Mrs. Ram's Jams

Author Archives: Mrs. Ram Jam

• A Mrs. Ram’s Jams Tale: What I Bought Versus What I Got–Llama Dress Edition

  Posted at 2:21 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on August 31, 2019

  

  Like any llama loving teacher, I scoured the internet for llama-phernalia for my classroom before summer’s end. I scored a new water bottle, shoulder tote, and sticker decal set. 

  And while my favorite fluffy animal has been incorporated into my teacher wardrobe via a plethora of printed punny shirts, I desperately wanted a llama dress for the first day of school. Now before judging me, I realize a llama dress might be a bit obnoxious on the first day, but the longer I teach, the more I let my crazy flag fly from the get-go. At my school, we’re allowed to wear jeans and T-shirts as rewards, and teachers-a-plenty wore jeans on the first day of school. But, I’m of the staunch opinion that IT’S TOO HOT FOR PANTS in Louisiana in August, particularly when sweating through outdoor recess duty at lunchtime. So imma wear a dress, a llama one at that, thanks. 

  Unfortunately for me, Amazon doesn’t currently offer a llama dress (I’m researching ways to remedy this situation. I mean, how dare they!). Adding one to my already chock full-ama virtual shopping cart wasn’t an option, so venturing out into the non-Amazon, scary Russian roulette interwebs shopping realm was my last resort to fulfilling my dream.

  On meowpinky.com, my eyes grazed this dress, and like any responsible social media user in her mid to late 30s, I immediately screenshot it and polled my Facebook friends as to whether I should purchase it. To no one’s surprise, the answer was yes. I decided on green, even though it was available in many colors, because I wanted to make my new llama friend feel like she was in nature, chomping on hay or grass or whatever llamas eat. (Mental note:  Must make time to research what llamas actually eat.)

  

  I anxiously awaited my new llama dress, but she didn’t arrive by the first day of school. In fact, she didn’t arrive until last week because she journeyed all the way from China, and upon arrival in the U.S., meandered her way from the West Coast to Louisiana like the free-range camelid she is.  

  When she finally arrived, I tore into her packaging with glee and unfurled her to view her full glory. And while she is glorious, she’s not quite the glorious that I was expecting. She looks rather cheap, and I’m quite scandalized by her appearance. She’s honestly gloriously terrible, and I love her even more because of it.

  You see, the person who brought her into being simply printed her outline in black on a giant piece of army green vinyl and then IRONED ON THE ENTIRE PIECE OF ARMY GREEN VINYL, OFF CENTER NO LESS, ONTO AN UNMATCHED MOSS GREEN DRESS.

  

  Her poor pockets resemble two marsupial pouches, she is of the camel family dammit, that look like they have both housed five too many babies. 

  

   I would wear her to school to parade her around, despite being poorly made (It’s not her fault.), but she’s too short to wear even with leggings. So me showing her off like a proud mama displaying pics of her newborn on Insta, Facebook, and WordPress will have to suffice as her first and last public appearance. 

  

  I’d love to hear about your online shopping mishaps! 

   
  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 0 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, funny, humor, llama, llamas, shopping gone wrong, teaching, writing

• A Poem: You’re the Apple of my Eye, Phone

  Posted at 1:50 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on August 24, 2019

  

  you’re the apple of my eye phone the best pal I’ve ever known

  olive you so much that I’ve lost the common touch I’d rather touch my screen than plum give two shoulder shrugs about my hygiene let alone being publicly seen

  yore the apple of my eye phone the best pal I’ve ever known

  when I’m in the driver’s seat I don’t need my eyes on the road because I’m gazing at my lap typing in my passcode and texting eggplant emojis to my bestie sorry about not paying attention at that last red light don’t get testy btw thanks for the courtesy honk I was ordering personalized t’s from etsy

  your the apple of my eye phone the best pal I’ve ever known

  I no longer care about capitalizing letters punctuation or spelling correctly scrolling through facebook is more compelling than peeling pineapples for a crisp confusing sentences are the new who dis and peals of laughter dissolve into the will o’ the wisps

  yore I meant your dammit autocorrect you’re the apple of my iPhone the best pal I’ve ever known

