Volume 35, Number 2 WINTER 2021

\GCTE Virtual Conference ApproachesWe hope you’re exited about GCTE’s annual conference, scheduled for Feb 6 and 7, 2021. The conference features the theme of Reimagining the Classroom: Teaching with Flexibility, Dexterity, and Courage, and all events conferences events and sessions will take place through Zoom. GCTE is proud to have two giants of the English education field as keynote speakers: Jocelyn Chadwick and Carol Jago will speak on the topic of Teaching Social Emotional Skills through Literature on Saturday, Feb 6, from 11-12:15pm.

All conference registrants will be receiving detailed information and Zoom instructions the week prior to the conference. In the meantime, feel free to check out the diversity of sessions. A remote conference is a new experience for GCTE, and we’re hopeful that this event proves useful and engaging for GCTE members as we look with hope toward the future.

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In This Issue

• Leah Panther onLinguistic Justice

• Kaveh Felfeli and HaleyVeatch on remoteteaching

• Glenn Rhoades onconnecting withstudents using Mote

• Ashlie Wells onTeacher-Led WritingConferences

• Kyle Jones onSupporting Teachers ina Pandemic

• Darren Crovitz onCrime and Punishmentin Space with AmongUs

• Write for Scribbles N’Bits: we know you gotsomething to say!

Scribbles ’n BitsTHE AWARD-WINNING NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED BY

THE GEORGIA COUNCIL OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH SINCE 1985

Jocelyn A. Chadwick has been an English teacher for over thirty years and a professor

in the Harvard Graduate School of Education for nine years. Dr. Chadwick also

serves as a consultant for school districts around the country and assists English departments with curricula to reflect diversity and cross-curricular content. 

Carol Jago has taught English in middle and high school for over

30 years. She has served as president of the National

Council of Teachers of English and as chair of the College Board’s English Academic

Advisory committees authored several books on teaching.

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Linguistic Justice — A GCTE Column Welcome to Linguistic Justice, a regular column centering on linguistic justice in practice by foregrounding the language diversity throughout the state of Georgia. If you’re interested in contributing pieces for this column, please contact Leah Panther at panther_lm@mercer.edu.

Whose Justice? Leah Panther, Ph.D.

So, if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity — I am my language. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself.

--From “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” an excerpt from Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa

Gloria Anzaldúa ties together her ethnicity, her identity, and her language as separate strands of one braid. As English language arts educators, researchers, and literacy leaders throughout the state of Georgia, one of the fundamental concepts we need to understand is language. What is language? And what does it mean in the lives of our students and local communities?

1. Language is communication. Language is also a basic tool for communication. While there are many ways tocommunication without language—from the side eye to a high five to your pet reminding you it’s dinner time—language is more direct and precise. It can be used through speaking and writing to effectively communicate meaning to someone sitting next to you or thousands of miles away. We might be tempted to stop here with our definition of language, but I want to challenge us to dig deeper into language.

2. Language is identity. According to Lippi-Green (2011) language is the central way we form and communicateour identities to ourselves and to others: who we are and who we are becoming. Think about some of the first words you learned and used: your name, yes, no, more, and the names of people or possessions that you wanted close to you. Language was a tool to understand self, your place within the world, and to let others know your preferences, beliefs, needs, and emotions. And it still is! From Twitter bios to slogans on our t-shirts to bumper stickers on our cars, language communicates who we are and who we want to be.

3. Language is culture. Language is how we come to understand and communicate cultural memberships: fromgender to religion to race to family relationships to social relationships. If I were to call you on the phone, you could likely tell from the language I use and how I use it that I am a millennial white female originally from the Midwest. The outdated slang, references to “soda” with a long “o”, and tendency to end my sentences at a higher pitch are the giveaways. My cultural language represents “mainstream” English because it is the language used within government institutions, higher education, and most media. It means I have the option

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to learn new language to navigate new cultures—y’all has been an effective new language tool since my move to the South—but I have the privilege to easily function within society using only my heritage language.

4. Language is access. In the state of Georgia, language is a central element ofour work as English educators. The standards outline how to define language, its usage, and role in grammar and writing. The purpose of language instruction is to ensure Georgia’s youth have access to higher education, careers, and disciplinary communities. I had to learn the language of literary theory, literary analysis, and rhetoric when I was learning to become an English teacher. Now, I am learning the language of deck care, ollies, and kickfl ips as I seek access into skateboarding communities. Language is a tool to access potential futures.

