It All Comes Together

"He should get a Newbury for this!" one of my students exclaimed. "A Newbury!"

"What are you reading?" asked the guy to his left.

"This profile that Anuj wrote about me," the first student answered. "He. is. a. genius!"

Primary Source

One of the students who is interviewing me for the profile project has chosen gardening as her angle. Because they have to get some secondary quotes, she asked me who else has "seen me gardening."

My nephew, Treat, has helped me before, I told her. Since my budding journalists have a limited travel budget, most of them rely on the kindness of their subject to pass along their written questions. As it is the 21st century, some have used Google Docs and email for this task, but I have a stack of index cards for those who want or need to go old school. The kids persist in calling them postcards, though, a misdesignation which I find so charming that I never correct them. And so it was that this particular student brought me a collection of three "postcards" for Treat:

Hi Ms. S's Nephew I need to ask you some questions about her because I'm doing the thing about her, read the first one, and below that the word Questions! with lots of dots and underlines. At the bottom it read From Samantha R

The next card had two questions: Have you ever seen her struggle when she's gardening? and have you noticed her strengths?

And the final card asked, how can you describe her garden in 3 words?

Rather than transcribe the inquiry, I texted photos of the cards to Treat. As a potential primary source, I wanted him to appreciate the primary questions. I believe he did, because his answers were very much in the spirit of the project:

1) I've never observed ms s. struggling in the garden. I do believe that there is an upward limit to her strength but I haven't observed it

2) yes, as mentioned, I haven't been able to determine her strength exactly but I believe it to be very great

3) the vegetables!!! yum!!

I can't wait to share them with Samantha!

K is for Keep this in Mind

It's personal profile time in my little corner of the sixth grade world, and that means students are conducting (and giving) interviews so that each can write a 500 word journalism piece, with a specific focus and theme, about another member of our class. In sections where there are an odd number of students, for the sake of logistics, I get to participate, too.

So, this morning I was being interviewed by a fledgling reporter who asked me what I considered my greatest strength to be. I was stumped by the question.

One of the reasons I value being an active part of the project is that it allows me to model what I want my students to achieve, but the bigger pay-off is that it puts me in their shoes. "Um, I guess, I'm curious?" I answered. But then I recovered, delivering some good evidence as to how and why such a description fits me. Even so, it's hard to be interviewed!

Later I thought about that conversation when I looked at the recipe for gambas al ajillo that I wanted to make for dinner. Take 20 cloves of garlic... it started. That seemed like a lot to me, but I wanted to prepare the recipe according to direction before I made too many changes. Peeling that much garlic though? That would be a pain!

Fortunately, I remembered reading about a clever way to peel garlic which involved putting the cloves in a container and shaking them vigorously until the papery skin fell away. I grabbed a jar, dropped my 20 cloves inside, screwed on the lid, and proceeded to swing that baby up and down until every little piece of garlic was stripped naked. It only took about 10 seconds.

Wow! I thought. I should have said my greatest strength is that I have a good memory!

Life Lesson: "Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. Attention is vitality." ~Susan Sontag

Q is for Quizizz

This year I have created a bunch of review materials for our state standardized tests and put them in the form of "Quizizz" a Google-friendly app that allows students to compete against each other in a game-like environment. The teacher gets data as well, both at the question and the student level. Besides being high-interest, another benefit is that kids can access it independently, and so it fits in with a workshop approach where everyone is working at individual speeds and levels.

As a result, reviewing for the test is integrated into our class, but it is not the focus, and we can move on with other projects. Which we have. But when I told students today that they would be conducting the first interviews for their personal profile pieces on Tuesday, a very conscientious student raised her hand. "But wait! Isn't the SOL on Wednesday?" 

And when I nodded, she continued, "Shouldn't we be reviewing?!?"

I get what she's saying, but I shook my head and laughed. "If you don't know it by then," I told her, "one more class period of review won't help."

"I better do those Quizizz!" she said.

That's what they're there for!

Life Lesson: “The best preparation for tomorrow is doing your best today." ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Profiles in Teaching

Once again, the end of the year finds my students interviewing one and another and writing journalism-style profiles using the simple structure of a lead anecdote that describes the subject in action, a description of how and when they started (past), what they are doing now (present), and what they hope to achieve (future). The whole piece is about 500 words and ends with a quote from the subject. "Give your person the last word," is how I explain it to my students.

Despite many models, this is a hard assignment for them. Evaluating and synthesizing the information gained in interviews with their classmates and at least two others is very challenging for your average 11 or 12 year old. Still, they forge through, mostly because they want to do right by their peers and so they are motivated to write the best piece they can.

