Tuesday Slice of Life: Written Conversations in Music

Last week I spent teaching a graduate level course on Disciplinary Literacy to a small group of local teachers. I've instructed a few adjunct courses before, but by far, Disciplinary Literacy is my favorite course to teach.

One of the requirements for my course is for each student to lead a demonstration lesson using literacy in their content area to their peers. First, each student explains the strategy or mini lesson, how it works, and its purpose. As a large group, students participate in the strategy or lesson and then reflect on how the strategy/lesson could be applied to their content area or grade level. After leading the strategy lesson, each student writes a reflection of how the lesson went with colleagues, the purpose of using this strategy, and how the teacher plans to use it with his or her students.

I was fortunate to have three students who instruct music in my Disciplinary Literacy course last week. This led to some fascinating discussions of how we approach text as musicians and how literacy could be applied in music class. One of my students - I'll call him Eric - was interested in how to use a strategy from Harvey Daniels and Steven Zemelman's Subject's Matter, Second Edition (Heinemann, 2014) called Written Conversations. Written Conversations is a strategy that can be used with students after they have read a text or participated in an experience or activity. Below are a few steps for how to use Written Conversations with students:

1. Students can be placed in pairs or in small groups.
2. Explain the activity to students. Students will write notes back and forth to each other about the text or experience/activity on a piece of paper. For most of this activity, there is no talking (this may be the most challenging part of this activity). All students write at the same time. During Written Conversations, students should not focus on spelling or grammar.
3. The teacher can invite students to write to a specific prompt or students could leave the topic open. Each student must write something on his or her paper. (Note: Many students benefit from sentence starters or a model, especially using this strategy for the first time.) Students should write for about two or three minutes. 
4. Next, each student switches his or her paper with his or her partner or within the small group. That student responds in writing to what another student wrote. Students should respond in writing for about two or three minutes.
5. If working with a partner, that student hands his or her paper back to the original author and the written conversation continues. If working in a group, a new person reads the writing and responds to the conversation. It is recommended for students to exchange papers at least two to three times.
6. Following about two or three exchanges, invite students to talk (instead of write) about the topic in the partnership or small group.
7. Finally, ask students to highlight an important line or two based on the Written Conversation and share out with the whole group for discussion.

Eric brought in acoustic guitars for each member in our class. He taught us how to properly hold a guitar. In addition, Eric taught us how to play two chords on the guitar. For most of us, it was our first time holding and guitar and strumming a chord. Immediately after, we wrote about our experience of holding and playing a guitar using Written Conversations. 

Our class learns how to hold and play guitars!

Eric plans to use Written Conversations with his eighth grade students this year. His music colleagues plan to use this strategy in their music classes as well (#win). One of our art teachers shared about how she thought Written Conversations could be used after studying a piece or artwork or after trying a technique. In addition, I was reminded that my students can also use short writing activities like this to reflect from an experience, not always about a text. 

I have used Written Conversations with middle and high school students before in English Language Arts and in adjunct classes with adult learners. I have found it to be an effective and easy way to build writing fluency; I like how it helps all students participate in a conversation. You can read more about Written Conversations in The Best-Kept Teaching Secret (Corwin, 2013).   

At the end of the course we had rich conversations about how effective instruction is not simply about using strategies. Yes, strategies are helpful to use and can enhance student learning. However, teacher expertise is what is the most important - this means determining what each student needs when and making the right match of which strategy best helps that learner. 

Join Two Writing Teachers and write your own Slice of Life! Everyone is welcome! 

Slice of Life Tuesday: Taking Flight

As I wrote about in my last post, we recently rescued a caterpillar from a milkweed leaf. Yesterday we had the honor to release a monarch butterfly in our backyard, and I decided to write about it using a 100 Word story:

Taking Flight

“Mom! The butterfly!”

Our caterpillar had emerged from the translucent chrysalis.

Still dangling by spindly legs from the shell, the monarch moved one wing. Then the other.

All afternoon we observed, enamored as she tentatively explored her surroundings.

I recalled butterfly release directions: take outside; gently reach in cage and allow butterfly to latch on; and slowly release. My ten-year-old volunteered. Mesmerized, I watched her somehow invite the butterfly to ride on her index finger.

“See if she will land on your nose!” My brave girl did. The butterfly lingered, insect legs gently grasping her skin before she flew away.

*********

These are simple moments that will remain with me long past the sweltering days of summer.

Join Two Writing Teachers and share a slice of your life! Everyone is welcome!

Slice of Life Tuesday: Caterpillar Curiosity

So far, this summer has been slower than most. Although I am still doing a lot of reading (personally and professionally), I am not as involved as I usually am in leading professional development for my school district. However, I am full of gratitude for what this slower pace has enabled me to notice, such as a seeing a caterpillar on a milkweed plant in our backyard and having the time to write about it and talk about it with my kids. 

