Slice of Life 2021- 1 of 31: A Day to Forward To and Dread

It's March! That means that I am participating in the Slice of Life Story Challenge. I am happy to co-host this event with the team at Two Writing Teachers. Everyone is welcome!

"Does my debit card count as cash?" Cecily asks as she comes into my room. I'm writing, and she's going through her checklist another few times, and one of the items is money. 

March 1: The date has loomed in my mind as a date to look forward to and dread. You might be thinking I mean the Slice of Life Story Challenge. I don't. 

March 1: The day my baby (she's 18, but as the youngest of four daughters, she's my baby) leaves for her trip. She deferred her freshmen year of college, a wise and tough decision, and until two weeks ago, she ran a small group of elementary students as they navigated school from home. 

March 1: She will board a 6:15 AM flight that will stop in Chicago. She will change flights and go on to Phoenix where she will meet her three trip leaders and the nine other program participants. She will have a stuffed backpack, a daypack, a one-person tent, several masks, a COVID mail-in test, and a spirit of adventure, as she treks through the Colorado River Basin. 

And she'll be gone for almost three months. 

I open my drawer for my cash stash, and she gives me a thumbs up and an eyebrow raise. 

"No harm in having both," I say. 

March 1: Tomorrow. 

Bring it on. 

Happy Slicing,

Slice of Life: Trying to teach through a screen

   I'm doing my best to keep up with slicing on Tuesdays! All are welcome! Join us at Two Writing Teachers!

I'll get them to write these essays, I thought to myself. 

I was excited to work with this group of fifth-graders. Their teacher had been telling me about how they turned their screens off, didn't write anything. When they did write, it was the bare minimum-- a sentence or two for the entire writing period. 

"They are all capable," she explained. "They can write."

Equipped, planned, and ready with my best strategies for encouraging writers and meeting them wherever they are, I headed into a breakout room with five students. One didn't arrive. Somehow, his pathway along the digital road missed the entrance to Breakout Room 4. (Could have been intentional.) Two others showed up as letters in square boxes, despite my requests to turn their cameras on. At least I could tell from my Go Guardian screen that they were looking at me. I launched into my idea for them to start the process of an essay with all the research already done, and I shared my screen, explaining how I wrote a paragraph from a set of bullets, and inviting them to try it out with a different set. No one wanted to try. 

"I don't get it," one said. 

I persevered, and after longer than I would have liked, we had a second paragraph written. (I did the typing.)

"Please make copies," I said, "and share them with me. That way I can teach you better since I'll know what you're doing." 

Three of them did. Nothing from the girl. 

"Do you know how to do that?" I asked. 

No response.

"I can show you," I offered. 

No response.

"Want me to share my screen?"

Nothing. 

Then she disappeared. Didn't even turn her video off first. Just left. And the GoGuardian screen told me that the student was off line. 

Turns out she was upset and crying that she wasn't allowed to work on her own essay. 

This online teaching is hard. 

Happy Slicing,

Slice of Life: Enthusiasm?

  I'm doing my best to keep up with slicing on Tuesdays! All are welcome! Join us at Two Writing Teachers!

I wasn't sure what he was going to say as the man in my Zoom meeting, one of my favorite mentors, got ready to say how he would describe me. I can't remember how exactly our conversation landed on this question, but the pathway doesn't really matter to the story. 

"You're enthusiastic," he said. 

Enthusiastic? 

The wrinkles on my forehead must have showed my confusion and maybe my displeasure with that word choice. 

"That's a compliment," he said, and I knew he meant that. "How would you describe yourself?"

"Passionate," I said. "Maybe committed. Driven. Not really enthusiastic."

The two of us launched into a debate about the difference between enthusiastic and passionate, and my point was that enthusiasm didn't relay a sense of seriousness or pathway to action. He disagreed, emphasizing the importance of positive energy behind whatever meaningful change was on deck. That, to him, was enthusiasm. 

"The work is hard," he said. "You can't give up. That's where you have to have the enthusiasm to both lead and keep going with the work."

We agreed not to disagree, but to consider and reconsider. Words matter. Passion. Commitment. Energy. Enthusiasm. How do they relate? Where do they overlap? I'll be thinking about this during my moments of quiet and contemplation. 

Happy slicing,

Slice of Life: Celebrating the faces on the screen

  I'm doing my best to keep up with slicing on Tuesdays! All are welcome! Join us at Two Writing Teachers!

I wasn't sure how it would go as I watched face after face appear on the screen in front of me. 

"The link to the meet is at the top of my Google classroom," their teacher had told me, a line that I'm pretty sure would have made very little sense to me a year ago. 

"The chat isn't working," one of the third-grade boys said, a line I'm pretty sure would have made very little sense to him a year ago. 

As I gave directions and taught a short minilesson about transition words, the students accessed the digital chart through a slide presentation or through a post on their classroom feed. Some of them did a quick screenshot and put the picture of the chart right into the piece of writing they were working on so that they words would be right there for easy access. 

H. and I debated the pros and cons of using a Google document or a slides presentation for her information piece. Since she was struggling with both volume and organization, she decided to go with slides so that each slide could be for a specific sub-topic. 

Yes, some students disappeared, turning their screen off and logging off or walking away from their computer, based on what I could tell from GoGuardian (another term that would have made very little sense to me a year ago), but mostly, this group of students who hardly knew me-- I was filling in for their teacher who has Covid-- was responsive and responsible. 

In an environment where so many conversations are beginning with the size, growth, and potential for learning gaps, what a lot these eight and nine year-olds know and are able to do.

Happy Slicing,