Project-Based Learning: Beyond the Poster Board by Casey Sirochman

    On January 19, 2021, Nicholas Provenzano, author of Beyond the Poster Board: Project-Based Learning in the English Language Arts Classroom, attended and spoke at the WPCTE Book Club discussion. Like the book, the author offered several anecdotes in regard to integrating project-based learning (PBL) in an English Language Arts classroom. Provenzano provided both live and in-print practical ways to redesign and reimagine already-developed teacher-led assignments. He suggested that teachers new to PBL explore the ideas of making one assignment in a unit more authentic and student-driven. Nicholas also talked about how it can sometimes be difficult for teachers to give up the control in the classroom. Furthermore, he mentioned (both live and in-print) the importance of remembering to learn from setbacks and failures. The book mentions one particular assignment the author thought was a failure. During the short hour-long book discussion, I did not have a chance to ask him about the failed assignment and some other questions. Hence, below are the questions and answers to my follow up email questions:

Sirochman: Walden Pond Project - did you ever revive, update or change?

Provenzano: No. I moved away from it because I realized I wasn’t assessing anything meaningful with the assignment. I moved to a project where students tried to create a perfect Transcendentalist society and explored how rules and government fit in with this philosophy.

    During the book discussion, he spoke about the idea that with computer coding it is typically not a failure if a program does not work correctly; instead they say, ''It is not a mistake, it is a feature!” This is my new favorite quote! 

    In the book, he mentions the idea of PBL on a spectrum. The idea being that there can be many different types of PBL opportunities. I asked him another follow up question about this concept. 

Sirochman: I love the idea of the PBL spectrum, and I would love to see a visual representation - do you have one or know of one?

Provenzano: I’ve never created a graphic that breaks down the spectrum. The main reason is that parts of each idea bounces around the spectrum. I feel like it is hard to visualize in a meaningful way. I am not saying it can’t be done, I just haven’t found the right image in my head yet. 

In relation to the idea of PBL on a spectrum, Provenzano also offers in his book a list of myths related to PBL. He has in print if anyone can think of more myths to let him know. In my follow up email questions, I offered this statement and his response is below: 

Sirochman: In regards to the myths, I would suggest that it can be a myth of PBL to require them to all end in the creation of a public product or community connection.

Provenzano: I feel that PBL does need to end with some type of artifact that represents the learning that has taken place. I also believe that there needs to be an element of sharing what you have learned as well. Now, that doesn’t mean everything should be a school wide or community wide presentation, but presenting to the class is important. It helps build presenting skills, but it also helps share learning with others in the class that will reinforce the content that was covered in class. It is like a big review of the content shared by the students.

The book is broken into several different types of project-based learning. For example, he mentioned 20 time and genius hours and an action research program. I emailed him a follow up question in regards to these topics. 

Sirochman: Is genius hour and 20 time just PBL on a timer - specific time of day, week, and time limit?

Provenzano: Sort of. The main difference is that students make 100% of the decisions. They choose the topic from the very beginning. As an ELA teacher, students did not have to choose an ELA-focused topic. The research, reading, writing, and presenting they did would cover a wide variety of ELA strands.

Sirochman: Action Research Program - is this still being implemented and how is it working?

Provenzano: The program is going strong at school and kids love it. It is something that really sets us apart from the local community of schools. Kids love it and parents love it. I love it because students are so inspiring.

Overall, the book was an amazing, informative, practical, and a quick read. The price point is also very attractive at only $20 on Amazon. The book discussion was recorded if you want to inquire about the recording to watch. The author is very willing to help via conversations with teachers interested in beginning PBL in their classrooms. He suggested the resource, PBLWorks, as a great place to get started with ideas. The best way he can be reached is via email. 

Of course, I am attempting to try my first PBL assignment with my book groups this semester. I am excited to attempt more authentic learning in the classroom. I am not afraid to give up control; however, I am a second-year teacher. If anyone is interested in chatting with me about this PBL idea or others, you can email me.  

Author’s Bio: Mrs. Casey Sirochman’s  teaching experience spans over a decade working in public, academic, and special libraries across Pennsylvania. ​She has a Bachelor's of ​Science​ ​degree​ ​in​ ​English​/Communications from​ ​The​ ​Pennsylvania State University, a Masters in Teaching English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and a Masters in Library Science from the University of Pittsburgh.​ ​She is in her second year as a ninth grade English teacher at Frazier School District. 

