Last semester I taught my first adult class ESL at GCC. My students’ English was quite good. After a few classes, I was passionate about my teaching assignment and bonded to this group of adults from around the world. There were students in the class from Peru, Viet Nam, Columbia, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Venezuela, and Mexico.

Working with adults who are educated professionals in their home countries, but who are working on mastering a second, third or in the case of one gentleman,  a fourth language was a privilege. I know through family stories the sacrifices that individuals make when they decide to risk it all, for a better and safer life for themselves and their children. However, I had never heard those types of personal stories from “strangers.” The world immediately became a smaller place. I never missed a class, and I looked forward to the motivation they gave me at each class meeting. If I dared arrive late, they expressed their unhappiness, “Teacher, why you are late?” Being inflexible was not something I modeled, but they valued every minute of their classroom time and wanted to start class on time –every time!

When any one of them told a story about their home country, their family or shared their emotions at the trauma of leaving beloved family members behind, their classmates were silent and respectful. Their silence was indicative of their compassion. Afterward they often quietly went up to their peer and offered comfort. Most of my students began learning English in their home countries and most had taken several lower level classes at GCC. Their fluency, significant vocabulary, and commitment to learning all the rules and exceptions exceeded my expectations. They were very knowledgeable of grammar, but they lacked confidence and experience speaking.

As a result, I revised my teaching format to be more small-group based and to mandate class participation with the goal of increasing the opportunities to practice speaking.   I gave an assignment that involved making a short presentation.  Students were asked to prepare a presentation of between three and five minutes in length. At first, it was clear that they were nervous and for the first time, they lacked overt confidence.  However, once the first two presentations had been completed it became slightly competitive, with students striving to add a new approach to their own session.  Students quickly assumed several helping roles.  A couple who sat near the front were the technology assistants, one took charge of the lights and at the end of class at least one person would ask, “Who will share next class?”

Several times the class unanimously requested to hear a presentation again. I never protested the request, without fail the second time was a stronger presentation. If their peers felt that the presenter needed additional practice or that they wanted to hear the information again that meant they found value in the experience. At times the request was accompanied by an explanation such as, “You spoke too fast, can you do it again slower?” Not one person declined to repeat their presentation. They looked upon the request as an opportunity to practice their English and accepted the invitation as an honor.

Jovan asked what would happen if the presentation exceeded five minutes. I jokingly replied that I would have to gong them. “What means to gong?” one of his classmates asked. I started explaining about an old TV show called “The Gong Show.” Jovan immediately reenacted a hand gesture hat Chuck Berris, the host of this late 70s TV show, made on every episode while he danced away on the sidelines of the stage. I laughed and asked him how he knew about the Gong Show. He informed me about his online English teacher, “YouTube.” I would never have been able to reenact that physical gesture. However, as soon as Jovan mimicked it, I instantly recognized it.

Jovan smiled gleefully with a special twinkle in his eye,  he knew that he had impressed me with his knowledge of  an iconic American form of entertainment, the game show.  For the rest of that class session he would look at me periodically and make the dancing hand motions and he would laugh.  Jovan is a very perceptive student with an amazing sense of humor.    Never underestimate the value of a good laugh!

One of my favorite poems by former Poet Laureate, Billy Collins, is "Introduction to Poetry." 

I love the vibrant and clear images in the first five stanzas, as the speaker describes the many ways he wants his students to experience a poem. The speaker guides his students to "waterski / across the surface of a poem," and to "drop a mouse into a poem / and watch him probe his way out." I love how, in a poem exploring the difference between inhabiting a poem, and seeking the 'answer' to a poem, Collins's meaning is delightfully unambiguous.

"Introduction to Poetry" turns on the word 'but' in the sixth stanza, sharply contrasting the whimsical images found in the poem's opening with images of torture and violence in its conclusion. The poem closes with the image of students beating a poem with a hose.

It makes me chuckle every time I read it.

I thought it would be a fun exercise in creativity to write a poem of my own, emulating both the structure and the imagery of "Introduction to Poetry." However, I chose to steer the ending of my poem, "Introduction to Expository Writing," in a different, more hopeful, direction.

I had a lot of fun with this exercise. It is definitely a work in progress, and I have a feeling I'll keep fussing with it in the weeks to come, but I thoroughly enjoyed looking at the act of teaching First Year Composition through the lens of poetry.




Introduction to Expository Writing


I ask them to take an idea

and roll it out before them

like a map of the world



or thump its melon hide

and listen for signs that it's ripe.



I say build a tree house, and view an idea

from above the canopy,



or shape an idea into a sandcastle,

and see what happens

when the tide rolls in.



I want them to chart a course to the heart of an idea,

using the constellations as their guide.



