Ready for Next Year! Uplifting Day!

A book suggested to me: If She Only Knew Me – Jeff Gray and Heather Thomas

Paul’s TIW

Story Writing

-          Louder Than a Bomb – poetry slam organization

-          Now Me, New Me – piece of paper divided into two sides. Left side said is “Now Me” and right side said is “New Me”. You give students a topic. “Productivity” “health” “relationships” and they write a statement as to what is going on today. On the now side, you write the same sentence in a way you wish it were in present tense form.

-          Example: “I don’t trust people enough to build new friendships often” à “I give people a chance before using trust as an excuse”

-          7-day Challenge – the students are challenged to doing good deeds. Day 1 they do 1 good deed, Day 2 they do 2 good deeds, all the way up to 7 good deeds on day 7. They also encourage a new person to join the 7-day Challenge each day of the Challenge.

-          The (school name) Wordshop – get away from curricular activities – place for students to go write, create, act, perform (stage, coffee shop, tables, lounge area)

-          Letting Go – writing poems about something they need to let go, heal over, grieve over. Put the poems in a balloon and let them go.

-          This I believe – what is it that students believe in. Students made video about their belief. “Happiness” was one girl’s belief in her video.

o   “Shut Up & Smile”

-          Sunshine Law – it was about the government being transparent but it actually relates to writing and students being able to admit what bothers us and being transparent about what we feel.

Essential Questions: How can I maintain the engaging and transformational nature of authentic storytelling while giving necessary attention to the improvement of academic writing

Jeff Baxter’s TIW

-          Motivating Young Writers

-          Students often are saying

o   Too hard

o   Boring

o   I don’t have anything to say

o   I’ll be wrong

-          He says students who are afraid to start writing have “Page Fright”

-          Comparing Newton’s Law of Motion to writing. The first rule of writing is to simply beginning – get moving.

-          Writing is cumulative:

o   Everything you write today prepares us for the writing task tomorrow

o   Have the courage to write those first words – stay in motion

o   There is no wasted motion

o   Writing is like a sport – you’ve got to practice

o   Humans are imprinted with the innate desire to communicate.

-          Teachers write what the students have to write.

Power Writing – do this 3 times a day, twice of a week for 4 weeks (we are doing layups – practicing)

-          When I say “go”…

-          Write for 1 minute using the word at least once.

o   Write as much as you can

o   As fast as you can

o   As well as you can

-          All 3 rounds at once

-          Content review

-           

Pickle

Pickle reminds me of the move Little Rascals. Little Rascals was my favorite movie as a kid. The little kid, I think his name was Porky, he had a pickle and he started singing that song, I’ve sang before, “I have a pickle, I have a pickle, I have a pickle hey hey hey hey” 55 (number is how many words)

-          It can’t be wrong as long as you make a good effort and do your best

-          What did you observe?

-          Don’t just make sentence lists or brainstorm

-          What do you notice happening with each successive round?

-          Why?

 

Shock

I remember when I was a little kid, we had electric fence around our house because we lived in the country. My brother was playing basketball by me and the basketball went on the other side of the fence. He told me I could go get it, that the fence wouldn’t shock me. When I touched it the first time, it didn’t shock me, the second time it didn’t shock me, the third time it did. This is when I learned about the current of electricity. 86

-          First Essay Writing

-          Students draw a map of a neighborhood they have lived in and they can get as detailed as they want

-          On the map put the numbers 1-5 in 5 locations within your neighborhood and make a legend. What were 5 events that happened in your neighborhood?