GiveThx Brings Accountability to Gratitude by Liz Speicher

A quick search on Amazon and you will find an overwhelming number of resources on gratitude: self-help books, gratitude journals, even page-a-day gratitude calendars. It seems that especially after what 2020 handed us all, that gratitude has surfaced everywhere we look--including our classrooms. I, myself, have started (and not completed) many gratitude practices. One even included a month-long calendar with my students during our unit on Happiness anchored by the Frederick Gaines play adaptation of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. In an attempt to teach my students gratitude, instead, I added more work that they begrudgingly completed. But were they really building the practice of gratitude, or were they just randomly writing things down that would placate me? Considering most of them were suddenly very grateful for their moms, dads, and the breakfast they ate that morning--I am going with just completing an assignment.

So how then? How can we encourage and teach our students to be grateful and show appreciation without making it a chore? Enter GiveThx: “GiveThx is a digital program that strengthens student wellbeing & social-emotional skills using gratitude science.” I stumbled upon Give Thx in the summer of 2019 in a random Facebook group for ELA teachers. The concept seemed interesting, and as it turned out, they were looking for teachers to pilot the new program in their classrooms. So, in the fall of 2019, my team of 7th graders tried out the program.

They immediately liked sending messages to one another in something that resembled a social media platform. That is not to say we didn’t have to monitor the system and constantly review how to word and format gratitude.  I think we sometimes take for granted that our students know how to do things like this--like thanking the people in their lives who make a positive impact on them. Or that just showing them one time, and it will click for them. Just like grammar skills and multiplication tables, the act of expressing gratitude has to be taught, practiced, enforced, and sometimes re-taught. 

Of course, just as we shared the program with our staff and started working with the whole building to get the buy-in, March 13 brought our classrooms and lives to a grinding halt.  After we got our bearings, what better a time to continue the practice of gratitude than when we are all home during a pandemic? Teachers started using it to thank students for their remote learning participation, for showing up and sharing their lives at home, for contributing to our team in a positive way.  Students started sending classmates notes to lift each other up and remind them that they are not alone. 

Our building was fortunate enough to receive a grant from the program to share it with all six teams (grades six through eight) this year. As with any new initiative, it takes some work to figure out how to roll it out with fidelity. But, along with a few other staff members and a great group of student volunteers I enlisted from last year’s group, we have begun to implement it building-wide.  The Give Thx Ambassadors helped create a launch day activity as well as design some posters that are displayed around the building to remind students and staff just how to utilize the program.  

Just like anything we learn, it takes constant modeling and reminders. Staff prompt the students to open up and show gratitude. Someone help you with your science lab today? Why not Give Thx? Did your team win in gym class because the goalie blocked the final kick? Give her Thx!  Who has made a positive impact on your day already today? Use Give Thx to show them!  Did a teacher take some extra time to explain appositive phrases again for you? How about a quick Thx? 

Whether you check out and adopt the Give Thx program, or you figure out some other way to share and teach gratitude, now more than ever it is so important to focus on the good things. These things don’t have to be huge; it really can be small stuff. Because whoever said, “Don’t sweat the small stuff,” must not have realized that it is those small moments that can change a person’s day with a simple note of gratitude. Thank you.

Liz Speicher is a 7th Grade English teacher at Chartiers Valley Middle School.  Born and raised in Pittsburgh, she is a huge Pirates baseball fan, enjoys working out, and loves kitchen dance parties with her husband, seven-year-old son, and two-year-old daughter.

Teaching in 2020-2021: A Year-Long Workout by Holly Mawn

Every year on January 1st as people make resolutions, gyms and workout apps invariably tell us that they have just the thing to get us (back) in shape. As a teacher in the 2020-2021 school year, I am here to say that I do not need a new gym or app this year, because I am in the midst of the hardest workout of my teaching life, and if you’re a teacher this year, so are you.

This year feels like that moment when you think your body could not possibly do one more burpee, but the instructor tells you that you have 10 more, and somehow you manage to eke them out. This year feels like in spin class when you’re sprinting to an upbeat tempo, heart racing, legs burning, and you think the song is about to end, but then there’s actually one more chorus, so you have to keep pushing. And you know how during an intense workout 60 seconds feels like a year and 3 minutes feels like an eternity? This year feels like that, too. 

