In Their Own Words
In 2020, many teachers seemed to have the same question: How do they continue to create community and trust in their classrooms when students are learning remotely or in a hybrid format? For Beth Sheridan, an eighth-grade language arts teacher on the Terrapin Team at Clark Lane Middle School in Waterford, Connecticut, the answer was found in writing – poetry to be exact.
At the beginning of each year, Sheridan, who is now in her 18th year of teaching, normally asks her students to write a six-word memoir, which she said “always give her a beautiful opening to find out what is important to my students, who they are, and how they think.” This past fall, she did the same despite the hybrid format, but she also did something else. She presented the class with short pieces of poetry to discuss and find inspiration, including George Ella Lyon’s "Where I'm From.”
“I wrote a poem inspired by it, reflecting on my own childhood, and then students wrote their own ‘Where I'm From’ poems, which focused on their own unique experiences,” Sheridan explained.
She then introduced the idea that every person is being shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic and encouraged her classes to craft a collaborative poem in the same style they had been studying.
“This is a major moment that we are all living through, and it will shape these children just as other major world events have shaped other groups. I wanted to give them an opportunity to voice what this time is and has been for them.”
As her students individually began to share the pandemic’s effect on their lives, Sheridan took notes and shared her screen, so students both in the room and at home could see the growing list.
“One idea led to another, and each class created substantial and emotional lists. Several classes wanted to reach beyond the pandemic, pointing out that it was not the only traumatic part of 2020, and they wanted to acknowledge that.”
By day two of the assignment, the students were all made editors on the shared document.
“I set them free, students in school and at home, all together in this one doc, to move pieces around, write, and rewrite. It was a little chaotic at times, but you could hear a pin drop the entire time, while different colored cursors blinked around the screen, and I watched the poem change and take shape before my eyes.”
And they did it without opening their mouths.
“They had all sorts of opportunities to talk with each other while writing. There were students in the room together, and the students at home were all on Zoom, so they could have talked about the poem aloud. They chose instead to say it all within the doc. They wanted their voices to be heard. But they did it in silence.”
Yet the words penned by four separate eighth-grade classes reveal more than many requiring breath as the following excerpts attest.
I am from masks and hand sanitizer,
From social distancing, 6 feet at the closest,
and online learning – couldn’t say goodbye to my teachers…From people not wanting to even shake your hand, no matter who you are,
From no hugs and high fives.I’m from the 2020 Olympics getting moved to 2021, from sports games and practices getting removed to no games at all.
I’m from family and friends passing away and not being able to do anything to honor them.
From plexiglass everywhere, toilet paper and Lysol wipe shortages…
From riots and injustice to racism and the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor…
Drenching my hands in Purell every hour.
From coming home from a trip to the store and having to wipe down every item.
Always being on YouTube,
From TikTok dances and new trends,
From watching Wizard Yensid on Twitch all day,
From Netflix, when the days pass by under the covers,
Binging shows like there’s no tomorrow.I am from lacking the proper amount of sunlight because I stay on a computer for over seven hours straight.
I am from excessive worrying and endless fears and anxiety,
I am from no birthday celebrations to birthday drive-by parades.Losing my sense of humor,
Laughing at almost anything now,
From being disinterested in everything and everyone.I am from 2020.
As the project concluded, Sheridan, whose interest in teaching began at age six thanks to her own inspiring first-grade teacher, Ms. Gager, said one aspect of the writing exercise surprised her the most.
“What I didn't see coming was the relief they felt in not being alone in their struggles. I think we have all been so isolated this year that it is easy for anyone, much less an eighth grader, to start to feel like you are struggling with very big things and maybe it's just you. Hearing their peers voice the concerns they had thought of themselves was validating.”
Sheridan also believes the project provided important bonding time and community building when so many of the personal pieces of teaching were unavailable this year.
“The students at home are on mute most of the time, and many are reluctant to speak up when they are home and their teacher is at school. Students in the room are wearing masks, and it seems to have the same effect as holding a hand over their mouths,” she said.
That is until now, thanks to a creative teacher who gave them a voice.
“I put them in the driver's seat. This was their poem, not mine.”
by Karen Gerboth @qualityfloat
To read each team’s poem in full, click on each graphic below.
