It wasn’t a passing storm like the ones typical of Miami in the wet season, but a full-day downpour, gray and dreary. The streets flooded as they tend to do in this city. Our shoes got wet, as did the pup’s paws. The umbrellas are open and drying in the tub.
It wasn’t a random rain like that one a month ago on a Tuesday, when they told us to go home early, and we didn’t have umbrellas. We ran, giggling, with our bags over our heads. We arrived home soaked, threw our clothes directly in the washing machine, grins plastered to our faces.
Today’s rain was the type that coats everything in its gloom. The type where you can’t tell what time it is because the sky has held the same overcast shade all day.
Today’s rain almost made me miss this slice — my brain storming with thoughts, none of them worth writing — but I showed up.
S has been extra affectionate these last few weeks of school, and even more so in these final days.
“I can’t believe I’m graduating,” she says, sidling up next to me and laying her head on my shoulder.
“You mean, ‘I can’t believe I graduated,’” I reply, reminding her through verb conjugation that graduation was last Friday.
“Ms. Amy, stop!” She whines, lifting her head. Then she lays it back down. “I’m really going to miss you.”
“I’m going to miss you too, S!” I say, giving her a squeeze.
S always asks if she’s my favorite, and I always tell her I don’t have any favorites, but the truth is, I do, and she is definitely one of them.
I never have just one favorite student though. Each week or so, I go through a phase of being absolutely obsessed with one of them. It usually aligns with the relationship getting stronger, with the student feeling more at ease with me, and thus me with them.
S has been on that list for a while now though. Her dad reminds me of an uncle or family friend, and their closeness reminds me of my own with my dad. She’s bright, has a truly hilarious sense of humor, and in the last few months has been spouting wise sayings at random moments.
For example, during the week we had sex ed, one of the days we learned about the layers of the pre-teen/early adolescent “relationship cake”: friendship, emotional connectedness, nonsexual physical intimacy, and shared meaning. When asked why these layers mattered, S replied: “Because you need to get to know someone really well before you decide to get in a relationship with them. Otherwise you have to find all that out later, and what if it doesn’t align? What if they’re toxic? Know your self worth, then your boundaries! You can’t give your heart to someone without knowing if they’re going to break it!”
All of us stared. Was this an 11-year-old or a 40-year-old?
“PREACH, S!” Kim and I chanted.
Last week, she recorded a video manifesting my future in 10 years. It involved she and I reconnecting because I was writing books and she was reading them. I hope there’s some truth in that future she imagined for me, because it seems pretty damn lovely!
Tomorrow’s our last day with them, and even though my head is pounding, my voice is fading, and I’m just barely able to open my eyes in the morning, I know the truth is that I am going to miss them.
It’s my fifth year teaching fifth grade, and my third year teaching Writer’s Workshop to fifth graders. Last fall, I was excited to attend an online session with Hareem A Khan and Eric Hand for their new Graphic Novels unit for Grades 4-6. I was blown away by the work they did and immediately pre-ordered the unit. When it came in the spring, I eagerly launched into teaching it, knowing my student writers would love it.
Last year, though, we were only able to do the first bend, as it was close to the end of the year and we had limited time. Instead of writing my own mentor text, I based mine off of Hareem’s, which is great, as it worked for all of the mini-lessons, but it wasn’t my own. I didn’t have to actually go through the writing process of generating an idea, bookmapping, considering panels as I sketched my thumbnails, or really working on my cartooning skills either when drafting. I didn’t have (or get) to experience the time-consuming yet rewarding process of creating my own short graphic novel. Until this year.
This year, we had enough time to teach the full unit. I didn’t reinvent the wheel with the first bend, so I still used my Hareem-inspired graphic novel for that. For Bend II, in which the children write graphic memoirs, I knew I wanted to challenge myself to create my own, and I knew exactly the small moment I wanted to use for it: the fridge debacle.
Throughout the unit, Kim has remarked over and over again how incredible it is to watch the writers’ engagement in this medium. As graphic novel lovers, they thrived (with only a few gripes here and there of “I’m no good at drawing!” — but once they realized they could get away with stick figures, it was full steam ahead). And for me, as someone who enjoys doodling herself, I was thrilled to be working in the new medium as well. I even enjoyed students’ feedback for revisions during mini-lessons, such as the lesson where I modeled how to build suspense by deciding on the number of tiers and panels within each tier. I revised an original thumbnail of 3 tiers, 2 panels per tier, to 3 tiers, one panel per tier, because as R suggested, it would be much more impactful: dun, dun, DUN! Or when E remarked that I could start the story right at the loud noise waking me up, and flashback to the preceding trouble later on.
