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Notes from the President:
Never Forget to Always Remember

Jeff Spanke, ICTE President
Ball State University

Greetings, Indiana English teachers.

Just as pretty much every email has begun for the last year, on behalf of the ICTE Executive Board, I hope this message finds you well.

This month, we likely find ourselves very much already in the thick of it, so to speak. Still contact tracing, still asking kids to pull up their masks, still wondering, wandering, worrying, hoping, and trying to carve out those brief moments of peace from the consistently brutal, beautiful chaos of our days. We’re still teaching, of course. Still doing our best to do the good well. We’re all still here.

This month, though, many of us also recall the events of September 11, 2001. As the twentieth anniversary of the attacks fell upon us not more than two weeks ago, I’m humbled by the increasingly poignant reminder that 9/11, quite simply, will always mean different things to everyone.

It took about a decade, sure, but sometime around 2013 or 2014, the day we all vowed to Never Forget inevitably evolved into something that so many of our students just couldn’t remember.

Some of us were teaching that Tuesday morning, perhaps in the infancy of our careers, and can recall vividly getting emails from secretaries or colleagues with vague but insistent pleas to turn the TV on and “watch!”

Many of us were students ourselves that September and have spent the last two decades preserving that day in our childhood pasts, calcifying it, perhaps, as the singular moment when our youth effectively ended and the jarring realities of adulthood sunk in.

Others of us, still, were too young to remember anything about when the Towers fell and have instead spent nearly the entirety of our lives forging stark but artificial impressions of the event from the recollections and narratives of others. We’ve pieced together meanings from the footage of anchors we’ve never seen and the voices of heroes we’ve only met in dreams.

And, of course, it won’t be long before Indiana’s English teachers will speak uniformly and eternally of 9/11 as something that happened before they were born.

Our students, of course, are already there.

And so this September, as we once again find ourselves mired in a moment that will define, in some capacity, our careers and lives beyond booster shots and mask mandates, I find myself returning to those Never Forget posters that have ironically been collecting dust in my attic for over twenty years.

Is never forgetting the same as remembering? As a language lover, I’m drawn to this tension. The absence of action (not doing something) versus the presence of agency (remember!)

What does it mean to not forget? What does it take to remember? What do each of these demand? What do they risk? What do they cost?

In keeping with this year’s mission to reignite our passion for our profession and promote a spirit of community and collaboration among all Indiana English teachers, practicing and preservice alike, this month’s newsletter explores the concepts of comfort, memory, and nostalgia a bit further. Indeed, many of us have spent at least a portion of this month considering the tragedies of the past, while anticipating the struggles of years to come. Yet as we all continue negotiating the complexities of our present moment, we might also be considering the elements of our current struggles that we may not necessarily want to remember, but know we’ll never forget.

What stories will we tell about our Now? How has it changed us, yes, and how will we continue to evolve? To mutate. To form variants of ourselves as teachers, people? What will we take with us, and what will it mean when our masks can finally start collecting dust in our attics, just like those posters we made after the attacks?

Our future students will only know of Covid as a series of stories, and of us as characters therein. As the action and conflicts of our narrative continue to rise, how can we maintain our dynamism, our humanity? How are we avoiding stagnation? What ignites us, offers comfort, illuminates our purpose and path? Because the exposition’s over, and we’re all still here.

We’ve also been here before.

Thank you, teachers, for everything you do and all that you are.

ICTE "Pop-up" Conversations:
The Right to Read and Critical Race Theory

Every year, the "Banned Books Week" celebration encourages and promotes the “freedom to read” for all students. And, each decade, there seems to be a clash of ideas of what ELA classrooms should include as a part of the literary canon. Recently, the concept of Critical Race Theory has been in the spotlight and in school board meetings on what students should read and know about the world they live in and how it has been shaped. Join us for a spirited conversation about CRT and how it plays out in the classroom. Longtime educator and diversity consultant Jacqueline Stallworth will set the foundation for our conversation as we delve into the nuances of what it means to read widely. Join us on Monday, October 25 at 7:00 pm EST. Register for this free event here.

