Style Happens

I've never been particularly interested in pursuing the sweetest deals at 4:00 am on Black Friday, but yesterday, my sister Tiffany and I ventured out in the afternoon to see about finding me a pair of jeans. We wandered into Lane Bryant, but I was ready to leave in a few minutes. Seems they have completely revamped their traditional sizing. All pants now come in sizes 1 to 9 and in blue line, red line or yellow line. Too much for my head. I just knew I wanted a simple pair of jeans with straight legs. I've never been a fan of flaired or boot legs, but my sister insisted it was time for me to move my style into the 21st century. After the sales lady measured me, she insisted I try on a size 5 in the blue line. I was very conscious about the fit, but my sister and the saleslady didn't feel it fit tight enough, insisting I go to a size 4. "You want jeans to fit you tight and show off your booty," the sales lady kept insisting to which I replied, "Mam, if you haven't noticed, I don't have a 'booty' on my behind; mine is in front if you haven't noticed my belly." I was rather concerned that the jeans might be vulgar looking. Then, we shifted to another color. Another sales lady insisted I was not blue line at all but rather red line. So, somehow I ended up in a size 6 red line pair that were tighter than the blue line size 5. Go figure. And no, they are not straight line jeans. They are boot cut. Seems the good old straight line has gone out of style and is not available. Not that I care about this, but although I may come kicking and screaming, I am now a little more stylish in my red line jeans. Seems like there are a lot of shifts happening these days whether it's technology or style. I'm just trying to keep up, booty and all.

Shift Happens

Last week, a colleague/friend and I attended the NCTE National Convention in San Antonio, Texas. The focus of the convention was "Shift Happens." I went to a lot of sessions and heard a lot of speakers talk about the learning impact technology can and does indeed have on the 21st century student. As I've continued to chew on all I took in, a couple of moments of clarity have risen to the surface. One, the biggest shift is the mental one I as a teacher am and must continue to make. I have to change my attitude as that is the biggest obstacle sometimes to my teaching journey. I'm an immigrant to technology so there is always going to be that learning curve for me whether we are talking wikis, blogs, podcasts, googlelit trips. digital narratives, voicethread, etc. At my school, a lot of discussion has centered on technology. What's acceptable, what's not, how do we protect students from the dangers lurking on the net without completely censoring them, how do we get daily access to the tech in order to have students CREATE and PRODUCE learning instead of just having information delivered to them using technology. It can be overwhelming and yet I know I must dive in.

I told my friend Alisa that I feel I'm one of the teachers on the sideline of this great rapidly moving river. You know the ones. We're talking about whether or not technology is dehumanizing us and whether or not students need to have their ipods at school and why the devil they constantly want to text and shouldn't cell phones be banned completely from the school, yada, yada, yada. We're still questioning whether or not technology is right for us and meanwhile that river rages on by. It's going my friends, whether or not we're in it. At the conference, I realized I need to stop putting my feet in the river and instead just dive in, whole body and all. The only way I can hope to have an impact on my students is if I get in that river of technology with them and swim along beside them. Change my mindset. That truly is a paradigm shift. It's the biggest one. So, bring on the podcasting and the googlelit trips. I know I will have to rely on my students a lot to give me the lay of the land and orient me. But I hope that we will be learners together as we navigate our way down the constantly shifting river of technology.

The 12 Days of Christmas Grammar Challenge

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas music. I'm such a freak about it that yes, I confess, I've even secretly listened to it as early as August and sometimes into late January. But Thanksgiving signals the official okay that Christmas music is acceptable, so I've been uploading Christmas music onto my ipod. Thanks to Amanda, I've learned how to download songs from iTunes onto my computer and then to my ipod. (Hey, Amanda, I still need help putting the songs from cds I already have onto my ipod. Call me if you see this over the Thanksgiving weekend. :) As I sit here writing this, I'm listening to some of my favorites. My brother-in-law Greg is not a big fan of the "whiney Christmas songs" so he's given me his Bose headset to listen, sparing him from the music which is okay since I'm afterall a guest in my sister and his house this holiday. We arrived tonight to kick off our Thanksgiving with our annual roasted oysters. Yummy, nothing better on a cold November night than a fresh oyster on a saltine cracker topped with a jalapeno and some of my dad's delicious sauce. But I digress. Back to the grammar idea.

