Last week, I presented on my name for the Virtual Ignite for Learning Forward Ontario. When we first planned that evening, it was supposed to be an in-person event. When we switched it to virtual, I was still going to deliver my What's in a Name Ignite as planned: live and with my heart pumping in a fear-inducing yet invigorating fashion. You only have 5 minutes and 20 slides to grab a roomful of people in something powerful, meaningful, entertaining, or relatable. Also, you could aim for all four at once, which is what me as well as many of the people I know shoot for. That’s the premise of an Ignite talk. Your slides auto-advance every 15 seconds. That means that you have to choose your words carefully, create slides with a lot of visual impact and be very engaging. As the due date for our slides grew closer, I grew more nervous. I had delivered a TEDx Talk and love public speaking, but my pivot to teaching online had really thrown me, and the only way I was sure I could deliver this Ignite without being flooded with the anxiety that was becoming a constant companion was if I prerecorded it.
I was supposed to be teaching in a classroom to my daily audience of students who I try to grab in powerful, meaningful, and relatable lessons every day. It’s my 25th year teaching but only my third in a public board. Being of low seniority, I was “redeployed” to the EVS (Elementary Virtual School) the week before school was to begin. I tried to roll with it, but it was against every grain in my body. As the start of school grew closer, I still did not know what I would be teaching. The unknown had never thrown me like this, but I really struggled. Although I was in the same boat as so many others that I knew, it brought me no comfort. I was uneasy and becoming ever more undone. I was unsure about everything, and I could not feel confident about delivering my Ignite live.
As I began recording my Ignite, I tried to find comfort in the fact that I was going to be doing this project with my students again soon. I created the What’s in a Name project 12 years ago, and I started writing about it 7 years ago. It is in almost every BOB presentation I do because it is full of surprises. Even students who know a piece of their name story often don't usually have the chance to find out its origin or etymology. They don't get to consider other people who share their name, and they rarely have been asked to what degree their name suits them or what name they would choose if they were to change it. It’s a project that I love to use at the beginning of a school year because students get to discover and share their name stories, and we get to build our class community around who is in the room. They are personalizing projects that I have shared with educators around the world, and I really missed it when I didn’t get to do it last year.
Two years ago, in my first permanent contract year at the board, my entire school took on this project. I had facilitated it in September/October in my school in York Region, and my principal had been searching for the topic for our school’s now annual film festival. She decided that every classroom in our school would do some version of the What’s in a Name project, and that our film crew made up of teachers and students would pull together the Silver Pines What’s in a Name (W.I.N.) movie. It was a glorious idea, and I had never seen any of my projects done on that scale. It was a challenge to help our teachers find a way into the W.I.N, so I created a list of films, poems, picture books, and activities to give my colleagues choice when it came to instituting the project and helping students discover and share their name stories. It was difficult at times, but it was well worth it when I left an amazing day at Connect 2019 to arrive in time for the Silver Pines Film Festival with a red carpet, paparazzi wall, a film debut, and after party that I helped plan with name-based activities and swagbags. You can read more about it in a previous post titled A Red Carpet WIN. It was a W.I.N.apalooza.
Because of the festivities, however, I could no longer begin my school year with the What’s in a Name project. I was at the same school, and I had to say goodbye to a tradition, which can be a bit sad. Instead, my Grade 8’s started with the Personal Playlist Project, which I usually facilitate second. I am a learner, so that pivot is easier for me because it’s in my control.
Being able to bring the WIN to my virtual classroom was exciting, but I had to make some changes. I had always used it as a diagnostic for presentation and learning skills, so I had a checklist for the assessment. This year, in a virtual space, it felt like it required more choice and a different approach as a formative assessment. Once I received confirmation that I would be teaching Grade 8, I got to work reworking the WIN. One of my key lines of thinking about teaching online, one that will change my practice when I get back to class, is choice. I had to give my students a choice on how they were going to present. I have always provided choice of medium and presentation date because that’s embedded in the BOB Approach. I had not yet, though, explored what “present” could mean.
The WIN had always been a front-of-the room presentation. It was a skill I would help students develop over 5 plus BOB projects, so I knew they would get better, feel less afraid of presenting in front of the class, becoming more poised, better-prepared, and more confident presenters for high school and life. I also give students the option of presenting just to me with the time and revisits to build presentationation skills over time and work their way to the front of the room. I have been asking some more important questions about my teaching practice in the last 6 months, epecially about access and equity. These questions would lead me to evolving the WIN. Now, my students can choose to present orally, visually, with a movie, drawing, sculpture, poem or any other medium that incorporates the expectations under the criteria of research, analysis and style. Here’s the outline in case you want to use it or tweak it to meet your needs. Today is the first day of “presentations”, and I’m excited to see what will come over the next month, as no more than 3 students “present” in a day. I love this project!
This is the WIN video I made for last’s week’s Virtual Ignite (you can view mine and the other presenter’s here). I wasn’t focused on sound quality, so it's not my best. Instead, I was focused on the rules of the Ignite, so my edits were mostly about timing. I was a little embarassed not to be going llve like the other amazing presenters including Jenni Donohoo, Ruthie Sloan, and Maggie Fay. Jeewan Chanika had a time zone excuse, so his had to be pre-recorded. I was glad, in the end, to have the video because now I can share it. I had originally created this project as a response to my husband who didn’t understand that changing my last name meant changing a part of who I was. I made it to tell the story of who I am through my name. Because I have the video, as well, I can use it to express, as I did, in a more concise and visual way why the What’s in a Name project is a high impact, culturally responsive, and deeply meaningful project to do with students. This project is part of my first literacy unit titled This is Me. What better way to declare that than through your name?