In this episode of UEN Homeroom, Dani and Matt are joined by YA historical fiction writer Steve Capone. Listen to learn what inspired Steve to be a writer and how he helps students see the joy in creative writing.
In this episode of UEN Homeroom, Dani and Matt are joined by YA historical fiction writer Steve Capone. Listen to learn what inspired Steve to be a writer and how he helps students see the joy in creative writing.
Steve Capone: http://www.caponeteaches.com/
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Hey Dani.
Hey Matt. How's it going?
So, good. Have you read any good horror novels lately?
Ooh, lately-- no-- and ever, also no. I don't like anything scary.
I'm sorry. But it's Halloween, like, you should at least get a little scared, right?
I just barely watched Scream for the first time last year, or maybe two years ago, with my husband. And it took a lot of coaxing. I'm not-- I don't like it. I don't like being scared.
Well you know who does like horror novels?
Who?
Our guest today.
Oh. OK. I guess we can talk about it then.
Yeah. Our guest today-- I had a really good conversation with him before the podcast-- through social media-- about horror novels and how we disregard them a lot of the times, and I just found it absolutely fascinating. I was so excited to have him on the podcast today.
That is awesome. What's he going to talk to us about today?
So today we have Steve Capone, Jr., who is a teacher here in Utah at The McGillis School. And he's a writer and a teacher. And he currently is working on a couple of novels. And so we're having him come in and talk to us a little bit about the writing process, what he does with students, and his journey to becoming a published novelist.
This is fantastic. I can't wait.
Let's get into it.
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UEN's Professional Development Television is your source for an inside look at classrooms around the state and how Utah educators are implementing best teaching practices. Visit UEN.org/pdtv and start watching today.
Man, I'm excited about our guest today. We're really lucky to have you in studio today. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Steve. What's your background? Where did you come from? And a really big question-- how did you get into writing as a teacher?
All of these questions, like for many people, have many-- it's a confusing path. It was not intentional. I didn't intend to be a teacher. I listened to a recent episode where you had another guest on who said the same thing.
Came to education kind of late and-- I didn't exactly come to education late, but I came to teaching young people pretty late. And I think my first class of young students was when I was about 29 or 30 years old.
But I started out in life in Pittsburgh. And I was a terrible student. And I hated school. And I was the kind of kid who every day I woke up, and I said that I was sick with something, and I couldn't go to school. And I dreaded it because I went to a really strict parochial school in Pittsburgh-- to a Catholic school-- like many, many suburban kids. And I learned to hate learning. I learned to hate education.
And by the time I was in 9th or 10th grade, I was pretty sure that there weren't-- the kinds of jobs that would suit me weren't really out there. I really didn't feel like I had prospects.
And fortunately, I got into a really small learning environment. And as we know, different environments work for different students. I think it was about a 3 to 1 ratio. I was basically in an alternative school for kids with no permanent records and with no police rap sheet. And once there, I realized I actually loved learning. I loved reading. My teachers allowed me to pick stuff. I mean, that informs my teaching today. But they allowed me to pick what I was reading a lot of the times, so I was reading like James Joyce and stuff in the 11th grade. And we were doing line by line through Walden. And it taught me that I loved learning.
So I went to college, studied philosophy. I went to grad school. I did a master's in humanities at University of Chicago, which I benefited from greatly, mostly because of just being surrounded by the kind of learners that were there gave me a different experience than I got at my liberal arts college, Washington & Jefferson College in Pennsylvania.
And then I came here to the University of Utah intending to pursue a PhD in philosophy. I ended up taking a master's in 2013. And I had been teaching as a graduate student and on the side because graduate stipends don't really pay the bills, I think.
And so, I got into the classroom-- the fifth grade teaching realm-- which is where the real money is compared to being a grad student in philosophy--
[LAUGHTER] Comparatively.
And, yes, it was, like, major. It was like a 300% pay increase, basically-- immediately, with no experience. And I learned that I actually really love teaching kids. And I could bring the joy that I came to very hard. You know, it was a difficult path to come to really enjoy learning. But because I had really come to it on my own and found a way that I can communicate to young learners, I'm kind of the guy who knows why the kid is bored in class. And I know why somebody doesn't want to do XYZ work, or is resistant, or doing task-avoidant behaviors in my classroom.
Like, I understand that. And then I can have that conversation on a real level with them. I understand what's happening. You don't love the material naturally. You don't have a passion for this material already? Well, let's find a way in for you.
And I can usually do that with kids, a lot of times through choice. So I'm kind of big on choice. I learned to gamify my classroom from Michael Matera, and Quinn Rollins, and a couple of other education superstar guys who would probably blush to hear me call them that but definitely educational heroes of mine.
