Final Reflections...

As we wrap up our time at SI, I can't help but think about all that we have accomplished and struggled with and questioned and written and discussed and pondered (and eaten) in the past three weeks. I have grown personally in two different areas:

1) I have grown as a teacher...
Perhaps the most obvious of categories, I feel as though SI has reminded me of practices/strategies/activities I am doing right and challenged me to revise those that aren't working. I am looking forward to using some of the texts and ideas from our demos as I start a new stage in my teaching career as a First-Year Writing instructor. I want my students to tackle single stories and memoir writing, dictation and big ideas, creative reading and good vs. bad writing, theme songs and figured worlds. I've also been reminded that I, as a teacher of writing, need to continue to reflect constantly not only on my big picture plan and purpose but also on my students, who they are and who they want to be.

2) I have grown as a writer...
I am still working toward my M.A. in English Literature and therefore think like a grad student. However, Lil was my partner during Tonya's demo and really challenged me to rethink a paper I had already received an A on. Through the encouragement of my peers during SI, I have reconnected with my writing self. Yes, I am great at writing literary analyses and reflections - my academic writing has always been a huge part of my identity as a writer. But, because of our work over the past several weeks, I have revised my understanding of Sarah Davis as a writer. I am determined to continue working on my mentored memoir piece, which allows me to write creative non-fiction in a way I actually enjoy! I also hope to revise my writing process - to give myself more time to mull over anything I compose and to make changes (even if I change them again later).

Thank you to all of my #unccwp colleagues for pushing me to grow as a teacher and a writer. I have enjoyed our time together and hope to continue working with your wonderful brains and hearts for many years to come!

Be the Change You Want to See in the World

"Before SI, we were lousy teachers.
We stood up in the front like Baptist preachers.
Our student evals were in the tank.
The students told us we really stank.

Be the change. Be the change. Be the change. Be the change.

SI taught us how to write with our peeps.
Now Baptist preachin' gives us the creeps.
Process, revision, creating without locks -
Now we're thinkin' outside the box!

Be the change. Be the change. Be the change. Be the change."

So, Robin's demo today was a wonderful reminder of the diverse set of stories we are introduced to with each new year of teaching. I have always loved language and culture and social history, but sometimes I forget that the past is still very present. While I cannot begin to understand what all of my students have experienced, I can share my heart and my mistakes and my struggles with them (Thanks, Wendy!). Relationships in my classroom are vital, and I pride myself on being able to relate to and establish trust with students from all backgrounds. However, I still need to create space in my classroom for acknowledging and appreciating just how unique my students are. I am planning to reinvent the introduction to my prejudice unit (To Kill a Mockingbird, The Merchant of Venice, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) to include a personal multi-genre/multi-modal "presentation" of some kind where students can share their past experiences with prejudice/discrimination. Hopefully these presentations will also serve as a springboard for the inquiry project students complete at the end of the unit. Thank you, Robin, for passionately sharing a piece of your story and for inspiring me to keep my eyes, ears, and heart open!

Personal History Affecting Writing

During Meredith's fun and effective demo today, I realized - once again - that my writing is (forever and always) affected by my personal experiences and passions. My first scene was focused in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, in the United States. I pictured a farmer taking a load of crops to market, traveling on a long and dusty road in tattered clothing. My second scene described a Roman soldier on horseback overlooking a valley in which two armies faced one another. After a moment of silence, the warriors rushed toward one another, and a battle began. Finally, the scene based on the third musical score saw a young woman and her black dog in a lime-green Ford Fiesta on a roadtrip across the Plains States. Out of one window, the dog's nose could be seen; out of the other, the girl hung her hand and waved it in the wind.

All three of these pieces are a combination of my past, present, and future. I love history; I double-majored (English and History Ed) in undergrad and can never remove my fascination with times gone-by from my writing. The Great Depression and Roman solider prove that my mind is constantly thinking about events, people, places that were once - and may still be - significant. I want to read and teach and analyze literature through a historical lens for the rest of my life! The third scene is closer to my own story. When I was in sixth-grade, my family moved across the country from Washington to Virginia, traveling through states like Wyoming, South Dakota, and Iowa to get to our new home. Before we moved, my 6' 7" tall dad drove a lime-green Fiesta we nicknamed "Pookie" (like "book"). These memories, along with my current puppy child, melted together into a pseudo-story of my life.

As I write more and more during SI, I am reminded of just how much our own stories influence the words we put on paper. Lil really drove home this point today when she talked about tapping into our students' wells of narratives and lived experiences. And as I continue to write my "Mentored Memoir," I am attempting to tap into my own well, to use the memories that are there - either just below the surface or buried deep - as inspiration to continue exploring, both myself and the world around me.

