Sacred Writing Time...Writing Times Four

If you asked me about my success in school as a child, it would be a short, sad story. If it wasn't for my high school math teacher, Mr. Kisken, I probably would never have been accepted into college. I didn't have the best high school GPA but Mr. Kisken got me. I  had him for three of my four years of high school math. He took things slow in his explanations and trusted the process. He created his own practice worksheets with a less is more philosophy. He also knew that academics weren't everything.

Mr. Kisken loved photography and would come and take pictures of his students during sporting events. For me, this is where I shined. I was fast, versatile, and could read the field well. And Mr. Kisken captured those moments while I played lacrosse.  It was also those moments that he wrote about in my college recommendation letter.

He took time to get to know his students; their interests and their strengths.
And a few times a year I find myself thinking about him.

This school year I have the opportunity to teach writing to all four sections of fifth grade. I have never been so happy! Each day during Sacred Writing Time I learn a little more about my students, and they learn a little more about me. It is through our sharing process that helps create more depth in our writerly community.

We recently created a heart map during one of our brainstorming sessions.  I knew when I read it about twice within a week (Two Writing Teachers and Aimee Buckner), I had to put it into action. So all four sections created a heart map, and I had the opportunity to create one too.

Four different times.

You see when my students write for Sacred Writing Time, I write.

We are currently building our writing stamina and are up to six minutes of uninterrupted writing time.

There are rules.

Don't stop writing.

The whole time.

And if you stop,  your pencil needs to be in your hand and you need to reread your work to figure out what you can add until I say, "Finish the sentence you are on. Not the sentence you are on and three sentences after that, but the ONE you are on."

So we write.

Including me.

You will usually find me in a spot where someone should be, but he/she is absent. I like doing this because my students see ME writing. (And they want to impress me).

Then. We share.

This is... my favorite part. As the days turn into weeks more students are coming forward and sharing. It is during this precise time that I feel as though I am getting to know my students in their own lives.

Today I learned that one student had to put her dog down recently.
I learned that one student enjoys playing musically.
I learned that one student was stung by five bees at once.
I learned that one student thoroughly enjoyed her field trip to the aquatic center in fourth grade.
And the list goes on...

But did I mention that I get to write?
Four different times in one day.
Four different stories.
And my students get to learn a little about me.

One class learned that my daughter shoved a Polly Pocket shoe up her nose when she was four.
One class learned that my other daughter fell head first on a cement floor while wearing roller skates. And yes, it wasn't pretty.
One class learned that I am not as invincible as I think I am and that was proven true when I threw my back out.
And the last class learned about my fear of diving off diving boards.

Just like Mr. Kisken, I have learned to trust this process.

Sacred Writing Time is just that.

Sacred.

I will never compromise it.

But it is also a  process that takes time to develop.

And it is with this process that will help these students realize what amazing writers they are capable of becoming.

Our Writerly Community

After going through the Red Cedar Writing Project Summer Institute in 2016, the way I teach writing has changed drastically. The summer institute was the best professional decision I have ever made.

This school year I have the opportunity to teach writing to all four sections of fifth grade, and I couldn't be more ecstatic about it! On the first day of class I asked each group how many of them saw themselves as writers. Out of the 91 students that I questioned, a total of 11 students raised their hands.

Eleven.

How is this possible?

I told them not to worry though. By June, all their hands would be raised.

This short conversation led to two questions: What do writers do? and What will our writerly community look like? The first question was a natural segway into the second. Listed on the white board in the back of the classroom are the characteristics of our writerly community.

And it wasn't more evident than today during my third class. In their writer's notebooks the students were coming up with external and internal character traits about themselves. We then took some time to share. During our sharing session, one specific girl was struggling to find internal character traits to describe herself. Using this as a teachable moment, I relied on the other students in the class to help her out and taught them how to do this. The girl next to her didn't know this student well but said in the week they have been in the same class she felt she was very kind. Another struggled to describe what she was thinking. These two had been in the same class the previous year but after letting her talk it out  and asking a lot of questions, she came up with calming. The girl who couldn't think of any characteristics to describe herself relied on the writerly community to help her.