But they eye me with suspicion and ask,

"How many words

does this have to be?"



And then they pick up their tools

with uncalloused hands

and begin to chisel.

One of my favorite poems by former Poet Laureate, Billy Collins, is "Introduction to Poetry." 

I love the vibrant and clear images in the first five stanzas, as the speaker describes the many ways he wants his students to experience a poem. The speaker guides his students to "waterski / across the surface of a poem," and to "drop a mouse into a poem / and watch him probe his way out." I love how, in a poem exploring the difference between inhabiting a poem, and seeking the 'answer' to a poem, Collins's meaning is delightfully unambiguous.

"Introduction to Poetry" turns on the word 'but' in the sixth stanza, sharply contrasting the whimsical images found in the poem's opening with images of torture and violence in its conclusion. The poem closes with the image of students beating a poem with a hose.

It makes me chuckle every time I read it.

I thought it would be a fun exercise in creativity to write a poem of my own, emulating both the structure and the imagery of "Introduction to Poetry." However, I chose to steer the ending of my poem, "Introduction to Expository Writing," in a different, more hopeful, direction.

I had a lot of fun with this exercise. It is definitely a work in progress, and I have a feeling I'll keep fussing with it in the weeks to come, but I thoroughly enjoyed looking at the act of teaching First Year Composition through the lens of poetry.




Introduction to Expository Writing


I ask them to take an idea

and roll it out before them

like a map of the world



or thump its melon hide

and listen for signs that it's ripe.



I say build a tree house, and view an idea

from above the canopy,



or shape an idea into a sandcastle,

and see what happens

when the tide rolls in.



I want them to chart a course to the heart of an idea,

using the constellations as their guide.



But they eye me with suspicion and ask,

"How many words

does this have to be?"



And then they pick up their tools

with uncalloused hands

and begin to chisel.

     Some of you might remember that Tenisha and I did an episode on this topic in Season One of Two Profs in a Pod. You can find that episode here:



     I'm going to discuss 3 skills I think are necessary for teachers now that we did not discuss in this episode--so you can listen to the episode, too!

Number 3

     An important skill to know and be able to apply is UDL. UDL stands for Universal Design for Learning. UDL's goals are to create "expert learners" who are strategic and goal oriented, resourceful and knowledgeable, and purposeful and motivated. Instructors use the UDL guidelines to help students access information, build knowledge, and internalize learning by providing multiple means of engagement, representation, action and expression. There are definitely elements in the guidelines that instructors may already do: giving choices to students, developing self-assessment and reflection, and supplying background. Still, the guidelines are full of strategies that help all students learn. They are a valuable resource to help instructors help all students. As we move all our students to credit classes, taking a look at these guidelines and setting a goal to up our game in this skill area is a good idea.

Number 2

     Another important skill instructors should have is the ability to craft lessons and learning experiences that cause just the right amount of struggle for students. In fact, "students do better when given room to struggle with difficulty," according to a study cited by Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel (2014), authors of the book Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. The trick is getting that struggle just right and scaffolding to assist students if the struggle pushes them to too high levels of anxiety where learning starts to fail and students start to quit. Knowing that point for each student is important. Allowing students to struggle and getting students comfortable with that feeling (without failing to experience it) will help them later when they encounter those same feelings in other situations like more advanced classes or their work.

Number 1

This year, I've found inspiration in an unlikely place: Twitter.

Twitter was once a place where I popped in for the politics, but stayed for the cat videos. Twitter can often feel like a place where everyone's anger dial is permanently turned up to 11, and that there is only one way to spell the word 'your.' However, it is here that I recently found a guru of positivity, and a champion of grit. I have found inspiration as a teacher in the 140 character bursts of genius from the composer, lyricist, playwright, singer and "former substitute teacher" Lin-Manuel Miranda.
It is 6:30 AM on a December morning, and I am standing, bleary-eyed, in my kitchen. Putting off the morning's more pressing tasks, I am dumping heaping scoops of coffee grounds into the percolator while simultaneously scrolling scrolling scrolling through my Twitter feed. I settle upon the following tweet, and, suddenly awake, I yell out "Yes! YESSSSS!"


The animals at my feet who were hoping for food scatter into the shadows.

As a teacher of writing, it is this concept that I am forever trying to impress upon my students. Rewriting IS writing.

Lin-Manuel Miranda not only tweets about the fact that revision is the beating heart of writing, but he also shares his writing in its various stages--something I think takes a lot of guts and vulnerability. He reminds me that sharing my own writing with my students, and talking with them about my own (laboriously slow) writing process, can make a greater impact on my students than a presentation on the five steps of the writing process ever will.
Despite the fact that Miranda has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize, an Emmy Award, three Grammy Awards, three Tony Awards, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, he has built a warm and welcoming community in his corner of the Twitterverse. He regularly replies to those who tag him in a tweet, chatting amicably, thus breaking down the barrier between celebrity and fan. Once, he even formed a book group dedicated to reading the works of Shakespeare with his followers.