5. Language is power. If language denotes access to different identities,cultures, and communication tools, then language is connected to power. Consider ways language has been restricted: the American federal government once required a literacy test for those seeking to immigrate into the country. State governments once required literacy tests for Black Americans to register to vote while laws made it illegal for Black Americans to learn to read or write until the late 1800s. Language has power: power for those with access to it and power to limit to access the language of power for others.

Thinking about these features of language, we can determine that language the central way Georgian youth access English education, it is the central content of English education, and language is the way youth bring their own selves into the classroom. So it is worth asking: Whose language is centered in the ELA classroom?

The state of Georgia is microcosm of the language and linguistic diversity that exists within the United States of America: one in ten Georgian residents are immigrants (American Immigration Council, 2020), it is home to “the Ellis Island of the South” in Clarkston, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb where 40,000 refugees have been placed in the past 25 years (Shaer, 2017), and 13% of its residents speak at least one language in addition to English.

Furthermore, it is worth asking whose English is centered in the ELA classroom? Georgians who speak English represent a range of linguistic varieties from Geechee Gullah along the Atlantic coastline (Rickford et al, 2012) to Appalachian “mountain talk” in the north (Devereaux, 2014) to Black Language throughout the state (Smitherman, 1999), which is also called Ebonics, African American English, African American Vernacular English, and Black English. While not all Black Georgia residents speak Black Language, it is the dominant English variety in multiple communities throughout the Atlanta metro area where over 50% of residents identify as Black or part of the African diaspora.

The range of languages and linguistic varieties of English that are represented in our students’ everyday communication is called linguistic diversity. It is my hope and goal that this column will become a space to explore linguistic diversity in the state of Georgia. Learning more about the unique features of the languages throughout the

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state and how educators can draw from these linguistic strengths to ensure all of Georgia’s youth have access to communication, identities, cultures, and power—to potential futures of their choosing. Or, as Gloria Anzaldúa puts it, “Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself.”

References American Immigration Council. (2020). Immigrants in Georgia. A report from the American Immigration Council.

Retrieved from https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/immigrants-in-georgia Anzaldúa, G. (2016). Borderlands: la frontera. Buenos Aires: Capitán Swing. Devereaux, M. D. (2014). Teaching about dialect variations and language in secondary English classrooms: Power,

prestige, and prejudice. New York, NY: Routledge. Lippi-Green, R. (2011). English with an accent: Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States. New York,

NY: Routledge. Rickford, J. R., Sweetland, J., Rickford, A. E., & Grano, T. (2012). African American, Creole, and other vernacular

Englishes in education: A bibliographic resource. New York, NY: Routledge. Shaer, M. (2017, January). Ellis Island south: Welcome to the most diverse square mile in America. Atlanta Magazine.

Retrieved from https://www.atlantamagazine.com/great-reads/ellis-island-south-welcome-diverse-square-mile-america/

Smitherman, G. (1999). Talkin that talk: Language, culture and education in African America. New York, NY: Routledge.

Dr. Leah Panther is an Assistant Professor in the College of Education at Mercer University in Atlanta, Georgia. Her experiences with teaching, teacher leadership, non-profits, and research center on literacy instruction in urban educational contexts to support culturally and linguistically diverse adolescents. She can be reached at panther_lm@mercer.edu

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Voices from New Teachers — A Quarterly Column

“Voices from New Teachers” provides a forum for novice teachers to voice their experiences, concerns, struggles, and triumphs.  Acclimating to the education profession can be both stressful and rewarding. By listening to new teachers’ voices, we might better understand their perspectives and serve as a community of support.

If you would like to contribute to this column, please contact Erinn Bentley at bentley_erinn@columbusstate.edu. As this column focuses on new teachers, authors with five or fewer years of classroom experience are encouraged to submit.

Isn’t This Where We Came In? Kaveh Felfeli Four We all know that feeling of déjà vu. That feeling that we’ve somewhere, somehow seen it all before, but this particular feeling was strikingly similar yet profoundly different. As I walked into the doors of Hardaway High school in early August, everything appeared the same. My desk was still the haphazard mess that is always is. The lopsided bulletin board, with bits of trim that students pick off during the year, was still clinging desperately to the wall. Even with an ongoing nationwide pandemic, things were still relatively unchanged, or so it seemed. After deliberation, the blended learning model was put on hold for a fully virtual model. Colleagues reassured each other that virtual teaching wouldn’t be that bad. After all, how much could go wrong with no students in the building?