I like to think of teaching in the 2020-2021 school year as a really, really hard workout. Like a year-long P90X video. Like if you think of the HARDEST workout you can imagine, and then throw in some extra burpees, just for fun. 

We are all working so hard. Every single day. We are changing lessons to fit new models of education. We are checking multiple online platforms to make sure kids are getting meaningful feedback. We are managing health and safety protocols that no one even fathomed before August. We are pouring our hearts and souls into this work so that our students can grow, learn, and, most importantly, feel supported.  

I know that at the end of a hard workout I am usually sore and tired. But I am also always so proud. That feeling of accomplishment -- of knowing that I sprinted for 20 more seconds, that I lifted that dumbbell one more time, or, yes, even that I did that last burpee as the clock wound down (I really hate burpees) -- can’t be undone, and that leaves me feeling good. So I am hoping that whenever this school year ends, it also feels like that. 

Recently, though, and perhaps thanks to the New Year’s resolutions flying around, I have realized that my analogy about this year as a hard workout is incomplete. I have been skipping over an essential part of any exercise routine: rest. Even the best athletes in the world are not training 100% of the time. Even the hardest workouts have rest and active recovery built into them. Because no one can push that hard -- it’s not how our bodies work. Without a chance to rest, our muscles would never actually get stronger, and our bodies would quite literally stop.

I have been working as if I am in that unexpected final sprint all day, every day. What I am beginning to realize, though, is that if I push myself to give 100% to school every single day, without taking time to rest, I will never become a better teacher. My students will never get to fully benefit from my teaching. 

Rest from exercise gives the body a chance to absorb the work it’s done, then recover and rebuild stronger. Rest from teaching does the same thing. A colleague recently commented on how her best lesson plans come to her in the shower, and I’m sure that’s not uncommon. When we take time to rest, even in a small way such as in the shower, we free up our minds to reflect, refresh, and come back stronger. A problem that seems insurmountable in the middle of the school day can actually feel manageable once your brain has a minute to turn off and recharge. When we give ourselves time to breathe, and even relax, we can come back to teaching with a renewed interest, with fresh perspective. We come back stronger, ready to be better versions of ourselves so that we can give our students what they need.  

So as we enter the 2021 part of this school year, I am challenging myself to find moments to build rest into my day. It is not enough to tell myself, “I’ll rest over the weekend,” or “I just need to push through and make it to break.” Rest needs to be a part of every day, even (maybe especially) when report cards are due and Zoom is crashing. Don’t get me wrong, I still plan to give it my all. Instead of thinking of it as an all-out sprint, though, I am reframing this year-long, grueling workout to include rest. I am changing my mindset so that I can come out of this school year in June not only proud, but also a better teacher. I invite you to do the same. 

 

Holly is a third grade language arts teacher at an all-girls independent school in Pittsburgh. A New England native, she has enjoyed getting to know Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania over the past 2 years, especially by biking the numerous trails surrounding the city. 

¡Confluencia! Singing the Songs of Ourselves “at” the NCTE Annual Convention by Hannah Lewis

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of my couch, my office, my desk, my computer screen--really, my house. As infection rates in my community remain high, I continue to avoid gatherings with others as much as possible. It’s pretty isolating. The only songs I want to sing of myself are blues songs--and not very good ones--about sitting at home. I feel cut off from the confluence of forces that usually keep me lively, good-natured, funny, and focused. 

I can say with confidence that being a part of a professional community helps me to hold onto community even as I feel isolated, and it has always helped me to see myself as a professional with a particular teacher identity. When I received my teaching certification from Pitt back in 2012, professors there encouraged us to participate in groups like the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) and local affiliates like the Pennsylvania Council for Teachers of English and Language Arts (PCTELA). I’ve since found the Bread Loaf Teacher Network (BLTN) and, more recently, the Western Pennsylvania Council for Teachers of English (WPCTE). For me, these groups helped me to maintain a continuity of vision and purpose throughout a tumultuous early career; they have kept me grounded in my “why,” even as I experienced difficulties. 