I'm kind of a generalist. I was hired as a history teacher at The McGillis School in 2017. And we do an integrative studies program there that is interdisciplinary. And I do everything really from teaching-- right now I'm teaching summarizing and comprehension skills in reading the allegory in Animal Farm with my eighth graders. We're doing research on xeriscaping and the water crisis in my seventh grade classes. They're actually doing design-thinking projects around my yard because, as I told them, I would rather set my house on fire than design it myself. And I don't want to go outside. I like the books inside and the air conditioning and all that, so.
That was a really long answer. But, I mean, I'm continuing to learn, continuing to push myself. I'm always taking classes on the side. Last year I took a novel writing workshop at University of Chicago online for half a year.
And your other question was, how did I come to writing. I mean, I've been writing this whole time. I wrote my first, quote unquote, "book" when I was 14. And it was maybe like 80 or 90 pages long. I was really proud of it. And then I lost it immediately, which still hurts. It was very bad. It was basically The Doors of Perception written in 1999 by a ninth grader. And it was about as good as The Doors of Perception. But I didn't write for a while after that. Then it was all academic writing for about 10 years, and some small publishing of articles and stuff.
But, yeah, I was able to start creative writing in 2013 after I left graduate school. And really, I mean I've written four books now. One of them is in the process of being published, and three of them are on the shelf. We'll see what happens.
But I've been working really hard. The people around me have seen me fail repeatedly. And that's a good sign that I'm working hard-- probably about 200 rejections in the last two years. I hear these stories-- people always like, well, if you just keep working it'll work out. And the truth is that it might not. And I'm aware of that. But I really love writing. It is an anxiety relief for me when I feel anxious. I know that I have some pent up energy-- it's time to write. Some people need to go out and run. And I don't run, but I do write, so. That's the thing that helps me.
I'm blown away. I didn't know all of that background about you. You've had a really interesting life. And I love that you are talking about failure in writing but also trying new things in education. And like, for us, I know Dani-- we talk about that a lot on this podcast about failure, but then also trying and risk, and trying to see new things.
Why do you think you got into creative writing? And then, how has it morphed into a focus on like YA fiction-- young adult fiction?
I got some I got some flack, when I was in grad school, for wanting to be a teacher because I spent a lot of time at these research universities where a lot of the profs think that the job that I want is their job, and any other job is not a great job to have. When I would talk to them about how passionate I was about helping the undergrads learn philosophy and talk about Kant or talk about Kierkegaard-- like, if I could get kids excited about that or young adults excited about that, then that would be pleasing to me. It would be gratifying if I could communicate effectively. And that has been a passion of mine since then, I would say.
Helping kids to experience growth through failure is definitely a theme of mine. And I totally lost track of the question. Can you repeat it?
Oh, I think you're hitting it dead on is this idea of how writing for you has been a practice of success and then failure over time. And how do you kind of exemplify that for your students?
Oh, so this is great. I have a direct way of exemplifying or showing that failure is a part of the process. And that is, I read my rejections aloud to my class whenever I get a rejection and they happen to be around. Like, if I get an email or something, and I am flipping over to my email, I say, oh gang, here's the latest rejection. And then I read the form rejection. And they're like, oh man! And then I'm like, well, whatever. If I'm not getting rejected it means I'm not trying.
And I try to put that in their heads through other ways, as well. I mean, when we have assignments, they're allowed to do revisions on their work Although we don't want it to turn into an endless chain of revisions and spinning wheels. But there are ways that we have in our classroom to do revisions.
And I don't have punitive grading. I try only to grade the skill that we're assessing. And I'm not grading compliance. And I'm not grading lateness or time management. There are final cut-offs, but I want them to try, and try repeatedly sometimes. And even when they get that 10 out of 10, or whatever it is, I'm giving them feedback about what could be better. And I'm praising them and also saying, this is not a big deal but note, you could have a clearer topic sentence here. And here's why. Or here's how. Or here's an example.
Or I try to start a conversation, person to person, with them, not just leaving a comment on their document-- because sometimes they don't read that stuff-- and show them how it might be better. And I praise them for their great job that they've done so far. And I continuously am saying to them, if you had this down right now, if you--
I had a student recently say I'm not satisfied with my work in the first three weeks of school. And I really intend to get better. And I'm sorry I haven't blah blah, blah. And I said, don't worry. It's the beginning of the school year. All you're showing me is you belong here. You're not in ninth grade yet. You're in eighth grade, and that's OK. Like, if you knew all this stuff already you wouldn't need to be here. So what we should be worried about is if you already know all the things.
Nobody-- I mean, I don't know if it's like-- I try not to use sarcasm, per se. But I'm a little bit over the top sometimes with my students. And so, I'll tell them, like, look, all of us were babies at one point. And babies are terrible at everything. And if they were to not continue forward after failing, none of us would it be any better than a baby is at anything. It's ridiculous, right? But that's the thing-- we should expect to be bad at the things that we're trying.
