Learning to Love Labs: A Reflection on Implementing a High School Writing Lab

As a child, I used to loath the idea of a laboratory. Enclosed spaces. White jackets. Little glass tubes and jars filled with formaldehyde-soaked organs. (Cue clip of Steve Martin’s weird disembodied brain lady)Every person in a cartoon lab seemed like conjurer of destruction or evil or just creepiness. Those beady little eyes through plastic goggles. . .the horror! the horror!

 Then I grew into a teenager—but my feelings for “labs” didn’t change much. The loathing shifted to apathy and appreciation, but never love. There was something too systematic, too sterile, too contrived about the idea of a lab in high school. Science labs. Math labs. All too stifling for me. And curling up in my world of books didn’t help either, as Vonnegut and Dr. Felix Hoenikker  & Shelley and Dr. Victor Frankenstein  showed me the dangers of experimentation, even the most well-intentioned experimentation. What I didn’t realize then, was that my understanding of labs was significantly limited in scope. 

So when a small team of teachers and I started our Writing Lab last year, I initially (secretly) took umbrage with the word “lab.” I knew rationally lab implied more than my not-so-nostalgic notions, but I couldn’t shake it. But looking back at the successes (and missteps) of Westerly High School’s first year of Writing Lab, I’ve redefined what a “lab” truly is & I’m beginning to understand just how they can help change our school (and hopefully yours). 

Lab as a Place for Experimentation— 
The Writing Lab was driven by a sort of scientific process from the start as we questioned how to improve the writing in our school, researched other WL models, hypothesized how it would best function for us, collected data (using Google Forms  & fieldwork reflections), questioned more, researched more, hypothesized more, collected more data, etc. in an organic, recursive, divergent way. 
Experimentation= Better Teaching & Learning 

Lab as a Place for Modeling & Observation— 
We work to provide Writing Lab teachers models of effective writing instruction. Teachers invite us into their classrooms to demonstrate writing lessons & to watch them (in a non-evaluative way) to help them improve their practice. We work with them to create their own writing models to use with their students so the teachers themselves can gain more confidence in their own instruction. Check out this from a Social Studies teacher:

We are even starting to tape model lessons for teachers to access from our website.
 Modeling=Better Teaching & Learning 

Lab as a Place for Research— 
We strive to research best practices & spend time reading up on Kelly Gallagher’s Teaching Adolescent Writers  & Write Like This  or watching lessons from Sarah Brown Wessling from the Teaching Channel or exploring digital writing techniques with Catlin Tucker’s blog & webinar series to name a few. Implementing the practices into our own classes & sharing those practices are key to the success of the lab concept. 
Discovery= Better Teaching & Learning 


Lab as a Place for Collaboration-
Working together with the other WL coaches, the teachers in other disciplines, and the students drives the lab. In the labs of my childhood, the scientists often worked alone, hiding their discoveries. In real labs, including our lab, collaboration & dialogue drive the work. Collaboration=Better Teaching & Learning. . .unless it looks like this:

Lab as a Place for Sharing-
We do important sharing in one-on-one meetings and in classrooms, but the webpage for the WL is an additional platform for communication. Our ultimate goal is to go beyond teacher sign-up and document access. We want to create more how-to videos to help teachers & students reach their writing goals. We want to promote discussion blogs about hiccups and successes in classrooms. We want these, but we have to work to promote the kind of sharing that will make this lab function even better than it already is. 
Sharing=Better Teaching & Learning 

Lab as a Place for Play- 
The lab concept implies serious work, missteps, falling, confusion, but there is also time for mind bursts, standing back up, and clarity. There is time for play. We play around with multi-media texts, with discipline-specific lessons, with editing, with note-taking techniques, and so much more. It’s important to remember, especially with teachers who don’t feel comfortable with teaching writing that it is the play that we learn, not the final products. Play=Better Teaching & Learning 

Only now, through revisiting our work through the WL, do I confront my misconceptions and reconcile my connotative issue with the word “lab”; only now do I realize labs are where better teaching & learning happens. Labs are workshops because life is a metaphorical lab full of experiments, and failures, and good intentions, and fun, and negative outcomes, and successful ones and that’s ok—because it’s all part of better teaching & learning.

The Importance of Being Earnest

The getting-to-know-you period at the beginning of each school year can be difficult to navigate. Figuring out how to do so without resorting to "ice breakers" can be tricky. I have found success with one method, a method I want to share today. 

