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OKCTE Voices Blog

Teachers Share their Words of Wisdom
Write for OKCTE Voices!

Send Your Story/thoughts to: okcteenglish@gmail.com

Life Changing Lessons... How I found myself standing on a table, blaring the Mission Impossible theme song, while wearing a police hat.

10/26/2016

9 Comments

 

by Katie Kinder, Kenneth Cooper Middle School in Putnam City Schools
7th and 8th Grade English Language Arts
kkinder@putnamcityschools.org

I avoided the call into the classroom for several years before I succumbed to what was clearly in my blood.  I worked in Public Relations.  I planned events, golf tournaments, social events, fundraisers, and even a popular telethon, but nothing made my heart pitter pat like driving by a local middle or high school remembering the texts that spoke to me most clearly in my youth.  Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Oh English Language Arts friends, need I go on?  All I could think of was my rock star, educator of a mother in my ear, “You are missing your calling, sweet girl.”  I didn’t want to live her life, but try as I may I could avoid the call no longer.  Taking the Alternative Education route, I had no formal, college training to be a teacher.  Being in the classroom for the first time was scary and exhilarating and absolutely what I was meant to do with my life.  The relationships with the students came easy.  Teaching procedures, getting compliance, that part of teaching I was able to do well when I put in the work on the forefront.  I’m a naturally outgoing person and I enjoyed being around the kids and leveraging relationships to get the best possible work from my students.  But… and there is a big ‘BUT,’ I was teaching the exact way I had been taught.  I pulled my ‘English Teacher Stool’ up to the front of my class; I sat my students in straight rows facing the front; I plopped my booty in my stool and I read from the literature book.  When the story was over, I handed out what I affectionately nicknamed later as a “Shut up Sheet.”  Honestly, I didn’t know any better. 

A few years later, I happened across a YouTube video of Mr. Ron Clark of the Ron Clark Academy.  A former Disney Teacher of the year, author of The Essential 55, and I mean, come on, a made-for-TV movie played by the one and only Chandler Bing…Matthew Perry.  I watched enthralled as Ron Clark described the exact stool I perched on and he called it, “The Stool of Drool.”  I shuddered in abhorrence as he explained how education should be different.  As educators, we should up the ante.  As educators, we should up the rigor as well as the entertainment level in our classrooms.  It was the first I had heard of such a thing.  I started to change.  I YouTubed exceptional teachers; I went and observed mentor teachers and master educators in action.  Who needed a gym membership if one could move in the classroom in such a way that 20,000 steps were achieved on a daily basis?  I immersed myself in brain research; I learned that gum chewing was good for students’ brains (no, I did not just speak teacher blasphemy).  Brain research also shows that children should never sit for more minutes than their age.  Meaning in a class that is 55 minutes, my students needed to get up and move three to four times in an hour.  My mind was blown.  The change in my teaching continued.  We learned to make up songs to remember and apply grammar; we worked collaboratively in groups.  I gamified my classroom, so students would compete and work on leveling up.  I learned that in our ‘everybody gets a trophy’ mentality and culture, my students really believed that ‘everybody gets a trophy.’  They were beside themselves when they didn’t win the vocab competition for the week.  “But, it’s not fair,” they would whine, “Can I have a starburst anyway?”  It motivated them; they started to take charge of their own learning.  Gamification speaks to the students.  In a world with Playstation 1-8, Minecraft, iPhone, iPad, iChat, Instagram, SnapChat, iEVERYTHING, we are competing with the changing face of technology, and video games.  Gamification speaks to the video gamers; it speaks to the athletes; it speaks to our youth.  When I gamified my teaching, I saw huge gains in student engagement and achievement.  Gamification was another piece in my education puzzle away from the ‘Stool of Drool,’ and the land of straight rows and ‘Shut up Sheets.’  But something was still missing.  That is when I got ahold of Dave Burgess’ Teach Like a Pirate.