For several past years, I've had the idea of designing a mini unit on troublesome grammar issues using traditional Christmas carols and holiday songs. For instance, the rule about lie versus lay tangles up many a student, so why not design a game that features the carol "O, Little Town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie . . ." and use it during the month of December? I've decided to make this idea a reality this year, so I'm spending this weekend (at least a portion of it between the turkey meal, the family movie outing and the holiday shopping) working out the details of this unit so that I can start it next week with my students. I'm making a collection of the songs I'll use and figuring which grammatical concepts I'll teach/review with each one. If it turns out well, I'll post the results here. Happy Turkey Day, folks! Enjoy your time with families. And sing a few holiday tunes. It's good for you. :)

The Joy of Giving

Today students in my first bell and Beta Club students packed and wrapped shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Shoebox. I really enjoy seeing the generosity of these students who relished the opportunity to make a difference. By the end of the day, there were 50 shoeboxes, and I suspect there will be a few more turned in tomorrow. Thanks to a gracious Beta parent, the shoeboxes are on their way.

A Pizza in the Box and a Bag in the Hand

So today's mandatory faculty meeting was the ubiquitous one where the insurance guy comes and attempts to persuade us to buy more health insurance, his rhetoric peppered with expressions like "Folks. . ." and "My (insert family member here) is a teacher and I know how hard . . ." and "We send you a check directly" and "Now, I heard this is a stress-free school but . . ." and so on. This speech comes after he ironically serves us all free greasy pizza before citing all the scary statistics about heart attacks, diabetes and strokes. He ends with a drawing. He chooses one of the names out of his bag and that person wins $50.00. Why is it that I always get depressed, listening to the doom and gloom warning of these insurance folks? Why do the jokes and one-line platitudes sound so cliche? Why do I look around at the dull pepto bismo color on the walls and think thoughts like "Oh my gosh, I'm stuck in an institution" and "this is the future I can look foward to if I stay and retire in teaching?" Perhaps it's just me, but I feel like a cow being fattened for the slaughter as I'm herded into the corral, forced to listen to this used car salesman. I despise the annual insurance lecture. I just can't get past the idea that it's planning for the "glass is half-empty" scenario. I know I'm jaded but my faith in the insurance business is zilch.

Teaching The Teacher

As I read and pondered on Valerie's last few blog posts, I began to think of the ever-popular catch phrase that we have adopted in education of "Relevance, Rigor, and Relationship". This has become somewhat of a mantra in some educational institution. I remember the first time I heard this phrase during my student teaching experience. At the time I thought that I understood all three concepts. However, as time passes I see that relevance and rigor are still a gray area for me. When I began to think about why this is, it suddenly hit me when I looked at the picture in Valerie's last post.

The seniors pictured in Valerie's post are very important to me and are students that I will never forget. In January of 2007, I came to their class as a student myself who was trying to "learn how to teach" during my student teaching experience. It's hard to believe that they are seniors and that they will soon be college students just like I was when I met them. Though they were just high school students, I have found that they taught me so much about the importance of developing relationships.

As a new teacher, it can be very overwhelming to try and determine relevance and define rigor. I don't know how long it will take for me to fully understand relevance and the entire debate that surrounds it. However, I am making a conscious choice to not let my lack of understanding bother me. Years from now, I hope to look back on the class of 2009 and remember what they taught me about developing relationships. It is because of them that I am looking forward to future classes of students and what they will teach me. Who knows, perhaps a few years from now I will be able to look back and see how my students taught me about relevance and rigor.