My AP students read Thomas C. Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor for summer reading. His voice is candid and clever and they honestly (usually) love it. What I love most about it is the "Interlude" entitled One Story in which Foster explains:

 “Those stories – myth, archetype, religious narrative, the great body of literature – are always with us. Always in us. We can draw upon them, tap into them, add to them whenever we want. One of our great storytellers, country singer Willie Nelson, was sitting around one day just noodling on the guitar, improvising melodies he’d never written down, never heard in quite those forms. His companion, a nonmusician whose name I forget, asked him how he could come up with all those tunes. “They’re all around us,” old Willie said. “You just reach up and pick them out of the air.” Stories are like that, too. That one story that has been going on forever is all around us. We – as readers or writers, tellers or listeners – understand each other, we share knowledge of the structures of our myths, we comprehend the logic of symbols, largely because we have access to the same swirl of story. We have only to reach out into the air and pluck a piece of it.”

So I ask my students to consider what they add to the One Story. . .though it may not be original, I want them to pluck out what makes them, well, them. They create a digital introduction to themselves & accompanying explanation. And the following is what I did to model:

My grandfather died this summer. It wasn’t sudden. But that didn’t make the dying any easier. As I wrote his eulogy, considered what truths to glean from 95 years of a man with whom I shared so few moments comparatively, I entered a complex, recursive, regenerative process through which I realized that implicitly he taught me an important lesson—we don’t own the spaces we fill.

Here’s a quick explanation from a piece I wrote this summer:

Empty spaces are not bought or sold but rented. The American dream of ownership of land is charming with its false promise of holding onto something tangible that’s truly ours. But it isn’t the spaces that we own, it’s not the land or the house or the car or the antique pie safe—we’re just leasing them. What we do with them, how we remember those spaces; that is whatwe own.

I have learned to reconcile this proprietary myth by placing value to what I rent with the currency of living in the moment & in the reconstructing of memory.It’s an exchange worth more than merely the commodifying of experiences—it frames who we are, how we understand ourselves & the world, how we treat others; it carries a sense of fixed value and variability, permanence and transience, wholeness and insufficiency.

What I bring to the one story is that I rent—or at least try—every moment so I can own them through memory.

I taste pockets of grapefruits, feel each yogic breath. I giggle at vanity license plates. I notice fabrics and lines. I record what I remember and what I create on napkins and scratch paper and unfinished journals. I drive cars with a manual transmission so I can be a part of shifting the gears, a part of the driving. I sing. Loudly. I take moments to walk and not drive. I enjoy the parts of my community that make it unique. I listen to music and talk radio. I give of myself to my friends and family and my jobs, give almost too much. I smile. I appreciate others’ quirks. I float in salt water for hours and make seaweed crowns and collect mermaid’s toenails. I dream. I work. I love.

Through it all, through all the moments, I am undoubtedly me. Whether you see me running on the streets or at snoozing at the beach or snuggled up with a book in the park or teaching in the classroom, you’ll see me embracing those spaces & moments I borrow. It is what I add to the one story.

And it is this passion for living that I bring to the classroom especially because beyond the grammar and the essays and the literature, I hope to help others own their own moments, a montage of memories to carry beyond the spaces we rent together.

Afterwords, I ask them to consider which characters & authors & stories are in them as they consider their own identity. Me? Oscar Wilde, Jorge Luis Borges, Alice in Wonderland, Billy Pilgrim, Siddhartha, Alice Walker, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Adah Price, Little Women, Piggy, Margaret Atwood, the BFG, Pablo Neruda, Montag and so many more. It's incredible to see how connected we are within the One Story, and they love it. 

So, I guess the purpose of this blog entry, then is to 1) challenge anyone reading it to explore how you connect to the One Story--it is comforting and 2) be open with your students about who you are, the quirks the wonders the villains, the Bunburying, & your One Story connections because the importance of truly being earnest goes understated in our profession. 

Finding a Voice When Literacy Isn't Their "Thing"

He (I’ll call him “A”) sits in the back of the room, refusing to write. “I didn’t read it anyway,” “A” grumbles. 

Yet, when I probe more deeply into the driving questions about Montag and Mildred and government control and the power of books, he virtually leads the class discussion—books and the written word are how people stay free in the confines of a totalitarian system. 

 “A” references something Mr. Fusco, his history teacher, said in class, but when I ask him to bring in an article to share to explain it more deeply—double brownie points, I add, hoping for more motivation—“A” shuts down. 

 “A” is a real young man but represents many of the young men I’ve had over the years, young men who I have always struggled with not to pass tests or do homework, but simply to engage in the reading & writing process.

 In his book Holding On To Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones, Thomas Newkirk types my “A” into these lines:

 “These boys who have the experience of being behind, of not being good at literacy—and they number in the millions—soon turn a difficulty into an identity” (Newkirk 105).