And the result has been so much more rewarding than creating a mentor text that I can use for future teaching: I used writing and cartooning to create art out of one of the more annoying and stressful moments of my adult life. It took lots of time, stolen at lunch, or while the children were reading or writing or taking a math test, or at home while I watched Netflix. The joy of sharing this piece with my students who have followed along and assisted me in the process has been so special, as has sharing it with my friends and family who experienced the debacle alongside me.
Today, my empathy got the best of me. I was distracted all day by thoughts of Kim and her father, my heart reaching out to them in Boynton Beach, sending strength and resilience. Wishing I could squeeze her hand and make her smile like she has made me on my lowest days.
The children were loud and weren’t being good listeners. It’s May, I should expect this by now.
But last week was a strange, magical blip. Every afternoon as Kim and I walked home, we’d say to each other, “it’s been such a good week,” almost tentatively, scared we’d jinx it. Today was a day I was sure we had jinxed it. Yesterday they were in EP classes all day, so it figured that at the end of the day they’d be a mess. But today, it was a battle from the morning.
I remember Lina’s teachings about confirmation bias. If we expect them to behave a certain way, they will behave a certain way. Their behavior will confirm the bias that we have.
So I am asking myself: Tomorrow, how can I be more empathetic to them?
There are only 14 days left of classes. 3 of those are our celebratory “blast off week” after graduation, and one of those is actual graduation. So really, there are only 10 days left of classes. The students must be buzzing with excitement and sadness and worry. On Thursday, during community time, I’ll ask them to share all their feelings about middle school and this upcoming transition. Tomorrow, I’ll show up believing they can be those same fifth graders we’ve learned to love in spite of their crazy this year.
I’ll try to emulate Kim, and always see the positive in every situation, no matter how dire it seems on the surface. I’ll laugh it off and focus on the good. I’ll lead with love and kindness.
Kim always says how much I’ve taught her this year, but she forgets that the teaching goes both ways. I have learned so much from her about life and relationships and perspective. And most importantly, I’ve gained a lifelong friend, one who not only climbs into the pit to sit with you when you’re down, but throws a rope down to help pull you out.
Students leaning forward from their seats or the rug.
Shocked, grinning faces.
Squeals and screams.
“Shh, stop, you guys! Let her keep reading!!”
That was how today’s read aloud session went.
It was almost exactly a month ago that we said “Take Two” and sat down with Ana to rethink interactive read aloud for our classroom. We took what we’d done before and tweaked it for our students’ needs, then tweaked it again to fit our planning. We revised our main anchor chart twice.
How it startedHow it’s going
The result has been the most engaging read aloud this year, all culminating in today’s session.
We read the triple climax of Ellie’s story in Starfish by Lisa Fipps: ripping up her “Fat Girl Rules,” speaking up to her mom after exploding in the doctor’s office, and standing up to her bullies. The kids were clapping, cheering, and yelling out, “Slaaaay, Ellie!” and “She’s so sigma!” (a Gen Z slang word whose meaning is still fuzzy for me).
We hardly had time for conversation or turn-and-talks, and we didn’t need them — the interaction was evident. Our students know Ellie so well by this point. They hate her enemies and they cheer for her newfound confidence and bravery. They see connections in their own lives and are learning to put some of that understanding into action.
It’s Teacher Appreciation Day (and Week), and today I’m grateful to Kim for spearheading the comprehension planning across this book and being always willing to try new things with me, no matter what time of year; to Ana for making time in her way-too-busy schedule to have a brainstorming meeting with us; and to Gianna for her book club plans (because that’s how our day ended, and it was beautiful).
Today was one of the best days, and I couldn’t have done it without my teacher team.
The music pours out of my new headphones, enveloping me in its rhythm. Michelle from Japanese Breakfast is a “pop genius,” Greg says. (She’s also a great writer — if you haven’t read her memoir, Crying in H Mart, yet, you should).