Absolutely. And I think-- I don't know if it's shame, but there is definitely embarrassment in school if you weren't up to where you should be, and that the teacher always did things right. And the students were just trying to do their best. And that's not how we learn. We learn by actually failing and doing things wrong and moving along from it. So I love that not only are you helping them deal-- kind of scaffolding the failure process, like here's where you need to improve, here's where you're doing great-- but you're also showing them that failure doesn't end. Because if it does then, like you said, you're not growing. You're not trying.
Yeah.
And on top of that, like, I love that-- I called it in my writing classes-- because I used to teach English as well-- is the "praise sandwich. " So you got your bread-- that's your praise. And you're always beginning and ending any feedback with a student with praise. Hey, you're doing this well. You're doing this well. And then you sandwich a few things in there that you would like to see them evolve with and grow with and do better at-- not anything condemning the work, but enforcing that they grow. And that's part of that whole process that Dani is talking about here of, we want kids to move forward. We want students to write. Why condemn them?
Right. Yeah, I have adopted this saying to be OK with bad first drafts-- "Expect the first draft to be bad." If we're expecting the first draft to be good then we're confused about it. And I don't know if it was Lorrie Moore or another one of these awesome writers who has written a nonfiction book about how to write. One of the lines is like, expect to write a bad first draft. And it's through-- the saying is "rewriting is writing." And it's through revision and repeated takes on something that it actually becomes good. And the first thought that we have is often a bad thought.
We were talking about our design thinking project yesterday in seventh grade. And I mentioned the rule of 41 ideas, which, in design thinking, it's this idea that you should continue to brainstorm and ideate, they say. They like that fancy word. Continue to brainstorm until you get a minimum of 40 or 50 ideas because the first 30 to 40 are probably not your best. And even if you do have a really great one in there, you can always come back to it after 50 ideas and say, actually, number 7 was the best idea I had.
But something that I used to do as a young student was that I would just assume that my first effort was the best I could do. And I would essentially refuse to do anything beyond that. And I was blessed/lucky/whatever you want to call it-- privileged-- that the first effort was usually good enough to get by. I didn't have to study until grad school. And so, it was really like-- I got extremely lucky with that.
But what I learned getting into grad school and being in these situations where my first effort was never good enough, and there was always a lot to improve, I got used to this idea that I cannot just-- my first effort is my best first effort. But that is not the best overall effort. And it's apparent when I read these works of fiction.
Like, right now I'm reading Stephen Graham Jones' My Heart Is a Chainsaw, which, if anybody is into slashers it is like-- here's the thing, I didn't think I was into slashers. But as it turns out-- I knew I like the Scream series of movies. But those are the only slasher movies I really love because they're kind of ethereal. They're kind of like they're talking about what slashers are. And this book is kind of like that.
And what I see when I read Stephen Graham Jones is a work-- it looks to me, and I am at risk of telling myself, it is like a work of genius. This is a work of genius. It is, in truth though, a work of very careful crafting. And it is a work of revision and likely editorial supervision and notes. I mean, I'm getting OK with this idea that the thing that we see the author produce, when it is put in print, it's kind of like they've got to cheat before it got to us because they've been through so many rounds of revision, and they have been through, potentially, teams of editors giving them feedback.
And I mean, in one of my unpublished manuscripts now I had like 60 readers already go through it with a fine tooth comb, and other editors and other writers go through it and give me pages and pages and pages and pages of feedback. So, now I'm a lot more comfortable with this idea. And I do my best to try to communicate that to students.
When they feel as though their first effort is the best it's going to get, I'm prepared through my experience to let them know that I know it can be better, even if they tried really hard. And that doesn't mean that the trying was a failure in a negative sense. What it means is that was a great first take, and now there's this other thing to do to make it even better.
Right. And I think a lot of times you have to get the bad idea out. Like, step one is like, get out the bad draft. I remember when I was writing my dissertation with a team. And we handed in our first draft. And our doc chair was like, there is not one good idea in here. Like, there is-- nothing is coherent. And we're like, we know. We know, but we had to do it. We had to get it down. And then our second draft, she was like, I can't even believe you did this. I can't believe that it started here, and in one draft made it here.
But I think it does take all of that practice of getting feedback, and getting used to it, and understanding that it's not a bad thing, that you're not a bad student. But I think--
Pushing the ego down--
Yeah, but I think it takes a long time. Like, I don't think I got comfortable with feedback until maybe grad school the second time, you know? It's not an easy thing. And I'm wondering if there's anything that we can do or say to help our students get more comfortable with this kind of feedback without it taking their entire academic career.
So I learned a lot from game psychology. And one of the things that I learned from game psychology is that players return to games even if their character in the game dies repeatedly if the cost to them is low and if there's an incentive to carry on.
So I try to make small failures a regular part of my students' experience with lots of praise. Like, I'm going to praise their attempt and coach them forward. And the fact that there is essentially no cost to you of having a bad first draft-- there's no hit that you're going to take. You're not getting a bad grade. You're getting another opportunity. Or you're getting lots of praise for doing this great work that you've done, and now we're going to carry forward.