If you are not a fan of Dave Burgess, I urge you to jump on that #tlap bandwagon.  I read his book cover to cover and then I read it again.  Like a lifeline, the book came to life on the page; it spoke directly to my heart.  Burgess teaches history to high schoolers.  He was known to come to class dressed as Rosie the Riveter, or in full, head-to-toe Salem Witch Trial outfits while he was in the classroom.  He did this in order to hook his students into his content.  He writes about creating experiences for your students.  “What are your LCL’s?”  he asks, “Life Changing Lessons!”  He poses the question, “If your students didn’t have to be there, would you be teaching to an empty classroom?”  He transformed his classroom into a Speakeasy while teaching about prohibition complete with sprite and cherries, him dressed as a gangster, and the students had to have the password to get into class.  WHAT!?  How fun!  Engaged children are rarely a behavior problem.  “How can I tailor this for English,” I thought to myself.  I went to the store and bought fake candles on sale for half price; I used black butcher paper to black out my windows when I taught anything by Edgar Allan Poe.  As we said goodbye to Anne Frank after reading her play, my students took the fake candles, held them up, and switched them off; we sat in almost, utter darkness listening to a somber song as we said goodbye and grieved the Frank family.  It moved their emotions and tears were okay I reassured them.  I transform my classroom into a poetry lounge during National Poetry Month complete with hot chocolate, hipster scarves, bongos, and instruments as we recite poetry we have analyzed.  The ideas for ELA are endless.  Just last week my 7th graders read Rod Serlings’ “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street.”  I stood on a table as the Mission Impossible theme song blared in the background.  I set up my room with a crime scene.  I bought a cheap police hat at the costume store; I encouraged the students to get inside as a crime had just been committed.  My 7th graders ate it up; they called me ‘Officer Kinder’ the whole day. We worked in collaborative groups trying to find the culprit with cut up pieces of text on their desks. 

What is that saying? “If you haven’t failed in the classroom recently, then you are playing it too safe.”  Oh, and fail I do.  Sometimes a lesson doesn’t quite work the way I saw it in my mind’s eye, but onward I trudge.  I Teach Like a Pirate with Life Changing Lessons; I have left the ‘Stool of Drool’ behind me, ‘Shut Up Sheets’ are no more because life is fun and learning should be fun and teaching is most definitely fun. 
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9 Comments

In Essence 

9/9/2016

2 Comments

 

by Anthony Kunkel, English Teacher

I am in the front of the classroom. New shoes, new school year and it’s 7:35 A.M. The door is just to my right, my back to the white board, and there’s a slight breeze that whispers in, just enough to feel good. I’m nervous. I’m always nervous on the first day, even after so many years as a teacher. The first student comes in. He’s a small boy for a sophomore, and he looks anxious, awkward. He’s wearing his backpack like burden, tilted, uneven. 

“Good morning.” I smile at him. He reminds me of another boy I taught years ago, a student who was small, but bright and watchful, who hid his smile behind too many uncertainties, and the dark stories from home that were only glimpsed from a few sentences in his journal (or “notebook”—I had been told not to do journals anymore a few years back). I remember so much so quickly that it unnerves me for a moment. This boy reminds me so much of that boy who wrote so beautifully, who wrote about a moment he called ‘pure’ when he made his little sister smile, and described the fragrance, the richness, of the jasmine that was outside his bedroom window with a poignancy that I still remember. The boy who seemed to grow quieter and angrier each day and then was suddenly gone mid-semester.   

​“Hi.” He looks at me, a darting glance at best and talks to my feet. “Is there a seating chart?”

Other students have begun wandering in, and I am locked in this moment with this boy. I wanted to greet everyone at the door, like I try to do each morning, but I want this boy to know I that I’m going to care. I have thought about the other boy often, and I worry that he never knew how much I cared. But there’s also a reality in front of me that I have to deal with. I’m the teacher, this is day one, class is about to start, and I need to manage this class.

“Not yet,” I tell him abruptly, “sit where you like and I’ll move people around later.” I pause as he looks around the room skeptically. “I think you’re gonna like this class, okay?” I can’t help myself. The boy looks into my eyes for the first time. I see doubt, or maybe confusion.

