Category Archives: Jenny Lambert

Voice, Choice, and Ownership in PBL

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Have you considered doing more project-based learning in your classroom but have concerns
about planning projects properly, using class time wisely, and teaching standards effectively?
With these concerns in mind, Michelle Koski and I attended a PBL Design Camp at High Tech High
in San Diego, and here are some highlights of what we learned:

  1. Planning projects can be time-consuming but is doable and worth it.
  2. Yes, you can have traditional standards-based teaching with PBL, and you should!
  3. There is no “right” way to begin or plan a project.
  4. Ask students for their feedback, not just after the project but before and during the project as well.
  5. Students are PROUD of their work (not their grade).
Voice, Choice and Ownership in PBL! So, how does that happen?
At High Tech High’s PBL Design Camp, middle and high school educators from all over the country came together, each with the spark of an idea for a project. By working with their school partners and hearing critique from other camp participants, they were able to develop a project that suited the needs of their students and their teachers. 
Michelle and I are two such participants who have benefitted from the PBL design process. The idea for our cross-curricular project came while discussing two independent projects we do for our students. My Dystopian Fiction students write dystopian scenes that focus on world building, character development and action sequences. Michelle’s Costume and Fashion Design students create costumes for plays based on fashion trends. For our project, we have decided to combine the two and have Michelle’s students design costumes for my students’ writing. My writer’s will pitch their story ideas to her designers who will choose a partner to work with. The partners will meet regularly during the design phase of the costumes to work on revisions of both the writing and the costumes. 
We plan to conduct this project during fourth quarter. Here is what we hope to gain in terms of learning outcomes:
  • Both classes will learn the process of critique and revision
  • As writers, Dystopian Fiction students will learn to clearly communicate their vision with sensory imagery and vivid language.
  • As designers, Costume and Fashion Design students will learn to collaborate and communicate with a “client” in order to create a product that reflects more than the artist’s vision.

Stay tuned for the results of our project…


Where are my Bold 21st Century Women?

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Loud, passionate voices discussing and debating the women’s issues of our time. Dynamic presentations spilling over the allotted class time into the passing period. A single shy DLS boy, needing reassurance and validation in order for his voice to be heard above our girls. Based on the stories of the teachers who taught the class before me, this is what I imagined in July as I worked on the curriculum of 21st Century Woman, a senior selective English class. On the first day of the class, I realized that what I had imagined was far different from reality.

The young women enrolled in the class were quiet and reticent. When I asked how they liked the summer reading, a provocative book about sex trafficking, forced prostitution and maternal mortality rates all over the globe, eyes stared blankly back at me. There were four boys, who, to my dismay, were more vocal than the girls from the start. I wasn’t disappointed that the boys had interesting and insightful comments to make–I was disappointed that the girls did not. Actually, I knew that the girls did have things to say. I was disappointed that they refused to share them.

The students were arranged in table groups of four, where they could discuss in a small-group setting before sharing their thoughts with the larger class. The talk in the small groups was subdued with only a couple of female voices taking the lead. When I opened up the discussions to the whole class, silence. The students did a mini research-based presentation, and I could barely hear their voices. Two weeks went by with no change. I had to do something.

I had done my usual ice breakers, but it was clear that this class needed something more. Then I remembered an activity that Kate Cutright had wanted to do with the freshman girls. A vision board. I gathered up materials–poster board, magazines, scissors, markers, glue and explained that half of their board would detail a vision or goal for themselves, and the other half would display their vision or goal for the world. They dug in on a long block period, as quiet as ever, creating their visions.

On the day of sharing, I went over my expectations of the audience. I reminded them that the vision boards were very personal and that sharing personal information can make a speaker more nervous than doing an academic report. I asked them how an audience should conduct themselves to make the speaker more comfortable. This is what they came up with:

1. Desks angled toward the speaker.
2. Devices and other work put away.
3. Eye contact with speaker plus a pleasant facial expression. (Smile when appropriate.)
4. Heads up, looking alert and engaged.
5. Questions to show interest
6. Applause when the speaker is finished.

