The first two weeks of school

We go back to school early in New Mexico, so while some people are just gearing up to start school, I have just finished my second week.

The first week of school I spend introducing students to the work we'll do, we dive right in with reading and Daybooks. I also spend a day setting them up with Google Docs, Google Classroom, Remind, our district system for checking grades.
We're on a modified block schedule, so Monday I see all classes for 50 minutes. 1st period I see for 50 minutes every day, and this is my AP class. We hold class M, W, F, but T, TH I have set up as workshop days for them.

I saw online a version of this self- monitoring. I also saw a chart a teacher kept in class where students put what they're working on, I'm thinking of maybe doing this as a Google Doc.

My other classes, English 9 and Read 180, I see on Mondays, then two other days a week for a 110 minute block.
The English 9 classes enjoyed the speed dating picking books that I bought, and people donated. One of the highlights of this week was a students asking me- Doc, can we read all of class today? And I said no, just the regular 25 minutes, but I love that's what you want to do. And they said, I never have before. For this unit, on personal narratives and youth culture, students chosen from lit circle piles. More than one class is reading the same book, and they've put bookmarks with their name in them to track. But because of this interest, I think next marking period, I'll have them choose books, sign them out, so they can take them home. I think I'll have enough books by then for them to do that.

I started the year with two English 9 classes, and these were going really well. But I also started the year with two Read 180 classes. These classes tend to be smaller, and are meant for interventions with struggling students. For the second year in a row, one class' attendance was like 6 students. Last year we collapsed the two classes and they gave me an English 10 to level the other high classes. This year they turned the low Read 180 class into a regular English 9, and leveled the other classes. Ultimately this will be great. These were the "stronger" students, and with all the changes I'm making this year, I think they'll do really well. BUT it means that this week, Wednesday and Friday were shifting/catch up days. Some students were upset their schedule was changed without anyone talking to them. Some students were confused they were shifting routines. Others who were new to my class really seemed to like it (at least according to their exit tickets).

All in all, I've been really happy with the first couple of weeks. I was really excited about implementing the following in my classes this year:

• Mentor texts
• Student choice in the books they read, dedicated, daily reading time
• Daybooks
• Explicitly teaching and focusing on social justice as well as personal reflection that I was best serving my students

It was one thing to plan all this over the summer, and another to toss how I've taught for 18 years and go all in on this. I was a little scared. So I'm glad that the students have responded so well.

I had three failures this week.

1. One of my classes helps with recycling on campus. The first time, I walk them around and assign them the bins they're responsible for. The second time this week, I told them I trusted them to do it themselves, meeting me at the recycling bin. They didn't show up. When I found them, they were all just hanging out. And I fussed at them. And I shouldn't have. Because they had gotten to the bin before me, emptied theirs, returned them, gone back to the classroom, didn't see me, so came back out as a group, and waited for me in an open space. In part because I've had to fight with admin about letting the students do this, I jumped all over them instead of listening. And I know this has cost me with already defensive students, so I have repairing to do. I started yesterday, but messing up like that takes a second, but the repair takes a while.
2. One student is not working, openly sarcastic, distracting others. I went to call him name to correct him, and called him the name of the student next to him. Immediately corrected, apologized to the other student, but he shut down the rest of class. And I worry, again, that my mistake will take a while to correct.
3. I have one class, the new one that changed, that is full of students who are socializing, off task, playing around, and not getting work done. Yesterday I sat with them, walked around, tried to redirect. Nothing worked. I'm reading Troublemakers so I am actively trying to stop reacting as I would before, and as the examples above prove, I'm not always doing so hot. But with this class, I was observing, but trying not to knee jerk respond. They did not get all the work done they should have/were supposed to. BUT, these students just met, so that socializing that my other classes did last week, these students are still doing. Also, because this was a shift, they're all trying to find their place. And it was Friday. So when I found myself being frustrated, I backed off and just watched. They may have been loud, and off task, but no one seemed bothered by it. And based on their exit ticket, which I quickly wrote up to get some feedback, most felt great about class. It's progress, if not what I want.