In 2019, I developed a meditation on the way my professional communities and relationships had informed my teaching and the ways in which my teaching networks had served as a form of self-care, which I shared with a small group at the Penn Stater at the PCTELA annual conference. An attendee there encouraged me to further develop the presentation and propose it to NCTE as well. Imagine my delight and surprise when I was chosen to present “Refining a Teacher Identity through the Confluence of Your Teacher Family's Influences” (in poster version) at NCTE 2020 in Denver! And imagine my subsequent disappointment when that conference was canceled early this year.

In the end, NCTE’s 2020 conference did happen after all, in a virtual format, and I was still able to present. I found myself thinking again about how to share this information in a way that would mean something to others. You can click here for my poster, or here for the guided tour (or see both on the NCTE conference platform here). The creation of this poster was a fusion of my original vision (which was a tri-fold game board and a set of blank trading cards to distribute to those who came over to discuss it with me) and a 2020 teacher favorite, the hyperdoc (a concept covered in Casey Sirochman’s September Virtual PD blog post). I enjoyed the challenge of creating a digital document that maintained the playful element of the game board and the idea of “collecting” the wisdom of different educators who fit the various “archetypes” I described. 

Nevertheless, I was still disappointed not to be in Denver. It was difficult for me to bring myself to take the time to familiarize myself with the virtual platform. How could they possibly convey the feeling of being among friends and colleagues from across the country? I wondered. How could this feel like anything more than a consolation prize for the conference-that-couldn’t-be? 

I don’t know how many of you know NCTE president and 2020 conference organizer Alfredo Lujan (you may remember he was an active part of NCTE’s weekly events over the Summer), but as soon as I logged in to the conference, I realized I was wrong to doubt that he could produce anything short of magic. The opening session reenergized me immediately. Lujan reminisced about his creative process coming up with the theme for this conference in--of all places--Pittsburgh! After flexing some Pittsburghese and showcasing some lovely author contributions, he turned it over and we heard from keynote speaker Trevor Noah. The serendipity continued, because Noah’s memoir Born a Crime had come up when we discussed This Book is Anti-Racist by Tiffany Jewell at a WPCTE book club in the Summer Series. WPCTE founder John Manear had mentioned it as part of his curriculum, and the new young-adult adaptation of the book is included in the EnglishFest titles this year! Hearing Trevor Noah speak passionately about his love for English teachers and connecting his own experiences with Lujan’s reminded me, once again, of my “why.” 

Conferences tend to do that to me. Every time I attend one, no matter if I’m presenting or not, no matter how much of a hassle I have to go through to attend, they remind me of the importance of what I do--what we do together. So while we couldn’t be together with colleagues in Denver this year, and while we can’t be together in person for WPCTE’s EnglishFest this year (which lives on in a virtual format) or at PCTELA’s annual conference (which has been canceled), we have to hang on to our “why,” and remind one another. Some of us may not even be present with our students or colleagues this year, so virtual togetherness is more important than ever. 

As a cyber school teacher, I’ve often been asked over the course of my career how I build community with my students, and I always have answers; I even wrote about it for this blog. If we center virtual community-building not just for our students but for us, we can do it. This blog. Cheerful chats. Book clubs. Social media communities. Even text messages, emails, and phone calls to our colleagues just to check in. All of these matter. They mean something. They keep us grounded in our “why.”

As we move on to a new year, look back at 2020 and consider your teacher family. Think of your colleagues in your district, your social network, and your professional organizations. Consider thanking someone for the role they play in helping you fill out your teacher identity, and remember that you are giving of yourself to other educators as well as students.  

Through singing that old song of ourselves--the one we remember from when things weren’t quite so hard--we can remind ourselves and one another of our individual and collective teacher identities, our “why,” and our work. The confluence of our voices--separated by distances great and small, though they may be--is what makes the song that sustains us. 

And we won’t always be singing apart; we will be together again. New things await us, together, in the new year. 

Another Kind of “Training School” by Lisa Silverman

Another Kind of "Training School"

    I am a (white) feminist and anti-racist who lives in Penn Hills, a suburban community outside of Pittsburgh that is 37% Black, and I work in the neighboring Woodland Hills School District serving predominantly Black students. The vitality of my classroom depends on many things, but one essential tenet is including Black literary voices in my classroom. That’s why contemporary works like Camille Acker’s short story collection Training School for Negro Girls are so important: for Black students, they give children agency and a positive view of their culture in the curriculum; for white teachers and other students, the stories give us a window to see worlds we may not know otherwise. Presumably, all of us “achieve full participation in society” by exploring such rich texts in the classroom.