It’s amazing how just a few minutes ago, I felt ready to go to bed, ready to give up on this slice, but with a bit of music, my whole mood and energy can shift. I saw Ana and Gianna’s posts in my email inbox, and I thought, “What the heck. I’ve got a minute.”
Today at snack, Kim and I were talking about the absolutely miraculous way that people enter your life and suddenly become so important to you, it’s hard, impossible even, to imagine your life without them.
“To think, at this time last year, you didn’t even know each other!”
“We didn’t even know each other!” I said.
“Oh my god, yes! That’s crazy!”
On Sunday, Gi and I discussed a similar theme on our long 3-mile walk by the river. About the closeness of the friends you make as you get older. How, with you growing more into yourself, you develop perhaps deeper or more compatible friendships. Ones in which you may not share childhood memories or a similar upbringing, but which are unbelievably fulfilling, a joining of two kindred spirits and minds and hearts.
When I lived in Spain, I learned that they use the idiom “media naranja” (orange half) to mean one’s soulmate, or better half. In Miami, I’ve been lucky to find a few different orange halves.
I still remember when I first met Ana after she gave a Tuesday PD on writer’s workshop. I remember seeing Gianna in the front row of the theater on her first day, going up to her at snack time later that week to introduce myself. Kim’s smiling face and bright eyes in our classroom after her new teacher orientation, me laying all my cards on the table so she knew what she was getting into as my work wife. Your first joke, your eyes meeting mine across the room and then looking away.
Could I have known then that each of these humans would become an orange half of mine in their own way?
Maybe.
I may not be religious, but I do like believing in something.
For the past few years, I’ve been lucky to be able to watch the sunset from my apartment. I don’t often get to watch the sunrise, though.
As Miami enters its wet season, the heat and humidity greet you as you walk outside, intensifying as soon as the sun starts to hit the pavement. I’ve been struggling to get out and go for a run after work because the sun sets after 7:30, which means it’s still brutal at 4:30. Runners, if they don’t want to get heatstroke, need to steal their moments before the sun comes up and after it’s gone down.
I struggle with the idea of waking up earlier than I already do to go for a run, but a couple of morning walks I’ve had in the last couple weeks have tempted me.
The sunrise has a different nature than the sunset.
The sunset is loud, announcing its presence with fierce sunlight piercing into the room, illuminating a layer of dust that I need to attend to. It’s red and orange and hot pink, like the rainbow popsicle you get from a hotdog stand in Central Park, dying your lips and tongue the color of pomegranate seeds.
The sunrise is softer, like a cat slowly creeping to nestle in your lap. It’s light blue and peach and pink and yellow, making me think of a baby’s soft blonde hair, or a picnic, or a calm lake. And yet, it bursts with the energy of a new day and a hundred possibilities.
Today after eating with Kim and Ana and talking about reader’s workshop and writing conferences, I fell into a deep “I’m a terrible teacher” mindset.
“I haven’t conferenced. I’ve sucked at reading their work,” I texted Ana. “And now I feel bad that they’re not reading daily, but we can’t change the routine again this year.”
She grabbed me as we passed in the cafeteria: “I was literally having the same thoughts yesterday in the shower.”
Then she suggested making a list of everything we are doing, so we can see where there’s wiggle room. What can we knock off our plates so we can do this?
“But I also like my work-life balance this year,” I told her. “And I don’t want that to change.”
I walked over to Kim and opened a new document on my computer.
“I want to make this list, but also so we can see that we’re actually doing a lot.”
“We do SO much. I love this idea,” Kim agreed enthusiastically. “I used to do this for parenting, too.”
I appreciate Kim’s enthusiasm for all the things.
So I started typing as we both shouted things out:
///
ALL THE THINGS WE DO
Prep the materials we need for that day (copies, manipulatives, charts, post-its)
Plan lessons and units (writing, reading, read aloud, math, investigations, SEL, word study, sentence study, morning meetings, closing circles, integrated projects)
Create anchor charts for various lessons and units
Check and give feedback to their math work
Check and give feedback to HW
Email parents
Attend meetings during and after school hours (Hiring Committee, Literacy Committee, Tuesday PD, parent meetings)
Support students when they need help during independent work
Manage social emotional needs — conflict resolution, redirections, etc.