And I think that part of-- and Matt, you mentioned pushing the ego down-- I think that-- and this is not to contradict you but to kind of "yes and"-- when we see this, it comes out as ego. And it displays for us as ego when we say like, "Oh no, it's good. It's good. I know it's good. This is the first version, but yeah, I did a great job. I worked hard. Trust me."
A lot of what's happening there, I think, is a fear. And to figure out what to say to the student to help them through that ego is to help them understand that it does come from a place of fear. Or if they can't understand that it comes from a place of fear, I as the teacher can be in the room with them, knowing that they're working from a place of fear, and then try to assuage that, try to alleviate that fear, and try to walk them through it, maybe in a kind of tricky way where I'm not telling them, "you're afraid," but realizing that that's what is inspiring that kind of maybe overcompensation-- that compensatory ego thing that happens where we just say, "I'm sure it's fine" because I'm afraid it's not. I'm afraid you're going to think I'm an idiot. I'm afraid you're going to think I'm a bad student.
And I relate to that. And I am honest about that. Like, I am afraid that my fellow writers, when I hand them my pages, that they're going to say this is garbage, and you're a bad writer, and you should stop now.
That the paper will be more red than black by the time you get it back.
Well in truth, all of the papers that I give to people are more red than black when I get it back. And when I do edit my own work, and I open up my printed-out manuscript because that's how I edit, it is more-- I mean, I'm going to cover that page with comments and with corrections. And until I can go through without doing that, I feel like that is the process.
And I will cover my students pages. And I will warn them. And I'll tell them, "Look, you're going to get back a sheet of paper with a lot of words on it. And I'm trying to organize them so they're clean and clear and visually not confusing. But there's going to be a lot of stuff on there. And I don't want you to think this means that you're bad because, hey, here's an example of my work." And I hold up my work with the red marks all over it. And I say, "This is what good feedback looks like. And our job is to find what we can do better, not to find out all the ways that we don't need to do any more. If you're building a case in your head right now that everything is fine and you don't need to do anything, I want you to fight that instinct, and look for a thing you can work on. It doesn't have to be everything all at once-- just work on a thing and move forward with that."
Yeah. One thing that always comes to mind is, I was taught by a very good writing teacher in my undergrad that students can only take in about three pieces of feedback. And so I think there's something so valuable to say, I'm going to, in essence, red ink your entire paper, but here's the bullet points of what I think that you could build on, that you can focus on. And if it's just one of those three, that's great. You're doing wonderfully.
Yeah, and I'm thinking-- I think every teacher has to do this. We have to look at the student, and find out where they are, and meet them where they are, and figure out how to move the ball forward with them. If this student really struggles with writing, what is the one thing that I can help this student with to really help them move forward?
We were doing these personal memoirs a few years ago. And we had a four or five week unit just on personal memoir. And we were reading examples. The first thing that students have trouble with, with a lot of creative writing, is they end up summarizing, and I can't see any of the action. And so we talk about that. What does it look like to show the action happening? I mean, adult writers as well as young writers have this challenge. And what we did was we asked them to slow down like a minute of their life and just write about everything that happened in that minute.
And I had this writing exercise I did a few years ago for an online class. And the exercise was pick a 10 second period of time that was very impactful for you, and write that 10 seconds.
And so I wrote about wrecking a motorcycle on Interstate 15 at 70 miles an hour in 2012. And I wrote about the feeling of coming off the bike. And I wrote about the feeling of hitting the concrete at 60 miles an hour, and of sliding to a stop with the bumper of the car in front of me maybe two to three feet from my head. And I was wearing all the proper gear and all that, so I miraculously walked away nearly unscathed. I was essentially just bruised for the next two months but very easily could have been dead. I feel like that was my free one. I think Peter Griffin says everybody gets one. And Spider-man agrees. And I got my one right there.
And I wrote this three-page assignment for this writing class where I just slowed that minute down. And I wrote about how it felt, and the wind coming up through the collar of my helmet, and like everything that I can look back on and remember or that I felt at the time.
And I helped my students to slow down a minute of their lives. And I had a student who was really uncomfortable with writing. And essentially what this student did was they wrote a paragraph about a sled ride down a hill. And it was just, "I got in a sled. My brother pushed me. I went down the hill. And then I ran back up again. It was so fun." It was something along those lines.
And through working with the student a little bit at a time, I got them to expand that moment and write about what the snow felt like underfoot, climbing into the sled, and whether it felt like it was slippery underneath, like the sled was moving. I asked basically a series of questions. And one of the things I've learned as a writer and as a teacher is a lot of times all we have to do is ask ourselves questions about the moment to help us figure out what it was built from-- like the component parts of that moment-- and then we can write through the moment. And that kind of exercise is kind of like the most common thing that people struggle with that I think I can help my students with.
I just want to point out that as you were talking about your motorcycle accident, not pictured was Dani squirming in her seat about that.
Ooooh! Makes me so nervous! Glad you're OK.
