We recently learned of a short story writing contest hosted on the Figment.com webpage and sponsored by the National Writing Project and author Courtney Sheinmel. Participants were asked to write a story of 750 words or less, using the provided story starter:

“I wish spoken words were things that could be erased, forgotten.  But now I knew, and we could never go back.”

One of the tenets of the National Writing Project is that teachers need to write so that their teaching of writing is based on experience. It helps to demystify writing for students when they see us working through the process ourselves. That’s why we keep a blog and share our writing with our students.

We believe that writing is a social act. When we heard about the contest, we liked the idea of posting our stories online. It would be interesting, too, to see what characters, plots and settings other writers would develop from the same beginning sentences.

Readers can “heart” their favorite stories. The ten stories with the most hearts will be finalists in the contest, with Courtney Sheinmel choosing the winner. The prize is a tote bag, some funky pens, a moleskin notebook and knowing that Courtney liked your story. We didn’t enter for the prizes; we wanted to continue exercising our “writing muscles” over summer vacation and to have some new pieces to share with our students in the fall.

Here are our stories:

Amy’s:  http://figment.com/books/106658-Making-Maps

Heather’s: http://figment.com/books/105474-Just-Like-Her

Also, for teen writers, there is a new contest where you can write a 1,000 word story to win a trip to New York City to spend a day at Simon and Schuster’s office to shadow an editor, and the chance to meet YA author Lisa McMann.

This is the story prompt:

“I twisted my hair into a ponytail, tucking it under my cap and lowering the brim. Then I took a final look around the room full of strangers, wondering which of them would help me escape, and which would try to kill me.”

The contest started July 15 and ends September 15. We hope we have inspired you to write this summer! Please share your stories with us; we’d love to read them.

Click on this link for the details: http://www.wattpad.com/contests.

(Blog piece written at 11:00 pm…June 30, 2011)

Today was my 40^thbirthday and I spent the day by myself in quiet contemplation. I have always loved having a summer birthday and my fondest childhood memories stem from the parties my mom would host for me at the beach. One of the charms of living in the UP of Michigan is being surrounded by lakes and sometimes it even gets warm enough swim. We frequented the beach often in the summers of my youth and the sugary taste of watermelon, or a plum or nectarine instantly transports me to afternoons infused with the smell of coconut suntan oil at Bewabic State Park on the shores of Fortune Lake. Blissfully I remember the satisfying sun-kissed and water-logged contentment I’d feel at the end of

Amy's 8th Birthday

the day. It was sunny this afternoon and I could have ventured out and spent the day at Teal Lake or Lake Superior. Instead I practiced calm reflection at home. It was not a mourning rite for my fortieth year and in fact it was quite the opposite. I believe that this is going to be a miraculous year. As I compose this piece in the darkness of our study the windows are open and even the wind outside feels charged with a magical energy. I think that for both Heather and I our 40^th year will provide an awakening of wisdom in ourselves as women, teachers and especially as writers.

Last week Heather and I led the UPWP Advanced Institute,“Digital Storytelling Using a Mentor Text” at NMU. I knew Romeo and Juliet would serve as my mentor text but I was not sure what shape my digital story would take. Ideas were surfacing from Dr. Kia Jane Richmond’s YA Lit course that I was finishing up at NMU. Kia had helped me brainstorm ideas for a theory paper that would examine the relationships between mother and daughters in literature. I decided to analyze a variety of texts using feminist theory. I choose a survey of literature that included the myth of Demeter and Persephone from Greek mythology, Lady Capulet and Juliet from Romeo and Juliet, and Virginia Euwer Wolff’s contemporary YA Lit novel Make Lemonade. What I found especially striking about my research was the fact that many feminist scholars maintain that often in narratives that involve mother and daughter relationships, the mother’s voice is often silent. As I researched and composed my paper my thoughts focused on my relationship with my mother and from there my digital story began to sprout.

When Heather and I began to formulate a plan for the “Digital Storytelling with a Mentor Text” workshop we discussed how participants would at completion of the course, have created a digital story that would serve as a multi-purpose teaching tool that they could use in their classroom and/or use in a professional development setting. Heather and I love the NWP approach of modeling ourselves as writers to our students and Teachers Teaching Teachers..

The idea for my digital story seemed simple enough, but it’s creation caused much vexation for me and I experienced multiple false starts and stops. Since the focus of the story would be to compare and contrast the relationship of Lady Capulet and Juliet with that of my relationship with my mother I decided the perfect time to unveil the story would be on my 40^th birthday. I established Thursday as my final deadline and over the course of the week visited my story often. Needless to say, last night I was working feverishly and still had not finished when my husband’s alarm sounded. Before leaving for work he convinced me to try to get some sleep. His advice of “stepping away” from the project for a while to gain a new perspective was exactly what I needed. After a few hours of rest I was able to finalize my project. When Heather called me tonight to wish me a ‘Happy Birthday’ I shared how creating this story was an emotional journey and she responded (as she did in her last blog post) that putting together a digital story is like “giving birth.” I was exhausted but exhilarated and so thankful for my supportive community of writing project friends.

