Just about every Sunday during the school year,  Kelly Gallagher posts an “Article of the Week” on his website because he is a wonderful angel.  The article is always current and topical, allowing for student reflection and discussion.

Over the last five years, I’ve used Kelly Gallagher’s Articles of the Week in class on an inconsistent basis.  Really, they had been Articles of the Month until this year, assigned on Mondays and due on Fridays, but never on a weekly basis.  I’d also picked and chosen articles that would be interesting to students, rather than using the most recent.

One of the purposes of the Articles of the Week is to give students background information on topics they might not otherwise read about.  

By picking and choosing articles from the archives, as well as assigning them on an irregular basis, I wasn’t really teaching students how to get through difficult, maybe-not-interesting nonfiction texts.  I wasn’t really accomplishing the goal of establishing background knowledge.

So this year, I’ve assigned the Article of the Week each week.  Instead of picking and choosing from the archives, I’ve been consistently assigning the most recent posted, regardless of its topic.

On Monday, students receive their article, a reflection page, and a rubric.  They are required to annotate throughout the text to stay engaged and to inspire their reflections, which are required to be one-page, minimum.  These are due on Fridays, and they can work on them at home, or in class on reading workshop days.

On Friday, we gather together as a whole class and discuss the article and their reflections.  Our discussions can last anywhere from 20-60 minutes, and are so.much.fun.  We talk about everything and anything, using the articles as a guide, but I also try my hardest to loop it back to class content. (I’m not always successful with this!)

With the recent Kavanaugh hearings, our articles have had a political lean these weeks.  Before, this content may have scared me into the archives, but I just sucked it up and assigned the article anyway, making sure to keep my opinions to myself during discussions.  

Even though they complained about “another political article,” they followed the news all week.  Some students voluntarily watched the hearings, and came to class CHARGED UP and ready to discuss.  They even asked for live updates during our class discussion.

This didn’t happen in the years prior.  Thanks, Kelly, I love you.

Check out how these other teachers use Gallagher’s Articles of the Week!
https://davestuartjr.com/article-of-the-week-assignment/
https://2peasandadog.com/2017/04/article-of-the-week-lessons.html

I didn’t write a lot last year.  

The last two years were the most difficult of my entire career.  While I formed some great relationships with students and colleagues at that school, I am so glad to have moved on.

Someday, maybe I’ll write about my struggles over the last few years in more detail than this.

But for now, I’ll just say:  It’s only been a few weeks in my new district, and I feel like I’m home again.  

Change is good.  Change is hard.

My transition from a completely competency-based school to a school that’s still in transition has been a challenge.  My students made measurable gains and rediscovered the joy in reading, but I still ended the year feeling defeated.   And tired.

I just didn’t know how to deal.

I’m not sure what I’ll do when the soles on these babes finally wear out, since EMS discontinued them years ago.  (Are cobblers still a thing?)

Yes, I am a gigantic cliche of a woman by dealing with my feelings in the woods.

I’m blessed to live in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, and even more blessed to live within ten miles of most of the trailheads in the Belknap Range.  I discovered that I could earn a patch by hiking all twelve peaks in the Belknaps, so I did.  In 23 days.  Because I’m a psycho.

The mountains in the Belknaps are small, by New Hampshire standards, ranging from 2384′ (Belknap) to 1670′ (Anna).  But small mountains can still be tough.  Hiking is hard, even when the peak seems small.

I did about 75% of these peaks solo, and about a quarter with my husband.  The hikes with my husband were great.  We laughed and complained and sang stupid songs together.   We ate granola bars and picked blueberries and danced together with our hiking poles.

We were the only people on the top of Mt. Major, which I’m sure hasn’t happened since 1876.

But my phone died at the beginning of the month, and I was waiting for my map to arrive in the mail, so I had to hike these first peaks with handwritten directions and a compass, like ye olden days.

Sometimes, I had no clue where I was going and had to just figure it out.  I had nobody to sing to, and nobody to laugh with.  I had nobody to dance with but my hiking poles.

•••

Yesterday, I hiked my last three peaks:  Anna, Klem, and Mack.
9.3 miles.   Alone.
Literally:  I did not see another single person on the trail all day.