-          The students discuss about what good writing is, what they like, suggestions. It makes students feel proud

Here was my story:

Everyday Jim Loop would pull up to our village mailboxes between 2pm and 3pm. He would sit and wait for the mailman to come with the mail. I think Jim Loop was a smart man, so I think he knew the mail never got there before 4. He was a large man. It was difficult for him to walk. I think he partly did this because it was easier than getting in and out of his car if he had been in town. I also think he did it because I talked to him all the time. The best part of Jim Loop was he had a dog. It was a butterscotch miniature teacup poodle. That dog was sweet and innocent. Every day I would run to his car, ask him how he was, then pick Butterscotch out of his arms. Butterscotch was Jim’s dog, but he didn’t seem to mind me most days. He would lick my face, cuddle up on my arm, and then scratch me when he was ready for me to place him back in his owners lap. Not scratch in a “mean dog” way, but in an “I love you, but I love him more” kind of way. I wanted this dog, or a dog just like him. I think I told Jim I wanted his dog every day. Jim always said, “You can’t have my Butterscotch, but you can have this one.” And every day, out of his shirt pocket he would grab a butterscotch candy. Then he would talk about school or whatever until the mail man came. I was an excited child, so I would often run home and tell my mom everything we were talking about, then run back to talk more. When the mailman would arrive, Jim always handed me his mailbox key that was around a stretchy lanyard. I’d get his mail, he would tell me how much he hates bills, then would tell me to have a good night, be good, and see you tomorrow. I remember the day we all got the letters in the mail that told us we would all have to move out of these homes. It seemed like no one knew it was coming. We were a close neighborhood and when I say close, I mean our houses were close and we knew everything about everyone. I realized later that this letter, this mailbox, meant no more neighbors. I remember the last day that Jim Loop checked his mail in that neighborhood. The routine stayed the same, running to the car, talking, picking up Butterscotch, eating a butterscotch candy, and talking about whatever an old man and a young girl talk about, but what changed were his words. “Have a good night, be good, and see you….around”. My family and I moved further out into country and there I lived without neighbors nearby until I moved to Kansas City. When I moved to Kansas City, I was so excited to live around people and have neighbors, but it didn’t take me long to figure out, neighbors in Kansas City weren’t the same as neighbors in the Cement Plant Village. Neighbors came and went, but we were family out there, and is now only a memory.

Beauty (my writing from today)

Today we experienced great things in the morning (separate post) Then we went out in our groups to eat lunch then find a place in the city to sit and write. This was suppose to kind of be our cultural piece...He goes mine...

Beauty

I walked into the library and I immediately started scoping out a place where we could all sit. I saw five chairs near the corner of the library and said, “Score!” I was all excited we were there, excited to write, and excited to be doing this with amazing people! I grabbed a chair and started pushing it to the window. I suppose I thought a good view would be a tranquil experience. Nicole said, “It’s interesting that we put our backs to the culture”. I sat, looked out the window and saw the divides of J.C. Nichols, the problem of the city. Why did I want to look at that? For the six years I’ve been in Kansas City and the buildings and ‘skyscapes’ have always stood out to me. As we sat in a row of four by the corner of the windows in the Plaza Library, I realized beauty is what has been enticing me to this area for years. But what is beauty? So I turned around to find out.

Although I probably looked like the odd duck out since I was no longer facing the window like the rest of my group, I didn’t care, I had a quest to find the heart, the soul, and the root of the beauty that sucked me to the corner of that library. I sat and looked around. There didn’t seem to be a sense of urgency anywhere. Except for this girl, sitting and bouncing her legs. Not in a, “I need to go to the bathroom” type of way, but a, “this text message just made me very uncomfortable” type of way. She had a snug summery dress on showing the skin that had been sun kissed. She had her laptop out and some papers, maybe working on something for school or waiting on someone to show up, but seemingly disconnected from the work that laid in front of her and the gadget connected to her thumbs. Everyone around her seemed nearly motionless.

There was a middle aged man who seemed like he was in no hurry to hurry up and get out of here. He looked tired by the way he was sprawled out on the couch. Half slumped sideways, half sitting. His pale arms held his head up. His clothes were worn, but not dirty. Tennis shoes that look like they have seen more miles than my car, but not sloppy. He was looking at atlases. Was he going somewhere or just wondering where he could be? But again, seemed to be in no hurry to find out.