In other blog posts I’ve shared how writing in the digital world allows our writing to breathe. While labored for hours on my script, photos and elements of my story, it is a video that I will be able to use year-after-year with my students to share a piece of myself. It will be a teaching tool that I will use after they experience Romeo and Julietto help them use literature as lens to examine their lives and the world. It will be a piece to model writing, digital literacy and hopefully will encourage them to share their own stories. I always tell my students that our writing is a wonderful way to help us chart our growth as individuals. In a very real sense a digital story becomes a time capsule that records our voice and our vision. I look forward to the magical year ahead the blog posts that Heather and I will share.

Amy's Beautiful Mother Karen

Tomorrow my mom will be traveling to our house to celebrate my birthday. We are hoping for sunshine, not so we can go to the beach, but so we can do some vegetable gardening, grill out and enjoy each other’s company outside. I am excited to share the digital gift that made for her on my 40^thbirthday to thank her for her wisdom and sacrifice.

Amy and I have made other digital stories, but we aren’t experts. In truth, we are teaching the class to learn along with our Writing Project colleagues. When we think we have one strategy mastered, the software changes, the computer glitches, or other challenges arise. Crafting a digital story is rigorous. Participants tell us they spend more time consumed in this than they do in a typical summer college course.

We decided to focus the digital stories on mentor texts so that we all can use the projects in our classrooms, and perhaps also for presentations. I chose Walter Dean Myers’ Bad Boy for my mentor text. I like to start the school year by having my sophomores read this memoir. We can relate to Walter’s struggles growing up, his reading and writing experiences, and his escapades at school. No, we didn’t grow up in Harlem in the 1940s, but Walter captures the experience of being human so well that we identify with him, or feel like he could have been our childhood friend. We root for Walter, and want him to succeed. When I tell my students that he’s written over 85 books, they are astounded that someone with hardships like he went through in school can grow up to be so successful. They find hope in his story.

In 2005, a group of Upper Peninsula Writing Project teachers, led by NMU education professors Sandra Imdieke and Suzanne Standerford, traveled to the explore the Kerlan Collection  at the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis. This is known to be one of the world’s greatest collections of children’s literature resources. We were fortunate to have Sandra guide us in our research; she is an expert on children’s literature, and was recently appointed chair of the 2013 Caldecott Award Selection Committee. She also serves as a consultant to the Newbery Award Selection Committee. It is fascinating to sit with Sandra and listen to her talk passionately about all the books she reads on behalf of children, in order to help them find top quality literature. I’ll admit, Sandra Imdieke maintains a rockstar/goddess kind of status from the perspective of an English teacher, former librarian wannabe, and biobliphile like me.

I first became familiar with Walter Dean Myers’ works at the Kerlan, and focused my research efforts on two of his titles for young adults – Bad Boy and Monster. I wrote a reflection on my research (originally intended to be a chapter of a book), but did not publish it. For the past six years, I’ve had this experience simmering in the back of my mind, knowing that someday it would resurface.  It turns out that time is now.

Another reason I picked Bad Boy as the mentor text for my digital story is because I thought that describing my reading and writing experiences would be a great way to introduce myself to my new students. They could use my memoir and Walter’s as models for writing their own literacy memoirs. The literacy memoir assignment, which I’ve used and adapted over several years, tells me a lot about my students, their backgrounds, their impressions of school, and their outlooks on reading and writing. It shows me how to move forward with them and immediately helps me identify their reading preferences and inhibitions.

Putting together a digital story feels like giving birth. After spending hours writing, revising, searching for family photos, finding music, recording voice, and playing with transitions and timings, I feel exhausted. Through that process, though, I’ve created a new piece of me, one I’m ready to share with my family and friends. This one is called “Meet Me at the Library.” You’ll find out why when you watch the video. I’ve always loved libraries, and hope to see you there with book in hand!

A cool breeze wafts through my classroom window, a large pine tree has blown over in the school yard, students have said their goodbyes, and I sit at my computer not quite adjusted to the idea that summer is here. I listened to 39 speeches today and 74 yesterday about my tenth graders’ beliefs. They each were asked to write a 350-500 word “This I Believe” essay, and then to present their beliefs to the class. I learned details about my students that I hadn’t known even after a full school year of reading their writing and talking with them each day. It made me realize I still want to know more about these young people and what they have to say.

When checking my e-mail this morning, I read a message from a parent who thanked me for helping her son and invited me to lunch. “Enjoy your free summer,” she noted. I laughed and cringed a bit, too, because many parents don’t realize that teachers’ summers are anything but free. Amy and I will teach a digital storytelling class at Northern Michigan University this month; I’ll teach an English credit recovery class at our high school in July; and Amy and I will lead a summer seminar on Holocaust education in Kalamazoo with our teacher friend Corey Harbaugh in August. Additionally, teachers often take classes in the summer for continuing education credits to maintain their certification. I’ll need to have six credits to renew my license next June. Free? Not exactly. I enjoy busy summers, but like most working parents I do dream of having an entire summer with no specific plans other than to spend precious time with my family.