I suggested Acker’s book to the WPCTE during a book club Zoom for This Book Is Anti-Racist. After unpacking the concept of systemic racism in that book, it naturally follows that educators interrogate their role(s) in perpetuating these systems and acknowledge their responsibility to disrupt anti-Black racism in their classrooms. Fortunately, the PA Core Standards for ELA require that we introduce students to a variety of literary perspectives in the classroom, and short stories like Acker’s can aid us in exploring the Black experience.

Last month, Ms. Acker graciously met with a small group of WPCTE members via Zoom and discussed her short stories, her creative process, Washington D.C., and Black womanhood. Acker also read “Everything She Wants” from her book--a bittersweet story about a young girl’s experience with her mother’s mental illness. Her stories often meet at the intersection of race, class, and gender, and all these layers and nuance make them interesting and provocative tales. 

At the beginning of last school year, my seniors read “Who We Are.”  In the story, a group of young girls rebels against school and society by cutting class and intimidating everyone who unluckily crosses paths with them. Although the girls seem “wild” (the story climaxes with the teens intimidating an old woman on the Metro), there is agency in their insubordination. My students resoundingly described them as “bad,” but they also recognized their need for power in a world where it is rarely afforded them. 

During our Zoom with her, Acker described to us a time when she, too, was the “bad” girl at school, cutting classes and exploring the world on her own terms. Many personal experiences have influenced her work, but at the heart of all of these stories is a great empathy for her characters and a disdain for class elitism. She brings dignity to characters who are typically marginalized by the hegemony, like TSA agent Bess in her story “All the Things You’ll Never Do.” Acker drew her inspiration for the character in an airport. She was struck by the fact that so many of these TSA agents, who are underpaid and yet charged with the great responsibility of keeping everyone safe, have often never flown on planes themselves. 

Acker’s characters are all so complex that they will naturally elicit ambivalence from readers. One such story is “Final Draft of College Essay,” which I used as one of three model texts for teaching students how to write the college application essay. Acker admitted that protagonist Kara N. Tompkins would likely not get into college with her essay, and I admitted that I used it as a model for what not to do in the students’ essays!  In my class, we deconstructed what the protagonist did wrong in her essay but also what Acker did right with characterization.  Students had strong responses to Kara. Some loved her vulnerable interiority and sympathized with her struggle to navigate through high school, others reviled Kara for her social ineptitude and inability to maintain her focus in the essay, and some were somewhere in between. Whatever the students’ response, it was a good exercise in text dependent analysis for students to defend their disparate views of the protagonist.

One cannot underestimate the importance of teachers reading and using a book like Camille Acker’s Training School in the classroom, particularly in an age of social justice and Black Lives Matter.  While I have subscribed to a paradigm of culturally relevant pedagogy my entire 27-year career, I know that many others are new to this work.  An astounding 94% of public school teachers in Pennsylvania are white.  The racial segregation in Allegheny County is also so rigid and prevalent that in many ways, western Pennsylvanians of any race are not likely to experience any other cultures except their own.  As a result, teachers and students in predominantly white districts and communities may seldom interact  with Black people or culture--and never in sustained and nuanced ways. Thus, Acker’s book is arguably a “training school” for teachers—whether they teach in racially diverse schools or not—to experience the Black community vicariously through a Black lens. It is also an invaluable tool to expose all students to authentic, multi-faceted Black characters. 

Currently, Acker is working on another book of short stories and a novel, but for creative reasons, she would not divulge the content with us. We are grateful for her visit and anticipate more fresh perspectives in her writing, and of course, more opportunities to grow as teachers and learners.

Lisa Silverman is English department chair at Woodland Hills High School and currently teaches Creative Writing I & II, English 12 Honors, and AP Literature & Composition. She also facilitates an anti-racism club for students 9-12 and is a steadfast supporter of equity in public schools. She can be reached at silvli@whsd.net.