Other students shuffle past me, most smiling, some not. I greet them and repeat several times, “no, there’s no seating chart yet.” It’s a full class, all 32 seats are taken quickly and there are two students left standing, a boy and a girl, both looking uncomfortable. I seat the girl in my cushioned chair by my desk, and the boy in a folding chair near the counter top by the back door. I’m a product of my upbringing, and I’m older, maybe sexist. I prefer the term chivalrous.

The chatter stops with the bell, a long gargling buzz that has always reminded me of the sound made in the movies when a jail door is opened. This is an important moment. This is a large class, and to me, the rest of the year may well be determined on how well and fast I can establish a few rules and expectations. I have letters from previous students on the podium in front of the class and I waste no time handing them out. There’s plenty to go around as I have hundreds, if not thousands from many years and many students.

“These are letters from some of my past students. They wrote these to give you an idea of what to expect, and how to do well in this class.” There’s silence and then the students begin reading. I know what’s in the letters. I choose the best ones to help make a point. Many of the letters talk about not making me angry. Many of them talk about how much they enjoyed this class. Most the letters talk about how much writing they did.  All the letters have a tone that I feel shows some affection, or respect, that was felt towards the class, and me. I tell them to pass them around, to read more than one. After several minutes the students are looking up. Many of them are looking around at each other. Some look worried. Some are smiling.  There’s a low conversation building as they begin sharing what they read with each other. There’s a girl in the center of class talking loudly to the girl next to her. The boy in front of her turns and begins paying attention. She’s gaining an audience quickly and I notice her phone is in her hand. She glances at the phone while talking, never missing a beat.  In just a minute I’m going to ask her name, then take her phone, write her up, and move her to the front of the class. If she argues while I do this, I’m going to send her to the office. Some of the letters warned students about this. We will have fun in this class, and probably quickly, but not just yet. There’s a few things to take care of first.   

I look around the class and see the boy who came in first. He’s sitting near the back, close to the door. I’m already looking for students I’ll sit him next to. I want him to feel safe. I don’t really know why, but then again I sort of do. My instincts are typically pretty good.

​The talking is getting louder so it’s almost time to deal with the cell phone and establish myself as the teacher in this class. I continue to watch them for a bit, as I have in many classes for many years now. I am very aware of how much I will come to care about these kids. As I get to know them, discipline becomes more complicated. Right now we’re just setting some boundaries. I cannot explain to them how much they will come to define me, or to allow me to define myself. I can’t explain to them what it feels like when I walk across the campus and hear them yelling my name and saying hello, or when I run into them outside of class and they are truly excited to see me. I am an English Teacher and I will probably get most them to write something amazing at some point. That’s what I do well, and those can be amazing moments—for them and for me. I’m pretty sure that not all of them will come to like me, but I am fairly certain that most of them will come to appreciate the fact that I care about them and expect good things. Even when it frustrates them. Also, if the former students who have stayed in contact, and shared so much of their lives with me over the years is any indication, I may become something more than just an English Teacher to some of them. That just seems to happen, and often with students I hadn’t expected to hear from again. I never planned on being this teacher, or any teacher for that matter, but in this profession I believe that we as teachers cannot be anything less than that person our students believe us to be. For me, that is a huge responsibility. It is also the greatest of blessings. 

2 Comments

Potentially Powerful Professional Development

6/29/2016

3 Comments

 

by Gage Jeter
​ELA Curriculum Specialist, K20 Center 

Ask any teacher who has been in the classroom for a year or more how he or she views professional development activities and workshops. The reply received might be accompanied with an eye roll, heavy sigh, and overall sense of exasperation. According to Lieberman and Wood (2003), “as teachers have known and research has shown, ‘professional development’ of teachers has been notoriously unsuccessful,” and “there is little knowledge about how, or even if, professional development organized for teachers ever finds its way into classrooms to enlarge teachers’ repertoires and enhance student learning” (p. 3). Teachers may not always see the usefulness or effectiveness of professional development because of their own negative experiences as participants being talked at about topics they either cared little or nothing about or saw little or no relevance to their own teaching and/or students.