My AP class is covering Synthesis Essay this marking period, we'll cover each essay a marking period fall semester, then review them in the spring. They all seem engaged, and we're starting their research this week, and submitted their social issue topics yesterday, and I'm excited how excited they are about them. The conversation yesterday was also really cool about how language influences how issues are covered, what is privileged, and erased.

My English 9 classes are covering youth culture/personal narratives. We're focusing a lot on representation and why it matters, which is requiring a bit more front loading than I figured, but so far, so good. For these classes, I also introduced them to station rotations Thursday/Friday, and these went well. They liked them, and even the class above I thought wasn't successful, moved station to station, working, even if I would have liked more. But part too may be that this is all new. All in all, I think they did great.

I'm happy with the focus on my students. I graded their pre-assessments, that gave me some good opening data, and skills to focus on. I am less happy, but not surprised, that as I've shared what I'm doing in class, other teachers seem not to care. But I'm focusing this year on improving my classroom, helping the students in my room, and not stressing about the stuff I can't control.

I'm a little behind in my to-do list, usually by now I've called all my parents. But I have emailed them weekly, and will get these calls done this week. It's weird to think that this upcoming week we're halfway through the marking period (we have six week marking periods, which is still odd after years of 9 1/2 week marking periods). I feel good about where I am, what's going on in my class, and the foundation we've laid. I hope it keeps up. 

The Expenses of Building a Classroom- Updated

The other day, I saw this tweet, and responded, as I'm trying to be very transparent and sharing about my classroom and pedagogical decisions this year.

But I thought too, that it'd be helpful to expand it a bit into a blog post, because there's a lot going on with all this.

But first, a real rough money and time breakdown.

• I roughed out weekly calendars when we left in May. But I spent all summer on Twitter, and reading books, thinking about and roughing out the changes I wanted to make.
• I spent two of my teacher work days setting up the new classroom.
• I had maybe, MAYBE, one smaller bookself, partly full of single books as my classroom library (half and half pulled from books English department had for SRI and my own stuff I'd bought/found/donated). This year, a main focus was expanding this for literature circles of representative texts.
• So I easily spent $300 buying books
• Another $150 this week on LGBTQ YA novels, when I realized organizing them I had none
• A friend donated a whole stack!
• Another $200 books donated from my Amazon Wishlist    
• I built and shared my list all summer, on Twitter and Facebook. Some donations came from friends. Most from people I didn't know
• I spent another $75 from First Book yesterday, payday, more YA, and Spanish versions of YA, that I'd added to cart, but had to wait to buy
• I spent another $30 on Play-Doh and squishy monsters, because my students said the Play-Doh was dried out
• Pens, glue sticks, markers, car stock, color printer for room, these types of supplies, $200.
• Not included in this the hundreds of dollars spent on books, I bought for my own PD.

I usually have my students in groups, but at the end of last year I tried station rotations, and LOVED them, so once we're through the soft start this week of getting all our routines and such set up, this will be my default.
One group will work independently, one will work with me, and the third group will have computer access.
Students leave one seat in each group empty for me, so it's easy for me to join discussions and conference.

 I moved my desk to the other side of the room, and recentered focus on the classroom library.

I color labelled all the books- just Native/Local, Literature Circles, Fiction, and Non-Fiction. I plan on asking students as we get going, if they have a better system, for now, starting simple.

I bought a small whiteboard for students to write recommendations on, and books they want me to buy.
I also supply, well, everything. Each group has a bin full of pens, markers, glue sticks, highlighters, Post-Its, stress ball, Play-Doh, but I also have more of this and paper on the shelves as well as colored paper, construction paper, copy paper.

I keep a calendar in my room that is what they get paper copies of and our Google Doc hyperlinked calendar. Next to that for each class is the essential question, learning targets for the week. I also have blank magnet strips I put literary elements on.