Below is a poem I penned about the caterpillar I spotted in our backyard last week and how based on my daughter's passionate insistence, we rescued it. My children and I hope this caterpillar will achieve complete metamorphosis under our care so that we can release it back into the world. 

Caterpillar Curiosity

by Trina Haase

Watering flowers

I spy black, yellow, white stripes.

Caterpillar crawls.

"Look!" I bellow. "Come!"

Children gather at milkweed.

"We must rescue him!"

Our butterfly house 

emerges - protection from 

wild bird predators.

"Daily milkweed leaf.

Don't disturb or shake or pet. 

We must have patience."

Each day we observe

our caterpillar grow, climb.

Curiosity. 

This post was a little slice of my life this week. Join Two Writing Teachers and share a slice of your life. Everyone is welcome! 

Slice of Life Tuesday: Daily Engagements through Quickwrites

Last Saturday morning I listened to The Quickwrite Handbook with Linda Rief and Penny Kittle, a podcast episode on Heinemann's Teacher Podcasts. In this podcast, extraordinary teacher-writer Penny Kittle shares an experience she had listening to legendary, beloved teacher-writer Linda Rief speak at a conference (twenty years ago!) when she initially heard about Quickwrites and the powerful effect Quickwrites could have, "... these carefully planned engagements, could unlock the voice and ideas that lead to confidence and an interest in writing..." Penny Kittle also comments that Quickwrites, "...not only leads students to find writing and not only pay attention to the moves of writers, but it establishes a routine where students collect what matters to them in a safe place where they are allowed to stumble, to wobble, to fall..." 

It made me stop to wonder why I did not use more Quickwrites in my daily writing. I have plenty of compelling texts all around me, but sometimes I forget to utilize them as a writing tool. Maybe writing with mentor texts would help me have less writing moments like these. 

As I sat down to write that day, I glanced at my library copy of Naomi Shihab Nye's Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners. I devoured her beautiful and powerful introduction. Thinking as a writer, I found so many worthy entry points from her work that I could emulate. To begin, I wrote a few powerful passages and recorded a quote she referenced from poet Galway Kinnell, "To me, poetry is someone standing up, so to speak, and saying, with as little concealment as possible, what is it for him or her to be on earth at this moment?"

This passage led me to ponder this question, What is it like for me to be on this earth right now? 

And then I wrote. 
And I wrote. 
And I wrote.

Here's a peek from my notebook writing that morning:

Coffee residue sticks to my teeth, tongue -
Brush me.
Wash away my grimy residue,
I yearn to feel clean.

Snuggling under my light weight hand-stitched quilt,
I am safely sheltered with
air-controlled temperature while
outside swells in heat,
barely a breeze for leaf sways.
I watch morning doves swoop for
sunflower seeds and
dogs saunter past
our bay window.

In silence I sit (mostly in silence) -
the hum of the nearby one-fish aquarium,
steady clock ticks,
air forced from vents -
stealing still moments before
children emerge -bedhead beauties-
and shatter
precious
quiet.

Writing with a compelling text beside me made a huge difference. The above writing wasn't profound or beautiful, but it got me writing and I kept going. As Penny referenced, I had the chance to play with words and ideas in a safe way in my notebook. In addition, it provided me with something worthy to consider. And since last Saturday, I have continued to dip into Voices in the Air as a source of daily writing engagement. 

Join me in writing a slice of your life and sharing it with the Two Writing Teachers Community. Everyone is welcome! 

Slice of Life Tuesday: When Writing Isn't Fun

Back in March I wrote about hearing author Ralph Fletcher speak about his grandson Solomon and how he observed him playing with a toy in the bathtub. Ralph watched his grandson examine how a toy worked by lifting it, tossing it, sharing it, and flipping it, etc. - similar to how writers play with ideas. 

There is joy in play. 

I'd like to think that writing always fills me with joy, especially when I am in the mood to write and it is low-stakes and playful. But what happens when writing isn't so fun, even when you are simply trying to play with an idea? 

This happened to me today. I had all sorts of ideas of what I could write a blog post about. First, I set a timer and wrote everything that came into my mind. I lifted lines from books I am currently reading. I jotted lists. I combed through my writer's notebook for past ideas. I talked to myself out loud. I even attempted some sketching. Yet, each time I put my ideas in writing, I despised what I wrote. Every idea I considered today sounded so much better in my mind. 

Today, writing was anything but fun for me. Even though I examined and played with ideas in a variety of ways and I wanted to write, I felt frustrated. I couldn't make my writing sound like I wanted it to.  

I did not think that I was going to publish a post tonight. Yet in the end, it was mostly about just showing up as a writer and reflecting about what was hard for me today. 