In her “This I Believe” essay, sophomore Laura Thompson captures what many of us – students, parents, and teachers alike – feel on this last day of school before summer vacation:

Summer Days by Laura Thompson

Laura Thompson

I remember the summer mornings when my sister and I would wake up early and climb onto the tin roof of the woodshed. We would invent games and make up stories while perched way up high on the cool metal surface. Once the sun began to make the roof too hot for bare legs and feet, we would clamber down to discover what the day had in store for us. Most often we would venture to the woods to play make-believe, grasping sticks in our little hands, wielding them as swords and riding them like broomsticks.

Other activities that filled out free time included kicking up dust clouds in our driveway, diving for badminton birdies, lying on the ground inhaling the scent of mowed grass, watching the clouds roll by overhead, and searching for critters to capture and proudly present to Dad. It was in this time, this world, that my sister and I could just live for the present. It was in the summertime that we could simply be. We didn’t have to impress anyone, follow any rules or guidelines, or worry about school. There were no expectations or limitations. We were free to carry out the plans we had made for ourselves, not be pulled into others’. It is because of my childhood experiences that I believe in summer.

I believe in spending hours catching butterflies and climbing trees and going for long bike rides. I believe in living off s’mores, fresh picked berries, lemonade, and cookouts. I believe in the freedom to do as you please. I believe in summer.

It seems that through the years, the concept of summer has begun to change. College prep, jobs, and sports have overtaken the carefree months of camping, swimming, and basking on beaches. Instead of enjoying the freedom and simple joys of playing with your older sister, people are overworking themselves, studying, and ignoring the nagging memories of how summer used to be. I realize that we are no longer the small children we used to be, the children who were engulfed by the magic that fell from the lofty green trees the instant the last day of school came to a close.

However, I believe that the magic we felt when summer was upon us still exists; we just have to rediscover it – even if that means taking a half hour out of a summer day to just lie in the grass and stare at the clouds, eat a s’more, and drink some lemonade. To me, summer still means two sisters playing on the roof of a woodshed. Summer means freedom and fun and hanging out with friends. I believe in summer.

This is how we got started. I made available two Flip video cameras for the students to borrow, and gave them the alternate option of recording their messages on their own cameras. I asked them to be creative and to keep the clips short (around 20 seconds or so). Don’t worry about sound, I said, because the individual clips would be muted. The first student to turn one in was Zach, who wrote his message in large red letters on snow and then recorded himself racing up a hill on a snowmobile. Seeing his clip made the assignment concrete for me and got me excited to see what each student would create.

Collecting new submissions every day was like getting little gifts from the students. James’ Darth Vader costume and dance made me laugh out loud. I was surprised when Dallas zoomed the camera out of his tent, and I like how Makayla’s balloons twirl into the sky. The clinks of Matt’s golf club delight the ears and beg not to be silenced. Laura’s note in the mailbox holds special significance to me and to many of our students who participated in a life-changing event at our school called Challenge Day. Several students turned in videos featuring their pets, including dogs, a horse, a rabbit, and even guinea pigs. It was amazing to see the students find creative ways to highlight their individual interests such as music, art and sports.

All together, the students turned in over 100 mini-videos! The ones posted on this blog include a sampling from each of the five class sections. Once all the videos were collected, the students voted on which songs they would like to have for their class videos. The clips were strung together in Windows Movie Maker. We ran into a momentary glitch when we realized clips created in formats such as .mov and .mpeg weren’t compatible with Movie Maker. Downloading a free video converter solved that problem.

At the end of each video is a Wordle, which includes the names of the participating students. A Wordle can be created at http://www.wordle.net/. It’s fun and addictive to play around with fonts, layouts and colors. I really like the Alpha Fridge Magnets font. To get the Wordle image into Movie Maker, we took a screenshot (“control” and “print screen”), opened it in Adobe Photoshop (“control” “v”), cropped the image, and saved it as a JPEG file. Then the Wordle image was uploaded to Movie Maker as a picture file.

Today is the last school day before year-end exams, so we’ve set aside some class time to watch their videos. It will be a unique way to honor each student’s message and to celebrate our diversity as well as our commonalities. The Three Words to the World video idea is featured on ABC News’ website. People can create their own Three Words videos and submit them there. Watch our video samples below, get inspired, and perhaps send in your own Three Words to the World video to ABC at http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Your3Words/.
Waiting on the World to Change: Three Words Video

If Today Was Your Last Day: Three Words Video

As every educator knows the month of May is long anticipated by both students and staff. Yet, for the past decade it has snuck up on me and seems to race by with breakneck speed. Once again I find myself wishing I had a few more weeks to catch up on grading, cover a few more lessons and find my balance amid so much stress. I found myself cursing technology this past week because it allows me to over-book myself. In order to keep my Michigan teaching certificate current I’m taking an on-line class on Young Adult Literature, trying to plan a long distance summer seminar on social justice education with National Writing Project colleagues, plan for a digital storytelling course that Heather and I are teaching at Northern Michigan University, post on and help moderate a couple of Facebook groups, and I am constantly trying to chase after my email correspondence.

