Home Sick and Grading...

Kitties love to help with grading...

So I haven't had much time to update this blog with all the amazing things my students have been doing.  This is mostly because I collected over 200 short essays in less than 3 weeks and I have done NOTHING but write lesson plans and grade papers for the better part of the last 14 days.  I graded before school.  I graded through lunch and after school and after dinner.  I graded all weekend!  Thank heavens I don't have children of my own or they would be horribly neglected.  (I frankly do not comprehend how my colleagues with multiple toddlers at home survive with such grace.)

In short, I am struggling with the demands of the new Common Core lessons.  First of all, I have to write them from scratch because no text books or curriculum generators have finished producing usable materials.  This often means adjusting curriculum from the AP world history courses or finding primary and secondary sources that work for the content I am still required to cover.  This takes between 3 and 6 hours per lesson.  Each lesson covers about an hour of class time.

Second, these lessons don't produce student work that can be graded in a quick scan.  There are few multiple choice questions here, few single answer questions as well.  If we want to teach students how to think, we have to allow them to consider multiple perspectives and that means nearly every assignment I grade has multiple possible answers.  These invariably come in the form of short essays (1 page, 1 paragraph), that need to be assessed on multiple levels:  clarity of argument, accuracy of argument and the quality of the evidence chosen to support the argument.  Sometimes I consider writing conventions as well to support my English Teacher Friends in their good work.  Its a lot to consider.

Now, let's do some math... If I have 145 students, which I do, and 85% turn in their assignments, I get 123 papers to grade.  If each one takes 5 minutes (meaning, I write no comments, and only fill out a basic rubric score), it will take me 10 hours to score that assignment.  If I take the time to write comments and helpful suggestions to really improve student thinking and writing, it takes almost twice that.  And this is for a single assignment.  In order for students to really master complex critical thinking skills, they need to do multiple assignments and get feedback on several of them (some are practice).  In our school, we also allow all students to make revisions to any of their critical thinking or writing assignments, so I often score at least 20% of these short answer assignments twice and sometimes three times as students work toward mastery.

These lessons are amazing.  They have a demonstrable positive effect on student skills increases.  Students become very competent, above grade level, in making clear, well supported academic arguments, and that will make them successful in life, no matter what they go on to do.  This is the work that inspires me.

But it is also killing me slowly.  Too many 14 hour days and no weekends in a row, and you can wear a body out.  Too many sleepless nights obsessing about how much work you still have unfinished and the body becomes a home for microbes and viruses.  If I didn't care quite so much, I would probably be a healthier, more balanced person, but work-life balance is not valued in education, and there is enormous pressure on both students and teachers to fill every moment of every day with academics to ensure the success of the next generation.

So, I am home sick today... and its a pretty bad tummy flu to make me go home in the middle of the day.  But, of course, instead of resting, drinking lots of fluids and binge watching Veronica Mars, I am grading papers... and then I will score projects... and then I will work on an anthropology assignment on innovations of Song China.

So if you don't see my post on some actual solutions to these issues any time soon, its because I am still trying to find out how many of my students understand why Japan built an empire in the Pacific before WWII.  Wish me luck and good health!

Learning Vocabulary

I introduced my students to Kate Kinsella's Vocabulary Word Maps this week.  This is a technique to help students master the nuances of academic language.  We use it in our World Studies curriculum to teach the language of the discipline, namely those words that are necessary to understand world history.

The technique works because students process the word on multiple levels.  They look at the formal definition, they consider various versions of the word so they can recognize it in its other forms and they make connections to examples and related concepts.  This makes them consider the word in a variety of different ways.  Each new way of looking at the word creates a new pathway in the brain between that word and its meaning.  Finally, they write their own definition and draw an image or symbol for the word.  The act of creating (both verbally and visually) makes the connection even stronger because their brains are using their understanding of the word to complete the task instead of simply recalling its meaning.  Whenever students use activities higher up in Bloom's Taxonomy, they tend to learn more, have better facility with the concepts and remember them longer.

Here is a link to a Blank Vocab Word Map if you want one.

And here are some Student Examples:

I am very fond of this one because my student managed to include a reference to Korea (with his portrait of Kim Jong-Un).  I am a huge fan of Korea!  좋다!

This example demonstrates one of the reasons English vocabulary is so hard to learn.

The word on the bottom is Occupation.  A student who is learning English comes in to class and the teacher says they are going to be studying Occupation today.  

That student is Thrilled!

