I have been given another opportunity to attend Teacher's College for this year's Writing Institute. Even better, there are fourteen other teachers, administrators, and coaches here learning with me.
We came together at the end of the day today and shared with each other some of the take aways from the day. The excitement and energy was wonderful to see when we were sharing with each other.
We are all thinking about how we can share what we learn this week with fellow colleagues so that we can impact student learning when we get back.
Here are some take aways from my Day 1 of TCRWP Writing Institute
June 20, 2016
Lucy Calkins’ Keynote
- We need to have the courage to make a big deal out of the students’ writing
- Our expectations are our students’ ceiling.
- If we think they can’t, then they can’t
- If we think they can, they CAN!
- Writing Process
- Rehearsal
- Drafting
- Revision
- It’s not just about about adding tiny details, or new ending, or improving organization
- It is growing new insights and revelations – adding that to the writing
- After we draft, we cycle back to rehearsal, talk about it, read it, then revision happens
- Revision = possibility, a place to outgrow ourselves, a way to challenge ourselves
Learning to Confer from the Master: Teach Students the Skills of Narrative Craft (K-2) Carl Anderson
- Workshop model answers the question – How we do we individualize learning for students? Conferring is differentiated instruction
- Why Confer?
1) Every kid has an individualized assignment
- Writing is the act of making choices
- How do I begin? How should I end? Will I sketch across the pages? Etc..
2) Students are at all levels/experiences
3) Feedback occurs
- Visible Learning by John Hattie – feedback supports student learning
4) Relationships
- Hattie again – students will learn more from us if we have a relationship with them
- Conferences allows us to build relationships
5) Makes us better decision makers – see samples of student work and we know next steps for mini-lessons
- Conferring Principles
- Be careful – focus on writer not writing
- Teach one thing per conference
- Conferring Moves
- 1st Part of Conference = Assessment
- 2nd Part of Conference = Teaching
- Be predictable with the same structure when doing a conference – that way students know what to expect – they become more active in the conference (helpful for ELLs and struggling/apprehensive learners)
Teaching Grammar in and around Writing Workshop: A Joyous Exploration of Conventions and Language (3-8) Mary Ehrenworth
- Research shows what students do in workbooks does not transfer
- Drills do not have effect – it doesn’t get students to think about how it applies to their writing
- Stages of Grammar Acquisition
- Recognition – spoken language transferred to written language
- Increase discourse as much as possible in the classroom
- Approximation
- This is where most students are much of the time
- Learning something , but when something new is taught, the the previous grammar skill gets dropped because students are struggling with something new
- Need reminders
- Mastery
- Don’t need reminders
- Slippage
- Decoding and Encoding
- Most students who can decode well, encode well
- Code Switching
How to Talk To Parents about the Ups and Downs of Becoming a Writer and Teach Them to Support Structure, Development and Language Conventions – Lauren Kolbeck
- Ways we educate parents about writing instruction:
- Parent Teacher Conferences
- Writing Celebrations
- Invite them to the celebrations
- Students Writing Displays
- Maybe whole school so parents can see progression of a genre – K-5
- Parent Workshops
- Letters home at the beginning of units
- Send home copies of word walls and tools of independence (small copies of anchor charts)
- Process of Writing vs Product Writing
- Educating parents that Writer’s Workshop promotes Process of Writing
- Shows all the work students do to one piece
- Shows all the revisions and editing students do to a piece instead of a perfect product
~Candace Whites
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