Of Queens, Athletes, & Images: Kicking off the Semester

Hank Willis Thomas

The first weeks of school have been about building a classroom culture, about learning how we will learn together. This includes the protocols, practices, and vocabulary (our inside language!) that we will use. One of the practices I use, which I introduced to all four of my classes this week, is called “queening” - a way of reading a text (or set of texts) to make meaning. 

Queening, a process I adapted from the UMOJA Community, consists of four overlapping recursive stages: Quoting, Queezing, Quonnecting, and Queening.

Quoting happens when we observe a text - a poem, essay, book, song, or work of art - and simply identify direct evidence. It’s noting key words, phrases, images, or sounds. In a poem or other written text, that would be an author’s exact words. And just as writers quote each other, artists quote each other, too - think of the way Picasso quotes African art or how Kehinde Wiley does the same with classic art. Musicians quote each other all the time when they sample and remix sonic elements from each others’ music. So quoting isn't limited to what we traditionally think of as texts. 

A Fresh Start & Two Commitments

It’s the beginning of a new semester! Despite the typical turbulence that comes with a new year it’s an exciting time. I get to meet one hundred and twenty plus new students, most of whom are first-time freshman.College is as new to them as Hogwarts was to Harry Potter It’s been refreshing greeting students who are excited for this next phase of their lives. And for a few days, I get to wear the mantle of authority, an ersatz Dumbledore. 

Adding to joy of the new semester is reuniting with colleagues I haven't since May.. Rekindling personal and professional relationship - all refreshed after a few months off - feels great. 

Ubuntu, Individuality, & Playing with Words

The leaders of our Summer Learning Institute divided us conference attendees into several groups (the SLI is a professional development program for educators interested in increasing the success of African and African American college students).

Each group lined up single file, all of us remaining in the conference space together. The leaders subtly urged each group to repeat the words, "I am because we are," an English translation of the Bantu term for "unity."  

"I am because we are. I am because we are."

Engaging Minds, Hearts, & Bodies - UMOJA Summer Learning Institute

One of the most important criteria I have for professional development programs is whether or not the facilitators actually practice the sort of pedagogy/andragogy they promote. Many of us teachers have attended (been subjected to?) professional development where the leaders simply lecture or present a PowerPoint. I wish I could say I was exaggerating. I'm not.  

I don't need anyone to read me a lecture or recite from slides, regardless how brilliant the ideas. I want to experience the ways successful teachers create classroom climate. I want to observe their philosophies in action and to experience the sort of lessons the experts advocate (Note to self: I need to live up to this standard, too!).

If today, the first day of the UMOJA Summer Learning Institute (SLI), is any indication of what to expect, I will be heartily pleased. Today's program manifested deliberate intention on the part of the organizers to demonstrate the sort of classroom culture and pedagogy/andragogy they expect us to create and deliver next semester.

I wrote yesterday about the two texts we were to read in advance of the SLI: bell hook's Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom and Joy DeGruy's Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. The opening activities did not directly refer to particular pages or passages of either book. The program did, however, hit the same content, but from a different angle. More importantly, the organizers created the conditions for us to experience the kind of teaching practices they want us to learn from our readings. 

A significant section of DeGruy's book outlines the devastating experience and ongoing effects of the African Holocaust. Her words provide an competent outline of the historical facts, a solid primer on the legacy of American-style slavery and the abuse suffered by kidnapped Africans. 

Reading to Get Ready: UMOJA Summer Learning Institute

This summer, tomorrow, in fact, I am attending the UMOJA Summer Learning Institute, a five-day training session for professors who teach in in the UMOJA Community, a statewide initiative for community colleges to help increase graduation and transfer rates of African and African American students. 

Working with a teachers from all over California, our team from Southwestern College (the counselor/coordinator and myself, the English teacher) will develop curriculum and receive training that aligns our program with the statewide UMOJA program. Those of you who know me know I am passionate about professional development, so I am happy for the opportunity to make my teaching more effective. And, like a student super excited before the first day of school, I'm full of anticipatory anxiety. Can't sleep. So, lemme practice what I preach in class and do a little writing about what I'm learning - to warm up for the Summer Learning institute!

Creative Quote: George R.R. Martin's Architects & Gardeners

Here's a Haiku Deck "remix" of a quote by Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin. I took liberties with his phrasing, but I hope I've captured the essence of his meaning: Writing is rocking back and forth and toggling between two distinct mindsets. 

One approach calls for the kind of planning and mechanical processes we might associate with architects. The other mindset approaches writing from the more romanticism inspired, "faith-based"of gardening. 

These apparently divergent ways of thinking about the creative process are less a static "right/wrong" or "either/or" opposition than of an active shifting within a dynamic equilibrium (that was a mouthful!). 

Two types of writers - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Motivated by Writers' Feedback on Using Mentor Texts

As part of today's "fluency/stamina focused free-writing" moment, I asked students to think back to the beginning of this semester (finals are next week!). I revamped a "thinking routine" from the text Making Thinking Visible to have them reflect on their experience with practicing composition. I asked them to jot down a few sentence about what they thought the first week of school about having to take a composition class. I followed up with a question, "What do you think today about having to take a composition class?" 


Mentor Text Feedback - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Those questions were meant to stir the pot - to get them thinking. In fact, before the actual writing prompt, I allowed them to share with partners so they could remember together and share experiences - the goal being that their own thinking will improve in discussion. 

The actual writing prompt asked students to compose their response to the question, "How do you account for any growth, change, or shift in your thinking about taking a writing class? Explain how you experienced or executed that change." 

Above are three quotes from different students about using mentor texts. Even though I wasn't specifically asking for feedback on my use of mentor texts, I'm glad to see that students found those lessons meaningful enough to mention them as a highlight of their semester. 

There were tons of other interesting responses, comments also worthy of attention. But these quotes are especially significant to me today because I've been experimenting with mentor texts (see here and here). I'm still pretty much at the beginning of my learning curve, a little unsure of my skill. So these three responses give me courage to keep trying, to keep adjusting and revising my lessons. 

My goal with mentor texts? To help students learn how to understand how words, punctuation, and text structures work together to make meaning. Not simply to identify what writers actually do but to also replicate they strategies they see into their own writing - a key distinction between memorizing writing concepts and applying them. 

Looks like students (at least these ones!) get what I'm serving. And by consistently asking them what students are learning and by assessing how successfully they've acquired a skill,I can continue to revise, remix, and refashion lessons to help students better recognize and emulate effective writing. 

My next step? To figure out easy, quick ways to assess if the mentor text writing activities work, i.e., devising activities that allow me to see precisely when and how students use mentor texts to craft phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and longer compositions. In other words, devise a way to, with higher degree of confidence, see that students learn what I teach.

These comments, in the meantime, are the shot in the arm I need as we move into finals season!