A buddy of mine was riding behind me and watched it happen. And he hopped off his bike. And, I mean, all the cars had stopped in front of me. There was a blind hill. And when I tried to steer, being a relatively new rider with about 1,000 miles of riding under my belt, my instinct was not yet trained. And I tried to steer while braking, which, if you ride a motorcycle, you know is a no-no. You can't steer while you brake. And when I released the brake, the wheel caught, and the traction held, and I went over top of the bike. And I slid as if into home plate. I slid feet first, somehow. And it was kind of Providence that kept me alive that day, I think. I got my one-- got my free one.
So, I'm wondering, do you feel like you are turning into the teacher that you needed when you were a student? And when you were a student, what do you think you needed from your teachers that you weren't getting? And do you have any teachers that you think back that were like, oh yeah, they really helped me turn into the creative person that I am?
Yeah, I think back to Mrs. Schinhofen, my high school English teacher, who let me pick and choose. And she certainly put some guardrails on it and helped me to understand what it was to analyze a text. She treated me with respect. And that was a big, big, big part of it.
In college, Lauryn Mayer and Arlan Hess were my English profs that really had a strong impact. And they challenged me constantly to-- well, so Arlan's thing was to tell me what a good job I was doing in a variety of ways and give me some tough feedback. And Lauryn's way was to give me a lot of tough feedback and still encourage me. And to this day I'm friends with both of them. And they were the teachers that I needed because they treated me with respect. They encouraged me to keep going. And they pointed out what I needed to do better. And I really felt like they cared about me personally.
At one point, I took a few days off of college. I think I was taking about a week off per semester to go see the band Phish play back on the East Coast. And I remember-- first Phish concert I went to in February of 2003, when I arrived in New York City at 6:00 AM after driving all night, I wrote, kind of in a fever dream, wrote about the drive. And I wrote about my excitement. And I sent it to both of my professors. And I was like, here's why I'm not in class. I just got to New Jersey. And I'm going to go see Phish. And this is my rock and roll adventure.
And they were like, that's cool. And to not have somebody just kind of telling me that the things I thought were cool were actually dumb and it was a bad decision-- they were coaching me to be an adult, really, to figure out what I like to do and how to do what I needed to do to be productive and functional, but also go take a few days off and go to a concert if you want to or 150 concerts, if that's what it takes.
Which I'm guessing is your Phish number?
It's 151. [LAUGHTER] It's 151.
Impressive!
150 was Jones Beach this summer. And I had to drive from South Carolina to get there. I'm very proud of myself. I made it happen after three flight cancellations in a stormy day. I just rented a car and drove.
But those teachers were the teachers that I needed because they treated me with respect. They didn't tell me I was making bad choices. They coached me to be better, for sure. They didn't let me off the hook on any writing or any bad habits for work that I had. They I still talk to them today, and they're very encouraging. I'll be thrilled to show them my book when I'm done with it.
And the teacher that I needed when I was a young learner-- when I really hated school-- was a teacher who would be consistent and who would care about me and who would be genuine with me. And I had so many interactions in fourth grade and fifth grade in particular. I just remember these moments where my teacher would sneer at me because they had been wisecracking. And then I wisecracked, and I didn't get that it was serious time. And so I have students who don't know when it's serious time, and I'm working so hard to not be the person who sneers at them.
And I want to hold a firm line. And I would say, "This is not acceptable," if it's not acceptable. But like, if I pull them outside into the hall, it's not just to berate them or bad mouth them. It's to tell them, hey, I notice that when we switched from happy, fun times-- like the other day I was singing "Good Morning" from Singin' in the Rain to my students in the morning. And then I switched into serious mode. And two of them were like out in la-la land, still having a grand old time. And I was like, no.
So I pulled them outside, and I said, "Hey, I know we were just singing this song. But we've got to get to this right now. And I don't want to tell you what to do. I hate telling people what to do because I don't want to be told what to do. So can we get this together? Can you get yourself together and come back in here?"
And they were like, "OK."
And by doing that kind of approach, I get control of the classroom, in a sense. But I don't lose my audience. I don't alienate them. I don't make them feel like they are bad. I mean, I will tell them, like, "this is a bad decision," or "you're making some bad choices." But it's never about "you are a bad actor here-- you're the problem." It's more like, "Maybe we've had a miscommunication about what's expected. Here's what's expected. Do you want to do this? OK, well, and if you don't, we have other options for you. Like, maybe you need to go talk to somebody who isn't me because I've got to teach this class right now."
Amen. So we've talked a lot about creative writing, which it's a hard thing to get some students to do. But I think it's an easier swallow than quote unquote "academic writing." So how have you encouraged students, and what are some of the things that you have done to reinforce that academic writing is just as important as creative writing and get students to do it more often in your class?
Well, actually, I didn't do much creative writing in the classroom until just a few years ago. So I have more experience with teaching academic writing. In my experience teaching undergraduates, I probably have taught 25 or 30 courses to undergraduates. And it always has this academic writing component, of course. It's strong. And there are strong courses in writing, whether it's composition or philosophy or whatnot.