Today I suffered a horrible case of the Mondays. I tried to push through it and smile and carry myself with grace so my students would not detect my foul mood. Though ultimately I think they saw right through me.  I had a couple of students say, “You look really tired…” Yes, I was exhausted. Though summer is right around the corner…one foot in front of the other…keep moving…deep breaths!

Third hour the classroom was silent as my creative writing students composed poetry from a prompt I gave them from Virgina Euwer Wolff’s novel, Make Lemonade. The book is front-and-center of my mind’s eye since I am reading it for my on-line class. I was intrigued by the opening sentences in chapter 4, “This word COLLEGE is in my house, and you have to walk around it in rooms like furniture” (9).  I read the chapter to my students and they answered with a flurry of pens to paper. After twenty minutes a few read their powerful responses. We still had about fifteen minutes left of the class and it was obvious that they were done sharing. I think my students had the “Mondays” too.

Amber raised her hand, “Mrs. Laitinen I have our poetry project to turn in to you.” She walked up to my desk with a flash-drive in hand.  My heartbeat quickened.  A digital project! 

We watched the video that Amber, Alex, Austin, and Marc created. I was rendered speechless.  It’s not a secret in our building that I am the teacher who cries often. In fact, I sometimes wonder if the students have some sort of conspiracy to see who can make me cry first? Perhaps they use my tears as a measuring stick, “So, did you make her cry?” 

Believe me, I try to be strong. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. I tell myself. Today I couldn’t help it. Large tears sprang up from deep inside of me. It was a melancholy day and soon Anika, Allie, Kendra, Ryan, Nikki, and Amber will be leaving our creative writing class in exchange for their high school diplomas. Graduation is an event  they can’t prepare you for in any education class. It’s bittersweet and every year it crashes over my head with an intensity that I will never be ready for.

“Mrs. Laitinen, are you crying?” I think it was Amber’s voice again. Amber who entered creative writing the goddess of prose. Amber who was not fond of poetry but now takes our breath away daily with her stunning poems.  Amber who will be a famous writer and has promised to adopt me (Yes, Amber…it’s official and is now in writing!)

I heard a smattering of giggles. There was no hiding.  “Yes, I always cry when I’m faced with such startling beauty.” I tried to cover the tears with a huge smile. Yet, my creative writing students possess the map of my heart.

It’s true. My students never cease to amaze me.  They teach me patience, hope, courage, love, and the power that language has to make our hearts and tear ducts quiver. Amber, Alex, Austin and Marc reminded me today that I love technology.  It helps connect and preserve our voices.  Long after my students walk away from Gwinn High School, diploma in hand, I will still be able to savor and share their work.  They leave behind a digital fingerprint. An echo of their brave steps. A marriage of language, image and sound. A body electric.

Words of Wisdom in the Joy Center

Over the past ten years Heather and I have collaborated on many projects together. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have a colleague and best friend who shares my educational philosophy. We try to bring opportunities to our students that we would have loved to experience in high school. We both believe it is important to empower our students to find their voices and we are always trying to find ways to publish and celebrate our students’ insight and wisdom.

This year at Gwinn High School we have been blessed with AmeriCorps volunteer extraordinaire Matt Maki who made our dream of having a student writing retreat come to life. Not only did he orchestrate an amazing calendar fundraiser that features the writing and artwork of my creative writing students but he also organized an overnight writing retreat. On May 6, 2011 we were able to bring a talented group of young writers to the Joy Center in Ishpeming, Michigan to dream, reflect and create. Heather’s student teacher Christy Sener joined us and helped chaperone the event.

It was a magical experience to watch the students delight in creativity and to write outside of the confines of a classroom. Matt led us in a dancing workshop he leads weekly at the Joy Center called eMotion and the activity helped us connect with our inner artist. After eMotion I gave everyone a stone that my mom and I had collected this fall at the Mackinac Bridge. This stone became an anchor for the retreat as we each wrote a word on our rock’s surface.

Handmade Chapbooks and Word Rocks

In the next twenty-four hours we feasted on both words and food. A vast taco bar fueled our creativity and after dinner Matt demonstrated to us how to make beautiful handmade chapbooks to house our writing. For this activity he provided us with gorgeous papers and an abundance of collage materials and we laughed and worked on until early morning hours. In the morning the students made us French toast while I blended up green smoothies out of spinach, bananas, strawberries and pineapple for everyone to sample. We spent the morning experimenting with different poetry forms and the afternoon consisted of a collaborative writing activity. In spite of our exhaustion, we didn’t want the retreat to end. We are hoping to hold another creative writing retreat in June. I can hardly wait!

I thought that the best way to encapsulate the spirit of the experience was to share student reflections. Here are two pieces that were composed by senior Amber LaFavre and sophomore Alex Pastor:

The Joy Center Welcomes Us

“Is this really it?”

They were the first words out of my mouth as I swung my car into the looping driveway of the Joy Center. For a few precious moments, I and some students I had carpooled with simply sat there and stared, jaws slack. I had been expecting a building with cold concrete walls, not a warm little house framed by a sea of trees just birthed by spring.