  Posted in poems, poetry, Uncategorized, writing | 3 Comments | Tagged Apple of my eye, blogging, blogs, iPhone, poems, poems about technology, poetry, writing

• How I Build Relationships with Students on the First Day of School

  Posted at 2:11 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on August 17, 2019

  

  On the first day of school, I memorize each of my new students’ names by the time they exit my classroom. Yes, you read that sentence correctly. Let me reiterate:  Mrs. Ram Jam, a walking disaster who can’t even remember her own telephone number or her husband’s real name 80 percent of the time (In my defense, he goes by his nickname. If you know my husband, do you even know his real name????), matches every single kid’s countenance to their name correctly within a 75 minute class period on the first day, retaining a 98 percent accuracy the next day–and I teach 90 kids, every day.

  You might be flabbergasted, flummoxed, or impressed by my powers of memorization, but here are three reasons why I make committing their names to mind a priority:

  1. I’m trying to build relationships. It shows the students I care–from day one. It says I don’t know YOU as a person, but I value YOU, even though I don’t know YOU yet. It says I’m here for YOU and I see YOU and I recognize how YOU are an individual, separate from the sea of other faces in this classroom. 
  2. It makes me look like a badass. (Just kidding!) 
  3. I lied. There are no other reasons. See bullet one. 

  Now for the how I do it:

  1. I handwrite all students’ names, emblazing them on my mush-for-brain, and tape their names to their assigned desks.
  2. On the first day, I stand outside my door, student roster clipped to a clipboard, and look at students’ faces while saying their names out loud, confirming their pronunciation.
  3. I call students by name anytime I address them in class.
  4. While students do an icebreaker that requires them to meet everyone, I’m up and talking to them, ensuring I match each name to each face several times. 
  5. Right before class’s end and without looking at their names, I stand in front of the class, go around the room, and say every student’s name correctly–like a badass.
  6. During my off period, I click through our online grading/attendance program, looking at their names and their pictures to reinforce name-to-brain imprinting.

  (Sidebar:  THIS ONLY APPLIES TO STUDENTS’ FIRST NAMES. LAST NAMES TAKE ME WEEKS. BABY STEPS, Y’ALL. BABY. STEPS.)

  While memorizing students’ names on the first day might not be how you start building relationships, I’d love to hear your beginning of the year methods that make you look like the badass teacher that you are.  

  And for those of you who struggle with memorizing students’ names, here’s an oldie but a goodie that I wrote last year:  A Poem (Plus Stage Directions): Why Teachers Can’t Remember Names at the Beginning of the Year.

  Happy new school year!

  

  Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 6 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, buildingrelationships, students, teaching, writing

• Mini Book Reviews for July 2019

  Posted at 1:41 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on August 10, 2019

  

   

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  (All book jacket art is taken from Goodreads.)

  I’m a week late with my mini book reviews for July because Little Thing’s rhyming gone wrong debacle needed internet publishing ASAP. And since I NEVER have anything written before my self imposed weekly Saturday deadline (and this week coincides with my first week back to school), these mini-reviews might be semi-coherent. My priorities were elsewhere this week, like getting to know the kids I’m in charge of for the whole year and fighting off back-to-school-teacher-tired exhaustion. 