This first week we dove right into what we'd be studying, did a book speed dating, setting up tech, etc. The slides for my first days are here.
Here's how I did the book speed dating for the representative books:

• I set stacks of books around room. 
• They put bags/stuff in back. 
• I gave some tips- look at cover, read back, read review (I write then inside), a page to see if interested/can understand. 
• Wander around looking. 
• Once they find book, sit. 
• Lit circles!
• I had 4-5 books for each title, about 10 titles. 
• I have 29 students. 
• I scheduled 20 minutes, most were sitting and reading by end. 
• All Chican@ Ss, half male/female, some LGBTQ, handful of Native. 
• I used @ProjectLITComm book recommendations to choose the books.

I printed bookmarks on bright cardstock. Students choose one, wrote name on back on top, stuck in book (because more than one class will use).

We start every class with 20 minutes of reading.

One of the station rotations will be a mini-lesson that uses our mentor texts, that they will then apply to their book. I am focusing on this because I want to increase transfer of skills.

I redid my pre-assessments based on this article.  I'm excited to see what data I get from my English 9 and AP Lang.

This week, some things went up- a poster on how we'll use mentor texts. One about how to log into the computer. But for the most part, I leave my walls empty. Soon enough they'll be full of student work, group work, giant Post-Its of work and thoughts. This is how I like it.

I am focusing this year on my students, and the online professional learning networks of #DisruptTexts, #ClearTheAir and Project Lit have been instrumental in providing feedback, support, and ideas. I'm excited about these check ins and networks throughout the year.

I wanted to add a bit here too about time. After seventeen years of teaching, I've figured out systems for most things. A Google Doc calendar for the year, that I rough out, then add hyperlinks and resources to. A paper planner where I take the calendar and make detailed lessons. Then I make Google Slide class lessons from this. I use my prep for this (one hour on Monday, 110 minutes Tuesday/Thursday). I keep a running To-Do list on my desk, and work my way down it. If I think of something to do once I'm home, I email my school email so I feel like I've done something. But I don't check work Google Voice or email once I leave the building. If I find something cool, on Twitter or elsewhere, I'll email the note, or create something, but I try not to work on weekends. In part, because I have a project I need weekends for. But also, we all need breaks.

I get to school before 7a, and school starts at 725. My room is open for lunch three days a week. I teach Saturday school. I am consistent in being available during these times, and letting students know. But unless I have a meeting after school, every day I can, I am out the door as soon as the bell rings.

I do a lot of extra work, on my own time, breaks, summers, that I'm not paid for. And while I'm not a teacher just punching the clock, I'm also very cognizant of the fact that we are only paid for a 6.5 hour day. And yet we give our time freely. I think there's a balance between doing what needs to get done, learning how to use your time efficiently, and not sacrificing your own health and time. The balance is different for everyone. But this is mine.

After the first week, I feel really good about the focuses I've set for the year, and my first interactions with my students. I look forward to seeing how it all unfolds.

The Political Devil Summer Book Progress

I had a busy summer, and most of what I've publicly posted about has focused on my full time high school teaching job, and preparing for that.

I return to work Monday, so I thought I'd write a brief update on the book progress.

I started  planning and taking notes on ideas for the dissertation --> book revision as soon as I had a signed book contract. In fact, from November to the end of May, I did not "work" on the book. I had a busy year, and wanted some distance. What I DID do consistently was jot down notes in my notebook as they occurred to me. I had divided it into chapters, and as I thought of revisions, things to emphasize, articles to include, things to cut or refocus, I would jot them down. This means that when I sat down in May to reread the diss with an eye of making more detailed notes, I had a rough sketch of the revision project AND specific notes.

Once school was out at the end of May, I reread the diss, making detailed notes. By the time I finished I realized that I wouldn't just be revising what I had, I would be reorganizing and reimaginging.

Part of me "saw" the reorganization the whole time- the diss title was "Devilish Leaders, Demonic Parliaments, and Diabolical Rebellion: The Political English Devil from Malmesbury to Milton."
Yet the diss chapters each focused on an author.
So the first thing I did was reorganize according to these ideas.