At some point throughout the years, maybe it was one day, maybe it built up, “A” started to identify himself as “not being good at literacy.” We discussed it often. He hates reading. He hates writing. For independent reading, I bought him the hard cover of Chris Kyle’s American Sniper: Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper “A” had been wanting to read and he took it, excited, ready to care for the new, “fresh”-in-more-than-one-way book, but he never read it. Dabbled here and there. But he never read it. 

I conceived of as many ways as I could to engage “A” in more than just the incredible conversations he could maneuver. But it was difficult. Very. Until it came to our Making a Change, Taking a Stand work.

His driving question was “Why is MMA the best?” After some tweaking and important discussion about assumptions limiting the scope of research, we settled on “How is MMA superior to other sports?” The part of me that wanted to push him into something more academic surfaced and I let it go immediately. That part is ingrained in me; it’s that we-have-to-make-our-kids-do-more-rigorous-tasks voice that Charlie Brown’s teacher’s itself into our eardrums daily. But I let him do it. Why? Because it was the first time he didn’t identify himself as not good at what we were doing, because he didn’t even have time to stop and consider that he was actually reading and writing.

Maybe it wasn’t the literature of the curriculum, but he was after school every day exploring sites, seeking out reputable sources, writing his annotations, his counter arguments, his body paragraphs. He was sharing with me, with our whole class what he discovered and he loved it.

When Newkirk writes “Ultimately we don’t read to read, or write to write. We do both because of some interest in the subject—and some desire to share that interest with others” (Newkirk 141), he gets it. He gets “A” and many of the boys (and girls) that “A” represents. Because “A” had a desire to share his interest, he shed his “not good at it” attitude & embraced the voice he had to share.

 Here’s his blog & something he was quite proud of. And though it isn’t polished or perfect and likely hasn’t been seen by anyone other than our class, he had a voice, he opened up to the reading and writing process.

 Now that’s an idea that I’ll hold onto in this time of bad ones.

Reflective Toy Hacking: Maybe the Toys Won't Mind

I’ll admit it. I can be a “yes” (wo)man. I often ask myself if it’s because I’m weak, if it’s my mother’s voice encouraging me to always help others when I can, if it’s because I’m optimistic by nature, if it’s the mentality that if-I-don’t-do-it-no-one-else-will. The answer is usually a mixture of all of these. But being a “yes” (wo)man has allowed me to encounter experiences I may not have found on my own, allowed me to make connections to what is inherently & closely important to me as a classroom teacher thus allowing me to evolve.

In the spring, I was asked to help with a district PD session on computational thinking (feel free to hack my Prezi if you ever need to do one & definitely check out Jeanette Wing to learn more). Knowing little (ok nothing) about the subject I immersed myself into the cybersea of information and emerged three hours later (and with weeks of subsequent exploration) I emerged with new understandings, possibilities and framings of the world around me in the world of CT and its implications in the classroom.

In true fashion, being a “yes” (wo)man in leading this PD, I began to scratch the surface of systems thinking, and in true fashion of evolution, a new environmental factor has continued the transformative process this summer. In the Rhode Island Writing Project summer institute, I’m learning that to understand systems, you may just have to hack them. Recompose. Re-imagine. Remix.

As a part of the National Writing Project’s Massive Online Collaboration and Connected Learning (#clmooc), we’ve been tinkering along with many other summer institute participants and other educators. My understanding of systems has moved beyond what I presented in the spring—thinking about hacking is making me realize everything I know and experience is just a series of intricate, connected systems, recursive, iterative, looping, evolving systems. Whoa. Mind. Blown. (Why again am I not one of those teachers who is “in it for the summer vacations”?)

This morning I started toying around with, well, toys. (Anyone interested in a Hangout sesh with some NWPers, check it out.) I scoured my apartment for old toys with which to tinker. And tinker I did. What was interesting was the process of meaning making that occured as I played. I initially did it because I wanted to just “make” and what was so amazing was how it became a sort of meditative process for me. It became a reflection on myself as teacher and propelled me to make some goals –which I’ll explain briefly after you check out this vine of my process:

Here’s a quick breakdown of how I began to re-mix myself to form goals for the fall:

1) Wonder Woman Body: Long story short, I’ve been obsessed with her lasso of truth, B.A. tiara, and invisible jet since childhood, but as a teacher I will channel her quest for peace, justice, and equality —and I’ll spare you the childhood photo of me in Wonder Woman underoos.

2) Kaleidoscope Head: I will nourish my multiple ways of seeing & problem solving in my own classroom, dept. and school that are sometimes starved by outside forces.

3) Starfish Shield: I will remember my strength to be regenerative. My teacher legs undoubtedly get injured or cutoff but they always grow back.

4) Gumby Axe: I will arm myself with my good heart & flexible attitude.

5) Eeyore “Invisible” Jet: I will remain aware of the self-directed negativity I keep hidden.