These are the directions I give to the class before every presentation, but I was hoping that by having the students come up with them themselves, they would be more invested. Then we went over the usual expectations of the speaker–good posture, eye contact, dynamic voice, etc. I reminded them that they could look over the heads of the audience if eye contact made them uncomfortable.

The difference in this presentation vs. the first one was significant. The students seemed more at ease. Their voices were much bolder than before. The audience asked questions and applauded enthusiastically. I even had quite a few volunteers to present. I also noticed a difference in the next circle discussion. Girls who had not spoken before, spoke more than once. I felt like the class knew each other better from sharing their vision boards, which made them all a little more comfortable with sharing their opinions about topics that make them uncomfortable.

While I often worry about spending too much time on community building activities like these, especially in a semester-long class, I think I will need to provide ongoing opportunities for the class to bond.

So, what do you do in your classrooms to build community? Please let me know in the comments. I’m going to need more ideas, especially when I have new seniors in January!

From Lab Mice to Memory Visit

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Many of my colleagues have asked me about my inspiration for The Memory Visit, so here is the long version. It came from what I consider to be an unlikely place, a Smithsonian Magazine article about mice. The article described how scientists implanted false memories in the brains of mice which resulted in the mice fearfully reacting to stimuli that they’d never experienced before. Not only could scientists identify the brain cells involved in the encoding of a specific memory, but they could also alter that memory. The idea of this new technology blew me away, and I immediately wanted to apply it to humans–in fiction, of course.
The experiment brought to mind the movie, Total Recall, where people of means could pay to experience a vivid virtual reality through a brain probe. I must admit that some elements of this movie appear in The Memory Visit: the chair where Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character gets strapped in, the helmet with the scary-looking prongs, the idea of living out a fantasy. I wanted my story to be different, however.
What if scientists weren’t implanting new memories like they did with mice in the lab and with the characters in the movie but, rather, were giving people the ability to experience an existing memory? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to go back in time to relive a conversation with your beloved grandmother who passed or experience the thrill of your first kiss? It would be better than photographs, better than video. It would be like visiting a memory—living in it for a few minutes as if you were truly there—then exiting the memory without any consequences. I, who have a horrible memory, would pay money to visit my past in such a way.
Even though the technology sounded exciting to me, I still didn’t have my story. Who would want to read about a bunch of people reliving their glory days…unless, something could go wrong? Since a memory visit involved the brain, threats of addiction, brain damage, and insanity seemed likely. Once I put those perils in place, I had to give my characters a good reason to take a memory visit. With such horrific possibilities, why would someone risk it? I likened a memory visit to drug use, which could be just as self-destructive. I asked myself, why do certain people take mind-altering drugs when the consequences could be so dire?
A strong reason I came up with was escape—escape from stress, escape from pain, escape from boredom. I didn’t necessarily need a dystopian setting for my characters to desire an escape from their reality, but it helped. I wanted the characters’ world to be so bleak that they’d risk their mental health in order to leave that world if only for a few minutes. Therefore, I placed my story in a depressed society where most people struggled to eke out a living. I wanted the setting to be in North America and wondered, how might American society become like this? With the current political polarization in the nation, I was inspired to choose a second civil war.
The question remained, what caused the war? I relied on my obsession with water scarcity for the answer. I had been living in California since high school, and for many of those years, had been dealing with water conservation due to extended periods of drought. I watched Google Earth images showing large lakes shrinking into nothing. I read news articles about Cape Town running of water. I heard scientists explaining that water was becoming the world’s most valuable resource. In third-world countries, people were going to war over water. Why not in North America?

I imagined water scarcity and war happening close to home. I imagined who might suffer from it and who might profit from it. I imagined a privileged young woman, not much different from an ambitious young woman of today, wanting to make a change in her past and in her future. I named her Rain. She had a brother who died tragically. She suffered from survivor’s guilt and needed answers. In digging for those answers, she uncovered unspeakable corruption. Oh, and one more thing—she had a special talent that put her in more danger than any memory visit could elicit. Like a lab mouse, she was manipulated by powerful people. Unlike those helpless creatures in the lab, though, Rain attempted to create her own destiny.

