The Heartwork of NCTE 2016

How do you begin to process the wonderfulness that is NCTE 2016? All the people you met, the sessions you attended, the Uber drivers you shared conversations with, the authors’ hands you shook?

In the past we’ve offered a top ten list, but this year we are going to share our NCTE heart maps. Underneath the NCTE’s first theme of advocacy was a second theme that emerged: bring love into the classroom. With the release of one of our mentors’ new books Heart Maps, we felt that heart mapping would be the most inspired and inspiring way to share what resonated most with us this past weekend.

Allison’s Heart Map

In her presentation Leading to Raise the Level of Writing, Lucy Calkins said, “Reading and writing workshop exist so we can be there, in the moment, with students. So we can be people together.” I carried these words with me to every session, during every Uber ride, to every dinner with my colleagues. Teaching is about being together with people. November has been a rough month. I find myself thinking, “I just want this day to be over.” But teaching — and the reminder that teaching is about being together, in the moment — helps me slow down, stimulates my senses, and keeps me grounded in our humanity. The men’s names you see on the left of my heart — those are the Uber drivers who took us around Atlanta. The oval-shaped table surrounded by happy faces at the bottom — those are my students. Teaching is hard, busy, exhausting, overwhelming, disorientating. But it’s also as simple as taking the time to listen to someone’s story and sharing a piece of yours — of being together with one another.

Rebekah’s Heart Map

At every turn, NCTE brought together two big ideas for me — being present and taking action. And maybe those two ideas are really the same. Because when we fully engage with the people who walk into our classroom each day, we ARE taking action in the world. To quote Kwame Alexander, “Teachers ARE the army — manufacturers and purveyors of hope every single day.” As I leave Atlanta and walk back into my classroom, I am full off fresh resolve to take a step back from my plans, my units of study, my to do lists. To look into my students and use the predictable structures of reading writing workshop to fully be there.

Sketch Noting: Another Way to Capture the Inspiration

Kate Baker (@ktBkr4) tweeted this incredible sketch note of one of our sessions, I Kissed Grading Goodbye.

Like the heart map, sketch noting encourages the maker to distill an experience, a text, a presentation into its essential pieces — to identify the heart of the thing.

Can you imagine using heart mapping and sketching noting with your students? Could they create a heart map of their experiences in English this week? What truly resonated with them? What moved them in your class? Could they create sketch notes of the questions still bouncing around in the brain — the main takeaways they want to carry with them?

Before the craziness of Thanksgiving week picks up, we invite you to take a few moments to heart map or sketch note your NCTE experience, to remember the things that are most important to you — the reason you came to NCTE, which is quite possibly the same reason you teach.

Love.

See you soon!

Now that NCTE has passed, and we’re rapidly hurdling towards 2017, Rebekah and I are going to be signing off from the blog for a little while. We need to finish writing our book! But fear not, we’ll be around, and our amazing team of bloggers will continue to churn out brilliance for you to take into your classroom tomorrow.

We wish everyone a wonderful thanksgiving!

Allison & Rebekah