Class Color Day at CCHS

This past week was our school's spirit week leading up to the homecoming game last night. I know how hard our SGO sponsor, a 2nd year teacher, and the SGO student reps worked in overseeing this week's activities, so big props to them. Friday was class color day with each grade wearing the designated color. Class color day has disconcerted faculty the last few years with some of the issues generated such as face painting, tagging, dress code violations and messes in the bathroom with the paint. I'm not sure what the answer is. I wonder what other schools do and if there is a solution that would satisfy the concerns and permit students the enjoyment they take in celebrating their class color? I look at the faces in this photograph and I see school pride, hope for the future and zest for life. I taught many of these folks as freshmen and some of them as sophomores. Their precious faces have frequented my classroom the past four years, and I know I'll miss seeing those faces when they graduate in June. I'm glad I was able to capture this rite of passage on film.

"Show me, help me, let me."

A teaching buddy of mine moved to a different school this year. Molly e-mailed to see if my colleague Linda and/or I had suggestions on how she could help US History students she has who are struggling with writing. When I copied Linda on my reply to Molly, Linda suggested I share my reply because others might be able to benefit, so I'm posting it here.

Hello Linda and Val,
OK - they all do their homework religiously here but I do have a rare
few who can't write their way out of a paper bag. Do you have any simple worksheet or format you might share to help the kid who responds to an essay prompt with only one paragraph and doesn't even have a thesis?...I need to offer some tutoring. Not too big of a request, yes?

Okay, here's the best advice I can give you for your students and writing. I've been reading my Jeff Wilhelm the past week or so and he starts all of his books with the main theory his practice is grounded in: Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky says that "given the proper assistance, nearly anyone can learn nearly anything and what is learned must be taught," (Wilhelm, 24). So, putting that in the simplest of terms: show me, help me, let me. Click here to find out more about Wilhelm's Action Strategies For Deepening Comprehension.

Here's how this would apply to your situation. The students need to see you model the PROCESS. Sure, show them models of written essays but more helpful would be to put a prompt up there and ask them to listen to you model your thinking process IF you were the student and had to write the essay. It's letting them see your brain and thoughts under the microscope. I know this may sound scary because some teachers think we have to have it all together before we can present it to our students, but trust me, it's okay if the students see you grapple. It's actually better because they come to see you as a writer who has to work through things and that it's not just some are good at it and some are not. I'd start from step one with the prompt. You speak out the thoughts you are having about what's important in prompt and what to focus on. Then, let them see you work out a thesis statement. How would you write a thesis if you were given that prompt. You may have to model that several times (the "show me" part of the Vygotsky formula) as some learners need to see it several times. Model the process of brainstorming and how you generate ideas for your essay. Once you model it, move to the "help me" stage. Brainstorm together as a class for prompts. Put a graphic organizer on overhead and call on different students to generate ideas for the planning part. Then, I'd even say you model taking a plan and writing paragraph by paragraph on the overhead as you are articulating your thoughts so that they see your thinking and how you work through the process. Again, you're modeling the process. Next, move to the "help me" by writing paragraph as a class. Ask for students to supply you sentences, so literally, you are writing the essay together as a whole class or group. Big picture here: you'll be writing several essays over a period of time beginning with you doing more and moving to them doing it eventually independently. When you see issues with writing traits (for example, how to set a focus with a thesis or how to support and elaborate with details), do a think aloud about how you address that trait in your own writing so that they see your thoughts. See what I mean about modeling the process?

I'd also bring in mentor texts. If a student is having problems knowing what a good thesis is, then bring in LOTS of thesis statements from various essays and articles. Compile them and have class analyze them. Analyze one together, noting what works and what doesn't. Whatever part they are struggling with, bring in loads of good examples so that they can see what good ones look like (So they are seeing models of PROCESS with you and models of PRODUCTS with the mentor texts). Jeff Anderson and Katie Wood Ray do a lot with the idea of mentor texts. And, once you get comfortable with it, ask students to model their thinking. So, pick a student who does a good job on something (like for example a student who knows how to write a pretty good thesis statement) and have that person come to front of room and model how he/she would generate a thesis statement from a prompt. Lots of repetition for this process and they will move to the "Let me" stage of the formula. :) Hope this doesn't come across as easy cause it's not. It's a lot easier to talk about but the actual working out of it is challenging but I think the more our students can see us as learners, the better it will be for their learning.