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  • The Power by Naomi Alderman–4 stars–dystopian/science fiction–Alderman attempts to be sci-fi Atwood, but it’s no The Handmaid’s Tale.
  • The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs:  A New History of a Lost World by Steve Brusatte–4 stars–historical nonfiction–I feel like every adult should read a book about dinosaurs occasionally. The biggest downfall of this book is the copious amount of paleontological name dropping the author harps on. We get it Brusatte. You know and have worked with the experts in your field. Matt Foley said it best, “Well la dee fricken da!” (gif credit)
  • Poison Study (Study, #1) by Maria V. Snyder–4 stars–YAL/fantasy–Y’ALL. Except for being mildly predictable (but isn’t all YAL genre fiction?), this read rocked. Yelena, a prisoner awaiting her death, gets granted a stay of execution by becoming the king’s food taster.
  • The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian–4 stars–thriller–Finally, a thriller that I didn’t rank a two or three, even though there’s the whole female alcoholic narrator trope going on here. To nobody’s surprise, she gets sober at the end.
  • Magic Study (Study, #2) by Maria V. Snyder–4 stars–YAL/fantasy
  • Fire Study (Study, #3) by Maria V. Snyder–4 stars–YAL/fantasy–Despite me loving this series, I’m stopping here for the indefinite future. After this book, the POV switches to different main characters and the reading order gets massively confusing.
  • There There by Tommy Orange–4 stars–contemporary fiction–Wow. There There narrates the tale of multiple, interconnected Native American characters leading up to and during a powwow in Oakland. Orange’s writing style is unlike any I’ve ever seen, repeating words in subsequent sentences for impact and with stunning, heartbreaking sentences.
  • Educated by Tara Westover–4 stars–nonfiction/memoir–Westover delineates her ascent through the upper echelons of prestigious academia despite no formal education and having a hostile living environment before entering Brigham Young University. While I did compulsively read this memoir, I had a hard time rectifying some parts of the story. Westover does an impeccable job of pointing out where her narrative differs from those of her family members or other people who were present during particular events and even points out that her journals were often written with what she wanted to belive instead of what happened, so I have a hard time accepting all of this book as true. I’m jaded when it comes to reading memoirs anymore because there’s no true way to tell a tale from the past.
  • Carnegie’s Maid by Marie Benedict–2 stars–historical fiction–Fresh off the boat from Ireland, Clara Kelly falsely impersonates a dead person, becoming a lady’s maid for Andrew Carnegie’s mother. I felt like I was being talked down to this entire book. Benedict frequently stopped and defined words, like lady’s maid jargon, that I could have figured out from context. I’m not an idiot, and most readers aren’t either.
  • The Bookshop of Yesterdays by Amy Meyerson–4 stars–contemporary fiction–What reader doesn’t love books that take place in bookshops?
  • The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides–3 stars–thriller–Not terrible. Spoiler alert–there’s a silent patient.
  • The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern–reread–3 stars–fantasy–I DID A HORRIBLE THING AND RE-READ ONE OF MY FAVORITE BOOKS. AND GUESS WHAT–IT’S NOT NEARLY AS FANTASTIC AS I REMEMBER IT. Vague description plagues the plot, featuring an anticlimactic, skimmed over resolution. Why did I ruin a good thing? However, Morgenstern will be releasing a new novel towards year’s end that I’m intrigued by.
  • Not That Bad:  Dispatches from Rape Culture edited by Roxanne Gay–5 stars–nonfiction/essays–STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND READ THIS BOOK. It’s raw, ugly, heartbreaking, enlightening. It will gut you.
  • Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton–2 stars–historical fiction/contemporary fiction–I officially declare historical fiction not my jam. Marisol, a Cuban American reporter, travels to Cuba for the first time to distribute her Grandma Elisa’s ashes. During her visit, she uncovers her grandmother’s secret past. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. You get the alternating story of Marisol and Elisa, and both stories are too similar–both characters fall in love with revolutionaries and then have to flee Cuba with their lives. I hate books that are too tied together like this. The dialogue was unrealistic; Marisol’s love interest basically gives all of Cuba’s history in long drawn out lectures every time he opens his mouth.
  • The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves–1 star–contemporary fiction–I thought I was going to adore this book. Part of it takes place at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, Mrs. Ram Jam’s Alma Mater (Hail to the Orange/Hail to the Blue/ Hail Alma Mater). The main characters even stop at Kam’s, a notorious campus bar that Mrs. Ram Jam frequented, on their first date. Then for another bizarro world coincidence, the other part (tenish years in the future from the first part) takes place during and after September 11, 2001–  when Mrs. Ram Jam (I’ll stop referring to myself in the third person now.) was a freshman at the U of I and watched the collapse of the second Twin Tower on the Today show when she should have been studying for her first Russian 101 exam. However, I feel like the male love interest in the book who was supposed to be Annika, an autistic woman’s knight in shining armor fetishized her and treated her like she was a child. It left me with a terrible case of the icks, chaulked up to poor writing.
  • Maybe You Should Talk to Someone:  A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb–four stars–nonfiction/memoir–Gottlieb can write. The title explains the basic premise of the book. And like Westover’s Educated, Gottlieb makes it clear that she is an unreliable narrator, too. Maybe I should talk to someone about how much of a skeptical reader I’ve become. The book’s jacket features a tissue box, and you better have one right next to you while you read. I sobbed. Don’t read the end of this book in public.
    