Of course, I am available to assist them, and I willingly do so by stepping in to model on-the-spot follow-up interviews to glean the information and quotes they need to craft their articles. I'm also a whiz at providing just the right secondary source quote to move the profile forward, and should someone be stuck for a transition? Why, I am only to happy to offer a suggestion.

Such was the case today when a student approached me with her dilemma. "Can I say, Anthony isn't all that great in soccer because he didn't even make the school team," she asked. "Or is that too much of an opinion?" She frowned. "It's important information, but I'm not sure how it fits."

I was happy she recognized the importance of journalistic objectivity. "Why don't you write something like, Despite working hard and practicing daily, Anthony has had some disappointments when it comes to soccer...?" I suggested.

"Wow!" she said. "That's not bad! I guess you do know what you're doing with this writing stuff!"

That Works

My after-lunch class was working diligently to finish up the typed drafts of their personal profile pieces when I looked out over the lot of them and felt my heart swell just a bit. They have been one of the most memorable groups I've ever taught. At times polarized in terms of ability, and then re-polarized in terms of motivation, and then polarized again in terms of energy, it seemed like there was never any middle ground with this class. And yet, almost all of the lessons and activities I planned worked beautifully with them. Somehow, despite their nutty antics and loud voices, they were able to capitalize on the strengths of any grouping and bring out the best in each other academically. And now here they were, working quietly trying to get their profiles of each other just right. "I'm going to miss you guys!" I blurted out.

Oh! I should have known better, because of course the room erupted in a chaos of retorts, equally sincere and snarky, and it was several minutes before I could get them settled down again,

because that's who they are.

Sounds Good

The end of the school year finds my students writing journalism-style profiles of their peers. In the past, this has been a very successful assignment, partially because most kids like talking to each other, especially about... themselves. Just last week one student told me that me he felt like laughing and crying at the same time because he loved this project so much. Okay, he might be an extreme case, but the kids do like this work.

Many human interest profiles begin with a lead anecdote, one or two paragraphs describing the subject in action, doing something essential to the angle of the piece. It's sound practice to give students examples as models of what they're trying to achieve, and so today I shared the lead anecdote that a student wrote last year in a profile of me:

Tracey walks straight into her kitchen after a day of work. She preheats the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and then pops in the part of her meal that takes the longest: the potatoes. Then she turns to make the rest of her meal: kale salad fresh from a farmer’s market, roasted portobello mushrooms, tiny roasted grape tomatoes, and toasted almonds. Once the mushrooms are brushed with a sprinkle of olive oil, soy sauce, and pepper, she slides them past a blast of heat that welcomes her as she opens the oven, and onto the oven rack. She chops the tomatoes and adds them to the oven. When the mushrooms and tomatoes are done, she sets them to cool as the potatoes finish baking. Ms. S. then whips up some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and mustard dressing and adds it to the kale salad. When the potatoes have reached their finest, she removes them from the oven and adds some quickly-melting butter, then combines all the oven-cooked delicacies together. She crumbles blue cheese on her salad and is finished with her typical dinner.

Pretty impressive for a sixth grader, eh? And I'll tell you what else; after hearing that passage read out loud four times today, you can bet what I made for dinner.

Good Times

It's profile unit time in my English class. (For a description of this fun assignment, I invite you to click here.) Because of the way the activity is structured, in a couple of classes one student has to interview me. After our first conversation, the student journalist must choose an angle to focus on. This year, one student has chosen to write about the fact that before I became a teacher, I was a chef.

Today, he slipped me a sheet of paper with a few additional question about my former life as a caterer. When were you a caterer? Did you run your own business? What was the best and the worst day you ever had as a caterer?

Later, alone at my desk, I picked up a pen to answer his inquiry. The third question took some thinking. I could recall plenty of nice parties I had worked, but when I was catering on my own, nothing too bad went down. I considered a few of the late nights I put in, and then one memory flooded back. 

Two frozen turkeys needed to thaw quickly, and I didn't have the sink space so I dropped them into the bath tub and ran some cold water. Downstairs, I continued my prep. A little while later, my mom and sister returned from the theater with a friend. As we stood and chatted, the patter of what sounded like rain drops sounded from the dining room. Within moments, water poured from the woodwork and a huge bladder formed on the ceiling. We watched helplessly as it swelled to the size of a cow's udder before bursting like a giant water balloon, drenching half the room.

Long story short? The turkeys had plugged the drain and the tub was overflowing. There was an inch of water on the bathroom floor by the time I shut the tap off, and the only place it had to go was downstairs.

 I'd say that was a pretty bad day.

Watch Your Step

My students are doing a lovely job on their profile pieces. The writing is warm and witty, and so many of them have shown a knack for the style and voice that is most common in such articles. Oh sure, there have been a few missteps, but mostly they have been slight stumbles on the way to a knock-out profile. Here's an example of a minor mistake that made me giggle:

A plane flies into one of El Salvador’s airports. The passengers get their luggage, and start off the plane. One girl looks out into the country. The warm breeze touches her cheek. She walks off the plane, and steps on her heritage for the first time. 