Abandoning my shoes at the door, I was given a tour of the house, each room stealing more of my breath. In a building with no furniture, I still managed to feel relaxed. I dipped onto the chilly back porch and with the Joy Center inviting at my back, I felt poetry in my chest. It’s weird, trying to describe that sensation, especially since before the start of this school year, I never considered myself a poet. But in a place like this oasis of peace tucked into a chaotic world, I find it hard not to express thoughts into soft, fragile poems.

Mr. Maki told us as we gathered into the big room on the first floor that we couldn’t speak for an hour – and we had to dance. The whole time. He told us to feel the elements, to listen to the way our body wanted to move and obey it. Water was awkward, earth was beaten, fire made my tired muscles burn with satisfaction, air suddenly tasted so different in my lungs, and spirit almost made me cry.

The words that flooded out of my fingers came strangely easily. There was no homework

Austin and Amber

to worry about here, or tests to study for, a room to clean, chores to do – it was just a room full of souls yearning to be heard on paper. It’s strange how we think of walls as barriers, but the sunset streaked walls of the Joy Center were more like backs to lean on as we wept words. The house never complained.

I don’t know if I can accurately capture the experience yet. For me, it hasn’t ended, not until I drive reluctantly away from an unlikely home. Even when it’s over, and the trees shield the Joy Center from my rear view mirror, it won’t keep me from reflecting. I’ll roll my hand outside my window and dance with the elements again.

~Amber LaFavre

Maybe I was expecting something refined or “business like,” but I never, in my wildest dreams thought I’d pull up to the secluded Joy Center and immediately have my breath taken away. The silk sheets hanging from the Heaven bound ceilings were

Silk Chakra Banners

mesmerizing. Heads upturned to take in the changing colours, laughter, open space, it all made you feel very at peace and, in a sense, silly. We all hugged and explored the beautiful home. The artwork strung from the walls gave the place a very mystical feeling. You wanted to be creative, make art, write gorgeous words on ugly paper. But here, nothing was ugly. Most of us gandered downstairs where a fire was burning, like the powerful ideas we all had waiting inside. As we began the eMotion activity a lot of us were nervous; “No talking for a whole hour?” But as we started and music filled the room our bodies broke free of our minds. We didn’t think of what others were doing, we only thought of Water, Earth, Fire, Air and Spirit. Laughs again jumped from mouths, arms flowed with water, legs pounded the Earth, hair shook like fire, lungs housed air and souls took in spirit. By the end I felt like I had just climbed Mount Everest.

We got in a circle on the floor and I thought of the Knights of the Round Table. A basket of lake kissed rocks made its way around and we were told to write a word take described our week on it. Words such as fly, whole, chaos, and strong were scribbled into stone and we wrote poetry about our word. Everyone scattered and made stunning art with words.

Alex Creating Art

Collages began filling homemade journals as the night led on and students and teachers made their own adventures throughout the joyous Joy Center. We all belonged to this secret memory box; we all felt close and happy. The fire lulled some to sleep while others stayed up and tore images and words from National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines.

Eventually all of us writers made our way upstairs to lay on our makeshift beds. Sleeping minds soared as I laid awake listening to the silence. But soon I was breathing with everyone else, dreams making their way through the gypsy wallpaper and falling into vases of hope.

As puffy eyes opened I swear I could see a dream slipping through the air and then it was gone. Food and green smoothies filled our stomachs and again, we wrote. Letters fell out of mouths as us knights share our pieces. And now as I’m sitting here writing I can hear pages being turned, paper tearing, glue sticks hitting artwork, and my paintbrush pen jotting down my reflection of this glorious weekend. Maybe it wasn’t what I was expecting, but it was so much more than what I could have hoped for.

~Alex Pastor

Click to view slideshow.

“Look! Five poems were delivered to my mailbox!” I squeal, holding up five envelopes as I dash into Heather’s room in between lunch and 5^th period yesterday.  I hang my head in shame as I admit that the idea for this lesson sprouted from pure procrastination. April has been a daunting month that has been flying by with the intense energy of a 9^th grader. I have been in search of balance. I try to support my husband’s full time status as a college student, log miles on the treadmill, grade projects, plan healthy meals, create meaningful assignments, attend meetings, arrange to take six more credits to keep my teaching certificate current, plan summer courses…all while doing a spirited tango with spring fever.

“You will have to blog about this ‘Poetry Gift’ assignment,” Heather insists with a smile the size of my guilty conscience. I am a slacker blogger. While Heather sends piece-after-brilliant-writing-piece into the digital universe I still have two unfinished blog pieces for National Poetry Month (NPM) hiding in one of my computer files while two other reflections attempt to muster themselves alive in the moments I try to catch my breath. I still have my students’ poetry responses to Bud the Teacher’s NPM prompts to post, my 9^th grade Romeo and Juliet rewrites with hundreds of photos for documentation and the piece about hearing my grandfather’s voice in W.S. Merwin’s poetry is right on the tip of my tongue.

