A GAZE IN THE MIRROR

Beth Heimbecker

When we say that understanding our own narrative is a metaphor for understanding the curriculum of our students, we are saying that if you understand what makes up the curriculum of the person most important to you, namely, yourself, you will better understand the difficulties, whys, and wherefores of the curriculum of your students. There is no better way to study curriculum than to study ourselves. When we have a grasp of the difficulties, for example, of figuring out something simple such as how we think and feel as a component of the personal, we will understand the really serious difficulties of trying to figure out how someone else, our students, think and feel (Connelly and Clandinin p. 31).

O Canada was over and the daily announcements read over the intercom. I scanned down my list of names looking up occasionally to match a name with a face I hadn't seen yet this morning. As I walked over to my bulletin board I scooped up a paper ball in my hand and deposited it in the garbage can. "Mme, let's see. Janie, it's your turn to take the attendance down to the office. Does anyone have chocolate money to hand into me? Okay, Blaine, Debbie and Alex, I'll take it now please. Riley, Kathleen and Susan, you three have overdue library books. While I'm collecting money, would you please take your books to the library? …Okay, check collect chocolate money off my list," I mumbled to myself under my breath. As I looked up from my desk covered in loonies, nickels and dimes, Kyle wandered in late for the third time in a week. "Kyle, before you go and get a late slip I need to speak to you in the hall," I said. As I spoke with Kyle and looked in my classroom window kids were squirming in their seats and talking. Riley strutted around from table to table entertaining with the physical humour of a grade seven boy. Paul tapped his hands on the table beating a steady rhythm. The noise level was rising. My class needed to be focused on something -- fast- and I wondered if I should broach the subject of a class representative for our hall. It was already nine fifteen and we still hadn't started the business of the day.

"I'm looking for a volunteer to sit on a committee with other students to plan activities that we will do as a hall this year," I ventured, not sure of the response I'd get and still wondering if this was the right time to do this. Three hands shot up. "I only need one person because this committee needs to be a small group," I continued.
"Let's have an election," Rob suggested. A ripple of approval spread throughout the class.
"Are there any nominations?" I inquired.
"What's a nomination?" asked Trevor
"Its when you suggest someone let their name stand as a candidate. You can nominate yourself as well. But remember, you have the right to decline the nomination -- that means you don't want to run for election." Numerous hands shot up. "I nominate Tracy." smiled Anita through her braces.
"I nominate myself" said Trevor.
"I nominate Lori," Pamela chimed in enthusiastically.
"All right, " I responded. "Is there anyone else who would like to run?" There was no response. "Okay then, this afternoon we'll have an election. Trevor, Tracy and Lori will be our candidates."

I didn't think any more about it. We redirected ourselves onto the business of writing workshop and then onto math but it was clear that student engagement lay in the upcoming election rather than our regular morning routine. When math was over and five minute break had begun, I left the room and ran down to the office. On returning I was surprised by what I saw. All four of the blackboards were covered with election slogans and students were wearing cut out badges. Some had paper signs taped to the front of their tables while others had homemade placards in their hands. "Vote for Tracy," "Trevor will work for you," "Vote for Lori and she'll get you Monday and Tuesday off," were some of the slogans that I saw. We continued on with math period, but students were obviously engaged in their campaigns more than with their math texts. My best efforts to redirect them seemed futile. Little campaign badges kept popping up everywhere and students engaged in an ongoing conversation in support of their favoured candidate while they worked on their math. Lunch came and went and I decided that if we were going to get anything "done" this afternoon we would have to have this election first.

"There is a rule that during the casting of votes the voting booth must be free of all literature that might influence a voter one way or the other," I said. Within a minute all badges were put away, chalkboards erased and students sat ready to cast their secret ballot. We had our election and students sat in quiet anticipation as I counted the votes. Tracy was determined the winner and then we continued on with our regular schedule.

