Keep it R.E.A.L. - Chapter 1 Response

A few weeks ago, I received an unexpected message in my work email from a professor at Texas Woman's University. Dr. Mandy Stewart, a professor who I have not met, asked if she could share some of my work with potential graduate students. Fortunately, Dr. Stewart could not see me gushing and blushing behind my computer.

As if that were not flattering enough, our conversation led to a book she recently wrote, Keep it R.E.A.L!: Relevant, engaging, and affirming literacy for adolescent English learners. Dr. Stewart asked me two questions: Would I mind if she sent me a copy to read? Would I mind providing my opinion on how the information can be more inclusive of middle school students?

Me? Seriously? Two words: Jaw. Drop. What kind of expert am I? Fourteen plus years of experience teaching middle school, six of those as a certified ESL teacher, and I still do not see myself as an expert. But I do have opinions all the time, so why not! So here goes...something.

Reader Response:

Dr. Stewart shares how she used reader response instruction with newcomer students in a high school summer institute. Reader response might be the only theory I can comfortably discuss. I read Lois Tyson's book Critical theory today prior to entering the field of education. Even as I was studying this information as part of my English minor, reader response criticism resonated with me the most because it is how I read naturally. Once I entered the seventh grade classroom (and later on eighth), this became my go-to theory with my students.

Reader response is all about interacting with the text to make meaning. It is about the experience of the reader. Not only do I consider this to be an ideal way for middle school students to develop a relationship with text, I also see this as beneficial for English language learners. Because we are asking our ELLs to engage with the text and develop connections, they cannot be wrong (unless they have completely misread, of course). The students are bringing their experiences to the table that allow them to engage in writing, listening, and speaking, in addition to the reading, all within the framework of a low affective filter.

The Acronym:

Just as we wish for students to connect with text, we need to connect with our students. Why not incorporate some slang into our teaching? I could easily say, "We are going to Keep it R.E.A.L. today," as part of a reading lesson. (That is far more comfortable for me than referring to myself as the G.O.A.T. or as Gucci.)

Newcomers will need instruction in understanding slang American language. Pre-teens and young teens are on a journey of self-discovery, and as much as we may want them to be focused on long-term educational goals, their goal is simply to fit in with and be accepted by their peers. So I am all for keepin' it real. We can teach our newer ELLs an expression that will help them communicate socially, while also making new-language text more accessible.

So here is my initial opinion regarding this content and students in grades 6-8: The foundation of this work is definitely an ideal fit for the middle school classroom. It allows for all students to connect to the learning, in particular our ELLs who may feel isolated and withdrawn. Reader response through Keep it R.E.A.L. provides for every student to be part of the learning community.

Dr. Stewart discusses each element of R.E.A.L. in chapter one, and I would rather you read it than have me share all of my reader responses to the questions she proposes in regard to relevancy, engagement, affirmation, and literacy instruction, as we each bring different backgrounds and experiences from our teaching to these topics.

Writing - How Data is Changing My Instruction

I have been fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on your viewpoint) to be involved in numerous programs and committees in my district that keep me informed about district and school strengths and weaknesses. I am the lead for my school literacy initiative and our ESL program and also work with these programs at the district level. I am part of my school leadership team, a group that works to set instructional and student goals. This year, I was invited to participate in a district committee that looks at district and school data. The point of this brief resume is to show that I am fully aware of my district and school needs, and within the past few weeks, a great deal has come to light in a new way. I have had to shift gears in regard to how I teach and how I model my instruction. 

Our eighth-grade English curriculum has focused heavily on reading and less on writing for the past few years. As we (the teachers) become more educated in how to understand and use student data, we have started to balance more writing into our instruction. I feel like teaching writing is much more my area of expertise than reading will ever be, but with limited time for writing instruction, I have to admit that I have truly glossed over the writing process for the past few years. 

For the past couple of weeks, my students have been working on an essay about teens cheating on schoolwork (see NY Times writing springboard). I had my kids using a generic expository graphic organizer to create an opening sentence (thesis) with three reasons for their viewpoint and three supporting details per reason. I chose an organizer that I have used in prior ESL training to best meet the needs of my student population. I created my own example and modeled how to create each part. 

While this was occurring in my classroom, I had a meeting with my principal and instructional coaches. We were having a conversation about what is missing in teacher instruction and came to the conclusion that teachers are modeling, but we are not modeling our thinking and metacognitive strategies effectively. Teachers show how to do something, but we are not necessarily conducting a thorough think-aloud to show the students the thinking process and inquiry involved in the work being done. 

