Wonderings

The first week of Teacher's Write has been a week of avoidance for me. After reading each of the prompts this week, I promptly went outside to garden, built some furniture, or watched some Netflix. Today I promised I would make time for writing, and so I am picking things up with Monday's Mini-Lesson and Jo's Warm-up.

Sidenote: If you don't know what Teacher's Write is, you should check it out on Kate Messner's blog. 


Wonderings - ideas worth exploring in writing

(I really enjoyed this activity and I'd like to do with my kids this year in the Writing Workshop I'll be running in my ELA classes each week. Doing this activity early in September would give kids an opportunity to get to know each other and share a wealth of 'writeable' topics worth exploring during the year through our Quickwrites or during Writing Workshop time.)


I wonder what my cats really think of me.

I wonder how punctuation was invented and how standard usage rules came to be.

I wonder what life was like near Cow Creek when the trailer park was a new 'upscale' community.

I wonder what it would have been like to be a rookie detective in the 1960s.

I wonder what music sounds like to someone taking Benzodiazapine.

I wonder what it was like to attend Westmount school when it first opened in 1913.

I wonder if cellular memory is possible, and what the consequences could be for organ recipients if it were possible to reconnect with those memories.

I wonder if the woman from the used postcard I bought ever found Mr. Right by searching through income tax reports at her job.

I wonder what happens to things we no longer remember - are they still stored in the brain somewhere, or do they cease to exist?

I wonder if twins see the world differently than each other, or if there would be some distinct similarities in their perceptions due to genetics.

I wonder how my relationships with people would change if we interacted with each other in our dreams.

I wonder what Rat Creek Nuisance Grounds looked like and who frequented it.

I wonder what it was like to live in the tent city that grew on the riverbank south of Downtown Edmonton in the early '20s as people moved to the city from the surrounding farmland.

I wonder what life was like as a homeless youth in Edmonton in the 1920s.

Reflection

For me, this year has revolved around goal-setting. I set personal goals for myself: attend a self-defense class, rebuild a relationship with my parents, start spending time with my sister. I also set, and re-set, professional goals for myself: manage a reading workshop in my classroom, hold midterm and final interviews with my ELA students, run a workshop on interview-style assessments for teachers in my catchment area. I modeled setting these goals with my homeroom, showing them that I was a learner, a goal-setter, a person interested in bettering myself. They set goals, too, ones that stayed on display in my classroom from September until January. I also set goals with my ELA classes - reading goals, writing goals, goals based on criteria for particular assignments. So many goals.

The missing piece of my year has been reflection. Though over the year my students and I achieved many of our goals, personal, academic, and otherwise, we didn't pause to reflect on our progress. We didn't slow down to evaluate whether we had fully met our goals, or what our next steps should be. So, we set goals, but still remained stagnant, in a way. Or, at the very least, didn't take pause to leverage the success we had and capitalize on where it could take us next.

Now, my colleagues and my principal would tell you that I am, in fact, a very reflective teacher. I constantly evaluate how my lessons have gone, how my interactions with students and my peers have gone, and how I can improve my practice. This year I was nominated for and won a provincial award for my excellence in teaching. But for me, there was something missing in my practice this year and it has been the other half of my gung-ho goal-setting. Reflection is important, and I do reflect, but my mirror needs to focus on specific things in order to be most effective.

I think, in part, I have not turned the mirror back on my goals (and thus not encouraged my students to do the same) because I have been unsatisfied with the outcomes of some of my more challenging goals. I need to remind myself that part of the purpose of setting goals is evaluating them and re-setting them when they aren't working. Re-setting doesn't mean giving up - it's about focusing our efforts so that we can be effective and successful. It does not mean turning away, it's about working smarter.

This is something I aim to accomplish through blogging and journaling in the year to come. This summer, in particular, my goal (one of many) is to blog and reflect on writing with the Teacher's Write community. Hopefully, venturing into a safe, but public, space to reflect and write will keep me motivated to stay the course! Here's to a summer of growth!

Teachers Write

This year I am participating in an online "summer camp" of sorts called Teachers Write. To learn more about what that entails, check out Kate Messner's blog. On Mondays, Jo Knowles, author of Living with Jackie Chan and other novels, posts her Monday warm up, which you can find on her livejournal. I'll be responding to this Monday's prompt below.

First, though, I want to reflect on why participating in Teachers Write is important to me. As an English Language Arts teacher, I am constantly modelling writing for my students. There isn't an assignment I have given where I haven't created an exemplar myself to offer them. Especially during our unit on slam poetry, I push my students to write bravely and personally - to use writing as a way to connect deeply with others. To show my genuine interest in their brave personal writing, I share my poetry, hoping to demonstrate the power of being vulnerable on the page. Teachers Write is a way for me to practice that vulnerability and also a way to hone my own writing craft so as to better teach my students.


Monday's prompt

Our hearts open to things that we find beautiful. In so many works of fiction the conflict is messy and painful and wrenching - but there's beauty there as well. As a writer of poetry, primarily, I find I am often drawn to the messy, painful, and heart-wrenching moments in life. But, as Jo Knowles suggests, I also identify with the beauty of those messy moments.

One of the prominent themes in my poetry is mental illness. And while I write often about the disorienting feeling of swimming in a parka, I also write about the all encompassing beauty that comes with choosing survival. There is darkness in this world, but at once so much light, the light of choice and the glorious stark-naked beauty of silence in a thrumming world.

On Kate's blog today, she suggests ways to delve into place descriptions and invite readers to come, too. A recent poem of mine fits both the theme of finding beauty, and Kate's suggestion on hunting for interesting details that make a place memorable. Here's my revised poem, A Moment of Bravery.

A Moment of Bravery

an empty park bench

frozen tree-framed view of the river

my first day outside in months

iron fence posts offer stark black contrast to the bleached grasses

a plastic bag shivers and snaps against the fence

green paint peels thin off the cold wood seat

I wiggle my toes - tentative - sockless in my winter boots

below the song of traffic hum and dripping snowmelt

my heart beats legato

the sun like a gleaming penny reflects off snowbanks

filling my mouth with the taste of copper 

and blinding me

so I sit eyes closed

my lungs stretching open like butterfly wings

the cocoon of my ribs straining

I lean into Spring with my whole being

choosing in this moment

to live