This reminds me that living a writerly life is sometimes like this. My ideas don't always come easy. Writing is not always fun or magical for me. I think that these kind of days are important to share as a teacher of writers, too. 

Everyone is welcome! Join the Two Writing Teachers Community and share a slice of your life today! 

Slice of Life Tuesday: Three Lines a Day

Recently, I was listening to a podcast called This Movie Changed Me. Writer Naomi Shihab Nye was the guest speaker in this episode. Since this episode centered around a movie about growing up, host Lily Percy invited Naomi Shihab Nye to read part of her introduction from A Maze Me: Poems for Girls, including this section: 

"If you write three lines down in a notebook every day (they don’t have to be great or important, they don’t have to relate to one another, you don’t have to show them to anyone)... 

you will find out what you notice. Uncanny connections will be made visible to you. That’s what I started learning when I was 12, and I never stopped learning it. 

Every year unfolds like a petal inside all the years that preceded it. You will feel your thinking springing up and layering inside your huge mind, a little differently. Your thinking will befriend you. Words will befriend you. You will be given more than you could ever dream.” (Greenwillow Books, 2005)

A Maze Me: Poems for Girls 

Although I read A Maze Me several years ago, I mostly paid attention to the coming-of-age poems, not Naomi Shihab Nye's stunning introduction. Yet, in listening to Naomi Shihab Nye read part of her introduction, I found myself mesmerized. 

When I first purchased and read this book, I wasn't in the habit of writing each day. Now, I set aside time each day to write. After I listened to the podcast, I reflected how daily writing has impacted me.  

Just like Naomi Shihab Nye wrote about, writing each day changed me.

After I gave myself time (and permission) to write, I discovered what I noticed and what I was thinking the most about. Often, this surprised me. Indeed, I found uncanny connections in my writing. In addition, I have experienced that writing gave back to me in a way that I didn't expect. 

In a way, writing and words have become my most trusted friends. 

I am reminded that these lines do not need to be great or important or even connected to each other. I am reminded that the act of daily writing is essential. I am reminded that a writer gets to pick which parts of her writing is published. I am reminded that writing always gives me back more than I think.

Three lines, friends. Three lines. 

Everyone is welcome! Join Two Writing Teachers and share your own Slice of Life today! 

Conquering Summer Boredom

"Boredom always precedes a period of great creativity." 

Robert M. Pirsig

"Mom, I booooored!" Alaina, my ten-year-old daughter proclaimed, loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. 

Isaac, my twelve-year-old son and I looked up from our books we were quietly reading on the couch. 

"Find a book to read." I offered.

"I already read all of my library books," Alaina volleyed. 

"How about a puzzle?" I suggested.

"Make a loom bracelet? Draw? Write a story? Play with the dogs? Work on your fairy garden?"

None of these options appealed to Alaina.

"You could clean your room, go through your backpack from school, fold laundry, pull weeds." I reminded her. Essentially, I shared parts of our bottomless to-do list. 

Alaina crinkled her nose in distaste.

"I guess I'll play ALONE... Can you play Monopoly by yourself?"

She trudged into the dining room, adjacent to were Isaac and I were reading, her loud sighs interrupting our silence. I knew that my quiet reading time was over. 

I grabbed a stack of old magazines and headed over to the dining room table.

"Want to find some poetry in these magazines with me?"

She looked at me quizzically. Although we have made found poetry before, it had been a while.

I began paging through magazines, snipping words and phrases that caught my eye:

welcome

beauty

grace

gentle

glow

confidence

"Find the words you like and arrange them. We can make poems based on what's already published." 

She paged through magazines. I paged through magazines. 

Snip. Snip. Snip. 

Pretty soon the table top was covered in words and phrases. 

Alaina played with the arrangement of words and phrases, gushing with excitement as we created poetry. She read the lines out loud, often pausing to admire our work. 

Found Poem #1

Here are the lines from the first found poem Alaina and I created together: 

Welcome confidence,

Love that everyone has a different story...

Live your best life reading,

Begin feeling good, gentle, glow,

It's about time you make noise.

Found Poem #2

Here are the lines from the second found poem we created together:

Welcome

to 

simple

beauty

Go!

Make a big deal out of little moments

The here. The now. The ready.

Found Poem #3

Below are the lines from the third found poem we created:

One light as air, making style with intelligence,

the rainbow in your life,

Embrace your power to light,

Be bold. Be brave. Be better. Be beautiful!

The secret to joy and laughter is 

good news.

We just finished the first full week into summer vacation. Boredom is inevitable, but I am determined that we won't spend the majority of summer watching Netflix or playing video games. Although I am always drawn to a good book, I love spending time with my children, especially when we make things.

Celebrate this week with Ruth Ayres!