They think, "I totally know this!  My dad told me.  Your occupation is your job.  We must be talking about jobs in history today.  Awesome.  I totally got this!"

And then the teacher starts talking about armies and Iraq and the student is completely confounded.  

They think, "I am so confused.  Does occupation only mean jobs in the military?  Why is there a picture of a tank?  What the heck is this lesson about?!"

The next thing you know the student has shut down.  They are reeling from the whip lash of thinking they had it and realizing they didn't without knowing why.  They may experience vocabulary fake outs like this daily while they try to master the nuances of English and its many appropriated words.  The frustration must be incredible.

Anyway, Vocab Word Maps can help with that.  They give students a chance to consider just the meaning that applies directly to the lesson at hand or the subject, and to focus on the parts they really need for understanding.

Now I'm Even Dreaming About Google

Maybe its that we've gone one to one with Chromebooks this year, or started using Google Classroom or that the last few lessons I've written involved Google tools and search engines.... Whatever the reason, last night I dreamed I was a Freshman in college again and that I had won a coveted spot in a Google Competition for young problem solvers in New York.

We were all welcomed into a huge sky scraper with floors upon floors of... puzzles.  And these were not your average crossword puzzles.  These were serious, theatrical brain teasers.  On one floor, Google employees would stand near giant animatronic props and tell stories that ended in a mystery participants had to solve, while the mechanicals behind them acted out the action.  One story was about a ship that had disappeared at sea and we got to watch the rising waves and the imperiled ship as it disappeared from view.  Another floor was just a massive library where participants were fiendishly looking up reference materials.  Other floors had other kinds of puzzles, music puzzles, engineering puzzles, word puzzles... it was very involved and everywhere Google reps were observing and marking down points.

I am going to say right now that in my dream I was terrible at all these puzzles.  I mean REALLY terrible.  Half the time I couldn't even figure out what the Question they were asking was much less the answer.  My dream self was starting to get pretty anxious too, because expectations were high and lots of students had competed to get into this Puzzle Building to show their intellectual chops.  I felt almost immediately like I didn't belong there, and I began to withdraw.  I started just wandering around the building trying to find a puzzle I could do,.. and ended up watching other players finding their own puzzles....sort of hoping it would help me figure something out so I wouldn't be a complete disgrace.

But slowly, my watching other players became Watching other players, really Looking at them.  I couldn't solve any of Google's fancy challenges, but I could read all those Freshmen college students like a book.  I saw the nervous ones, and the ones who were good with numbers and the ones with a keen eye for detail.  And quite naturally, I stopped trying to solve any puzzles at all and just started organizing players to solve them for me.  I started building teams of people, put problems in front of them and waited for the results.  (The ship sinks into the floor through a trap door triggered by the storyteller in the storm scene and the rising waves hid the view of the ship until the floor sealed up again!)  And this approach was wildly successful for everyone involved.  Players stopped competing with each other and started getting excited about working together to solve whatever mysteries Google handed them.  And I was in my element, building communities throughout the building like some crazy community building fairy.

The dream ended with me watching a young girl in a pretty dress shyly kicking a ball around like a soccer ball.  She clearly had skills, and just as clearly wasn't sure if she was allowed to use them.  I turned to her as I sped by on my latest mission, pointed at her with both hands and said with total conviction, "When we find the soccer puzzle, you're on My team!"

This is what teaching is to me.  I'm not the best at history.  There are gaps in my knowledge that I have to make up before I try to teach that lesson on Thursday.  I didn't translate Aristotle from the original Greek for my students to preserve the meaning.  Students ask me questions I don't know the answers to all the time and I have to say, "Hey, lets look that up, I have no idea."  (Pro Tip:  Honesty counts more than bluffing with your average teen).

But what I am good at, what I probably better at that all my other teaching skills is reading my students.  I can read them like a book.  That face means "I'm tired, but I'm with you."  That one, "I'm stressed."  Those eyes are telling me that student isn't sure they are getting it, but is afraid to ask.  Those shoulders show eagerness to answer.  Those hands show boredom and the need for something more challenging.  Those knees tell me they can't wait to turn to their partner to get started.  And once I know where my students are, then I can guide them to the lesson, and the skills practice and the mastery of whatever challenge I (or Google for that matter) can put before them.  I know that if I can make them a Community of learners, every one of them will do better in school, and maybe in life.  This is what teachers are.  We facilitate learning.  We don't disseminate it.

We don't teach English and Math, History and Art.

We teach Students.

And when our students learn how to learn, how to work together with me and with each other, they end up learning English and math, history and art and all the Google puzzles of the world on top of that.

