Celebrate going rogue

Celebrate This Week was established by Ruth Ayres

Anyone who has ever done a National Writing Project summer institute knows what a life-changing, career-sustaining experience it is. I was lucky enough to do the summer institute last year and it was one of the best things I've ever done for my career, but also just for myself as a person.

So I, along with many of my fellow Eastern Michigan Writing Project alumni, were devastated to find out that the summer institute had to be canceled this year due to lack of enrollment.

To try to ease some of the sadness of not having another group of teachers introduced to the virtues of the Eastern Michigan Writing Project, Kevin English and I decided to plan a few meetings with EMWP alumni to write and share our teaching practices with each other. We decided to call it EMWP Gone Rogue.

Yesterday we hosted a writing marathon in Ann Arbor, and we were delighted that 11 EMWP alumni showed up. We met at a bookstore, planned our destinations, dispersed, wrote, had lunch at Zingerman's Bakehouse, wrote some more, and then ended our marathon at a favorite local watering hole in Ypsilanti, The Corner Brewery, where we ate, drank, and were merry. But most important of all, we shared our writing.

The weather gods were smiling down upon us yesterday. It was sunny and in the mid 70s. Perfect weather for a summer writing marathon. Every location we stopped at, with the exception of our bookstore meeting place, was outside.

My favorite place where we wrote was the Ann Arbor Airport. It is a tiny airport, but that's what makes it so fascinating. You can go there, park your car, sit on a picnic table or in the grass, and watch the planes take off and land. There was so much to see, hear, and observe.

Writing at the airport. So many sights, sounds, and metaphors to explore!

It is difficult to explain to someone who's never done the Writing Project just what's so special about it. It's something you just have to feel and experience for yourself. Sitting at the Corner Brewery, listening to my fellow colleagues (some I had only met just yesterday) share their writing made me feel like I was part of something bigger and more important than myself. It's the feeling of support and safety you get from a group of people who are going through many of the same struggles and posing the same questions you are as a teacher. We don't always agree though. That was made clearly evident yesterday when the group of us debated on some advice we were giving a fellow writer about a novel she is currently writing.  But even when we don't agree, we are all coming from a place of mutual respect and a desire to get it right for our students and our practice. Because we know that getting it right doesn't and shouldn't involve everyone taking the same path. A belief that some people in educational leadership these days may see as "going rogue."

Eat, drink, and be merry: ending our writing marathon with sharing, conversation, and conviviality

After I posted the above picture of our final stop on our writing marathon on Facebook yesterday, this small conversation perfectly summed up the day:

My how times -- and learning -- has changed

On this, the penultimate day of our EMWP summer institute, we celebrated with a few authors who came to visit room 320 at the Eastern Michigan University Student Center. One of the authors who came to visit was Marquin Parks, teacher and author of the Wrinkles Wallace series. He was gracious enough to read us a snippet of book two of Wrinkles Wallace and what I was immediately struck by, was that he didn't pull out a binder of printed pages or even a laptop computer from which to read to us. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his smartphone. I'm still in awe of how the landscape of reading and learning has changed so drastically in the past five years. To know that the depth and breadth of human knowledge can now fit inside your pocket is both exciting, but also a huge responsibility -- one that teachers can't ignore, and should also utilize in their own classrooms.

This idea hit home even further when, as Marquin was reading, he stopped and said in mock annoyance, "Hey stop tweeting! I keep getting notifications while I'm reading and it's messing me up."

Marquin reads to us from a draft of book two of Wrinkles Wallace... on his Smartphone

As we all laughed I started thinking how, despite its humor, this was also a really poignant moment at the same time. Marquin wasn't mad that we were tweeting because he thought we weren't paying attention. He was irritated because we WERE paying attention but due to our enthusiasm with wanting to share his wisdom with the world, his Twitter feed was blowing up and it was distracting him.

So the question is, how do we navigate those distractions while also honoring the value that these digital tools bring into our classrooms? It's an ever evolving process but one that we have to acknowledge. As a teacher, I understand that technology is a tool and not the curriculum and there are still ways to teach without it, but I also know that we need to meet students where they are, and where they are is on smartphones and tablet computers. I am shirking my responsibility as an educator if I don’t help guide students in living responsible digital lives. We should be helping them navigate this digital landscape, not setting them adrift on a ship all alone, left to their own.... wait for it... devices.

Thank you EMWP

I'm sitting here reading through the comments on my EMWP portfolio and trying very hard not to cry. I've never felt so empowered as a writer and as a human being as I do right now. I want to make sure I capture this feeling and transfer it to the feedback I give my own students. Thank you Bill Tucker, Shari Hales, and Erin Umpstead. You didn't just see my writing; you saw me.

The time I thought I couldn't...

