Their Stories, Their Voices with Kourtney Hake and Paige Timmerman
Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome in everybody to the Authority Podcast here on the Be Podcast Network. Thanks as always for being with us. If you are a repeat listener, if you're a new listener, thanks for joining. We really hope to bring you a great conversation here this episode. is part of the National Literacy Month campaign that we are doing in partnership between the Bee Podcast Network and Reading is Fundamental, where we are hosting a number of productive conversations across our network of podcasts.
about developing kids reading and literacy skills, their love of reading and these skills and how it's going to serve them across the course of their lives. So my guests today are Courtney Hank and Paige Timmerman. Courtney has been teaching English at various levels since 2014. She currently works at Sparta Lincoln School in Sparta, Illinois and teaches eighth grade English language arts, but she has [00:01:00] taught all levels of high school as well as first year writing at the college level.
Paige has been teaching high school English since 2012, and she currently works at Salem Community High School in Salem, Illinois. She teaches all levels of 12th grade English, plus including an honors level dual credit writing course. She has also taught freshman and junior English. Their book is called Their Stories, Their Voices, Using Personal Narrative to Empower Student Writers, Grades 6 12.
Courtney and Paige, welcome to the show.
Kourtney Hake: Thank you.
Ross Romano: I'd love to start, and you can each kind of give me thoughts on this, but we'll start with Paige, and then Courtney can add to it. What's the big idea of this book?
Paige Timmerman: I would say our main purpose for writing was that we as upper level ELA teachers have noticed that there isn't a lot of There's a lot of material out there to help older students share their own stories. A lot of the writing materials for [00:02:00] teachers of upper level grades focuses on analytical writing and test prep writing, but we felt like there was a need to, for our students to still engage in that narrative writing that you see so prevalently in the lower elementary grades.
And it tends to disappear, and so their stories, their voices, is sort of our effort to push narrative back with older writers.
Kourtney Hake: Yeah, and with that we were kind of seeing that especially in the research for this book, the actual writing that you see being published has a lot of narrative in it, and yet we're not telling our students that they can include their own voices whenever they're writing, and so we wanted to actually have our students writing reflect what they're actually going to be doing in the real world.
Ross Romano: Yeah, and so, the personal narrative is really at the core of this book. Can you define that for us when, when you're, [00:03:00] writing about the personal narrative kind of Courtney, maybe just give us a definition so that we have that context
Kourtney Hake: So we kind of defined it as sharing your story, using your story for some clearly defined purpose sharing somebody's own experience for a clearly defined purpose, and we kind of broke that down into different categories Like you would normally see in a writing classroom where there's, there is that analytical writing, there is that persuasive writing, but you can also incorporate narrative into that, incorporate your own story.
Ross Romano: behind it. And what what got each of you interested in personal narrative? I think each had a little bit of a, a path toward, this type of writing and what interested you Paige, and then Courtney, you can tell us from each of your perspectives.
Paige Timmerman: Yeah, that's actually in the first chapter of our book because we each sort of had our own reasons for wanting to go down this research rabbit hole. And for me, it's, I've always wanted to [00:04:00] give my students opportunities to do assignments that feel real to them. So to, especially with senior level English, they, they have this desire of wanting to do activities in class that is actually going to help them in the next stages.
And so when I looked around everything that I was reading and my daily life, we use our own stories constantly. Whenever we read anything online, there's usually some sort of personal narrative component where the writer is explaining, their own experience. And then we tell our own experiences all the time to each other.
And so if I wanted to create that authentic experience for my students where they are building skills that they will need in the next steps then I feel like I definitely would be doing them a disservice if I didn't incorporate personal narrative writing. And to add
Ross Romano: And Courtney, how about [00:05:00] you?
Kourtney Hake: So, a lot of it, it came from Paige to begin with, but then the, whenever she first approached me about the idea, I was seeing narrative in everything as well. And it was kind of funny because my curriculum at the time. As an eighth grade teacher does not include narrative writing, except if I get to the very last unit, and then the type of narrative writing is not kind of what we generally think of as narrative.
But then when my eighth graders would take their state test they were always asked to write a narrative. And so they were being asked to use their skills that they hadn't been working on throughout the entire school year. they were really struggling with it. And so I was looking for ways to kind of incorporate that more into the the entire school year rather than just a small little unit at the end.