Surprise, surprise. There was a new hurdle to overcome every day. The toughest challenges to overcome, however, didn’t involve logical issue such as Chromebook connectivity, webcam quality, or Canvas use. Rather, the largest challenge was how do I communicate and build rapport with my class through a screen? As teachers, interpersonal classroom interaction with our students is invaluable. We allow them to open up, be themselves, and form a bond with one another in order to teach them what they need to know. The classroom should be place that allows us all to grow academically, socially, and emotionally. Although I tried my best to offer this environment, students did not thrive the same way they would in a traditional setting. Interactions were awkward. Students wouldn’t want to talk openly, interact with one another or even with me, the teacher. After a few weeks of virtual learning, it hit me. I knew what this situation felt like, or at least what it was somewhat similar to. It was like being a first -ear teacher all over again. That feeling where everything is

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unknown, challenging, and overwhelming. I took a step back and studied the larger picture. A quote by one of the most well-known theoretical physicists played though my head like a song stuck on repeat. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results.” I cannot teach the same as I have the past five years and expect things to magically fall into place. The feeling of being a novice overwhelmed me. I should have everything down to an exact science after multiple years of experience under my belt, right? I was supposed to be past this stage in my career, but sometimes, sometimes you have to go back to the start in order to move forward

Kaveh Felfeli is a teacher at Hardaway High School in Muscogee County School District. He currently teaches American Literature and IB Literature and coaches the soccer team.

The LIT Classroom — A Quarterly Column Welcome to the LIT classroom where we discuss all things LITERACY, from balanced literacy to instructional strategies! Inside the LIT classroom, you will discover resources for your teacher toolbox that will be interactive, engaging, and keep your students learning!

If you’re interested in contributing to the LIT Classroom column, please contact Tokqiann Goodman at tokqiann.goodman@yahoo.com or @MsGoodmanELA

A Day in the Life of a Simultaneous Teacher Haley Veatch

In Griffin-Spalding County where I work, we began the era of ‘simultaneous’ teaching on October 19th, 2020. While some students remained completely virtual, many of my students returned to in-person classes full time. Both students who are “in person”and “virtual” report to classes Monday-Friday (either in the building or online). Each of my classes includes students who are in person and virtual, so I’m teaching both groups “simultaneously.” It certainly keeps class interesting! The following is a captain’s log I’ve kept since day one, October 19th. I hope that you’ll be able to find yourself in one of these days. Know that I understand, and it will get better! You’re a teacher after all; you’ve got this. Day 1 Is it possible that today you are more nervous than you ever were on your first day of teaching five years ago? Yes. It’s very possible. You are once again going over the list of things that need to go perfectly in order for this day to be successful:

1. The students will come in absolutely silently, begin their DO NOW activity-- all the while maintaining an appropriate distance and leaving their masks 100% on their faces.

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2. Each student has the foresight to know their Chromebook should be muted to prevent feedback when the Google Meet begins.

3. Each student has a 100% charged Chromebook.

4. Your own technology performs at 110% capacity.

5. The cart you’ve made into your mobile supplies station is able to seamlessly move throughout the classroom.

Instead, three students have not charged their Chromebooks. What have they been doing? It’s definitely not the homework you assigned last night. Two students are suddenly unable to log into the Google Meet. You endure 10 seconds of horrid feedback from the Chromebook that was not muted before entering the Meet. And, you have to remind 5 students repeatedly throughout class that they must have their masks on over their noses. Oh yes--and the cart? It squeaks as badly as the computer feedback and has no business making any kind of turn. It’s been banished behind your desk. Moreover, you spend most of class running from one end of the room to the other. You seek freedom from your desk, but must keep switching the Google Slides manually because your projector remote has decided to stop working. You want to interact one on one with the students-- especially since you’re meeting most of them for the first time (yes, in October)-- but your brain keeps reminding you, social distance! Social distance! All that is going poorly is repeating itself in your brain, threatening to come out in your speech at any moment. Then, you’re in the middle of talking and you realize you have no breath left. Your students are looking at you in horror, most likely wondering if you’re going to pass out. Thankfully, one of them calmly reminds you, “Mrs. Veatch-- you gotta breathe.” Later that day, you drive home and cry yourself to sleep. You wonder how in the world you’re going to wake up the next day and do it again. Day 2 You wake up and repeat Day 1. This time, resigning yourself to the desk. And, you remind yourself to breathe. You survive.