Shortly after that meeting, I had an expository writing workshop to attend that provided some new strategies that I immediately brought to class and applied with more thorough instruction and modeling of my thinking. Here is what changed:

• I had my students analyze the reasons and supporting details that they created to determine if they had facts, personal experiences, and/or references (this piece was presented to us for planning, but I was already on the flip side of that). The kids also decided that we needed to identify commonplace assertions. I conducted a think-aloud, deliberately asking questions of myself and expressing the steps I took in sorting through my own ideas. Although it was not a thoroughly planned think-aloud, I do feel like I made progress in making my invisible thinking visible. 
• References were new to my students, and this provided them with an option for making revisions after discovering they had too many facts and personal experiences. Students who lacked personal experiences suddenly had more information to include in their writing. 
• We used a four-question technique to determine what information needed to be included in our paragraphs. Without this, students were simply copying over their reasons and supporting details without any additional thought. I again conducted a think-aloud on how to answer these questions to build a paragraph, rather than just modeling my writing. 
• What point am I trying to make?
• What details support my point?
• How can I show this? or Why is this important?
• How do these ideas connect back to my thesis?
• Another step with the questions was to color code our work to show the thought process. For each question answered within the paragraph, students had to use a different color to ensure that they were actually including all necessary information. 

I still feel like I have a long way to go to provide writing instruction of the quality that I used to when teaching it independently, and working in more focused and specific think-alouds is definitely challenging (and you will hear more about it as I read through Jeffery Wilhelm's Improving Comprehension with Think Aloud Strategies). As adults, it is amazing that we know as much as we know, and it is not very easy to verbalize all of that in order to help students learn how to think on their own. 

My BEAM Symposium Workshop: Teaching Poetry with the ELPS

Years ago, I was asked to present an in-service workshop for other ELA teachers in my district, and I did it because I do not like (or know how) to say no. Years and years later, this is becoming a thing, and I am really starting to enjoy this thing. I have now presented at my school and in-district for ELA and district-adopted instructional model workshops, as well as at two state ESL/bilingual conferences for English language learner strategies. Last weekend, I presented my first ever, out-of-district, solo workshop presentation at the 31st BEAM Symposium (Bilingual/ESL Education Association of the Metroplex, Texas). 

For my BEAM proposal, I actually reworked that very first workshop. After winning a copy of Kylene Beers' When Kids Can't Read at  a district training, I was asked to present one of her strategies. I conducted a Tea Party experience with the poem "Grandmother Grace" by Ronald Wallace. Because it has been so long, all I remember about this presentation is that it was my birthday, I brought cookies, I made people cry with the poem, and the feedback was good. 

For the English Language Learner presentation, I started with the basic premise - Tea Party with the poem. This is an activity I use frequently in my classroom in various ways, and it is always a success. It gets kids thinking and engaged with poetry (and other genres) before they even see the poem. And getting middle school students to do anything but glaze over at the mention of poetry is success in my book. 

In my revisions of the presentation, I added more activities: Get the Gist from ReadWriteThink, understanding metaphor from Kelly Gallagher's Deeper Reading, and a final word activity, again from Kylene Beers. Although these strategies are not written specifically for English language learners, they work very well for this specific population. 

I did modify the activities to focus specifically on reading, writing, listening, and speaking, the four components of Texas' ELPS (English Language Proficiency Standards). The reading was a given; we had a poem. For writing, I worked with sentence stem responses to the different activities throughout the lesson. Participants shared their sentence stem writing with partners, allowing them to work on both listening and speaking skills. 

Overall, the workshop went very well. I received positive written and verbal feedback. The teachers in attendance were appreciative of the ability to take something directly back to their classrooms. As a teacher, I know that is something that I always want from sessions I attend. 

I have submitted a proposal to present this same workshop at another state organization conference, and it looks like it could be going to a third based on my ESL Teacher of the Year award. My goal is to wear the mess out of it as I practice my presenter skills, and then I will start working on a new one. Because I believe in sharing/stealing in teaching, it is all here for you, as well. 

I considered leaving the classroom last year, but I am glad I did not. I feel like I am in the best possible place. I get to do what I love and work with goofy children every day, plus I get to go outside of the classroom and share what I do with other teachers. Watch out world. I'm comin' to get ya! 

May I now present myself as...

