Allison’s News

I have encountered problems logging into WordPress for the last three weeks. Before, page load errors, and then today, once I actually got logged in, I then got errors about the page address not being found.

So I am going to do this the old-fashioned way—via email.

I went back to the kids at G. on the 15th of January, and was then very disappointed to hear about the school likely closing down. Some students seem acutely aware of this impending (and probable) possibility while others keep asking me if I will be here with them next year. For now, I have not addressed the issue with them in any great detail, though the thought of not being there after so many years saddens me each day.

Sickness and winter weather has offset a couple of our scheduled meetings, but we have managed to do some good work and some fun lessons. Here’s the update:

TUESDAYS, 2nd graders + special ed.

With this group, the whole year for me has been about building blocks, teaching the basics of writing and the components of phonics, words, and sentences. Their teacher really wants these students to be able to write long book reports and asked me for help in that department early in the year. But upon really working with the students and observing their skills and difficulties, it seemed very apparent that the goal of book reports might not be reached in the way the teacher envisioned. So I stepped back and created a plan. With so many students with special needs (5) and completely different literacy issues, it is often a struggle to find ways that we can all learn the same things, but enter into the activity with different access points and objectives. Surprisingly, it has worked reasonably well.

We began early in the year with simple phonics—using the concepts of alliteration and word choice to help students see that words could be fun, and the magic of choosing the right ones for our purpose. I have hoped all year that if I could show these students the power of language, specifically the power of words, that they would see it is all worth the effort and frustration. If something is difficult and there is no payoff, it seems to me that you are not going to expend much effort, nor have goals that even begin to approach your potential as a learner. We have worked with sentences in several ways—2 truths and a lie was one they liked.

In January, I began working with the concept of paragraphs, something we had begun to touch upon before the break. The problem was: not only could these students not define a paragraph or identify one, they claimed to have never heard the term. We did an experiment where they each found books on the shelves and we went through and discussed things we noticed, ultimately leading them to see indentations and that paragraphs were groups of sentences about one topic. We made models of sentences and showed how paragraphs were similar. But they still seemed a bit lost, and much of that was because… they also have a really tough time with sentences.

They know sentences are groups of words and that they end with a period, sometimes something else, but they did not know where or why or how you know when one is done when writing it yourself. So we backed up even further.

We spent the last month working on sentences. We began by going with a simple definition of a sentence is a subject, a verb, a complete thought and punctuation. I posted this all over the room with the parts being color coded so that they might visually understand the distinctive parts of the sentence and hopefully remember. We then went through a bunch of examples (some correct, some fragments, some run-ons) and talked about them being sentences or not. They were pretty good at this (the 2nd graders rocked as well). Then, in groups, they made sentences on the colored construction paper with the parts being coded again into their colors. And we acted out our sentences, each student in each team with a part. The repetition and fun of it made them better recall what a sentence is. Most of the time now, we are doing better with writing sentences. When something is missing, we go back and they can identify the missing part pretty quickly. I also left some posters up for reference.

While doing all this, we also used markers to find certain types of words in poems, and then we spent 2 weeks working on MadLibs for them to continue working with parts of speech. The 2nd graders got it a little more slowly, but once they did, they could finish in minutes. T (boy) had a harder time, just wanting to put in words and getting easily frustrated. He is very smart, but gives up easily and seems to use his anger as a way of getting out of things that are hard. No such luck with me. We’ve been working on the outbursts, and they are getting a bit better. He does not need my help very often in reality, but insists that he does. So now I simply stand next to him and encourage and he gets it, I praise, and he smiles, and then he can work for a while alone—that, for him, is a major improvement.

T (girl) has also been doing better with her behavior. Similarly, she will interrupt and disrupt when something is hard for her. She has the most difficulties of anyone in the group, and her classmates get frustrated with her and often want to just do things for her which I have outlawed. In December and January, she would barely write two words, never a sentence. I questioned for a while if she could even read. She definitely has some severe problems with reading and confuses her letters often, having a difficult time with the phonics and with identifying a “b” as a b, or even an “r” as an r. But, in the past two weeks, she has worked much more independently and can almost always now get the first letter or two of very short words alone (cat, dog)—something she was not doing a few weeks ago. Her behavior has also improved greatly.