It took me three days to process the events of that Friday. Sunday morning as I sat at my kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the paper my thoughts turned again to our class election and I realized that I had really missed the boat. I had been struggling for a long time with how things were going in writing workshop. I had read Nancy Atwell, but my classroom didn't look anything like hers. I had assumed that giving students choice about what they wanted to write about would produce engagement. In hindsight, I'd given them choice over their writing, but I hadn't given them control over anything else. My students didn't see me as a reader and writer but rather as a teacher authority. We were not a community of learners struggling together with issues of literacy. Rather, I was still "doing" reading and writing to them within the context of their own pieces of writing. I didn't understand, at the time, the importance of community and where I fit within that community. In desperation, I resorted to a writing workshop format where we both peer and teacher conferenced and edited, but the assignments were decided by myself, and were implemented when I thought they were ready. Some of my students were engaged in their writing, but for the majority, they were writing because they wanted a good mark, to please their parents, or to please me. Other students were producing very little writing. What was going on here? Instead of spending my time conferencing with students, I was engaged with monitoring their behaviour and noise level. When I thought about our class election, the realization that this problem was partly an issue of student engagement hit me full force. I was telling my students that they had control over what they wrote in terms of conferencing and editing decisions. In truth, with me deciding on the assignment, they had no real control at all, and understood that I was only paying lip service to the whole notion. As a result, I was subverting myself because when something that caught their attention came along, I diverted their interest and tried to focus them back on my teaching agenda and choice of writing assignments. This enthusiasm about an election had been a prime opportunity for students and myself to negotiate their curriculum. The energy and enthusiasm, that could have led to some real communication for real purposes was quashed by myself in my need to keep the kids on my own agenda. Candidates could have written speeches and given them to the class. Others could have designed ballot cards on the computer. We could have looked more closely at election procedures. Ethics could have been discussed after Trevor made a campaign promise to buy everyone in the class bubble gum if they voted for him. He carried through on his promise too but some students were concerned about the ethics of such an act. Afterwards, provided that votes had been close, we could have calculated the percentages of votes for each candidate. Graphs could have been made to show the outcome of the election.

I may have missed the boat, but I did realize, this time, the potential of this activity in retrospect. They were interested, and I let them go with it, but I also didn't clue in soon enough to the potential that a real life situation could have on their learning. My students could have been communicating for a real purpose and about something they cared about. To me, this is the crux of language acquisition and student engagement. Language is not only for communicating our thoughts, feelings and opinions to someone else, but also to think. By articulating to ourselves, or to someone else, our thoughts and feelings, we make our own sense of the world. Traditionally, at least, writing and speaking in language arts, and in all subject areas for that matter, are intended to show what the student knows to the teacher. It is used as a tool to demonstrate knowledge rather than to communicate with another person and construct knowledge within the group. The writing and speaking that could have been generated in this situation were not assignments but a means of communicating and that's why I think the engagement level would have been high in my students -- because they would have been writing, playing with language and making the hard decisions that users of language often make for a real purpose. My broad agenda for the year of teaching voice, leads, point of view, audience, purpose, idea organization and mechanics could have been met in this learning experience, although it might not have been in the order that I had originally conceived.

A year ago I would have been frustrated with my students that they were diverting their attentions from what I perceived our agenda in language arts to be. In my mind, their behavior would have been getting in the way of ":my" teaching. How did I get to the point where I could see that the engagement of my students was an issue of control? How did I get to where I could see that my need to control the agenda in language arts was stifling their engagement? How did I get from there to here?

*****

When I think back to my own experience at school it is plain to me that I was not an engaged learner. My marks in high school were in the A and B range -- whatever that means. I won't ask why I was engaged in school because that wouldn't be accurate. I will ask instead, why did I work at school? Why did I do my homework, hand in my assignments on time and go for extra help when I needed it? The answer -- it was expected of me. My parents expected me to do well, and I wanted both my parents and my teachers to like me. I valued being responsible and completing what I started. When I began a masters in teacher research, I entered that program for the same reasons. I value people who work hard, and are committed to their careers. I felt that I had the time to do a masters, I realized that I wasn't getting any younger, and that now was the time if I was going to do it. The Seven Oaks masters program, where a cohort group of teachers from the division would be doing this together, seemed like an opportunity that I couldn't pass up. So, I applied, was accepted and began my first course. Then something happened. As I experienced my first few sessions, I found myself suddenly looking forward to coming home at night and reading articles. I would be up early, and at school by seven fifteen in the morning planning for my day. I looked forward to writing my weekly reflections, and found that journaling both about my day and what I was reading, was clarifying things for me in a way that I had never been able to do. Writing, was something that suddenly I had to do because it helped me make sense of my life in the classroom and beyond.

