Texting Culture in Middle School

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Hyler & Hicks cover

Less then a year ago my co-author Troy Hicks and I released our second book From Texting to Teaching: Grammar Instruction in a Digital Age. Since that time, I have been continuing to engage my students in new ways to think about grammar in the spaces where they write. This year has been very eye-opening to me and my students are showing me that their writing worlds are evolving every day.

As we were discussing adverbs two weeks ago, my students were completing lessons on Grammarflip while preparing to complete their grammar templates with their groups. During the discussion, we started talking about texting and I mentioned how last year’s students would get frustrated when they would text their peers and be frustrated when the letter “k” was sent back representing the work “okay”. That opened the floodgates for our conversation. As their teacher, I not only learned from my students, they allowed me into their world where they communicate regularly.

One of the most interesting things that my students brought to my attention was how texting was done more through the Snapchat app then just simply texting someone using the texting feature on their phone. When I asked why they did this, the replies suggested they enjoyed using pictures and the emoji features that Snapchat allowed. It didn’t mean they didn’t use the standard texting on their phone, but it did mean that it is used less than when I have talked to previous year’s students.

More surprising to me was most of my students know proper grammar. Yes, you read that right. Most of my students do know proper grammar! My students proceeded to tell me that they use proper grammar in their text messaging when they need to use it. Okay, so when is that? Proper grammar is used by my students it seems when they are either upset with the person they are texting or they are trying to make a point. Using proper grammar lets the other person know they are serious and they are not pleased. I sat there for a minute trying to wrap my head around this concept  my students were instituting in their daily communication to their peers.

As I thought more about this, it still goes back to this idea of formal -vs- informal writing. It is evident to me that my students are using informal writing when communicating with their peers. However, when it is time to take things seriously and the conversation becomes more important, they formal guidelines are kicking in for my students. They are continuing to learn and evolve the skills they need to help them in their writing spaces.

Enabling Plagiarism

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Plagiarism – (noun) – an act or instance of using or closely imitating the language and thoughts of another author without authorization and the representation of that author’s work as one’s own, as by not crediting the original author.

I have been reflecting on the research process for my middle school students since the start of the school year and how it has evolved since doing my undergraduate degree almost twenty years ago. After Christmas break, my students will be conducting their own research projects and I always fear that I will have some students plagiarize the research they will be doing. A fear I am sure other educators have as well. Yes, it’s true, plagiarism is usually one of the very first items that are addressed in the research process. Students please document your resources!

It seems no matter what steps we take educators are always going to have a few students who just don’t want to take on the responsibility of completing the research process and will spend more time to go out and grab someone else’s work to claim as their own. Furthermore, students still have difficulty understanding that Google is not the source where they go their information. I think I have said this at least a dozen times this year.

Since the beginning of the year, when I slowly introduce my students to researching; I start by writing on the whiteboard one simple statement:

RESEARCH = READING

I don’t want my students having any misconceptions about the research process. I want them to know up front that researching can be difficult and time consuming. It takes perseverance and dedication to the topic or subject they are researching. To tell my students researching is easy would be misleading and push them more in the direction of “copy and paste”.

Which leads me to the question, are students being pushed more and more to plagiarize their work? I am not necessarily referring to teachers. Students have millions, perhaps billions of pages of internet resources to go through. You add checking the validity of the information and students feel overwhelmed. Today’s students want information given to them in quick and short bursts because that is how they receive most of their information today. Asking students to sit down and read informational text for hours is becoming more and more challenging. With the way students are receiving information today, a research article that is five pages could be difficult for them to process and reflect upon for their research. Students aren’t just suppose to read, they are supposed to think about what is being said. Multiply it by six to twelve resources that are needed and I feel students are going to start thinking about what they can do to take the easy way out.

By no means am I condoning plagiarism or saying that teachers are to blame. I am simply wondering if students are pushed or feel more compelled to take the chance of using someone else’s ideas because they are overwhelmed with the research process that worked twenty-five  years ago.  I think it is definitely worthy of thinking about more and perhaps reading professional text such as Research Writing Rewired: Lessons that Ground Students’ Digital Writing by my colleagues Dawn Reed and Troy Hicks. Also, Wacky We-Search Reports: Face the Facts with Fun by Barry Lane is a great professional read.

I am open to any comments on this topic. I do feel it is worthy of a professional conversation. Happy Holidays!

 

Professional Development Drought

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*This blog post does not reflect the views of my school or anyone working within my school.