Finding Clarity in the Muddy Waters

Yesterday I had an epiphany: the power of metaphor lies not so much in the elaboration it provides but rather metaphorical thinking provides opportunity for me to articulate an understanding that I might not otherwise be able to articulate. Metaphor nominates a concept or insight. One of my teaching goals this semester has been to teach students to develop and use metaphors in their thinking and writing, so I've been scouring resources for different strategies to help me do that. Gabriele Lusser Rico's Writing the Natural Way has a chapter "Wedding Word to Image: Metaphor" on this idea that has been great food for thought.

Reflecting on my own cognitive processes, I realize that those occasions when I create a metaphor for a new insight, it solidifies my understanding and creates the vehicle I ride in to get to the truth. I was talking with a friend yesterday and explaining that there are those times when all the educational theories and ideas become, to use a cliche, crystal clear for me. Now, as I said to my friend, that clarity is not always long-lasting. But man, when the muddy waters from the storms die down and I can see the bottom, excitement runs high. My friend and I started talking about all the things in education that muddy the waters for teachers: top-down directives, competing different priorities, forgetting what teaching at its simplest really is, political agendas, money, power, and the list goes on. One of my colleagues, Buddy, made a statement a few weeks ago that I've continued to ponder. He said teaching is really a simple act. You need two things: a teacher and a student. There's a lot of truth in that. Why have we allowed education to get so complex and complicated when we know that in its purest form, learning is about an exchange, a simple dialogue, a transaction? While I might not be able to control the "storms" that muddy my thinking, I celebrate those times when the wind dies down, the sand settles and I look down to see the bottom clearly.

How to Be Goldilocks

My friends Linda, Amanda and I were discussing how to balance all we teach in our classes in this 21st century. We have students who tell us that it's really not important to learn mechanics such as the rules for apostrophes because that is not truly relevant and useful knowledge in this new age of technology and 21st century skills. Sure, students can demonstrate they know the rules for showing possession when you worksheet or quiz them, but too often, the application is not there in real, authentic writing. Students don't transfer the skills, so we teachers keep teaching and emphasizing it. I think many teachers are questioning what to keep and what to throw out as we adjust to the huge paradigm shift in education.

We constantly juggle the many competing factors in our quest to find the "porridge that is just right." Relevancy, standardized tests, cultural value, immediacy, practical application and many other factors compete for priority. Do you throw out all the classics? Only teach the contemporary young adult literature that students seem to enjoy? Do you give students 100% choice and never "assign" a book since that seems to be the quickest way, according to many students and adults, to steal the joy out of reading? Do you only teach formulaic writing because that is what is tested on the state writing test? Do you incorporate technology for technology's sake because it's all about technology these days? Do you continue to take off 5 points each time a student misuses an apostrophe because you've taught it over and over and still the student has not made correct usage a habit of excellence?

Do you teach lists of vocabulary words (even going so far as to choose the words from their literature so that they are in "context") even though students only use them for a short while but never transfer them to their writing? Do you sacrifice great works of literature such as Siddhartha, moving away from fiction and putting more emphasis on informational texts since that is where the students seem to struggle? After all, many experts today discourage doing a lot of traditional "literature" and instead think it's more important to study informational texts. Do you teach spelling at the high school level? Is it too late once students get to high school for them to master the basics of spelling and grammar? Do you teach grammar in isolation a little so that students can learn the basics they never learned before?

Is it reasonable to challenge students to learn something for learning's sake or is the new buzzword "relevant?" Must everything be "relevant" and if so, what does this mean? Who gets to define what is "relevant?" I've been pondering all of these questions and the only thing I know for sure is that I think we get to the answer through trial and error. Try different types of porridge. Some will be too hot, others too cold, but I look for the time when I sample the porridge that is "just right."