Book Clubs: Vital to Every Reader’s Life by Carol Frow and Amy Bouch

 Book Clubs: Vital to Every Reader’s Life

Book Clubs are a social and vital part of every reader’s life--or at least they should be. This led us, Carol Frow and Amy Bouch, to start book clubs for WPCTE members. 

For our October pick, we chose Lesley’s Roessing book Talking Texts: A Teachers’ Guide to Book Clubs Across the Curriculum. Lesley is a frequent poster in the Facebook Groups for both NCTE Reads and NCTE Writes. Due to her fantastic ideas, we knew that we needed to read her book, and she was wonderful enough to join in on the conversation! Talking Texts is a great guide for teachers starting or updating book clubs in their classrooms. Lesley includes many ideas and resources for teachers to implement book (or text) clubs in a variety of ways.

Not only do we host book clubs for WPCTE, but we both also use book clubs within our classrooms. 

Carol Frow at Belle Vernon Area Middle School

Recently, my students began a new book club! Inspired by Lesley’s plan in her book, I provided samples of three Monica Hesse novels. Students independently read the samples and completed a Google form ranking their choices. From that, our “clubs” were formed. Students met to create and share their timeline of meeting responsibilities. We planned to meet four Tuesdays and Thursdays in class along with our virtual students via zoom breakout rooms for twenty minutes of class. Lesley’s book club modernizes literature circles. No more jobs are assigned, but instead members’ discussion is equally valued. 

Each student received a Reader Response notebook, and we practiced how to respond. Several faculty members created a video with me to demonstrate a book club meeting. We demonstrated how we responded to the text and held a viable discussion. My students were then provided with a slide show to see examples of what “connections” could be made.

During our meetings, students share their main question from the section along with any pertinent connections they made through their reader response notebooks. I move in and out of the breakout rooms joining in with the discussions. Should students need more to discuss, they refer to their connections made as they read. I am reading the novels also; their questions are pertinent and hearing their thoughts in the discussion shows me that they are truly thinking while they read! They are not memorizing facts for a quiz, copying monotonous study guide questions, or writing lengthy essays. They are having genuine conversations with people who are sharing the same novel, and I couldn’t be more thrilled! 

Amy Bouch at Chartiers Valley Middle School

Each school year during the four-ish weeks between Thanksgiving and Winter breaks, my English 8 students engage in a Holocaust/WWII Unit that includes writing a research essay and reading a novel in Literature Circles. During this time, each student also reads Hotel on the Corner of BItter and Sweet by Jamie Ford and the drama adaptation The Diary of Anne Frank by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich in their Literature 8 classes.

For the Literature Circles, students have over 20 novels to choose from. The books are sorted into below grade level, grade level, and above grade level offerings, and many of the books span two lists. Students are offered a list of books based on STAR data and information learned about the students during the first several months of school. I give book talks for each book, students can further investigate the options, and then they rank their top three choices. Students are placed into groups of 2-6 students although the ideal group size is 4. Students then work together to create their group reading schedule and determine their Literature Circle roles in their Literature Circles Packet. The packet specifically focuses on the content they are learning about the Holocaust/WWII and the roles of Comprehension, Analysis of Craft, Interpretation, and Connections. After reading Lesley’s book Talking Texts, I included a section for a discussion question. I really like the idea of each student bringing a discussion question to the group because it aligns with what real readers do--we like to bring up topics of discussion and hear other readers’ thoughts about it. Students report that they greatly enjoy the Literature Circles because they are able to choose their book, they like discussing it with their peers, and they get to learn more about the Holocaust/WWII than just through articles and videos. This activity is one of my favorites as well because it is amazing to witness the excitement of the students during their discussions!

NCTE Annual Convention

Book Clubs are just one part of our Holocaust/WWII Units. We will be presenting our units in fuller detail for the 2020 Virtual NCTE Annual Convention. The live portion of our session “Revamping the Typical Holocaust Unit” is on Friday, November 20 at 4:30-5:45pm. Author Monica Hesse will be joining us! There is an hour-long recording of our session, and then a 15 minute Q&A portion. We hope you participate in the conference! 