Paige Timmerman: to that, Courtney, I feel like In the book, you talk about personal narrative and how it's helped you in your own life. Like she [00:06:00] discusses her own experience with journaling and how that's been like a therapeutic activity for her to process things that have happened in life and how, she would like to share that experience with her students. (ad here)
Ross Romano: yeah. Do you, as I referenced in the intro, we have this campaign going on all around literacy during National Literacy Month and and, from the writing perspective, it seems to me that there's a great opportunity when students are engaged in understanding how to express personal narrative for it to have a positive impact on their you know, their engagement with their reading and understanding how that same type of narrative writing is being put into place by a writer, whether it be their peers in class or, an essay or a book or whatever they're [00:07:00] writing to kind of, maybe, have that better connection and understanding of the writer's perspective from a, on the reading skills point of view.
Is that something that you have found or, and, or have you found other ways that this I guess contributes to the development of other, other literacy skills beyond just the specifics of, of the writing Courtney.
Kourtney Hake: I mean, our focus in this one was really on the writing itself, but we did use a lot of mentor text that we kind of used throughout our throughout our research. And we tried to find mentor texts that were within the last 10, 5 to 10 years. And That were telling a story for a specific purpose.
And those texts are ones that we found that were a lot more engaging. And so the more that students are interested in the actual text themselves. They were [00:08:00] able to translate that into their writing as well.
Ross Romano: Paige, what are your thoughts on finding applicable mentor texts that are going to work well for students?
Paige Timmerman: Yeah, I mean, I agree with what Courtney was saying, and to add on to that, through our exploration, so we try, we try to find great examples of each style of narrative that we were looking for, and it led us to these wonderful stories that we probably wouldn't have gotten to had we not gone down this path.
this research process. And one of the things we found during that process was that, text does, it doesn't have to be a written prose narrative or prose, memoir, like we think of when we think of narrative, we found tons of different like multimodal types of texts. So our book, contains projects that include like drawing and using digital literacies and different kinds of text.
[00:09:00] And so I think that's kind of expanding the definition of what it means to be a reader.
Ross Romano: Yeah, excellent. So, once Teachers are committing, to prioritizing personal narrative in their classrooms, in their curriculum. Are there certain beliefs around, making, being able to sustain that commitment but also ensuring that it really works for students and particularly, the, the diversity of student perspectives and experiences that of course we want to encourage them to be able to open up and express themselves personally, but knowing that, everybody has different experience that we can't expect everyone to engage with it exactly the same way or, or that, it needs to be personalized, right?
In order for the teaching to happen. So I'm wondering, are there certain [00:10:00] beliefs around that from the teacher that say, okay, this is what we have to anticipate. This is what we have to expect. This is what we have. This is the environment that we have to provide. Paige, I'll let you start with that.
And then Courtney, if you have to.
Paige Timmerman: It's funny that you asked that question because I think we have a section in chapter one that goes through, here are our core beliefs that we have as teachers that are informing these. units of instruction that we're doing. And one of them is, being able to be very open to allowing your students to go through whatever writing process they need to go through.
So we're really big on the, the Writer's Workshop. We, we spend a whole chapter talking about the Writer's Workshop, which for those that are not familiar, it, is where teachers do a lot of checking in with students and kind of support them in the process rather than just handing them a grocery list of things they want to write, them to write.
So, for those that are unfamiliar, [00:11:00] we, we guide them through that. We also talk about how SEL, Social Emotional Learning, is something that really needs to be at the forefront. If you're going to really hear and respond. These are important picas murals and standards for the class. Title and Subject Conservation of Saving the Classroom Tycocie
Kourtney Hake: Yeah, so we, we did have being sensitive to student trauma, which includes kind of SEL, allowing all voices to be heard. But one of the main components that we talked about a lot, especially while we were in the early process, is allowing the material within the book to be adaptable to all situations.
Because Paige has, a ton of freedom in the classroom. She's basically told, here's the standards, you do whatever you want with that. Whereas at my school for the most part, we're given a curriculum and it's, day one you do this, day two you do [00:12:00] this. And, and I have some freedom with that But it's more of kind of supplementing with these ideas rather than I'm doing whatever I want to and so a lot of it is kind of adaptable to that situation as
Ross Romano: And so what are some of the different types of narratives that students may write?
Paige Timmerman: The latter half of our book is broken down, each chapter is for a different type of narrative. So the first one is called the informative narrative. So your purpose, ultimately, is to inform an audience, but you're pulling in narrative in order to do that. Because sometimes our students are experts on something.
