I Dream of Betty

Betty White, that is.

Allow me to explain.

Back-to-school anxiety dreams. We all have them, right?

I had my first of the year last week. It was a usual for me. I was unprepared. I couldn’t find my materials. And–as is always the case for my BTS dreams–I was teaching in an L-shaped room where I couldn’t see all of my students.

My one-hundred-plus students.

But! (And there’s a big one…)

Betty White was there! She was my new co-teacher!

She materialized in what is arguably her most famous form: Rose Nyland, that lovably clueless, perennially optimistic member of the best gal-pal group ever, The Golden Girls.

I decided that this was either Betty White reaching out to me from the dead (unlikely) or my subconscious telling me to binge-watch a few or twenty episodes of “The Golden Girls”.


I did. Here is what I learned from everyone’s favorite St. Olafian.

Tell stories.

When I was eight-years-old, I was just worried about the usual childhood things: how much would the tooth fairy leave me? What would I get from Santa? Would I ever be chosen Small Curd Cottage Cheese Queen? It was our town’s biggest honor, right after Large Curd Cottage Cheese Queen.

Stories engage our audience. They disarm. They connect. They communicate our humanness.

“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.” ― Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human.

Be curious.

I had remembered Rose as being the sweet, dumb one, but rewatching has made me reconsider. She is sweet, but by “sweet” I really mean she is empathetic, which is a million times more helpful than empty-headedly, smilingly sweet.

She’s not dumb. She is instead outrageously, comically naive. Naive is just a way of saying you are unaware of some things, or you have an overly simplistic or idealized outlook on the world around you.

Given a choice of vices, I’d chose overly idealogical every time.

And, she doesn’t hide inside her naivete. She’s not afraid to ask questions, even if in doing so she exposes her ignorance.

Let’s normalize exposing our ignorances. We’re teachers–let us lead by doing. Be curious. Ask what you need to ask. Not caring that other people might find out we don’t know everything is a superpower.

It will free you. Give you less to be afraid of.

Stand up for yourself.

Watch closely. Rose, full of kindness and optimism, ready to believe the best about everyone, always willing to give anyone in need anything she owned, was not afraid to fire back when insulted.

Here’s the lesson: a person can be flexible and easy-going until it’s time to throw up the barriers and protect what needs to be protected.

Standing up for yourself–or for your students, who truly need you to advocate for them–is not the opposite of being kind and warm. Instead, it makes you a person your students can feel safe around. You’re honest, you’re direct = you can be trusted.

And, it’s perfectly okay–necessary, even–to prioritize yourself. In education, martyrdom is too often applauded. The truth is, giving everything you have–which our overburdened, undersupported educational system will gladly take, take, take–will only make you useless to yourself and others.

Call a garconanokin a garconanokin. Tell us what you think. Say “no”. Be strong in yourself and model this strength to others.

Trust yourself. Listen.

Eat cheesecake. Tell stories. Laugh. Love. Teach.

Creating Culture Through Peer Writing Feedback

“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic.”

J.K. Rowling

I first encountered writing workshops as a pedagogical practice back in the nineties. I learned at the feet of such greats as Donald Graves and Nancie Atwell.

Over the years, I have experienced writing workshops from all angles: teacher, writer, workshop-facilitator. It has become clear to me that writing workshops aren’t *just* about writing.

The Advantages of Writing Workshops:

  • Self-Expression and Choice

Besides the obvious academic benefits of writing, expressing yourself on paper makes you happier. Writing alleviates stress and boosts confidence. It gives each of us an opportunity to explore our own thoughts and to pull the covers off our anxieties, exposing them for what they truly are. It allows us a sense of control no matter how unpredictable our lives are. 

  • Connecting to Each Other

In the environment of a supportive writing community, one feels less alone. It is also a place where students can see how their ideas are similar and how they are different, and it is a place where we teachers can emphasize this important truth: every one of us has something important to say. This sense of writerly camaraderie and respect ripples out into all aspects of classroom culture.

