics for students who couldn’t think of one, and sharing tidbits aloud with the whole group. Romano suggests that journal writing merit 20% of the student’s quarter grade, but in the early years when I was trying to show students the value of writing and building their writing fluency, it often felt as if all we ever did was write daily journal entries.

My students absolutely loved freewriting. Romano describes freewriting, paraphrasing Peter Elbow’s definition, as writing done to follow our thoughts wherever they go, writing in which the pen keeps moving for the entire ten-minute timed writing (7-8). My students enjoyed freewriting because they felt like they were in control of the topic, where it went, and what they said. Sometimes students used their freewriting topics for further writing, sometimes they did not. But their writing voices definitely became more confident.

I began to ask students to write their personal reaction to the reading we did, not merely focusing on literary elements, character development, or the author’s theme. When we discussed a novel, I asked questions I had been wondering about, questions I did not necessarily have answers for. At first, students weren’t quite sure what to do when I didn’t know the answer, and they struggled to think on their own without my spoon-feeding their thinking. Not all my principals were impressed. One principal wrote me a note after having observed a discussion in my classroom, “NEVER ask a question for which you do not know the answer.” Because this principal intimidated to the point of providing me a list of tasks I must do daily in every class, “if you want to work for me,” I began dropping any workshop methods he considered radical. Survival mode was a fact of life from 1997-2003, when a more open-minded principal came on board, a principal who also believed that classroom noise could be productive, that student accountability for reading and writing choices makes for authentic learning.

In my junior-senior English classroom as it has now evolved, rather than reading (or pretending to read) from an American Literature anthology, my students choose American literature titles from the classroom library I’ve amassed over the past fifteen years. They read books of their choice and write weekly response journals using various formats. We periodically share with our table groups an outstanding quotation from what we’ve read that week and our response to it, and at other times we share with the whole group—our way of discovering what others are reading. When I do a mini-lesson on some reading strategy, I use a short piece of American literature. This is the only reading we do together, as a class. I’ve found that more students read more, and fewer students pretend to be readers because they can’t pretend to read and still write a response journal about it. And no parents complain about some book I chose for the group because their child chooses his/her own reading.

Changing my classroom from teacher-sage at the front of the room lecturing about what literature means to one where we all discover together what we think literature means has been a long, slow process. Parents at first complained about my “changing” requirements; students grumbled that I didn’t know what I wanted; “you change your mind every day,” they insisted. In reality, the requirements were not changing, but they were rather open-ended, and students were often challenged by their own expectations of themselves.

Students were required to read from American Literature titles on the classroom bookshelves; they were required to write reading response journals; they were required to keep a writing journal, and page requirements for various reading grades were posted. Students were to choose what they wanted to learn about, what books they wanted to read, what topics to write about. When students asked what they should do, I repeated the requirements for various grades and suggested they could choose to do whatever they preferred, within those parameters. Portfolios were kept of all work completed by the students, and based on that portfolio, quarter grades were assessed. The problem became not knowing “what my grade is in here.” If students kept a record of grades on various assignments, they knew their progress; however, my students were used to teachers doing this for them.

Had I read Randy Bomer’s book, Time for Meaning: Crafting Lives in Middle & High School, shortly after it was published in 1995, I could have saved myself much anguish as I worked through the early years of changing my classroom practice. I, too, experienced the growing pains Bomer describes in his book, but I believed the problems were caused by my inability to do reading-writing workshop “right.” After experimenting, making mistakes and “fixing” them, and finally reading Bomer’s book in 2003, I have come to realize that the problems occurred as part of the change process, especially in what is considered “radical” change. How I was regarded by administrators in those first years mirrors what Ira Schor and Paolo Freire say in A Pedagogy for Liberation, as quoted by Bomer: “There is a lot of pressure to teach [the] traditional way, first because it is familiar and already worked out, even if it doesn’t work in class. Second, by deviating from the standard syllabus you can get known as a rebel or radical or flake, and be subjected to anything from petty harassment to firing (207).”