Day 7 Today, you’ve become bold, or really antsy. All that you’ve learned in your education classes and seminars has been screaming against you for the past week. Good teachers don’t sit behind their desks all period. So, you’ve acquired a wireless keyboard and mouse. What you did not realize is that in order to move from your desk to another, you must bring the following: your keyboard, your mouse, your Chromebook, your headset (not wireless), your clipboard, your notebook, and your pen. Once you’ve moved all your supplies to your new desk, you realize-- there’s no way you’ll be able to move from this spot during class. You can’t possibly walk around with your laptop connected to the headset and have enough arm space to keep your attendance on your clipboard. You sigh, resigning to your new position at the tiny desk. At least you can now see the in person students’ computer screens more clearly.

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Day 12 You’re signing in for the day, quickly checking “no,” I don’t have a fever, cough, sore throat. However, today you pause before checking off “no” on “headache” and “fatigue.” I am always tired. You chuckle to yourself. You’re more than tired, you’re a walking zombie. Here, sort of, and ready to feed on...sorry, feed young brains. And, your head always seems to hurt nowadays. Yet, before you check “yes” to those symptoms, you remember you’re teaching middle school in the middle of a pandemic. You take your temperature, realize it’s only 96.7 (maybe you have an iron deficiency? You’ll Google that during your lunch break) and you keep moving with your zombie legs chanting “feed...brains...feed.” Day 17 You get quarantined. Should you call yourself a tri-multaneous teacher now that you’re juggling three learning environments? You’re working with your parapro now to make sure the Google Meet is up on your school desktop and that the powerpoint is presented. Because you had to leave in a rush, you only have half the supplies required to help class function smoothly. You are already dreading the day. However, as your parapro is setting up, you suddenly remember that you have coworkers-- pretty amazing coworkers actually. Ones that come in early to help you set up technology. Ones who rearrange their schedules to cover your classes. Ones that exhort you to take care of yourself, and to not stress because they’ve got it covered. Then, you find yourself opening the Meet and saying, “Good morning 1st period! We’re halfway through the week--we’ve got this!” And this time, you might even believe yourself a little. Day 25 Now that you’ve returned to the building-- you must remain behind your desk. A plexiglass shield is now a permanent fixture on its surface. You don’t know if this makes you a coward or a hero-- probably neither. You meet in the middle and tell yourself you’re wise. You decide to step outside of your plexiglass prison to retrieve the Thanksgiving bingo card you’ll need for fi fth period. Later, as you’re explaining to your students how the game will work, you feel the anticipation in the class rising. What will we win? A student asks in the chat? “Yeah!” in person students emphasize, “What will we win?” “I’m not sure,” you respond, “but it’ll be good. Not to brag, but I almost won last year.” The announcements come on, and the class goes silent. What are they saying? Comes from the chat, and the in person students audibly shush the typer. You shush the shushers and type, Nothing yet. Then, turkey. Cornucopia, and so on are called until you can make bingo about 4 ways-- you just need one more. The in person students are now rising from their seats and you’re reminding them “Social distance-- stay in your seats!” Really, you’re having a hard time containing your excitement too. “Come on!” one of the students says, “We just need one more!” But then you hear “Pumpkin pie,” and it’s all over. Three teachers have already claimed their victory. You have to announce to the virtual students that you didn’t even place. As a class--virtual and in person-- you commiserate together, and for a moment school feels normal. Day 42 You are just beginning to readjust to life as a simultaneous teacher again when you get the call-- you’ve been exposed a second time. Your quarantine starts immediately, so you will be unable to see your students in person for the rest of the year. The words of your student on day one come back to you. Mrs. Veatch. You gotta breath. You take a deep breath and remind yourself-- I learned from last time, I know what to do. You remind yourself it will not be perfect, but you learned from last time, so you will do your best. You remind yourself that your coworkers are with you too.

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Each day, you all have shown up to work-- whether in the building, over a computer screen, or at home-- and you have fed brains. Because that is what you do--you teach. You will get up tomorrow and teach tomorrow. And maybe tomorrow will be the day that the Earth stops spinning. In the meantime, you will continue to teach because the Earth certainly will stop spinning when the teaching stops. Haley Veatch is a 2nd-year ELA teacher at Carver Road Middle School in Griffin, GA.  

