Springtime, April and National Poetry Month

Yes, it is springtime, April and National Poetry Month. Here is a poem that has been sitting in me for awhile--inspired by this winterlike day. Enjoy!

Tug-o-War

It's tug-o-war time once again--

Seasons' in a tiff.

Winter wants to have its way

Giving Spring mischief.

Yesterday was balmy,

Warm wind filled the air.

Today it's gray and cold outside

With Winter's lasting dare.

Back and forth they tug the rope,

Each struggling to win.

One day flowers bloomin

The next day snow begins.

"I will win this tug-o-war!"

Winter loudly gloats.

Spring keeps pullin, shouting back,

"Put away those coats!"

The war goes on and days do pass

With Winter finally tired.

And Spring puts up a mighty push

to get the win desired.

The world's awash in green and warm

As new birth fully sprouts.

Spring has won and takes a bow

While Winter is shutout.

"Don't be cocky, Springtime,"

Winter weakly drawls.
I'll be back to win this war
When I can brawl with Fall.

Thinking Like a Writer

I have been preparing for a summer writing project with a local school district. Three of us are collaborating on this project that will emphasize both teacher as writer and teacher as teacher of writing. As a teacher of teachers of writing for many years, the teaching of the pedagogy of writing is very natural. I have participated in a National Writing Project, and have attended many workshops with a focus on the teaching of writing. I have developed my own writers’ workshop for students and have taught teachers in a district and college setting how to teach writing.

The emphasis on teacher as writer has been one that has been helpful for me to explore. I believe that to successfully teach writing, teachers need to know what role writing plays in their own life. They also need to be in writing situations which we ask our students to be so that teachers of writing understand what it means to experience writers’ block or to struggle to get an idea as well as the experience of exhilaration of writing something that expresses the message in that just perfect way.

I consider myself a writer, but in my hectic teaching and home life, I don’t think I always let myself live a writer’s life—one that allows for writing to emerge. That kind of life has time built into it to write and reflect on a regular basis. I allow that space in spurts, but not on a regular basis. Someone once said to me, “You are a writer. You need to write. You need to write, write, write to a whole new you.” To build that writing space you need commitment and time as well as a passion for the written word from within.

Do teachers need to be writers to teach writing? I think they need to experience what it means to be a writer. I think teachers need to know what role writing has in their lives to be able to show students what writing means to them. They need to reflect on the role of writing in their life. And, although unnecessary for the teaching of writing, for the lucky students, they might live that writers’ life and provide from that life inspiration to their students.

In preparation for allowing teachers to explore themselves as writers, I have been reflecting on what it means to me to be a writer—think like a writer, live in the world like a writer. Below is a list of questions I asked myself around who I am as a writer. If you are a teacher of writing, these might be helpful to you.

Before writing or creating, what are some of your favorite rituals?
When I am writing something and I am not quite sure of the direction I am taking the writing, I like to do something physical--walk, rake leaves, clean my house--in the physical activities I often clear my mind so that I can really concentrate on the task at hand. It also helps my thinking to be in a place of creativity and production.

What kind of writer are you and what do you love about writing?
I think most people would say I am a good technical writer--I write for clarity in a very natural way. What I love about writing is the creative aspect--the part that reaches into your spirit and brings out something that you couldn't name before you wrote the words. There is a creation there that is very fulfilling--to me that is what poetry is all about and I love writing poetry.

What inspires you to write?
Things that touch me in a deep way inspire me to write. Other writing, something beautiful in nature, people who do and live with passion and meaning. All of these things inspire me to live and write deeply. The living and the writing are interconnected to me.

What words of support and encouragement can you share with other writers?
Don't write for perfection. Write for expression. The first time you write don't feel like you need a finished product. The finished product comes through the process. Also, keep a stack of books that you find inspirational near you to read on a regular basis. Two of my favorites are Julia Cameron’s, The Right to Write, a small book that has short pieces about writing and living the writer’s life. My other favorite is Mary Oliver's poetry book called Thirst. I love her poetry and it inspires my writing when I need encouragement.

Do you ever dislike and feel frustrated by your writing? If so, what kinds of things help you?
When I am frustrated with my writing, I put it away--for a day, for a month, for an hour--for a period so that I can get perspective. When I come back with fresh eyes, I can usually see what wasn't working and fix it, or come to the task in a completely different way, or throw it away and start a new piece.


What questions are important to you as a writer? I am interested in other’s thinking about what it means to be a teacher of writing who sees themselves as a writer. If this is something you have explored, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Snapshots

Home from Connecticut. Used the day to spend with my daughter and explore the new technology that inspired me during the Institute. I downloaded Picasa and spent a good part of the day organizing photos (haphazardly--still in the learning stage). And creating a collage that I want as my desktop screen. Haven't figured out how to do that yet, but have figured out how to put that same collage into my blog.

So often we get caught up in all of the business and things needing attention. Today it was nice to look at my life as I organized and downloaded pictures on a small scale and be grateful. Snapshots of time.

Part of becoming good at something is exploring. Today I participated in exploring technology and blogging. It is a wonderful life!

Why blog?

I am at the Communities for Learning Summer Institute, 2009. Two years ago I started this blog with what I call my Passion for Literacy Statement. And the statement just sat there--no one read it or commented on it (not that I told anyone to read it or comment on it--I thought they would just come). The in-interactivity made me feel that if I were to use this spot it would be like a journal or diary and I already do that somewhere else. So I abandoned it.