Treaty of Versailles Reading Strategies Model

Reading Strategies Lesson

Here are the 4 Reading Strategies we practiced today in CWI and the model we did in class together.

• Annotating- Taking notes in the margins (or on a separate paper) to summarize a difficult section of reading so its easier to remember later.
• Use this strategy when you really need to know and remember the details of a reading, for example when you will have to use that information later on a test, essay or assignment.

• Slow Down and Reread-  Going over a difficult section more than once, slowly to get all the ideas.
• Use this strategy when you come to a section that uses complex grammar or advanced vocabulary or one that presents a large number of ideas in a short space.

• Numbering Lists-  Putting numbers to long lists to help identify them in a reading as a set to be taken together.
• Use this strategy any time you come across a list of items.

• Connecting to Prior Knowledge-  Making a link to something you already know so its easier to remember and makes more sense with more information.
• Use this strategy especially with primary source documents and novels.  Information may have a different meaning when considered with some background.

Teachable Moment This Week

Teachable Moment from Yesterday:

Student:  Mrs. Caramagno!  Mrs. Caramagno!  I am very irritated with this pen.

(Student trying to color code her classwork holds up a generic marker with a black body and a red cap.)

Student:  Look, this pen says its red, but... (with a flourish, student removes cap)... its really green!  I thought I was getting red and I got green!

Me:  Honey, that's our trans pen.  Sometimes, the inside doesn't match the outside, but this classroom welcomes all pens, so this one belongs just as much as the others.

(Amused chuckling from table...)

As teachers, I feel like sometimes every moment is a test to see if I am going to walk the walk as well as talk the talk.  Its all well and good to SAY you support all students, even the challenging ones, or you welcome all varieties of young person, even the ones you don't really understand because, let's be honest, you are now officially old... But that isn't enough.  Students figure out really early when you are only giving lip service to an ideal without backing it up with actions.

I have to constantly remind myself... what do I really care about here?  Yes, I want student work to be turned in on time... but do I want that more than I want the student to do the work and learn the stuff.  Of course, I don't want racist or sexist or homophobic comments in my classroom... but do I believe in that so strongly I am willing to stop my lesson and challenge every single one?

The longer I am a teacher, the more masterful I am at teaching, the more likely I am to stick to my guns.  Today, I'll drop content, I'll forgo timeliness, I make accommodation after accommodation, I'll ignore due dates and give 2nd, 3rd and 4th chances, sometimes long after it makes sense, because the idea of sending my students out into the world without the skills and knowledge to survive and thrive horrifies me.

And sometimes the lessons I am teaching my students explicitly and otherwise aren't so much about content or skills as they are about making sure I have a classroom where students can try new things, take risks, and be vulnerable.  That means, I have to pay attention to what gets my love and what I ignore, what and who I respond to fiercely, and what I let slide.  Each encounter paints a picture about what I Really care about and not just what I say I care about.

That's why this snippet of passing conversation in my room is so important.  It shows my students I mean what I say.  I mean it when I say all students are welcome, I mean it when I say they can do better, or I'm proud of them, or I will be there when they need me. If I want them to trust me, I have to do what I say I am going to do.  I'll have another post soon, I'm sure, for what to do when I inevitably don't say the right thing at the right time.  But for now, I'm just going to keep telling all my students they are welcome, they are loved, and we need all of them, no mater what color they turn out to be.

WWI Review White Boards

Here are the results of two of our three class brainstorms to review WWI.  (The 3rd one was unreasonably blurry!  Sorry 2nd period!)  Notice that students automatically organized their ideas into categories (By topic name or topic number).  That was never in the directions, but the classes did it anyway.  So Proud of them!

Gender Diversity in the Modern High School Classroom

Before school started this year the staff received an email from the president our our GSA Club offering concrete actions teachers can take to be allies to our LGBTQ students.  I must say first that this was SO helpful.  Note to Students:  If you want people to do a certain thing, support a particular cause, etc, give them concrete and specific actions to take.  While I have long been an ally, I can't say I have been really clear on the HOW of supporting these students in the day to day workings of class.

One of our president's suggestions was to give students an opportunity to select their own gender pronoun.  My first reaction was surprisingly intense and immediate.  I scoffed!  Seriously, I thought, I do not want to worry about pronouns!  My second reaction of course was to feel really old.  When I actually took a moment to think about it, my only objection to alternate pronouns comes from my binary He/She upbringing.  There is nothing inherently virtuous in only two choices.  Heck, other languages incorporate more options without the downfall of their social order.  So, I took a deep breath, was grateful that I have come to realize strong reactions are a good time to investigate where the emotion is coming from, and reevaluated.