He connects with his followers as one human being to another.

Teachers are far from celebrities, but the traditional collegiate classroom does still retain a bit of a hierarchy, forged over centuries of teacher-student dynamic. Is it my role to stand at the front of the room, imparting what I know unto a sea of students? Or maybe I am a writer, communicating with a room of writers, who happen to just be starting out on their journey?

I can connect with them, as one human being to another, and I can help create a community in my classroom, one amicable chat at a time.
Lin-Manuel Miranda is relentlessly positive and supportive of his 2.75 million followers. He dishes out inspiration like my mom dishes out sheet cake at a family gathering. (Take it! It's for you! You want ice cream with that? Of course you do. Here.)



I assume that from time to time, an unkind comment pops up in his feed, or that he spots some questionable grammar in the comments section of a post. If it bothers him, if Twitter ever makes him worry about the future of humanity, you'd never know it. He carries on, tweeting out one little poem of positivity after another.


As a teacher, it can be too easy to look at a stack of essays and sigh. We can be quick to spot the misused first person point of view, to deflate when noting the gaps in the grade book, or shake our heads at the empty chairs in class on a Thursday morning, but it the costs me nothing to choose to believe in the ability of each of my students to do truly great things anyway. I can emulate Lin-Manuel Miranda and remind my students, every time I see them, that today is a new day, and another chance to built their future.
Finally, I find inspiration in Lin-Manuel Miranda because the characters he writes about share so much with the students in our classrooms here at GCC. His characters come from diverse backgrounds and face a host of obstacles that they may feel are insurmountable.

In Miranda's first musical In The Heights--which he wrote during his sophomore year of college, a feat in itself--the character Nina Rosario is the first one in her family, and the first from the barrio, to go to college. However, in the first act, she wrestles with how to tell her parents that she has dropped out of school. She found the pressure of college to be too great, and her support system to be too far away.

In Hamilton: An American Musical, in the beginning of the play Alexander Hamilton is a nineteen-year-old "young, scrappy and hungry" immigrant from the Caribbean, trying to finish college early and go make his mark on the world.

These are the stories of so many of our students at Glendale Community College. A large population of our students are far from the country they call home, and are trying to navigate not just American culture, but the expectations of college as well. Many of our students are first-generation college students, whose family may not know how best to support them, or even have the resources to do so.

The work of Lin-Manuel Miranda keeps fresh in my mind the very real struggles faced by the students in my classroom, like my student who writes everything in Vietnamese, then translates it into English, but who also regularly visits my office hours to make sure she's on track. Or my student from The Gambia who wrote a beautiful piece about the conflict back home in one blog post, and about his favorite West African coffee (Cafe Touba!) in another.
Much of Twitter may be loud, angry and riddled with trolls, but I've found lovely little corner filled with art, encouragement and community in the tweets of Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Creativity, creative thinking, and the creative process are all aspects of being human that I hold dear. Perhaps this is because I’m finally old enough to identify creativity as the thread that defines and brightens my life. The creative act is what I found most meaningful in third grade writing my first book of poetry. I didn’t realize it then because I didn’t have the words to articulate it. But I remember that feeling of contentment each time I wrote and added a poem to the collection. And I can recapture that contentment any time I choose. 

It is not news to proclaim that creativity is undervalued in our culture. The arts’ place at the periphery of our society in general and in education in particular are, too, part of that undervaluing. Though there’s a hopeful upswing in general interest in creative thinking, thanks to the inspirational work by people like Sir Ken Robinson and Michael Michalko and books like _Robot Proof_ by Joseph E. Aoun. There are also the great theories and ideas about [creative] flow put forward by psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, beginning somewhere in the 1990s, which helped tune the contemporary world into the importance of creativity as a regular and fruitful human process and not just something odd artists do.

So finally we are at the point where we have more mindful opportunities to infuse creativity in our daily lives; it is present and encouraged. I say “mindful opportunities” because the truth is that we live creative lives daily, and I would argue that in the way most of America has structured itself since World War II, the majority of us are presented with choices to be creative daily: we cook. We communicate. We problem solve. All of these are creative acts. All of these require ingenuity and achieving an end that had not existed prior to a given moment. We simply might not see it that way.