My EMWP colleague, Erin Umpstead, wrote this amazing piece about how writing is like hula-hooping.

I have never been able to hula-hoop in my life. As a child I would put the object around my waist,

The hula hoop, it mocks me.

start moving my hips, and immediately it was on the ground. To help inspire her writing, Erin brought in her own hula-hoop to the summer institute for inspiration and it has remained in room 320, mocking me.

So as others in the summer institute were looking for writing inspiration, they would grab the hula hoop and go to town. I, however, looked at the object with great disdain and envied all my colleagues who could actually keep the hula hoop around their waist as they gyrated their hips.

But apparently a proper hula-hoop needs to be weighted. And it should come up to your belly-button as it rests on the ground and stands on end. These two things make all the difference and can change you from a hula-hooping failure (me) to a hula-hooping master.

At first I was dubious of this idea that weights and proper height could transform my hula-hooping ability (or lack thereof), but I decided to, in the spirit of the Writing Project, make myself vulnerable and give it a go.

And before I knew it...

I WAS HULA-HOOPING!!!

I feel as if I must add a reason to Erin's piece for why writing is like hula-hooping and it's true of what I've experienced here at the summer institute...

...because even if you think you can't do it, you really can!! 

EMWP Demonstration Lesson: Plagiarism, Emulation, and Originality

For the Eastern Michigan Writing Project summer institute this year, participants created a demonstration lesson in pairs rather than as an individual. At first I was a bit dubious about this idea, thinking that I would prefer to work on my own, but it actually turned out to be a really enjoyable experience. Since my partner Michael and I had completed projects on similar topics in another graduate class we had taken together (his project was on plagiarism, mine was on emulation), we decided to put those two ideas together and create this demonstration on Plagiarism, Emulation, and Originality.

The lesson starts off by looking at the famous William Carlos Williams poem "This is Just to Say" and then asking participants to emulate this poem. We then go into sharing an example of an emulation I came up with -- except I only changed one word from the original Williams poem. Then we shared the next slide in which I've only changed two words, and so on. This leads to a rich discussion about "OK, when is it emulation and when is it plagiarism?"

From there, the discussion moves on to emulation and theft in other art forms such as visual art and music, and then we talk about how having students emulate other writers can help lead them into their own original creations.

It was a pleasure to present with my partner Michael and I hope we have the chance to do it again sometime, either at another EMWP meeting or at a conference.

Plagiarism, Emulation, and Originality from Beth Shaum

See our annotated bibliography.

You are enough.

The day I was tasked with assigning the daily writing prompt during my time at the Eastern Michigan Writing Project summer institute, I decided to read the picture book Extraordinary Jane by Hannah E. Harrison. The first time I read this book, I was so moved that I began to weep when I reached the last page. The message of Extraordinary Jane speaks to so many of us, and I think it speaks to all of the Writing Project participants. We compare themselves to others and feel like we don't belong among our brilliant colleagues. But we do belong. I do belong. And so after reading Extraordinary Jane to my colleagues, the writing prompt I chose was just three simple words:

You are enough. 

To talk back to that prompt, I decided to emulate the style of Harrison's text in her book, Extraordinary Jane.



*~*~*~*~*~*

Beth was ordinary
in a class of extraordinary writers.

She couldn't turn an everyday object
into a brilliant metaphor
like Bill
or weave a beautiful poem
like Lorena.

She didn't blow people's minds
like Michael
or make people laugh
like Amy.

Beth was just
Beth.

She tried to find her writing niche
but poetry was a struggle
crot essays didn't make sense
(how can you write an essay with no transitions?!)
op eds made her brain hurt
and then there was that disaster of a novel
she tried to write once.

Beth was just
Beth.

A solid, capable, all-around
writer.

And that was is enough.

EMWP: A day in the life

One of the things we are tasked with as participants in the Eastern Michigan Writing Project Summer Institute is to create a daily log for each day. Individuals sign up for a day and find a way to present their "day in the life" creations. Here is my daily log for July 9, 2014:

National Writing Project: See What Everybody's Talking About

This week I started the Eastern Michigan Writing Project Summer Institute. Reflecting on my first week, I now understand why I have heard teachers speak of it in only positive and superlative ways. Since the institute is only three weeks this summer, I actually feel kind of cheated out of that fourth week now. I don't think I'm going to want it to be over after only three weeks. I have driven home from Eastern Michigan University each day this week feeling empowered and energized. Teachers, if you've never done the Writing Project before, put it on your bucket list. And don't assume that it's only for English teachers. Educators of all subject-areas and backgrounds participate. What we all have in common is a passion for our students and a need to better ourselves by continually learning and growing.

To learn more about the National Writing Project or to locate a site in your area, visit the NWP website.