But I think that the thing that many students need to hear is that it's totally doable. It's going to be easy after you get the hang of it. It's going to be hard for a while. And we're going to get you to a confident place because confidence is often the thing. Like, not knowing how to start, or maybe letting the perfect be the enemy of the good is a common problem among many, many students, and letting them know that there is a method to this madness-- giving them some tools.
Like, when they go to a math class-- and some of them are like, "Hey, my thing is math. I don't do writing." And often what they mean is that they don't have a formula for writing. And so I have a solution to that. I'm really formulaic. In fact, I thought I wasn't a "creative" in quotes. I thought I wasn't a creative until I realized that these formulae can be applied creatively. And I was always an academic writer.
And so, I try to communicate with these methods to students. We use like this TBDEC paragraph method in our middle school-- topic, background, detail, elaboration, conclusion. And I help them to just do it over and over again to get comfortable. And even the students for whom the writing comes as a challenge, and academic writing maybe in particular comes as a challenge, once they have that "oh, I know how to do this" kind of approach, then it becomes easier for them to do it. And the goal isn't necessarily easy, but the goal is to help them feel a kind of ease with it. And giving them a formula to do it is a good step in the right direction.
I don't-- it's not the whole ball game, but given that we have a short conversation, I'd say giving them a formula is a good starting place. And helping them to grow in confidence is really important.
Oh absolutely. If you can give them something that they can feel successful at it doing it this way, then they can try other things in the future. But helping them to feel success as a writer is so important.
So I think it's a good time for our student question.
Hi. I'm Jonathan from South Jordan Middle School. I'm wondering how you get out of a writing slump.
It is probably true that I'm always in a writing slump. Or I'm never in a writing slump. But I don't know which thing is true. So I always act as though I'm in a writing slump. And the way to get out of it is to schedule myself some time to do it and then sit down and make myself do it. There's no way to write other than to sit down and write.
And, I have to say, a lot of the people that I have surrounded myself with over the years have been interested in writing and have wanted to write. And very few of them have actually ended up writing anything. And the only difference that I can see in terms of behavior is from the people who end up writing something and people who don't is that the people who write something sit down to do it, and the other people always find something else to do.
So, how do you get out of writing slump whether you're a grownup or a kid or somebody kind of in between is to find a way to sit down and do it. And it's always easier said than done to just sit down and do it. But there are ways, there are methods you can use. And if I don't know what to write, I just start writing whatever it is I can write. Like, if it means writing about the weather outside, then I can write about the weather outside. Or talking about the world today from my dog's point of view-- I can talk about it from my dog's point of view. Sometimes I will just try to write down like the last dream that I remember, or as soon as I wake up, if I remember a dream. I'm in the habit of writing all the time.
I think it is a muscle that we have to build. And it takes many, many hours, many, many thousands of hours of writing to get good at. But it's OK to be bad at it. And it is OK not to be perfect. Sometimes people get stuck because they want it to be perfect right away. And just accepting that the first draft is going to be terrible is a way to ease the landing. And if we're in a slump, finding something-- anything-- to write about is a good way to start.
And sometimes this means if there's an assignment, and the student doesn't know where to begin the assignment, I suggest that they begin in the middle. Because there is no reason that the way that you present it at the end has to be the way it came out of your head. And it's OK to start anywhere you want.
And especially if you have a formula like this TBDEC you can write the detail first-- the example that you're going to give first-- and then generate a claim for your topic sentence afterward. Now that's the nice and easy way to backwards engineer a paragraph. You don't have to start with an idea and an example fully formulated. You can just scan your book for that example that you think is a cool example that meets the demands of the assignment, and then you can generate a claim about it. And you already have your example written. Ta-da!
Yeah. I think actually starting with the introduction is painful.
It's tough.
It's not going to go well.
It's tough.
So I totally agree with starting in the middle.
Oh, dozens of times I've looked at students papers, and I'm like, your last paragraph's your introduction. You finally got there! Good job!
Good job. You did it.
And you know what? It's kind of like when I'm writing a novel, I am usually-- of the three-- of the four that I've written, three of them I had to throw away the first two chapters because it took me that long to get to the-- and that's not an uncommon thing. Many writers I talk to will say the same thing. It takes them a few chapters to understand what is happening. Or maybe they don't even see it themselves. My editors have told me-- and by editors I mean my critique groups or my beta readers-- they've told me, like, yeah, these first two chapters, it seems like the action could very easily be referred to, inserted. It's not really needed. You just start here at chapter 3.
And the same thing goes with academic writing where it may not be until I've written my conclusion that I understand-- to your point, Matt-- that I understand what it was I was saying to begin with. And so, one of the first steps in revision is always go back and rewrite the introduction. That was the thing I learned in grad school was like, OK you think you're done with the paper? Now go back and rewrite the introduction. And read the whole thing again and see if it fits.
