Teach with Your Heart

[Ray Hirschman]

Wow! As I was searching for a way to satisfy the reading requirement for class as well as finding a source of motivation and inspiration, I decided to read a book that I'm sure most of you have already read. Years ago I saw the movie Freedom Writers and cried like a baby; I felt this was the right place to search for lighting the fire underneath our imminent return to school.

Next year, I'll be teaching freshman English and Poetry/Mythology to juniors and seniors at Reed High School. I'm very excited about incorporating some of the elements introduced during the ISI class, but wanted to taste the effects real-world application has on our students. Although this book is titled as a memoir, it's main focus was how writing changed lives. Through a teacher's unfailing desire to connect with her students, she successfully used writing to help her students (and herself) heal, grow, learn, and overcome.

Erin Gruwell taught at an inner-city school in Long Beach where she faced apathy, collegial interference, and almost paralyzing self-criticism. She made connecting with her students her main priority and helped her students mature from non-writers to published authors. The main component of this book that I feel is applicable to the classroom is Erin's amazing ability to bring the world into her classroom and her classroom into the world. She has an uncanny ability to relate her writing lessons to real-world events that also connectes to the lives of her students. I try constantly to do this and have felt minute bursts of success; however, I am excited to amp up this element of my teaching.

Questions:
1. How can we as educators more effectively incorporate real-world applications into our daily writing instruction to help our students become better communicators?

2. From a writing prompt standpoint, how might we use stories about real people who have overcome adversity to help empower our students in their own quest for self discovery and ultimately increase writing skills?

[Wendy Ritter]

Hello Eddie,

I have not seen Freedom Writers or read the book but understand the power of the story. I think it is our mission and desire to connect with our students and help them grow personally and academically. Your questions are quite thought provoking. In books I have read, there was discussion about students' ability to transfer good writing skills to writing assessments when taught with authentic writing instead of "test- taking writing". How do we do it? Good question. It seems first students need to take time to determine the ideas, topics, and concerns in which they are most interested. This may come from daily discussion of current events or things happening within the student's life. Your Sacred Writing Time may help students collect these ideas. The writing and writing instruction can then evolve depending upon the topic. I think students' writing improves when they are writing about topics which are important to them. Thinking about the technology book we read, having students create a website or blog regarding a current event or a topic from the curriculum might be a way to use authentic writing and improve students' communication skills. The age-old letter writing or writing articles for a newpaper may also be a way to incorporate real-world applications to topics of interest the students. Using different applications may help students to understand how to write to different audiences. From the information I have read, students are more apt to produce quality writing when writing about a topic of interest to them. So, it seems, using real-world events and applications can only lead to better writing.

Using stories of real people who have overcome adversity is a great idea to help students with their own personal growth as well as opening their eyes to diversity. My thought is to have a class discussion regarding the key points and emotions of the story. During this discussion a thesis statment or general statements can be created. These statments could then be used as writing prompts. Students could either free write about a key point, their thoughts about the story, or one of the statements. I think you will get more emotional and heartfelt writing if you use a very general prompt or just allow students to write. Having students share their writing and discuss again may help them move towards some self discovery because hearing others' ideas often sparks new thoughts and ideas. After reading several stories, students could compare and contrast the stories or compare and contrast the stories with their own lives. Students could even write journal entries or blogs in the character's voice to teach perspective and voice.
I think students will be impacted by just the sharing and discussion of the stories. The writing piece would just add to that experience and thought process.

I would love to hear how you end up using these stories in your class and how the stories impact your students. Great idea.

Enjoy the remaining days of summer,
Wendy

[Mary Lynn]

Hi Eddie
I loved that movie! I taught in the inner city of Los Angeles for 4 years, and even though I taught elementary, I identified.
Because I teach third grade, writing for real life applications would be a little different than for your high school students. My ideas are:
1.Ask a student to write a letter to the principal/myself if they disagree with a rule or procedure in the classroom or the school, and state the reasons for their perspective.
2. Write a letter to an elected official about social/environmental concerns that might come up in class discussions.
3. Write a letter to a fellow student to try to resolve conflicts or express appreciation for their friendship or support.
I think that having participated in the Summer Institute, I will now be seeing more ways to include writing that I may not have been aware of previously.

