That "Teacher" Feeling #EdChat

As some of you know, I have been in a new position this year at such a great school, University Liggett School. I am the Makerspace Director and Middle School Technology Coordinator. That means I spend my time working with students in the Makerspace and with teachers and their lessons. I do not craft my own lessons and do direct instruction on my own anymore. I have to say, I do miss it.

I never thought I would say that because of how exhausting it can be, but it is easy to forget how rewarding it is when the lesson is just killer and the kids are super engaged. I was reminded this week because I am covering for a great teacher who is off with the grade 6 students on their camp trip. I volunteered to take her 7th grade English class and she said I could do whatever I wanted. She said she trusted me. Those are usually famous last words, but I was stoked to create a lesson and spend four days with the students exploring.

The first think I did was read up on Pernille Ripp and her writings on dealing with Middle School students in an English Class. After that, I dove into a story I love, "The Yellow Wallpaper". It is a great piece of American Gothic Literature about a woman losing her mind and sharing it with the reader through first person narration. As a reader you are not sure if the place is haunted or if she is crazy. It is a wonderful story easy to explore because of the rich imagery and the solid symbolism of the oppression of women.

I wasn't sure how it was going to go and I was sure I was going to be rusty running a class, but everything was great! The students were engaged and we had a great conversation about symbols and how women were treated and, in different ways, are treated today. Their comments were insightful and their questions were on point. They were engaged in the story and are looking forward to more discussions and the project where they are going to create their own example of a symbol that connects to a theme from the story.

At the end of the second class, I was just so energized. I had forgotten what it feels like to be "in the zone" with a group of students. I am going to make it a point to try and do solo lessons in English class once in a while to keep me fresh, connected to direct instruction, and for the fix of teaching a group of students something I love.

What are you waiting for? #EdChat

I found myself saying this a bunch the past few weeks. We've been discussing Transcendentalism the past few weeks in my American Literature class and we focus on the importance of the individual and what conformity means in today's society. I'm always a bit saddened by some of the defeatist attitudes of students when confronted with the idea to change who they are and follow their passions. At the high school level, some students already feel like it is too late to explore what matters to them or to stand up for their beliefs. It hurts my heart hear such young people think this way. Some students say that they want to follow their heart. I always shoot back,

"What are you waiting for?"

I make it a mission to encourage students and offer support to them in thinking about making changes. The words of Thoreau, Emerson, and Whitman are bookended by the songs of Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, and Katie Perry to show the students that finding who they really are is still very relevant today. We discuss social media and the illusion of perfection we often try to portray to the world around us, when a student suggested it is the imperfections that make all of us special and beautiful. I'm constantly reminded of the words of Emerson,

"Trust Thyself" and "Imitation is suicide"

These simple aphorisims are so important to remember and so difficult to follow. We strive to please the world around us and are afraid to follow our heart. We need to create a world where our students are not afraid to believe Emerson and be free of the fear societal judgements.

As I think about encouraging students to find out who they are outside the influences of society, I think about teachers who have trouble finding their voice and identity in the classroom. It took me a few years and a great friend and mentor to help me find me. I'm not sure I'd still be teaching if I hadn't found me. For the teachers out there still looking to find who they are or want to show their real self to the classroom, I will say to you what I said to my students,

"What are you waiting for?"

Hugs and High Fives,

Nick

Crowdsourcing an English Curriculum #EngChat #EdChat

Hello everyone! I’m working on a proposal to drastically change the Grade 10 Curriculum. Currently, our curriculum starts with Puritanism and ends with Catcher in the the Rye or Death of a Salesman. Our “newest” book is over 60 years old. It is getting harder and harder to engage reluctant readers to texts that are further and further away from who they are. I’m looking to bring in new texts that students can identify.


What I want to do is move our 2nd semester that generally starts with Huck Finn and move it to the first semester an start the 2nd semester with all new texts. The main focus on the Grade 10 Curriculum is coming of age. Despite being an avid reader, there are plenty of things I have not read or heard about that would be a perfect fit for this curriculum.


Here is where I need your help. Please suggest literature (Poetry, short stories, novels, essays, fiction, non-fiction, media, etc) that would be perfect for grade 10 students. Here is the criteria for the selections.


Must be American Authors (This is an American Literature Class)
Must have been published post 1960
Must be age appropriate for 15-16 year old students with varying reading levels


Feel free to add your suggestions to the Google Doc and I will be able to put together a list of suggestions for my district. Thanks for all of your help and support.


Links to book reviews would be very helpful as well. Thanks again!

Google Doc Link

Stranger Than Fiction?

Recently, there has been some talk about removing Fiction from the classroom and replacing it with more Non Fiction. Besides being a tech nerd, I am an English Teacher first. Here are some of my thoughts on Fiction in the classroom.

This year was one of my hardest years teaching the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I actually did not teach all of it. I took some passages and events and used them to teach satire, which is the true purpose of the unit. One of the biggest reasons I chose to teach selections was the fact that my students were going to struggle with making connections to the jokes that Twain had planted throughout the text. I supplemented with other short works from Twain and some pieces from The Onion. I felt ok with doing this. I wasn't happy, but I was ok.

