Margin Notes

As another school year comes to an end, it creates time for teachers to pause, take a deep breath, and engage in a process of self-reflection. The end of the school year is an opportune moment to look back, celebrate accomplishments, learn from experiences, and envision a brighter future. Reflecting on the past year can provide valuable insights, renew enthusiasm, and pave the way for personal and professional growth. You may do this by:

• Celebrating successes
• Reviewing personal and professional learning
• Seeking feedback from collegues and students (see Pernille Ripp’s Blog Post here)
• Committing to self-care
• Setting new goals

In May, the NYT’s Learning Network published 10 Ideas for Reflecting at the End of the School Year which includes prompts for teachers and students such as:

• What do you want to remember about this school year? Why?
• What surprised you?
• What challenged you?
• What successes are you most proud of?
• What did you learn, whether in or out of school?
• How have you grown?
• How could you build on that growth next year?
• When did you leave your comfort zone this year? How did you stretch yourself? What happened when you did?
• What did you struggle with, or even fail at, this year? What was hard about it?

Our literacy team also suggests considering the following:

• What professional learning this year engaged or motivated you?
• What classroom routines and conditions most supported student learning?
• When did you feel the most prepared and engaged this year as a teacher?
• What did you do this year to ensure that all students felt seen and heard and valued? What more would you like to do to support this?
• What was one breakthrough moment you had this year with a student? Can you use this in the future?
• How were you successful with engaging students? Can you build on this next year?
• What was the highlight of your year, and how can you create the conditions to include similar moments?
• What is something you would like to try next year? What learning do you need?
• What barriers held you back from being the teacher you hoped to be this year? Is there anything in your control that could help you overcome the barrier?

It can be difficult to give ourselves the time and space for reflection that we know is essential for students. We hope the ideas here will inspire you to take the time to celebrate your accomplishments, learn from your experiences, and set new goals that will benefit you and your students.

Reflection is an important part of daily learning for students, and the end of the semester/year provides an opportunity for students to combine all those reflections and think deeply about what they learned, their growth, and what they can take with them as they move forward. It provides an opportunity to analyze what they have learned/skills they have gained throughout the entirety of a course. Providing opportunities for students to reflect allows them the time necessary to gain insight into themselves as learners. As important as it is that teachers know their students as learners, it is equally important that students understand who they are as learners, and what this means for them as they navigate life both inside and outside of school.

Below you will find some prompts that could be used in conferences, in a written reflection, or as a whole-class discussion. These prompts could be shared with students who can then choose the prompts that will best guide their reflection. It is important to note that these questions are just that – a guide – not a list of questions that must be answered, as not all prompts will connect with the learning of every student.

Sample Reflection Invitations:
• What is the most important thing you learned this year about yourself as a reader/writer?
• What challenges did you face thisyear and how did you work through them?
• What text(s) most changed your thinking on a topic this year?
• How does what you learned this year connect to your life outside of school?
• What required the most effort from you?
• What goals did you set for yourself that you were able to accomplish? How did you do this?
• What were your most memorable learning experiences this year, and what made them so?
• What areas of reading/writing/speaking are you more confident in at the end of this year and what do you think helped gain that confidence?
• What makes you proud of your work this year/semester?
• Who were you as a reader in September and how has that changed?
• Who are you as a writer now, in comparison to who you were in September?
• Did your work this year confirm/challenge or change your thinking about yourself as a learner or the world?
• How did mini-lessons/feedback/conferences/peers motivate and support your learning?
• What do you want to take with you from this class into your other personal and academic pursuits?
• What is a goal you made for yourself and what steps did you take to work towards that goal?
• What is something you hope your teacher next year knows about your learning?

Last week, on an episode of The Good Doctor, the main storyline was quite compelling. It was about a woman with Long Covid who was suffering from debilitating brain fog. She yearned for the days before she caught Covid; when she was able to do her job as a biologist, remember daily tasks and string words together that made sense.