Bomer speaks of teachers who asked him whether he ever taught anything, or did his students just write all the time. Bomer speaks of the principal who halted a teacher observation, saying he would return when some actual teaching was going on (214). I heard those same remarks from colleagues, and principals, too. Because my workshop functioned so differently from the traditional classroom, administrators and other teachers could not understand that guiding students, working with them, was teaching. Like Bomer, I told an administrator, “the work he(the student) was doing—frequently rereading his notebook; critically reading his own drafts and those of his peers; reading poetry and memoir as a maker of poems and memoir; and maintaining his own independent reading life—was all reading and really important in his growth as a reader.” Yet, the administrator was not convinced: “if I wasn’t assigning books, telling them what the books meant, and giving tests, I wasn’t doing reading’ (215).”

Problems caused by an uncooperative student in Bomer’s classroom are quite similar to those I have experienced in my practice. My administrator, too, just wanted the problem “fixed,” rather than truly listening and learning about how a reading-writing workshop must function. Bomer says to one student’s parents: “‘I think [students] can get better at writing by writing and get better at reading by reading, so I give the class lots of time to write. They can choose what to write about and how to write it, but they have to write when it’s writing time, or else they won’t learn. Lots of times, Bobby gets tired of writing a long time before the bell rings, he refuses to get back to work when I ask him to, and then he causes a disruption and keeps other kids from working. And what starts out as a really little thing becomes a big deal’ (211).” I often tell my students, their parents, and my administrators that developing lifelong reader habits takes time, and that allotting time for students to read in class is part of modeling what lifelong reading looks like. In-class reading and writing is how habits get established, so students must read and write while in the classroom. A workshop by definition means everyone works.

To integrate reading with writing and to help students express their thinking on paper, I began to use writing-to-learn strategies. Tom Romano calls this kind of writing, “expressive—language of our daily unpressured speech, what we use to explain something for the first time.” Expressive writing is “crucial to growth not only in writing, but also to learning in general (22).” Such writing helps students connect what they already know to what they are learning. To “dig in and slug it out with knotty problems…will sharpen [students’] thinking ability and produce ‘real knowledge’ (30),” Romano says.

Romano’s suggestion that “using class time to write in secondary schools is essential” (63) gave me permission to stop requiring writing assignments to be completed outside class time and to begin using class time like a workshop where students wrote and read. Homework became something you did outside of school only if you did not finish an assignment in class. Reading is the only exception to this rule. I tell students that reading can be done anywhere, while writing is probably best done in the classroom where we have computer, peer, and teacher access. Since we only have fifty minutes in class, we cannot do it all there; some of our ‘practice’ must be done outside class. Students are free to make their own choices about reading and writing in or out of class, as long as they make responsible use of time and keep up with deadline requirements.

I hoped students would aspire to A or a B grades, since I show them how “easy” earning such grades truly is. Unfortunately, many students choose to accept whatever grade results from the work they are able to complete during class. These non-thinking students often refuse to use their study halls for English work. This attitude has been a source of continuing stress for me because I realize how much potential students have to excel in the communication arts and how valuable such skills are in the job market. Choosing to “settle” for just-passing grades over working a bit harder and taking home improved skills and a C, a B, or even an A seems a rather poor choice, but the choice is the student’s to make.

When I reread Romano’s book just prior to the 2006 Summer Institute, I realized that Romano’s advice has formed the foundation of my practice. Romano’s stock response to students who want to know how long a piece of writing must be is this: “Long enough….Be honest and take a shot. Carry the piece through to the end without shortcuts. Then the draft will be long enough (65).” To my students I say, “Long enough to say something worth your saying and my reading.” Or I say, “Every good piece of writing has a beginning and an ending and something worthwhile in between.” Most students prefer minimum page requirements, and because I want them to push themselves, I set minimum at D- and urge students to push themselves far beyond that, and most do.