Transition them all over the school
Do mindful moments and brain breaks
Take them to snack and recess and lunch
Plan and execute field trips
Plan and rehearse for graduation / end of year things (middle school panel, blast off week, graduation rehearsals, etc.)
Write, direct, and produce a 5th grade show, which included rehearsals daily for the weeks leading up to it
Give kids band-aids (physical and emotional) when they need and clean poop off their shoes after recess sometimes
Collaborate with coworkers to do integrated learning
Do mentorship ALL THE TIME (sometimes formal meetings, sometimes informal, always happening constantly)
Take our own mental breaks (at our lunch and recess)
Brainstorm together constantly
Put out fires as they come up
Meet every other week with Male
Make each other laugh so hard we cry
Create partnerships and groups for collaborative work
Shepherd the children like wayward sheep at the end of the day
Manage time all the time (it’s like I have a TimeTimer living inside of me)
Manage arrival and dismissal (20 mins in the morning + 20 mins in the afternoon)
Take verbal punches from the children daily #FifthGrade
Check in with students one-on-one during independent work
Create and modify assessments
Create rubrics for assessments
Grade assessments and projects
Grade writing (unit work + on-demands)
Hold celebrations for writing that often include other teachers and students
Write positive compliment post-its for each kid, almost every week
Find games and other early finishers activities
Complete progress reports (cumulative grades, comments/narratives, inputting them into Google Slides, saving them as a PDF and schedule sending to parents)
Hold parent teacher conferences
Do F&Ps three times a year
Complete middle school recommendations
Administer MAP exams, then download and send the results to parents
Reevaluate and reassess how our teaching is going, then adjust and shift based on what we think is best (sometimes involving whole new planning and prep, such as for read aloud, reading stations, etc.)
WHAT WE’RE NOT DOING
Writing conferences and small groups
Reading their writing notebooks / using them as much
Protecting indie reading time
Aligning our investigations to the social studies and science standards explicitly (general topics, but not the nitty gritty)
///
I shared the document with Ana.
“OMG YESSS. This is your slice today :)” was her reply.
I may still be ending this day feeling like a worse writing teacher than I was last year. But I do recognize that I’m doing SO much. And I hope that anyone else who ever feels this way realizes that they are, too.
What I had hoped for today’s slice was a reflection on how our new and improved read aloud routine was going. On Friday afternoon, Kim and I met with Ana for an impromptu coaching session to rethink interactive read aloud and how to make it work better for us. We’d taken a month-long hiatus what with all the events before spring break and the debate on Friday (which was so friggin’ awesome, by the way, but that’s for another post), so we were eager to start again.
“Never come to a meeting empty handed.”
We gathered our ideas, Ana and I exchanged some voice notes on WhatsApp, and then yesterday, before a brief conversation at lunch, I made some new anchor charts and Kim and I planned out the questions.
Routines + vocabMain strategies chartOrienting + stop and jot lot
“Girl,” Ana texted when I sent her the charts. “Please blog about this.”
“That’s my plan for tomorrow’s slice!” I wrote back.
The plan was for me to model this week. We’d figure out the teacher think-alouds and turn-and-talks together, but I’d take the lead on teaching, we’d debrief each day, and I’d help get the kids comfortable with the routine before gradually releasing Kim to lead the teaching next week.
Of course, things don’t always go to plan. Is that why, in Reggio, we call lesson plans “projections”?
At 5 am, I awoke to a loud bang and the sound of running water. The refrigerator filter I’d replaced last night broke inside its canister, spewing water everywhere. I didn’t know where the water shut off was and building maintenance didn’t arrive until 6:50 am. I watched the water seep out into the hallway, pooling on the rug, feeling my heart beating and my anxiety rippling through my body, nowhere to go as I had nothing more I could do.
Since then, the water has been shut off in my entire apartment (meaning I’m using the bathrooms on the amenities floor any time I need to go), the leaking has stopped and been mostly cleaned up (just drying now), and there is an appliance technician on the way (you know how those things go — it’s a waiting game).
Like a trooper, Kim took over writer’s workshop, math, and read aloud with maybe only a little bit of fear, and I know she knocked it out of the park even if she doesn’t think she did.