I also knew that I needed to write a whole new chapter. SO, I planned out my work schedule. I planned on spending all of June on the new pamphlet chapter, because it would be the most work. It took a few days longer than I thought, but I'm super happy with it.

July was dedicated to starting the first reorganized chapter on devilish leaders.  At first, I thought I was going to talk about ALL the devilish leaders from the different works, but I realized (and again, I mention this in my intro) that while there is a lot of slippage between these works and characterizations, most  of these figures, these political devils are defined more by ONE thing than another. So it turned out that Malmesbury's devilish leaders are unique amongst all these political devils. So I focused just on that. But that doesn't mean that this chapter is the same as the diss. I cut whole sections that don't focus on the political devil, and this laser focus is a key difference from diss to book. I also expanded sections, close readings. The chapter is longer than the diss, despite these changes, and I'm a bit worried about the long chapters, but it's what's needed to do the work, so I'm not going to stress about it.

August was scheduled for doing the same process for the second chapter, on fiendish constructions. I actually finished the devilish leaders chapter early, so was able to copy, paste, and reorganize this chapter a couple of weeks ago. I also went through and cut, and inserted place markers where I need to write new material, answer questions, bridge ideas. I printed it out, with these blank spaces in it, and set it aside. I did not work on it at all this week, because I DO go back to work Monday, and felt like I needed to the time to rest, switch gears, and didn't want to do the work on the chapter distracted and have the work not be good.

I felt good doing this because I was ahead. There's not a lot of wriggle room- I will have to dig in next weekend, but I feel good about it. Whenever I start to doubt my plan I remind myself that I rewrote the diss from scratch in 5 months, and revised it in 6, only having partial weekends (I teach Saturday school) and school breaks to do it. And I was juggling a lot more after school responsibilities.

Now that school is back, I have weekends I'm not teaching Saturday school. This is how I rewrote the diss. I don't work on it during the week because teaching is exhausting, and it's too hard to switch gears. On the weekend I sit down right after Nehi's walk and am glued to my computer 7a-4 or 5p. Totally focused. I have the following schedule:

• August: Finish fiendish constructions chapter
• September: revise/reimagine satanic speech chapter
• October: revise/reimagine diabolical rebellion chapter
• November: rewrite/revise intro and conclusion
• December: read through and make throughline revisions of whole text
• January: send to editor

After the work I've done this summer, I feel really good about this. As I finish each chapter I feel like I have more and more confidence in how the whole work functions. The outlines have gotten tighter, I'm working the throughlines in AS I write, saving time later. One thing that's been really helpful was something my diss director had me do with the rewrite- I've started with really detailed outlines for each chapter. I sit and write the chapter with the outline in front of me. Once I've roughed out the chapter, I read through with the outline next to it and make sure the structure is there. This lets me see the pattern and form, and has been really helpful. This also means that as something comes up in one chapter, I have added it as a throughline to the other chapters' outlines. It has made a really big difference.

I've been putting bibliographies at the end of each chapter, making sure everything there is correct and in order, so in December I'll just copy and paste it all into one doc and remove the duplicates.

I will say, that with this revision, this reimagining, I have laughed and shrugged a lot about the mistakes in the diss. Some are silly- transposed numbers, odd citations. Some are big- ideas that I realized weren't fully fleshed out, arguments that don't follow through. The thing that has allowed me to not feel bad about these things, or cringe, or have negative feelings about the book is someone (I don't remember who) said to think of the dissertation as just the beginning of the conversation, not the end. That's a great way to think of it. I have some GREAT ideas in my diss. Some really interesting approaches for periodization and crossing boundaries. But what the book is letting me do is refine, focus, and highlight the BEST parts of this work.

I am really happy with this work. I wasn't sure I would be. I was worried when I started this summer that I wasn't going to be motivated because I'm writing as a high school English teacher, who may never get a higher ed job. So this is not a book for a job. Or for tenure. It is in every sense of the word a book just for me. My contribution to the field. A new look. New ideas. New approaches.