There were two old gentleman reading near our group. One who seemed to be intrigued by the massive novel in his hand. As he read he took big long deep breathes, his lip would go out every once and awhile. He often put his hand on his head, or rubbed his cheek with the side of his knuckles as his fist was loosely balled up. His jaw moved, maybe you could say it dropped, when he moved his hand to his head. He laid the book on his lap and presses his head down further like he was really getting into it.

The other gentleman was floating his way through a magazine. I could not see what kind, but it had a lot of bright pictures. He was probably twenty years older than the other man, but looked like his physical health was well, externally at least.

There was another man in his mid-twenties sitting at a table with books spread out. He looks tired, but engaged and interested in what he was looking at and reading.

At that moment, a young man walks in with arms full of books, a briefcase, and loose papers. He did not slam the items on the ground, but he seemed to have no care in the world as to what was going on around him in the library. He sat down hard in the chair and opened a book. I could see the large title “REAL MONEY” on the front. He sat and read for about three minutes before getting up and moving. He walked with a stride, he dressed in a plaid shirt and khakis. The plaid shirt had a color scheme that oddly matched the freshly cleaned khakis. He went around the row of books, must have placed something over there, and walked out the door.

As he was walking out, a large man walked into the library with a wife beater on tucked into dirty jeans. He had a white towel around his neck. You could see his sweat glistening on his face and arms. His steps were heavy as he walked towards the kiosk to sign up for a computer. He stood around waiting for a computer to come open. He placed his towel on his chair, sat and began reading something on a news website.

At that moment a small child, maybe two or three started crying. Her mom hushed her in a way that was comforting. A way that my mother would comfort me when I cried. Her child looked tired, and hot. The older kids that stood near placed their hand on the child as if to say without speaking, “We understand, but stop crying.”

At this time, Nicole asked if we wanted to talk about writings. I always want to talk, but I was seeing a different side to life, to beauty that I had not recognized, or took the time to recognize in really long time. I moved to Kansas City and was always amazed and astonished by beauty, but I looked at beauty by the buildings and the skylines. I would find beauty when I drove out to the lake to take pictures of reflections, trees, and nature. But I was realizing while sitting in that library that the beauty in life comes from the people in it, not what the people are in.

We packed up our things and headed to the large conference room to talk about what we wrote. Nicole and Michelle were stuck. Jeff started to make observations about wealth in such a powerful way. Then our conversation shifted. In the man van on the way to the library, we started expressing our desire to be close to one another. We all agreed that friendships were tough for us. We loved our friends, so we were either really involved in people’s lives or we were completely uninvolved. We decided that since we all live in different areas and worked in different schools we had to find to way to stay attached, to stay writing, to stay thinking and learning and growing. We decided on having blogs, we would write together and read each other’s writing. I had a blog already made, but the other three designed there’s. We wanted to stay connected, to have a reason to write, an audience that likes, no loves, what we say. We wanted to feel valued too.

As we were wrapping up talking and about to walk to the van, Jeff said, “I think we all agree, that our cultural experience was this group right here.” I looked at him, like “No dude, I’m going to write about what I saw.” We all kind of laughed, but what I came to realize is, we too are a part of our culture. The culture of our lives is what we were surrounded by today.

I walked into the library and sat with my back turned to true beauty of our city. After I turned around, the more I looked up, the more I wanted to write. I was disturbed by moving into the room, but decided a culture isn’t in a stagnate place, it’s where we are. The beauty is in the people we around. Whether that is in a library, at a SI session, in our Rite Club, on a street corner, a crowded restaurant, in our homes, or at our schools.

Beauty is…

Tired

Present

Nervous

Hurried

Interested

Peaceful

Loving

Similar

Different

Kind

Sad

Happy

Together

Beauty is people.

Technology and Vocabulary!!

