As a visiting artist-teacher for the New Shoots program, I worked with two secondary school creative writing classrooms, an 8/9 split and a 11/12 split. It was a blast! Each day, my students taught me many lessons.
Reflections: Grade 8/9 Split English Class
Working with Tish Silvers was a wonderful experience; I learned so much from her. After each class she gave me feedback on my teaching style and commended me on the good techniques I was employing. After my second class she gave me some “readjustment,” as I like to call it. She said, “Natalie you’d be a great lecturer, for a university class. But, these are kids, they need to get up and move around, talk to each other. Many are kinesthetic learners.”
I took this constructive criticism and kept it in my back pocket when I planned my next classes, and tried to implement it right away. She made me realize two things. Firstly, that I’d been in university for a very long time and was personally accustomed to, and preferred traditional forms of teaching, like the university lecture. Secondly, not everyone has my learning style, and that I needed to accommodate others as much as possible. I look forward to receiving this kind of criticism and the challenge of directly implementing it in my teaching.
Reflections: Grade 11/12 Split Creative Writing Class
My best lecture for Gerry Hill was when I used my own poem (below) as an example of how to write an ode. My poem is about my father and grandfather, a tribute to their contribution to my family and their own fraught relationship. This was the first time I’d used personal material as an example in my teaching, which may seems strange since I am an artist and most artists teach by means of their own techniques and finished products. In the past, I found the idea of doing so made me uncomfortable, feel vulnerable. But, this vulnerability helped the students open up to me.
For the ode writing exercise, I gave them free reign to critique my poem with both positive and negative feedback. This gave them invisible “expert hats” and showed that I trusted their expert opinions. They had amazing critiques! One student suggested a small edit that was just right for my poem. I went home and made the edit while shaking my head and thinking, “Boy, I’ll never underestimate teenagers again!”
For the writing component of the lesson, the kids tried their hand at writing an ode to whatever thing/person/idea they liked. On student wrote one to his violin, one wrote an ode to the sport of basketball, a few wrote some about their parent(s). From this lecture I learned a great lesson: relinquishing supposed authority (not all the time, but at crucial moments) can lead to great moments of learning and sharing. I keep my eye out for moments where I can give my students expert hats and let them teach me about my work and other’s.
Da, because:
He fills the cracks in his hands with Penaten cream;
I still hear them creaking over mop handles.
He takes care of his second wife
since he still feels the ache from losing his first;
Nana said he wrote her for two years afterwards.
He said, back then he was a weak version of Joseph
and the other woman was pursuant like Potiphar’s wife;
She was a multi-million dollar heiress.
He married my mother;
something happened
when he ate her cookies.
He bought the Datsun without consulting mom;
took off to San Francisco on a car buying bender
then came home and kissed her OK.
He drove for hours trying to save his friend’s neck
from the noose and river floor.
His dad objected to war and spent ’43 and ’44 in prison;
Nana said the cuff marks are still there.
He couldn’t bear to live with his father
and finish high school.
He would’ve made a compassionate lawyer.
His raw intellect is the best I’ve known.
He knows the reasons kids called me “dictionary” at school were good.
He spends his time in solitude even when he’s with me.
He spends his spare time reading Scripture, Time,
and correcting my papers.
He held me down in the crib to get me to sleep,
I fought to stay awake.
He never let me win at anything,
not even X and O’s.
He plays songs when he’s trying to tell me things;
now songs help me say things to him.
He worries about who I’ll marry
and hopes I never meet him.
He’s a better man
than his old man.