My Life in Seven Stories
The bridge between knowing and doing is feeling. - Unknown
Reading the acknowledgments in Becoming a Literacy Leader: Supporting Learning and Change, Jennifer Allen thanks Franki Sibberson for her initial interest in the professional learning activity "My Life in Seven Stories". It sounds like this idea was the seed that resulted in the book we read today.
"My Life in Seven Stories" is the title of a professional learning activity. Teachers make a list of seven titles that touch on past experiences in their lives. Then, they take one title and write about this small moment. They can share with a group of teachers or decide not to, their choice. The purpose is to get teachers to write during monthly staff meetings. Through these snapshots, the literacy leader can then demonstrate a writing strategy, such as revising leads, using their personal narratives. "My Life in Seven Stories" also helps build trust by being vulnerable and integrating feelings into the literacy work.
I thought I would try this here - My Life in Seven Stories:
Dessert in Elmwood, Illinois
Thunderstorm
All-Star Game
The Missed Shot
Going to College
The Apartment
The Move
I purposefully avoided titles related to my kids; I could have created a list of seventeen topics to write about related to them. Instead, each title/topic is about my life.
Below is my short narrative for the title "The Move":
I sat on the front porch of a rustic cabin. No television. It was a summer evening and I was enjoying a cold shandy. Right now, my family and I were in between residences. We had our home for sale up north while we waited for the closing date on our new home in our new town, Mineral Point. Because there was much to do to get myself ready for the new school year, I would come down during the week, rent whatever was available, while my family stayed up north. Not a lot to do in the evenings, I sometimes found myself on a cabin porch, staring across the street at the new school I would soon be leading.
It was at this point that I think our move become 100% real for me. For sixteen years, my wife and I had served as educators in another town. We had friends, were logistically close to family, and had made many connections with other educators. Why did we move? The reasons were many, yet at that point they didn't matter because here I was, sitting on the front porch of a log cabin, staring at a school (and community) we knew little about. This was exciting and nerve-racking at the same time. "How can I take advantage of this fresh start?" and "Will our house sell before we move in?" were questions that constantly swirled in my head during this tumultuous and sometimes lonely time.
Being a literacy leader means that we sometimes need to be vulnerable with our faculty. If we expect teachers to take risks and grow with their colleagues and their students, then we have to model this. My willingness to share a personal part of who I am through writing (and I know I could improve upon this initial offering) will more likely lead to teachers doing the same with their students. If we can cause that change by opening ourselves up emotionally, even a little bit, that may lead to teachers and students discovering the larger purpose to reading and writing.
I don't plan on sharing my other personal stories in this space. One is enough. Maybe we will use this professional development activity in the future at our school. It's hard to be vulnerable without trust, yet without taking a personal risk, trust may never be gained.
Cothren House - The cabin I stayed in