Have You Heard of This?

Chris Judson, ICTE Co-Treasurer
University of Notre Dame

I appreciate Gretchen Rubin's weekly practice of "5 Things That Make Me Happy” There’s some strong research that indicates the more we name and list the things that make us smile, the happier we are. So, in that line of thinking, here are three things (seemingly random) that make me smile today:

1. 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (generator)

For both of our sons (Evan and Colin), music is their language. During the first height of the pandemic, when everyone was home and in one space, Evan suggested joining this site. Based on the book by the same title, the email service sends you a new album from the book with links to your favorite streaming services. The upshot: you get a better idea of great albums that you might have never heard. Also, you can join a “project” (such as a group of family or department or just friends) and have yet another thing to chat about via text or Zoom. In our case, whenever we were traveling together, we made sure we listened to the album of the day. Also, you have the option to rate the album according to your opinion.

2. AFI's Top 100 films (10th-anniversary edition)

The American Film Institute has selected their top 100 American films of all time in list form. Our youngest son, Colin, approached me when he was 11 and asked if we could watch all the films on this list (since we had just watched number 99 (Toy Story). So, we began our journey starting with Ben-Hur and watched our way through, the two of us, all the films. Actually, and I appreciate this about Colin, he would read the parental disclosure for movies that were rated “R” and would usually tell me that it wasn’t appropriate for him to see the film. (He has, later on, has gone back and watched all of those films since). Great idea for Saturday nights for the next two years or so. Note: We were both disappointed that great films were not on the list (those not US produced). So, Colin and I developed two more lists of 100 movies to watch.

3. This New York Times "Baked Rice With White Beans, Leeks and Lemon" recipe

So, this was a crazy popular recipe when I found it in the Sunday Times a year or go so. When I cook for Lori (who also happens to be vegan), I need something good tasting for her and those who happen to be at our house. If you haven’t tried this recipe, give it a whirl--lots of taste, and for many, you might just start using leeks in more recipes. (Here's an alternate site with the recipe.)

"Testing Day"

Lee Douma
28th year of teaching

It was ISTEP day, so half of my study-hall students were filling bubbles in the gym. I was enjoying the fact that I had passed my own test. One month into the school year, the students had completed their examination of this outsider and determined that he wasn’t the clueless, manipulable newbie they’d hoped he would be. Every high school student in the study hall was working, or at least faking convincingly.

Establishing yourself when you’re a new arrival in a small, rural town is tough, especially when you have a Michigan accent and “you talk like a schoolteacher.” People are wary. Some assume you have a superiority complex. My family and I had moved from a few hours away in northern Indiana to occupy my wife’s grandparent’s 1800s farmhouse after Grandma Mimi moved into a nursing home. We were glad to be there, but it was still an incredibly stressful time. The construction workers were there every day, so we needed to keep our one-year-old daughter and three-year-old son out of their way. My wife was paving the first inroads of local social connection through her involvement in Mothers of Preschoolers. Other than a few MOPS, an uncle and aunt, and a couple older cousins, we knew nobody in the area.

On this particular Tuesday morning, Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue was drifting through my beige Altec-Lansing speakers as the students worked and I graded papers. An email notification popped up on my screen. The message was from a social studies teacher just down the hall. He said that something was happening in New York and we might want to turn on our TVs if we weren’t doing anything urgent.

I turned on the TV to find Katie Couric and Matt Lauer explaining that a plane had accidentally crashed into one of the World Trade Towers. They were unsure about the details, but there was speculation about air-traffic-control problems. Most of my students found it interesting enough to look up from their work, but it was just another distant news event. Live video of the smoking building was on the split screen as Couric and Lauer interviewed an eyewitness, trying to piece together an explanation of what had happened.