So, I was an engaged learner. But why? The answer lies in what teacher research is. Teacher research starts from the premise that we look at things in our classroom practice that surprise us. It is about making what we do on a daily basis is visible and problematic, so that we can look at what we do with new eyes. To me, it is very similar to visiting another country and culture. It is only when we are confronted with different ideologies and ways of doing things that we can see that our own belief systems and ways of doing things are not "normal" and the way things are done. By making our own practice as teachers problematic, we are able to see what we do critically, outside of ourselves. As I began to look at my own practice in the classroom I realized with some surprise that I was an engaged learner because I was studying something that had a daily relevance to my life as a teacher -- namely myself. Myself, and my classmates, were engaged in negotiating our curriculum with our Judith, our professor. We were not all grappling with the same issues. Some of us were looking at issues of what we controlled in the classroom. Others, were examining how conversations were encouraged or stifled. Others, still, were looking at reading, or how to foster change within a school. Our conversations in class were rich because of these diversities, and many of us felt in control over what was of relevance to our lives in our place of work. Still, Judith had given us control over what was of relevance to our lives at work, but she had control of the broader issues of the course that underlay our own research. Issues of what counts as research, paradigms of teaching, writing narratives etc. were the broad course agenda which we each explored within the context of our own research.

I had known for a long time that tapping into students enthusiasm would help to engage them, but now I understood this from my own experience, and I realized that I needed to be negotiating curriculum with my own students. I needed to allow them to write what interested them, and use their own writing to fulfill my broad agenda for language arts of teaching voice, point of view, mechanics, showing instead of telling, etc. In short, I needed to teach writing within the context of their own work, not as a set of prescribed chronological skills. I had thought that I had been doing that, but in retrospect I hadn't been. I had been teaching grammar, for instance, within the context of their own writing, but they hadn't had any ownership of their writing. It didn't matter to my students if they could communicate better in their writing because they didn't care about what they were saying in the first place. Issues or mechanics, organization etc. were of no consequence to them.

The story of the election raised another aspect of control for me. I had realized that students needed to have control over their own writing to be engaged learners, but I also saw the question of control in terms of knowledge. When I saw my students behaviour as getting in the way of "my" teaching, my assumption was that I had the knowledge which I needed to impart to my students. They were the receptacles of knowledge and I, the transmitter of what I thought they needed to know. The question that began to formulate in my mind was this. Is knowledge transmitted to learner from a "higher" authority, the teacher, or is it constructed within the social context? Again, if it is transmitted, then the ownership belongs to that of the teacher. If it is constructed within the group then it belongs to everyone. An afternoon at the Manitoba Theatre Centre helped clarify this for me.

One Saturday after class I rushed home, changed my clothes and headed to the Manitoba Theatre Centre to see Steve Martin's play "Picasso at the Lapin Agile." The play is set in a bar In France at the turn of the century and centres around a conversation between Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein. At one point during the play both characters are sitting opposite each other at a table. Picasso says "draw" and both scribble furiously on their own pieces of paper. Picasso produces a drawing, and Einstein produces a mathematical equation. The implication, in my mind, was that both men had been engaged in a creative process. Both men, had in some way, been making sense of their world. The drawing of Picasso conformed to our ideas of art but was Einstein's mathematical equation any less artistic or creative? It too was a picture, and a means of making sense of our world. This play got me thinking about the whole notion of scientific inquiry, our notion of validity and objective truth and what knowledge is. In my mind, scientific theories are just a means of making sense of the world. They are a creative process that allows us to build a framework from which we can view our world and make sense of it. When a new scientific theory comes along, or a new body of knowledge, it has been built on what has come before. What I mean is, if a scientist sees a theory that isn't working, he or she must have said "This isn't working. Why isn't this working?" He or she then comes up with a new model for seeing the problem. The new theory is no less contextually based. In fact, it could not exist without the old because it is built on what has come before. It is a result of its own history, social, historical, and is ladened with the values and ideas of the people who created it.

How does this translate in the language arts classroom? We had been studying a unit on advertising. It was time for my students to begin their own advertising campaigns. We had looked at a variety of magazines, and talked about readership and how the ads in the magazines were geared towards the audience that would be reading the magazines. I felt that I needed to make audience explicit before they began their own campaigns. The lights were off, I was standing in front of my class, the overhead shining on the screen and ready to transmit the information that I thought my students needed to know. I began.

"Are there different ads geared towards different groups?"
Silence.
Gail sat at the back drawing. Jason was poking Byron. Tim was whispering to Josh. "Hello?", I said.
"I like that new commercial about Nachoes," said Jackie.
"Who is that directed towards?" I queried.
"I like the Nike air commercial," someone else said. Chatter erupted. We need to focus as a group here", I said . "Are all commercials geared towards everyone?" I asked. You're ready to start writing your own, but you need to know this."