Professional development (PD) should be the cornerstone for anyone looking to better themselves no matter what career they choose. Educators seem to be at the forefront when it comes to attending PD. We are a profession that is constantly trying to make ourselves better and in some instances told we have no choice but to attend certain professional development because we cannot be licensed to be a teacher without a set number of hours of PD or college credits to match.

Since starting my teaching career over 16 years ago I have slowly and steadily watched professional development make the proverbial dive out of the sky as if it is an airplane that is slowly losing one engine at a time. Teachers aren’t going and the quality of PD isn’t always top notch. For me, I am lucky because I have had the privilege of being on both the delivery side of PD and the receiving end through work with the Chippewa River Writing Project. Through many conversations with colleagues and like-minded educators, I have come to a few conclusions as to why professional development is facing a potential breaking point for teachers and educators.

First, professional development is expensive. Many school districts used to help their teachers out and help pay for professional development. With constant cuts to per-pupil funding, declining enrollment, and other funding like Title II being cut, teachers are forced to pay for PD out of their own pockets. If you add up the cost of the conference, potential hotel expenses, gas, and meals. Teachers can potentially be looking at costs between $500-$1000 depending on the type of conference. Please don’t think I am complaining about what teachers make either. I am simply saying therepotentially is a lot of out of pocket costs to absorb.

Besides the financial burden of professional development, I feel there is low-quality PD being offered by our Intermediate School District (ISD) where multiple schools belong. They do a poor job of helping teachers. Our ISD is supposed to support and develop teachers and their skills. That is not happening. I do see them helping our new teachers, but that is it. I hear too much from their end about the high cost and poor attendance, etc. Why is it then that our ISD sits on almost 3 million dollars, but can’t offer quality experiences for teachers? I don’t know if this is true everywhere, but I know it is within my ISD.  They are not the only entities to blame for quality PD, but when considering the types of professional development that can be low cost or free for teachers, this is good place to start.

Now, put aside financial burden and quality of PD and the issue of teacher burnout existing. I never really gave much thought to teacher burnout until I was talking to a very close friend and colleague about why teachers are not participating in PD. He discussed that fact that teachers plates are becoming increasingly full. With reduced staff in schools, teachers are being asked to do more and more. When teachers prioritize what they need to do and get done, PD seems to be at the bottom of the significant list of items. I think of PD like a salad. We know it’s good for us and it can make us better or healthy. However, we just want to skip it and get to the main course or the main items on our plates. We don’t have time or the need to mess with the salad. I have even witnessed teachers turn down a professional development package that was worth over $1000 and all it would cost them is gas money to travel.

All of this lends itself to rethinking how professional development should be delivered to teachers. Yes, there are many online PD opportunities, but are they better than face-to-face? Is true collaboration taking place with online spaces? I do have a passion for the 4T Conference which is truly phenomenal. So, to say that all online PD is low quality is not a fair assessment. I do not have the answers and I am sure others don’t agree with what I am writing. On the other hand, I do feel it is time to rethink how PD is being done and what we can do to help teachers in this area.

Cheers!

 

PD

(Image Courtesy of Johnson County Community College http://blogs.jccc.edu/2017/08/11/professional-development-days-fall-2017/)

 

 

Grammar is Still Important

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Imagine with me, that it is a beautiful August evening that isn’t blazing hot and it is 8:00 p.m. Along with that beautiful setting, you see that there is going to be a Twitter chat about Grammar. I’m assuming most people will find better things to do. That particular setting wasn’t fiction, it was real and led me to another wonderful opportunity to lead the #miched chat with my co-author Troy Hicks on the topic of grammar.

 

Miched is the hashtag for Michigan educators and many others from across the nation to chat on Twitter about certain topics. Last Thursday was part of the Michigan author series that is taking place throughout the month of August. Dr. Hicks and I released the book From Texting to Teaching: Grammar Instruction in a Digital Age for which the conversation revolved around. After introducing the history of grammar at the beginning of our book, we discuss strategies for grammar instruction while incorporating technology.

 

During our conversation, the importance of grammar was challenged. The question came up from one of the participants about, “Is grammar really viewed as being important anymore?” This question really started to eat away at me after reflecting and processing what the question was truly asking. That particular question was discussed for at least ten minutes. With keeping that question in mind I started to think back to the many times I visit my local news website and see news articles riddled with grammar errors. Honestly, does anyone proofread these articles? Last year, I sent a short email to my local news station about an article I read and respectfully pointed out two errors. Though I wasn’t expecting a response, I wanted them to know that I am a teacher and I want authentic examples for my students to see and use. It was disheartening to see such poor writing skills from professionals.