For example, when I ask my students to write an essay for a composition class, I am asking them to create something that before that moment never existed. The moment they receive the assignment and begin just thinking about — well, I could write about X or maybe Y or Z–that thought process begins the creative process that will result in something entirely new and unique existing in this world. Any time we assign students to create something that didn’t exist before — a project, a speech, a presentation, we are asking them to create anew. But I’m not sure that we instructors always see it this way. I’m not sure that students see it this way either. There are many reasons why this is possible: the focus on the end — the grade, the evaluation, the assessment. There is also that penchant for being practical. Let’s face it: when it’s Thursday evening and I have to cook my son and me dinner after a long work and school week, I’m not thinking that I’m about to embark on a creative act; I’m thinking, “How do I get dinner done so I can relax a little and go to bed?” But the moment that I remind myself that cooking dinner is a creative opportunity, the pressure lessens. I can enjoy it more, or I can use the time doing something I’m familiar with (e.g. frying up some chicken) to have a little active meditation as I go through the process of preparation. Simply being mindful of what I’m about to do makes all the difference.

The more mindful I become of these small acts of creativity, the more I become aware of what constructs — social and personal — humans build to block and even devalue creativity: between habits and mindsets and the busy way we currently live, it’s very easy to not see this perspective: that the creative process is valuable not because of what it produces. It’s valuable because it’s a mindful practice, a practice that connects us firstly to ourselves. When we have that connection, we are preparing ourselves for living richer and more fulfilling lives. We are preparing ourselves to achieve success, simply by focusing on the process rather than the end results. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it is so. If we go through any creative process mindfully, sooner or later the results will turn out satisfactory. If it’s later that we experience these results, then we also get a lesson in patience and perseverance.

In my next blog, I will examine the ways those ways–habits and mindsets (both individual and societal) that block creativity. 

YEARS ago, some brilliant mind designed an app called Rate My Professor. At the time, I thought “Oh – this is just a fad. It’ll go away.” And at the start that’s what it looked like. There were only the few students that posted and – much like an Amazon product rating – they were the people who LOVED the class or HATED the class. No in between.

On the upside, there used to be a “hot pepper” for teachers who the student(s) thought was cute. I got a hot pepper back in the day. You couldn’t see who it was from and it was a fun thing – admittedly mildly inappropriate – but fun.

Fast forward to now. I ask my students why they chose the class and/or why they chose me instead of my 3 colleagues that teach the same 101 class. Nearly invariably it is either “My friend took your class and recommended you” (My favorite!!!) or “You’re rated excellent on Rate My Professor.” So, yes, it’s a big deal. It helps both my and the school’s reputation and makes a difference in who students choose.

I have co-workers who refuse to look at RMP at all saying they “don’t want to know,” but I think it’s a great way to get a feel for how you’re being perceived. Now, I’m not saying you should change your teaching to get a “good rating,” but it’s pretty awesome if you do get a great rating for doing what you love in the way you do it. It’s that kind of feedback and evaluation that keeps me going. I love what I do, and I love that the students love it (and me – grin!) too.

And on that note, have a great Spring Break and check out RMP if you haven’t!

Me: https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=945615

GCC: https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/campusRatings.jsp?sid=2111

And check out Heather Merrill, Julie Waskow & Ernie Brings who rate 5.0 at the top of our school!

While I have been in the teaching game for awhile now, blogging is new. As in–this is my first post! So, here is to new experiences!

Inclusivity is a concept that often is something as a teacher I try to do in my classroom. I understand everyone learns differently and all students deserve a teacher that empowers them as learners and meets them at their need. However, just when I think I have it down, I always get a curve-ball that reminds me I am still growing as a teacher.

One semester I was given advance warning that one of my students was Deaf and would have sign-language interpreters in the classroom translating my lessons. As a “seasoned” teacher this both excited me, as it never crossed my mind that a Deaf student could be a scenario in my class, and terrified me.

Prior to the first day, I was super nervous on how my pace might cause issues with the translating, or the awkwardness that might be there when there is another adult in the room that is just an observer. I asked many questions prior to the first day to help prepare my expectations and be prepared for the student. Luckily, all of my fears were immediately put to rest.

The translators were so professional. The student was AMAZING!! She advocated for herself letting me know what she needed, and the translators and I worked out a good pace. As a teacher, I felt empowered in the idea I can help students learn regardless of their situation. As a learner, I realized being an effective teacher will always be a welcoming continual evolution.

In the end, I remember walking away from the class with a real sense of how our educational system has evolved into possibilities for anyone who desires one. This is progress. And, this is inclusivity!

A side note: I have two children with learning challenges, specifically short-term memory challenges. When they were diagnosed over ten years ago at the age of 7 and 9, I remember asking if they could still go to college or if that was even an option. The first teacher said it would depend giving me the maybe. The second without hesitation said absolutely. As a mom, I want my children to have every option available to them, but as a special education mom, I was unsure what that would mean for my children. After this experience, I was so much more confident in the my children’s future options.