Even if the content presented is relevant, the presentation style might not allow for collaboration and social learning with and from one another. It is all too common that teachers leave professional development settings without strategies, ideas, or activities to implement in their own classrooms. Hill (2009) discusses how “teachers themselves are lukewarm about their professional development experiences” (p. 472). Lukewarm feelings could very well leave teachers unsatisfied and unfulfilled in regards to the (lack of) professional development they experience. These lukewarm feelings might stem from outside “experts” presenting professional development to teachers with little knowledge of the teachers’ context, needs, and individual and collective strengths and challenges. This traditional notion of professional development involving an outsider “developing” a group of teachers is often unsuccessful; teachers’ experiences during these types of opportunities are likely negative. In accordance, Gray (2000) describes teachers as “cynical of most school staff development efforts” (p. 49).  

As a former middle school teacher, I think back to the many 7:30 a.m. professional development meetings and workshops in which I participated. I use the term “participated” lightly – usually I was answering emails, grading papers I should have graded the night before, or working on my lesson plan for the day. I have lost count of the number of hours, days, and maybe even weeks spent in this type of setting that I feel was wasted because it did not affect my educational philosophy or practice. I would rarely learn or do anything during these sessions that I could use in my classroom. So, my colleagues and I often checked out to attend to business that mattered since the professional development certainly did not. Lieberman and Mace note that “professional development, thought well intentioned, is often perceived by teachers as fragmented, disconnected, and irrelevant to the real problems of classroom practice” (2008, p. 226). Although, through informal conversations, I can attest that I am not alone in these experiences, I wonder how other teachers have experienced professional development activities.    

In the past few years, four particular professional development venues have opened my eyes to what professional development can and should be:
- K20 Center for Educational and Community Renewal 
- Oklahoma Council of Teachers of English's conferences 
- Oklahoma Writing Project Summer Institute 
- National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention 

I now know that professional development can be: 
- Meaningful
- Applicable 
- Useful 
- Engaging 
- Transformative 
- Collaborative 
- Powerful 
- Fun!

What about you? What are your experiences with professional development? What is "good" professional development, in your opinion? What's the best professional development you've attended? Please share your ideas in the comments section. 

Also, submit a proposal and register for the 2016 OKCTE Fall Conference, held on the OU campus on October 1, 2016. Imagine the potential power of this professional development if YOU participate! 
References 
Gray, J. (2000). Teachers at the center: A memoir of the early years of the national writing project. Berkeley, CA: National Writing Project Cooperation. 

Hill, H. C. (2009). Fixing teacher professional development. Phi Delta Kappan, 90(7), 470-476.

Lieberman, A., & Mace, D. H. P. (2008). Teacher learning: The key to educational reform. Journal of Teacher Education, 59(3), 226-234.

Lieberman, A., & Wood, D.R. (2003). Inside the national writing project: Connecting network learning and classroom teaching. New York: Teachers College Press.
3 Comments

On Protecting Your Energy 

5/18/2016

6 Comments

 

by Andraé McConnell
English Coordinator, K20 Center

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”​
                                                            -Theodore Roosevelt, Citizenship In A Republic, 1910
 
I’ve never gotten around to reading this whole speech, but I read this excerpt often—usually when I’m feeling attacked by this circumstance or that. That’s one of the beautiful things about words, isn’t it? You can rob them of their context and set them to task serving your will. Well, I guess that’s kind of terrifying, too. Anyway, after I’ve selfishly used this excerpt to remind myself that “they hate me cause they ain’t me,” I cannot help but think about how, from beginning to end, it speaks to the experience of educators.
 
I’ve worked in education for eight years, first as a classroom teacher, and now as a researcher working with teachers across the state. I’ve examined the walls of their classrooms, listened to their stories of victory and defeat, swapped ideas with them, and sat with them in silence trying to figure out why a meticulously designed lesson plan replete with all the bells and whistles inexplicably fell flat. And almost always, I feel guilty to admit, it’s an unfair barter because I take away more than I bring.
 
My teachers, I call them mine partly because I’ve developed a paternalistic instinct to take care of them and partly because I do indeed learn from them, like all teachers, are doers. I mean good grief they are in the thickest of it, front and center, bending, sometimes breaking, but still taking on all comers. Can you even comprehend the moxie, the audacious grit required to walk into a room of people, any people, any age, presuming that you’re going to teach them something?