I began my learning about writing workshops with the idea that I would relinquish control to my student writers. I would build up their self-esteem; I would mark only two serious mechanical errors on each draft—after the form and content were all but finished. I tried to help students take personal responsibility for their writing, but my students did not always want to think about their writing past the day when the rough draft was composed. They did not care about control so much as they cared about being done and having the writing accepted for grading. Progress was slow; some mechanical issues appeared again and again; I ran out of time to do individual writing conferences. So, I told myself I only had time for one kind of feedback, my comments on the piece. Unfortunately, all I’ve done is make students more dependent upon me (or some other editor) to “correct” their writing. Romano does agree that teachers should write comments on the final piece turned in for grading, comments that are “pointed, appreciative, encouraging, and challenging (103).” Notice, he does not say a word about marking spelling, punctuation, or usage errors. Romano is talking about an honest reader reaction to the piece, with teacher encouragement and challenging teacher suggestions. Romano says, and I know he is right, that students do not learn from those final comments on a paper; they need an honest assessment-reaction to the piece, not a critique (90).

I have tried again and again to get students to reread my response to a previous piece of writing, looking for similar problems in the next writing piece (73), but this strategy has not worked well, unless I explicitly require students to make the comparison. My students have not yet progressed to this stage of personal responsibility for their writing, but we continue to work toward that goal. In the coming year, I am going to post two more pieces of Romano-advice next to my desk:

1. “It is patently false to send the message that growth in writing depends mainly upon the ability to produce perfectly edited copy (75).”
2. “Teachers should not take those drafts and mark errors, point out fallacies, critique severely, and then present students with the results. Such practice should be steadfastly avoided (89).”

To establish a “safe” writing workshop where students practiced, experimented, shared and conferenced their writing has been my goal, a place where students get the instruction they need when they need it, a place where reading and writing are always connected and where students’ goal is to gradually become more adept at independently producing quality writing (123). In addition to the writing, we also read, spending Monday and Friday of every week in an all-period reading workshop. Students enjoy the reading in class; they enjoy freewriting. But no, they do not enjoy revising and finishing writing, even though they do endure it.

We talk regularly about what “good faith” participation means:

• write and interact with your writing
• read quality published writing
• share your work with peers
• talk about your process and your choices
• get timely responses and direction from your teacher
• most importantly, take advantage of frequent practice in writing more than I will ever have time to grade: freewrites, exploratory writing, expressive writing, on-time drafts, playing with words
• for a quarter grade of B, students need to complete all “good faith” assignments
• assignments done exceptionally well may raise the grade to an A
• missing work lowers the grade to a C (123).

As for determining quarter grades, I try to follow Romano’s advice: if 20 % of the grade comes from journals, and 50% comes from “good faith” participation, then 30% must come from various writing assignments–Romano suggests four-eight pieces in a semester, thus two-four per quarter, which has always been doable (123-128). Reading is also part of good faith participation. But number grades in an English class are less than satisfying ways to show student progress. Face-to-face conferences about progress, growth and development of language skills and “good faith” participation make more sense, even though they do not translate well in our online grading program. Grading continues to be a problem since I do not believe in how they must be determined, according to school policy and the DDN Campus program requirements.

Use of reading-writing workshop and independently chosen reading to satisfy reading requirements in Junior-Senior English is a continuing work in progress. Every group of juniors has its own personality so methods are continually tweaked to make the workshop more responsive to student needs. Some years, the reading-writing workshop is a dream; in other years, it is a nightmare. But certainly, reading-writing workshop is no worse a nightmare than was watching students pretend to read, discussing whole-class books with three or four students, reading writing that put me to sleep. Randy Bomer calls his classroom practice a “social journey of learning,” a journey upon which he has been accompanied by “people I met at conferences, in my reading of professional literature, and in talking about my classroom in workshops.” My journey has been similar to Bomer’s, a journey made with writer-teachers like Tom Romano, Nancie Atwell, Linda Rief, Randy Bomer, and many others whose books I have read and whose methods I have tried. Randy Bomer says it best: “We all need the long-term associations with people to whom we feel somehow accountable for our learning and our teaching. We need those people’s voices echoing in our heads as we teach. It’s the continuing conversation we have across years, across jobs, across administrative regimes, that defines us as teachers, that makes us a single solid person across time rather than a liquid one that takes the shape of its current container (222).” Growing as a teacher, a writer, a guide for and with my students is real. It is what keeps me in that classroom working with students year after year.