To counteract her symptoms of brain fog, she would write out poems in her notebook and try to memorize them. The poem Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limon was the poem she reads at the end of the episode. My first thought was “How have I not heard this poem?”. It’s such a beautiful evocation of spring.

This would be a great poem to enjoy during Poetry Month.

Ada Limon reads the poem here: https://poets.org/poem/instructions-not-giving

Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limon

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

April is Poetry Month and Margin Notes will be featuring ideas for celebrating poetry this month…and all year long.

We’ve updated our Poetry Month Resource Round-Up. You can access it here.

For poetry writing inspiration, enjoy I Want to Write Something So Simply by Mary Oliver

I want to write something

so simply

about love

or about pain

that even

as you are reading

you feel it

and as you read

you keep feeling it

and though it be my story

it will be common,

though it be singular

it will be known to you

so that by the end

you will think—

no, you will realize—

that it was all the while

yourself arranging the words,

that it was all the time

words that you yourself,

out of your own heart

had been saying.

To inspire you reading, enjoy Grant Snider’s comic Understanding Poetry

You will also find poetry ideas in our Craft Studio and Try This Tomorrow posts.

Happy Poetry Month!

Jeff Zentner’s In the Wild Light is a coming-of-age story that follows Cash Pruitt and his friend Delaney Doyle as they prepare to leave their tiny Tennessee town. Growing up in Sawyer, Tennessee, has come with its challenges for the teens, both of whom lost mothers to the opioid crisis that ravaged their community, and both coming from financially disadvantaged backgrounds. But, when the pair make the scientific discovery of the decade, they each receive a scholarship to the prestigious Middleton Academy in Connecticut. This leaves Cash with a difficult decision – leave behind the town he loves and his dying Papaw or let Delaney, his best friend in the world, leave Sawyer without him.

This book would be a great addition to any high school classroom library. Zentner is able to masterfully capture the complexity of tragedy and loss, the confusion that comes with first loves, and the comfort of home. This book explores themes of belonging, relationships and resilience which will resonate with many students.  It should also be noted that this book has some profanity, explores issues of drug addiction and has one scene depicting a sexual assault.

Matt Whipple is a BEd student at the University of New Brunswick. He can often be found adventuring outdoors or coaching youth sports.

In our final post of 2022 we would like to thank you for your following and wish you a restful and joyful holiday. We hope you enjoy great company, food, and of course, a book you’ve been waiting to read! We look forward to connecting with you in 2023!

BURNING THE NEW YEAR

By Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.

Notes friends tied to the doorknob,

transparent scarlet paper,

sizzle like moth wings,

marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,

lists of vegetables, partial poems.

Orange swirling flame of days,

so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,

only the things I didn’t do

crackle after the blazing dies.

October 2-8

National Newspaper Week Every year, during the first full week of October, newspapers across North America celebrate National Newspaper Week to recognize the people who work tirelessly to bring the news to their communities. Newspaper journalism – both local and national – is critically important, especially in the reality in which we live. Now, more than ever, newspapers matter.

October 24-28

Media Literacy Week is an annual event promoting digital media literacy across Canada, taking place each October. Schools, libraries, museums and community groups organize events and activities throughout the week.

October 3-November 14

The Global Read Aloud

The premise is simple; we pick a book to read aloud to our students during a set 6-week period and during that time we try to make as many global connections as possible. Each teacher decides how much time they would like to dedicate and how involved they would like to be.

OCTOBER 26 – 7:30-8:30 PM ADT

Kelly Fritsch & Anne McGuire authors of We Move Together. We Move Together follows a mixed-ability group of kids as they creatively negotiate everyday barriers and find joy and connection in disability culture and community. A kinship text for families, schools, and libraries to facilitate conversations about disability, accessibility, social justice, and community building. This event is free to the public. Register for tickets

For more events, please check out our Literacy Events Calendar.