Twain is my favorite author. I love his wit and humor. I truly believe he set the tone for modern American humor and SNL can point to him as an early forefather. Every year though, I see his great works move slowly away from the students that come into my classroom. Every year, the jokes take a little bit longer to connect. The allusions are a bit harder to find. After a decade of teaching his work, it has become painful to see the blank stare of students as I explain that the "magic" hairball is satirizing fortune tellers and their "magic" crystal balls. My Twain unit is slowly turning into a Satire unit where I pull newer material in every year. Is there going to be a day where I show nothing but Simpsons and SNL to teach Satire?

The one thing that is really tough about being an English teacher is that ever year, the curriculum gets old. As it gets older, the students are slightly removed from it. In the curriculum for my district, the "newest" piece is Death of a Salesman. That is now over 50 years old. I think Death of a Salesman is still relevant to students today and the Dustin Hoffman movie is a great performance of the work. I still love teaching The Crucible and the kids cannot get enough of Holden and The Catcher in the Rye. (I personally think they like it because I let them say Fuck. Kids.) It's Twain and those crazy Romanticists and Transcendentalists that are losing the power they once had on students. Many kids cannot see the connection of Huck coming of age and Thoreau writing that people should be who they are no matter what others think. What next?

As teachers, we have to be ok with letting go of some of the texts we grew up loving and look at some of the great newer literature out there. I'm not suggesting that departments go out and use the flavor of the month every year, but they need to be willing to be open to new ideas. The texts are classics, but the focus needs to be on the skills. If you can get kids to understand coming of age and dystopian society by using The Hunger Games, why not consider the change.  There are plenty of great books out there that appeal to the new generation of reader. Some of these new books are Graphic Novels!

It took me two years and tons of leg work to create a Graphic Novel Class. (It is officially called Pictorial Literature because community members might be bothered by having a class with the word graphic in it.) I saw a hole in the curriculum for a certain group of students and I thought a class that had different offerings would appeal to students looking for something different.

I teach Bone by Jeff Smith as an Epic Novel comparing it to The Odyssey, The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. I also teach Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Maus by Art Spiegelman and graphic versions of Poe and Twain Short Stories. I also do a cool ( I think it's cool) Dystopian Novel Unit using Watchmen, Dark Knight, V for Vendetta and Kingdom Come. Our textbook is Scott McLoud's Understanding Comics. It's been an an exciting class that is run no differently than any other literature based class. I'm constantly tweaking it and is better this year than it was last year. It's time for curricula to change around the country. No longer are the classics of my youth (I was in high school in the 90s) the classics of today's classroom.

I understand the push for more non-fiction in the classroom. Kids are going to encounter non-fiction in life on a regular basis and after school, fiction is for recreation. However, fiction can inspire. Fiction can make a person view life in a completely different way. Fiction is art. The way an author crafts a sentence or plot structure is beautiful. If we move away from fiction, are we heading toward the world Bradbury envisioned in Fahrenheit 451 (Top 5 Novel for me)?

Fiction is something very special. They are stories of people about anything and everything. Not only can Fiction be used to teach anything you want as a teacher, it can be the inspiration for a student to pick up the pen. As important as it is to help kids develop critical thinking skills, the creative mind needs to be nurtured as well and Fiction can help in that area. 

Very few people know this, but there is a collection of short stories out there by a Nicholas Provenzano.  Now, I bet that person was inspired to write by reading great works on fiction as well as not great works of fiction. Everyone has a story to tell and we now live in a time where people can share their stories with the world. Fiction plays an important role in molding creative young students. Why would we want to take those stories away from kids who are just discovering their own potential as creators?

Do not buy into the concept that the fiction is outdated and not relevant to today's kids so it must be replaced. Tons of great fiction can be found if teachers and administrators are willing to look for it and spend the money to replace the older texts. I fear that the dollar and cents of the matter is what is truly dictating the slow evolution in the English Curriculum.

What are your thoughts on Fiction and Non-Fiction in the English Classroom?

- @TheNerdyTeacher

Using My iPad In The Classroom This Year

I have had a full summer to think about all of the different things I plan to do with my iPad this year. I've surfed the 'net and have had some conversations with people and I have come up with a few ideas. I'm really excited to get started. I hope some of my ideas help fellow iPad educators use the iPad in their class.

Safari (Free)

No big surprise, but the web will be very important to my use of the iPad in the classroom. I have the 3G version because I do not have WiFi access in my building (yet). Our attendance, grades and school email can all be accessed through the web. I no longer have to sit behind my desk and wait for the desktop to load up attendance. I can walk around the room and talk to students as I check them in for attendance. As I walk around, I can also check the grades of students to see if they have any missing assignments. By quickly shifting from one page to another, I can mark a student present and let them know their grade in the class.