So one of the things that is really fascinating about you is that you're connected on the internet. You're connected on social media. That's how you and I met, initially, to some degree. How does technology play a role in your classroom? How does technology play a role in your writing process?
I'll take the second question first. The writing process is a lot about doing research online because-- I didn't quite answer your question earlier about how I got to YA historical fiction. And I'll answer that now. The thing that I like to do is to make stories that are not often told understandable for young learners.
And so, like as a quick example, we did six weeks on the Black Panther Party last year in the fall. And I love learning about the Black Panther Party. And I love talking about it and teaching about it and giving my students access to videos-- to the question about tech in the classroom. I was able to get videos of Angela Davis. I was able to get videos of Malcolm X saying things. Although he wasn't exactly a Black Panther, he was a part of this Black power movement. And I try to bring in these resources that I can't be for my students.
And so, yes, I'm using Google while I'm planning. I am using Google while I'm writing and planning for a book. I have access to databases that I make really good use of and reading newspaper articles from the time period about which I'm writing. I try to bring that stuff in the classroom as primary source material, or where appropriate, secondary source material.
Introducing students directly to the voice that they need to hear that isn't mine is really important to me because I can't be the voice. I mean, Black Panther Party-- this is radio, but I'm a middle-aged, white male. And I'm not a member of the Black Panther Party. And so we have video from the Black Panther Party. And we have their documents. We have their top 10 mission-- their goals. We can look at these primary sources and get the voices that aren't mine, that my students need to hear. And then my job is to contextualize that information as the expert in the room-- at least the learner alongside in the room. My job is to help them interpret that material.
And so we use Canvas at our school. And I know that Blackboard is kind of a similar thing. Google suites has a thing like that. And the way that I use it is, I put all the notes that we take in class on every week. And I leave the notes up for the rest of the year in a nice and organized fashion, so that if you're sick, you can go and get the notes. And always any links to videos that we watch, they're always up there.
So I learned a lot during the pandemic. And I had taught online courses before. But during the pandemic I basically turned my classroom into a-- we came back relatively quickly in August of 2020-- and I turned my classroom into a hybrid learning environment in which all the material was always available online. And the in-person component was essentially a workshop time. And so I did a flipped-classroom thing with workshopping. And students were all moving at different speeds in the classroom. And it was heaven.
It took a lot of setting up things in advance. But the tech component allowed me to teach different learners at different paces in different ways and to support every learner, meet every learner where they were at that time. And I continue to use that method. I mean if you're sick-- I had a student sick on Tuesday, yesterday-- if you're sick, in my class you can just go to Canvas and figure out-- you're going to miss my commentary, which is extremely unfortunate for you. [LAUGHTER] You're going to miss my commentary, but you'll get--
You'll miss the live show.
Right. But you'll get the material. You get the notes that we took on the board. And you can catch up with any videos that we might have watched-- three or five minute videos that we might have watched. And you can you can stay a part of the community and stay up to date.
So, I think that's the biggest way that I use tech in my classroom I try not-- especially after the pandemic-- I try not to just reach for the computer straight away. And I love using my whiteboards. I have huge-- like, lots of-- like six or seven huge whiteboards in my classroom. And I use them constantly. And I'm drawing badly on them. Or I am asking students to go up and do like a kind of art gallery-- stroll and write their ideas down. And we're taking notes together where they're generating some ideas and I'm scribing. Or I'm giving them what I think they should have.
And so I try to use those old-school techniques while supplementing with these new-school opportunities that enhance their experience. So rather than rely on it, per se, I'm using it to enhance the experience, I hope.
Yeah, absolutely. And it seems like you're really humanizing your class by allowing learners to access and interact with the material at their own pace and whenever they need to. Because no one wants to be the kid that's like, what was that thing? Can I watch it again? I still have questions. We've been saying forever to design your Canvas, or whatever online course management you use, for the student that's home sick, right? If you design it in that way, you're going to be really, really happy as an educator, a few years down the road when you've perfected it. And you can just copy and keep using it.
But I think that's something that teachers have gotten really good at during the pandemic was figuring out this online environment and how to make it work in a classroom, as well as outside of our classroom walls. And I hope that's something that all teachers keep working on. How can I make my classroom a welcoming place even if a student is sick or is having other issues that they can't make it into class?
If I could make one recommendation to educators that is an easy thing to do, it is to use the screen casting techniques you learn during the pandemic to make quick how-to videos with examples. At the beginning of the year, before we even got stepped into the classroom, I posted a two minute-- sub two minute, which is really short for me-- I always try to stay under seven or eight minutes, but under two minutes is gold-- two minute video just explaining how to get around, navigate the Canvas page, and where they're going to find different bits of information. Now, maybe a third of my students watch that video. But that's a third of students who weren't going to get that introduction at all had I not posted that short video. So I think it's really an actionable, small, cool, little thing that is super helpful for students that teachers can do right away.