 

By the end of the day, those “professionals” emailed me back. Instead of owning up to their mistakes and potentially saying they will do better next time, they pushed the blame onto the Associated Press. Hmmm, okay…did anyone read the story before just clicking a few buttons to throw it on their website? I’m guessing it was no one. I will also go out on a limb and say the news station wanted to be the first one locally to get the story up and out to viewers no matter if it was riddled with errors or not.

 

So, getting back to question of is grammar losing its importance, I am still leaning towards no. Do certain entities put less emphasis on grammar? Absolutely. For examples, there are companies such as Sarah Lee (Double Negative in their slogan) that use poor grammar to advertise their product. It does not mean that we should abandon the use of proper grammar or place less importance on it.

 

What it does mean is that we are going to have to dig deeper for more positive, yet accurate uses for our students and children. It also means we need to model proper use of grammar more frequently and show our students real world application. Finally, it means we need to push back against the improper use of grammar and maintain that it is an important part of English Language Arts. Just don’t offend anyone when you correct their grammar. 😉

 

Humility

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Over the past several weeks the word humility has been swimming in my head. The sermon at church a few weeks ago was about humility. Humility is defined as being humble or one’s own thought of being important. Or even the amount of pride you might show.

I like to think of myself as being a humble person. I don’t like to shove my successes into other people’s faces or talk about my accomplishments much. For the most part, I feel I am humble.

I feel that I am a good teacher and I reach as many students as I can when I am in contact with them. On the other hand, as an author and a presenter, I also believe that I do my best. That isn’t me bragging, that’s just me being confident in what I do. I am also proud of what I do. Plain and simple, I love helping other people, especially teachers. If I have ever appeared to act otherwise, it isn’t done on purpose. Collaborating and working with other like-minded professionals is where it is at for me.

Unfortunately, there is still a struggle within me that I don’t let others see and it is me dealing with pride and humility. There is a deep desire within me to continue to be as successful as possible. I want the emails, the phone calls, and the guest blog posts. Yes, that part shows my lack of humility. What keeps me somewhat grounded is thinking about the costs which comes to the other parts of my life. More importantly, my own kids and the students in my classroom suffer as I try to better myself in a professional manner. I start to wonder if it is worth it and why does it matter. I also wonder at times why I don’t get more phone calls or requests to speak. After all, I am published and know what I am talking about. It’s a constant battle in my head and I am starting to become irritated.

Lately, I have set my sights not on what I can do for others or gaining glory, but more on making my students successful. No more worrying about the emails or phone calls. What happens…happens. I recently posted on Facebook that it was time to step-up my game and I meant it. I have been focusing on setting-up a new class website, researching digital tools that help my students be successful both in and out of the classroom, and studying more science curriculum as I begin my 2nd year as a science teacher.

I am refusing to let the battle rage on inside me. What is important is that I work hard for my students every day and not worry about things I can’t control. I will be thankful for the opportunities when they come my way and not let that part of my career control who I am. Today, I am more humble.

 

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Texting is a Language with Rules

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Yesterday two phenomenal events occurred. First, as many know, the book I co-authored with Troy Hicks with a foreword written by Liz Kolb was released yesterday. The out-pouring of support has been great. It feels awesome to finally have it out there where the world will be able to read our work.

Just when I thought I couldn’t have a better day yesterday, I had the most amazing conversation with my 8th graders about formal -vs- informal writing and texting. Our conversation started with the grammar template that is mentioned in our book. Below is a screenshot of that template with a link.

The students had a solid grasp on compound sentences as we reviewed them. When we talked about the texting portion of the template the conversation heated up! The class decided texting would be an informal space due to the simple fact that an abundance of their text messages are to their friends. As we broke down our mentor sentence from The Giver, students worked with partners to determine what the sentence would look like as a text message to a friend. That is when the nerdy teacher in me became fascinated. The students talked specifically about “Digital Talk” such as “Lol” -vs- “LeL” and “okay” -vs- “ok” or just “k”. I was super excited to hear them debate their language through texting.

I learned that students actually feel they know the tone of a text message that is being sent to them. For example, if someone just sends the letter “k” for “okay”, students automatically assume the person who sent them the text is upset with them. Now, I have had several conversations with students, teachers, parents, and other adults about how tone is hard to determine through writing a text message unless an emoji is attached or there are certain colorful words that are added. However, my students wholeheartedly believe that by not making the effort to type even one more letter for “Ok”, the person on the other end of the message is not happy.

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Picture Courtesy of http://www.keywordsuggests.com

 As my 8th graders continued to talk and discuss their language, my smile became bigger as one of my students raised their hand and stated, “There are rules for how we text message back and forth with each other. It’s like we have our own language.” At this point I wanted shout out and say YES!