Something for teachers to look into is "Digital IS: #MOOC - on twitter. "Massive Open Online Course"

Video by Nic Askew: Connected Learning (take aways from video…great stuff!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFdzz26g-EE

·         We have to educate everyone to be creative and think about things.
·         Find a way so learning and learning institutions cannot fail us – they become environments/ecologies
·         What do we want kids to learn? What are the goals? What is the content? What is the outcome and how do we get students there? Individualize how students will get there.
·         What’s the experience we want students to have? Is the kid engaged?
·         We have been so focused on outcomes we forgot the learner and forgot we have a passion for learning
·         Mentor or peer who is going to interest and support them in helping find a sense of purpose, how can we bring people together who want to learn together.
·         Technology bringing us closer together?
·         Work that is always in progress and never be afraid to fail
·         Have people outside the classroom become involved in student’s lives. Reading their work.

Technology Ideas

·         Today’s Meet: Exit slip, questions
·         Reflection blogs
·         Edmodo – educational like facebook. There are some downfalls about this.
·         Future Me – you can email yourself in the future. You type something now, and it emails you the words later.
·         Wordle – typing papers, what word do I use too much?
·         Padlet – type in responses and the pop on the screen – good for teachers with 1-2-1 computers for students.

You teach the scientist, the science, then the technology

You teach the mathematician, the math, then the technology
Your teach the writer, the writing then the technology
Do not teaching technology in isolation or it becomes “another task”

Lisa’s TIW
Stanford and Sons video – code switching

Essential Question:How can I utilize vocabulary instruction to improve, reading comprehension and decrease writing anxiety among ESL and ESLLS students?

ESL – English as a second language
ELL – English Language Learners
-          Students who didn’t speak English first
ESLLS – English Students Lacking Language Skills
-          Students whose first language is English, but still do not understand it

When ELL and ESLLS who are very interactive with social relationships, teachers often misconceive their understanding of interaction within writing and academics.

Recall a vocabulary exercise you have conducted in your classroom that were successful.

Write a plan that utilizes the same vocabulary strategy, but gear it specifically to ESL/ESLLS students.
-          When getting students to word used other than said when writing dialogue.
-          We brainstormed words that we knew …asked, yelled, screamed, cried, laughed – I was trying to get students to use other words they already knew, not necessarily introducing new words.
-          We could have talked about the pattern of “ed” in many words. We could have got chapter books out with a lot of dialogue and wrote down all the words we seen before or after quotations and then talked about their lists and made our class list larger.
-          Acting out what each of those words mean. “suggested” for example is of a word students don’t understand.

Book Share – Professional texts – will post pictures of the books I want to read!

Scribe notes....with drawing

Scribe notes from todays presentations that I created.]

Andrew’s rap is represented by the record label given to him by Summer Institute on the wall.

Carole brought us muffins, there located on the first desk.

Katie’s TIW is represented by the thought bubble on the white board, making school experiences related to the world outside of school.

Makayla’s name is on the board, not because she is in trouble, but because we helped “solve” her reader’s notebook problem. Check.

The puzzle pieces and building blocks on the blue carpet on the right side of the picture explain this quote by Ayers.

“I believe that learning is powerful when information is integrated into experiences and larger personal contexts. Discreet bits and pieces of information, random and disconnected, are not strong building blocks toward knowledge” 

The middle desk has a book with an exclamation point representing Jonathan Erwin’s proactive approach of teaching the importance in the real world.

Bonnie’s TIW is in the trophy case which looks more like a bookshelf. The trophy on top represents our students who have the desire to do well, desire to care, or the desire to work hard (Bonnie included in this). “Dude is crazy”, as said by a student analyzing Freud. Ted described this student as a “hot mess” which is represented by the fire burning the one and half page final.

Bonnie’s essential question about encouraging students to care about their writing is represented by the heart border around the white board. Getting them to understand the value of writing outside the walls of academia is shown by the crack in the corner of wall. This shows the breaking of the barrier between school and the “real world”. 

Marcia Magolda suggests that students need to move away from external authority and trust their internal authority, which is why I put an “I WANT YOU” looking poster on the wall. Pointing at students to take responsibility for their own learning.