With each day the students become more confident in their ability to write. Their stamina is increasing and often I catch them trying to add more and more while I am teaching.

It has only been three days since I met these 91 fifth graders and our writerly community is already taking shape. I can't wait to see how they develop as writers throughout the year and to ask them the same question the last day of class:  How many of you see yourself as writers?

A Letter to My Students

To the Students I Taught During My 20th Year of Teaching,

I only find it fitting that right now as you write letters to me, I am writing a letter to all of you. But that's what we do. You write. I write. We have been doing this all year long. The only difference is you just learned about this writing assignment today, and I have been thinking about what I want to say to you for many weeks now, and as I type, I am still not sure how to put everything that is going through my mind into words.

You fall into a special category. One that only two classes have so far in 20 years. You are a group of students that I am not ready to send on. There is something about you as a class. A connection. One that is special and rare. I knew it from the first day you walked into the classroom. I can't explain it but have been trying to figure it out for many months now. Maybe it was the way I created community, giving you choice each week as to where you sat and encouragement in your choice to sit next to those you didn't know. Or maybe it was the Monday morning talk time the first half of the school year where you talked to your neighbor for a few minutes, asking questions, getting to know them, so you realized that you were more alike than different. It could possibly have been Tell the Teacher. Our weekly ritual that allowed me to get a sneak peek into your daily life. Whatever it was, know that you will always hold a special place in my heart.

As I look out at each of you writing, I can't help feel that the end of this school year is bittersweet. It's a milestone year for me. I will always remember you as my 20th class. I think of the growth you have made this year and swell with pride. You made 193% growth in reading and 208% growth in language usage. Who does that!

You do.

Why?

Because you trusted me.

My sayings and beliefs became our sayings and beliefs: Always give 150%. And, I don't care of the score but the effort that is put in.

It was November when I had you where I wanted you. You matured and started to really listen. And because of that, you soared.

My absolute favorite time with you was Sacred Writing Time. I am not sure if you ever realized what this time did to you as a writer. You trusted the process.  You went from reluctant writers whose hands hurt to ones that asked for more time to write. You went from asking me a million questions before we wrote to asking none. You fully understood when I said, "I will not write in your writer's notebooks." It was a safe place for you to experiment and a place that you found your voice. You went from students who were afraid to share with one another to ones that couldn't wait to.

Although I am not ready to let you go, you are ready to leave. You are responsible, capable, and a wealth of knowledge. You know how to listen well, ask questions. and write with passion and voice. I can't wait to watch you grow as students, writers, and adults.

It has been an honor to teach you.

I will forever miss you.

Your 5th grade teacher, 

Mrs. Waugh

Reflecting on the School Year

As my students took their second NWEA test of the week today, I watched and thought. I looked at each one and brought myself back to the beginning of the school year when they first entered my room. I teach fifth grade, but they were still fourth graders that warm August day. I don't feel as though fifth graders are true fifth graders until around October when they have adapted to the routine, expectations, and workload.

The first time we give the NWEA is the second week of school. This test allows me to see where the students are academically and how much they have lost over the summer. I don't like standardized tests but I like this one for two reasons. First, it is pretty accurate. It gives a true reading as to where a child is. Second, I have the scores immediately. I can see where their exact weaknesses are and alter my plans to help fix that.

But at the beginning of the year, these new students don't know my philosophy about school so they tend to put forth little effort, and I really have no idea what their true ability is.

As the days turn into weeks, and the weeks into months my students understand what I expect. It has nothing to do with grades but the effort that is put in. My saying becomes our saying: Always give 150%.

I firmly believe that if I instill this in my students, they will take this with them into middle school and life. I often give "talks" when I start to see the effort sway. And I am usually fired up about it. These talks always come back to my school experience as a struggling student. I did the best I could and ended up with C's. My parents were never upset because they knew I was giving it all I had.

That is all I want as a teacher. I don't care about the grade or score, just the amount of effort that is put in.

