Slice of Life: It's not my story!

Every Tuesday, the writing community of Two Writing Teachers hosts Slice of Life. All are welcome to participate by linking up posts or commenting on other participants. 

My slice of life is happening even as I write. 

My teenage daughter is working on a personal narrative that she will receive a stakes grade on, and it's due tomorrow, and she keeps asking me for help. I've reminded her (and me) that it's not my story. Plus, I have a mantra, and many of you share it, as it comes from Lucy Calkins: Teach the writer, and not the writing. 

I'm trying. I'm really, really trying. 

I'm struggling. I'm really, really struggling. 

She's working on a google doc, and that complicates the issue for me. It's SO easy to make comments on those docs, and where's the line between teaching the writer something that will be transferrable, and telling the writer something to do on that one piece of writing? I made a comment where I told her to think about four ways to stretch the important moments of her stories: action, dialogue, description, and inner thinking. 

"Well, where should I do that?" she asked. 

You can bet she rolled her eyes when I suggested she's really the one who should decide on the important parts. 

"It's your story," I said. "It's not my story."

She rolled her eyes again when I asked if she had a rubric or a set of expectations from her teacher, and she opened up her classroom. Sure enough, there was a rubric with a list of clear learning targets. I have to say that I don't love that she's writing a story that will receive a  ___/50 total points, but I do appreciate that the list of clear expectations are there for the students. 

"I don't really have any of this," she said, and I could tell she was close to tears. "I hate writing narratives. I hope I NEVER have to do this again."

An invisible dagger sliced through my heart, but I agreed stories can be hard, and we had some ways we could think about revision that could work with all narratives just in case she ever has to write another story. 

Together, we sketched a story mountain of her story, and then I taught her about an emotional arc. That helped her change some of her plot points in ways that even she had to admit made better sense. 

As I write, she's still sending screen shots of some of her revised scenes, working hard to get me to better her writing. As I write, I'm trying to think of answers and responses that nudge her to do most of this thinking on her own by looking at the rubric and self-assessing whether she's met those targets of if she could do more. 

Have I mentioned how hard this is??? I'm still trying...still struggling...

Happy writing and slicing to all of you (and to my girl!)

Slice of Life- A High Pressure Small Group Lesson

Every Tuesday, the writing community of Two Writing Teachers hosts Slice of Life. All are welcome to participate by linking up posts or commenting on other participants. 

Small group instruction usually doesn't make me too nervous. I have a few chartbooks that are well stocked with tools, and I can usually reach for one of those. If I don't have the tool I want, I feel pretty confident about creating something quickly that does the trick. But today, I had a high-pressure small group session. 

I had the tools. I had the students. They had their writing. I had my teaching point. You're thinking this is all good, right? Oh, I forgot to mention the pair of video cameras on my right and left. 

Nothing like video cameras to raise the stakes and my blood pressure. 

As I explained to the four boys why this lesson would be important for them, one of them played with his lead pencil. You know the type. Those intriguing pencils that have several tips that insert into a plastic tube, and if you don't have them all engineered just so, the pencil doesn't work. (These pencils might have been created in order to torture teachers, especially teachers who are trying to conduct a lesson on a video tape.) Fortunately, I had a collection of felt-tip pens and made a quick trade with my friend, which he dealt with. 

"I'll give you the pencil back after the lesson," I said, as I swept up the several parts he'd managed to get his pencil into as soon as the video got rolling. 

The lesson continued, and although it wasn't perfect, it was probably good enough. And maybe it will even be affirming for others to watch some of the real-life adventures of teaching. As my friend reminded me, good=real, and perfect=unbelievable.