The I clock on the wall which shows time going by and the trust fall with students making out the letters “C-A-P-A-B-L-E” speaks to what Magolda also said about giving students time to practice and trust that they are capable.

The TV plug which is shorted out trying to plug into the ED outlet represents the lack of value attached to education in this country.

The old school TV and the green man on the TV is “John Green” talking about what reading is.

The far right desk has a book with words on one side and a mouth on the other side, this represents what John Green said about books being a conversation between the author and reader. He also said to make ourselves a thinker in the process which is why there is a thought bubble above that desk. (Yes, I know desk can’t talk)

A principal Linda knows responded and the words “Success” and “Expectations” written on the trophy case are from his quote, “We can’t lower expectations and expect success”. If our expectations are low, then our success rate will not be high. This is another reason that trophy case is burning.

SI 6-19 (look at the name of the school on the white board)

Tuesday - Emotions and constraints vs. choices

What do we really mean when we ask students to produce Academic Writing?
- students often have no ownership of their writing. They are interested and vested by they do not feel like an expert, therefore they struggle.
- some students do not feel like they are good writers, which is a teachers job to drag that out of them.
- students often see constraints but not choices. They struggle with understanding that they have a choice of the way they use constraints or manipulate the constraints to make it their own.

What assignment influenced the way you think about function, process, and value of writing?

Strategy
- One person writes something at the beginning. The next person responds to the previous person. You fold it back so that the next person only responds to the person before. When opened back up it is a continually response. Could be used in response to any kind of reading or writing.

Literacy Luncheon
Bring a dish of food which is related to family, culture, or tradition and share why it is important to you.

Our request....

I am participating in the Greater Kansas City Writing Project Summer Institute. The SI read Cross-X by Joe Miller, about the Central High Debate Team, and Some of My Best Friends are Black by Tanner Colby about the way race dictated the creation of Kansas City neighborhoods.  After reading, each participant was asked to come up with one question that they deemed significant, but did not have an answer for and that maybe there are no easy answers for. 

 

Each participant is sending the attached list of questions to their school administrator and others in education with the request that they choose one of the questions and respond with  their personal thoughts.  These responses will be shared in our large group during the program. 

 

I hope you can assist us in gathering a variety of reflections on these important issues.

 

6/11/2013 Questions over the books:

·         How can we create a place where dissonance can lead to growth?

·         How can you get others to see people for who they are and accept different as ok rather than as inferiority to the status quo?

·         Why aren’t there more black educators?

·         How can the terminology of “academic success” be altered in order to create the most beneficial experience to students?

·         How do we help without enabling and challenge without condescending?

·         How do we disentangle issues of class and issues of race?

·         How do we start dialogue about race and show respect?

·         How can we be advocates for our students without overstepping boundaries by imposing our own values?

·         Isn’t it human nature to define an “us” and a “them?”

·         How do we break the cycle of fear of the unknown or breach the gap that separates the races?

·         How do we move beyond the fear that compels people away from each other?

·         How can I create or encourage community?

·         What can we do to ensure integration happens organically when the very nature of ensuring something is the antithesis of organic?

·         Can I engage all of them?

·         How do we overturn racism in neighborhood covenants that still exist today?

·         How do we help older members of our society accept the coming majority/minority and not let fear rule their decisions?

·         Who are we inviting to dinner and who are we not inviting to dinner?

·         How do we change the climate of underperforming schools without demoralizing or under-appreciating the teachers who work there?

·         Are the scars of what JC Nichols did to Kansas City and therefore to our schools so deep that we are unable to pull our way out?

Personal Reflection on Writing Project thus far....

How is it that throughout most of my schooling I watched the clock, but seem to lose hours of time with SI fellows! We write and reflect a lot. Each person, each bit of information, each reflection goes deep down. It has already challenged my thinking and makes me look at other perspectives respectfully. I am overwhelmed with the feeling of how much I am learning and maybe by how much I didn't know, or how much no one has ever forced me to think about. I love the feeling, but naturally, I'm a fixer and realizing that I can't fix all these things, maybe even any of these things cuts deep.

