where i'm from

I from stair ways and boxers
hanging from the dresser.

I'm from the center where weed-
bags and speeding cars roam around.
I'm from where willie m clay and
J-Black was killed at on 1-26-06.
I'm from where you see flat balls
and tall dogs.
I'm from oakland where we get
hyphy and ride d's.
I'm from where you swallow down
the wrong pipe whatever that mean
old people say it so it sound right.
I'm from the 8 where we don't ride
bikes we ride skate.

this was written by one of my more challenging students--well, definitely in the "Top Five."
he can be a great kid but he can also be really disruptive in class, so when I got this, I joked with him that it made me cry because it was so powerful. i told him that a lot of people kind of didn't get the assignment. 8th graders sometimes don't get abstract concepts and writing one of these poems so that it's really good requires thinking abstractly. i told him that his poem showed me that he really understood the assignment and that he understood the poem that we read that was the model. i was really excited!

so yeah. poetry. it's going pretty well! today was a little bit hectic but hey, it happens. it was a short day so it's already over and now i have a meeting until 5 pm at school.

it's rainy here but spending time with my students has eclipsed the rain for me today. wow, that sounds so weird. and cheesy. however, it is really true.
i love 'em!

have a great day. i will try to post more poems--i didn't get around to reading most of them this weekend.

Seven at the Golden Shovel

So--I'm not sure how many people are familiar with this Gwendolyn Brooks poem. I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to put it on my website but you can't find me on Google or anything so I think it's kosher. I'll take it down if not.

Seven at the Golden Shovel

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

my kids went crazy when they saw this. even my strategic class. the first slide in my first day of the poetry unit was "What is poetry?" The second slide was "Is this a poet?" with a picture of Gwendolyn Brooks (an oddly provocative slide). The third slide was the poem and they wouldn't be quiet. they started reading it out loud, analyzing it, "what's jazz june?", "what's thin gin?" (they didn't know how to say "gin"--they were saying it with a hard "g" like in girl. i understand the poem so much better now that i read it with them, just because they were so excited. it was really cute. several of them felt compelled to walk me through the meaning of the whole thing in front of the class. they all had their own theories--some thought that the golden shovel was what killed them. truthfully, they had very innocent interpretations of the poem which i found fascinating and kind of reassuring. they seem so grown up sometimes!

a few of my kids were really put off by the poem--i got a few comments like "the person who wrote this is messed up" or "the person who wrote this needs to get a life." these kids told me that they had a problem with the left school and the die soon parts. i didn't really share my interpretation with them, because i realized how sophisticated it was. my intention wasn't for them to go into a deep analysis, anyways. i saw my role as doing some clarifying and defining of words and ideas, and leading them to understanding through questioning.

it turns out that they totally love poetry--or, enough of them are excited enough that they are carrying the class along with them. there is a city-wide poetry contest for 8th graders which is really exciting, and a bunch of kids want to enter it. they are all reciting poetry for me or bringing in poems or poem books from home. i get the sense that they find poetry more palatable than pages and pages of fiction or non-fiction reading that i put in front of them sometimes. either way, i had no idea that the unit would be received this way so i was very excited. it's great to see them feeling energetic about stuff.

they also wrote some amazing poems based on a format of "where i'm from..."
i will try to post a few of them up here later today as i am reading them all and checking them in. my goal this week is to get a poetry bulletin board set up in my classroom and begin posting their poetry and other peoples' poetry that they like up there.

so yeah, tuesday was one of the best days in school, although it started out really hard initially, with some severe misbehavior. but we moved on which was also really nice.

i should go and get ready in an attempt to make this week half as fun as last week. there is a Black History Month assembly on tuesday at an indeterminate time so that should be kind of fun and interesting. Some of my students are performing. i will have at least one class period off of teaching, which will also be a nice break.

it's back to the grind for me. trying to get things ready for a couple of days worth of work before a play this afternoon.