Until this week, winning and acknowledgement were in no way synonymous in my brain. As a teacher, I have never been concerned with winning something. I have always possessed expectations of being acknowledged for doing a good job. Despite the ego many think I walk around with, I am much more modest and humble than I often present myself to be, and I am quite content with a quick thank you and you did great. I have never really been comfortable being in the stage spotlight, unless it has been by my own doing. 

A few months ago, my district ESL/bilingual representative/mentor asked if she could nominate me for a teacher of the year award. She is affiliated with a local bilingual/ESL organization, and she told me that she felt that I was the perfect candidate for the award. I agreed, without much thought, thinking it would make her happy and would amount to nothing. 

The first thing I learned is that there is a lot of work involved in being nominated. You have to put together an entire portfolio!  Granted, my mentor did most of the work. I helped find some people to write letters of recommendation, and I wrote a biography and a philosophical statement - and put together a presentation proposal for the upcoming symposium. 

My focus for the symposium was always entirely upon the presentation. I have been presenting for many years now, and under the guidance of my mentor, I have been moving beyond district presentations. For the BEAM Symposium, I was modifying and updating a workshop that I conducted years ago within my school district (I believe it was from my very first time facilitating) to make it more strategically focused on ELL strategies. 

Last Monday, as my student teacher and I were walking back to class after lunch, I was checking my email on my phone, looking for something that I was afraid I would forget to check if I did not do it right then. As I walked to my desk, I opened a message informing me that I had won the 2015 BEAM ESL Teacher of the Year award:

Now let me tell you something: I don't cry. I. DO. NOT. CRY. Especially in front of people. Especially in front of my students. But I started crying. My student teacher looked at me with confusion as I handed her my phone. I am getting teary and turning red, she is high-fiving and hugging me, and my students are crying out different variations of "Oh my gosh! What happened? Is it something bad?". I was shaking my head that it was not and yelling at them to get out of my way because I DON'T CRY, and I needed to get to the restroom for a minute. 

I wish I had a logical reason for my initial reaction, but there is not much normal about me. I have won awards in the past, but they are student-chosen awards. There have not been many days in the past eleven and a half years, however, that my students have let me feel unappreciated for what I do with and for them. If they had it their way, I would win everything ever because I am just the best teacher ever (teens do have their shining moments). 

With my peers, I have never needed to win anything, but I have often felt that I do not get acknowledged for much of the work that I do that affects my entire campus (disclaimer: this does not apply to everyone I work with because some of them will be reading this). The email did not feel like a win; it felt like the most gigantic acknowledgement regarding almost twelve years of continuous development and growth as a teacher. 

Aside from telling my students what was going on to ease their concerns, I did not run down the halls yelling my good news at the top of my lungs. I informed my administrators, and I let my principal do the rest. Yes, I posted to my social media pages, but I knew the news would still take some time to get out there. 

I have been completely overwhelmed by both the acknowledgement and the win. My campus colleagues have emailed, texted, hugged, and spoken some of the kindest words I have heard in my entire teaching career, and I think the flattery is enough to tide me over for another twelve years. 

Last night, I was acknowledged at a pre-symposium dinner. I brought my daughter as my date. She was 11 1/2 months old when I started teaching, and she has grown up extremely patient and tolerant of all that I give to my students, many of whom she understands do not have the same support and opportunities as she. 

Yes, she is a few inches taller than me, but she also has on wedges. 

Oh, captain, my captain. 

Today, I was presented to the entire symposium as the ESL Teacher of the Year. 

We are forgiving them for misspelling my name here...

because they spelled it correctly here. 

Once all was said and done this afternoon, I was told that I am now moving along to the next round (I had no idea that I was in a beauty pageant). In May, my portfolio and presentation proposal will be presented to the Texas Association of Bilingual Education, and next October, I will travel to El Paso for the TABE conference. 

On a side note, I was also endowed with a Spanish dictionary and two sets of Texas Rangers baseball tickets, one set being for opening weekend. 

I almost left the classroom this year. I explored other options in education outside of the classroom. It was not meant to be, and part of me knew that even prior to my attempt to try something different. I feel like life is letting me know that I am still meant to be in the classroom with my zany, hormonal, pre-adults, and sharing my classroom lessons and adventures with other teachers is an added bonus to what I give to my kids. 

I am humbled. I am overwhelmed. I keep finding myself tongue-tied, and I promise you, that does not happen often. I did not need to win, but it sure does feel good to be acknowledged on such a grand scale.