Write Now. Write Here.

This is the view from my hammock.  When I look up from my book, this is what I see.  The word on the street is that I read a lot.  True.

The word on the street is that I don’t like to teach math.  Not true.  I love patterns; I love helping people find the perfect solution; I love games.  I love finding multiple avenues to solve one problem. I love showing how numbers, like words, can tell a story.  I love playing a part in building math confidence. Parents tell me that they’ve heard on the playground that I don’t like to teach to math.   It simply isn’t true.

The word on the street is that I love to teach children to write.  This really is true. On the first day of school I gently lead my students into a vale of voice and meaning through story. I explain that when we tell stories we are “writing in the air.”  When we write down our stories, we are putting our voice on paper.  I loved hearing the “Quick Write” notebooks crack open for the first time last week as I turned on our writing music.  Did they all punctuate?  Did their ideas hang together?  Was their spelling correct?  No.  One of the joys of being a third grade teacher is watching it come together.  And it will.  These children are going to write well and love writing.  That is the word on the street.  And it’s true.

The first homework assignment in Room 204 is to look at the world with the eyes of a writer.  This is the first step of writing.  I don’t teach it by myself; many authors help through the books we use as mentor texts. Authors help teach us how to look, but it takes practice to really see the world around us.  The words on paper become our new medium of “show and tell.”   Looking is the first assignment and it is a regular weekend assignment.  It is always my homework assignment, too.  To get back in practice, I took a camera to document the way I look; the result is this piece of digital storytelling that will be used in Writing Workshop.

Look at the World With the Eyes of a Writer

Of course I would love Switzerland:  The four food groups seem to be bread, butter, cheese, and chocolate!   These were the perfect foods for picnics in forests, on river rocks, by lakes, and in the Alps.  Clock towers, church bells, and cow bells… bells rang everywhere. My favorite was sound of cow bells that we encountered on a walk in the Alps.  I managed not to break into song as we tromped along mountain paths, but the soundtrack from the Sound of Music ran through my head constantly!

September is a blind date for any teacher.  You are matched with 22 students, and 22 students are matched with you.  “Are they your favorite class yet?”  People who know me well ask this question every September and laugh.  They know.  They know that in September I still miss the last class.  And their parents. And they know I’m about to fall hard for this new class.  Again.  It happens every September.  It will happen next September, too.

June is about saying goodbye to 22 children.  I know them, I love them, and it is hard to say goodbye to them. We make each other laugh and we finish each others’ sentences.  We know each others’ strengths and foibles.  We have become a community of trustworthy friends.  We are not perfect, but we work together perfectly well.   That blind date in September? That seems like it was a long time ago.

We’ve been reading Appalachian Folk Tales.  Richard Chase went into the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina in the forties and collected the stories that were told there. As a folklorist, he was interested in European roots and motifs that ran through those tales.  It was clear that the stories had come with settlers and had morphed in a new environment. These children become folklorists as they learn to make connections and trace the motifs to stories we’ve read from other cultures.

Many of the stories Chase collected center around a hero named Jack. Jack’s brothers Will and Tom, one after the other, set out to seek their fortune.  Then it’s Jack’s turn.  Jack is his mother’s favorite; it is hard for her to let him go. In story after story, Jack’s mama packs a poke– she stuffs some corn pone into a red bandanna and pokes a stick through it.  Jack puts that stick on his shoulder and sets out to seek his fortune leaving his mother on the porch wondering if he even has the sense he was born with.  Is she done?  Has she given him what he needs?

Jack triumphs.

Next week, I’ll stand on the porch and say good-bye.  I’ll wonder if I’ve given each child all that he or she needs.  I’ll remind myself that we’ve worked hard together and that I’ve packed their pokes full.  They’ve been taught to pay attention on the journey– to “read their lives” so they can write about their lives.

They’ll triumph.