Teaching "Tone"

A week or so ago, one of my students asked me about the tone of the book she read for summer reading assignment: The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Part of her assignment was to describe the author's tone in the book and pull passages or diction to support her tone description. She stated in her journal that the book had absolutely no tone, something that really surprised me. I noted on her journal that every book has tone, so when I handed back her assignment, we sat down and had a conversation about it. I went to a few specific scenes in the book, read them aloud and then asked her to describe what she believed the author's attitude was in those passages. Although we discussed specific examples of diction, she still was not confident that the book had a tone or tones (as I explained to her that a book can have more than one tone).

This conversation prompted reflection on my part and dialogue about how to teach students to recognize tone, especially to students who don't instinctually "get it." What is tone really? I know the traditional definition but I'm thinking more deeply about it. I know that in AP, all roads lead to tone. One of the challenges is getting students to distinguish between mood and tone. Readers have an easier time identifying their own emotional response to a passage but asking them to pick up on the author's attitude can present a dilemma for some; particularly when the tone of a passage is more subtle. In pondering how to best teach students to recognize tone, I've discovered a few resources: a blog entry by a teacher who uses movie trailers to get his students to see how tone affects the perception of that film. See Todd Christian's entry on how to teach tone and mood to middle school students to read more about his technique.
I've also been reading Nancy Dean's Voice Lessons which provides sentences of small passages for students to work through diction, detail, imagery, syntax and tone.

In my discussion of this issue with Amanda, she stated that she thinks part of the problem for some students is that they are not visualizing the scene when they read. Afterall, reading is seeing. This started me thinking about how picturing the text in my mind or making a movie in my mind is such a natural thing for me to do. I have a hard time seeing how it's possible to read and NOT visualize, yet I know many of my students don't. Jeff Wilhelm speaks to this issue in several of his books including the Reading Is Seeing (Scholastic).

I think of tone as the emotional flavor of a text, so that automatically generates ideas of how I might use music and or actual food (sound and taste) to teach tone since I think teaching through the senses can be powerful. Art is the other vehicle I'm pondering to use to teach tone. I need to have a conversation with my art teachers about the art equivalent of tone and how they teach it. Poetry is an avenue I will explore in teaching tone. Hmm, wonder about having students write tone poems or poems with 2 distinct tones to get the to recognize how diction helps establish a tone. More to come as I continue to ponder this. The lesson I've learned the past few years is that my students need teaching that makes EXPLICIT the skills and concepts I and other "talented" readers/writers have. Too many of my students just think that I somehow just get tone. I know think alouds help break this misconception down for students. Now for lessons that address the different senses.

New Tech Stuff

This weekend, I decided to take a little "me" time. For the first time since school started, I spent my weekend doing exactly what I wanted to do and nothing else. On Saturday, I drug my husband to the organic food market and the Asian grocery store (a new find that I LOVE!!). Then on Sunday, after church, I perused the Internet and checked out two great tools that I have been hearing a lot of buzz about.

The first site is http://www.goanimate.com/. It's an incredible site that allows you to create cartoons using a bank of characters, scenes, music, and props that are all setup for you. All you have to do is point and click. The site also allows you to upload your own photos to use as characters, scenes, etc. I was really amazed at how simple it all was. Below you can see the short cartoon that I created for out NCETA presentation next month. I can see a multitude of ways that you could use this in the classroom. Why have students draw a comic strip when they can create one online with moving characters and music? It may not be interesting to all students, but I definitely see some students loving it.

The second site is http://www.snap.com/. I really haven't figured this one out yet, but I think that the premise is that you can create a scrolling "slide show" of photos to embed in a website and/or blog. This could be useful because sometimes pictures take up so much space and can become visually unattractive. Keep an eye out for a "snapshot" coming to the Lefanim blog.