More small group chatter. Then it hit me. They already knew a lot about target audience in advertising. At this point, I didn't need to make things more explicit because it was too out of their own experience for them. They were ready to start their campaigns and I was standing in their way. Finally, I thought to myself, "Beth, just be quiet and let them be." I realized that I was hammering away at something that they knew intellectually, but that they hadn't yet encountered in their own writing. They are well aware of audience and that will be reflected in their campaigns. What I needed to do was make what they knew more explicit when they were heavily involved in their projects. Then, it would have meaning to them, within the context of their own work, and that in turn would illuminate the context of the media of our culture within which they were working. Then, and only then, would the knowledge of audience have meaning for them, because they would have been constructing it within their own contexts.

Last, there was the issue of control with behaviour and student engagement. As I trudged into the computer lab at U of M things seemed in full swing. Classmates were all busy at their computers learning about email. I hate being late, and my level of discomfort rose as I scanned the room for an available computer. Spotting one, I wove my way through the tangle of computers, chairs, and busy people with my briefcase, coat, and purse hanging from various parts of my body. I'm sure my face wore the look of defeat and fatigue after a long week. This is definitely not where I want to be late on a Friday afternoon I thought to myself. Reaching the computer I deposited myself in front of it and stared stupidly at the blank screen. Realizing that I didn't even know how to turn it on caused my feelings of anxiety and uncertainty to raise another notch. "Would it explode if I touched it?" I wondered, feeling certain that it would. At the very least, I thought it might yell out at me "That's not the way you do it!" giving me away to everyone else in the class. Finally, sensing my helplessness, a nice young man approached me and clicked the necessary button. I smiled my thanks, but before I could utter another word he was gone again, and there I sat, and sat, and sat…..Completely ignoring the directions that were conveniently placed beside the computer I leaned over to a fellow classmate. I didn't want to appear foolish about asking someone else what to do who seemed so involved in her own computer endeavors, especially because I had been late and my teacher voice said to me "If you had been on time, then you'd know what to do.' I would ask a few questions, make a bit of progress, and then revert to sitting, not wanting to bother my neighbor and hoping that the nice young man would come back and tell me what I needed to know. I knew one thing for absolute certainty. I was the only one in the room who didn't have a clue about what was going on. I preferred to sit, risk nothing, and hope that someone would feel my discomfort and come to my aid. This experience made me think of Andrew.

*****

Andrew sits in the front group of desks in my classroom. He is a quiet boy, who says little. He sits slumped in his chair, his cap pulled low over his eyes in order to avoid my gaze, as I walk by or sit down and speak with him. The other kids avoid him. He spends his time in writing workshop alternating between writing a few lines, tearing up little pieces of paper, some of which end up as spit balls on my floor, or picking old gum from the bottom of his table. When I wander by and ask to see what he has written he covers it up with his body, and pressing him further only results in him covering up his paper even more. Even when he puts his folder away he tries to hide his work. Each folder has a typed sheet on either side that I have stapled at the top. Andrew puts his papers on the bottom and then drapes my sheets over his, tucking in he ends in to the pockets of the folder. He wraps his work up so well that it is difficult to get it out.

The other day I sat down with a piece of paper and a pen. Andrew had been shooting something unpleasant and Blaine was upset. Our written conversation went like this:

What do we believe in our class about treating others?"
"Don't bother others" Andrew scribbled.
"Why Andrew?' I queried.
"You might hurt their feelings," he replied.
"Could people get physically hurt by throwing things at them?"
"Yes."
"I would like to help you write but you won't let me. Why?"
No comment from Andrew.
"You seem to be pretty smart. I know that you listen and work hard in math. What need are you meeting by throwing things in language arts?'
"Fun and freedom."
"If you could learn and write about anything, what would it be?
"Tornadoes, hockey and planets."
"Maybe I can help you find out about these things. I'm going to leave you with this paper for a few minutes in case you have anything else to add. Perhaps you can find something to write about from this list that really interests you."

Five minutes later I returned. The piece of looseleaf that I had left with Andrew was now in a crumpled ball. We had written in pencil and the discussion we had just a few minutes earlier was almost illegible. Why had he tried to erase our conversation?