So today, as I watched my fifth graders put forth more effort into this test than I have seen  them give this school year, I thought about all the success we had in the classroom.

Here are a few of my favorites...

Sacred Writing Time: This has changed my teaching. It took months for my students to trust the process and understand that I just wanted them to write. It was here where they found a safe place as writers. A place where they could experiment with grammar, punctuation and style. Sacred Writing Time created a community of writers within the four walls of my classroom. It was my absolute favorite time of day and one where my students found their voice. I turned reluctant writers into students who love to write.

Tell the Teacher: This was one of our Sacred Writing Time topics and it turned into a weekly occurrence. The students would write down one thing they wished I knew on an index card. Some were random things and others a little more serious. It opened up a door for conversation and allowed me a peak into their lives.

No Assigned Seats: I student taught in a fifth grade classroom and my cooperating teacher did not assign seats. I was fascinated by this model but couldn't figure out how to make it work for me. I still didn't know how it was going to look on the first day of school but I enlisted my students' help and we made it work for us. Each Friday the students would choose a new seat to sit in for the following week. The conditions were you had to choose a seat at a completely different table than you were previously at and you had to sit by people you didn't know. Then each Monday we would spend a few minutes talking to our new friends. It ended up building a great classroom community. One I wasn't expecting.

The Pequot War: I teach social studies to all three sections of fifth grade. We spend two days talking about King Philip's War and the Pequot War. For the lesson on the Pequot War we watch a reenactment video and it really stirs up a lot of emotions. The students' empathy really shines through, and they begin to question whether or not our country was founded in an honest way. After showing the video to my homeroom, one boy was so upset and crying so hard, I couldn't understand him. I pulled him into the hallway and asked why he was so upset. He said, "Why did the English do that to the Pequot? It was so horrible." You can't teach empathy. You can just create lessons that you hope will help it show through.

Slice of Life Challenge: I had 15 out of 27 students write for 25 days or more during the Slice of Life Challenge in March. And the best part about it was they wrote at home. In a notebook. I loved listening to what they wrote about the night before as I checked them in each morning. I introduced challenges from blog posts I had commented on and shared my own writing from the challenge.I was grateful that at this time in the year the students were not afraid to try the challenge and be okay with it if it didn't work out. I was also grateful that so many joined me for it.

Today as I watched my fifth graders take their second NWEA test of the week, I realized they are prepared to be successful in sixth grade. They will be okay without me, and they are ready. Ready to move on.

I just don't think I am ready to give them up yet.

Eighteen Years and Some Change

Right before Mother's Day in May of 1998, my mother was saying good-bye to her children. She had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer years before and the cancer, once gone, had returned and wasn't looking back. I remember being in her room at U of M as she told me she loved me. She barely spoke above a whisper for she didn't have the strength. I thought that was the last time I was going to see her alive.

But the next day when I arrived at the hospital, she was up, walking around, and full of energy. We talked, and apparently, she wasn't ready to go yet. That was my mom. Always determined and did things her way.

My mother didn't have the greatest childhood. She was the youngest of three girls born to Italian parents. Her sisters were a bit older than her. She didn't grow up with a lot of toys and when people did try to give things to her, my grandmother would donate them to the poor. I think this kind of upbringing shaped the woman she was and the kind of mother she would become.

She went to college and became a social work and later a teacher.

She married my father in 1968, she proposed, and had her first child in 1969. Four years later, I was born and not far after that, my youngest sister. She was a stay at home mom until I was about six or seven, when she decided she was going to go to law school. I have memories of her studying at night for the bar exam and remember the day she passed it.

She studied law for quite a while and when we moved to Ann Arbor, she obtained her realtor's license. She worked as a real estate agent until she decided she wanted to own her own company. She started a title company and used her realtor and lawyer expertise to get her feet off the ground. She was good at it. I worked for her one summer and remember her "training" me. It was her way or the highway. She was a hard worker and did things thorough and well. If you weren't going to do it the way she wanted,  you weren't going to do it.