I also felt that to use this blog I only needed to post my finished thinking and I just don't have time to finish pieces of writing. Plus I don't have a lot of finished thinking. So I abandoned it.

At our fellowship this summer, Angela, one of our fellows, gave me two amazing insights. She talked about the purpose of blogging as different from that of publishing an essay or book. Blogging is a place to evolve one's thinking by putting writing in a place where collective thinking can happen.

First--she talked about how to engage other readers who are bloggers. She described the way to get others to read a blog is to first read their blogs, comment about their thinking and make connections that help other bloggers to realize that reading your blog might be of interest to them and that we both benefit from reading what each other has written.

Secondly, she talked about blogging as a place to crystalyze and to stretch thinking--not as a forum to print final thinking. That makes so much sense to me and it lifted up the pressure I felt to only put on my blog finished pieces. As I read your work and comment on it, my thinking evolves as it does when you read my writing and it causes you to wonder, or it makes you think of a concept in a slightly different way.

So I am going to venture into the land of the blog once again. I am going to start small--read and comment on others' blogs at least three times a week, write in this space in a regular way and look to use this cyber-space to interact as a way to learn and to stretch my thinking about literacy, leadership and educational issues.

Literacy and Justice for All

One evening after dinner I asked my then first-grade son what he had learned at school that day. He quickly stood up and began to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which he said he had learned “by heart”. Placing his hand over his heart, he proclaimed in his six-year old sing-song voice the familiar pledge which is a beacon of our country’s heritage. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God with “litercy” and justice for all.” In his unassuming, simple manner, my son’s recitation of words he had learned in school encapsulated what is important to me in education and why I became a reading teacher. Fifteen years later, his words have continued to be a beacon that has helped guide my decisions in my work with students and teachers. It has inspired my work with children as I teach them to read, my work with teachers as I support them to become quality teachers of literacy, and my work with schools as I help develop systems that assure quality literacy instruction for all students.

I believe that to attain literacy is to gain liberty. This pledge that we declare everyday in our schools says that we live in a country which offers liberty and justice for all people. The beacon of hope that has greeted “the tired and poor” from many cultures to our community has been the promise of liberty for all. Yet in my 20+ years as an educator, I have seen that opportunities for all, because of a lack of literacy, are not the same.

I think about Lizzy and Tyler, fifth grade readers I taught in my early years as a teacher who had not become fluent—slowly plodding through the text, often stuck on a word—resorting only to sounding out the word, phoneme by phoneme, in an attempt to identify the word. As they were working through their text, their friends were fluidly reading much more complicated text, having their world expand with ideas and experiences which were unattainable through the written word to these slow and unsystematic readers. Their liberty was curtailed by their lack of literacy.

I think about Damon, an eighth-grader in my English class in an urban school district. He was poor and illiterate, reading and writing as an advanced emergent student at fourteen years of age. I was teaching 100 students a day and was responsible for his literacy education, but at the time did not have the adequate knowledge or the means to instruct him at a level where he could grow in literacy. He had no other opportunities throughout his school day to read books and have lessons at his instructional level. As he was exposed to more and more difficult text, not only did he slow down in literacy acquisition, his skills regressed and his self-esteem plummeted. What opportunities did he have, as a young man, who in a number of years should be able to take his place in the adult community? How would he fill out applications and read simple instructions, much less expand his horizons to attain his dreams. His liberty was curtailed by his lack of literacy.

I think of Daniella and Rashaun, tenth graders I have observed in a social studies class who were asked to read a text that was much more complex than they could actually read. The ideas that they needed to understand the social studies principles being presented were within that text, but these students didn’t have access to these ideas because they couldn’t read the words. While students within their class were gaining knowledge about our world’s history through reading, Daniella and Rashaun and other students like them were depending on the conversation during class to gain the necessary information. During that conversation, those who read the text with understanding were deepening their understanding while the Daniellas and Rashauns of the class were getting the information for the first time. Their liberty was curtailed by their lack of literacy.

I believe that to attain literacy is to gain liberty. In my own evolution as an educator, I have wanted justice for all children through the opportunity that literacy can offer. I became a reading teacher in response to the struggle I witnessed of some older at-risk readers and saw the lack of self-esteem and motivation that comes with deficient literacy learning for these older children. I have been a “first” reading teacher, providing to young students opportunities to read and expand their literacy base at an early age so that they become established readers before adolescence. I have worked with middle and high school readers, giving them strategies to overcome their literacy deficits so that they can use reading and writing to advance their goals and dreams as they enter into adulthood. I have worked with teachers, coaching them to understand the reading process and develop tools to provide strong literacy instruction to all students. I have worked with administrators and educational institutions to develop systems that recognize and meet the specific instructional needs of students at risk. These systems put into place measures ensuring all students receive strong instruction and makes certain the students at risk do not fall through the cracks.

As an educator and as an educational leader, my mission is to work for justice for all as I work to provide literacy for all. Whether I am working with one child at a time, groups of students, a group of teachers, or a school system, I strive to provide opportunities for the Damons, Tylers, Lizzys, Daniellas and Rashauns of our schools to become independent readers and writers. The beacon of hope for today’s students lies in their capability to be independent thinkers and learners which is at the very heart of why literacy is so important. The development of literacy opens opportunities. The development of a strong literacy foundation will allow our students to be more productive, and fulfilled citizens of the world. As an educator, it is my challenge to work for literacy for all. In my pursuit of literacy for all, I work for a world that advances “liberty and justice for all.”