Thinking of Andrew sitting in his chair, hat pulled low, slumped down, tearing at little bits of paper, made me think of the day in the computer lab. How often do I see a student sitting doing nothing and assume they are reluctant learners without bothering to question why? Not wanting to appear stupid that day in the lab

I had pulled my own hat low over my eyes, not wanting to let on that I didn't have a clue what was going on. Recognizing this in myself and Andrew made me think again about control. Is Andrew afraid that I might see that he cannot write? Is he afraid of showing me a part of himself? Does he believe that he has nothing of value to say? A year ago, I would have viewed Andrew's reluctance to learn with less empathy. I would have viewed him as someone who was using strategies to avoid writing, and sharing with others. I still see him in this light but in the past year I have come to know this differently. Instead of saying "Andrew get back to work." I am much more likely to say "Andrew, how can I help you?" That day in the computer lab was pivotal for me because I became conscious of my own learning processes in that situation. In understanding the strategies I use in the classroom when I am feeling vulnerable or under pressure I am able to understand Andrew not from my role as a teacher, but from my role as a learner and a fellow human being. The change is a change in stance. I see Andrew now as a fellow learner, coping as best he can and using strategies to become invisible so that he needn't participate in the learning community. I don't need to "do" education to Andrew anymore. Instead, I need to help him find his own way in. I can control myself, and how I invite him into our community, how I build a relationship of trust with him, but Andrew controls when he buys in and when he feels safe enough to do so.

My change in stance with regard to Andrew is what Wendy Peters-Epp calls "the other side of the looking glass." She defines teaching as the "common sense" side of the looking glass. This is the side of the mirror where we view teaching as transmission of knowledge, of giving our students the information that they need to know in small sequential steps so that they can internalize it and regurgitate it for a test. The "other side of the looking glass is the "uncommon sense side" where the focus is on learning rather than teaching.

I believe it is the educational communities' tendency to focus on teaching rather than learning which is largely responsible for trapping so many on the commonsense side of the looking-glass. The way through to the uncommonsense side lies in a shift in focus away from teaching to learning. My experience suggests that such a shift requires not only a re-examination of assumptions, but also considerable reflection upon the very nature of learning (Peters-Epp 1995: 25).

It was in reexamining learning, my own learning, as opposed to teaching which allowed me to think differently about Andrew. Rather than seeing his reluctance to write as a problem to solve, I shifted my stance and saw him as a person who needed to be invited into our community. I couldn't have made this shift without being conscious of my own processes as a writer.

*****

Some lessons are learned the hard way. Two weeks before school started last August I laid all my language arts materials out on my dining room table and began planning my curriculum for my new group of grade sevens. I had spent the summer thinking about how I try and control the learning in my classroom. I had come to the conclusion that if I wanted my students to be engaged in their own learning in language arts, then I needed my students to be in control of their own reading and writing. An hour later I had gotten no where and I decided to journal about my problem. What I discovered startled me and yet was obvious. Here I was again, attempting to lay our my agenda for the year and the various genres I wanted my students to explore in their writing. All of my thinking over the summer about negotiated curriculum, creating a need to know in language arts and then teaching writing based on their need to communicate had fallen by the wayside in my own insecurities about the coming year. As soon as I had felt a bit uncertain, I had reverted to the same old patterns. I'll give myself credit though because at least this time I realized what I was doing.

I started again. What was I going to do differently this year? If engagement in writing was my goal and I knew that they needed to have control over their own writing in order to be engaged, then I needed to start with their own stories. We began the year by making lists of the best and worst things that had ever happened to each of us and then graphing those lists. When we began to write we chose our topics from that graph. I participated with my students and began to share my own writing. I felt vulnerable and unsure of myself. I wrote and put my pieces up on the overhead. "I'm not sure about this lead," I said one day. On another day, "I am doing too much telling here, when what I really want to do is show the reader a picture of what is going on here. Any suggestions?" Sometimes my class had some ideas, but often because this was new to them I would talk myself through my problem, modeling what I wanted them to do with their own writing. My goal was to remove myself from the position of teacher authority. I wanted my students to understand that writers all encounter the same kinds of problems and decisions in their writing. I wanted them to understand that good writers struggled with their craft and dispel the romantic notion of a writer as someone who sat at a typewriter or computer and poured out their writing onto a page perfectly the first time.

