Teaching With Intent

Dearest Gentle Teachers, 

 78 days. That is how many days we have left of this year. But if we are talking school time wise, it is less than that. We have 78 days to continue shaping our students, our curriculum, and ourselves until the new year. This also serves as a reminder that you only have 78 days to get your reading goal for the year conquered. 😁 

You've probably spent about 45-50 days with your students so far. How does it feel? I feel like I know my students pretty well at this point. We've laughed. We've learned. We've had fun. I've cried. I've felt like a failure. But I've also felt successful. It has been a rollercoaster ride so far this semester, but it is one that I have mostly been enjoying. 

Creating Vulnerable and Brave Spaces

"No meaningful learning can happen if students don't feel welcome, safe, and seen in our classrooms" (Ebarvia 2024). Creating a classroom that is safe for every student that walks through the doors is essential. Especially if you want your students to express themselves freely. Build a community within the four walls of your classroom. Make sure students know that people's stories are just that, their stories. Whether they are fiction or nonfiction, each one is meaningful in some way. Establish rules around safety and enforce them. 

As an ELA teacher, journals are pretty common in our world. Do you read your students journal entries? Or is that a space just for them? I am not here to judge what you do either way, just to provide a little insight. I completely understand the need to read them. You need to make sure your students do the work that you assign them. But what if we made notebooks a sacred space for students to share for themselves? Almost like a diary, where the audience is only them. 

Have I piqued your interest? Well, let's continue. What is the purpose of them writing in the journal? In my future practice I want to remind students that their journal is a space for them to explore their own thoughts and ideas in a safe way. That their writing is just a conversation that they are having with themselves. Start with simple writing prompts, but eventually you will start to push for a little more. You can ask your students to go just an inch above their comfort zone when writing and/or sharing. But remember that you cannot set their boundaries for them. Only they know what their "just beyond" boundary is. 

Their journals can be used for a starting point to future projects, papers, and writing assignments. Having them write daily in their journal gives them different ideas that they can expand on in the future. This way they not only have a safe space to write but they also have a starting place if they are stuck. 

"Thank You For Sharing" 

I know that we want to push our students to be confident enough to share. I was the nervous student who hated sharing my writing with anyone other than the teacher when I was in school. I am still this way (contrary to this public blog post, but if you must know, I was forced to be here. But I am starting to rather enjoy it). I think I would still be very hesitant to share anything if it wasn't for a professor that I have had during my time in the English Education program. She had us write some pretty vulnerable pieces (at least vulnerable to me, because I have that comfort zone boundary😉) and then I shared it with my peers. We all sat in a circle with only our writing in hand. If you were not the one sharing at the time, you were asked to flip your writing upside down so you didn't catch yourself wanting to read in your head while someone else was sharing. We let each person share while we quietly and attentively listened to them. Once they were finished, we simply said "thank you for sharing" and then the next person went. There was nothing else said, no feedback, no comments, nothing but thank you. 

We did this a few times. The first time was hard for me as a listener because I wanted to comment and express my love for the work they were sharing. It was hard to just say thank you and move on. But as the person sharing, it was such a relief. Knowing that I wasn't going to hear any comments or have to answer any questions was a relief. While I don't think they would have been negative in my college level class I think in middle/high school level it can be a little different. Which is why this activity can be so important. Make sure you join in on the writing and sharing as well, just so you can experience the feeling of being thanked for your writing. 

Building Your Classrooms Foundation

Your students are going to know if your classroom has a solid foundation. Make sure your classroom is welcoming to everyone. What do your students see when they come into your classroom? What do your students know about your from your classroom library? Or the decorations you have around the room? What is it telling them? When building that foundation, remember that you have a diverse student population. Even if you think you don't, you do. Every student that walks through your door will come from a different background. 

Building your foundation starts at the beginning of the school year. On the very first day. Start your school year with meaningful activities. The ones that will serve as a solid foundation for the lessons and activities to come. Teach with intent. Know the reason why you give every single lesson, paper, activity, project, etc. Get to know your students. Build your community within your classroom. A community of writers, of readers, of learners. And this goes for all teachers across the field. Not just ELA. Create a sense of purpose. Humans need purpose. At least I think so. With great foundation comes great community or whatever Uncle Ben said. 😊

Larger Audiences

Once you have established your foundation and safe space for students you can start to ask them to create for a larger audience. Maybe you want to hang a project outside of the classroom, maybe you want them to submit a poem to the school paper, whatever it is, they should do it for a larger audience. A creative idea that I really enjoy is having students do visual biographies. Visual biographies give students the ability to be a bit more creative and not focus solely on their writing, which honestly, can be terrifying to share with larger audiences. Have your students create these, hang them on the bulletin but then hand them back and have students put them in their writing journals. These are their identities and it is something that you continuously have them reflect back on throughout the school year. So the larger audience isn't only the students and teachers who walk in the hallways, but it is also their future selves. 

Talk About The Hard Things

Ebarvia quotes "In a 2018 blog post, library educator Torres (2018) notes, "Adolescence is a time rife with uncertainty and feeling misunderstood -- like one's life is not one's own" (2024). Adolescence years are hard. There's bullying and social media and so many things going on all of the time. It is also the years that kids will start to form opinions about themselves and others. Making sure they are educated on the opinions and biases they form is important. And educating them starts in your classroom. It is critical that you include diverse texts and writing. Talk about the hard things and ask your students to talk about them as well. *Hard things include but are not limited to: race, gender, culture, identity. Don't just talk about them once. Talk about them all of the time. Keep talking about them. These things are important to every single student and they need to know they are important. Allow the space for your students to find their identity, to maybe feel certain about this one thing they are currently writing. Your curriculum matters. The way you design each lesson, the way you start and end each lesson, the intent you have is important. It is all important. Talk about the hard things, and don't stop talking about them.

Yours Truly, 

Lady Ace

Citations

Ebarvia, Tricia. Get Free Antibias Literacy Instruction For Stronger Readers, Writers, And Thinkers. Corwin , 2024