Then the eyewitness gasped. There had been another explosion, she said. She asked if Couric and Lauer could confirm that. A clip from a different camera angle made it clear that the second tower had been hit by another plane.

To read the rest of Lee's narrative, visit our blog.

"Mourning Announcement"

Nate Johnson
3rd year of teaching

Every year I have been in school, from kindergarten to my teaching career, I have participated in the ritualistic mourning of the thousands that lost their lives in the September 11th terrorist attacks. Classrooms become somber and heavy with quiet sobs from the back of the room and fear is instilled in us with the words “never forget” mumbled under our breath. We watch a video, have a moment of silence, and take ten minutes out of one day a year.

For years I have been wondering, why are we doing this? I was about four and a half when the attacks happened; I have no memory of the attacks and neither do my students. It is because of this that we have collectively reached the precipice of social obsolescence in terms of never forgetting in the classroom. I, a person who does not remember 9/11, am asked to “teach” the day to students who were not even born yet. I am not unique in this endeavor. There are hundreds of teachers like me and thousands more to come. The main problem is that we don’t teach anything. Students are asked to sit in a dark and silent classroom while b-roll of a tragedy plays across a screen. Maybe there will be a discussion where two very proud voices will echo back media warnings that “if we forget then it will happen again.” But this is not remembering; this is mourning.

It is to this point that I extend my question: Who is this for? Our students live in the fallout of the infamous day. The attacks have rewritten the fabric of our society from increased homeland security, Islamophobia, radical patriotism, and the longest war in American history. But we don’t talk about these things, and we need to. In a world of hyper-supervision in education there isn’t the room to have a building-wide, nuanced, discussion about 9/11, or empathy, or cultural upheaval, for a day that is no more resonant to our students than Pearl Harbor or Vietnam.

To read the rest of Nate's piece, visit our blog.

Potluck: "The Constant in my Life: The Public Library"

Kelly D. Vorhis, English Teacher/Part-time Librarian
NorthWood High School

For as long as I can remember, the public library has been a part of my life and I have always felt at home there. Some of my earliest memories are of visiting the children’s department to check out a stack of books from Miss Audrey, the librarian. As the years went by, I spent countless hours browsing shelves, sitting in the aisles reading books, and participating in programs the library offered.

One day almost fifteen years ago, I found myself filling out an application for a part-time position at the Adult Services Desk of my childhood library. Why, you might ask? I guess I was feeling the need to reconnect with my younger self. Or the memories at least. In the intervening years since I have spent two or more days a month helping library patrons find books to read, promoting our community through a variety of projects that our library participates in, along with learning and sharing the wide and varied ongoing story of our city's history.

Shelving books relieves stress and taking a moment to pause in the quiet, back hallway of the library where original copies of the Nappanee Advance News are housed reminds me of why I love words, writing, and teaching high schoolers on a daily basis.

I see myself being involved with my public library for the foreseeable future, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Dear ICTE,

I am a senior this year and since I have been a student for so long taking order and advice from my teachers and professors I have only imagined what I want my future classroom to be like. But I haven't yet imagined the greater school. I want to keep all of the ideas and philosophies of teaching that I have learned as a student to my future classroom but I do not want to overstep the school I am hired into. How do I weave in my own personal flair as an educator without stepping outside the expectations and/or limitations of the school curriculum?

-Olivia Grenier (Ball State University)

Trey Strother
Middle School ELA Teacher

Olivia, I’m going to let you in on a little known secret. Many of your concerns are a matter of perception. No, not the platitudes you may be thinking off — this is not a glass half full or half empty situation — but the truth is that while you may perceive yourself as just a senior imagining your future classroom, you are a Highly Qualified educator full of ideas and philosophies, about to inspire many of your future peers who have spent years, decades, and quarter centuries(!) doing, largely, the same thing because “that’s how I/we’ve always done it.” But then here you are, you’ve spent the last few years in a think tank of future professionals; you’ve lived and learned so many things in such a short period of time that it’s easy to overlook how far you’ve come and the relationships you’ve established already, so be confident.