Posted By: Amanda Spence

Gifts Our Students Give Us

I know it's one day early, but tomorrow is Memoir Monday, a strategy I want to borrow from one of my favorite blogs, Two Writing Teachers. Each Monday, we write a brief memoir and share on our blog. So, I've been meaning to write about the fabulous crab dinner I had with my family in August while we were on vacation. One of my students last year, Tyler, crabs and fishes with his father. His family owns a great vegetable and seafood market down county. Tyler and his family wanted to bless with me a bushel of crabs for working with him last year. I asked if I could wait and get the bushel in August when I knew my family would be at the beach. Not only did Tyler give me a bushel of just caught crabs that morning; he picked out the prettiest, biggest Jimmys I've ever seen. He also hand-delivered them to my home. It is absolutely the BEST gift I've ever received from a student. I just cannot believe the generosity, and I can tell you that whenever I look at these pictures, I'm blessed all over again. After my brother John Murphy and my mom cleaned them, John and his new friend Tricia steamed them for us. John and Tricia demonstrated the best way to get the white chunks of meat out of the legs. My family and friends picked crabs all night long. I think Lee and I were the last two at the table picking and eating. Thank you, Rose Family, for a wonderful gift!

Our Pledge Wall

I forgot to mention that we had a personal pledge for each of our students to sign so that we could celebrate and put them on our "Pledge Wall." This will stay up to remind our GPE students that they have committed to striving for excellence in every step of their GPE journey.

Our First GPE Block

Well, a little more time has passed before I could get here and blog about how our first GPE blok went. 30 minutes was too short but we did make our students aware of the resources. And your idea to have them sign up for one-on-one tutoring sessions on how to use the sources is a good one. Sierra is so excited about how to incorporate pictures into her blog. Her blog is looking fabulous by the way. We need to work with her a little on adding more reflection to her summarization of her poetry in residence experiences.

I heard our juniors really liked the sunglasses we gave them. Mrs. Schultz told me the next day that Blake had his glasses on and told her it was because his "future was looking very bright." Mrs. Rich came down the next day and asked why we had made her look bad since she didn't have graduation project survivor bags to hand out to her kids. Apparently, Morgan showed her bag to Mrs. Rich. So, I know our students were delighted at their treats; they know we're here to support them through this journey.

Each senior received a Survivor Bag with these items:
Sweetarts to help them get through the sweet and bitter moments.
Bubbles because as they blow them, remember to incorporate imagination.
Kush balls to deal with the stress.
Paperclips to help them keep it all together and stay organized.
Rubberbands because they need to practice flexibility.
A stick of gum to help them remember to chew on their ideas.
A string because everyone needs a lifeline.
A mirror to help them to reflect during this experience.
A balloon because at the end of the journey, each person will have soared to new heights.

Each junior received a pair of shades with their names written on the side because their future is looking very bright.

Each student received a card with their new gmail account and password, their Del.icio.us account and their personal blog information as well as our GPE wiki.

Empowering versus Overwhelming

Don't you love it when wisdom comes right out of the mouths of our loved ones? Dave's right. So, let's go with your idea about setting up sessions for tutorials and help. Hey, we can put them on the google calendar that I'm going to figure out this weekend if it kills me. :) That way we can definitely differentiate and spend the time they're going to need one-on-one. Some of the papers on shared drive are good; some, not. I like your idea about contacting other systems and seeing if they would share their papers. How about you e-mail them and see if they're game. I'm wondering how they go about having their students set up their papers in terms of organization and framework. Come to think of it: I was on the senior project listserv last year (the national one) and occassionally got e-mails from that organization. I'll contact them and inquire about mentor texts as well. You're absolutely right about having mentor texts/models that are written by students close in age. It is more meaningful. I'll also post the inquirey on our talkie listserv. Tell Dave that we also have hidden motives/agendas for doing an outstanding job with our kids in this block. :)

I know how easily I can get overwhelmed with technology and the biggest contributing factor to that is not having the TIME to really try it out with one-on-one help. Now, the learning curve for me is a lot bigger than I suspect it will be for our students. But, you're right: we need to keep in mind our goal of empowering students versus overwhelming them. Hey, notice I have added tags to our blog posts? Yes, I think I have the hang of it. Now to figure out the details about google calendar and how to get the photos on my mac onto wikis and blogs not to mention e-mailing them. Remind me to take photos during our gp block this Thursday. I want to be able to put some on the wiki. I'm keeping my camera with me at school. We also need to have someone take our picture so that we can put it on this blog.