​And not only are you going to impart knowledge, provide instruction, and help construct new meanings, you’re going to do it with the eyes of simple everymen looking up at you from the sidelines, analyzing, questioning, criticizing, and “evaluating” your efforts! What manner of courage is that? Otherworldly, that’s what.
 
So to my teachers, and all teachers, I remind you to protect your energy. Protect it fiercely and deliberately; it’s amazing how quickly it seeps away when you really pay attention to it. Do not allow it to be leached by the critic that cannot even speak the language of teaching and learning, the snapshot evaluation posing as comprehensive, or the various missteps and setbacks that necessarily accompany all colossal strivings.
 
I have no interest in romance here.
Will your mind and body be streaked with the sweat and dirt of long days and even longer evenings?
Certainly.
Will you sometimes be plowed under by insurmountable odds?
Likely.
At times, will your efforts be met with misunderstanding at best and indifference at worst? Probably.
In the end, will you be counted among the throngs of timid souls that never stepped from the safety of the masses, never tested themselves against the heat and expectation of the arena, never knew the euphoria of a hard-fought victory, the candor of defeat, or the odd uncertainty that lies between the two?
No. Hell no. 

6 Comments

10 Things I Learned in my 10 Years of Education 

3/24/2016

11 Comments

 

by Josh Flores,
​
​Director of Secondary English Language Arts for Oklahoma


Over the course of 2006 to 2016 I’ve been a classroom teacher, ACT prep tutor, literacy coordinator, and state department director. (I’m not about to include all the part-time jobs I held during this time, but thanks Foley’s! I appreciate your patience with me despite my lack of thread count knowledge.) After capping off my first decade in the education profession, I basically know all there is to know about teaching. Right? Nope. Not even close. There’s so much 21st century educators need to add to their skill set and it doesn’t come from standard college of education course work.
Below are the ten actions and insights I’ve had after reflecting on ten years in education.

#10 | Ten years and still learning.
The experiences within the four walls of a classroom make a direct impact to the outside world and the outside world makes a direct impact to the classroom. On January 1st, 2001, we entered the 21st century. If you’re like me, there was little choice in the matter. Ready or not, we’re here now. How has it impacted your classroom? It’s likely a number of changes have taken place in your school, district, and community. Remember what high school was like without smart phones? 
Technology continues to expand in availability and functionality. It is making students more aware, influencing their perspective on life, and they bring it all to the classroom hoping for your clarifying wisdom and guidance - whether they admit it or not. 
Once upon a time, I day dreamed about being that legendary teacher with untold years of experience under my belt. The kind that could walk into any classroom, immediately take over using my instinctual, classroom management abilities gained from years of experience, and turn a room full of reluctant students into a die hard Shakespeare fan club. But that’s never going to happen.
I can have all the answers, but students also have all the answers at their fingertips. I could never keep up with the availability of information thanks to the advancements of technology. Too much “new” is created each day. What’s worse, it’s actually really, really good “new” stuff that’s being created! It’s “new” stuff that’s worth exploring in the classroom! It’s deep and engaging and our students are influenced by it. I need to keep up with it if I’m going to keep up with my students and keep my curriculum relevant.

#9 | Blog.

Instinct is hard to explain and teach. 21st century teachers share - victories, defeats, confusion, and risky ideas. Especially risky ideas! Break down, step-by-step, what you do well and how you do it. Break down what you don’t do well, too.
I’m almost upset my college of education coursework didn’t require self-reflective blogging. There is a collective knowledge base that already exists thanks to blogging educators and it needs to be expanded. Have you ever met a teachers with 15, 20, 30 years of experience and just started talking about pedagogy? That kind of knowledge is gold and should be documented! Document your journey in this profession and help all teachers grow. Add your insights to the ever expanding collective.

#8 | Build Your Brand.
Legendary teachers are those great educators that every student just seems to know, regardless if they had them as a teacher. They have a reputation and students revere and honor it. Parents know what happens in that teacher's classroom and students want to experience it. That legendary teacher has developed a brand - an expectation that they’ve developed and everyone wants to experience.
Teachers need room and support to develop their unique brand. It requires a lot of experimenting with pedagogies and personality, which is more time consuming than purchasing and enforcing a stock curriculum. However, the time spent to develop a teacher’s understanding of pedagogies produces a greater return on investment.

