I Meant to Tell You before I Forget: a creative writing experience

I love teaching "I Meant to Tell You" themed poems. I first heard this lesson from a teacher during a demonstration on copychange poetry while facilitating the Ozarks Writing Project's Summer Institute. I quickly purchased my own copy of James Stevensons' children's book, I Meant to Tell You,  and modified this into a more organic and natural narrative writing opportunity for my students.

This lesson is easily adaptable for all grades levels.  I enjoy teaching it in my English IV class with seniors, particularly at the beginning of their last semester of high school. Seniors in America are often just beginning to think about "what's next?" I try to get my students to not only think about what's next, but also what is now, and what was then? I want to guide their thoughts toward the people who have helped them along the path of their first 18 years, and help place value on the relationships with family, friends, and significant adults in their lives. This lesson guides students through a series of memories and creates a platform to share their connection with someone close to them.

It varies in how I present this lesson. Sometimes I read Stevenson's book as an opener, lead the students in writing, and then follow that with previous students samples and my own poem about my grandmother. Sometimes we begin with the freewriting questions and then provide the samples afterwards. It generally takes two 48-minute classes, or one full 90-minute block.

Ms. Daugherty and Grandma Susie, Valentine's Day, 2007

With all writing, we begin by freewriting, but before we do so, I share my personal writing story and a photo of my Grandma Susie. "This is the mother of my mother" I explain to the students, "and after my mother died when I was 10, this woman became one of the single, most influential and significant women in my life." I go on to talk about the poem I wrote to her for Mother's Day, 2008, based from this writing we are about to do, and I let them know that her death in 2011 is still a painful grief for me to bear. "The death of a beloved is an amputation" wrote C.S. Lewis in A Grief Observed, and I surely still feel physical loss with the passing of this woman.

As we start, I ask students to think about and write down the names of the closest people to them, These are the people who have made an impression or an impact on them; people who, if were not in their lives, would leave a significant hole. My grandma was one of those people for me. I follow that by posting one question on the board at a time, and then offer students three-four minutes of private, quiet writing time. I also let students know that everything they write during this session is private, not to be shared with a partner, me, or the class.

Work sample from a student
during focused freewriting. Eventually
this student may choose to continue
this into a formal piece of writing.

After questions have been answered, sample poems have been shared, and students have had a few minutes to talk about writing possibilities, writing time is provided. Options are available. Students can use the copychange structure, or any genre within the narrative mode; I encourage creative non-fiction, memoir, essay, or narrative poetry. (A note about the copychange: if you're worried this doesn't produce authentic writing, keep in mind this is a strategy that provides students with the skeleton model of a poem. Mimicking others is not uncommon. Walk into any museum and notice how many art students you may find sketching portraits. Also know the copychange style is sometimes a block for me as a writer. It feels like a worksheet; that I have to get it perfect before I write it down. I share these feelings with my students and show them examples of how I overcome it by starting anywhere on the page and writing in the margins)

Be sure to write with your students. Share in the messiness of crafting together words.

Below is my I Meant to Tell You about my Grandma Susie. I had the privilege of reading this aloud to her. It was framed, placed on the mantel, and eventually read at her funeral.

Dear Grandma, 

I meant to tell you, before I forget:

I remember growing up with you always there.

I remember we used to spend time at Bull Shoals Lake

When you and Grandpa would camp at Pontiac.

You always picked the prime spot--under oak groves overlooking bluffs

And always near water hydrants and bathrooms.

We would play games after dark by lantern light.

We'd clean the checkered tablecloths from the stickiness of fresh cantaloupe and watermelon

And divide up spoons and cards, or sometimes dominoes.

And then you'd bathe us in bug spray and bury us under sleeping bags and blankets in tents.

When I was little and spent the night at your house

You'd sleep in Rick's twin bed beside me,

I asked "Did you lock the door?"

You said "I never lock the door! But tonight I did."

You told me it was because there is something precious in the house.

I looked up out the window from the bed, afraid of approaching thunderstorms.

You said, "Grandpa will take us to the basement if it gets bad."

I fell asleep snuggled with stuffed animals and you.

By morning, you'd be back in your bed next to Grandpa.

I woke up early and crawled in beside you to watch the Smurfs.

Grandpa brought us bacon and juice.

A Saturday morning breakfast in bed.

The first time I remember you visiting Gainesville

You brought strawberries in a picnic basket.

We made homemade ice cream on the back porch.

You sat on the redwood deck with Mom, and Dad, and Grandpa, and our dog, Lucky.

You talked and laughed and I brought you lightning bugs in canning jars.

I learned who you were from Susie's Flowers and gained an adult respect and love.

You gave away so much.

You hugged old friends, and made news ones before they walked out your door.