This has been freeing in a lot of ways. I've put back a lot of the folklore and interdisciplinary work I was told to take out, because this is my work and my voice, and if this is the only book I get to publish, I'm going to make sure it represents ME.

I am trying to focus more on sharing teaching documents, and that part of my life, so I don't know how much time or energy I'll have for posting book updates. I will try though as I can.

I'm Not the Teacher I Used to Be...and I wouldn't want to be

A lot of the news the last year has covered awful, misogynistic, racist stories/posts/Tweets that have been uncovered from celebrities' pasts, as well as some in real time.
Most recently, James Gunn was fired as director of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies for offensive tweets from roughly a decade ago.
The tweets/jokes are awful. No debate.
People should be held accountable for what they say and do, online and face to face. No debate.
I don't know if Disney was correct in firing a man based on alt-right accusations that use decade old information as evidence. I don't know where the line is. Many claim Gunn is not the man he was then.
I don't want to debate this issue, BUT it has made me think about the response. About how Gunn states, and his friends and colleagues support, that he is a different man, changed, kind.

The last few months and years, I have thought a lot about how I am not the teacher I used to be.
I used to mimic the sarcastic, frankly mean, male teachers I had.
I used to be a teacher who claimed her students needed to be prepared for the "real world."
I used to believe that I helped my students best by giving them the cultural capital of the canon to be competitive in a world stacked against them.
I used to see parent relationships as inherently antagonistic.

But I'm not this person anymore.

Some of these changes happened slowly, a single idea or project or trying something new.
Some were more wholesale changes, overhauling my whole classroom.

Some of these things came from listening to smart people on Twitter.
Some from seeing something I wanted to try.
Some from staying in conversations about education, and keeping up.

But today, as I talked with a colleague, I realized that not only are a lot of our staff NOT having these conversations, but they aren't even aware of what the conversations ARE.

This summer, a lot of people have talked about the issues, the trouble, the damage, that is done when teachers, particularly Anglo teachers, replicate the teaching that taught them, the systems that they did well with, the assignments and readings that they were given.

I would not want to be judged as the teacher I was ten years ago. I would not go back to teaching that way. This year, in many ways I'm overhauling my classes. But I'm also using this as a guideline:

The world, the news, the seemingly daily tragedies can seem overwhelming, and I'm an adult. Our students are so much more susceptible to these things. There is not a lot I can do about that, although I recognize the need to focus on social justice, and not stand by and do nothing. But this year, I'm going to focus on my classroom. The changes I can make in the lives of the 150 students that will inhabit my room this year. On how to best serve THEM.

So, in that light, and building on my previous posts about tips for the start of the year, and things to make your classroom better (it's not Teacher Instagram), here is a list of small moves that can have great changes, that I'm trying this year.

I am not teaching the canon. I am decolonizing my bookshelf. My students, both my English 9 and AP Language students, will choose their books, their short stories. All of them.

• If you always teach To Kill a Mockingbird, Romeo and Juliet, The Odyssey, and the poems in the 9th grade textbook, and if you teach versions of the same lessons, every year, you are doing a disservice to your students.
• You're not choosing texts based on your students' interests.
• You're not choosing texts that represent your students.
• If you're using lesson plans off the internet, from other teachers, you're doing a disservice to your students. This doesn't mean you can't try out a cool idea you saw online. It means students and learning isn't cookie cutter, and if you're applying that theory, you're not teaching. You're presenting.
• Student choice will increase engagement.
• I got enough donations to have current, representative, relevant YA novels as the majority in my classroom. I will supplement their choices for lit circles with things like The Jungle (because my AP students do love it, go figure), Farewell to Manzanar, In the Time of Butterflies. The literature circle approach means the 15 books that I couldn't teach because there was no class set, means I suddenly have a lot more options.
• I will choose a mentor text that we'll use as a model, and for mini-lessons. Students will then apply those lessons, those skills, to their choice books. This will focus on transferring skills. Even with my choice of mentor texts though, I'm not relying on the canon. Newer, more relevant texts my not have all the literary elements I want, but movie stills and scenes are great for showing students this, so it'll get taught.

