Shoot from the Hip

In March of 2026, I briefly mentioned some shoot-from-the-hip things that happened in our English classroom.  Here are a few of them with better explanations.

“There was the day I decided not to give the next list of vocabulary words to my class because we had already “met them” in the book we were reading.”  Our class was reading A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz.  We got very involved in what we were reading, because it was exciting!  We lost track of time and chapters, and completely glossed over vocabulary words that we had not yet defined.  Oh well.  Too bad.  I shot from the hip.  That list of words and its subsequent vocabulary quiz were scrapped.  We simply moved on.  No harm.  No foul.

As I have mentioned in other places at other times, I like reading aloud to students for a few reasons.  I want to slow them down.  There is a tendency for middle school students to believe that reading faster is reading better.  I disagree.  Faster is simply faster.  I like to slow them down and allow them to truly enjoy the language, to let the words roll around us.  As Auggie wrote in a thank you letter to me, “You make us think about the literature we read more than any other teacher, and you pace out the reading of each story perfectly.  You have us read the stories over multiple days, so that we get emotionally invested in the plot, and react stronger when the story doesn’t go the way we expected it to…we began to care about the characters and ended up devastated when Charlie Gordan returned to his original state of unintelligence.”  That was my hope.  I wanted them to care about Charlie.  These students were reading the short story “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes.  They became emotional when they realized that Charlie was regressing.  Many of them cried.  I had planned a Short Response for this moment in the story.  But there was no way that I was going to ignore a group of full-out-sobbing eighth graders and make them write a paragraph.  So, I shot from the hip.  I scrapped the Short Response.  We took a few minutes to pull ourselves together.  Then, we talked.  Plain and simple.  Actually, I did most of the talking.  A few of them asked questions.  No grade went into the grade book.  I do not think that was a bad thing.

“There was the time a few of my eighth graders asked if we would be writing a science fiction story after our unit of Ray Bradbury’s writings.  So, we did.”  I could have “stayed the course” and moved on to something else, as planned.  Instead, I shot from the hip.  I brought in a few unusual items.  I asked a dozen or so prompting questions (see Shoes and Boxes and Peanuts and Keys).  My students wrote science fiction stories.  They were good!  Really good!  I am so glad that they changed my mind.

“There was the time we had a Socratic Seminar with absolutely no preparation, and it was better than any prepared-for Socratic Seminars I have had before.”  I decided to do this on that day, perhaps five minutes before class.  As you may guess, no one had notes.  There were no defined groups.  This Socratic Seminar occurred immediately after reading Fahrenheit 451.  The students had written a Short Response to the question, “Which book would you be?” and I had just finished reading them. These paragraphs were fabulous.  I wanted the students to share their thoughts with each other, so that they could hear what I had read.  So, the entire class formed a circle.  I asked the question.  And they talked.  They ALL talked.  And it was real and authentic.  I kept track of the talk using the oval pattern I usually have kids use.  This goes down as the best Seminar I have ever witnessed.  I shot from the hip, and it worked.

What’s the point?  The point is to trust your instinct.  Get to know your students as this year begins.  Really get to know them.  Then, you will be able to read your classroom and know if you need to change your plans.  Sometimes it is the best thing to do.  Don’t worry about getting off schedule.  Don’t worry if it ruins the slides you have made for your unit.  Scrap things.  Change your mind.  Happy shooting from the hip!