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    Anybody have any fun, mindless reads? My August reading is going to be devoted to them. Nothing heavy for this already exhausted teacher.

  Posted in books, reading, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, book reviews, books, carnegie's maid, educated, maybe you should talk to someone, next year in havana, not that bad, poison study, read, reading, the bookshop of yesterdays, the flight attendant, the girl he used to know, the night circus, the power, the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, there there, writing

• A Little Thing Tale: Rhyming Gone Wrong

  Posted at 8:09 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on August 2, 2019

  

  In the Mrs. Ram Jam household as of late, Little Thing and I have been playing with language more than we’ve been playing with LOL Surprise Dolls, Barbies, and board games combined.  

  Since toddlerhood instead of calling Little Thing by name at a sentence’s end, I’ve taken the last word of a sentence, inserted a comma and the word chicken, and rhymed the next word with the word before chicken. For example, I say things like:  Go to bed, Chicken Head! Shut the door, Chicken Hardcore! Brush your hair, Chicken Chair! 

  On the verge of second grade, Little Thing has caught on to my rhyming game and attempts the rhyming pattern herself. Her endeavors fall into five different categories: nonsensical, same word rhyme, benign, bemusing, and alarming. 

  Here are real, verbatim rhyme ventures, broken down by categories, quipped by Little Thing in the past few days:

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  Nonsensical:

       Why did that wobble, Chicken Schwobble?

  Same Word Rhyme:

       I have to go to the bathroom, Chicken Bathroom.

  Benign:

       What am I gonna wear, Chicken Spare?

       Tomorrow it’ll be in the big can, Chicken Span.

       I wish I could get the cat, Chicken Spat.

       You might want to close the door, Chicken Bore.

       Are you getting ready, Chicken Freddy?

  Bemusing:

       We’re gonna be late, Chicken Watergate!

  Alarming:

       The ground’s covered in germs, Chicken Sperm! (Sidebar Number One:  hollered while collecting her pool accouterments in earshot of a sunbathing, older woman.)

       Are you gonna buy lipstick, Chicken Dick? (Sidebar Number Two:  chirped in Walmart’s makeup aisle and overheard by a woman who threw hella eye daggers my direction.)

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  Now if you’re judging me instead of stifling a laugh, I don’t for one second believe Little Thing actually knows what “sperm” or “dick” means. She was simply putting sounds together to try to make things rhyme, but the coincidence isn’t lost on me.

  She’s also been warned not to play this game with anybody else, and I feel like there’s an awkward conversation waiting to happen with her near future second-grade teacher. 

  On that note, what’s the most inappropriate thing your kid has ever said? I’m all ears, Chicken Dears! 

