Author: caitgee7

Disclaimer: I was feverish during our last session, so if my details are off please forgive me. 

Here is what we accomplished: 

• Start
• Writing Into the Day – InstaPoem
• Teacher Inquiry Discussion
• Entering the Parlor (Research) 
• Reflecting (on Research) & Annotation Activity
• Naming Our Practice  

On a chilly but beautiful fall morning, ECLI was once again in session. We spent a larger chunk of the morning (somewhat stalling for Dan) catching up and sharing our lives. Lisa, Sierra, Terri, Julia, Chris and myself talked about our lives, our classrooms, and future plans. It was so pleasant  to have Terri and Julia back in action, we missed them during the last session. Our morning discussion surrounded the conference both Terri and Sierra attended earlier in the week, general catching up, and work related discussion. All which welcomed and lovingly had. Sadly, we were missing Chrysanthe and Sam for this session, while Dan was MIA but nearby. 

When we actually started the day with an interesting “InstaPoem” for our Writing into the day. After composing our poems (ON PAPER!), we all shared what we wrote. Lisa’s poem echoed the triumphant saving of an innocent spider.  I wrote about volleyball, because it consumes my life. Sierra’s (self-proclaimed) “dark” and eloquent poem was well-written and beautiful as always. Chris wrote passionately of his illness in such a descriptive and concise way. As Sierra put it, he is very quotable. 

Terri’s nature poem about her previous weekend in the woods, really made me want to go camping. Last but certainly not least, Julia’s poem surrounding energy had a really interesting vibe. The experience was easy but inspiring, another great writing strategy for our classrooms. These activities are some of my favorite, to see how differently we interpret the same exercise, I love how my peers write and think. 

Once we completed our sharing, we shifted gears to our next activity. We discussed “why” we do something vs. “what do you do” with a short video. This shifted the discussion to the “why” associated with our teacher inquiry. 

Terri started the discussion off with what motivated her teacher-inquiry. She said, so many people around her find value in what she is doing, even when she struggles with it. Since she doesn’t always feel this way, her goal was to focus on how to create a culture of support to support literacy and writing. Her inquiry project aims to focus on creating teacher-writing groups at her job in hopes to empower teacher. 

Lisa spoke next about her struggles with ELL learners. She talked about the delicate balance between necessary curriculum and making learning fun. “I can’t be bored and they can’t be bored. I don’t know the best way to teach English, at all.” I think all teachers struggle with how to make learning engaging and including all the necessary skills/elements. Chris reminded her of her beautifully illustrated children’s book from our summer session and the possibility of connecting it within her lessons. Lisa mentioned also wanted to include and find texts that meet the students where they are. It was a very productive and support discussion. 

Sierra’s focus revolved around students value writing and wanting to write more. Her inquiry and mine focus on implementing Writing Groups into our classrooms. Although Chris was sickly, he still contributed to the insightful question — “why writing groups?” Sierra responded that she found in her writing groups in ECLI, other people such as myself found value in her writing. She wanted to use these experiences in her own classrooms to help students writing, hopefully in a similar way. Once more, together we brainstormed suggestions, modifications, and methods of potentially approaching writing groups in her classroom. Chris pushed the idea of WHY – “why is that so compelling? Writing together and sharing our writing. WHY collaborative writing or writing together?” We discussed, working in pairs, not implementing it into every classroom, and that teacher inquiry is an EXPERIMENT. This mirrored my own thoughts and motivations, because my inquiry questions were the same, how can I implement writing groups (successfully) in my middle school classes? Chris contributed his thoughts on his inquiry, being the WHY. 

RESEARCH, RESEARCH, and more RESEARCH. After figuring out why we wanted to focus on these various topics, we had time to research. Sierra and I collaborated on writing groups, and brainstormed different ways we could introduce this idea in our very different classrooms. This time was very valuable to see what others were saying about our topics. 

Lisa left us around noon, but her and I discussed the excitement over the “One Positive” and texting in the group chat. I was once again triggered by the final chat I overheard between our instructors on Lisa’s VSCO “costume”. 

The session began coming to a close with some final activities. We wrote a reflection on our research using some guided questions and thoughts. We discussed our thoughts, how we felt, what we learned and much more. Using this reflection, we then moved to an annotation activity. The first round, we asked questions on another person’s reflection. Then commented on yet another, and lastly made a connections on a third. We returned to our own reflection and read the comments, which I loved. I force my 8th graders to annotate, so for me to do it in my own classes makes me chuckle. They think I torture them for fun, when it’s a great strategy for any type of reading. 

Last but not least, we made a plan of action. What’s next? What needed to happen between 10/19 and our next session on 11/2? We outlined what we needed and wanted to do to be ready for our next session. Before ending for the day, we named our practice (see above). Chris thought it was cute, to include “SKSKSKSK” as part of naming our practice. He must have been sick, or enjoys torturing my soul. On that note, I was ready to leave and head home to try and sleep off my fever. I am eager to see our missing counterparts next session. 

Ps. I apologize for not documenting the wildness of Daniel in this session. I was definitely off my game.