I was in college when she sat my younger sister and me down to tell us of the cancer. We were in the living room sitting on the brown couch that we had at the time. It didn't phase me.

Yes, it was cancer, but cancer didn't know my mother.

She was going to win this fight.

And she did.

Until she didn't.

Soon after she came home from the hospital in May of 1998, I realized that this strong and courageous woman was losing the battle. It was the first time that I believed there was something out there stronger than she was.

According to my father, on the night of June 5, 1998, my beautiful mother told him that Sally, her older sister, her mother, and father were there for her and she was ready to go. He told her he loved her and she him.

She gently closed her eyes and went with her family, all of whom had passed away many years earlier.

I don't know why, but I find comfort in that story. It tells me that she was reunited with those she loved well before me.

So on the eve of this Mother's Day, I want to say thank you to a woman who was gone too soon.

Thank you Mom for teaching me how to be kind, strong-willed, independent, and determined through the way you lived your life.

I will forever miss you.

My mother at 26.

A Simple Thank You

When I was younger, I had to write thank you notes. For everything. As I got older it seemed to be ingrained in me that this is what I should and needed to do. 

Then.

I had kids. 

And the idea of "having" to write a thank you note seemed like one more thing to do. 

So I stopped. But that didn't mean that I wasn't appreciative of things that were given to me. 

As a teacher, I am given a lot of things. 

By my students. 

All the time. 

They know my favorite candy bar is Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. There is a story to that. I blame it on my mother. 

I get a lot of Reese's. 

I have every intention of writing thank you notes for all of those gifts, but it seems to be a chore for me rather than something genuine. So I don't do it. But I still say thank you. 

Today though, I am writing thank you notes. Because I need to and want to. I want to thank the students who took the 31 day Slice of Life Challenge with me. They need to know that I appreciate their willingness to write every day. Or almost everyday. At home. On their own. They need to know that I value their writing and that it is important. 

Today I am writing thank you notes. Because it feels genuine and right.

And the thought of how they will feel when they receive a card in the mail from "their teacher" makes my heart smile. 

  

Silver Linings

I have always seen the glass as half full. My mother was the same way. It's probably where I got it from. I remember the day she told my sister and me that she had cancer.

She was matter of fact about it.

She was going to have surgery, chemo, and that was that.

She would get better.

And she did.

Until it came back.

She was going to fight it out.

And she did.

Until she couldn't fight anymore.

I often think about her when things are thrown at me as they were today.

My son woke at 4:30 in the morning with a fever of 102 degrees. I knew he was starting to get sick because he wasn't feeling the best the last two days. So I was on the phone with the doctor at 8 a.m, with an appointment at noon for a strep test. I am glad I listened to my intuition because he tested positive. Instead of complaining about this, I felt appreciative that he got sick over spring break instead of a school week, so I could spend time with him.

As I woke up, a few minutes before eight, to the pitter patter of feet upstairs, I quickly realized our basement had flooded. The carpet at the edge of our room was soaked. I woke my husband who quickly started moving things out of the other room, where most of the water was. I helped him move what I could but only after I had called the doctor for my son. Then my husband started tearing the carpet out. We have wanted to figure out why the basement  floods when we get A LOT of rain and this was the last straw. Over the course of the day, I have sucked  up the water out of that room more times than I can count, but now we know where the leak is coming from and have a plan to fix it.

It seems to me that things happen in threes. And if you are keeping count, only two things have happened so far to me today. Well here is the third.

Right after I took all the wet clothes out of the washer this morning and put them into the dryer, the power went out. Keep in mind this was after I called the doctor and my husband tore out the wet carpet. There was no big storm or high winds, just a lot of rain. I was quite surprised because our power hasn't gone out in a few years. After a bad ice-storm years back, the electric company has been proactive and on top of everything so this surprised me. I could have sat and complained about all the things that needed to be done but instead my girls and I played a lot of board games.

I have had a busy day. It seems like it was just one thing after another. But my son is now on the mend, my daughters spent four hours playing outside with a new friend, the power came back on, and well, that basement. It will be dry in time.

My mother, who always saw the glass as half full.