Oh totally, and for parents as well. If we don't know how to access what our students are getting on, that can cause anxiety. And sometimes just knowing that there's a resource there, even if I never actually click on it. Like, if I need to navigate Canvas, Steve's already put it on Canvas. It's going to be OK.
Right. That's the hope-- that parents know that the notes are on Canvas. That's the hope.
Absolutely. So Steve, we've kind of glossed around this. And just kind of our last thing here, where can people find you online? Tell us about your book that you're going to be coming out with and why it would be interesting to maybe have in a classroom.
Cool. Online, you can find me-- I have a Facebook author page. My name is actually Steve Capone, Jr. I'm a junior. And I'm proud of it. And my forebearer was really cool-- is really cool. But I'm on Facebook. I'm on Twitter @caponeteaches. I have a website at www.caponeteaches.com. There are really cool graphics that a hippie friend of mine made for me that include 20 sided dice and other nerdy things.
And the book that I'm working on now is about the second Red Scare. And it's set during that time in the early '50s in a Pennsylvania coal town and steel town called Homestead, where the famed Homestead Strikes took place in the 1800s. And it's just outside the city of Pittsburgh. So it takes place in the Pittsburgh area. And it's about a kid whose family are accused of being communists. And it's about what the consequences are for him and his family for being accused of being communists.
And so it is it's thrilling to me to write because I love learning about history. And I love learning about this part of history. We would expect to see it out in the spring of '24. So we're pretty far away from it at the moment. But I am really working hard on it already. And I'm so excited. So it's tentatively titled Jimmy Versus Communism.
I love it. [LAUGHTER]
Well, we'll see if anybody comes up with a better title than that. But I'm OK with it. My last book, unpublished, is Max in the Capital of Spies. So you can kind of see a theme here. Like, I'm not a brilliant title writer. But it may just be OK for the tone of the book.
Yeah, it might work. I like it.
But yeah, it's with Gibbs Smith. They're based right here in Utah. And they distribute-- right now they're big into textbooks-- and they distribute social studies textbooks across over 30 states. And it's going to be coming out in hardcover in spring of 2024 all across the country. So I think people should have it in their classroom. This is what I hope.
I hope people should have it in their classroom because all this stuff about the Red Scare, and people being ferreted out as possible communists, and what makes a real American, and what steps the legal community can take to figure out if somebody is a communist, it really echoes today. And then the strong divide between the right and the left in the United States at that time was every bit as strong a divide as it is right now. And it's interesting to see those parallels.
And so I think one of the most important things about any text that we use in a classroom is that it tell an honest story, that it be true, and that it be relevant to our lives today, and that kids can relate to-- I mean, grownups too. And I think that this book will be that. But I say that having written about 3,000 words. And I'm just really excited for where it's going.
Awesome. Well, thanks so much for being here today. We really appreciate your time.
Thank you.
I thank you for having me. I'm honored to be here.
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OK Matt, as a former, current-ish writing teacher, how much did you love that interview?
A lot. Steve and I have a very similar perception of not only writing but teaching and the idea of teaching writing. Like things like he said, like, don't overwhelm your students with a ton of ton of things to do. Get them down to one thing, getting them excited, figuring out ways to keep them interested.
The thing that really hit me was, I used to teach an essay to college and K-12 students that was almost exactly how he described the 10 seconds. And I always was trying to collapse time with students. Let's get down. Let's get into details. What are the details that you're seeing? What does it smell like? What does it taste like? What are you hearing? What are you seeing? Do you have goosebumps?
And so like, we do these really great Q&As with students and get them down from, I'm going to talk about a month of my life, which is just way too long, to sometimes, like you said, 10 seconds, and you could fill up two or three pages. And it was amazing.
I love that. I also loved how he was talking about the writing process and getting students to understand that it's called first draft for a reason. Like, you have to write more. And I think that didn't hit me until I was way out of K-12 education. And so I really appreciated his conversation on how we can help students understand that earlier and get on board with that process earlier. Because just hating it isn't going to change the fact that you're going to have to do another draft, sir.
100%. And getting kids used to that earlier and as often as possible really does help them, like you talked about with your PhD program. If you hadn't have had experiences before that about failure, picking it up, rewriting, and kind of working with the ego that all of us have that we want to be right the first time, you wouldn't have been so successful in that program.
Exactly. And, yeah, I think it did take me a long time. So I just really appreciate all that he's doing to help students younger and younger get comfortable with failure and get in the trenches with writing.
Yeah, it made me really excited to read his book when it comes out because what you as audience members didn't see is that he had a literal, like, probably like 1,000 page book about the Red Scare sitting on the table. And I was like, if that's your casual reading for like in between meetings, I'm in. I'm excited.
Yeah. I think it's going to be really awesome. So everyone look out for that. What-- spring of 2024.
Well again, thank you Steve for joining us on the podcast. We are so excited for everyone to listen to it. And we'll see you next time on a brand new episode of the UEN Homeroom.
Thanks, everyone.
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