When picturing the school as a whole, one of the best pieces of advice I can give you is to be yourself and focus on what is in your control. Don’t worry about the rest. In the interview process, be yourself. Give your future admins some credit. If you are honest during the hiring process, with the edges sanded off a bit for good measure, you will land on your feet where you’re meant to be, and that will save you a world of trouble navigating the school as a whole and finding your place within it. However, it’s important to be open to the philosophies and ideas you may not have considered.

I remember attending my first job fair. A sea of prospective employees and employers, recent- and soon-to-be college grads. Those interviews are where you can step on toes without having to worry about not being able to pay back your student loans, and you know what else? They’ll thank you for it. Instead of keeping your philosophies close to the chest and tiptoeing around eggshells, I say stomp around and make sure there aren’t too many for you! Far too often, we forget that interviewing is a two-way street. Always ask questions about the philosophies you hold dearest. Slap it on your resume so they don’t mistakenly hire the wrong person, drop some pedagogy bombs in there and ask how they can support your beliefs. I remember watching folks at that first job fair go booth to booth, practically in order. “Please may I have a job? Thanks for your consideration. Please may I have a job? Thanks for your consideration.” Yikes. It’s much easier to find a school with an umbrella of support that your beliefs align within, rather than rolling the dice or convincing yourself sacrificing your pedagogical beliefs is worth it.

To read the rest of Trey's response, please visit our blog.

Teacher Choices, Student Voices

Submitted by Corinne Gries
Fifth Grade Teacher

Before taking off on a new year of learning adventures, it is often helpful to think and write about where we are from. One familiar way for teachers’ of English to do this is by visiting George Ella Lyon's poem, “Where I’m From.”

5th graders at Christ the King School in South Bend, Indiana, used her work as a mentor text to kick off their year together as writers. They brainstormed as a class, drafted in their writer’s notebooks, and played around with some revisions and edits before publishing. Caden was gracious to share his work with all of you.

"Where I’m From"

I’m from fields and fields of corn,
From limestone mines,
to the smell of gas at The Brickyard.
I’m from a Golden Crown,
From King of Blue and Gold,
In cold but fun classrooms.

I’m from the chicken from my house,
From my grandma's pumpkins and tomatoes.
I’m from the park in the neighborhood,
From my bike to discover a new area with a friend of mine,
From the new neighborhood.

I’m from the snacks in my kitchen,
To the milk in my fridge,
That's in my cereal bowl every day.
I'm from the soccer fields and water bottles,
From the basketball hoops,
With sports and all.

I’m from my family and friends,
From the clover fields and good smelling soap,
I’m From Anywhere.

By: Caden L.

When asked about the process of crafting this poem, Caden confidently responded that he worked to match the number of stanzas in Lyon’s writing. With smiles, he shared his favorite part was writing about sports and family.

Calling All Young Writers!

4th Grade Student Essay Competition – Indiana’s Great Outdoors!
Why are nature and Indiana’s waterways so important? Fourth graders! Write an essay, and you could be honored at a virtual Statehood Day celebration!

Writing Prompt: Indiana’s Great Outdoors! Why are nature and Indiana’s waterways so important? Essays should be well organized and reflective of the theme. Judges are looking forward to seeing your students’ interpretation of the theme. Some ideas to help them include: Why is nature important? How do you enjoy nature in Indiana? Why are water and other natural resources important? What outdoor recreational spots in Indiana are special to you? Why is nature important to a great state?

Winners of the essay contest will be honored on Friday, December 10, 2021 in a ceremony that may be in-person or may be virtual.

Entry forms, rules, and a description of prizes can be found here.

All entries must be received by Friday, October 22, 2021.

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Indiana Council of Teachers of English · University of Notre Dame · 107 Carole Sandner Hall · Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 · USA

Notes from the President: Never Forget to Always Remember

ICTE "Pop-up" Conversations: The Right to Read and Critical Race Theory