This program has made me think about what I received as a student, in elementary, high school, college, and now. It has  made me challenge my own ways of teaching and ask myself if I'm fostering the needs of students. The definition of balance has came very clear to me, but the way we find balance seems very impossible.

Thousands of Resources!

Day 3 - Day one of TIW's

Kimberly – TIW

Take Aways:
·         When we look at a child with the way we think they should be processing, it isn’t right, it isn’t developmentally appropriate
·         Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, students needs must be met before learning can happen
·         Having students work on their social emotional intelligence by specifically targeting social awareness. Students can do this by role playing or doing an activity called “come to my boat if…..”
·         “if momma ain’t happy, nobody is happy”  - if the teacher isn’t happy, is the classroom happy?
·         1 out of 50 states have clear standards in SEL – what do they take in account for teacher?

Sean TIW

·        Eat, shoots, and leaves by Lynne Truss
·         The Writing Revolution by Peg Tyre – The Atlantic
·         What proactive instructional strategies can I employ to help students to construct correct grammar in sentences?
·         NCTE.org – formal grammar does not accomplish positive goals and is actually harmful because it takes time away from more profitable activities
·         Grammargirl
·        How Self- Expression damaged My Students –Robert Pondiscio – The Atlantic
·         Jeff Anderson – Everyday Editting, mechanicallyInclined, Ten Things Every Writer Needs to Know
·         More explicitly stating grammar instruction
·         The new well-tempered sentence
·         Ai Weiwei – “I have always admired people who write… writing is a beautiful skill…I needed to learn, because I never had a chance when I grew up… the education system failed. I felt frustrated; here was this beautiful tool to write and communicate, and I couldn’t use it!”

PQP Strategy

Upon hearing or reading students work, PQP is a strategy you can use

P - Praise
Point out something that is great in their paper
Q - Question
Ask a clarifying question or a question that will get them to question their own writing
P - Polish
Make a suggestion

pdf file: 501 Writing ideas – expository/persuasive/literary analysis, several examples of high, medium, and low

Day two - Cross-X and Power of Place

We listened to a guest's TIW at the beginning.
Key take aways:
His TIW was about plagiarism and he referred to the case from 2001 at Piper high school where  a teacher failed 28 students for plagiarism based on what she found on Turnitin.com. The sad thing about this is they were punished for a crime of plagiarism but they didn't learn anything, they didn't learn anything from getting in trouble or when they were stealing someone else's stuff, however know one pointed this out. they did the same assignment for years, an assignment which asks students to be experts, when they are not experts.

"Attractive nuance" - something that is easy to take or very tempting. Plagiarism is a attractive nuance.

I like that he referred to Turnitin.com is "gotcha" software - we can catch and fail, but writing won't get better.

He asked if improved writing instruction can solve this issue?

www = whatever, whenever, wherever - it is available to our students, we need to teach them how to use it.

Can you really separate creativity and research?

Writing Project - A enticing metaphoric whirl wind

Here is an outline of today. I have a few of my own writings within this blog (all in italics) Disclaimer - I didn't edit all of them, I free wrote them in class as a response to something that was going on and directly copied them into the blog. The first day was amazing - I'm very excited for tomorrow! Enjoy! =)

Today was the introduction of all introductions.

We started off the day by reading our metaphorically written introductions of ourselves. I will include mine. there were many great introductions. I was very impressed by the different genres fellows chose to express themselves. We had slideshows, visual poetry, show and tell, acrostic poems, "I'm from" poems, comparisons to ants, wind, and dance shoes, and others.

1969 Vista Cruiser.

My eyes are the headlights and reverse lights. I need to know where I’ve been and see where I’m going.

An upgraded stereo are my ears, I tend tune in and out easily.

My hands are the gears. I have a handle on the way I shift through the motions of life.

My head is the steering wheel. I can turn in the right direction.

My mouth is the rumbling of the car, it doesn’t ever stop.