Another great thing about the web access is that I can email students any piece of content I have on the iPad. If there is a site a student mentions in class discussion, I can plug it into the iPad, review it and then quickly email it to the entire class. The ability to freely move around the room allows a more fluid class discussion. No longer will I need to stop and go back to the desk and look up information. Safari allows me the freedom that a desktop cannot.

iBook (Free)

I love reading books on my iPad. It just a nice way to keep all of the books I want in one space without all of the clutter. I'm an English Teacher, so my collection of books has been growing every year. The iPad allows me to keep as many books as I want. I can bookmark various parts of a story and bounce back and forth when I need to. In the classroom, this ability can be very helpful. 

Many of the books I teach in class are free downloads. Those that are not, are fairly inexpensive and worth the download. One book I use every year is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Here is a picture of the original cover of the book. The iPad edition is fill with the original illustrations. Those are just nice extras. When I'm discussing a book with different classes, I normally have to leave little notes for myself to remind where we left off or specific ideas the class did or did not discuss. These post-it notes clutter the book very quickly when you have three or four sections of a class. iBooks allow a reader to post notes wherever you want. Here is an example. 

Here is a shot of the note when selected by the user. When it is not on the front page, it sits nicely on the margin with the date it was created. The notes are also indexed in the book mark section of the story so I do not have to search the chapter for the notes I have left. iBook allows for quick transitions between pages and notes so I do not have awkward pauses as I look for information. Quick highlighting of passages and simple note taking make the use of iBooks in the classroom a no-brainer. 

Another cool thing I could do would be to  take the highlighted portions and the notes and email them to others. The long way would to copy and past the quote and note and send it through traditional email. That way important quotes could be quickly shared with the rest of the class and posted on class blogs. It would take a little prep before class, but it could be very valuable in the long run. 

Things for iPad ($19.99)

I really like Notes for iPad. I'm going to use this for my day to day planning. Things for iPad allows you to create various notes and prioritize them. You can create due dates for certain notes and have them emailed to you as reminders. You can create different tags to keep your different notes together. I will be creating different tags for each class. This will allow me to sort the various notes quickly. 

The quick email is also very nice. I will create a separate tag for Freshmen Homework. If I keep the homework up to date on Things, I can quickly email it to students who were absent or parents that request it. The various Apps on the iPad do a great job integrating email so information can be quickly shared. Sharing information is crucial in education and Things for iPad makes this possible in a quick and easy fashion. 

Dropbox (Free)

I've written about my love of Dropbox before. I was talking to a new teacher in my building and I was sharing all of the wisdom I had to offer. After those 3 minutes we started to talk about some of the tech constraints she might encounter in the district. We currently have no way to access files on our school computer from home. If someone forgets a test they wanted to alter on the school computer, the only way the teacher could get it would be driving all the way back to school. Dropbox allows the teacher to store everything in the clouds and pull documents down when they need them. 

I have stored my documents on Dropbox and I couldn't be happier. I have access to all of my documents whenever I need them. This is handy when I'm walking around the room and a student ask for another copy of a handout. I can quickly send that document to them through email without having to dig in my file cabinet for an extra copy. It is important that teaches have access to information quickly because they need to pass it along to the students. Dropbox has never been a problem for me and I highly suggest you use it whether you have an iPad or not.

Diigo (Free)

Bookmarking tools are great for the classroom. In a previous post, I Heart Diigo, I talked about the wonderful things I was doing with Diigo. Bookmarking allowed me to present a series of sites to do research. Instead of just giving them the entire Internet to search, a handful of sites saved to Diigo allows a more controlled search. To really test the kids, you could throw in some unreliable sources to really test their research skills. 

For the iPad, Diigo collects the websites and allows the user to access them quickly. Instead of taking note after note from various websites, I can look at all site directly downloaded onto my iPad. I can use the different sites as I facilitate class discussion. The iPad allows for the collection of information in one spot. I'm a type of person that likes to move around the room and the iPad allows me to have all of the information at my finger tips without being chained to my chair. I can keep students on task and still facilitate class discussion. Diigo is a great tool for collecting information and sharing with others. That is one of the roles of a teacher. Using the iPad in the classroom has made that role easier. 

Dictionary.com (Free)

This app is an obvious choice for an English Class. The Dictionary.com app is a Dictionary and a Thesaurus. Students have this thought that as an English Teacher, I know the definition of every word and multiple synonyms and antonyms. On the rare occasion that I do not have the definition on the tip of my tongue, this app allows a quick search for the right definition. I have hard copy Dictionaries in my classroom, but they are stored at the other end and it takes too long to look up a word. If a students asks me and I don't know, I can find the word much faster on my iPad than I ever could using the book version or the desktop version. It's a nice app that every iPad user should download.

These are just a few of the apps that I plan on using in my class this year. I'm sure there will be other apps that will come out or I will find that will be helpful in my class. My dear friend Kelly Tenkely has a great site, iPadCurriculum.com, that is filled with great reviews of apps for the iPad. Check out what she has to say and see what you can do with your iPad in the classroom. 

- @TheNerdyTeacher