Radical Transformation:
A Work In Progress
“If you could radically transform your classroom — the way it looks, what happens in it, how teaching and learning occurs-what is your ideal vision?”
Nicole Mirra and Antero Garcia ask this question at the end of Chapter 6 in their book Civics For The World To Come, which inspires me to imagine my classroom beyond constraints, and envision how to best center the humans in the space.
To imagine my ideal vision is to go back to my roots, my vision as a “baby” teacher. It honestly hasn’t changed much. And, honestly, it’s not all that radical. It’s really quite simple. When I was 23 years old in my first teaching job, bright-eyed and saying yes to way too many extra commitments, my mentor teacher gave me her copy of In the Middle by Nancie Atwell.
For those unfamiliar with Atwell’s work, she writes about transforming her 8th grade Language Arts Classroom in rural Maine into a Reading and Writing Workshop. Atwell’s students had great room for choice and creativity, resulting in immense pride and ownership in their work and their community.
Seven years into my teaching career, I was given the opportunity to make my dream a reality. I proposed a pilot program of this workshop model to my principal. She approved it, so for the 4th quarter, we ran our English 10 classes as a Reading & Writing Workshop. It was not perfect by any means, but I clearly remember the spark of excitement from my students when they realized their newfound abundant choice and room for creativity.
Before we started the workshop model, most students were engaged in some capacity, but not often excited about their classwork.
But after we started the workshop model, many of my students walked into class excited, asking if we could have either extra writing time, because they were inspired to keep working on their pieces, or extra reading time, because they were loving their independent reading books so much. I had a student who developed a presentation where he brought several foods for our class to sample that represented different characters in his independent reading book.
I had one student, J, who would sleep in my class every day. When we started Reading and Writing Workshop, J woke up. He had a story to tell.
I remember getting a message from a colleague two years later after I’d left the school and was in a new teaching position. She had just interviewed J for his senior portfolio exit interview. He told her I was his favorite teacher because I gave him a chance to make his own choices and be creative. I’ll never forget that.
This past fall, after a discussion with my department chair and other English teachers, I wrote a new course proposal for Reading and Writing Workshop, what we envisioned as a junior and senior English elective course that would allow for much-needed flexibility and differentiation. We have a wide range of backgrounds, personalities, and abilities in our student population, as well as an increasing number of students with chronic absences. We saw a great need for a course like this, but the proposal was denied.
At the beginning of 2nd semester this spring, I found myself with a roster of 10 students in my Public Speaking course, most of whom were not thrilled about speaking publicly. There is a wide range of needs and abilities within this small group, and after about three weeks, it became abundantly clear that me trying to keep everyone rowing merrily along in the same boat was not going to be good for anyone.
I decided to shift into workshop mode, which, along with my excitement, was completely vulnerable. I knew I would make mistakes. I knew I had a good foundation, but would definitely need to keep building the plane as we were flying it. I just knew we had to go for it.
Before we started the workshop model, I was trying to keep everyone going at the same pace each day, but was dealing with frequent absences and language barriers, among other challenges.
But after we started the workshop model, our classroom became a calm space of creativity. With each person working on their own project, missing class doesn’t create the same dreaded feeling of being behind. Everyone is working at a slightly different level and a slightly different pace, which obviously meets their needs much more effectively than trying to keep every student on the same exact page.
Every week, my students have a watch and listen assignment, which is sometimes specific and sometimes open-ended.
Every week, they also complete a self progress report, and have a conference with me. Every two weeks, they present to the whole class. These presentations are mostly on topics of their choice with structures of their choice. I have a list of suggestions if needed. The students are assessed on their evidence of preparation, the presentation itself, and their reflection on the process.
On the day I announced this shift in class, I could almost immediately feel that it was the right decision for this group of humans. After reading over the syllabus-style document with them, I asked for verbal and written feedback. Some students were a bit nervous, but they were also positive and excited about choosing their own projects.
One student started working on a persuasive speech to convince everyone in our class that they should get a cat.
Another student is an enthusiastic reader, and set to work on a stylish and thoughtful slideshow that depicted her favorite book recommendations.
Another student wrote a beautiful story about her grandfather’s passing right before her quinceañera.
Another student wrote a graduation speech about La Follette’s sometimes negative reputation, and all the good that can actually be found in our school when you look for it.
I did not give them these ideas.
. . .I think this is what centering the humans in the space looks like.
A few weeks into our workshop model shift, this system is not without its faults. Individual pacing, accountability, and establishing high expectations continue to be a work in progress. It doesn’t quite feel like a radical transformation, or the ideal vision yet. But to me, it’s worth continuing to strive for.
Nancie Atwell said her book is about “one moment in my evolution — my beliefs and practices based on what I know now about teaching and learning. What I do in my classroom next year will not look exactly like the classroom I described here. New observations and insights will amend theory; the process by which I translate theory into action will change. The agents for change are my students. The classroom itself becomes an evolving text — a communal scribble we revise together.”
I love this mindset of Atwell’s, and I strive to do the same. Always reflecting, always re-thinking, always processing to re-create a better space. It is vulnerable and messy, and it won’t ever be absolutely perfect. But if our goal as teachers is perfection, I think we got into the wrong profession. It is, every day, a “communal scribble we revise together.”