The Intersection of Innovation and Technology — A Quarterly Column Very few teachers enter the classroom called by a burning passion to deliver worksheets or chapter questions. From deeply wrought pedagogies to new and developing teacher identities, we all are carving out a path for students to learn and grow in our classrooms every day. With all the hats we wear, who has time to learn new technologies? More importantly, how can we integrate technology as a tool so as to not have it be the lesson itself?

Here at the “Intersection of Innovation and Technology,” we will examine a new tool to use along with classroom skills and research that can be adapted to all levels of ELA instruction. By working to fuse solid teaching practices with new resources, lesson plans are just a few experimental moments away. if you’re interested in contributing to the IIT column, contact Glenn Rhoades at elephantankh@gmail.com.

Mote - A Chrome Extension for Connecting with Students Glenn Rhoades This has been a school year like no other. If you’re like me, then you are getting tired of hearing this; but this trite statement is impossible to ignore. Providing feedback or just talking and connecting with students has been difficult in the best cases—impossible in the worst. I had always enjoyed leaving voice feedback to my students in the past using the school’s LMS, but now that nearly 100% of the work being done in my classroom was happening on Google Classroom for both in person and online (yay concurrent teaching!), I knew there had to be a tool to leave voice notes on all of the great writing my students were doing. I’ve always believed that feedback is the best way for students to grow in their writing when it happens with timely, actionable feedback. Actionable obviously meaning that students can take their feedback and put it directly into use in formative writing before they receive a summative grade on a finished product. With the new workload of planning these

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digital lessons, where would I find the time to actually confer with students or even have individual conversations when I’m teaching 18 students in person and 20 online at the same time? Breakout rooms are great, but with the lag between or the fact that some students don’t always take advantage of synchronous digital instruction, how would I reach all 197 students I am teaching? Does this sound familiar? Well Jen Ray, a colleague at another school, and I were on the hunt for a solution, and we stumbled across Mote — an extension for Chrome — that makes leaving audio feedback as easy as clicking on the button

that gets integrated into your “comment” box when you are leaving a comment —- on Classroom or ANY Google Doc. Anywhere there is a comment box, you can find this extension ready to work for you. After using Mote in the classrooms for the past couple months across our district, I reached out to Jen with some questions to see how Mote was working for her students and her classroom:

How has Mote enabled you to connect and respond to student writing? When we first stumbled across Mote, I immediately began using it to leave feedback notes on student’s completed writing. The ability for

students to hear the tone in my voice or the way I might give constructive criticism helped students to feel connected to me as their writing instructor and offered them the safety to try my suggestions and celebrate their successes in their writing.

What is your biggest success story since you’ve started using this in your classroom? Mote was the answer to the most important instructional tool I was missing while teaching students remotely. When I teach writing, I use “in the moment conferring” or “in the moment feedback.” This was already difficult to navigate if classroom sizes were larger but insert a zoom screen between my students and I and it felt nearly impossible. And along came Mote! While students were writing either individually or responding to open questions in a group setting, I could toggle between the docs or the slides students were actively working on and leave a quick 10 to 20 second encouragement or, redirect them as they created their writing. Now they no longer had to wait for feedback; it was available at that very moment!

What are some of the ways you’ve used it “outside the box?” During our book clubs, I had a few students choose a book as a singleton, in other words, no other peer in that period chose to read the same novel as they had. Normally, this would intimidate me in a regular classroom setting, but, because of this technology I decided to pair or group students across periods instead of limiting them within one class period. This kept the integrity of the student’s choice intact and created authentic conversations. Mote was one of the tools used between these students on a working google doc so they could leave each other reminders or notes about what next steps or next pages to read in order to prepare for the next book club conversation or creation. What advice would you give a teacher wanting to try using Mote for the first time? Use it! As teachers we are constantly seeking ways to create relationships with our students and also balance the demands of our workloads, especially assessing writing. This tool is efficient and accomplishes both goals. Mote is also very easy to

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use and not as intimidating as many other technological tools available. If you only use one new tech tool this year, Mote is it! Jen Ray is a teacher at South Gwinnett High School in Gwinnett County and currently teaches 9th grade English and Journalism.