Our AmeriCorps worker Matt Maki has engaged our entire school in the celebration of NPM. He has encouraged a creative writing student volunteer to read an original poem during the afternoon announcements each day in April.  He enlisted four creative writing students to venture to Northern Michigan University to create a podcast of their poetry which will be showcased on the university’s webpage and radio station (future blog piece in progress).  Matt has also engaged the creative writers in an ambitious fundraising project to create a calendar out of artwork and original poetry. Heather and I are so thankful to Matt for the time he has dedicated to these projects. Because of his astute attention to detail and investment of time in the calendar (along with the students’ labor of love) we will be able to fund two annual writing contests at Gwinn High School and will be able to participate in a writing retreat with the students in May at The Joy Center in Ishpeming.

This morning when my alarm sounded at 4:30 I knew what I had to do.  Heather and I created Blended Voices to share our classroom practice and network with other teachers. Therefore, I really want to share the ‘Poetry Gift’ idea that I had to help celebrate NPM before NPM is over.

The idea for the assignment materialized last Tuesday morning while I was on the treadmill.  I was feeling quite stressed because my Moodle was not updated, and while I had a mini-short story unit planned, I felt rather unprepared for the week.  I wanted to do something special for NPM but was at a loss of what to do.  Last semester I engaged my students in an in-depth poetry unit and we explicated published poems, watched videos by spoken word poets, examined music as poetry, created digital poems, experimented with language and turned over raw emotion and polished words until they glittered.  As I poured over my students’ poetry portfolios (containing eight original poems, a Wordle cover and an auto-biographical essay) I mused over how fortunate I am to be an English teacher. I believe that English teachers have a unique understanding of our students because of the potent stories and pieces of their personal lives that they entrust us to read. I may be slightly biased but my students created brilliant and remarkable poems. Grading them took forever since I kept reading them over-and-over to delight in the wisdom of fifteen-year-olds.

I try to encourage my students to share the poems they write (and I share the portfolios at Parent-Teacher Conferences) but I know that teenagers can be guarded and often too timid to share their writing. “Poetry makes a great gift!” I often exclaim but I know that the fate of many of the portfolios is to end up at the bottom of a locker or abandoned in a neighboring waste basket. 

Last Tuesday morning I started each 9^th grade English class with a prompt projected on my classroom screen.  The prompt came from Bud Hunt’s blog, Bud the Teacher.  Bud is a teacher-consultant with the Colorado State University Writing Project. A visionary, Bud is celebrating the spirit of National Poetry Month by posting a prompt each day for the month of April. The prompts are composed of a photograph and include a thought-provoking statement. I really was inspired by Bud’s prompt for April 5^th. The photo is of a park bench bathed in sunlight with the phrase, “Who would you like to be sitting with today?  Why aren’t you?”  I gave the students twenty minutes to write to the prompt telling them they would be turning the piece of writing into a poem. When the students shared their pieces I learned that the prompt had also struck a chord with my students and many in twenty minutes had scribed beautiful poems. 

The next step was to instruct the students to bring a completed poem to class the following day. It could be the poem that was generated in class, one from the portfolio assignment, or a brand new piece they could craft. In addition to the poem they were to bring the address of someone to “gift their poem” and our school would provide an envelope and the postage.  I was surprised that the students met the assignment with a positive attitude and I was even more shocked the next day when only a handful of students (out of 92) had forgotten the address at home.

Each student accompanied the poem with their own version of the following note:

Dear _______________,

In celebration of National Poetry Month I am sending you a poem that I wrote in English class.  If you would like to send me a poem back please use the following address:

Gwinn High School                                                                                                                          C/O Amy Laitinen                                                                                                                   ATTN: Student’s Name                                                                                                                  School Address                                                                                                                              

Addressing the letters was an interesting process and I am always astonished to learn that many teenagers do not have the slightest idea how to format the address on an envelope. Wednesday I heard many choruses of,“What do you mean I have to use pen?”  “Where does the zip code go?” “Where should I write the address?”  While one class took nearly the entire hour to be guided through writing and addressing a letter (they were instructed to add personal details to the letter) the poems went out in Thursday morning’s mail.

In order to make this assignment a little more interesting I told my students that we would track their poems. We would chart which hour (of my four sections) received the most poems and had poetry sent from the farthest locations.  Once a student receives a poem in the mail they can then send out a second poem to garnish another reply.  The class that receives the most responses will then receive a prize from Mrs. Laitinen.

Yesterday I was delighted to find that the first of the poems had arrived. The students accepted the envelopes addressed to them in amazement.  Soon after I delivered the poems to two students in fifth hour one student was visibly moved emotionally.  “Mrs. Laitinen, you have to read this,” she told me, placing a letter in my hand.

Mrs. Laitinen, (the letter began)

Thank you so much for sending us a copy of our grand-daughter’s poem.We are so very proud of her.  She always seems to put a little extra in all her subjects.

The letter went on to explain that their whole family had gone through a very difficult time this year due to an illness:

Living with cancer is not easy but we all have the faith that we will get through this.

The letter ended with, “Thank you for having such a concern for our young people.” Enclosed in the letter were two poems.

At this time my student was not able to read the poems to the class and asked me if I would. Somehow I managed to get through them both.  My student’s eyes were filled with tears. She was not alone, many of us in the room were crying.