I contained my excitement and asked, “Does everyone know the rules?” It was agreed by most, if not all, that not everyone knows the rules that must be followed for texting. I found this rather interesting, so I probed deeper by asking, “Are all of the rules already established or are there more made up as time goes on?” I received many responses, but the ultimate conclusion I came to was there are new rules added as certain situations render new ones to be created.

Students continued to express their thoughts and opinions as we plunged forward with creating an effective text message for our mentor sentence but the fact remains ladies and gentleman; students have their own language and we can not take this away from them. Instead, we need to dive deeper into their world and figure out how our students function in all of their writing spaces. It was a magical day to hear my 8th graders talk about the way they write with tone, audience, language, etc. I am still processing our conversation and I am positive there is more to learn. It is such an interesting topic to keep thinking about. More soon!

From Texting to Teaching

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Hyler & Hicks cover Today I am both humbled and excited. Tomorrow my second co-authored book, from texting to teaching: grammar instruction in a digital age (Yes, I know the title is not capitalized, that was intentional) will be released to the world. Troy Hicks again, was my co-author and it was an interesting journey to write this book and bring it to educators.

Though I could never put myself in the same category with grammar greats like Jeff Anderson and Constance Weaver or even be published by giants like Heinemann or Corwin Press (No disrespect). Quite frankly, I am content where I am at with the work I have done. On the other hand, Troy and I have created a resource where teachers and educators can see some benefit to this book. Not only will educators see the historical struggle of how grammar has been taught, but also that the challenges teachers may face with technology today don’t really have to be challenges. Those challenges can be turned into opportunities for teachers to help their students see the difference between formal and informal writing spaces. Furthermore, students will have a greater appreciation for grammar when we use their spaces and work with them in the worlds they live in day to day.

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(Image Courtesy of Ohio University Linguistics)

Grammar instruction will always be challenging and I am positive that others will develop new and exciting ways to reach the students they come in contact with every day.

It was a pleasure and challenge to not only write this book, but to write it with someone who has become one of my closest friends and colleagues. Troy continues to challenge me both intellectually and personally in ways that make me a better educator and person.

So, without further delay, we give you our book and hope you find some helpful information to improve your students understanding of grammar. Please let us know how we can further help you and please visit our companion site with the book.

 

I’m a Try Hard

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Tshirt design

Last Friday, several of my colleagues were partaking in our normal Friday ritual after 2:00 where we gather in the hallway and discuss our week and what our weekends had in store for us.

My math colleague proceeded to tell all of us how he overheard some students what seemed to be criticizing others for being a”try hard”. They were referring to students who worked hard at school and on their assignments. One student even was quoted saying, “I don’t want to be a called a “try hard”. As our math teacher was sharing this story, I began to feel quite melancholy at first. Then, my emotions switched from being down to being furious.

Why has it come to a point where students will belittle one another for working hard and wanting to go somewhere in life? As a former varsity basketball coach, I know there is a lack of work ethic and putting time in order to be successful. It’s always the coaches fault or some other outside factor instead of the things that can be controlled. However, I find it disturbing that students might actually be encouraging it.

To see if this might be happening elsewhere, I consulted my 8th-grade niece. I asked her if a “try hard” or other words are uttered in the hallways and classrooms of her school. She didn’t even hesitate to utter the words, “No” as I discussed the scenario at my school.So, as I continued to think and reflect about the situation over the weekend, I wondered if it was the demographics of my school that would cause students to denounce working hard.

Are students really seeing benefits to not working hard? In some small way, I wonder if younger generations are seeing or hearing that it is acceptable to not work hard? I’m not convinced individuals don’t play the system so they can take advantage of not working while they still get what they haven’t worked for.

I am open to suggestion on how to combat such negative association with work ethic. I actually think this would be a great Twitter chat at some point.

Needless to say, I am saddened by what seems to be a form of bullying on students who have solid work ethic and actually give a damn about school. Also, because it appears that students could take things far enough for it to be bullying, it will need to be addressed on a wider scale. As a staff, we decided we were going to buy t-shirts similar to the one at the beginning of my post and wear them on Fridays.

As a staff, we are currently deciding if we were going to buy t-shirts similar to the one at the beginning of my post and wear them on Fridays.

Cheers!

Reading Love Loss

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Ever since I was little, I have enjoyed Christmas break. When I was growing up, I lived across the street from my elementary school and break meant hours of playing in the mountains of snow that were piled up from the plows clearing the snow. Often when my friends and I got done, hot chocolate was waiting for us to warm our chilled bones.