All of the kids have been taking out books, though their teacher won’t let them take the books home even though I keep insisting it is fine. The good thing is, they are reading. Many choose books much easier for them, but they read and seem to enjoy it. R chose a chapter book one day and she told me that people tell her she isn’t a good enough reader for chapter books. (She’s in 5th grade, but a good speller and with good ideas, she reads below level.) She asked what I thought and I asked her back if she thought she could. She looked like she wanted to say yes, but was unsure. I told her that if she only did what people told her was easy, and if she never tried harder, then she would never achieve what she could. I told her no one but herself knew what she could truly do and she would only know that if she tried hard. I told her to take the book and take her time reading, and if she didn’t know a word to sound it out, that I often look up words myself. She took it, read it, and loved it. I was so proud of her.

Now with this group, rather ambitiously, we are going to try some poems. We spent this past session brainstorming to write “I am from” poems. I wrote several headings like “Things found inside my house” and “What I look like” (10 different headings) and we passed them around about every two minutes, each student adding to each list and then switching. They did a good job. Some needed help with words, but once they got going, they did well. T (boy) did a much better job spelling his own word and barely had any anger outbursts. T (girl) did extremely well and wrote many things on each sheet (short words, but barely required my help). Next week, I will have two observers, but I have already asked Martha to help me help them with the spelling. We read some poetry examples and they seemed excited. For our first try, we are going to do some fill in the blank poetry, MadLib style, using the kinds of words we have already brainstormed. If that goes well, maybe we’ll try poetry in a more organic, original sense. One way or the other, they enjoy coming, are improving, and hopefully are learning to love words a little more than they used to.

TUESDAY, 6th Grade Biography Class

In this class, we have continued to read and learn about biographies. In a lesson that tanked, I asked the students to imagine their classmates in the future and write a biography of the person they selected. They picked names, birthdates, and their classmates’ goals out of a hat and were asked to imagine why that person might be famous or important and then write a 1 page biography. A few people got it straight away and did well, like S. Others asked for some help with the why and then did well like M. and O. But behavior that day was bad. After several warnings, I finally split everyone up, told them there was no speaking and I wanted heads bent towards papers. At the end of class, I wrote nice notes to the two girls who had worked hard and behaved well the whole time.

The next week, I explained why we had done the lesson the previous week—to understand that biographies are the story of a person, and to enjoy them, we want to know why that person is special. We want to know that person’s story, with a sense of trajectory. I asked some what they would change in their writing from the previous week and they seemed to get it. Behavior was definitely better. If we have a few spare moments, we have been playing a modified game of 20 Questions, where each student gets a famous African-American written on a post-it note on their back. They have to walk around and ask questions of the others until they can guess who they are. It’s fun and good critical thinking and description for them.

Next week, we will have a musician in as a guest speaker, and then they will interview her and write about her.

THURSDAY, 5th grade

We have been experimenting with different kinds of poetry with the fifth grade since the break. We have done some rhyming bees, as well as working with the phrase “couplet” and producing rhyming couplets. On Valentine’s Day, we wrote odes. R.’s was the best, very funny—an ode to his technology. Most others wrote shorter, more basic odes to their moms or a friend. Each did a good job rhyming, which I personally find quite difficult. I will have one more session, where we are completing work on perspective and point of view and writing poems that ask the students to consider themselves from someone else’s p.o.v. After that, I will switch these groups and then take Ms. P’s 6th graders, which is a groups of 6-8 rather rowdy boys. I have worked with most of them before, but I am curious to see how it goes. The mixture of students may not be a great one, so I am planning on activities and lessons that keep them focused for shorter periods, keep it fun and engaging, and doesn’t have them up out of their seats too much (which tends to pull some of these boys off task, especially in the past). I am looking forward to it, but sad to see the 5th graders go. There are some good writers in that bunch (sadly, KH moved a few weeks ago, and without her talent in the room, you can feel the absence).

THURSDAY, 6th grade

My 2nd Thurs. group is the other half of Ms. W’s 6th graders. This mix of students is really fun. Their behavior is unparalleled and fantastic. They are smart and engaged and want to learn, which is like a dream for me. I usually try to do the same lesson for both the 5th and 6th grades on Thursdays to keep it a little more straightforward for planning. So we have been doing the poems and rhyming bees and African-American short bios as above. This group will also continue to work with p.o.v., though we will likely do more with it in addition to the brainstorming and the poems. I think we might even work through writing some dialogue and discussing voice—those are fun things to do that can also lead to a dramatic bent. This group is well enough behaved that we can definitely all be up and moving and having a good time and still stay on task. So I am curious to follow the idea of perspective through to its conclusion.

Overall, it’s been a good month or two. Lots of assemblies and schedule shifts though, which has had me come in early, stay late, combine classes, go to many rooms to pick up classes, etc. I hope to maintain the energy through spring break, then regain it (hopefully) in April after MAP.