Can’t be a Hypocrite: Why I Finally Wrote a Blog Post

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As most of you know, I love to talk. It’s something that has always come natural to me. If given the option to write an essay, take a test, or give a presentation, I was always thrilled to have the opportunity to present. I am fine with tests. I absolutely hate essays.

I feel like part of expecting our students to be vulnerable with us is to be vulnerable with each other.

I am deathly afraid of writing a blog on this platform. Okay, that was a little dramatic. I am extremely hesitant to write a blog on this platform. Why? My original reasoning was because all of my past English teachers work here and I would be extremely embarrassed if I made any sort of grammatical error in my writing.

But I realized that my first reason was only an excuse. Lisa, Jenny, Hayley, and Jen are some of the most understanding and loving people out there. They would not burn me at the stake for a comma splice. I realized that my reason for not blogging was something that I have told our students not to do a thousand times.

I have been comparing myself to others, and fearing that my blog post would not measure up to theirs. I have read heartwarming, hilarious, and insightful posts on this blog that have left me in states of deep contemplation or hysterical laughter. After each one of those posts, I thought to myself, “Maybe I could write one too.”

At one point, I actually sat down to write a post. I had just come back from the CSJ Student Leadership Conference and was absolutely ecstatic. This is the result.

I kept writing, then deleting, then writing again, then growing frustrated that I didn’t have at least three funny quips in by the sixth sentence. I spent ten minutes alone thinking about a clever title. I eventually gave up and thought, “Meh, I guess this just isn’t for me.” I logged out of Blogger and continued on with my day like nothing had happened.

Why write now? Well, after completing our Mission PD activity, I realized that I was not living up to the expectations that I had for our students. As I reflected on my own response as well as the responses of my coworkers, the words that stood out to me were confidence and fearlessness. How can I tell my students that they should not care what others think when I can’t write a blog post without the same fear? How can I tell them to push themselves past roadblocks when I could not?

Our roles as educators and role models is to rise up to challenges. Maybe some of you have shared the same sentiment on being afraid to write blog posts. Or maybe you fear eating in the Faculty/Staff Lounge because you don’t have anyone to sit with. My advice? Take a look back at an article Ashley Clemens sent to us before we went off to break about positive self-talk. Here is the link to the article. I hope to talk to myself in a more positive manner and to keep taking on challenges that scare me.

The Google Slideshow–Love it or Leave it?

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     I am a big fan of the Google slideshow. Every one of my students knows how to do it without any help. They can share it with each other and share it with me, which makes it quick and efficient. They can include just the right amount of pictures and text for it to be informative and visually pleasing. We can throw it up on the big screen in the classroom during their presentations for all to see and enjoy. It’s perfect, and I hate it.
     Actually, I don’t think the Google slideshow is so perfect. I have no statistical evidence to back me up on this, but I think, based on many of the slideshows I’ve seen this year, that my students see the ease of the google slideshow as an indicator of the ease of the assignment itself. In other words, their presentations seem to skim the surface of the topic I’ve asked them to present. A few pictures, graphs, charts, illustrations, etc. get slapped onto a slide. A bit of information from the very first site they google gets added to that, and voila! They think they’re done. It doesn’t really matter that my elaborate assignment write-up requires that they dig deep and think critically about their sources. It doesn’t really matter that I’ve asked great essential questions that they can sink their teeth into. They see that they can do a slideshow, and all bets are off. I get the same shallow product time and time again. It can’t be a coincidence, can it?
     I decided to test out my hypothesis during finals week with my seniors this year. Their final project required them to choose symbols from their lives that coincided with symbols from the last novel we read. They had to reflect on the meaning of the symbols they chose and make connections to the symbols from the book. I required pictures and quite a bit of writing. On the day of the final, they had to present just one or two symbols to the class. There was one caveat, though. They could not use Google slides.
      I did find that their products this time around were much better than previous ones. Unfortunately, I realized pretty quickly that my experiment was flawed. Too many variables. This was a final, so of course they would place more importance on it, right? Also, there was an element of personal reflection that the other assignments did not have. That element was the best part of the project for most of them. I was comparing apples to oranges.
     I can say one thing, though. I received some pretty amazing projects. Students created photo essays, websites, sketch books, travel journals, and story boards. When they showed their work to the rest of the class, I could see that the students were much more interested in their presentations. The artists could be artistic, the techies could be …um…technological. Their projects became more personal.  I could also tell that they were proud of their work. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a senior student proud of their slideshow.
     I’m not ready to ditch the slideshow just yet. It has its benefits and it definitely has its place in my class. I will, however, require my students to use other modes for presenting information, which should inspire them to make the method reflect the message.
     By the way, I’m not a big fan of Prezi, either.
   