Demo Day!

My day really started on Sunday night, as I finished my final preparations for Monday's demo. (I must admit that while I was excited to "teach" again, I was not thrilled to be prepping for a lesson during the summer.) The demo seemed to go well; everyone participated and laughed - always a good sign! But the most significant conversation/reflection started on Skype after my demo. Lacy was struggling to put her question into words. She was worried about restricting purpose and audience to a simple statement; she wanted to challenge S.O.A.P.S. as boxes on a rubric, to think about the "why" and "how" and "so what" behind the writer's purpose and audience. This led her to share an article with me (which I still need to read in its entirety). As I was reading, I noticed that Derrida and his deconstruction-circle theory were prevalent - suddenly, my mind was racing with connections! I started to think about Spivak and postcolonial theory, one of my true passions, and to apply Lacy's thoughts to my background in cultural and ethnic studies. We both began to rant in tandem! I loved the feeling of bouncing ideas and random thoughts off of each other. Our energies seemed to join together, and our tiny Skype pencils were moving constantly, as we tripped over each other to share our frustrations and views. What an amazing conversation! One of the things that I love most about SI is being reminded that writing and thinking sometimes occur best in the presence of other minds. (Riffing, anyone?!) Thanks, Lacy!

Crying into the Mic...

Writing is...
a piece of my soul
a picture of my world
personal
emotional

I don't want...
to share
to show weakness
pity
awkwardness

w
o
r
d
s
.
.
.

t
e
a
r
s
.
.
.

What now?

Creative Reading

I was fascinated by Ron Padgett's ideas for creative reading. We always talk about creative writing and the relationship between writing and reading, so why not try creative reading?! When we first started this activity, I must admit that I was slightly annoyed by and skeptical about the purpose of skipping or repeating lines. But, as I worked through some of the other strategies, I began to realize that we were essentially deconstructing the text, removing (transferring?) the meaning from the words on the page and interpreting the piece through a new, unique perspective.

My favorite reading ideas were the stencil and the trickle down. I wish I had had a hard copy of "No Kinda Sense" because I wanted to create my own poem with Delpit's story, but I did create my very own heart-shaped stencil. As I moved my little blue stencil across and up and down the page, I tried to ignore the urge to move it from left to right like a magnifying glass. Instead I paused and really concentrated on the words inside the heart shape, trying to make a connection among them that related to my understanding of the text. I appreciated the fact that the stencil forced me to really slow down and focus on the words as individual units rather than an entire sentence or paragraph. I realized just how carefully writers choose their words, just how much a seemingly insignificant three- or four-letter unit can change the implication of a sentence - possibly even a whole story. Sometimes we miss the trees for the forest...

Distractions...

I made the mistake of responding to my peers' blogs before writing my own, so I have few new ideas to post here. Instead, I will simply say that today has been one of distractions for me. During lunch, I got an email that led to a "discussion" with my husband about finances (never a fun topic). I couldn't concentrate on our inquiry time because I was checking our account and playing with numbers, worried about when paychecks come and when bills are due. My brain is tired and stretched (in a good way) from the extraordinary amount of information we have chewed and swallowed and tried to digest over the past week. I haven't been sleeping well because we are trying to keep our AC higher than normal. I got another email reminding me of important things I still need to do this weekend (other than prep for my demo) for some grant writing I am organizing...

I am not posting this for sympathy or to vent; I have absolutely nothing to complain about (mine are first-world problems). I am simply attempting to be honest about my thinking and writing. In trying to come up with something clever or brilliant to say in this post, I am reminded of my students who have true distractions in their lives that sometimes keep them from writing when prompted or turning in an assignment or even being able to learn for that day or week or month or year. One of my students was the eldest of six, and when his father had a near-fatal heart attack, he was left to help his mom around the house with his younger siblings. One of my students had a mother who was constantly drunk or high and could not bring her daughter to school on time, forcing her to miss my first period class consistently and eventually fail. One of my students came from a family that sometimes could not put enough food on the table or buy a winter coat. One of my students watched her mom pass away before being forced to move to a different school because of a custody battle. These are the "distractions" that I need to watch for as I attempt to be the most effective and compassionate teacher that I can be, the distractions I need to be sensitive about before I automatically snap at a lazy student or a sleeping student or a late student. Yes, teenagers will manipulate the system. Yes, students will lie to your face. But I can at least try to give them the benefit of the doubt before narrating their lives with one story...