ahh....the poetry unit

it's been an interesting week, and definitely a long one. one memorable moment was overhearing a (very problematic) student say "do you want to see my cock?" to another student, basically right in front of me, and then say "it's a picture of a chicken." suffice it to say that he did not last long in my classroom that day. that was tuesday. he got suspended for 3 days (at least). i have found myself incredibly frustrated with some of my students lately. it's the ones who i have spent the whole year working with, and being so invested in them making changes in their academic choices that will help them be successful. i have built strong relationships with so many of my students, made those positive and negative phone calls to their parents, and they will finally look me in the eye, maybe tell me what's up, and start their work. but then, there are kids who are slipping, who no matter what i do don't come to school for the first two periods of the day, are failing, and won't come in for tutoring after school. they fall farther and farther behind as we build on what we've done in the past and i am losing my patience with them. i have spent the school year so far bending over backwards for my kids--and i need them to meet me at, or at least close to, halfway. most of them do. the ones who don't, who i have encouraged endlessly, stayed positive, helped them, devoted disproportionate amounts of time to, and they still haven't changed, are losing my attention and sympathy. i have seen a lot of kids pull it together and mature--my 8th graders are getting really close to high school--and so the ones who aren't growing academically are especially frustrating.

i guess part of the problem is how much of my energy they suck, also. when they do come to school, they are behind, and so they are disruptive, or don't have any idea what is going on in class, or they sit and do nothing and get even more behind and they might as well have stayed at home.

on the flipside...i feel like i've been building stronger relationships with many of my students. sometimes it's so weird being a teacher--knowing that students see me as this grown up person. maybe they look up to me, maybe not, but the thing that's fun is when i know they care what i think and they are trying to make some kind of impression on me. several of my students are in the after school program at my school and sometimes i stop into the classroom that they work in. on friday they were dancing and singing and they stuck their heads out to say hi when i was in the hallway. they are just a lot of fun. it used to be that i felt like i knew the boys a lot better than the girls, but now the girls have started opening up and i have more fun with them. i also think that as i'm getting to be a better teacher, they are thining of me differently as students and that is beneficial. i hope that next year, i can start building these relationships with my students earlier in the year. it's a lot of fun!

i used to feel sort of ambivalent about teaching middle school and i wondered if i should be in elementary school, because i like young kids so much. i have really come to a place where i like middle school. i'm patient most of the time, which they need, and just kind of mellow with them most of the time. i like them--they are quirky and growing and in so many different places. my 8th graders behave as though they are anywhere between 6th and 10th grade depending on the kid and the day.

i didn't really write about the poetry unit, did it? that is what i am sitting and working on in the cafe where i am, but this thing about my students is really sort of the theme of my week. the poetry unit starts next week.

if you are reading...and you want to say hi...i love getting comments. i know enough of you are out there that you are reading this but it's always nice to know that you are out there in the cyber world.

have a great week! i will finish planning this week today, and then i have sonday and monday off to go out of town. whoo hoo!

an oddly calm week

as i talked about in my last post, my students are writing persuasive essays for a couple of weeks. i am using the rubrics (both 7th and 8th grade) from our textbook program. I think they are pretty good rubrics although it's going to take forever to grade the essays. along with the rubrics, the book has a bunch of supplemental materials for scaffolding the essay. it is a process that goes from what a persuasive is, to writing a thesis, to choosing an audience, to choosing arguments and evidence (evidence was really hard for my 7th graders!), and then identifying a counter argument. i'm a little bit nervous about the actual writing part. my single classes have written persuasive essays recently in social studies class, but my 7th grade and my strategic class has not. so i have to lead them through the process of stating a reason and then explaining their evidence.