Author Bios:

Carol Frow is the current president of the Western Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of English (WPCTE) and a thirty-three year veteran ELA teacher.  Calling Belle Vernon Area Middle School her home for many years, she teaches 7th grade reading, co-taught reading and English 8, and an advanced 8th grade English course while also directing plays and musicals, guiding the yearbook, and heading the literary magazine.  When not teaching, she loves to travel, read, and scrapbook. Contact her at carol.atenfrow@bvasd.net.

Amy Bouch is a reading-obsessed 8th grade English teacher at Chartiers Valley Middle School. She is also the Vice President of the Western Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of English (WPCTE) and a Teacher-Consultant for the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project (WPWP). When she isn’t teaching, she is making her way through all of the U.S. National Parks and overall traveling the world with her husband. Connect with her at abouch@cvsd.net.

Trauma-Informed Lens as a Literary Analytical Exercise by Scott Tuffiash

Trauma-Informed Lens as a Literary Analytical Exercise

Sometimes a student of ours might smile. It’s harder to see that smile these days, literally. Yet, the potential to inspire that smile through our teaching still remains, regardless of our classrooms being in person with masks or not in person, though Zoom or Google Meet. Our shared occupation, teaching the reading, writing, speaking, and listening of the English Language Arts, is not built around explicit goals of inspiring smiles, joy or delight. So it is one of the greatest gifts of this occupation that we may be a part of those moments where a student smiles in our class, a smile borne not from a great grade alone, but the deeper joy of rightness, acknowledged through impressive grades or mastered standards, and finally experienced through quickly, yet profoundly, affirmative growth.

These are the good moments on the good days of a good profession. But we also have students who live with a barrier between our teaching and their ability to grow. If you’re a member of your school’s Student Assistance Program, that last sentence registers with you a little differently. It did four years ago for me, when I joined my district's SAP program and experienced my own profoundly affirmative growth in understanding those barriers. Mental Health professionals from UPMC and Western Psychiatric Hospital were my teachers, very knowledgeable instructors who shared intense anecdotes alongside fascinating research. I rarely smiled, though, because the content at hand was about how elusive the joy of rightness is for a number of our students each year. For the Language Arts teacher, we have a specific role within our students lives to be a positive figure of growth. Often in the AP classroom, we’re working with intense stories of humanity, presented specifically through the words of each author in our curriculum. How often are we offering a path of growth beyond powerfully tragic stories in our curriculum, especially in an AP or Pre-AP context? To offer this path, one that reduces the barriers to learning but with sufficient depth for those same standards, requires us to sometimes see our pedagogy, and even our curriculum, differently, outside the mechanics of measurable standards. 

This is precisely where intensely brilliant and accomplished people like Nadine Burke Harris have outlined something practical that transformed me as a teacher. We are entering into a third decade with the Adverse Childhood Experiences study, and in the ELA profession, we should be engaging with this advancement of human understanding in a practical and humble way in our courses. 

Towards the end of this month, I’ll be starting the Independent Reading portion of the Pre-AP Literature course I teach. I’ve had the standard literary lens options for that assignment as part of my pedagogy for decades, leading back to my internship year at Quaker Valley Middle School in the early 00’s, using John Noelle Moore’s Interpreting Young Adult Literature: Literary Theory in the Secondary Classroom as the launching pad. Like most of us incorporating literary theory, a student could choose to read a novel referenced on the AP Free Response Essay prompts, such as Catcher in the Rye, with a class lens, feminist lens, race/ethnicity lens, or archetypal lens. These stalwarts of late 20th century ELA teaching have provided generations of intellectual growth within the classroom, especially when tied to the practice of the IA Richards/T.S.Eliot school of close reading. But they are due for additions, revisions, and among teachers, a larger pedagogical discussion of how those lenses serve the greater human good of our students beyond the measurable standards. I suggest we start by adding a new lens, one suited to acknowledge what neurology and mental health counseling have both confirmed about the decade-long proliferation of student anxiety, an essential learning barrier. We need to offer a trauma-informed lens as a literary analytical exercise, in the same fashion as the lenses of the past. 

I’ll be asking my students to consider the plot, the symbols, the characterization, the narrative point of view, and a number of other key literary elements that define how an author creates meaning in their text. That’s the core of literary analysis in the AP Literature classroom. But through a trauma-informed lens, I’ll be asking students to see where untreated trauma leads to further consequences in the setting of the story, for the directly traumatized, the people experiencing secondary trauma within the text, even those who might be sensitive to trauma in a text but may be suffering from compassion fatigue. We’ll use the ACES index as our concrete step for identification: 

https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/about.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fviolenceprevention%2Facestudy%2Fabout.html

More specifically, without using the extensive questionnaire, students will use a general index for the ACES to view the character’s score:

ACEs Definitions

All ACE questions refer to the respondent’s first 18 years of life.