posted by Valerie

Example Research Papers

The other day, when I was trying to find the shared drive which has been renamed, I noticed that there are some senior project papers from past years that have been saved as examples. Perhaps we could take a look at these and see what we can find. Also, maybe we could contact some of the other high schools in the area and see if they would be willing to share papers that they have saved. I think that the papers would be more meaningful to our students if the authors were students close to them in age and sharing the similar graduation project experience. As far as the Google scholars goes, I will try to get a wiki up and running this weekend and add this to the numerous sites that we have already discussed.

This weekend, since we have been stuck inside, Dave and I have been talking a lot about how things are going at Currituck. I have also been sharing with him our plans for our GPE students. After I ranted for about fifteen minutes about all of our plans, he looked at me and said "You're going to do all this and only see the students once a month." Although we know that we will see our seniors more than that, I started thinking. Maybe we could set aside some time for them to come in and work on specific tasks. For example, on Wednesdays and Thursdays we could invite them to stay for a brief session about blogs or online bookmarks in the library. I will be in there anyway and could do brief tutorials at their convenience. What do you think? I really want to make sure that all of this technology makes them feel empowered and not overwhelmed.

Posted by Amanda Spence

More Ideas for Graduation Project Experience

GPE! I like it, and you're absolutely correct that we need to help our students see it as an experience in their learning journey. I agree that the pledge wall needs to be tactile to be more accessible and visible. I remember the art teacher created a very colorful and inviting goal chart last year for the couple of seniors she was advising. It charted the progress on all the subgoals of the graduation project. She hung it right outside of her classroom so that everyone passing by could see it. Wonder if we could take that idea and run with it?

I've been remembering one of the highlights from Katie Wood Ray's keynote speech last October at the NCETA Conference in Charlotte, NC. She elaborated on the importance of having mentor texts for students to study as they are writing in different genres. Since research papers are still a "relatively newer" genre for our students, we need to find models of research papers for them to study. The question is where? I have some of the collections from last year's sophomores, but the majority are not anywhere near the length our seniors' papers are required to be. I'd like to have models that highlight organizational and framework possibilities such as pro/con; cause/effect; causal analysis; definition; problem/solution and argument. In truth, most papers will have components of several if not all of these organizations, but I do believe that it's important to have students purposely set their papers up with one of these organizations from the beginning. Otherwise, you end up getting a lot of papers that are more "reports" versus research papers. We need to talk about how to get them to understand RE-search as a dialogue where they enter with a voice and discuss with the experts on selected topics. DeSena has an excellent book on this (see http://www.ncte.org/store/books/126267.htm to order a copy which I highly recommend). Last spring, I participated in NCTE's webinar with DeSena. I believe I still have a copy of the archived webinar I can share. She discussed at length that a way to help students avoid plagiarism is to truly understand the differences between research and reports. Afterall, at its foundation, research is for the purpose of answering (a) question(s). Students need to start with generating questions they are trying to answer.

Ok, so here's the challenge: where do we find outstanding research papers that can serve as model or mentor texts for our students? We need a diversity in terms of subject and reading level. I spent some time perusing some of the sources in google scholar, but so many of them are at a very high level. I'm not sure most will be accessible to our students. By the way, we do need to add google scholar to our list of sites to show students. We should go ahead and start building our wiki for this group. We can add resources to it for our students. Speaking of resources, I found this link for teacher resources: http://www.ncte.org/collections/collegeresearch
Although it's geared toward teaching research in the first two years of college, it does appear to have some benefits for us.

Graduation Project Conversation Continued

Today I was able to set up about ten of our advisees' accounts for delicious and gmail. The entire process took about 45 minutes. I think that it will be well worth the effort. While I was setting everything up, I had a few thoughts about more possibilities:

1. On the students delicious accounts, we could have them place tags for research resources that we have used in the past and we know are credible (e.g. Purdue University's Online Writing Lab).
2. We can have students set up a "?" tag for sources that they are unsure about the credibility of the information.
3. They can look at each others "?" tags and help one another determine source reliability.