I started the journey up to Mt. Klem via the Round Pond Trail.  One of the toughest things for me to do when hiking solo is to pace myself so I don’t burn too much energy too quickly.    I am very bad at this.

View just before the summit of Klem.

There was a beautiful view just before the summit, but when I got to the summit of Mt. Klem:  nothing but trees. 

I refueled on some blueberries, and continued onto Mt. Mack.  I knew there wouldn’t be a view there either, but I was hopeful that I’d see some vistas on the way.

Nope.

Once I got to Mack, I had a choice:  I could hike 2.8 more miles out-and-back to my last peak in the Belknaps, Mt. Anna, or I could call it a day and head back to the car.

I’m nothing if not an overachieving psychopath, so I decided to keep going.

But as I started on this last leg, the trail started descending.  Quickly.
Which meant that I’d have to climb Mack all over again on my way back.

I was all in, though.  I sang songs to myself that included lyrics like, “I don’t want to climb this/damn mountain again/but I have to/if I want to go home!”

The descent continued.  And continued.  And finally, the trail started climbing again.

To another viewless summit.   

Number 12!  I reached my goal!  I’m psyched!

Reaching the summit the second time was not as exciting as the first.

I’ve never had to reclimb a peak I’ve already climbed on the same hike, and man, it was just as tough as you’d imagine it could be.

All of the same obstacles were there, and I had to navigate around them.  But this time, I stumbled around a lot more.  Because I pushed myself too hard at the start, I was tired.

So tired.

•••

I had the goal of conquering the Belknaps in a summer, and instead, I did it in 23 days.  

As I hiked down to the parking lot yesterday, I thought about how much this last school year was like reclimbing Mt. Rand.

Because I’ve been teaching in a competency-based school for so long, I’d forgotten about how difficult the journey was to get there.  I forgot about the obstacles, the challenges, and just how exhausting it can be.  I forgot to move slowly, and to take baby steps.

I only remembered the view from the summit, and it was glorious.

As July comes to a close, I’m ready to continue this climb, because it’s what’s best for kids. 
All the same obstacles will be there, and I’ll have to navigate them all over again.
There may not be beautiful vistas along the way (but I bet there will be).
I may have to rely on handwritten directions.
I may not even have anyone to sing and dance with. 

But I know that it’s all up from here.

TL;DR:  Teaching is hard and so is hiking.

A few of my senior boys, reading Last Stop on Market Street.

I was welcomed into my new writing course by the best damn group of students.
The bad thing about that?  Last week I had to say goodbye to them for the semester.

Our class was Introductory Writing, and was composed of students in grades 9-12.  At first, the idea of teaching writing to students who had either (1) just started high school, (2) were in their last year of high school, or (3) somewhere in the middle was completely and totally overwhelming.

But we jumped in.  The best thing about choices?  Everyone works with their own strengths and weaknesses and improves, regardless of their ability. These students were excited and motivated (most days, anyway) and willing to take risks in their writing.

For their final project, I knew that I wanted my students to create and market their writing in professional blogs and through a professional Twitter.

I also had the tremendously overwhelming idea that we’d create a podcast together, featuring our best works of the semester.  

I had absolutely no clue how to do this, but I listen to a lot of podcasts, so I figured that as long as we had recordings and background music, we’d pull it off, somehow.

It was hard.  I’d reserved the last two weeks of the semester for our devotion to recording, and I was glad I did.  On our first day, we ran out of working mics. Then, we discovered that most of the places on the Internet we’d wanted to use were blocked by our school filters. Then, my students suddenly became too nervous to talk in front of one another, which halted our recording progress.

In short, most things that could have gone wrong, did.

We pulled it off, somehow.
We used SoundCloud, voice memos, and all sorts of other strange means to record.  I used Reaper to produce the show, and my genius-musician husband provided the music.

My students named our production The Blank Page, which will become part of their legacy as students at our school, as we’ll keep adding episodes each semester.

Check out our first episode here and please SUBSCRIBE and rate us!  

TL;DR:  We made a cool podcast and it was hard.