  

  Photo by Daniel Reche on Pexels.com

   

   

  Posted in parenting, Uncategorized, writing | 5 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, kids, parenting, rhyming

• A Teacher Tale: What’s Your Late Work Policy?

  Posted at 8:45 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on July 26, 2019

  

  As I sit here staring at my syllabus for next year in denial that I’m embarking upon my 14th year of teaching, I grapple with changing my late work policy for the upcoming school year.

  Last year during the first semester, I accepted late participation work for half credit and any late test grade assignments for a letter grade off until the grading period’s end, resulting in a bejeebus load of poo-on-a-stick late work to assess right before grades were due. Post Christmas, I didn’t accept any late participation work and issued one late pass per nine weeks for test grade tasks, allowing students 24 hours to turn in a late assignment for full credit. Once that pass was cashed in though, I didn’t accept work period–unless the student was in danger of failing. 

  If you’re reading this with a parental or administrative eye, you might cringe at my former policy’s harshness, but . . . 

  1. In my classroom, there are nine grades per nine weeks. Typically, students take two tests. I’ll assess them through writing and projects for the other grades. Unfortunately, a hefty number of 8th graders avoid completing complex assessments because it’s time-consuming, hard, and, let’s face it, boring. 
  2. You might decry my policy for admitting my assessments are time-consuming, frustrated with your middle schooler’s homework workload. However, if students are bringing work home from my class, they aren’t using the time that I give them in class wisely. Ninety-five percent of the time they are provided AMPLE time to complete work in class. 
  3. If students hand in an essay or project four weeks after it’s due, we’ve moved on. The material that was covered isn’t freshly emblazoned in their brain juices. More than likely what they end up handing in doesn’t follow directions, demonstrate mastery, or is low caliber work. 
  4. Keeping track of late work and grading it makes Mrs. Ram Jam even more insane than she already is. My brain has a hard time reshifting to grading assignments from weeks ago, compounding a near palpable increase in my own time anxiety. My students’ lack of time management makes my own time anxiety worse–crazy, right? 
  5. Kids need to be taught accountability and time management skills. Unfinished work needs a consequence. 

  

  Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

  With all that being said, I’m leaning towards enacting my second-semester policy for the entire school year.

  Please feel free to share your late work policies or what your district/school suggests to do and the reasoning behind it. I’m always up for suggestions. And enjoy your last week or two of summer, teachers!  

   

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 4 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, english teacher, late work, students, teacher, teaching, writing

• Six Word Stories Using Daily Word Prompts

  Posted at 2:07 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on July 20, 2019

  

  I’ve been a bit under the weather since Wednesday night. I didn’t want to renege on my weekly post, so here are two, six word stories using today’s daily writing prompts.

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  1. His pious comportment railroaded her dubiousness.
  2. Pulchritudinous and affluent, solitude devoured her.

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  Here’s my personal goal for the day using the six word story format:

  Must eat more solid food today.

   

  Posted in Uncategorized, writing | 4 Comments | Tagged daily prompt, daily word, pious, pulchritudinous, six word story, six word story challenge

• A Poem: Timeworn

  Posted at 12:42 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on July 13, 2019

  

  Don’t blink.
  Clichéd lip sync.
  The pitter-patter of little feet.
  Buckle them into their car seats.

  Time flies.
  Hackneyed reprise.
  They grow up too fast.
  Romanticize the past.

  Clichéd lip sync.
  Buckle them into their car seats.

  Let them be little.
  Trite transmittal.
  Time please slow down.
  Stave off nervous breakdowns.

  Clichéd lip sync.
  Buckle them into their car seats.

  Where has the time gone?
  Banal yawns.
  Can’t they stay little forever?
  Attempt to keep it together.

  Mama needs a drink.
  Clichéd lip sync
  because society pretends motherhood is always sweet.
  Buckle them into their car seats.