By the end of fifth hour I had received an email from the recipient of one of my student’s poems.  She was from my student’s past and had been an aide in my student’s elementary classroom: 

 Amy,  I just received the note and beautiful poem from (student’s name). I will be writing her a personal note, but I wanted to let you know how much it touched my heart. The note was very special and her writing was so beautiful. If you could only see how far she has come. She barely had a grasp of the English language and now she is writing poetry!!!  It’s just amazing to me. I am so proud of her. I’ve thought of her often and wondered how she was doing. She is such a sweet young lady. You must enjoy having her in your classroom.

This student moved to America from the Philippines when she was nine years old and truly is a phenomenal writer. I felt honored that an assignment in my class helped their lives intersect again. 

By the end of the day numerous students shared with me that the person who had received their poem had contacted them and was working on a poem in reply. One student remarked that she had no idea that her Grandpa wrote poems. Another student said her aunt was encouraging other members of their family to write poems to share for Easter dinner.

After teaching for ten years I am continually renewed by the discoveries I stumble upon. A former student, angered by unions in the state of Michigan, recently questioned me in a facebook discussion about how our school was scoring on standardized tests and what our high school dropout rate was. Instead of being angry, I felt empowered with the charge of helping my students find their voices.  Like many educators I profoundly believe that there is more to educating our young people than measuring their intelligence with standardized tests.  I believe that part of my role as an educator is to help guide my students into becoming thoughtful adults. A bubble test cannot quantify the capacity my students have for understanding the power of mastering language and how they can communicate in a sophisticated manner. There is so much more to teaching and I am thankful that I have the opportunity that I have to make a difference. It is important to me that I share the beauty of my student’s writing with others.

In a school day I come into contact with close to 130 students in my classroom. While it would be easy to get lost in a sea of faces I am always searching for ways to see my students as individuals. As I near the end of my 10th year of teaching, I feel that I have been successful in navigating the journey with a variety of engaging and meaningful writing assignments.

I have always had a special relationship with poetry and feel that it forces us to slow down and savor the moments that our lives are carved from. My students never fail to impress me with the way they navigate language to pierce the human heart. I am thankful that we were able to celebrate National Poetry Month together and bring a bit of poetry to the important people in their community inside and outside of our school. Poetry is a gift.  What are you and your students doing to celebrate National Poetry Month?

I told Amy about the dream. We laughed at my silliness, and then thought… Hey, why not try to win a classroom makeover? We contacted Trading Spaces to propose that they film a classroom makeover edition. We got a response saying the pitch was a good idea; however, film crews never showed up on our doorsteps like fairy godmother Oprah had.

Years later, my classroom still looks like … well, like a typical classroom. Actually, it’s about twice the size of a typical classroom. I have 15 computers in the room, as well as a sink and a full-length mirror (the girls do lipstick and hair checks between classes). In truth, I am blessed to have this space.

High Tech High

Out of curiosity, today I visited the HTH website to find out more about the schools’ award-winning designs. The website states, “Visitors to any High Tech High remark that it looks and feels more like a high-performance workplace than a school. With beautiful textures and colors, lofty ceilings, comfortable furniture, informal meeting areas, and lots of interior and exterior windows, our facilities communicate a high level of trust and respect for the work of teachers and students. Visitors are struck by the effect on students of all ages, who can be seen interacting with adults in collegial, respectful, and engaged ways.” Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? I wish we felt that inspired by the atmosphere here in Room 115!

I have tried different ways to make the space more appealing. I added an overly comfortable couch. The desks no longer march in rows. Two students painted a “To Kill a Mockingbird” mural on the wall. Student work decorates the bulletin boards. A colorful blocked rug from Target and paper lanterns from IKEA have come and gone. I’m looking for innovative, inexpensive ways to make the space more inviting to teen readers and writers. Any ideas?

That’s not to say fairy tale endings don’t come true. A fourth grade teacher in our district, Marci Paulsen, recently attended the MACUL 2011 conference in Detroit. While there, she won a $20,000 complete interactive classroom of the future from AVI-SPL, featuring a SMART Board 680 and stand, SMART document camera, SMART Response, SMART Slate, Chief® CoPilot™, InFocus interactive projector, and more. Marci won this in a random drawing after watching a brief presentation at the company’s booth.

Marci said she and some of her teaching friends – Gwinn teachers Magan Lantagne (my daughter’s 6th grade teacher who also incorporates a lot of technology in her classroom), Tricia Miilu, and Lori Woodring – were eating at Jimmy John’s when they got the call. “We were very excited,” Marci said, “jumping around and screaming…the employees at Jimmy John’s were wondering what was going on!”

She and her friends also won an interactive presentation device for first place in an “Interpretation of the Conference” photo contest. The photo’s clever caption? “We found this gentleman frozen in ‘time’ at Grand Circus Park Station. We decided to catch him up on ‘the times’ with 21st century teaching and learning.”

My how "the times" have changed. From left: Tricia Miilu, Magan Lantagne, and Marci Paulsen. Photo by Lori Woodring.

Marci already enjoys using technology in the classroom, including a data projector, a document camera, and many websites to enhance her lessons. She also has used a Promethean interactive whiteboard.