6) The Mechanized Airplane Wings: I will continue to embrace technology to help propel me in my evolution.

After hacking the toys, I’m only left with a little regret. . .

But maybe because the process helped me form important goals for next year, the toys won’t mind.

Creating Intentionally & Deliberately: Considering Troy Hicks' Crafting Digital Writing

If you haven’t read Troy Hicks's text Crafting Digital Writing yet, do it. 

He starts out with a Sir Ken Robinson (whom I adore) quote from Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative. Hicks cites: “Being creative involves doing something. It would be odd to describe as creative someone who never did anything. To call somebody creative suggests that they are actively producing something in a deliberate way.” It, along with much of Hicks’s Introduction resonates with me—not only with implementing digital strategies with my students, but with implementing much of what forms my professional life.

Intention. Deliberation. We must, as educators, create what we do professionally with intention and deliberation. After all, we create an experience for our students each and every day.

Some might argue that the most creative teachers are those who just go with the flow throwing paint on their pedagogical canvases, that the best art comes from a place of un-intention (and that seems appealing as we add digital brushstrokes to our work). But they would be wrong.

Even the abstract expressionists were intentioned, deliberate.  Listen to my boy Jackson Pollock describe his process:

Pollock talks of how “There is no accident.” I am not asserting we always paint within the lines of the pages upon pages of standardized curriculum (and neither is Hicks if you check out his discussion on the Common Core struggle in Chapter 2) but when we play outside of those lines we must create deliberately. When an incredible “teachable” moment happens or the lesson suddenly opens up to something we had never imagined, we take that—but we must do so with intention, even if that is intention is just to laugh or cry or share. When we allow students to tinker with technology instead of construct a traditional essay, we must do so with intention. Intention doesn’t have to be standards-based, but it has to be meaningful to the life of our classrooms. 

As I continue to reshape my classroom to frame my students’ experiences beyond of squared traditional walls of the building, doing things with intention will continue to push me to evolve. (Feel free to check out my Macbeth--Flipped Out Blog  and the digital result of that work Multimedia Macbeth to see some attempts). Troy Hicks’ idea (adding to Lucy Calkins) to teach-the-writer-then-teach-the-writing-then-teach-the-technology will be something I will constantly remind myself of.

I look forward to creating intentionally & deliberately, and leading by example to make sure my students know exactly why and how I do what I do. Example? I hope to use this blog as a mentor text and explore with them as I decide how to create my own web texts through my posts. In doing so, I (fingers crossed) will continue to foster the awareness of “craft” as they construct their own digital footprints intentionally creating with a deliberate awareness of mode, audience, purpose, and situation--because as Hicks reminds "Students truly have the opportunity to make their voices heard around the world" (59) and I want to help them share that voice meaningfully. 

Eponymous Exploring: Why "eet"?

By nature, we English peeps love language. We love its parts. The sum of its parts. What lingers around the sum of its parts in shades of meanings, word families, etymological histories, possibilities.

Driving back and forth to my Rhode Island Writing Project Summer Institute this week has brought back the opportunity to re-imagine the language often trapped in my iTunes account. When Regina Spektor’s song “Eet” came on earlier this week I looped it. Take a listen:

I always wondered what "eet" really was, but never took the time to explore. To me it was likely just a continuation of  the “beat eet eet “of the song, but I remember of a student of mine mentioning how she learned that “eet” was the button that typed over a mistake on old typewriters. While it couldn’t delete in a modern way, it allowed for a letter to type over the original error. After searching for validation of this, I found an urban dictionary entry and this instruction manual but not much else for “proof.” We English peeps don't settle for this. 
 
I continued my search and what “eet” is for certain is a Chaucer-ized version of ate from the Nun’s Priest’s Tale which you can see below or listen to here.
 

What “eet” also is for certain is a symbol in logic known as a falsum denoting logical contradiction—it looks like an upside down “T” which I find charming. And what EET as an acronym could be is Extended EngagementTaxonomy, Eastern European Time, eet-cetera.

But I’d like to float around in the less certain to which I referred to at the start of this post. I’d like to reflect on “eet” in the typewriterly sense. What I like about the idea of the “eet” button is that it—rather than deleting—leaves a mark where a writer decided to acknowledge a misstep, to make a change, to move in a new direction. It’s not a whiting out or erasing. It leaves a reminder.

Unlike a Google Doc where once you make a change there is only a trace of it buried in layers of cyber soil, the “eet” button reminds you of where you changed. You stopped and went back in order to change.

I am naming my blog “eet” for this reason. And I love it for its ambiguity and its potential and I love that I can add my own acronym as an ever-evolving teacher, and enter into a professional community of others to help me acknowledge my missteps, to make change, to move in new directions.