B+ Teacher

I need to learn to be a "B+" teacher.

As I lay here in bed on the Sunday night of Spring Break, the weight of everything I didn't do and need to do is suffocating.  Why do I have so much to do?  Do all teachers feel this way on Sunday night?  Am I expecting too much of myself?  Of my students?  What is that balance between trying to challenge and grow as learners and feeling like this?

For now, I have no choice but to make compromises. And that's okay.  It has to be.

I won't be the best teacher tomorrow - and that's hard to admit. But, my students have taught me more about grace than I ever knew possible. When I am honest with them tomorrow about not being prepared, they will understand.  They will cut me the slack I am so unwilling to cut myself.  And they will see me as an ordinary person who sometimes struggles, but is persistent. And that's a lesson in itself.

Spring Break Reading Challenge

I often get random wild hair ideas, and I'm just crazy enough to run with them when they hit.  Because I geek out about it, my students will usually go with me, or at least pretend to.

Just before Thanksgiving Break, I happened to stumble upon an old blog post of a teacher friend.  She discussed how she encouraged independent reading by setting a weekend reading challenge.  I read the blog Monday night and by Tuesday morning, I had a plan in place.  With the long weekend coming up, I knew it was the perfect opportunity.

I was so moved by those who did make their goal without realizing they had it in them.  I had one student read an entire book over the long weekend.  She had never done that before and didn't know she was capable of doing so.  That right there was worth the entire activity.

This semester, when we got close to Spring Break, a student I had last semester asked if we got to do the reading challenging again. Of course!  (Inside, I was practically jumping of joy as her eyes lit up.)  She excitedly shared she already knew what she was going to set as her challenge.

My students are familiar with reading goals.  We follow Penny Kittle's reading goal guidelines in Book Love and monitor our reading growth each Monday.  (A great opportunity for me to talk to every single kid in my class, check in on their progress, and celebrate their accomplishments.)

So, with a few added stipulations, we set our reading goals for Spring Break.    The goal has to be somewhat of a challenge - more than their normal weekly reading goals.  They have to commit to the goal before they leave for the day.  If they write it down, they are more likely to commit.  And I will reward them on Monday with some kind of treat.  As I have said many times, when it comes to building reader's lives, I am not above bribery.

I, of course, challenge myself, too - never asking my students to do something I wouldn't.  The subliminal messages from them as I get wrapped up in a game on my iPad instead of reading really work.

Not every kid chose to participate.  I emphasized and reiterated that nothing really happened on Monday if they made a goal and didn't commit.  They would only receive "try again next time" from me.   But, I know I will have some I will get to celebrate on Monday.  And I can't wait.

A side note:  At the top of the white board is a series of stars with each of my classes total reading pages for the quarter.  As a whole, we read over 141,000 pages.  This is one proud teacher.

Graphing Literature

The Color Purple is one of my all time favorites.  Seriously, top ten.

My adoration for Alice Walker began in high school.  By college, she was an obsession.  I studied multiple pieces, wrote my first fifteen page paper about her, and presented on my research at a national conference in Baton Rouge.

This year, I got to teach it to AP Literature.

It's my first time teaching it, and of course, I love it - their conversation, excitement and emotions about it excite and inspire me.  I have taught advanced classes for a few years, but this is different.  These kids have a passion for reading that is unmatched.  The entire feel and tone of the class.  They WANT to discuss this love of literature.  Many times, I don't get to say much in discussions.  And that is the beauty of it.

Our focus with this book is literary theory.  We discussed feminism, cultural, and race theories and their impact on the text.  As an end of the book activity, I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but no idea how it would turn out in actual practice.  If I could get them to do it, I knew it would be a great way to start this conversation.  This class could accept the challenge.

This was their assigned task:
Trace the journey of Shug, Celie, or Sofia from a feminist and/or womanist perspective. Track the major events in each character's story. Include prominent interactions with other characters, both male and female, who have contributed to or hinder her journey. Create some graph or chart to give a visual representation of her progress of feminist and/or womanist perspective in a measure of your choice. 

I love how they turned out.

I so wanted more time to discuss, argue, defend, and compare these.  The visual representation of their ideas fascinated me.  I was so proud.

Each day, they give me so much to consider.  I love learning from them.