Actual conversation I've had with a colleague-
Them: I don't like X as a teacher, but I can deal with them
Me: They're racist and misogynist
Them: Well, yes, but...
Me: No buts. I won't stay quiet on that anymore. I'm calling them out.

• Especially when I taught in NC, I learned to bite my tongue a lot. The guidance counselor using the n-word. Misogyny from the principal. "Obama is a Muslim, who is destroying the country." These people weren't changing these views, I needed my job, and more times than not, I rolled my eyes, and stayed silent. Because my white privilege made it possible for me to. There was no consequence or trauma if I didn't.
• I can't do that anymore. I just can't. I can't because it's wrong. I can't because I need to use my privilege. I can't because so many of my students have to, are not in a position to.
• I am working on actively, and explicitly, calling out bigotry and oppression. Dismantling it in my classroom in every way I can.

Tech is fun. It is cool. Using to use it responsibly is a great skill. It's not a replacement for dedicated teachers, content knowledge, or accessibility.

• I was an early adopter of tech in the classroom, Google Docs, email. I use it to make all my resources available all the time, to everyone- other teachers, students, parents. I love it. Whether it's making our class pacing calendar a live Google Doc, or Google Voice to text parents, or taking and sharing photos of board notes, I love it all. My students and parents do too, they always know what's going on in my class. Absent students use the resources to get caught up.
• BUT even if you are aware, don't penalize students, survey them, in many ways tech is not accessible. Students don't have computers, printers, wifi. So you have to think on how and why you use it.
• Also, I have noticed in the last couple of years, in an effort to provide notes, info, resources, that it resulted in my students copying the information rather than using it as a model. So this year, I'm going to pull back on a lot of this, and see what happens.

It's easy to coast. To get tired. To teach one lesson, then phone it in or go through the motions for the next three classes as they do that lesson. This gets easier the longer you teach. Everyone has days like this. 8 hours on every day is tiring, and sometimes some things give. It's human nature. BUT I can design my class so that this IS just a once in a while, exhausted, sick, occurrence, and NOT a feature of the system.

• This means engaging with my students in their reading.
• This means conferencing with them, their experiences, their questions, their responses, about a text or writing.
• This means modeling in my Daybook, the work I'm asking them to do.
• This means changing things as I need to, in response to individual students and groups and classes. 
• Make a list of things you do in your classroom- notes, routines, homeworks, assignments, all of it. Then ask yourself, what is the pedagogical reason for doing X? If you can't answer that in a meaningful way, then you're probably replicating things that you were taught, how you were taught, or education methods that are not accurate. When we're tired, or drained, we default to what we know. But here's the thing- what we "know," what we learned, is probably not accurate anymore. There's a better way. Research has proven differently. The conversations have shifted.
• Learning styles don't exist.
• The gains of a "growth mindset" are infintessimal.
• Homework and summer reading assignments punish students with family responsibilities and from certain socio-economic classes.
• Popcorn reading or round-robin reading shames students and doesn't model or teach.
• Punishing students for late work or not taking late work does not teach students the content they're in your class to learn.
• Punishing students for things out of their control (tardies, absences, not having materials) sets up an antagonistic relationship.
• Make your language and classroom explicitly anti-racist and not ableist.

As a list, it's not a lot. Yet these changes will radically change my classroom culture, and MORE IMPORTANTLY it will change the experience of my students.
It will change their learning.
It will change how they FEEL about their learning.
It will change our relationship.

These aren't things I pulled out of a hat, they're based on research based books, conversations online, evidence that the things I was doing were wrong, not working, just awful.
I don't expect all this to coalesce on the first day. Like routines, we'll build up to some of these things. BUT, I do think it's important that I start the year knowing this is the rough road map for where I want to be. I think it's important that all of my decisions this year are made through this lens.