Short Stories & Parent-Teacher Conferences. What More Could a Girl Ask For?!

In my dream world, I consider myself a fabulous writer. I'm on the New York Times Bestselling List. I'm a Newberry Honor winner. I hold a class on Thursday nights teaching young writers about what it takes to be published. To say the least, I live in a world where I eat, sleep, and breathe reading and writing.

All 90 short stories I was lucky enough to read and grade :)
It only took five days to get through them all!

Over the past couple of weeks, my dreams have come true (minus the whole bestselling author part): I've been working closely with my students as they worked on writing their own original short stories. We started from scratch. I taught them the elements of short stories. We worked on developing characters by performing a couple of different activities (journaling about characters and visualizing characters). We also spent a day using plot diagrams to map out Disney movies so that students would fully understand the five elements that are crucial to a good plot (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution). After this, I turned the students loose, and they went to work on creating their short stories!

"The Hurt Inside," written by Lexi, was mounted
on a beautiful hand-made locker she created. The
locker stands over two feet tall. This is a great
example of the product of a student who goes
above and beyond for an assignment. 

In addition to simply writing a short story, I required students to do something physically creative with them as well. Rather than just handwriting or printing out the stories, students were asked to draw an illustration, use colored paper, or mount their stories onto some sort of prop. Some of the ideas my students came up with were out of this world! To the left is a photo of Lexi's locker. Her story, "The Hurt Inside," gives readers a glimpse into the world of bullying and the life-changing effects it has on young people. Here is a list of some of the stories that students wrote:

• "The Balcony," by Brooke (Two young girls are taunted by a young ghost on a third-story balcony)
• "Dreams," by Lizzy (A boy finds out his girlfriend is in a psychiatric hospital, but soon learns that he's the one trapped in Spring Meadows)
• "Crisis in Ukraine," by Danny (A group of students takes a field trip to Chernobyl only to find that the Ukraine government is trying to kill them)
• "Paranormal Happenings," by Emilee (A young ghost from the American Revolution is awoken after a present-day family builds a shed over his tomb)
• "Nightmare of Sesame Street," by Stefani (You can imagine what this one is about...)
• "Letters to Kyoto," by Kevin (A Samurai goes to war, but writes the love of his life letters each day that he is gone)
• "A Stroll in the Park," by Grace (Trick-or-treaters are looking for more than candy this year...they want FLESH!)
• "Some Nights," by Nickolyn (A young lady falls in love with her father's apprentice)

Of course, I did run into some problems, mainly those relating to stealing others' ideas. One student stole the story line from Call of Duty, Nazi Zombies. I'm sorry, but when a man named Tank Dempsey shoots a zombie and a green, glowing ammo box floats over the dead body, I'm brought back to my own game-playing days. Hello! Ms. Noonan is not that old! Another student wrote the story of the three little pigs word for word. I was blown away. Not only was she stealing one of the oldest fairy tales in existence, but she was creating work that I would expect to see in the second grade. And another student stole the entire story from My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. While this assignment was meant to challenge my students, it was not intended to make them struggle. I wanted to give my students the freedom to play with their writing talents and let their stories take them somewhere. While over 90% of the students really impressed me with their work, a couple of them put no effort into their stories.

Parent-Teacher Conferences 

"Welcome Parents," reads the whiteboard in the conference
room. Two of my students, Alec & Emilee (both members
of student  council), were kind enough to do this.

Since I had never experienced parent-teacher conferences before, I really didn't know what to expect. Were parents going to yell at me for doing a lousy job? Would it be my fault that their child was failing? Would parents come in to praise me? How would I conduct the conferences? Am I capable enough to present myself in a professional manner? 

This is where Mrs. D. and I sat for conferences. I sat at the
table to the left. You can see the three piles of classroom
newspapers for parents to take and read. 

In preparation for the sixty conferences I had planned, I did a couple of things. Since our first big writing assignment was our classroom newspaper, I made extra copies of the newspapers for parents to look at and take home. Of all sixty conferences, I was shocked to learn than only about five parents that came said that their child shares his or her schoolwork with them. Then it sank in: These are young teens who have a enough going on in their lives. Why on earth would they take the time to show their parents the beautiful work they completed in class? But when I offered parents a copy of the classroom newspaper, they were appalled by the great work their children had shown in their articles. The parents were also very appreciative that I made extra copies for them (which made me feel really, really good).

Check out our super conference room! At Northwood, many
of the walls between classes are collapsible. For conferences,
we were able to fold back two of the walls, so our room was
the size of three classrooms. Mrs. S. is on the left (SPED), and
Mr. Cooper is on the right (Math). This photo was taken from
behind my table. (You can see the pile of newspapers again.)

I also promised myself that I would grade the students' short stories early if their parents were coming to conferences - that way I would be able to hand parents the most up-to-date grade sheet for their children. Unlike the classroom newspapers, over half of the parents at conferences sat down and said, "So tell me: I'm dying to know what you thought of my child's very long short story!" Some parents told me that they were receiving edited drafts daily from their own children as they worked on their short stories! Because I did not place a maximum amount of pages on their short stories, some students turned in twenty pages of work. How amazing! Many of the other teachers told me that they would have put a restriction on the length, and I completely understand why (grading could become monstrous). But because I love writing as much as I do, I wanted my students to flourish and let their writing take them where it would. Growing up, I was given many, many opportunities to write creatively - I was never held back. Therefore, I feel like it is my duty to let students give me what they will. After all, it's their short story. If they wanted to write me a novella, so be it.

When I gave parents their child's updated grade sheet, I also had extra credit to offer in case the student's grade needed to be brought up. For the seventh grade, I allow the students to complete two article reviews a quarter. Each review (if done well) is worth 10 points. For the eighth grade, students are able to write an essay in response to this prompt: What I would tell America's Founding Fathers. While this essay is required for seventh graders this year (it is part of our Veterans' Day assignment), it is optional for eighth graders. They must do it outside of class because they will have their own Veterans' Day assignment to do in class. This essay will be worth 30-35 points. Many of the parents took these extra credit assignments for their children to complete over the weekend (which is great!). I was glad to see how involved the parents were with their children's academic lives. By forming a relationship with parents, I will be able to work more successfully with students if I have that entryway into their lives outside of school.

My beautiful, delicious, and homemade pumpkin pie!
Thanks, Danielle! :)

Honestly, I could not ask for a better group of students and parents. Conferences were fabulous! I learned so much simply by meeting my students' parents. I was able to get a glimpse into their home lives, parental support, and out of school interests.  And not only were the parents amazing, but the students really showed me they cared about their grades by showing up to conferences. October is Ms. Noonan's favorite month :) And because it's October, Ms. Noonan makes it a habit to talk about how much she loves pumpkins every day! Danielle, a student who I've gotten close with due to our love of reading, did the sweetest thing at conferences: She baked and brought me a pumpkin pie! She hugged me and told me how much she enjoyed having me as a teacher. When we were done with her conference, it turned out her mother was an avid reader as well. She and I talked for another ten minutes about book recommendations for one another. 

So what did the parents think of me? It was clear that I have been making a difference in their children's lives. When I introduced myself to parents, almost every parent said, "So you're the student teacher I've heard so much about." Gosh, it felt so good to hear that! Many parents also told me how much their children loved having me as a teacher. I was so lucky to be able to attend conferences this quarter.