At the end of the day, what do I care about most?  I care that students feel safe in my classroom so they can take risks academically and otherwise, so they can learn and grow.  As the Alpha in my classes, I have a great deal of power.  If I say, or even imply something is ok, I give it the full force of my authority.  The same thing goes for anything I frown on, both explicitly and subtly.  Simply avoiding a topic tells my students that it isn't acceptable.  And students pick up on these cues very quickly.  They are experts at reading them in fact.  So it is not enough to simply SAY I am an Ally.  My actions, my very language will be the basis for whether I really am or not.

I ended up acknowledging my own discomfort with the concept of gender identity and then letting that all go.  After all, our students who identify outside of the typical binary system are uncomfortable every day and I, with experience and confidence am better able to deal with that discomfort.  I put a gender pronoun preference question on my Introductory Survey.  I added the bi-line "This classroom supports all gender identities."  I specifically discussed it in class when introducing the survey and by the end of the day I wasn't uncomfortable any more.

But the best part was an overheard conversation between students in my 3rd period, where an extremely articulate 10th grader explained gender fluidity to a group of her peers who were unfamiliar with the topic.  While at the start of my career 20 years ago, this would have resulted in a fierce uproar, these students simply responded with curiosity and a refreshing lack of judgement.

For those of you who are interested, here is the list of concrete things teachers can do to be active allies to the LGBTQ community, according to our GSQ president, who is a senior this year:

Six Easy Ways Teachers Can Be Allies to LGBTQ Students

1. Put a safe space sticker in the classroom

2. When you go over the classroom rules at the beginning of the year, make it clear you won't tolerate discrimination/disrespect towards LGBTQ students

3. Instead of addressing the class as "ladies and gentlemen" or "boys and girls" use a more inclusive phrase like "class" or "students" or "everybody"

4. Many teachers have students fill out index cards at the beginning of the year with things like what the students are excited for or what they did the past summer. On these cards, include preferred name and pronouns, and explain to the class what preferred pronouns are. (Ex. My name is Mrs. Teacher, and my pronouns are she/her/hers, so when people talk about me, they would say "this is her classroom, she is a teacher, that book is hers.)

5. Don't assume anyone in the class is straight or cisgender 

6. When doing activities that require groups or teams, don't split the class up by gender (i.e. no boys v.s. girls)

First Day of Classes 2015

Welcome Students!

I am always so inspired by the rippling energy of the first day of school.  Former students breeze in between classes to say hello.  Freshmen walk wide eyed through the halls (now checking their phones for the latest campus map ap) looking for their classes and a familiar face.  Seniors stride around like they own not just this hall, this school, their future, but the whole world.

I miss my students over the summer, and I am always so relieved to get them back again in the fall.  They delight me every day, and this first day of school was no exception.  I can tell already that 2nd period will be my Cheeky Monkeys, and 6th period will need to talk about Everything.  I am eager to find out about the rest of my ducks as the year progresses and they blossom into the adults they will become...

Interestingly, this last weekend was my 25th high school reunion.  Many of the people I wanted to see from that time made it to this somewhat intimate gathering and the sentiment I heard over and over was the same... We were all exactly like our high school selves.  With the hindsight of 2 decades we marveled at how much of our essential nature was already set by Sophomore year.  Indeed, one peer's mom taught us in elementary school and said our natures were settled even then.  In many ways I agree.  I don't feel much different from my fearless 18 year old self.  I might have been faking the confidence I have now earned, but it was still essentially there.

It makes me look with new eyes at my own students and to worry a little bit less about whatever my own shortcomings as a teacher might be.  We will grow together, trying all the new things I've planned and creating our own place.

Fancy Hats are Proof Against Dispair

Ever have one of those days where you just don't know if that brand new lesson you spent 6 hours on is going to work like a fireworks show on the 4th of July or end in tears?  This happens to me quite often.  And sometimes, I just need a little more Moxie to face the day.... so I've made Fancy Hats my good luck charm of choice.  Here's one of my favorites, made for me by the incomparable Morgan of StrawBenders. Notice the 40's styling.  So Fresh!

Trying Something New...

Hey all,

I'm going to be starting a Blog this year, to keep my thoughts in order and share some of the Ups and Downs of teaching in the 21st Century.  Its going to be rough at first, but I'm excited about the challenge!

See you on the Internets!