so back to my calm week. the week before last i was sick, which was not fun. the whole week was kind of a bummer (2 weeks ago.) the week that ended yesterday was great, though. well, tuesday i was out for a poetry workshop which was nice. but even so--monday morning i made a bunch of copies. i thought they would last for a couple of days and then i would have to do more planning. however, it turned out that my kids went so slowly through everything that i didn't have to do any otehr planning or copying for the whole week. i spent most of the week coaching my kids through the various parts of their writing process. it was a combination of teaching new stuff (like hooks and counterarguments) and guiding them through writing a counterargument, hook, and then of course reasons and the supporting evidence for their persuasive essays.

friday was an especially cool day. after a really crazy strategic class (their behavior has worsened so i've been cracking down which isn't fun and is resulting in sending a lot of kids to the office) i didn't really feel like talking much to my kids as a group. that is, i didn't feel like teaching in front of the class. so i made a beginning attempt at what good teachers do--facilitating learning. i set them up in pairs to write their essay "hook" and introduction, and then let them keep writing. they were getting feedback and help from their partners. of course, i was busy the whole entire class helping students also. my students need so much affirmation that they're doing their work correctly, which they often are. they are getting better at asking for help when they're confused about something which i'm also really proud of them for. one of them is new to my class and was having problems with a different class, which is why he transferred. he's doing really well--i called his mom after class to tell her. i've been complimenting him a lot, too. i hope that the fresh start will continue to work for him because i know he's known as one of the most challenging 8th graders. it sucks when your reputation precedes you but he seems to be responding to my support and encouragment. he also knows that he's getting a fresh start, and he's a smart and savvy kid, so hopefully he can make it successfully through the rest of the semester.

all of this to say that since i prepared all of my lessons and materials on monday, the week was pretty calm. the house isn't too much of a disaster, i was able to have friends over for dinner last night, and i don't have too much work to do this weekend! joy!

i must go....i hope you have a good weekend and coming week.

phew!

what a relief--i'm back to my weekly schedule. i know that the best way to lose blog readers is to be super erratic or never write. and i like it that you are reading out there!

last week was a rough week. i got sick on sunday night, monday i took the day off, but tuesday was the very worst day. i did teach on tuesday morning. i didn't know what else to do with my strategic class (although i suppose a movie might have been a good idea.) regardless, they had to finish something up, which they did, and then i basically let them do whatever they wanted. let's just say that my teaching was not up to par last week. however, i did want to tell you about the persuasive essays that my students are writing.

the way i set it up, i gave them 5 different prompts based on different community/social issues: drugs, music in schools, school budget, tobacco. then, i also gave them the option of choosing their own topic. so here is the variety of topics they chose--it's not all, obviously, but some of my favorites:

-mien people should have their own town. (mien is a type of asian cultura. the people are from laos, thailand, china, and other countries. a lot of my kids are mien. if i just totally misrepresented what mien is, i apologize. leave me a comment to set me straight.
-pro choice
-pro life
-undocumented immigrants should be legalized
-stereotyping and labels are bad for peoples' mental health
-gang banging is bad and should be stopped
-they should stop the violence in oakland
-lonely adults should be able to adopt children so that they are happier
-we should stop hurting the environment
-we should help endangered species

there are more but i was really struck by the passion and thoughtfulness of my students. i had a lot of fun helping them choose their theses and start brainstorming the supporting ideas for their essays. i am so excited to read them (and put them up on my walls!)

i became a teacher because i want to work with young people and i saw this as a good channel for my inclinations. i want to work with young people because i want to help them develop into thoughtful community-minded citizens. i have always said that i don't care if my students have differing views than mine, but i want them to have well thought out opinions and be ready to act on things that they care about. this feels like one of th first times that i'm actively getting involved in a focus on social justice with my kids. it feels really exciting!

there was an all day TFA conference yesterday which was pretty good. i tend to enjoy the workshops so that is nice. i definitely got a lot out of it. i think the thing that i most want to try is doing a socratic seminar. i loved the idea and that workshop. one thing that is great is that the model we learned has a lot of ways for students to participate without talking, which will be an important option for some of my kids.

well, the time for starting my actual work is overdue so i must bid you adieu and get ready for tommorow.