She looks forward to receiving the new equipment in late summer, and having her classroom become even more interactive.

“The slate will allow the students to stay in their seats and yet be performing tasks at the front of the room,” she said. “I have been searching for more lessons that will incorporate the SMART board technologies. I can’t wait to get going!”

So, what part of the prize will she value most?

“I believe the most important prize will be the instruction that I will receive from the AVI personnel,” Marci said. “Next year will definitely be an exciting new adventure for my students and myself!”

And me? I’m just going to keep on wishing and dreaming, and maybe do a little spring cleaning, perhaps adding a bouquet of Daffodils to my desk — you know, the one that definitely is not hovering above the students in an ethereal glass box.

I didn’t start teaching until I turned 30. I remember getting a letter of recommendation the previous spring from my supervising teacher BG Bradley after I had completed my student teaching at Westwood High School. “A teacher had been born 29 years before,” he wrote. “It was just that her time had finally come.” I thought back to my high school English teacher, and realized that she had recognized this all along.

Over the years, I have told several of my own students that they would make outstanding teachers. Some scoffed at me. Others have become teachers – including Emily Bianchi, Emily Strazzinski, Breanna Veale, and Jenny Winfield, to name a few. I am so proud and delighted whenever I hear that one of my former students has become a teacher.

Dr. Kia Richmond

My friend Dr. Kia Richmond, an Associate Professor of English-Secondary Education at NMU, recently approached the Gwinn High School English teachers about an exciting opportunity. She had applied for and received an $1,800 grant from MEEMIC Insurance Company, and a supplemental $500 Academic Service Learning grant from NMU. The MEEMIC grant, called “Reading/Teaching the Future,” would allow her EN350 (Materials and Methods of Teaching English) students to connect with middle and high school students in discussions focused on the life of an English teacher. She wondered if some of our students would want to meet with hers to discuss what English teachers do, how they prepare for careers in education, and why people might become English teachers.

Dr. Kia Richmond discusses a title with GHS freshman Jessamyn Orr-Obeshaw.

Participants would be able to choose a free book or movie related to teaching, she said, and in exchange would write a review or reflection to be posted online. Kia is such a go-getter, and she has brilliant ideas (I don’t toss around the word ‘brilliant’ lightly). I liked this idea, but wondered how many students would be interested. How many GHS students want to be English teachers? Maybe one or two, I thought. Would students show up after school for a get-together? I didn’t know how much participation to expect, but I do know that Kia’s projects always turn out better than imaginable so I looked forward to getting started.

Heather Hollands and Amy Laitinen

We put together a survey for GHS students, asking if they like to read and write, as well as if they ever considered becoming an English teacher. Based on these surveys, interested students were identified and invited to attend our gathering. We met from 3-5 p.m. yesterday. Nineteen students participated, joined by our high school English teachers showing support.

NMU EN350 methods students

Kia brought five of her Northern students. They mingled with the high schoolers and answered questions. The methods students will be student teaching in the fall, so they are near completion of their credits for certification. They are so passionate about becoming teachers that it made me feel lucky to stand in my classroom, surrounded by eager students. The excitement was contagious as students discussed their book and movie choices. Some chose to read the same title so they could discuss it together; others made plans to trade books later. At 5:00, students still didn’t want to leave. This morning, I saw them carrying their new books into class and showing their friends.

Senior Pamella Vincent writes down book titles for future reading.

Attending this gathering made me realize how important it is to reach out to these students. I’m sure Mrs. Moore’s encouragement during my high school years led to my eventual decision to become a teacher. With all the negative news about education lately, it’s especially important to reach out to the next generation. Secretary Arne Duncan of the U.S. Department of Education said Friday that over the next ten years, our country will need 1.7 million new teachers to replace the retiring teachers of the baby boomer generation.

Ms. Christy Sener, who will wrap up her student teaching and graduate from NMU next week, chats with two of her students, sophomores Isabelle Barnhart and Kayla Winkler.

I don’t know how many of these 19 students will become English teachers; certainly not all. How wonderful, though, if yesterday we planted that idea in their minds.

Kia and the methods students are going to conduct a similar meeting with North Star Academy students in Marquette on Friday. Also, part of the grant allowed for the methods students to join the Michigan Council of Teachers of English, which will support them in their professional endeavors. I encourage these soon-to-be teachers also to connect with the National Writing Project early in their teaching careers. I participated in the Writing Project summer institute the summer before I started teaching, and it was the best professional development I’ve experienced.

Students Ryan White, Amanda Molash, and Alex Pastor discuss their selections.

I am so thankful for the partnership our high school has been able to have with Kia through Northern Michigan University, and I know the other English teachers at Gwinn agree. She is a forward thinker and always an encourager of future teachers. It’s important work.

Note: Any students who participate in this project (from Gwinn, NMU, North Star or elsewhere) and would like to submit a review or reflection for online publication are invited to join the Wikispace http://englishteachersrock.wikispaces.com/ . The first student from Gwinn to post will receive a prize from Mrs. Hollands!

Photos and names of high school students are published with permission.