Bomer, Randy. Time For Meaning: Crafting Literate Lives in Middle & High School. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1995.

Tom Romano. Clearing the Way: Working with Teenage Writers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Boynton Cook, 1987.

by Stacy Hawkins, Sioux Falls Roosevelt High School

When I first started teaching accelerated ninth grade English, the prospect of correcting advanced writing excited me. Sure enough, after I had assigned the first writing exercise of the year, my students impressed me with their creativity and style; strangely enough, something was missing. Even though the ideas were there, they were not expressed as concisely and eloquently as they could have been.

I determined that sentence structure needed to be a primary area of focus for student writing to improve. Since most students were accustomed to taking accelerated English courses, and accelerated English courses often emphasize literature instead of grammatical study, my students needed to start with some basic grammatical rules. After we laid the groundwork of independent and subordinate clauses, it was time to move on to the types of sentences: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex.

Even though mastery of independent and subordinate clauses came easily, students were having considerable difficulty with combining the clauses and identifying sentence types. I didn’t understand why identifying the types of sentences was so difficult since they had no problems with correctly identifying clauses. Even though we were all frustrated, I was determined to stick with sentence structure until the students understood the concepts and their importance. The students knew that they would be tested on sentence structure periodically throughout the year. The semester test required that students be able to identify whether an example sentence was simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex. I required on my own quizzes that they be able to write and identify the sentence types in their own sentences. Because of the assessments and the desire to master challenging material, students wanted to understand the material and perform well on tests. Since the students were frustrated and continued making mistakes on practice sheets, I realized that I needed to change the way I taught sentence structure and find a method of teaching that clicked with them.

While I tried to figure out what was missing from my instruction, an idea finally hit me: Students needed to visualize the types of clauses in a sentence before they could define the sentence type. Considering our fast-paced world packed with pictures, human beings “are dominated by visual concepts and our perception of visual objects and images” (Ladevich 114). With this in mind, I started my instruction from the beginning; this time, however, I instructed students to underline independent clauses and put parentheses around subordinate clauses. Once students accomplished this task, rather than seeing a jumble of words, they were able to see for the first time the various parts that made up the sentence. For example, if students looked at a sentence with two underlined parts, now they could visualize two independent clauses to identify a compound sentence. I was awestruck that the simple tasks of underlining and using parentheses could make all the difference in changing a daunting task to a relatively easy one.

Now my students could identify simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences. So what? Were my students going to need to know how to define a compound-complex sentence in their future careers? Perhaps, they might use that knowledge if they became English teachers, but would someone in another profession need to know this information? The answer is yes; however, I wanted my students to go beyond the technical information they needed to learn to answer questions on their district semester test. I wanted them to be able to apply their new knowledge and realize the purpose of learning sentence structure. In previous years, this was where I would stop. Once the students could identify the different types of sentences, they had mastered what they needed to know for their district semester test. Unfortunately, I was robbing my students of the knowledge of purpose. How did experimentation with structure affect the meaning of the writing? Up to this point, my students hadn’t contemplated that “with each choice of . . . clause structure and each decision on its placement, meaning changes” (Noden 98). My students needed to know how the way they structured their sentences affected the meaning. Additionally, many students write with a choppy style that could be significantly improved simply by teaching the use of sentence variety with the various sentence structures.