LEAP DAY-February 29th–Schaenen

Fourth grade, 1st hour

The students all wrote their names on an index card. Then one person drew a card and the person whose name it was became teacher for the day. PJ was the teacher. We would be calling her “Ms. J.” I explained that now that the whole class was familiar with so many kinds of genres, her job was to pick one (they’re all always listed on the flip chart) and make up an activity for us to do in that genre. She could decide whether we would work alone or in groups. After being aggressively lobbied by the girl’s group (SA loves writing plays; so do the others, actually), she decided on “a play,” which we would write in 3 groups of 3. As we shoved desks around and got going, PJ said, “Y’all need to write yo names on yo paper.”

D asked whether we could write in Ebonics. PJ looked at me and I said, sure. PJ added that we could NOT use “cuss words.” D asked about violence. I said no and PJ shook her head no.

So we got to work I was in a group with D and D, two boys. Another group was 3 girls, and the third group was three boys. PJ took my notebook (the one I always make notes in as a run-of-the-class log) and drifted from group to group noting what we were all up to. Just as I do, she marked what individual people were up to beside their name:

“M and her group are working on their poem called The Girls of the getto.”
“D and his group are working on their poem called The Sleepover.”
“M and his group are working on a poem called The brothers of the hood.”

Reality check: she did make entries for all nine of us, and for every one she noted that we were working on poems, not plays. I will discuss this with her next week. Maybe it was a slip, or maybe a genuine misconception of the genre types. Maybe the lobbying confused her.

After we wrote, we took turns performing with the microphone. Here’s something to notice: the boys “stuck” with me (although it is perceived to be a treat, too) wrote a little play about a sleepover. A reader would see no elements of AAE in it – none. Might as well be The Berenstein Bears. Partly this is because of the kids themselves—other boys might have taken more initiative in the composition and gotten their own dialect out.

Meanwhile, in the girl’s group…

“M: Hey, y’all, what’s up what we gon do today?
S: I don’t know. How about I ask my mom could she take us to the mall?
All: Alright.
M: We finally at this mall…”

Y’all….we gon do…we finally at this mall (zero copula)—all AAE features.

Meanwhile in the boy’s group…

“D: I’m second to oldest I try to stay out of trouble but the street keep calling me back…[no s-marker on the 3rd person singular verb]
D: Since I just seen my dad for the first time ever cause he just got out of jail and now he in casket for something stupid I cried til I couldn’t no mo. [AAE features: seen my dad (past participle in lieu of simple past), he in casket (zero copula), no mo (r-lessness on more)]

Not to mention, of course, the very content of this play…the 3 brothers identify themselves, suffer…

A: It’s hard out here on these street I almost shot one day because they hitting on me so when I walk to go pick up brothers from school They said that they had a good day…my dad just got out of jail but now he’s in the box dead…

And then the ending…

A: I made it to college and got my degree. Now I play football I am a millionaire now. I made it.

And another thing: when the boys were performing, SA in the audience engaged in call-and-response at the dramatic turns…backchanneling: MMM-HMMM, OHHHH, things like that, in response to the disturbing realities conveyed by the play.

An amazing class, needless to say. I wonder what would have been written in “my” group had I not been a part of it???

Fourth grade, second hour

I gave this group a choice of topics to write about.
1. The most interesting (or embarrassing) person in their family—the later choice because one student requested it as a subject OR
2. When I am 20 years old I would like to be…who? what? where?
At first R was stuck: “I ain’t got no stories.”
They wrote for 25 minutes.
Then we took turns being emcee and introducing each other to read on the mike.
As AW took the mike: “Hello, my fellow worshippers,” obviously re-voicing the sounds of Sunday.

I think I feel most proud of the paragraph written by a relatively new boy in the school. He is a slow processor, very shy, and suddenly came up with something whole and honest both:

“The most embarrassing day I had was when I put my tongue on a frozen pole and was there for five minutes and I finally get free from the pole then my brother kick a ball and it hit me in the head then I fell on the ground and when I got back up quickly and ran back into the house when it got dark out and I went to bed when I was dreaming I thought I was going to the bathroom but wasn’t and you know what I do in my bed.”

Another story came up from down south about an uncle taking out the teeth of a roasted pig and making a spectacle of himself and joking around.

And finally:

“My dad is the most embarrassing Dad. He once came up to the school for picture day. They had a Santa painting with a chimney with fake fire. He put his hand under the fake chimney and started to rub his hands. Me and my mom and sister was so embarrassed. I started hiding my face and we were mad. I was so embarrassed because other people was in the room. It was kids in the school and their parents. I did not say NOTHING to him.”