I wanted to remove myself from the position of teacher authority for another reason…Students are well conditioned to see their teacher as being the final authority and having all the right answers. If my students saw me in this light, then there is little incentive to struggle with their own writing. If someone, in this case me, is going to fix it all up anyway, and solve the problems in the writing, then why bother struggling with it yourself?

There was another problem with removing myself from the position of teacher authority and that was in regards to assessment. If I wanted to be seen as part of their writing community as it developed, then how could I grade and sit in final judgment of their pieces? How many students wouldn't even try because they didn't feel that they could succeed? Again, it was through my own writing that I became aware of how I felt as a writer and allowed me to connect with my students.

*****

I felt terrible. I had been thinking of my grandpa, who had died about a year and half ago. As I sat at the computer trying to write my weekly reflection I realized that my grandpa was getting in the way of my other writing. My throat was tight and tears ran down my face. "This is useless," I thought. I need to deal with these feelings first. I opened a new file and decided to write a poem about my grandpa. The thought made me feel better, but as I sat in front of the blank screen I just couldn't start. How do I sum up a life in a few lines? How do I do justice to our relationship in a few words? What do I tell my students to do in this situation I wondered? I settled on brainstorming a list of things I had seen and felt at the funeral parlour. Still, this wasn't enough, so I also brain stormed a list of impressions of my grandpa while he was alive.

I returned to my blank screen with my brain stormed printout in hand. I sat and I sat. I didn't know where to start. Finally I just jumped in:

I came early
To have a few minutes with him
Alone
Before the others arrived.

What struck me after I had written these first four lines was how afraid I was to commit these feelings to paper. It was such a source of vulnerability for me that even in the privacy of my own home I found it difficult to write. I didn't even have to show this piece of writing to anyone, and I could delete the whole thing after I had written it if I didn't like it. That was, in fact, how I managed to start. I promised myself that if I felt uncomfortable after I had written the poem that I would delete the whole thing.

Becoming aware of how I felt as a writer in this situation made me think of my students. What a risky business writing can be. To be open and lay yourself on the line is dangerous enough for some of us. Then to write knowing that someone is going to sit in judgment of what you have said and label it A,B,C, is even worse. No wonder some of my students feel defeated even before they start.

I didn't want my students to write primarily for me. I wanted them to write for themselves and, in time, for each other in our community. What was I going to do about this mark issue. I had to give them a grade at the end of the term. I decided to start them off on a "just try" approach. I asked them to hand in five pages of rough draft per week. Their five pages could be first, second, third, drafts. If they did that consistently, I would give them an A. I still needed to somehow assess how they were growing as writers. I decided that we would negotiate that part of the mark together. I asked them to have two polished pieces of writing finished by the middle of October. On that day, I handed them an evaluation form which asked them to evaluate each piece of writing on a scale of one to ten . They looked at leads, the degree to which they showed instead of told a story, their use of descriptive verbs, how they conferenced with themselves and others etc. I evaluated their pieces using the same criterion and then we conferenced together, trying to negotiate a mark which would satisfy us both. I was not satisfied with the result. Many students were not yet familiar enough with the terminology and the writing process and ranked themselves very high on some areas where I didn't. I felt very pressed for time during our conferences and didn't feel that I could take the time to fully explore their reasons and my reasons for the grade they gave themselves. I'm sure some of them succumbed to my wishes because I was the teacher. Still, the key word, is process. As the year progresses and they gain more flexibility in terms of their own writing and their own processes my hope is that they will be better able to evaluate themselves. Still, I think that I opened the door for many of my students allowing them to see that they are in control or can be in control of not only the topics they write, but in making the decisions of process that a good writer needs to make.

*****

Did my attempting to give control of writing to my students produce the engagement I was looking for? Engagement is a relative thing. One day in late September I looked around my classroom. Many of my students seemed to be engaged in their writing. Some were beginning to work with leads, to start in the middle of the action, to show rather than tell me a story, while others were busy writing reams of "breakfast to bed" stories. I am fighting all the time to be patient. They are not all going to be at the same place at the same time and I know that if I jump in too quickly and try to "fix" their writing, I will wrestle the control they feel over their own stories away from them. My tension is constant. Trevor is writing only first drafts. He hasn't found something yet that he wants to develop into a polished piece. Tracy and Anita are conferencing. Pamela and Lynette are writing second and third drafts. Riley is engaged for a good ten minutes at getting just the right point on his pencil. Kyle is busy putting white out on the cover of his binder. I fight the urge to redirect them too soon. Instead, I watch, and to my surprise both Kyle and Riley eventually return to their writing. They had been doing some hard thinking. Perhaps they needed a break. I want them to be responsible for their own learning and behaviour in our classroom so I avoid playing the "I'm gong to make you write game."