  Posted in kids, parenting, poems, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, don't blink, kids, parenting, poems, poetry, time flies, writing

• Mini Book Reviews for June 2019

  Posted at 9:32 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on July 6, 2019

  

  

  

  

  

  

  I had high expectations for my June reading month. Read more nonfiction! Read less fantasy! Read less YAL! Read sixteen-twenty books!

  Then I made a rookie mistake–I fell down a Sarah J. Maas hole named the Throne of Glass series–shattering my June reading hopes and dreams because the books are fiction, fantasy, YAL, and tomes.

  If you’ve ever found yourself at the bottom of a Maas rabbit hole, please please please tell me how you extracted yourself from it. When I realized the depth of my addiction, I resorted to alternating one of the books from the series with an adult, non-fantasy venture in a bizarre attempt at self-preservation, quitting after book four cold turkey.

  Here’s what I read in June:

  1. The Other Woman by Sandie Jones–3 stars–mystery/thriller–I keep reading this genre despite my low expectations. Emily meets Adam. He’s a catch but a total mommy’s boy. I saw the ending coming from about halfway through the book.
  2. The Book of Three (The Chronicles of Prydain, #1) by Lloyd Alexander–4 stars–middle grade/fantasy–Not my favorite fantasy read, but I see why it would appeal to middle grade readers. It’s no Narnia; the world building is blasé. However, it does feature a sassy, soothsaying pig, a welcome addition to ANY novel if you ask me.
  3. Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1) by Sarah J. Maas–4 stars–YAL/fantasy–Ahhhhh. Welcome to my demise’s advent. Celaena Sardothien, an former assassin and current slave, gets offered her freedom in exchange for becoming her mortal enemy’s champion in a world where magic is banned. I like this series more than Maas’s A Court of Thorn and Roses series. 
  4. The Au Pair by Emma Rous–3 stars–mystery/thriller–Mehhhhhhhhh. Of course there’s au pair drama. Cliché cheating with the nanny and unrealistic falling action drag this book down.
  5. Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass, #2) by Sarah J. Maas–4 stars–YAL/fantasy–Just as entertaining as book one.
  6. One Day in December by Josie Silver–3 stars–contemporary fiction/romance– I found this Reese Witherspoon pick frustrating; the self-absorbed characters grated my nerves. 
  7. Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass, #3) by Sarah J. Maas–4 stars–YAL/fantasy–Book 3 isn’t nearly as good as the first two. Too many Harry Potter/Lord of the Rings/Twilight parallels for it to be original. My least favorite word in all of YAL (“chuckle”) made hefty appearances, too. Insert eye roll here.
  8. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield–4 stars–contemporary fiction–This novel has been on my TBR for awhile. It’s eerie and keenly written, a mashup of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Jane Eyre.
  9. Finale (Caraval, #3) by Stephanie Garber–4 stars–YAL/fantasy–If you love YAL and fantasy and haven’t picked up the Caraval series yet, you should. The trilogy finished too neatly and lovey dovie, but overall, I’ll remember Garber’s Caraval, a teenage version of The Night Circus, fondly.
  10. My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing–3 stars–mystery/thriller–A married couple tackles serial killing together. Take a look at this book jacket. Little Thing gave me major side eye the whole time I was reading this book. 
  11. Dopesick:  Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy–5 stars–nonfiction prose–Read this book. It will change the way you view drug addiction and treatment.
  12. Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4) by Sarah J. Maas–4 stars–YAL/fantasy–I’m a fan of this series–I swear–but these books keep getting longer as the series progresses (This one clocked in at 648 pages.) and are wordy, wordy, wordy. To reach my read-150-books-in-2019 goal, I’m taking a Throne of Glass hiatus because there are three more books in this series, the last one housing nearly 1,000 pages. I wish Maas would consider writing trilogies.
  13. The Lost Man by Jane Harper–4 stars–mystery/thriller–I heart Jane Harper’s Australian outback mystery novels so hard.
  14. Factfullness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, and Anna Rosling Rönnlund–4 stars–nonfiction prose–Approach this nonfiction read with an open mind and consider that the data collection method is mildly flawed. The authors present an interesting argument that the world is “better but still bad,” iterating the mass gains that civilization has made over the years through examining our outdated knowledge of the world. 