  • Authentic Learning and Student Independence

The very nature of a writing workshop lends itself to fostering student independence and agency.  Writing moves from being an assignment one has to suffer through to get a good grade to a worthy endeavor in which students make all the important decisions “real” writers make: topic, audience, style, form. Students are invested because they determine their own topics and purposes.

  • Encouraging Students to Dream Wildly

No matter the subject, writing is an exercise in optimism. Giving students the place, permission, and community in which to express themselves however they choose encourages the kind of wild, out loud dreaming that extends itself beyond the reaches of our classrooms. This habit of dreaming has untold power in our students’ lives, and, by extension, in the entire world’s future–anything is possible.

First Steps to Creating a Writing Workshop

  • Daily Journal Writing

Students must first get into the habit of writing without editing. They need a safe place for frequent, low-stakes writing. That place is your ordinary composition book, a given topic, and a time limit. At the start of each class, students free-write for five minutes. There are a number of places to find journal-writing topics online. I also supply thought-provoking quotes, first lines of fiction to write from, and picture prompts. I tell them that it’s okay to get off topic. It’s okay to write about whatever you want if you don’t like the topic of the day. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation. Make a list if you want. Just write. 

  • Selecting, Drafting, Sharing

Through journaling, students collect ideas and rough drafts for creating working drafts. At every stage, I model the process, taking pictures of my messy journal entries to post digitally and talking them through the decisions I’m making as I type out a gem from my journal, putting emphasis on the plasticity of all of it. Students should be encouraged to trust their own instincts when it comes to their work, with plenty of gentle nudging and technique-focused mini-lessons along the way. Students then share a piece of writing on a shared google slides deck. 

  • Feedback, Revision and Editing

We first watch “Austin’s Butterfly” to illustrate how small, specific pieces of feedback can help a student improve his/her work dramatically. Students are then required to use digital post-it notes to respond to at least three of their peers’ work. Students give their feedback in two-three sentences. They must begin by stating one thing they love about the piece. Ideas include how the writer gets the reader’s attention, a specific detail that brings the piece of writing to life, or the overall idea for the piece of writing. Then, they offer critical feedback, either offering a suggestion, beginning with the prescribed phrase: “I wonder what would happen if…” Or, students point out places where ideas need to be clarified: “I was a little confused when…” This feedback is incredibly important and requires a great deal of modeling. Students are not permitted to comment on grammar usage, punctuation, or spelling–that’s my job as the editor.

I hold mini-conferences with each student, helping them measure their purposes of writing against the feedback they receive. This, in addition to whole-class mini-lessons, gives me a chance to teach specific writing skills.

  • Publishing

Publishing work can take many forms. I love to host student readings, either in-person or virtually, and create digital publications, including online literary journals and blogs. One idea I’m currently working on is online journals that are edited by students, wherein students create a literary magazine with a theme, such as Science Fiction or Opinion-Writing and students then “submit” their work for consideration. Students also keep their writing pieces in individual portfolios for record-keeping and ongoing assessment. I keep a record to ensure students reach Common Core standards in the three major forms of writing: explanatory, argumentative, and narrative by the end of the year.

Here I am.

My name is Susan; I’m Ms. Yergler at school. I am here to share my love of teaching. I am here to encourage. I am here to inspire. I am here to share fresh ideas in the craft of middle grades ELA teaching.

I have taught English in various capacities and to various ages for more than twenty years. I’ve taught Creative Writing classes at the university level and small-group writing classes with elementary kids. I’ve taught at adult summer writing camps and overseas. Closest to my heart and the center of my creative talents, though, is the middle school student. I just love them.

I believe my most powerful tool is, to put it simply: me.

I believe your most powerful tool is, to put most powerfully and truthfully: you.

We start with our authentic selves. We begin there, as real as real can be, and bring that authentic self out to connect organically and powerfully with our young students.

Let’s begin.