Writing Conferences: Building Writing Skills and Confidence Part I: Teacher-Led Writing Conferences Ashlie Wells, Ed.D. Since March 2020, teaching has shifted in ways that were unpredictable and, oftentimes, challenging for teachers and students alike. Moving from face-to-face education to online platforms and digital classrooms has now become the norm. Whether your classroom is hybrid or digital, educators now face obstacles and teaching scenarios that were previously unimagined. My own classroom continues to adjust daily to meet the demands of teaching, as well as the needs of my students and curriculum. However, these challenges don’t have to mean more stress or work for teachers, especially when it comes to writing conferences.

Teaching writing can be challenging, but it can be especially difficult when students may be working virtually. Using engaging strategies for instruction can be extremely beneficial for students and help build community in the classroom. Writing conferences are one way to both engage students in learning and writing, as well as participate as active voices in the classroom. Allowing students to participate in discussion about writing with instructors and peers can help to build writing confidence and generate new ideas and skills, which can ultimately improve their writing ability (Bayraktar, 2013).

Teacher-led writing conferences can be easily

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differentiated by skill and content, which is important in helping students identify strengths and areas for opportunity and growth. Through meaningful and focused discussion in these conferences, teachers can help guide students to success. Having a set of varied questions to choose from can help speed up the preparation for conferences. See Table 1 for sample questions to ask students during their conference. While teacher-led conferences can be helpful for students, it is important to remember that the teacher should not dominate the conference. When teachers take control of writing conferences and leave little room for student voice and reflection, students typically make fewer corrections and have little to no improvement on final drafts (Maliborska and You, 2016). Teacher-led writing conferences should open a dialogue between the instructor and the student, so that meaningful conversation can lead to understanding and learning. Another factor to consider when preparing for a teacher-led conference is avoiding focusing solely on writing mechanics. When writing conferences become editing sessions, they do not allow for students to develop as writers.

Focusing more on content allows educators to potentially instill the confidence and skills essential to creating lifelong writers (Ricks, Morrison, Wilcox, and Cutri, 2017). As a result, students may become more willing to take risks with their writing and reflect upon their progress throughout the school year. Ashlie Wells teaches at Marietta High School as well as Kennesaw State University as a Part-Time Assistant Professor.

“The Case of…” — A Quarterly Column Welcome to “The Case of…,” a quarterly column presenting a snapshot of a teacher’s personal story about either an instructional or relational moment in their professional career that significantly impacted their identity as a teacher.

This column is a component of a larger project called the Teacher Casebook. You can learn more about the project at https://teachercasebook.com. Members of GCTE, we want to hear your story, and so does the teacher casebook. If you’re interested in providing your own story to this column, reach out to Kyle Jones at kyle.jones@gcpsk12.org.

The Case of “Supporting Teachers in a Pandemic” W. Kyle Jones, Ed.D. I will preface this entry to my quarterly column with this case does not revolve directly around English education. In fact, I have now been out of the English classroom for nearly four years and spend my days now supporting Career and

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Technical Education (CTE) teachers. Still, the work of supporting teachers at an unprecedented time imbues similarities that tear down subject silos and erode our sense of indifference toward one another. While our identities are multiplicitous, we share at least one--we are all educators. Educators who want and hope for the best for our students, their families, and one another when we know all our education systems’ inequities have been laid bare before us. For some of us, these inequities have always been visible but ignored. For all of us, those inequities can no longer be ignored. As difficult and draining as this pandemic has been on us as a human race let alone as educators, it has also forced a reckoning--a reckoning that I, for one, am energized to see the changes that have desperately needed to take place may finally take hold. The following is a quick account of my work with a teacher leader as we collaborated to integrate intentional Social Emotional Learning (SEL) techniques in the lessons she designed for herself and others. The task is simple, right? Just develop four weeks worth of lessons for teachers to use for an introductory CTE course as a resource since we were possibly starting the school year virtually. Just follow the lesson plan formula--introduce, explore, summarize. Mary, one of several teacher leaders to step up to help create these lessons as a resource, eagerly takes on the task with some thoughtful, initial direction from our office of support. I have the honor of supporting and collaborating with Mary regularly now that she is an official teacher leader for us--a role she had aspired to for a few years. She works feverishly, meeting the initial lesson review deadline. So now I have the opportunity to provide feedback. This is my favorite aspect of supporting teachers just as it was my favorite part of supporting students in my English classes. Feedback, when given purposefully and regularly, is a powerful learning mechanism, especially with remote learning. Looking through her lessons reveals quickly the grave mistake my office had made in our initial guidance. The lesson has the right content and addresses the necessary standards, but it lacks soul, empathy, and care. The student, the whole heart of the lesson, is missing. This is not Mary’s fault; it is mine. SEL is not new. The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) has had a framework and conducted research since the mid-90s. Yet, only recently has SEL seen significant traction in my own district, so when a CTE teacher leader--a curriculum group often underserved in professional development--initially struggles to account for SEL in her own lessons, I am not entirely surprised. What delights me, however, is her desire to learn more. So we do. Together. We go look at each piece of her lesson and put the lens of relationships on each component. We ask these questions as we survey the content, pacing, and formative assessment pieces of each lesson:

• What about this part of the lesson could help a student’s self-awareness? • What about this part of the lesson could help a student’s self-management? • What about this part of the lesson could build a student’s social awareness? • What about this part of the lesson could build a student’s relationship skills?

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• What about this part of the lesson could build student’s responsible decision making?

Sometimes, the answer is “This part of the lesson cannot help a student’s...” and that is okay. The key for us is to identify as many opportunities to address those questions as we can and then be intentional about how students flex those skills throughout a series of lessons. When the smoke clears, feedback has been given, and we discuss the questions, the first four weeks of potential remote learning lessons are tailored to support a teacher growing relationships with students and with one another, building some awareness of one another's needs and concerns while helping students manage both. I will not leave you hanging here. I know there is interest what practical applications of SEL were made in these lessons, so here are a few highlights:

• The first lesson centered on goal setting for the semester and used Flipgrid to chronicle these goals. Students then filled out a form asking students to reflect on how the act of goal setting made them feel.

• Students conducted an ‘About Me’ Flipgrid that fellow students and the teacher responded to to help build some relationships.

• The teacher shared class expectations, but provided students the opportunity to comment on those expectations and democratically build a few together using Padlet.

• The lessons leveraged an on-going ‘Muddiest Point’ Google Document for students to get peer and teacher feedback.

These points do not capture everything used, but they are all very intentional practices to invite students’ voices into a remote learning space and create an environment of support. In reflection, Mary felt these changes helped her start her school year with students’ in mind first. The important point I want to make here is these alterations to Mary’s approach to embedding SEL came at the right time--before the start of the school year. The work we might do now this semester would not likely bear fruit until a new school year. Still, is it ever too early to reflect on improving our practice for another school year? Dr. Jones is currently a Coordinator in the office of Academies and Career & Technical Education in Gwinnett County Public Schools and has served as an English teacher, researcher, department chair, academy coach, and instructional coach.

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Crime and Punishment in Space: Some Thoughts on Theme, Argument, and Among Us Darren Crovitz If you work with young people, you’ve probably heard of Among Us, the cartoonish online multiplayer game of space-based sabotage, suspicion, and survival. My ten-year-old son got into this game recently--it’s pretty popular among his fifth-grade classmates. As he played on the iPad and I watched over his shoulder, my English teacher senses started tingling.

Here’s how Among Us works. Players (usually four to ten in number and differentiated primarily by color) gather in a spaceship’s holding area and are privately assigned a random role in the game. Most players are “crewmates,” with the goal of fixing a series of problems scattered about the ship. Meanwhile, another player, assigned the secret role of the “imposter,” must sabotage this work and murder crewmates one-by-one without being identified. When the body of a victim is discovered by another crewmate, an emergency alarm is sounded, and a one-minute discussion takes place involving all players (the imposter included). Players use text-based chat to discuss the imposter’s possible identity, and a vote is taken. The player most suspected of being the imposter is cast out into space, body tumbling into the void as his or her true identity within the game is revealed to all. The morbid nature of the game is softened by the cartoony player avatars and the frantic hide-and-seek action.

Among Us has several aspects of interest to English teachers (or at least this one). For a game that pivots on a group of people facing a common antagonist and shared set of tasks, playing as a crewmate is a distinctly chaotic experience. Humans are social, team-building creatures… but not here. When literally any team member or partner might be the killer, any attempt at collaboration is a major risk. In this way, the game calls to mind sci-fi films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing, in which the monstrous exists inside the seemingly normal. An existential dread pervades the experience.