  Bright side: at least I managed two nonfiction reads?

  (All cover art taken from Goodreads.com)

   

   

  Posted in books, reading, Uncategorized, writing | 3 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, book reviews, books, caraval, dopesick, factfullness, finale, jane harper, read, reading, sarah j. maas, the lost man, the thirteenth tale, throne of glass, writing

• An English Teacher Tale: Guess What? Cold Read Tests Don’t Work and How I’ve Gotten It So Wrong

  Posted at 3:38 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on June 29, 2019

  

  Invigorated and overwhelmed, I’m freshly nestled home post three day teacher leader conference in New Orleans. While attending, I listened to 2018 National Teacher of the Year Mandy Manning discuss teaching fearLESS (teaching with less fear). I learned more about growth mindset, the importance of recruiting teachers, and cultural competency. But mostly my chosen sessions focused on ELA curriculum shifts, particularly text complexity. 

  By midafternoon on conference day two, two things became glaringly clear: 

  1. The New Orleans Convention Center is a dementor; it sucked my soul arid. (I’m not knocking the conference AT ALL; it rocked. The convention center itself is cavernous and scary, all dim backlighting and conference tables billowing in death-black robe tablecloths. The stale air permeating the facility was akin to a dementor’s dreaded kiss, leaving me dehydrated and lifeless by day’s end.)
  2. According to experts, I’ve been testing and teaching my subject matter the wrong way for at least 8 years; if I’ve been doing it wrong, chances are you’ve been doing it wrong too. And I’m a great teacher–and chances are you are too. (I’m not saying I’m doing everything wrong.)

  About 8 years ago, Louisiana ELA educators started making the shift to assessing kids with “cold read” (readings that kids hadn’t seen before) tests, the idea being that kids should be able to use the standards that are being taught in the classroom and apply them to any text that’s given to them, essentially moving away from testing kids on the content that we’ve taught them and focusing on mastery of standards. This is more reflective of the way our end of the year state tests work too (Students are given multiple pieces of complex text they’ve never encountered before, answer multiple choice questions about those texts, and then write essays about those texts–all strictly timed.). Disclaimer–this is a MAJOR oversimplification of the process, and I may have botched it. Please bear in mind my recently escaped dementor’s kiss. I’m awaiting Dumbledore to appear with some chocolate for me, and then I’ll be back hunting horcruxes, errrrrr, I mean existing like a rational muggle in no time. 

  For a few years now, I’ve been lamenting to my fellow coworkers, my mom, willing ears:

  1. How can you give “cold” literature to kids, timed no less, and expect them to comprehend and analyze it? They could be given anything on those tests! For example, I could be teaching To Kill a Mockingbird and focusing on the Civil Rights Movement and the Great Depression. How does that content help them read a cold read task about the Cold War on a benchmark or standardized test? It doesn’t. I can’t prepare kids’ background knowledge on every single topic/culture/time period/etc. that they encounter. 
  2. Vocabulary is my biggest battle. How can I prepare my kids for every single word that they encounter on a cold read test? Yeah, context clues might help, and they know how to use context clues, but YOU CAN’T FIGURE OUT EVERY SINGLE WORD FROM CONTEXT. And yeah there are roots, prefixes, affixes and other tricks, but again, it’s no panacea. Furthermore, what about the words they encounter in test questions and answer choices where there’s virtually no context? It’s mind-boggling, disorienting even, to think about how limiting this can be for a child to be successful when it comes to reading comprehension, and if they don’t understand what they read, they sure as heck can’t analyze it.