Ouch!

Read All About It

The finishing touch of most journalism pieces is not a title but a headline.

So I told my students today as we embarked on the last week of their personal profile assignment. Before we looked at some tips on how to write an effective headline, we looked at a few examples of some that had fallen short. Here they are:

Police chase winds through three towns
Teacher strikes idle kids
Trial ends in mercy killing
Owners responsible for biting canines
Sisters reunited after 18 years in checkout line at supermarket
Services for man who refused to hate Thursday in Atlanta
Grandmother of eight makes hole in one
Milk drinkers are turning to powder
Juvenile court tries shooting suspect 
New rule cuts tardy students in half

As for that last one? My homeroom this year would be a bloodbath.

And You Can Quote Me

One of the requirements of the personality profiles that my students are (still!) working on is that each piece must include several direct quotations: some from the subject, a couple from other kids, and at least one from an adult.

Here's my favorite so far:

"Woof, woof," yelled the German shepherd of Rose.

J is for Journalist

We have reached the personal profile portion of our English class. This is an assignment that I have experimented with off and on for the last six or seven years, but it truly came into its own last year, when after three solid months of blogging, my students were ready to turn that introspection out. (Plus, they had created quite a body of work for anyone who might profile them to use as a reference.)

The way it works for us is that each student is randomly assigned a classmate to profile. There are at least two interviews, and the first is a basic get-to-know-you opportunity for which the journalist prepares a list of questions designed to uncover a lot of information. After reviewing the notes and reading some of their subject's writing on our online community for background, journalists must narrow the focus to find an "angle" for the profile piece. Next is a second interview with a much more focused set of questions. Our young journalists must also interview friends, classmates, and teachers about their subjects.

The final product is a 500 word profile with a clear focus and theme. (Think "life lesson" because that's our frame of reference at this point.) It is a non-fiction research piece that exposes students to primary sources and demands analysis, synthesis, and artistry, but those are not its greatest strengths.

Life Lesson: The kids love it!

I'm Blushing

and those are real tears in my eyes. What I'm about to post may seem self-serving to some, but I want my mom to read it.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we're wrapping up the year with personal profiles, People Magazine type pieces of journalism. The kids interviewed each other, but in the classes with an uneven number, I got involved in the project, too, both as reporter and interviewee. Here's what one of my kids wrote about me:

On June 30,1962 in Washington, D.C a child was born not knowing she would be come a teacher and a miraculous writer and reader.
    Tracey is an amazing, outstanding teacher. But there is definetely a child within her. "I think because she has had such a happy childhood that she is so good with kids." Tasnim  says.
    She is exciting and always knows what to do. She definitely likes teaching and she loves kids. And she also liked by everyone of her students.
    She is the oldest kid in her family so she was mostly always in charge. And being a teacher and having to be in charge of kids, she does not really feel out of place. "My brother and sister didn't give me a hard time so it was easy being in charge as a child!" Tracey says herself.
    Tracey as a little girl would pretend to be a teacher and would dream about it too. And now she is living the real thing. So what do her kids think about her in class. "She is fun to hang out with but also strict." her student Ashley says.
    Her childhood is such a big part of why she loves to teach and be a good teacher. "My mom was nice and awesome but also strict just like I am now." Tracey say she loves to teach and be a cool teacher with  her students. "She knows how to explain things but make it interesting." Maeve says.
    You really just have to admit she is a great teacher. "Although I have to work hard I love to work with kids." she says. I for one think she is an awesome teacher. Teaching makes Tracey happy.

Reading this piece was a special experience for me, and I know from listening to the students over the last few days how eager they are to read the profiles that their peers have written of them. I'm just so happy to have found such a great way to end our time together.

P.S. To regular readers of this blog, the author of this profile was the very same student who accused me of sucking the fun out of everything. Redemption is sweet.

Writing Up Until the End

So, we're wrapping up the year with a taste of journalism. The students are conducting interviews and writing personal profile pieces. First, we drew names to see who would be interviewing whom. Next, we read about interview strategies and composed a list of questions. Then each student had 15 minutes to conduct their first interview. After that, they went over their notes, looking for a theme. We read examples of profile pieces, too. Once they had decided on their angle, they conducted brief follow-ups and worked on figuring out what questions to ask other people to get the supporting quotes they needed.

Today we started getting a few rough drafts in, and I was very impressed by the products I saw: there were some compelling angles and interesting quotes, too, and the writing was really good. This was a great activity to end the year with. It gives the kids a chance to talk to each other and to write about a topic of interest, one of their peers, for an audience they know well, also their peers.