I wanted to become who you are.

I hope I am who you were.

You always said, "She teaches in Willow Springs," to your customers.

You didn't let anyone leave without them knowing my accomplishments.

But mostly, you bragged that I was Carolyn's baby and Lionel's daughter.

I remember you were there when mom was sick, I think

You knew it might be the end.

I remember, once, how the nurses wouldn't let me in to see her in intensive care.

Together, we watched the doors slowly close and heard them latch, locking me out.

And I cried into your chest.

You hugged me tight, and between kisses on my forehead whispered

"I wish I could take her place."

I never knew a love so strong.

One day at the flower shop after a busy Valentine's Day

You hugged me tight.

You told me you couldn't have done it without me.

It was a while ago...

But I remember growing up with you always being there.

And all the things we did together.

I meant to tell you that. 
Love, Casey
Mother's Day 2008

Waiting for Super(hu)man to Change Education

I have to say I was disappointed in Oprah. And I know I'm also opening a can of worms by expressing that. There are definitely teachers who should not be teaching...no profession is exempt from this syndrome. And I must admit, there are many times I was an "inadequate"...and I would even call myself a BAD (embarrassingly bad) teacher at some time during the last 17 years of my career, and am I ever thankful I wasn't fired. Instead, I learned, grew, and worked through my inadequecies because I am in the business of learning. I know there are many, many teachers who are great teachers who have had lessons, units, quarters, semesters, or maybe even years of inadaquacy--but there are so many who change and grow and develop into an effective teacher. I would go has far to propose it's this way in every profession--from "not so good today at my job" to "wow--I rocked it!"

Teaching is hard, hard, hard work. It's a continuous development and when teachers are supported in reflecting on their own practices, learning what strategies are effective (which changes daily in this century and with our kids), and in not being evaluated by test scores, then, quite possilby, we could have an "okay" or "good" teacher turn into a "great" teacher.

I have a big issue with people talking about my profession and trying to "fix" the problem who haven't spent a minute, or wait, make that 282 minutes a day with 130 students for 185 days a year in one single classroom. It gets a little taxing and some days I feel like I'm a great teacher, and some days I wonder what in the world even happened today. I'm not saying I don't think we all can't engage in the conversation, I welcome this discourse--even those who are not teachers, but Oprah single-handedly silenced the voice of all the good and great teachers our country has. There was not one teacher on her "expert panel."

I'm going to see Waiting for Superman so I can join the national conversation regarding its content. But I'm a public school teacher and I serve ALL students. Rich. Poor. Hungry. Snotty-nosed. Whatever. I will see to it that every kid has the right to an education, a good education in my classroom, not just the ones who "qualify" for a privately funded education. I do not believe Charter Schools are the answer.

To my readers: This was an impromptu voice posted on my friend Kim's FB wall after she posted that inadaquate teachers should be fired. I had a lot of other things to write this morning before work--specifically regarding the professor trying to ban books in my school district (which I will write about later)...but her status was the first thing I saw, and I sat down to write. I have more to say on this topic, but thanks to my friend (and great teacher, Kim), for forcing me to start thinking through my own thoughts and beliefs about Oprah and Waiting for Superman.

The Promise of Cooperative Learning

One of my students wrote a semi-scathing piece about her teachers starting cooperative learning in their classes this past week. While she read it aloud, she kept looking at me sheepishly, unsure if she was going to get in trouble for chastising her teachers' new approach to learning and how much she despised this new found "cooperative learning." At first her peers acted the same way--looking at me unafraid to show their emotions on the subject, but by the time she finished her satirical piece and showed the drawing that accompanied her writing (administration and faculty with angel wings hovering over the entire school of students leading a Kagan-inspired Rally Robin) the entire class erupted in laughter losing their fear of any repercussion.

I laughed my way through this, too, mostly because I understand this students point of view. (Not to mention she has every right to her own opinion and expression of what's happening in her own learning life.) All of a sudden she's forced to partner and share her work in classes where she was largely doing her work individually. While I'm a big believer in cooperative learning and utilize it in my classroom daily, I realized long ago that 12th graders appreciate guiding words such as "find your partner" and "let's take 15-seconds to think first" over "Stand up, Hand up, Pair up" and "We're going to do a 'Think, Pair, Share' now."