I look at student engagement now in terms of the big picture rather than on a daily basis. I have days when I don't want to write too. I don't get concerned unless the lack of engagement shows itself over a period of a week. Kathleen and Susan came to me one day in early November. We had decided as a class to write mystery stories. "We don't want to write today. Can we read instead?" they said to me. A year ago I would have said no, fearing that if I let two students do something different that I would have a throng of kids not wanting to write. Instead, I said "Yes," and to my surprise, no one said "Why can they read when we have to write?" Kathleen and Susan spent the class reading, some of my students went out to the computer lab to continue writing their mystery stories, and others stayed in the class and conferenced. This tells me that my students are engaged.

How else do I know that my class is generally engaged? I don't feel that I am constantly engaged in monitoring my students behaviour and noise level. At any given time, two or three students are not engaged. I can approach them individually, ask them "Do you need my help?" "How can I help you?'

One day Riley approached me and handed me his story. It was about his grandfather dying of cancer in the hospital. Riley gets frustrated very easily when he doesn't know where to go next. I took his paper and handed him my writing book. "I've been writing about my grandfather too," I said. "Would you like to read it?" After reading it, he handed it back . "That's good," he said. It wasn't his words, but the look in his eyes that will stay with me for a lifetime. We had connected, not as teacher and student, but as writers, sharing an experience that we both had had. It was a powerful moment for both of us.

Nancy came to me one Monday morning. "I have a problem," she said
"What is it?" I asked
"Well, I want to show something in my story that happened in the past." I don't know how to do it."
"That's called a flashback," I said. "Sometimes, authors show a change in time by separating the text with three asterix across the page? Would this work for you ?" I asked
"I think so," she said and was on her way.

Three weeks later, Janie came to me. As I read the first few pages of her mystery story I commented, "You've got a lot of good showing in here. As a reader I can picture in my mind what is going on." Suddenly, very excited, she grabbed the paper from my hands. Flipping back a few more pages she pointed to three asterix on her page.
"Look, I used flashback here," she said.
"Wow, I like how you did that," I said. How did you know how to do that. I don't remember telling you about that.
"Nancy showed me," she replied.

That tells me that my students are engaged.

I guess that the one thing that tells me more than any other that my students are generally engaged in their writing, is when, after a fifty minute period, I say to them "Class is almost over. You need to save what you have and put your things away." Often the response I get is "Can't we write next period too?" This tells me that they're engaged, and … that I need to change what I'm doing in math and social studies!

*****

Lori glared at me through her blond hair that hung over her eyes and yelled "Why are you picking on me? You know I can't do math. I don't get it! I'm not going to do it."

I know Lori fairly well by this point in the year. When Lori is engaged and feels she has a handle on what we are doing, she bounces over to me, carefree and happy and tells me about it. When I'm confronted with the other Lori, the Lori who tries to be confrontational or behave in other inappropriate ways in order to create an issue and avoid the task at hand, I can hardly believe that such diverse personalities reside in the same body.

Its so easy to forget that despite the huge diversity among people in a given culture, there are also remarkable similarities in how we feel and respond in a given situation. Whether teacher or student, our strategies for learning ( or not learning) as well as circumstances which hinder our learning or help it flourish are remarkably similar but easily forgotten by those of us in education. As a teacher, I can view Lori's behaviour as a strategy of avoidance, but by becoming aware of myself as a learner, or as Connelly and Clandinin would say, by becoming aware of my own curriculum, I am able to move beyond an intellectual analysis of Lori to a more human response to her needs at any given moment. I can't say that I've ever used this particular strategy of Lori's, but I feel a kinship with her frustration as a learner. I don't know how else to say it except that when I encounter a situation like the one with Lori, I know it differently now, and I know it differently because I know myself better as a learner.

Connelly, Michael & Jean Clandinin 1988 Narrative: Your Personal Curriculum as a Metaphor for Curriculum and Teaching. In: Teachers as Curriculum Planners: Narratives of Experience. Toronto: OISE Press: 24-58.

Peters-Epp, Wendy 1995 Through the Looking-Glass. Tensions of Teaching. Action Research on the Politics of Education. Unpublished manuscript: 22-30.