• Abuse

• Emotional abuse: A parent, stepparent, or adult living in your home swore at you, insulted you, put you down, or acted in a way that made you afraid that you might be physically hurt.

• Physical abuse: A parent, stepparent, or adult living in your home pushed, grabbed, slapped, threw something at you, or hit you so hard that you had marks or were injured.

• Sexual abuse: An adult, relative, family friend, or stranger who was at least 5 years older than you ever touched or fondled your body in a sexual way, made you touch his/her body in a sexual way, attempted to have any type of sexual intercourse with you.

• Household Challenges

• Mother treated violently: Your mother or stepmother was pushed, grabbed, slapped, had something thrown at her, kicked, bitten, hit with a fist, hit with something hard, repeatedly hit for over at least a few minutes, or ever threatened or hurt by a knife or gun by your father (or stepfather) or mother’s boyfriend.

• Substance abuse in the household: A household member was a problem drinker or alcoholic or a household member used street drugs.

• Mental illness in the household: A household member was depressed or mentally ill or a household member attempted suicide.

• Parental separation or divorce: Your parents were ever separated or divorced.

• Incarcerated household member: A household member went to prison.

• Neglect

• Emotional neglect: Someone in your family did not help you feel important or special, you did not feel loved, people in your family did not look out for each other or feel close to each other, or your family was not a source of strength and support.

• Physical neglect: There was not someone to take care of you, protect you, or take you to the doctor if you needed it, you didn’t have enough to eat, your parents were too drunk or too high to take care of you, or you had to wear dirty clothes.

Using this lens will reveal the craft of the storytelling, an understanding of the storyteller’s choice to engage us in the suffering of their story world. What specific words elicit empathy from us? Are we to see that character as traumatized, from the author's perspective, through explicit sensory imagery or direct characterization? Can a student not only find direct textual evidence, but identify the inferences that suggest the conditions listed above? These are text-dependent questions the Language Arts teacher is uniquely qualified to measure, to instruct, and to assess.  Are we qualified to diagnose trauma? Not in a clinical sense. But in offering this lens, we not only expand close reading skills, but hopefully offer a few additional educational experiences about those who are qualified to diagnose and treat trauma. 

First, who do we identify with in the text? If we are not the traumatized, are we somehow an indirect or passive part of the people or setting that actively or passively allows the trauma to happen? We can re-see our own humanity, both shared and rejected, and aim to be more open and available to the people in the world around us and their suffering. Second, if a student finds this type of analysis fulfilling, maybe they have a future in pediatrics, psychology, mental health counseling, or other related fields? Third, for those aspiring to write realistic fiction or even any engaging storytelling regardless of genre, a close analysis of powerfully emotional and insightful text can springboard an emerging author into a deeper understanding of the intensity carefully crafted text can contain.  

This is certainly mature content, so I can not suggest this type of lens fits even in a 9th or 10th grade classroom. I asked school counselor Alaina Schrader, who works at the primary and elementary grade level, and she provided a suggestion for younger grades:
  Try using some basic neuroscience or knowledge of the brain as a lens to apply to characters in literature. For example... "What part of the character's brain was activated when _______ happened?, etc. Trauma-informed education is really understanding behavior through the neuroscience lens, and depersonalizing behavior based on how our brains are wired. So even a basic understanding of the triune brain model helps a person understand the behavior of others and show compassion. (She teaches the triune brain model to 4th grade students at Avonworth)

As a teacher of any grade level, knowing the ACES index is helpful. Hopefully using this trauma-informed literary lens can help the ELA teacher not just improve close reading skills, but also counter the larger impact of sorting and labeling that the standard literary lens lends themselves to. A trauma-informed lens acknowledges both how we as individuals have our unique struggles but also how we share the larger bond to care for each other as members of the human family.

Author’s Bio: Scott Tuffiash is a Language Arts Teacher and the Avonews Adviser at Avonworth High School.