In a strange sort of way, all of a sudden my class has lost validity in the eyes of my 12th graders. It kind of hurts. We read aloud our first poetry this week and afterwards I asked the students to offer up *snaps* to the poet. Where did I first learn this informal way to show quick, unobtrusive appreciation and feedback? The Greater Kansas City Writing Project-2002. Instead though, I was accused of being Kagan-crazed and brainwashed. "What?" I thought to myself,"Does he even have the copyright on "snaps after poetry readings?" Suddenly, my normal routines of collaborative and cooperative learning have been demeaned by the entire school going through Kagan training. "Oh no, don't hit me with another cooperative learning technique" the kids think to themselves. This new student perspective has thrown a kink into my once authentic and honest approaches to collaboration. Now, partnering up to share our work feels forced and not genuine, whereas before the students just thought my class was "different" than others and were inclined to open and share and learn from each other. I was intentionally cultivating a group of learners who were just beginning to learn that we do not learn in isolation.

Incorporating this Kaganesque CL into my classroom is not hard. I am 100% for cooperative learning. In fact, it's only a simple change in the way I word directions to the students. I was explicitly informed there's a "right" way to do things and that "we all need to be on the same page." I really didn't think this would be such a big deal. But to my kids right now, it seems to be. At the beginning of the school year, they felt like I was treating them as adults and with respect, but now, many feel like their knowledge and expertise as learners has been demoted by several grades. Where we once simply found a partner, we now "Stand up, Hand up, Pair Up." Where once we decided our own roles in our learning groups and defined them together, we now have "Sultan of Silly" and "Synergy Guru." Where we once had Gallery Walks (or sometimes Gallery Passes) that began with student-led discussion of what it means to walk through a gallery observing, thinking, reflecting, and responding, we now have "Carousel Feedback." I can't say I like the name changes either. It makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong if I don't say it the Kagan way. But for the sake of my job and for being part of and supporting the community of teachers in my school, I will do what's expected as we dive into learning what Kagan CL brings to the classroom.

The bottom line, I guess, is that Kagan provides answers. Answers for teachers who are demoralized and deflated from media and political ridicule. There's so much pressure on teachers for their students to perform well on standardized tests that teachers will largely follow any for-profit company who guarantees lowering the achievement gap and raising standardized test scores. Being told what to do and how to do it to get certain results is so much easier than questioning, learning, exploring, discovering, and reflecting on process. Kagan, in a nicely organized binder and a guidebook to accompany it, provides answers.

I guess this is why I love working with the writing project so much. I'm never given answers. And I never give them. I'm never given lectures on "what the research says." And again, I never give them. Instead, I'm valued as a professional educator and expected to be a curious learner. I'm encouraged to question and research my classroom practices, and then share my expertise and knowledge in conversation with other professionals. It is this tapping into each other's faucets that leads to greater teaching and learning. My biggest breakthrough in learning cooperative learning and collaboration came this summer at NWP's Recruiting for Diversity Institute. I realized that in order to build trust and community, it doesn't really take a coordinated effort in the balloon bounce or the untwisting of the human pretzel. Instead, it's the reading together, the writing together, the working together, and the sharing together that fully engages us as learners and motivates us to invest in each other.

(Author's note: Do I need to add that I think Kagan structures are solid and do provide opportunity for classroom conversation and learning? I hope not. If you got from this post that I do not believe in cooperative learning structures, then you're taking away the wrong thing. This post is not about belittling Dr. Kagan's years of research and expertise. I believe in them and have used them for years. But through the years, I've simply adapted versions that work well with my students. I don't believe Kagan structures are the "end-all-be-all" of education. There is never one right way to teach and learn. This post was simply inspired by a students reaction to her first experiences as a learner in many Kagan-inspired classrooms this past week.)

Who Inspired(s) Me to Write...

My 2nd grade teacher let me write a short story, "The Dragon in My Garden", and sent a letter home to my parents about me being a writer. I was hooked. I'm 30 years now into diaries, journals, and blog posts.

Writing gave me a new insight to its value when I started reading my mother's daily journal entries a few years ago, (she passed away 25 years earlier) and I noticed my own writing began to change with it. So did my motivation to write.

Although I never felt stifled as a writer during high school and college, I'm not sure I was ever able to explore my writing thoroughly, and I know I wasn't able to develop myself as a writing teacher until I learned to understand my own processing at the Greater Kansas City Writing Project in 2002.

There's an article floating around on Twitter right now from the New York Times about re-connecting with teachers on Facebook. I can't visit with my 2nd grade teacher anymore, but I'm blessed with teaching during the age of Facebook and just last week a former student posted a compliment on my wall to how I inspired her writing. Fortunately, I get to say back, "it was you, and all your classmates, who continue to inspire my own writing and being a writing teacher." This constant connection and re-connection continues to pull me toward writing and its value in my life.

where will they go from here?...

A milestone for 63 young lives has been reached at Willow Springs High School for the Class of 2007. Only 13 years ago, these seniors entered the new and exciting world of kindergarten. A world full of swing sets and merry-go-rounds. Kool aid, cookies, numbers, and letters. Secrets, mischief, scraped knees, and band-aids. A world where a helping hand wasn’t far away and a shoulder to lay your head on was nearby. A world where tadpoles and puppies made everyone smile, and fishing with daddy on hot summer afternoons at the river made long days go fast. In this world, curiosity reigned, imagination grew, and exploration began.