After all our necessary, yet long drill and practice, we needed a break with some creative fun that showed the students the purpose of learning sentence structure. As the students looked at the daily assignment on the board, they lit up seeing the word “activity” in place of “handout.” Once I had everyone’s attention, I instructed them to put their desks in a circle and then to take out a clean sheet of paper to write a short story, a task they continually begged to do. Once my suspicious students were assured this was going to be an in-class activity with no homework, they looked up at me expectantly. I instructed them to decide what their story was going to be about, then write one sentence at the top of their paper to begin the story. Once they all had all written a sentence, I told them to underline the independent clauses, put parentheses around the subordinate clauses, and label the sentence simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex. I saw blank expressions turn to worried expressions, and they looked to me for guidance. I let them know that this was the same thing they had been doing the past two weeks. The only difference was the author of the sentence. The students got to work, some with much more confidence than others. I walked around the room to answer questions and help students get started. While students were working, I put an example sentence of my own on the board and proceeded with the required steps for a visual reference. Once we were all finished, I told the students to pass their paper to the right. The next step was adding a second sentence to another person’s story; however, I added a twist: Students must stay true to the topic sentence on the new paper, and the second sentence should be a compound sentence. Students thought for a moment and then began to write a sentence using at least two independent clauses. We continued this process until the students began to feel more comfortable and write the specified sentences with ease.

Initially, many students used model sentences on the board as a guide, but as they gained confidence, few students looked up from their writing. When I finally instructed students to pass the papers back to the original author of the first sentence, I was met with groans and cries of “Can’t we write for a few more minutes?” I hated to stop the writing, but I wanted the students to read their stories aloud. The students anxiously volunteered to read their writing, and an amazing thing happened. These silly stories were the most well written fluent pieces I had heard from them all year. I asked the students to tell me what they noticed about the stories and discovered my quiet observation echoed by my students. They were amazed to have written such fluent, dynamic stories. Students who hardly ever wanted to share their writing were now clamoring to share because they could tell their writing had significantly improved.

I left my classroom that day with a feeling of accomplishment. Both my students and I grew as writers that day. Now I look at every concept I teach and wonder at its purpose. Why do my students need to know this? How can I help them realize this purpose? Many students do not see the purpose of sentence structure right away; I now know how vital it is for me to not only teach the concept, but also help students learn the motivations and purposes behind the concept.

Ladevich, Laurel. “ERIC/RCS Report: Visual Literacy.” The English Journal, 63 (1974) : 114-116. JSTOR. ID Weeks Lib., Vermillion, SD. 20 June 2006.

Noden, Harry R. Image Grammar: Using Grammatical Structures to Teach Writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1999.

by Carmen Graber, DWP 2006 SI participant

Have you ever walked down the hallways of a high school while classes are being taught? The doors are closed, and if you peer inside, the activity does not invite you to interrupt. Think for a moment what impact an isolated setting like this has on a new teacher.

Typical teacher education programs provide four years of instruction in content area, teaching methods and, maybe, technology. Most provide three classroom experiences: the first being a time of observation, the second more observation with some participation, and finally student teaching. The student teaching phase varies with each school, but most require only a minimum of two weeks where the student teacher is in full charge of all of the classes. Next come a test for content knowledge and an application for certification. And the student becomes a teacher.

With the first teaching assignment, an administrator shows the new teacher to her/his room and then walks out of the room, closing the door behind her/him, and leaving the teacher to sink or swim. The only persons who come through that door after that are the students. The new teacher is adrift, alone in the world, with seemingly no one to turn to for help. And even if there were someone willing to help, new teachers are ingrained with the idea that they should not need any help; after all, they have just finished four years of training. However, what other profession expects a transition from student to professional to occur without any guidance or wisdom from someone experienced in the profession? Perhaps, this is why the teaching profession loses many of its professionals within the first year of practice.

The National Education Association recently published results from research stating that twenty percent of new teachers leave the profession after the first year of teaching. Nearly half of all teachers leave the profession within five years of joining the profession; thus, the average age of the public school teacher (grades K-12) is age 43. We could be headed toward a time when there are teacher shortages due to retirement of those teachers who are currently in the profession. How can schools retain new teachers and, perhaps, renew experienced teachers? One way is to open the door of the classroom: eliminate the feelings of isolation and begin practicing what we preach, that learning is a life-long process and we can all learn from each other.