Yarn and knitting needles tiptoed into the room last week. Some girls brought in some knitting and then some other girls wanted to learn.  Then some boys wanted to learn.  And then I wanted to learn.  Knitting has formed some unlikely partnerships in our classroom: a boy, who can be tough and rough, tries and tries again while a soft-spoken girl shows him how to get it right.  Another boy, known for his size and strength and gentleness, works the yarn deftly in his large hands.  Everyday new knitting needles come in with a novice knitter, and the newly taught become teachers to whoever moves forward to learn.

There are not enough knitting needles. A boy has the idea of chopsticks and brings them in.  Another thinks to knit with pencils. I have raided abandoned craft closets for yarn.  It is good to do something with our hands after a morning of state testing.

No one knew how to cast on the stitches.  Two girls took responsibility for finding out how — then they cast on for others. They weren’t getting enough time to work on their own knitting.   That’s when I knew it was time for me to learn.

I went to Ben Franklin and got my own knitting needles and yarn.  I came home and searched You Tube for a demo on how to knit and I hit replay over and over while I fumbled with the yarn.   It is good for a teacher to remember how hard it is to learn something new that does not come easily.

I watch children knit and can’t help but think of Maria Montessori.  She wrote often about the child’s capacity for concentration and love of silence, order, work, and beauty. The knitter’s silence sings with these truths.

There is something perfect about our class learning to knit at the end of the year.  At the beginning of the year we explored our hopes and dreams for third grade.  We learned the Room 204 routines.   We “cast on” well as we created life and learning together. As the year is ending we are learning to finish well. There are no dropped stitches.  Each person is honored as part of the pattern.  In knitting, if you don’t take the time to finish your work, it unravels.  We have worked too hard together to unravel.  We will take the time to finish beautifully.

Last week I had a picnic with four girls from Fox. Lauren won the picnic in the Teacher Lotto and graciously invited three girls from Room 204 to join us. On a beautiful day, over peanut butter sandwiches and Cheeze-Its (not my usual fare), one of my girls regaled us with stories about her four-year-old brother. We all laughed, and as far-fetched as some of the stories sounded, I knew they were true. When I was a third grader,  I was a big sister and I had a four year old brother, too.   Our storyteller is a good writer and has written about her brother before, but it was a treat to hear her tell the stories and to hear her laughter tumble over her words. Brothers can do that to you. They can make you laugh in spite of yourself.

My brother could make me laugh even when his jokes and pranks were at my expense, and they often were. My brother was so good at this that, even though he has been gone for a few years now,  he can still make me laugh.  I turn a corner and his turn of phrase pops out at me. Even now his sardonic humor can beam light on the truth. My brother was a writer and taught writing at a university. I was stunned when he left the university for a job at a large national accounting firm. “But you are a writer!”

He responded, “Writers can’t just write about life… they have to live it, too.” For him, the exit door at the university was was marked “entrance” to  life, new experience, and new material. An ending was a beginning. He was able to cram one more wonderful lifetime into an abbreviated life. He was my most important writing teacher. His lesson about living life as opposed to just writing about it was his most important writing lesson.

The first writing lesson of Room 204 is, “Look at the world with the eyes of writers.”  It is also the final lesson.

Parents often ask me what they can to make sure their children continue writing over the summer.  Some children will be motivated to keep journals over the summer.  If they are not,  don’t worry about it.  Children spend summers living the most important writing lesson of all: “Writers can’t just write about life, they have to live it, too.”  The authors they read or have read to them will be their writing teachers.  Summer is the time to learn this: the life we live is the story we have to tell. Live it and love it.  Together.

Every day, before lunch, we read a little of Charlotte’s Web.  Each child has his or her own copy.  A cup holds their names on popsicle sticks.  I  read aloud.  The room settles.  I draw a name from the cup,  and that child takes a turn. I read some more and pick another name… As we read, we explore what E.B. White teaches us about writing.

I am quiet when it comes to what Charlotte, a common gray barn spider, teaches me about teaching. Charlotte is a brave truth-teller and understands that a life’s work can take a lifetime to accomplish. There is not a minute to waste.   She knows that her children are her legacy.  She knows that relationship requires risk.  And she knows that by using her web to weave a few well-chosen words, she changes the world around her and helps others see new possibilities.