  So why highlight these two points and how does it relate to me teaching and testing the wrong way (and quite possibly you too)? Louisiana is currently piloting a program where . . . wait for it  . . . the state test aligns to English teachers’ actual content in their classroom . . . because research shows that:

  1. Teaching solely standard based for ELA doesn’t work. How many of you have been told to develop your lessons around a standard and subsequently gone scrambling around for content that lends itself to teaching said standard while trying to find interrelated texts? [Mrs. Ram raises her hand.] Sidebar–I do rely heavily on my district’s curriculum, but I supplement.
  2. Giving struggling students texts to read on their “reading level” actually does more harm than good because they’re not grappling with more complicated syntax and vocabulary. Say you’re teaching about the Holocaust at the 8th grade level and decide to give your struggling readers Number the Stars while handing out The Boy in the Striped Pajamas to your more accelerated readers, focusing on teaching the same standards in both texts over the course of reading. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that most English teachers have done this, myself included, but I have moved away from doing this–whether in relation to big pieces of literature or different leveled exit tickets. But look at this chart using ACT data:(image credit) What can you surmise? Hey, how well people do on the ACT has to do with their ability to read complex texts. Also, I learned that it doesn’t matter if students have mastery of skills necessarily. I know if my students have mastered a standard, but if students can’t read a specific complex text independently they’re unable to answer test questions correctly. (Both bullet points 1 and 2’s ideas were discussed in Tim Shanahan’s Ed Talk: “Educational Equity and the Importance of Complex Text.”) This ties in directly with my next bullet.
  3. Background knowledge is key for success on tackling complex texts. So Recht and Leslie, researchers, did this study known as the baseball experiment. Over-simplistic premise: Let’s give kids a comprehension test about baseball. Look at this:(image credit) Guess what? The kids, no matter their reading ability, who had little prior knowledge of baseball did way worse on the test than kids of any reading ability who were more familiar with baseball. Earth shattering, isn’t it? P.S. this study has been around since 1988, and this is my first time seeing it. I have a master’s degree in curriculum–WHY HAVEN’T I SEEN IT BEFORE? If we learned about it in grad school, I don’t remember it.

  Y’all might have been privy to this info before, and while my biggest struggles as a teacher are directly reflected in my main takeaways from the conference, I feel validated in my criticisms of the way we test children, but heartbrokenly irate that we’ve gotten some teaching and testing methods so wrong for almost a decade. For at least this next year, if not two or three, my students are still going to take standardized tests with cold read passages that are not reflective of what my students, your children, are capable of achieving. 

  But change is on the horizon. Thank goodness. To read more about Louisiana’s Innovative Assessment pilot click here.  

  Teachable Moment: While I know this post is rambly, all over the place, full of glue words and not written on a particularly high reading level, keep in mind what I’ve been I’ve been telling you. How many of you aren’t teachers who read this post? What teacher jargon did you struggle with? Did you know what a “cold read” task was before reading this? Or even what mastery of a standard entails? Do you know what the standards are? Do you know how to determine what makes a complex text? Do you know what ELA stands for? Chances are if you aren’t an English teacher or even a teacher in general you had to struggle to make meaning with what I was talking about. Then on top of that I made Harry Potter allusions throughout this post. If you’ve never read Harry Potter or seen the movies, are you going to get all of those references? Or is it going to go right over your head? An allusion missed means there’s missing meaning in a text. On that note, do you know what allusion means? Did you figure out what it means based on the context? Or did you just fly by it and register it as a word you don’t know? Think about all the different ways you had to make meaning behind my thoughts, my word choice, the way I built my sentences, the way I structured this post. How many different ways can understanding be hindered? (This idea is taken from Natalie Wexler’s Ed Talk: “The Importance of Background Knowledge” and applied to my own writing.)

  And that friends is what our children are trying to do every single day when they’re in my classroom with readings they encounter and why it’s a shame to ask them on a standardized test to read texts they’re completely unfamiliar with. 

   

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized | 4 Comments | Tagged blogging, cold read tests, standardized tests, students, teaching

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