A Guest Post from a @joannagwarren, with Thanks to @halseanderson, for Helping Others to Speak & Shout.

It's that time of year for major reflection, especially by student teachers who are finishing their placement with cooperating teachers and supervisors. In this year's crew is Joanna Warren, who happened to also be the CWP-Fairfield graduate intern over the last year (signing off so she could go full-time at Brien McMahon High School in Norwalk to fulfill her dream). 

Funny story, too. When she first came to my office to inquire about becoming a teacher we instantly hit it off: a passion for storytelling, writing, young people, and living our best lives. We also made a Kentucky connection, and I thank the Great Whatever that she found our program, CWP, and a way to make a dream come true at one of the most turbulent transitions in her life (and those transitions kept coming and coming and coming). 

Still, she persevered. Yesterday, she sent me a reflection about teaching Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak to 10th graders during her student-teaching placement. I'm her advisor and always feel proud to hand my students over to Dr. Emily Smith as they complete the final laps towards certification. Last March, the Fairfield University Bookstore brought the author to our region, and I brought my graduate students with me. Speak, I knew, would build muscle for the repertoire Joanna was reading. Knowing Shout was coming out the day after (I read an advance copy - I get lucky sometimes), I said, "Joanna, you can't miss this event." She didn't. In fact, she led the CWP-Fairfield initiative to spread the word. 

I am so thankful to read this note from her as she unwinds the craziness of student teaching, especially at a time when the world had to move online suddenly (with or without resources). It makes me proud to share her words. 

With Gratitude to Laurie Halse Anderson for Giving me a Voice My First Semester of Teaching

Joanna Warren, Graduate Student, Fairfield University

The first time I saw Laurie Halse Anderson speak was March 12, 2019. I didn’t realize it then, but I should have recognized by the date that this experience would make a mark on my story in immeasurable ways. March 12th. Seven years earlier, the wheels, already loose, began to fall off of the life I expected, especially when someone asked me, the year prior, what I missed out on by getting married at 22. My answer to that question led me down a path that crossed with Laurie that night. I never got to become a High School English teacher. That's what I wanted to do.

So, there is a whole lot of universe going on here when I say that reading the final assessments of my tenth-grade students has been both bitter and sweet.

No part of grad school went smoothly. 

Student teaching during a global pandemic? No problem. My father passed away, my mother’s health declined, and I filed for divorce, so a global pandemic during student teaching sounded just about right – par for the course. What a long, and winding road. 

And, ironically, Laurie Halse Anderson has been here with me along the way – I am forever grateful to her.  Books have a way of doing this to you, and I chose to read her and do a book talk in a young adult literature class and then helped to promote her through the Connecticut Writing Project when she came to Fairfield University Bookstore to promote SHOUT, 20 years after Speak debuted. Sitting in the audience, listening to her speak, I connected with her resiliency. The voice was familiar. It was something inside of me, too, but I never learned how to use it. I needed to learn to find my voice....to first speak....to then shout.

Last December, I was offered a choice of texts to create a conceptual unit I would teach to two tenth grade English sections during student teaching. We walked through the stacks of the urban high school book room and when I turned the corner, there they were. A set of books creased and tattered, undoubtedly poured over by students, semester after semester for decades, only to be returned to a shelf for the next audience. 

“This one,” I told my cooperating teacher. Speak. 

I had no idea in that moment, three months later, the last face-to-face words to my students would be, “DO NOT forget your copy of Speak when you go home. You’ll need this when we reconvene online.” 

And just like that Speak made it into the backpacks of 46 tenth graders days before the true impact of a global pandemic became clear. It was March 13, 2020. (Close enough).

For a final assessment I asked by students to create a found poem and to use the words from a section of the novel they most identified with. They could do this in two ways – full-on creative license without any reigns or by following a directive that I adapted from one of my graduate school professors (Dr. Bryan Ripley Crandall). Then, after completing their poem, they had to write a rationale and explain how their poem connected to the novel, and to their own lives. This was the first, full, final-unit assessment I have ever written, and posting it was the absolute pinnacle of my student teaching experience. How would they do? 

A few poems trickled in, and I got chills reading the words and phrases that students rearranged to create them. Speak resonated with them in ways I never imagined: isolation, fear, resiliency, hope; all of the the reasons I chose the book. I knew they would connect. 

So universe, as things come to a close, I see the tangled paths woven into a beautiful fabric of irony. And I can’t help but recall standing in line with my copy of SHOUT waiting for Laurie Halse Anderson to sign it. She asked if I was sure I didn’t want my name in it. I responded, “Just a signature.” I knew the message I was going to read in her poetic memoir wasn’t just for me. Instead, I would carry it forward to the others who are on their own paths. That autograph would be for them, too. I learned to speak in the midst of a global crisis...a valuable lesson for all of us, especially me. 

This morning I tucked Speak into my work bag, and opened SHOUT with a cup of coffee. “This book…(is) filled with the accidents, serendipities, bloodlines, tidal waves, sunrises, disasters, passport stamps, criminals, cafeterias, nightmares, fever dreams, readers, portents and whispers that have shaped me so far.” Laurie Halse Anderson helped shape who I want to be as a teacher, and was with me all the way.

Indeed Laurie, indeed. 

I will carry your words forward. Thank you for being with me on this journey. 

And BOOM. This academic, mentor, advisor, boss, and friend is proud. There is nothing more awe-inspiring than amazing human beings like the two of them. 

Bring on a beautiful day.