We caught up on the phone when the kids went to PE, and she said something along the lines of, “It’s like you have a plan, and then the plan goes out the window when you teach. Or, it just never goes as well as you plan for it to.”
Welcome to teaching, where you never know what you’re going to get that day, and just have to go with it. You can only plan so much. It’s the nature of a job where you work with so many (little) humans.
At this point I am over-exhausted. I’ve been getting sick, with a scratchy throat and a painful swallow, so maybe the universe wanted me to stay home? But I certainly haven’t gotten any rest.
Today I may not have taught read aloud, but I have: learned how to shut off the water in my apartment; befriended five of the employees in the building; managed a handyman issue without my handyman (Dad’s in San Francisco this week, so he’s on west coast time); watched a movie; leaned on my friends and felt their hugs through their messages; and written this slice.
Now it’s time to close my eyes and see if I can sneak in a nap before the technician arrives.
When my mom’s dad passed away, at 100 years old, my mom and her siblings went to his apartment to take stock of what he had and see if any of the grandchildren would want anything. She sent us files organized by room and type of item (silver, glass, artwork, furniture, etc.) and a spreadsheet to indicate our interest. I perused the photos. There was a wooden ashtray that I liked, some oblong drink glasses, glass bowls, and a glass box that I’d always seen on my grandmother’s dresser.
“That’s all?” I remember my mom asking.
“That’s it.” I didn’t need or want anything big.
Fast forward to July. I was in New York for a few weeks before heading back to Miami, where I’d be staying at my boss’s place in Key Biscayne while I continued my apartment search.
My mom and sister and I had gone to the jeweler’s on a humid day to figure out what we wanted to do with the sapphires from a bracelet they’d found of my grandmother’s. I wanted to make a necklace and my sister decided on a bracelet. My mom had also brought along a bunch of other things to see if she could repurpose them or if they had any value. Among them were some deep silver plate flatware with intricate designs on the handles.
“Are they worth anything? Can I sell them?” My mom asked the jeweler.
“Well, we could buy them by the weight,” the jeweler explained. “They may be worth more if they’re a complete set. But you know, then you have to do the work of photographing and selling them.”
“I wish one of you just wanted them,” my mom said, looking at me and Tillie. “There are two full sets!”
“Oh, nobody wants anything old anymore,” the jeweler remarked.
Later that week, I went to my friends, Izzy and Jacob’s, for dinner before Greg’s reunion show. My anxiety was high, thinking about seeing all my college friends for the first time in many years. Worried about what they’d think when I shared the news of my breakup. If they’d judge me a failure, even though I knew that leaving my marriage was one of the bravest things I had ever done.
Izzy and Jacob’s apartment is the same one they’ve lived in since we graduated, but has morphed throughout the years as they’ve seen a roommate come and go. Now, it was filled with old furniture Izzy inherited from her grandmother: a four poster bed; a strange, velvet upright hallway bench, serving as their couch; a coatrack; a standing lamp; silver flatware and goblets (goblets!) for our water and wine.
As they served me dinner (honey teriyaki salmon) and poured my water from a silver urn, I thought back to the silverware in my parents’ house, sitting in its wooden box.
The next day, my last before I left, I told my mom I’d take it.
“Why not?”
“Oh, good!” She exclaimed. “You can put it in the dishwasher too, just not with regular silverware.”
In August, once I’d moved into my new place, after a week of using one fork, one spoon, one knife, repeatedly, a box arrived from my mom that we’d packed a few weeks prior: 3 oblong glasses (the 4th had broken in transit); 6 glass bowls; the wooden ashtray; the glass box; and the silverware, all nestled tightly in bubble wrap.
“It just needs some polishing,” my mom told me. She sent me a photo of what I should buy: Twinkle Silver Polish. And so I polished it all one day, marveling as the tarnish magically disappeared and the silverware, literally, twinkled.
This Sunday, I finally had the time to polish it again. It had been on my to-do list since the February break. As my friend Mariah called me to catch up, I put on the rubber gloves and got started. We hung up when she had to head to Easter lunch with her family, and I continued on my own. My left hand started to cramp, but I kept going.
Finally, all polished, rinsed, and washed, I laid them out in neat interlocking rows on a drying mat. I washed my hands and hung the gloves, then waited for them to dry so I could put them back in their drawer.
Writing With Abandon 