While it is not a new idea, many states are offering mentors for new teachers. But just what should a new teacher/mentor program look like? There are many models that can be used, but having completed such a program, I feel I can offer some insights as to what elements are necessary to make a new teacher/mentor program successful.

New teacher/mentor programs are always built on relationships. Trust must be built for a successful program. This means that the mentor should not be in a position of evaluating the new teacher, but instead should be a guide. Both the new teacher and the mentor must commit to the process and must be willing to put time and thought into the process. In many situations, time is the most difficult part of these programs. Participants are encouraged to set aside a specific time each week to get together, go over the past week, and talk about the coming week. While this is fine in theory, the reality is another story altogether. In his book Letters to a New Teacher: A Month-by-Month Guide to the Year Ahead, Jim Burke shares letters he wrote to a first-year teacher in his school, a teacher whom he had volunteered to mentor. This was not part of a structured program, but simply something Burke felt compelled to do. Burke’s mentoring strategy consisted of the new teacher writing questions to him on an index card and leaving the card in his mailbox. He in turn, wrote letters, pages long, in response.

Burke refers to becoming an educator: “The Latin word educare means to draw out, which is what you continually do to yourself when posing questions to me and, through your letter, to yourself” (17). The heart of Burke’s advice is based in writing. Burke admits that he probably would have spent less time answering the new teacher’s questions if they were asked face to face; however, he points out how much he learned by reflecting and writing out the answers. Burke also feels the new teacher put more thought and reflection into her questions when she put them in writing. Writing thoughts and feelings on paper adds permanence to them. It is an indication of caring, quality and worth.

An advantage of writing out questions and responses rather than having face-to-face meetings is that writing allows both the new teacher and the mentor the flexibility of time. The new teacher is able to write down questions as they come up during a class, either at the moment or between classes. This ensures that the question is not lost or forgotten. When the new teacher has a few minutes at the end of the day, at school or at home, she/he can review the questions and decide which ones truly need an answer from the mentor. If the questions do not require answers from the mentor, the new teacher could use them for personal written reflection.

From a mentor’s standpoint, I will rely on Burke’s comments about his own learning during the process of writing letters to a new teacher. Speaking of the questions he received, Burke writes: “They became assignments to go off into the hills and think about the work I love so much” (3). Many mentoring programs stress face-to-face meetings between the new teacher and the mentor on a weekly basis. I experienced benefits from these meetings; however, following Burke’s lead to write letters can add depth that cannot happen during a weekly meeting. Burke refers to the letters he wrote to the new teacher “as a form of personal professional development, as part of an ongoing conversation between us that became, through these letters, a very rich personal meditation on our work as teachers” (2). How often do new teachers and mentors have the luxury of time to maintain an ongoing conversation? When the conversation is in writing, nothing will be lost or forgotten.

Even though Burke does not speak of written reflection for the new teacher, I found this is a good practice. During the program I participated in, new teachers were required to complete a minimum of three reflections each week. These reflections were about the triumphs, the failures, and the questions in our classrooms. These reflections were turned in to the program director at our monthly meeting and were used as an assessment tool to chart our progress as teachers. I believe the role of these reflections could be expanded to provide even greater learning. Writing takes on new meaning when it is shared with others and when others are given the opportunity to respond to what is written. New teachers could choose one reflection to share with other new teachers each month at the meeting. This could spark discussions about issues that are specific to new teachers but that do not require the expertise of the mentor. Sharing with other new teachers who are experiencing similar situations can eliminate some of the feelings of isolation. Since the mentors in the program were also required to write personal reflections, they, too, could share one each month with the other mentors. All of the reflections would still be submitted to the program director.

Writing provides connections between people. It also provides the opportunity for honest reflection. Connections and reflections are two things that can open the door for new teachers. Perhaps, writing letters and reflections are one way to retain teachers and ensure the quality of educators for years to come.

Burke, Jim, and Krajicek, Joy. Letters to a New Teacher: A Month-By-Month Guide to the Year Ahead. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2006.