One random comment in response to Valerie's post earlier. I think that the pledge wall needs to be tactile. For some reason, I think that it would really help build and maintain a positive spirit around the graduation project experience. There is something powerful about setting a tangible goal that you can see on a daily basis.

Here is another random thought. At the school I was at last year, Northeastern High, the graduation project class is called the "Graduation Project Experience." I always loved that title and think that I am going to adopt it here at Currituck. I love how it emphasizes that this project is not another thing to check off your list before graduation; it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to grow and learn through hands on study.

Great Collaboration

For me, one of the signs of really great collaboration is the positive energy and optimism I feel when walking away from a formal or informal "session." My head swirls with ideas and seeds planted each time we dialogue. Over the years, many collaborative opportunities have crossed my path (well, maybe a few I zestfully ventured off the path to discover and drag back to the main trail:) and I can honestly say each has taught me lessons. Some have been difficult collaborations while others just flowed with little effort. I always look forward to "talking shop" with Amanda.

Our dialgoue this afternoon focused on incorporating technology into our graduation project group. Our school does not have a graduation project class; rather, every student, grade 9-12, has been assigned to a faculty advisor. Monthly, we will have a block of time where all students will report to their advisor and go over senior project information and skills needed. I think our consensus to approach this as a senior project class (even though sadly we are limited to 30 minutes a month in our formally scheduled blocks) will help the students be tremendously successful. We've decided to introduce students to these tools:

• Delicious bookmarking (great way to tag research sources) which will require each student to have an e-mail. Amanda will set up delicious accounts for the students once we help them set up gmail accounts.
• Google documents (which requires them to have google accounts; thus the decision to go with gmail as opposed to gaggle which our school provides)
• Blogs as a 21st century way to "journal" through their journey in graduation project plus this will give them material to incorporate into their presentation that is sophisticated.
• Setting up a wiki for our group so that we can all collaborate and help each other. One of our pages can be a Celebration page to highlight the accomplishments along the way. We'll have to meet on Monday and determine the information we want from students so that we can develop the form they'll fill out.
• Show students how to sign up for turnitin.com so that they can use those tools in that service to help them effectively paraphrase and avoid plagiarism as well as use the peer review function.
  
• Find a spot for our "pledge wall." Maybe we can use dappleboard.com and post it on the wiki. Hmm.
  

I'm sure we'll be adding to our list as we think of more helpful things such as some tools for choosing paper topics, researching and taking notes and developing strong thesis statements. I know that one of the biggest challenges is getting students to actively read informational text and take effective notes. That can be something we focus on next. My mind is moving faster than my fingers can keep up with which is a good thing. I'm energized! I like our plan to take this graduation project into the 21st Century.

posted by Valerie

Perfect Fit

Lefanim, this word reminds me of an old, familiar pair of shoes. The fit is perfect and it provides a comfort that I think will carry us through our blogging adventure. From the beginning there has been an ease and comfort that has come naturally whenever Valerie and I have conversation about literature, life, and our common passion for teaching. My hope is that all of our blog readers will have the opportunity to be a "fly on the wall" and listen to the lively (sometimes chaotic) dialogue that occurs at the point of lefanim, when the wisdom of the past is coupled with youthful vision.

Conceiving the Possibilities in Language

I guess it goes with the territory of being an English teacher, but I love words and all the vivacious possibilities of creating meaning with language. Lefanim is a Hebrew word with two opposite but paradoxical meanings: "Once upon a time," and "To look to the future." As a teacher with nearly 15 years of teaching experience, my goal is to couple the lessons I've learned with the exciting and cutting-edge ideas of new educator Amanda Spence. The lesson of Lefanim is that we must know and honor our past, our roots, if we are to survive and embrace the changes the future brings in education. Together, Amanda and I will reflect and record our thoughts on all the "stuff" that goes into teaching English language arts.