And then orally, J told the story about having been pushed into the deep freezer at 1 in the morning by another kid. “It was very dark,” he said. Also: he licked ice and his tongue got stuck on it (he told this in response to the pole story). After some time (he said an hour, but that seems unlikely given oxygen) his mom came down and let him out.

Second grade

I brought in a real reflex hammer, the kind doctors use. I held it up as a surprise and asked if anyone had seen something like this before. A few had.
IS: What’s it called?
“A knee tappper?”
“That’s a good name for it but it has another name.”
Pause.
IS: What does it look like? What is it shaped like?”
“A hammer?”
And so we worked our way toward “reflex hammer.” We also defined “reflex.” Someone (AB) said, a reflex is a kind of reaction. Fantastic! A reaction that we cannot control, something we have no choice about doing. I passed it around. Then we got to talking about things we have control over and things we have no control over, what we have a choice about and what we do NOT have a choice about. We discussed whether we had a choice about hair color, and agreed that you could dye your hair if you wanted to. Height? You could wear heels, or (as one girl said, “cut your legs down”).

TJ: “I can control my feelings, like when I start to cry, I stop.”

So I asked them to make two lists side by side on the page, one of the things they had some choice about, and one of the things they had NO choice about. There was quiet writing, and also lots of conversation. It turned out to be an incredible revelation about personality. What some kids put in the “NO CHOICE” column, others put in the CHOICE column. I heard things like:
“Wow, I have a lot of choices” from DF, who wrote “I have a choice about which color I should get red first blue second. If somebody pushes you I have a choice to tell the teacher not to hit back. Everybody have a choice of how they speak. I have a choice to get new friends.”

By constrast, I heard: “I ain’t got no choices about nothing.” from AJ, who listed about 12 items in his NO CHOICE column, including things like what to wear, when to ride his bike, what to watch on TV, what to eat, what to feel. The only thing in his CHOICE column was “to pick my friends.” He said his mom decided everything for him at all times. (He has no choice about walking or riding the bus, for example, because his mom’s afraid he will get lost.) After class I spoke with Ms. C about this because it concerned me in the context of what I have seen and observed about this child from the beginning of the year, and she said it confirmed what she sensed and knew about the situation. AJ’s mom had been in school recently, quite distracted and upset by all the things in her life she had no control over. As Ms. C insightfully put it, the less control a parent feels in their own life, the more control they sometimes exert over the lives of their kids. I tink this is just one of those activities that helps with sympathy and patience at the school end…simply airing these kinds of things enlightens teaching practice, makes it whole and connected to the whole life of the child.

OH’s list:

NO CHOICE: I have no choice to eat or not eat.
CHOICE: I have a choice to listen to my mom every day and Ms. Casey. I have a choice that to walk or ride the bus. I have a chocie to make friend and have good time.

TJ put feelings on both columns because after discussion, we agreed that some feelings a person can control and others a person cannot control—like crying at a funeral, say, as DT said, he “went crazy” crying at his grandfather’s funeral. Kids have NO CHOICE about driving a car, listening to the principal, going to school. listening to your mother, listening to your dad, or doing your school work, she noted.

DT:

NO CHOICE: I don’t have a choice to curss. I don’t have a choice to sky diving and whatever your mama put food on the table you got to eat it.
CHOICE: I have a choice to go to school and watch TV and get presents for my birthday and Christmas. I have a choice to eat or play at home. And we have a choice when a person push you have a choice to push him back or tell on the person.

DM:

NO CHOICE (partial): I don’t have a chocie to cut off my brother hair. I have no choice to fight. I have a choice to not talk to stranger.
CHOICE (partial) I have a choice to eat or not eat. I have a choice to drink something or not drink something.

JB:

NO CHOICE: I have no choice to go to the mall. I have no choice to be ugly [it’s impossible for a beautiful person to be ugly, is what she means]
CHOICE: I have a choice to be friends with A. I have a choice to be nice to my friends. I have a choice to give gift to people on they birthday.

PR:

NO CHOICE: high diving, swimming in sea, not listening to teacher, to go Dad’s house
CHOICE: doing homework, going to school, doing the right thing, listening to the principal, listen to everyone that’s older than me, how you speak to someone.

This turned out to be an excellent activity, incredibly generative of conversation and thought. I may have to do it with older kids, too, and make sure we all get to do it every year.

Third grade

A smaller group today. We chose books from the Leo gift and they wrote thankyous and read for a while. I took their pictures and will send the thankyous and the photo off to Leo. I also read them a rhyming book that KH brought in to share. This group is MUCH nicer without a couple of the girls who did not take the class seriously.

Inda