#7 | Teach like an entrepreneur.
Like teachers, entrepreneurs manage multiple moving parts of a system. Like teachers, entrepreneurs weigh multiple commodities to make decisions. Like teachers, entrepreneurs take educated-risks to, hopefully, produce big gains. Like teachers, entrepreneurs are careful when making investment decisions.
Time and energy are the commodities of educators and there’s never enough. Here’s the crux: time cannot be replenished and energy takes time to replenish. When planning on classroom activities, I find it helpful to use an entrepreneurial lens to assess where to spend my time and energy.
In the classroom, time is a scarce commodity. It’s the only commodity we cannot recreate once it’s lost! However, through thoughtful planning, we can leverage technology to maximize our time. Don’t worry about teaching students how to use tech and apps to enhance their learning. Start learning about the technologies that will improve your professional and personal life.

#6 | Tech was made for teachers!
Some believe technology should be purchased to benefit students. I like to think technology exists to improve a teacher’s life. If it isn’t helping you to be more productive, more organized, and a more effective (less stressed) educator, it’s not worth the investment.
Don’t worry. Students will catch up to the technology you’re using. Honestly, they’re probably already three steps ahead of the technology you’re using.

#5 | Find your community. If you can’t find your community, build it.
I depend on the support of others. Some are like-minded and some are constantly challenging my ideas; both are beneficial. Having a safe community of fellow educators is necessary. Participating in professional organizations with people you respect is revitalizing and cathartic. Seek out people that share your principles. There are many communities of professionals within our state and technology has helped allow us to connect with each other. If you can’t find the right fit, leverage technology to build a new community. Have you ever heard of Facebook? It’s pretty neat. Once a community with shared principles is organized, learning starts to become more meaningful… and a lot more fun.

#4 | If you think PD is boring, do something about it.
Boring PD is our fault. I’m taking about all of us and including me. Don’t let boring PD suck up valuable time. Sit in the front. Participate. Take notes. As a last resort, feign interest and write some awesome lesson plans or a list of all the ways you would lead a better PD workshop. Then go do that workshop.

#3 | Test Stress doesn’t need to be passed on to students.
Our students deal with enough stress and don’t really know how to manage it.
Growing up is already stressful. High stakes tests only add to that stress. The last thing students need is to absorb our stress. If you’re stressed, your students feel it. Don’t let test stress get to you because it will trickle down to your students. That’s why we all need stress-reducing hobbies.

#2 | Don’t quit your hobby.
Besides teaching, there must be something you love doing just for you - something entirely self serving and enjoyable. I’ve learned the hard way how easy it is to give that one thing up. There’s a lot of good reasons to quit a hobby - money, the need to spend quality time with the family, too much work to do, et cetera. None are good reasons to completely give up a hobby.
Invest in your long-term sanity by prioritizing a personal hobby. Sure you might not have as much time to invest, but commit to a certain amount per week/month. Your students and family will thank you.

#1 | Advocacy.
We cannot survive by keeping our heads down and our classroom doors shut. I think this is the most important realization I’ve had over the course of my career. There are certain aspects of our profession that may never be perfect and they’re never going to improve without teacher advocacy.
I’m not political and never intended to be, yet it’s evident that this is one more responsibility we need to include on an ever growing list of priorities. Change happens when educated people connect, organize, and vocalize educated ideas. Our school system needs your educated ideas.
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      • The Black God's Drums >
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      • Review of Cicada
      • Child of the Dream
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      • Wish you all the best
      • Music of What Happens
      • Riverdale
      • Homegoing
      • Maybe This Time
      • Moon Within
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      • Focused
      • Take the Mic
      • Merci Suárez Changes Gears
      • Guts
      • Bone Hollow
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      • #NotYourPrincess
      • It's a Whole Spiel
      • A Spark of Light
      • Six Goodbyes We Never Said
      • The Forgotten Girl
      • Inhuman