Big Voices Dread to Joy

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I have to admit that I started this year with a sense of dread. How was I going to execute brand new curriculum in a class I haven’t taught in twenty years, differentiate for students who desire honors designation, while collaborating with history teachers who were also implementing brand new curriculum in their frosh classes? I thought, this is crazy and I will need some therapy to get through it. I love being wrong.

Well, I wasn’t completely wrong. The class has its challenges, like juggling grammar, literary terms, and Membean vocabulary; honors, regular and core texts; three separate yet concurrent writing assignments; and presentations to top it all off. Behind the scenes, I’m a controller of chaos. In the classroom, all the students see is a well-oiled machine. How do I do it? I don’t. WE do.

Working with my cohorts, Lisa and Kate, is the reason this works. We meet every third period, pounding out the gritty details of the big picture of Big Voices we planned over the summer. Three minds have created a year of English for these girls far richer than anything I could have done on my own. If not for Lisa, I never would have thought to have freshmen writing a research-based synthesis essay on myths that the girls chose to explore. If not for Kate, I never would have thought to have my students write “Where I’m From” poems that they enthusiastically shared with their peers. And, the icing on the cake is that these assignments parallel so well with the origin stories that my history cohort, Miranda, is teaching in Big History.

Speaking of Big History, I didn’t think we’d be on the same page until second semester with the Little Big History Project. For that endeavor, the collaboration seems like a no-brainer, and we’re looking forward to it. Until then, we are matching our units up thematically. It seemed like the best we could do until Miranda, Joanie, and Gaeby recognized that the basic skills we were teaching should unite us as well. For example, we make sure to use the same vocabulary and format when teaching text annotations and we’ll do the same with our many of our writing assignments. I love to see the students nodding their heads when I say, “You’re doing the same thing in Big History, right?”

In addition to the rich content, the sharing of students, and the support we give each other, this collaboration effort is fun. Whether we’re meeting in our small dept. groups or gathering as a larger, cross-curricular group, we enjoy each other and work well together. I’m not sure what the future holds for Big History and Big Voices as more collaboration opportunities with additional subject areas present themselves, but my initial dread has transformed to joy.

Writing to Teach Reading

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Along with the other members of the English Dept., I attended
a workshop put on by Bard College entitled, Writing to Learn. We spent an
entire day as students, reading extremely challenging articles, excerpts and
poems and writing about them. Our instructor purposely gave us difficult texts
to show us how our students often feel when presented with a reading challenge.
Genius! As I struggled to understand the literature, I appreciated having time
to grapple with my thoughts in writing, to discuss my ideas with a peer, and
then to hear the ideas of the group before returning to the text for another
reading. (We never had time to return to the text, but boy, I wanted to!)
The difference between the writing that the instructor was
having us do and the writing we English teachers often have our students do
lies in the purpose. We teachers often use writing as a form of final assessment
while the workshop used writing as a learning tool. While I expected the
workshop to teach me how to become a better teacher of writing, it actually
helped me become a better teacher of reading. Many of the strategies that we
learned about at the conference, like quick writes and dialectical journals, have
been around for ages. I continue to have my students use them, but I must admit
that I often toss these exercises aside for “more important” activities,
especially during a 45-minute class period. After using them myself at this
workshop, though, I realize just how effective they can be in the learning
process.
One approach that was rather new to me (but integral to
science classes, I’m sure) involved simply writing down observations without
judgement. All of our critical thinking begins there, with what we notice. The
instructor projected a picture at the front of the classroom, and all we had to
do was write down what we saw in the image. Then, in “popcorn” style, we read
our observations, one at a time and beginning with the phrase “look at”, to the
rest of the group. This was a comforting exercise for me because I couldn’t go
wrong. I felt validated by the affirming nods from my peers as I read each of
my observations. Plus, my classmates noticed things that had escaped my
attention. We then did the same exercise with a difficult poem. Again, the
stakes were low, and I learned from my classmates. I felt like I could take
risks. I also felt grateful to my observant peers.
By the way, every writing activity we did in the workshop was
pen to paper. The instructor was adamant about the benefits of writing by hand
when struggling with new ideas. She must be right; after every writing exercise,
I felt like I had a better understanding of the text. The best part was that I
was figuring it out for myself, with a little help.