They may not think they are, but often times they are about something. something. It may be like the best jeans to wear to, to go through a day of school, or it may be which tire to buy for their, for their truck. And so getting narrative [00:13:00] involved in informing an audience kind of helps establish your expertise.
It shows your audience, hey, I know what I'm talking about because I've been through this experience. So we have a whole chapter full of different projects where students can use their own experiences to inform or try to teach or help their audience. So that's the first type. The second type is called the analytical narrative.
So this one is where the writer is sort of like exploring a question. They're not necessarily trying to find a concrete answer. It's usually like very open ended questions. that they're exploring but they're kind of documenting their progress of like what they're learning along the way. And so that is a chapter where we have a lot of multi modal projects because the podcast is kind of a good example of a, of a medium where you're exploring Exploring a [00:14:00] question and you're kind of grappling with it and and talking about what you're learning along the way So that chapter is all about different ways to do that.
I can turn it over Courtney Courtney Do you want to do the other two?
Kourtney Hake: well. Sure. So our next one is the persuasive narrative, which people will write persuasive essays. But it's by incorporating narrative into it, you're kind of bringing in the more personal side of it. There's a lot of times where we'll read something that, we don't necessarily care about the topic until we hear about one person's story with it.
And that, that gives them a chance to, to have something that they care about but they can actually kind of try and fight for change with it. And our final one was the Reflective Narrative, which is kind of the more typical narrative that you think of. You're reflecting on some kind of experience or some kind of information in [00:15:00] telling your story about it.
Ross Romano: Are, are there particular things that I guess correspond more with different types of narratives that students are leading to focus on the most, regarding, even though it's, it's personal narratives, are there certain ones that. include more reliance on other sources or others that, like, what, what are some of the, the ways I guess that students are developing different skill sets as they're thinking about the different types of narratives even though they're all related.
Courtney, you can start on that page.
Kourtney Hake: Yeah, so we, we actually have a menu that we start each chapter with. Where you start with the skills that you want to teach for that unit, and we give a list of a certain number of them. And then you choose a project that will help develop those skills. And then you choose a starter project that kind of leads to that.
Kind of a [00:16:00] backwards planning where you start with the, what you want to end with in mind, and then you go back and kind of figure out how to get there. So we do have those kind of skills or craft moves is what we call them. In every chapter that kind of focus more on that type of narrative, but they're, they're easily applicable to all different types of narrative depending on how you're wanting to use them.
Ross Romano: do you recommend any type of a sequence to students working on these, practicing them? I, I, like, for example obviously to write persuasively, it doesn't technically require any, any analytical skills or even technically any facts at all.
However, it might be a priority to say, look, if you can really, do a, a clear analysis of a particular issue that you can then communicate to somebody. And then there's a certain [00:17:00] conclusion that you want to persuade them of that could support that. And that would be, helpful in certain types of writing.
Again, you don't have to necessarily try to persuade somebody when you, after you've done an analysis, but those things could work together. Nicely same with informative, does it matter if there's a sequence? Is there a place that you would at least recommend starting a page?
Paige Timmerman: Well, I mean our book doesn't necessarily recommend a specific sequence because again It's all about I feel like a big theme of the book is you know, your students better than anybody So, you know what their needs are And our book is very much like a grab and go type of build your own unit type of format where, okay, knowing your students and knowing your goals, here are some different ways.
Personally, I like to start Just in the thick of the true narrative, which is actually our last chapter of just sharing a [00:18:00] story because I think like if you can just build those storytelling skills at the beginning of the year, then whenever we ask you to then incorporate it into an informative narrative.
So now I'm asking you to use some of those narrative skills, but also try to teach a lesson. I feel like that's one way to build it. I do think that. building upon analysis kind of helps with the persuasion a little bit because our persuasion chapter is really where you're incorporating a lot of those research skills.
So you're kind of doing that analysis of what the source says and what I'm going to use it for to try to make my own point. So I do think that Logically, for me, it makes sense to begin with just the true narrative and then go into the, the informative narrative and then build into the analytical and then end with the persuasion, [00:19:00] just because again, that one has the research in it, but I would respect a teacher doing a different sequence as well.
Kourtney Hake: that are really good at those analytical skills, and so we can kind of jump ahead to those. And some that are really kind of lacking in the narrative skills. And so we need to kind of pull that in more often. It's just really dependent on your students and what they need to practice.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Are there or I guess the question is, I know a lot of this, as you describe it, the instruction take place within the. the structure of a writer's workshop. Can you, Courtney, just at a high level, kind of describe what that might look like, how you would set that up?