Christmas break also brought about hours of independent reading for me. I was very fortunate that I had both a mother and father who read. My mother read more frequently when it came to novels. I can remember many nights hearing her book hit the floor when she fell asleep while reading. It wasn’t easy being a full time mom, working and trying to squeeze in some time to read.

Often times, one of my best friends and I would buy each other books for Christmas. Most of the time it was about ghosts, werewolves, vampires, or other creatures of the night. No matter what I received though, I had it read by the time Christmas break was over.

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Now that I am a father, I do my diligence to demonstrate to my own children that reading is a good thing. Wait, scratch that…it is a GREAT thing! I love reading to my pre-school child and I always drop what I am doing when he comes to me with a book. My daughter doesn’t need any prompting. She is a 2nd grader reading at a 5th grade level and she loves it! When it comes to my 4th grader though, it is a different story.

When my 4th grader was younger, he couldn’t read enough. His mom and I were very proud parents of someone who would read for hours and this continued from pre-school through 1st grade. Second grade seemed to be going well until about four weeks into school when his teacher sent home what resembled a reading log. Every night my child was required to not only read for 20 minutes, but to write a summary every time he was done reading. Needless to say, the love of reading was quickly going down hill.

I quickly got a hold of the teacher about his approach to having students read and within a week, a note was sent home about different ways to help students understand what they were reading. Unfortunately, that quickly went away and we were back write a summary after every time we read. My child despised doing those summaries. He even asked several time if there was something else that he could do.

Fast forward to 4th grade and some of his love for reading has come back. His mom and I try hard to have him read. With efforts from his 3rd grade teacher and this year’s 4th grade teacher, he seems to be liking it again, but not to the extent he was prior to the start of 2nd grade. Just recently we have started to visit our local library and he is the proud owner of his first library card (He feels very responsible!). His love loss is real and he isn’t the only one.

At some point there becomes a disconnect for kids for their love of reading and no it isn’t because of electronics or technology either. My son isn’t the only one that has had a reading log sent home and has been required to write multiple summaries about the reading. Though I am guilty of having my students record their reading times at home, I don’t recall a time I have made them write about what they read. I have just wanted them READ, no matter what it they picked up.

The question isn’t about the fact that reading love loss is happening or that it happens. It happens! The real reason for me writing this is to find out strategies on how we can get our students to fall in love with reading once that love is gone.

Please feel free to comment.

Cheers!

 

Deal Me In

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Once again I have been given the opportunity to be part of something that is much greater than myself. I am at the annual meeting for the National Writing Projoct (NWP) and as always, I am filling my brain to the brim with new ideas to take back to my students, colleagues, and school. My brain will overflowith.

Every year there is a plenary where members of NWP get to listen about the state of the writing project and where we have been and where we are going in the future. This year our director Elyse Eidman-Aadahl discussed where we should “double down” as teachers in certain areas and the importance of taking a stand for what we believe in. After all, it is through the narratives we write that gives us power and makes our story known.

As I thought about the gambling term “double down”, I began to think that most educators  do double down, don’t we? We do it because we care about our students and want them to succeed. Yes, there are educators who don’t go “all in” when it comes to their job or doing what is best for student. Let’s face it, we know at least one. Needless to say though, most of our hearts and minds have a passion for our career and our students.

This year has been odd for me, other than the new teaching assignment. I have struggled at times this year to the point where the environment that I was working in was having such a negative impact on me that I just wanted to stay home. Other days were fine, but for almost three weeks, I rode the struggle bus. As I began to reflect on my 1/2 hour drive home one afternoon, I knew I couldn’t give up on my students. My relationship with them was becoming very positive from where I was at with them last year as 7th graders. They drove me nuts. I knew that I had to be there for them and continue to walk with them in their journey through school and life.

I had a hard time leaving my students to come to this conference. We laugh, we learn, we get frustrated with each other. We are a family. As one of my writing project colleagues has said, ” The learning is in the struggle”.  A statement that couldn’t be more true for me right now, but I am starting to better understand what I need to do and it became more clear today while attending the conference.

So, being “all in” and thinking about the power of narrative reminds me our writing is what gives us a voice. On the other hand, I know I have to keep fighting for my students and not let a negative school culture give way for them having a negative teacher where they don’t want to go to class or have hope.

I will continue to use my voice in writing to help me be more positive for my students so they too can see there is hope with the right attitude and the right tools. I want to model for them that they too have a voice and can make a difference. Even when it is with their pen.
It’s time to stay positive!

It’s time to go to work!

It’s time to write!