Artifactual Inquiry

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Artifactual Inquiry
My favorite novel to teach in Dystopian Fiction is Emily
St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven. In Station Eleven, the struggle of the
characters to leave an old world behind and create a new world for themselves resonates
with seniors for obvious reasons. 

Mandel skillfully weaves the stories of characters
surviving in North America after a world-wide pandemic has decimated the
population. Unlike most post-apocalyptic fiction writers, Mandel is not as
concerned with her character’s struggle to survive as she is with their
struggle to live. Sure, she presents the reader with roving bands of thieves
and psychopathic cult leaders, all threatening the lives of her dystopian
heroes. But the real heart of the novel lies in the characters’ desire to
preserve the cultural traditions of the society they once knew. Often, they do
this with artifacts. For instance, one surviving character, Clark Thompson, collects
salvaged items for a museum he curates in an abandoned airport. Residents of
and visitors to the airport contribute cell phones, photographs, books,
magazines, laptops, maps, shoes, etc. to the collection. Children too young to
remember the old world study it there. People who do remember the old world
reminisce there. Clark calls it the Museum of Civilization.
As a culminating project, I have my students create their
own Museum of High School Civilization where they can explore their identities
and the unique culture of Carondelet. The idea behind this project is to have
the students gather artifacts that symbolize certain aspects of their time at
Carondelet. They also have to compare their chosen artifact to ones from the
novel. For instance, a main focus of the novel is a traveling troupe of actors that
performs Shakespeare and other plays in small villages scattered along their
route. On their journey, they steal clothing from the houses of the dead to use
as costumes. First, the clothing serves a practical purpose for the actors in
developing their characters. Second, by creating a new identity for the wearer,
the re-appropriated clothing symbolizes an escape from the harsh reality the
actor faces on the road. When seen in the context of the dramatic production,
the costume also helps the performers’ audience escape to another time and
place. For their museums, students can choose their own symbols to represent
that theme of escape. Or, they can choose to explain what their clothing
symbolizes.
As you can imagine, the project details more symbols from
Station Eleven that the students must
analyze. While I knew what I wanted students to get out of the assignment–recognizing
their school’s distinctive culture, understanding the importance of their
unique identities, and forming connections with the characters and themes of
the novel–I had no idea how to have them display what they’d learned. With
four full sections of Dystopian Fiction students, I knew my classroom would not
be able to hold all the artifacts that they collected. If the students could
not bring their artifacts to me, I would have them bring me, and the rest of
the class, to the artifacts. So, I left it to their imaginations. I gave them
some ideas, but primarily let them choose the modality. One group of artistic students
created an illustrated book of their museum. A few others gave virtual video
tours. Still others gave live presentations, bringing in the actual items if
they were small and pictures of them if they were large. Because I had way too
many Prezi and google slide presentations, I think I will ban both of those for
this year. Yep, I do plan to do this project again, and here’s why.
Beyond all of the analyzing and synthesizing, this
project offered my students and me something more. It made us feel good. While
they shared their memories of their time at Carondelet through their artifacts,
they were able to relive some of the best and worst times of high school. They
were able to laugh about an absurd dance trend, puzzle over their obsession
with a certain expensive brand of water bottle, and cry over the loss of a
revered teacher.
While they aren’t facing the dangers of a dystopian
world, they are facing a pivotal moment in their lives when they leave behind
the safety and security of their high school environment. Even the students
suffering from extreme senioritis enjoy reminiscing with their peers. The
Museum of High School Civilization offers them a cathartic way of gaining
closure to their time spent in high school.