Kourtney Hake: Yeah, so a writer's workshop is a one in which the students are kind of in charge of their writing process. And so you give them the [00:20:00] chance to be at whatever stage of the writing process they need to be at for that moment, and you are working with them, little individually, to help them through that process.
So, a typical day would look like students just, working on whatever they have. Working some maybe at the very beginning in the brainstorming stages, some maybe drafting some maybe working on revisions but they're each working on the same type of project, it's just you're working with, you're letting those students lead their own process rather than doing it all together as a class.
Ross Romano: What does, like, feedback and assessment look like? Who's involved? Is there student discussion, student dialogue, feedback? What kind of feedback is the teacher providing? How are you assessing the work? I mean, these might be multiple different questions, but there's, I'm sure, different things to tackle.
Paige, can you start us off with that?
Paige Timmerman: I'll speak to that. I [00:21:00] will say before I, I start that, this is not a book about writing workshop. There are tons of really awesome books about writing workshop if you really want to dive in there. But what it looks like in my classroom is I try to check in with each student at least once during the writing process.
And that's only because I have so many students. If I had fewer, I would, in an ideal world, I'd be able to check in with everybody every single day. But I just kind of try to make a point to at least check in with everybody once that way they're getting feedback during the process rather than after.
I try not to leave as much commentary. At the end, just because I'm sure pretty much everyone can relate to that feeling of like, okay, I'm done with the paper and I'll read the teacher's comments, but I really just care about the grade at the end. And so, Writer's Workshop is kind of trying to push against that idea and.
And giving the feedback during rather than at the [00:22:00] end of the process in terms of assessment, like I'm looking for, do I see progress from when I checked in with you to the end, not necessarily, do you meet the bar of where I want you to be, of where everybody else in the class is very individualized in that I see that this person didn't have a these three skills at the beginning.
And then through an individual conference, I talked with them and I gave them the ideas of trying these skills. And then their final draft does have those skills. So that's more what I'm looking for. And and, and again, that gets into a lot of assessment, conversations about assessment, which is not really what our book is about.
But I think it's just that idea of being open to just seeing again, letting everybody have their individual process, but also respecting that each student is at a different spot and, and not expecting them to have the same end [00:23:00] point.
Ross Romano: yeah,imagine there's some dialogue from the start. You're getting students to be comfortable diving further, into this type of writing expression and considering the types of personal narratives and also kind of knowing what to expect and hopefully what to seek out as far as feedback and how to improve their writing and what are the, the key skills they're developing within the context of that.
But I'm sure. Those conversations and that process of exploration might look a little different student to student as much as a teacher can accommodate, hopefully, but to, to be able to support that, that development of their own story, their own voice, Courtney,
Kourtney Hake: Yeah, I actually try to encourage the students to do a lot of peer reviews [00:24:00] throughout the process. And, and I'm working with them individually as well, but I, I like them to hear from their peers. Because a lot of times their peers are pointing out things that that I may notice, but they're a little more welcoming to hear it from a peer sometimes than they are from me.
Or when they're. Oh, that finally clicks. And so I try to incorporate a lot of care work during that process as well.
Paige Timmerman: And they're getting more feedback that way, too, because clearly there's only one of us, but I have about, sometimes I have 150 students, in a day, so it's, it's not easy to provide constant feedback. I
Ross Romano: right? How do you guide students on how to provide feedback to one another?
Kourtney Hake: So I kind of, we do it in other methods, like whenever we're doing class discussions while we're reading a text or whatever, I will walk around and help them to do that. Talk about, we talk about how [00:25:00] to talk to our peers. How do we help them with things? How do we guide them to something rather than just telling them the right answer or telling them this is how you need to do it.
How do we give them suggestions rather than saying that they're wrong kind of thing. And we, we practice those kind of conversations. in other aspects of the classroom when we're not necessarily doing writing workshops?
Ross Romano: The page, do you have any anything to add on that point?
Paige Timmerman: love the, and we, we reference this in the book I love the, I noticed, I wondered, I, I heard sentence stems as a way of providing feedback because a lot of times when we ask students to provide feedback on writing, like Courtney said, it requires a lot of practice because they always just want to either just say, good job, or it's, they'll point out grammatical errors and that's it.