Today, seniors, you again enter a new and exciting world. Today’s world is a ride down the information superhighway, a step into new technology, and a jump into the unknown. And with this leap, a nauseous anxiety comes with closing a chapter in your life and beginning a new one.

Physically, life is much different. Metaphorically, life is the same. In this world, again, curiosity reigns:

Can I become a doctor? A lawyer? A teacher? The president? Could I graduate from college? Will I pursue happiness? What is life like in China? India? Europe?

And imagination still grows:

What if I added these lyrics to this measure of music? How can I paint Frankenstein as American Gothic? What types of dance express my freedom and my personality?

And finally, exploration is just beginning:

Where do I go from here? What challenges will I face and which will I conquer? How can I revolutionize the next 10 years? What changes can I make to the music industry? The arts? The medical field? The scientific world? The political stage? How will I affect my family? My community? My nation? My world?

What is it, Class of 2007, that will make you rise to new occasions? To continue your curiosity and imagination? To explore like the historians and travelers of our past and find new frontiers? As graduates in the 21st Century, I encourage you take a leap into the unknown world and write your symphony along the way. How will you make a difference? And what will you accomplish?

As a final assignment in my English class, students write a valedictory farewell speech and share it with their classmates. Through the emotional goodbyes and sincere thank you's, students also take the opportunity to say final thoughts about themselves or their lives. One graduating senior bravely spoke for what I think many felt: “There’s more to me,” he calmly said, “than what I let on.”

What more does the Class of 2007 have to offer? How deep does your surface go? Where will your intellect take you and how will you use the opportunities you have presented to yourself through your hard work and dedication to your education?

You have a lifetime to answer that.

Learning is like breathing...

“Learning is like breathing.” I tell my students this on Thursday, April 26, 2007, just hours before they are to begin one, if not the, biggest academic nights of their high school career. In what I like to think is my own little pep talk before the big game, I lead students through a relaxing breathing exercise and discuss how very similar breathing is to learning. All academic school year our Willow Springs High School seniors are inhaling—through research, reading, writing, and creating—and “at some point,” I tell them, “if you don’t exhale, you will explode.” Smiles creep along their faces, but most understand the metaphor. After a year of taking in, students enter Senior Project Night accomplished and prepared to share knowledge they deem important. “It’s your time,” I explain, “to exhale.”

Senior Project Night gives our students the forum to display work completed through the year. The Senior Showcase jumpstarted the evening’s activities in Grimes Auditorium, a display of all projects and products were on hand for parents and community members to observe, and students were present to discuss their projects with those who attended the event. “I’m so impressed with the passion our students have about their products,” noted School Board President Chris Rutledge as he walked through the maze of student work. “What’s happening is our students are intimidated with the magnitude of the project and find themselves honing in and focusing on something they are interested in…and when you pour hours and hours of research and time into something, we begin to recognize it as passion.”

Following the Showcase, the evening continued when formal presentations began at 5:20 p.m. at the high school. Sixty-two seniors presented on a variety of topics, from training coon hounds to tanning leather, from writing scripts to writing novels, from building hot rods to dancing the fox trot. And the beauty of this? Students didn’t just tell their audience about their topics, they showed their audience their hard work by bringing in products they created from and through previous research. Although I tried to relax students before it all began, it wasn’t long before the halls and classrooms of the high school were buzzing with excitement and energy. Willow Springs High School was swarmed with over 200 community members and students who came together to pull off another successful Senior Project Night.
Although students do extraordinary work, the event would not be the same without help from over 150 judges, 25 volunteers, and 30 student volunteers.

I would like to thank all who participated in some way to make the night a fabulous success for our students and our community. “Thanks for the opportunity to be involved as a judge this year,” said Faron Adamson, a board member for the Hartville School District and professor for Webster University, “The entire experience is an experience for a lifetime for these students. What a significant and real world project, no matter whether students attend college or head to the work force, these are necessary skills for any 21st Century job.”

One of my favorite quotes comes from Margaret Thatcher, British Prime Minister from 1979-1990. She reminds us to look at a day when we are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around and do nothing, it’s when you’ve had everything to do, and you’ve done it.

Back in September, our students saw only that they had “everything” to do, but at the end, I hope they are supremely satisfied. Senior Lindsey McElyea said , “Now that it’s over, I’m so glad for this opportunity. I grew mentally, and I stretched myself academically, but most importantly, I had a chance to do something for myself and to give back to my community and to families in need, and that means a lot of me.”