Considering Collaboration

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I work alone. That has been my mantra since I started teaching senior English selectives like Writing Seminar, Literature Seminar, Dystopian Fiction, and English 4 Hybrid–classes that, for years, no one else in my department taught. Teaching in isolation is a dramatic difference from my experience at my previous two schools, San Juan High School in Carmichael and Ygnacio Valley High School in Concord, where I taught English classes within two different academies.

The academies I taught in were smaller learning communities, schools within schools, if you will, with groups of students assigned to specific teachers. Over lunches and shared prep periods, I collaborated with a group of teachers from math, science, history, and art. We took our shared students on field trips together. We planned and executed team building activities together. We created and assessed cross-curricular projects together. At San Juan, we started and ended with the students as freshmen. At Ygnacio, my team welcomed students in as sophomores, helped them through the dreaded junior year, and celebrated their successes at graduation. Educating our students was truly a team effort.

Needless to say, going solo at Carondelet was a culture shock, which I found to be both liberating and lonely. Liberation came first. I didn’t have to keep pace with another teacher. I didn’t have to constantly report in on my progress. And, I didn’t have to compromise. My teaching time was completely under my control. If I wanted to skip teaching the allusion to Ayn’s Rand’s objectivism in the novel, Old School, I could. Who would ever know or care? I could be as creative and inventive as I wanted without a slower moving history teacher holding me back or a faster moving math teacher rushing me through. Even though I had no one with whom to share my trials and tribulations, I convinced myself that I liked it this way, that the freedom was worth the isolation.

This year, all that changed: I was given a sophomore class with a revamped curriculum. Three other teachers and I decided the best plan of attack would be to, you guessed it, collaborate. Since summer,
I have been working with Hayley, Lisa, and Tiz on developing new curriculum in English 2. We have created essential questions, graphic organizers, discussion topics, essay prompts, research projects, and much more. We could have used the “divide and conquer” approach, the strategy that most teachers have to employ due to time constraints, but instead, we have truly collaborated. We have met together a few times over the summer, and by some magical stroke of luck, Lisa, Tiz, and I share a common prep, allowing us to meet four days a week if needed. Right now, we are in lock step, and do I feel rushed, stifled or hampered? No way. I feel rejuvenated. My colleagues inspire, challenge, and support me.

Now, I know that this type of collaboration happens all the time here at CHS in individual departments. The joy I have experienced in working with my colleagues is neither rare nor new. What I believe to be rare, though, is the cross-curricular collaboration that I experienced at other schools. This, it seems to me, will be new territory for Carondelet.

When I heard the announcement of the construction of the STREAM center on our campus and the declaration from our administration that our approach to teaching and learning would undergo radical change, I was nervous, even though I have done something similar before. How would that look in my classroom? How would that change the way I develop curriculum? What would that do to my teaching style? How would that benefit my students?

The positive experiences I have had in collaborating with my peers both here and at my other schools reassures me that I will manage. Not only will I manage; I will thrive. If I learned one thing when I served as academic advisor on this campus, it is this: the teachers at Carondelet are brilliant, professional, and compassionate. Having the opportunity to work closely with any one of them, will benefit both my students and me. Joellen Killion, Senior Advisor to Learning Forward, seems to agree. From a study conducted by the American Educational Research Journal, she discovered, “When teachers engage in high-quality collaboration that they perceive as extensive and helpful, there is both an individual and collective benefit.” (For an in-depth look at the study, check out her article at this link: Killionlearningforward). Her words ring true for me.

Working so closely this year with the sophomore English teachers has made me realize how much I have missed collaborating in an academy model. I have missed the rich discussions that often resulted in innovative ideas. I have missed the support and empathy that only teachers with students in common can give. And, I have missed the joy of shared experiences. While I’m not sure about all the specific changes we will be facing in the future with a new design model, I eagerly await working with and learning from more of my colleagues.