The body is my smile, it’s the first thing people usually see.

My heart is the fuel. Without putting my heart into what I do, it doesn’t run well.

Speaking in public is a starter going bad. Takes a while to get started, but once it’s started it seems to run fine.

My navigational skills are the mirrors, always backwards.

My mind is the trunk, always full.

Laughter is my windshield, blocks anything from getting inside.

The students I teach are the tires, they keep me moving.

Poetry is my floor mat, it’s where I stomp out all the dirt.

Conversation, laughing, the arts, traveling, music and being around people are like all the parts of the engine that help me run.

My facial expressions are brake lights, they warn you of what I’m thinking before I even say it.

My humor is my windshield wipers on a sunny day, dry.

Getting impatient is the sound of my horn, not used too often.

My morning caffeine is my seatbelt, I don’t go anywhere without it.

My feet are skid marks. I leave a path behind me, so I have to remember to make ones I want to see again.

At first impression I’m a 1967 Chevy SS, fast paced and always moving, but really I’m just a 1969 vista cruiser, easy going and laid back.

 

A facilitator presented their TIW

Take Aways:

•  Using train of thought writing in the classroom will help see how students are precieving different things or "diagnose understanding" 
• Inquiry is not linear, but rather circular or without direction.
• Valuing confusion can show more learning than accepting un-thought out garbage that sounds good.
• My favorite part of the TIW was looking at a painting called "Action Panting #2" by Mark Tansey

• We had to write our "train of thought" for this painting. I was very caught up on the painting because of the how unrealistic it was. I was unable to get past that in the time given to write.
• In one sentence we had to capture or write a caption that demonstrated the thinking of this painting.
• "What message is the artist trying to send by using this mode of creativity, painting, to make a scene of an event in time, yet surrounded by things very unrealistic to that era?" 

Another facilitator's TIW

Take Aways:

 

Question: How can I use narrative writing to help my students see themselves rightly and therefore envision a meaningful future?

He teaches Beowulf to his class, so he had his students do a responsive writing about the days of their youth and what they were filled with after sharing an example of his youth which was very personal to him.

Here was my  “My Days of my youth have been filled with…”

My days of my youth have been filled with hospital rooms and ER visits. I remember spending an abundance of time in clinics, specialists, one doctor after the next. I remember being told they didn't know if i would ever out grow the asthma with the way my lungs were. I remember my mom crying because she couldn’t do what moms were suppose to do, fix it. I remember things going on in my brothers life, but I would be sick, so the attention went from to him to me and I felt guilty for that. I remember hearing my parents having conversations in their bedrooms about me being sick again, as I slept on the couch where it was cooler and my mom getting up every time I coughed to make sure I was okay. I remember going outside at 1 or 2 in the morning wrapped up in blankets so the cold air would consume so I could maintain breathing. I remember crying because I couldn't stop coughing and apologizing for needing to go to the ER again. I remember being in middle school being asked to go to Dallas, and the day the charter bus was schedule to leave, I couldn't go because I could chance not being able to use m breathing machine on the 12+ hour bus trip down there. I remember going tests done, I remember doctors saying that the lab results didn’t show anything and I would have to ride this out. I remember moving to Kansas City and sitting in ER rooms and clinics alone trying to remember to tell the doctors everything they needed to know before they gave me medication which was more like a tic-tac to me then a medication. I remember my mom overnighting me her own medications just so I could be awake enough to be at school so I didn't fail. I remember the first time I over came a cold as an adult without using antibiotics.

After students wrote their struggles they had to name struggles in their life, list patterns, what they learned from their patterns, what was the common good that could come it. He shared an example of a students paper and shared how this child's paper helped him view him differently in class.

 

We all have struggles that we can name and list of and relive in our heads over and over again, but we must also reflect on what we want to do because of those struggles, who we want to become despite those struggles, or in spite of those struggles. If I were to use my example from above to spin off into the common good, I'd have to start it off with "My days of my youth have been filled with living"