And so you really have to make that distinction of, okay, this isn't what I'm asking you to, there's a difference between editing and revising. And so we talk about that. And then whenever we talk [00:26:00] about. Helping another student revise Whenever you use the sentence stem, I notice, it's kind of like a mirror reflecting to the writer back to them what they're saying.
Like, I noticed that you are saying this, and then whenever you read that comment, you can kind of judge, like, is that really what I wanted to convey? And so using peer feedback sort of as, as a guide rather than just an editing tool is something that I really try to emphasize.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. And, and. Some of this may have been indicated in the conversation, but I think it's not necessarily obvious. So it's worth a little bit of, of conversation, which is like how to approach writing instruction in a scientific way. And that's, what that means and what that looks like and what that would be for an educator to think about how that, that approach [00:27:00] plays into this.
Courtney.
Kourtney Hake: I mean, I think about it in a scientific way in that I start first with what am I struggling with? And if when I know this is what they're struggling with, this is where I want them to end up, then I'm thinking about, okay, what do I, what steps do I need to take to get to that end product? And so incorporating the skills a little by little until I feel like they're able to do those on their own.
But it takes a lot of kind of that backward planning to get to that point. (ad here)
Ross Romano: Awesome. Well, Courtney and Paige, it's been great to have you here on the show. And before we wrap up the conversation wanted to, to hear from each of you, what. to you is the, if you can narrow it down to one, or maybe you can, you can have two, but the best thing about teaching students [00:28:00] to write personal narratives, what you enjoy most, what, what it brings to your classrooms I'll let Paige start on this and then Courtney you can add yours.
Paige Timmerman: I think for me it's just A window of an opportunity to get to know my students better, which I think helps me serve them better as their teacher. If I know what's going on in their lives or what's important to them, then that helps me build that relationship that is so crucial. No matter what I'm teaching, there has to be that level of trust and understanding and mutual respect and getting to know them through their writing.
is a way for me to get one step closer to, to figuring out who they are. Right.
Kourtney Hake: I mean, I would absolutely agree with that. But one of the things that I love about allowing students to incorporate their own voice is the level of engagement that students have. It's, it's a lot harder to have them write An essay about something they [00:29:00] don't care about, but whenever you take the topic that one, they've chosen the topic, and then two, they get to talk using their own words, their own voice, they're, they're incorporating their own stories into it.
That level of engagement is just unparalleled.
Ross Romano: Yeah, I can. I mean, certainly speak from the perspective of how students can continue to use writing throughout their lives that for many of us. Figuring out the right way to incorporate personal perspective and personal thoughts and personal story can be challenging, but yet, once you kind of figure that out, it's certainly challenging.
is more impactful on, on audiences when you can demonstrate that relevance and, and why is, why is this person writing about this? And when you can show how you connect to it personally it tells a reader, okay, now I, now I [00:30:00] can see where this is coming from. And,
Paige Timmerman: There's that level of relatability with whenever a writer is vulnerable, then you feel like you can connect with that person more.
Ross Romano: Yeah, it's, I mean, it has personal credibility in the sense of, you certainly, there's certain things that if you're just known for it or associated with a certain expertise, that that might demonstrate the credibility. But if I can speak from my own perspective, at least it has that, and then it can translate into other types of communication.
We're on podcast here. A lot of this is, is. The foundation is writing skills and, and how to communicate in various ways, but then students may learn to do that differently. But it's a great place for them to start. And if you're out there and you're interested in doing more of this in your school, the book is called Their Stories, Their Voices.
You can find it from Solution Tree or wherever you get your books. You also [00:31:00] please do subscribe to the Authority if you're not already for more author interviews like this. We will have a variety of episodes this month. And probably in the coming months as well about literacy in all its various angles.
You can find them here on the show. We also will have them on our other shows across the network. You visit bbodcast. network. You can find more of them if you're particularly interested. In that, and you can also visit our partner, Reading is Fundamental, at rif. org, you can subscribe to their newsletter there, you can find a bunch of resources that they have if you are a teacher who is working on writing and reading and literacy, if you're a parent that's working on it with your own kids or otherwise interested, there's a lot there to check out, so we'll put all those links below, we'll also link to our guests social media and where you can find the book.
So make it really easy for you. Check all of that out. Thanks for being here and Paige and Courtney. Thanks for being on the show.
Paige Timmerman: Thank you. [00:32:00]
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