Playing as the imposter is (perhaps disturbingly) much more straightforward. You’re a sociopath in camouflage, and putting knives in others turns out to be a lot less stressful than trying to avoid an unknown terror. My son is always excited to be the imposter. When you can leave the game in sudden, gruesome fashion (the murderous acts are pretty lurid), it’s better to give than to receive.

As a teacher, I’m interested in the conversations that might arise from these conceptions of evil and society. Among Us seems a particularly bleak depiction of humans handling crisis together. A lot of good literature deals with the choices characters make in difficult situations: the struggle to do the right thing when the right thing is difficult or unclear. Likewise, we’re used to the notion of an external evil in literature as simultaneously representative of some kind of internal element, a

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moral flaw or some similar weakness. Games are also storytelling phenomena, and Among Us has something to say on these matters (as of course do scores of other video games).

For me, however, the most confounding aspect of Among Us isn’t this predator-prey player dynamic.

Rather, it’s the “Discussion” that occurs whenever a murdered crewmate is discovered and surviving players (imposter included) gather to determine guilt. This chat space would be more accurately labeled “Accusation,” as that seems to be the extent of most exchanges. There’s no way (or time) to present anything approaching verifiable evidence let alone build a case, and with the imposter also flinging suspicion and slander, there’s no process to separate truth from lies. Every assertion carries equal weight, which means they all carry none. More troubling, a kind of pack mentality can emerge quickly on the basis of what seems to be a believable assertion—a comment like “pink is sus[picious]” might be all it takes. If you’ve taught the careful intersecting moves of Toulmin argumentation over the years (with concepts such as appeals, claims, reasons, evidence, rebuttals, warrants, and so on) what typically takes place in an Among Us “discussion” is a nightmare, a condensed mashup of Lord of the Flies, The Crucible, and Kafka’s collected works. Inevitably, an innocent player ends up yeeted into the vacuum of space, and the cycle begins again, with one less crewmate and no way for a more fact-based system to intercede on anyone’s behalf the next time a body is found. Yeah, I know, it’s just a game, and there’s obviously some diabolically dark humor in pinning a cartoon crime on someone else. But it’s also a picture of what a civilization looks like when the bottom falls out.

It might be interesting to pose this problem to students: how could the discussion element in Among Us be adjusted to somehow value facts over groundless accusation? How do you anchor the game in some kind of forensic reality without killing the energy and fun? No surprise, young people tend to be hyper-aware of justice issues, in both their personal/social lives and as a political concept. Some of them will likely have insight into how Among Us and its crude mechanism of judgment operates as an analogy for real-world circumstances, and what changes might make things better. Is there a way

that the game could present some kind of data during the discussion session, some basis on which assertions might be made? What might such data entail? Could the game include more moral complexity? Right now, there’s no negative consequence to lying in Among Us, and the imposter (understandably) is incentivized to mislead. But how might honesty from crewmates by rewarded?

More experienced players will no doubt be able to cite much that is more nuanced about Among Us; my sense of the game is pretty limited. But again, this fact is an opportunity. Even relatively simple games come with implications and assumptions worth investigating, and with students as knowledgeable co-investigators, video-games-as-texts have a lot to offer a classroom anchored on wide-ranging curiosity and analysis.

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Postscript: My son read a draft of this essay and was not shy about pointing out a number of errors and omissions. For instance, the game does allow for some adjustment of quantitative parameters (number of imposters, length of discussion, etc.) and there are some basic social tactics to employ (e.g., try to stick around others since killers tend to dislike witnesses). He suggested that more observational research was needed and was happy to assist.

Darren Crovitz teaches at Kennesaw State University and is a total n00b at most video games.

Middle Grades Writing Contest! The Georgia Farm Bureau’s essay contest seeks entries from middle school students about how farm markets and agritourism benefit both farmers and consumers. Deadline is Feb 26.

Write for Scribbles ’N Bits! If you’d like to write for Scribbles, we want to hear from you! As you can see, we have a number of regular columnists focusing on particular areas of English Language Arts. You can certainly contact any of these folks depending on your interest… and you can also submit work directly to Scribbles editors Darren Crovitz (dcrovitz@kennesaw.edu) and Karen Mitcham (at kmitcham@mgresa.us). When you’re preparing a piece, be sure to check the Writing for Scribbles: General Guidelines document for pointers and recommendations. We look forward to hearing from you!

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