Where did our learning take place?

Where did our learning take place?

Did we learn from our teacher?

Where did our learning take place?

Did we learn from our teacher?

Well, yes and no.

Where did our learning take place?

Did we learn from the texts and knowledge we studied?

Where did our learning take place?

Did we learn from the texts and knowledge we studied?

Where did our learning take place?

Did we learn from the texts and knowledge we studied?

Well, yes and no.

Where did our learning take place?

Did we learn from our relationships?

Where did our learning take place?

Did we learn from our relationships?

Well, yes and no.

Where did our learning take place?

Did we learn from our writing?

Where did our learning take place?

Did we learn from our writing?

Well, yes and no.

Where did our learning take place?

In all of these places—from and with the “teacher,” from and with the “students,” from the writing, and with the texts—simultaneously.

This integration of inquiry, discipline, text, writing, and understanding is at the heart of dialogical learning.

“All that we do in design and teaching is related.”

-- Jane Vella

One way of developing community is through writing and the sharing of writing.

We'd like to introduce our class through the writing we've created

“The least we can try to do is be there. It is our job as teachers and writers to be there. To be part of the world. To be alert to the world around us.” -- Carolyn Mamchur

From Betsy

It was laughable that the three of us thought that we had bodies far enough along in the puberty cycle that boys might give us a first glance much less a second. My body resembled my younger brother’s in its shape and size. Actually, with my new short haircut we could have been mistaken for twins. My hips, waist and shoulders all had the same measurement, 24-24-24.

Nadine’s figure was also boyish in form, but she had more visibly developed muscle than boys and girls our age. She would have beaten the snot out of anyone who messed with her or her friends. -- Shelley Brett

From The Tea Ceremony:

“Washi-washi, washi-washi Heza-sensei, no whoosh-whoosh.” Heather and the girls giggled at Aiyumi’s instructions. Wanting to get it right, Heather stiffened her hand and tried the new movement. Tea splashed onto the tatami mat. Aiyumi quickly wiped it up.

“Like sleeping.” She demonstrated an awake hand and a dangling, sleeping one. Heather relaxed her hand and let it dangle with the bamboo brush at her fingertips. Aiyumi leaned forward and placed her hand around Heather’s.

“Like this, washi-washi, washi-washi,” Aiyumi said to her teacher as they made a perfect light green foam on the surface of the tea.

Heather prepared a tea for Aiyumi and the two bowed once more. Sipping their tea, together in contented silence. -- Heather Griffin

From Ode to My Grandmother's House

Great Persian poets like Rumi and Hafiz once composed their immortal lyrics while roaming the narrow medieval alley-ways of Shiraz. During the Spring, the fragrance of jasmine and orange blossoms converted the air into a wine of love and serenity. . . .

On this morning the “City of Roses and Birds” becomes a City of Horror. The chanting of poetry gives way to the clatter of rifles. The sweet fragrance of jasmine surrenders to the acrid odour of fire and gun smoke.

My mother and I are at my grandmother’s house in the old part of Shiraz. I hear the neighbours two houses away- screaming, crying and begging the soldiers to stop. Mom and I know that we are next. . . . -- Rita Rasti

From The Unspoken

He stares down, mesmerized. Slowly scanning the little body he notices the baby’s tiny hand embracing his baby finger. The baby’s soft white skin against his dark cracked hands, the baby’s almost invisible finger nails clear against the grease stains under his giant ones. Gently, naturally, he leans down and softly kisses the baby’s forehead and begins to rock back and forth. --Heather Bogen

From small dialogues: requiems for a mother

Gone. She was gone.

She had magicked my childhood, filling it with fireworks of the fantastic. She led me, mesmerized and open-mouthed, my small hand in her gentle grasp, through a world of ever-new amazement. She showed me a world that was everything, so everything, because she showed me it was possible, so possible.

So magic.

And always her welcoming laughter and those hugs that filled me with infinity. Mine was the happy joy that fills the happy mind of a happy child so happy, happy, happy.

And now so gone. Gone. No other word, no other phrase can tell this tale. It was a moment shattered in time. -- Charles Scott

From Where You Are

Gravity brings the silk weight of his fair hair across her face. She kisses his skin, and her mouth follows fine tide paths, textured like the memory of water. She smells the ocean salt of his body, tastes the prickle of sweet moisture along his cheeks, the after taste of warm earth, mineral and familiar.

The light outside has changed through the enormous windows and the cedars have gained their evening sober elegance. Their tops wave, dark and lovely, their live green scent mingles with the smoky breath of just-lit evening fires.

-- Claire Murray

Building a Community of Learners

The Didi BirdsA new breed, quite magnificent, you might see them at the cabin from time to time, if you keep a sharp eye (C. Mamchur, 2006).

Creating Caring Communities

Personal ConnectionModeling/ Explicit InstructionChoiceDialogueAssessment for Learning

Personal Connections

A belief that all students can and will become better writers.

Sharing personal stories.Creating an environment where

learners feel safe enough to take risks.You do this by being vulnerable. You

do this by being open and receptive. These are capacities of dialogue.

Choice

Chose what we wanted to learn; students participate in making the choices

Wrote about what we cared aboutChose how we would represent our

learningChoice honors and empowers learners“There is no choice if the learner

wants none of the options offered.” -- Carolyn Mamchur

Dialogue

Key method used to provide descriptive feedback

Was always about improving our writing

Strengthened our connections with each other.

Assessment For Learning

Most useful are ones that are descriptive and on going

Let students know where they need to go next and how to get there

Our writing became the curriculum demonstrating what she had taught and was about to teach.

We learned in community sharing and learning from each other.

Turn to a person beside you and talk about the good or bad evaluation experiences you've had.

Becoming a Community beyond the Curriculum

Having a group name (Didi Birds)

Eating and drinking together

Having a group shirt

Supporting each other, both in and out of

classBuilding together

When you're trying to create a sense of community, what are some of the little things you do to make it work?

Our Experience of Community in Graduate School

Modeling: teachers are writers, too

Trust and safety

Vulnerabilities and Sharing

Dedication to excellence in writing

Discuss in groups of three how comfortable you are in making yourself vulnerable.

Four Stages in the Writing Process

1. Discovering a subject

2. Sensing an audience

3. Searching for specifics

4. Creating a design

Unsettling truth: Unsettling truth: a community of writersa community of writers

Stories and classroom practice

~William Kittredge writes in response to

the poet C.K. Williams who “spoke of narrative dysfunction, as a prime part of mental illness in our time. Many of us, he said, lose track of the story of ourselves, the story that tells us who we are supposed to be and how we are supposed to act”

~“We know a lot of [stories], and we’re in

trouble when we don’t know which one

is ours. Or when the one we inhabit

doesn’t work anymore and we stick

with it anyway.”

~“We live in stories. What we are is

stories. We do things because of what

is called character, and our character

is formed by the stories we learn to

live in.”

Imagine that you are now in our writing class and you were being asked to write about a person who was important to you as a child. How might you live and teach from inside your story? What does this have to do with dialogue?