The words we choose are the tools we use.  These simple lessons weren’t there for me upon the first reading. They took time.  Learning takes time.  Change takes time, but it can start immediately. Charlotte’s Web is just one example how literature has deepened our thinking and our life together.

I know the power of words to encourage, inspire, and illuminate.  I have seen words change a skeptical adult into a volunteer, a slumped humiliated child into a scholar, and a defeated first year teacher into a change agent. The language we use sets the tone of our schools and our homes.  I try to be like Charlotte: I weave words to help others see what I see in the children I teach. Terrific.  Radiant.  Miracle.  Some Kid.

I don’t think it is an accident that Charlotte made her home in a doorway.  She begins her relationship with Wilbur with a greeting, “Salutations.”  She knows the secret:  when we greet one another, we create a culture of kindness where everyone can be seen and heard.   By creating a world together where no one is invisible, we create a world that is fairer.

At the end of Charlotte’s Web, E.B White writes, “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a writer.  Charlotte was both.”  In Room 204, we’ve spent this year learning to be both.  We’ve learned how to be good writers.  And we’ve learned how to be true friends.  It began with a greeting.  Encouraging words.  And a good book.

I love picnics.   I don’t know if it was my first picnic, but it is the first one I can remember.  We ventured into the Black Forest in Germany.  I remember the sun-dappled forest floor and the wooden hamper with the leather straps that held the plates and cutlery in place. I remember the  the scratchy wool plaid blanket and the red thermos from which my parents drank coffee.  I remember my baby sister. But mostly I remember knowing that I was in the very woods in which Hansel and Gretel lost their way.  My father confirmed it. He also pointed out that these were the woods where the woodcutter let Snow White go and where a prince later found her.  The very woods.  He didn’t need to remind me that there was probably a wolf behind a tree waiting for a little girl to come skipping down the path.

I love picnics.  We had a picnic yesterday to celebrate Mother’s Day.  We, four generations of us,  sat in the lush green of Libby Park.  I asked my mother if she remembered that picnic the Black Forest so long ago.  She remembered it vividly.

It was long ago and far away and yet these woods are very present in Room 204 this week.  We  have started a genre-study of Folk and Fairy Tales.  Our anchor texts are from the Brothers Grimm, untouched by Disney.  Children need these stories to deepen the well and broaden the landscape of story and literature. This week we will go deeper into these woods as readers and writers.  We won’t get lost.  I know the way.

And so do you.  Let me know the name of your favorite folk or fairy tale.

The bongos played. Parents came and so did Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost and Christopher Marlowe and Langston Hughes and Paul Laurence Dunbar, and so many others.  Word by word, poet by poet, poetry came to life. Word by word, poetry was written in the air in the same way that sparklers write in the night. I loved the private ownership of a poem held ready in the heart of a child walking forward toward the stool.  I loved the celebration of poetry, of students, of parents and children, of writing, of third grade.  I loved watching parents and children moving around the room, cool jazz in the background, asking one another, “Do you have a poem in your pocket?”  Again and again, crumpled paper was pulled out, unfolded, and shared.

Tulips. Coffee.  Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.  Edible Words made by Lenny and her Mom.  It was part of our celebration.  To quote Kool and the Gang: “A celebration to last through the years.”

Over and over again:

“I wish April wasn’t over.  I love poetry month.”

Poetry will never be confined to one month of the year again for these children.  Some walked into Room 204 loving poetry in September; they were predisposed, but on Thursday, every child walked out of Room 204 as a poet and lover of poetry.   Poetry is theirs.  And that doesn’t change now that it is May.

There’s a party goin’ on right here

A celebration to last throughout the years

What’s next?  We have one final genre-study together.   We’ll study as readers and as writers (of course).   Would you like a hint? Can you guess?

The final unit of study will close with the same words which will end our year:

“And they lived happily ever after.”