In regard to the second question, I think there are so many oustanding individuals in the world today. You could use movies or books to learn about biographies of people who had major adversities in their lives. I would think that kids could probably relate to peers their own age but might relate to different age groups also. Reading about a child who has battled cancer or another major life issue and looking for ways that they identify with their struggle could help them become more empowered in their own quest for self discovery. It might also ignite more compassion for others. Perhaps they could even write the individual a letter.

[gisela daniel]

Hi Eddie,
I also enjoyed that movie. I think she was a brave and dedicated teacher and it paid off. I think it will be great if we can have more fieldtrips with our students to give them real life experiences that they will enjoy writing about. Another good way to incorporate real life into the classroom is with the use of the newspaper. Following a story and then use it as a springboard for writing is very powerful.
I know by experience that bringing to your classroom people who had done an amazing thing in their life and have them share their story with your students has an incredible impact into their learning. It helps them to understand that amazing extraordinary things are accomplish by ordinary people.

[Lisa Larson]

Hey Eddie!

I'm one of a small minority who has not read this book, but your synopsis makes me want to run down to the bookstore right now!

I struggle with student apathy and making it "real" for my students. The book that I read for this assignment, "Teaching Writing That Matters" had a few helpful hints if you're willing to read another book. However, I've found that my most successful writing ideas come from the students themselves. Listen to what they are talking about, what their interests are and what excites them - those ideas will get you genuine writing, with real voice and passion and writing that wants to be read.

I am incorporating a Critical Reading Assignment into my curriculum next year (stolen from an idea I read about in "Readicide" by Kelly Gallagher and Temoca). These weekly articles range from science and social studies issues, to current news events and moral and ethical debates. I am hoping that by asking the students to read these, respond in writing to them and then discuss them, I can broaden their educational background and use their ideas to spawn longer writing assignments where the students care about their topic. Bottom line: my opinion on writing prompts is they are generally too narrow to encourage truly good writing, but most often limit our students in creativity and quality of respsonse where they are only looking to finish, not go on their "own quest for self discovery and ultimately increase writing skills," which is your goal.

I hope this helps! Enjoy your last few days of sunshine and spontaneity and I hope to see you on the 25th!

Lisa

[Temoca Dixon]

Hi Eddie!

Wow, my friend, you're going deep! I read this and Freedom Writers and then saw the movie. I agree, it was fantastic and inspirational.

I think the deep writing you are looking for needs to come from discussions first. I think I mentioned in the ipod lesson I shared with your ipod group that I usually build a good relationship with my students and this is by the class discussions we usually get going randomly. I think these discussions have helped my kids make connections and think about their own lives and what position they want to take. I would be excited to get this going with high school students because I think they are in a better spot in their lives where they can think more deeply about life, emotions, current events, etc.

I want to have my kids keep a writer's notebook instead of journal this year. The idea came from Ralph Fletcher and he makes the point that the notebook isn't a diary or journal exactly so writers keep writings about everything. I think this will broaden the "net of ideas" for my kids and from that they can go back and reflect on details, emotions, thoughts that they can connect with from their notebooks. I'm hoping this opens up their writing more and gets them thinking.

The next thing is the Article of the Week that Lisa mentioned we are trying this year. Like she said we got the idea from Kelly Gallagher the author of Readicide. It is a current events assignment and I changed up the assignment to include some critical thinking exercises to hopefully really get the kids diving deep into this assignment and the topics they will think about. Again, this will open up discussion and hopefully help the students to become more aware of the larger world.

I'm excited to see how this is going and I'd love to bounce any other ideas around with you. By the way, DeBarger read this also and shared it with the teachers in his presentation on our professional development day. See you on the 11th!

Temoca

[Teddy Cook]

Hi Eddie,

I tried an experiment last year. . and yes, I know it is bribery. . . but the results seemed worth it. We read a story about Malcolm X. Then, I gave a prompt to write about a time that was "unfair" or a "struggle/challenge"- either for them or someone they knew. We wrote for 3/4 of the class time and then I showed the movie "Remember the Titans" for the remaining minutes. They loved the movie reward. . . but I loved the "authentic" writing that was produced! Many of then seemed to find their "voice" for the first time all year.