Take Aways from Day 1 of TCRWP Writing Institute June 20, 2016

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

Mindfulness

Mindfulness with Children at CRA Conference

Presenter: Neena Barreto

Mindfulness is quite the buzz word at the moment but it is an ancient practice.

Mindfulness is something I am currently trying to incorporate in my life after learning from a friend earlier this year, that it can calm and lower anxiety for those who take the time to be mindful and present every day. I have been working on being more mindful since reading Mindfulness for Beginners and Mindful Parenting: Simple and Powerful Solutions for Raising Creative, Engaged, Happy Kids in Today’s Hectic World.  I tend to Go, Go, Go and I am attempting to be more present - live in the moment and just be when opportunities present themselves.

Attending the CRA conference and sitting in on the Mindfulness with Children breakout session given by Neena Barreto, I was again intrigued and motivated to refocus on becoming more mindful and present. Neena is an Elementary MIndfulness Coach at Pioneer Elementary School in the New Haven Unified School District. She has the opportunity to work with teachers and students on ways they can be mindful and present at school which then lends itself to how they can become more mindful at home.

In my opinion, mindfulness is something we should be teaching our students (and children). Edutopia does too:

However, before one can expect to teach students, we need to practice mindfulness ourselves.

It isn’t quite meditation Neena explained, “It is a way to be.”

“How do we do it?” Neena asked, “Pause,” she simply said.

Taking a pause and being aware of our emotions, accepting them and learning what to do with them, is how we can begin with mindfulness. From PBS Learning, Mindfulness: A Teacher’s Guide, it shares that mindfulness is “when we can attend to the breath, the body, thoughts, emotions, tastes, smells, sights, sounds, and our impulses and actions and their effects on others and our environment.”

We can begin with just a minute a day. No matter where we are, we can pause and notice our breath, how our body feels in a chair, how our hands are on the steering wheel and take a moment to pause, notice our body, breath, and how we are feeling.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, a Professor of Medicine Emeritus and creator of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, also explains mindfulness in this video:  What is MIndfulness?

Once we, ourselves, become more mindful, you may wonder, well, what does this look like in the classroom?

Here is a video clip of students meditating in Harlem and why they are choosing to do meditation in their schools. Harlem Students Cultivate Emotional Intelligence, Lead Each Other in Meditation.

According to a New York Times article, “Under Stress, Students in New York Schools Find Calm in Meditation”, it says that a mindfulness exercise may have students focus on their breath so that students learn the habit of calming themselves down and clearing their minds so that they can focus better.

If you too want to continue to understand and apply mindfulness in your life and in the classroom, there is resource that we can access - Mindful Schools. Mindful Schools offers online courses:

My New Year’s Resolution is to further my understanding and practice of mindfulness to slow down and be present more often.

How about you?

~Candace Whites

Nonfiction Reading and Writing with Lucy Calkins

Non-Fiction Reading and Writing with Lucy Calkins

10/24 CRA-Joy of Literacy Conference

Riverside, CA

The Common Core standards state that 50% of a student’s school day should be spent on Non-Fiction Texts.  Current reality is that kids are now spending up to 50% of their day with Nonfiction texts in hand, yet not understanding them.  Knowing this now implies that the role of the teacher has entirely changed. Instead of being the “Giver of Information” the teacher now has to teach his/her students how to access the information in their texts.  This includes specifically teaching students to synthesize, compare and contrast, and evaluate the information they are reading. Lucky for me I listened to the ever so insightful Lucy Calkins give her advice on how to best support this current scenario in so many of our schools.

Lucy addresses what she thinks are some flaws with teaching strategies in the classroom.  One problem she shared is that kids are reading with a pen in hand. If students are constantly asked to annotate what they’re reading, they are not reading very much text, therefore, they are not acquiring very much information. If they can read without the expectation of annotating, they can read approximately a page per minute.  Students need to “get the text” before commenting. So, put the pen down once in awhile and read.

Another flaw is students are not being allowed choice with what they are reading. The purpose of reading nonfiction texts is to become an “expert” on a topic. If a student is allowed to read about a topic he/she is interested in, there will be natural motivation to read “up” to acquire information about said topic.  “Reading Up” is a term I first heard from Lucy. It literally means students start with books easy enough for them to read on a topic they are interested in and then they continue their learning by reading on-topic  texts with increasing complexity, therefore; they are learning about a topic as they are increasing reading capacity with their independent level.

In addition, another flaw is, that while there are standards and assessments in place for reading informational texts, there are not necessarily classroom libraries which have a variety of good nonfiction books. Lucy reiterates that since we are not bound to purchase particular curriculum programs and our students are expected to understand nonfiction texts, then by all means, we should purchase nonfiction books! Makes sense to me.

Lucy continues by explaining that in order for students to be able to understand a nonfiction book they must first orient themselves to how it is structured. As previously explained by Lori Ozckus, nonfiction texts can be structured in 4 ways:  main idea followed by details, cause and effect, problem and solution, or in a particular sequence. Our students need to be able to recognize the text’s structure, then taught to take notes in that same way.

So, now that we have taught our students how to read an informational text, it is time to teach them to write informational texts. In the planning stages of a book, students are encouraged to use their fingers. Their fingers are described by Lucy as the greatest graphic organizer we have.  Students  can plan the logical sequence of their books just by telling across their fingers.  Planning books requires further planning of the specific chapters. Potentially, each chapter can be a different genre. After having so much experience reading and working with informational texts, students will be able to move their writing forward by going back and adding skills as they’re taught. Some examples of how this could be done after a mini lesson would be that students could revise their writing by simply going back and adding domain specific vocabulary or adding deliberate articles or video clips to advance the main idea they are striving to develop.

Being familiar with the Units of Writing by Lucy Calkins, I wasn’t surprised when she explained that she has a learning progression for reading just like she does for writing.  This is exciting news. Why not use the learning progression to advance students from where they are in reading to the next developmental stage appropriate? Suddenly, the light bulb went on for me here...Simply put, before a student can write about a topic, they MUST read about it!

Lastly, one needs to acknowledge the elephant in the room: Teachers need support to be able to embrace the work needed to be done. We are being asked to teach in ways we’ve never actually been taught to do. Success doesn’t happen without a support system.  Lucy’s final request is a plea to support the educators trying to help our students achieve success. She suggests districts and schools become a place of learning.  I feel fortunate to be working in a district which supports teachers with the challenges ahead. Being part of a literacy coaching team, we are able to work with grade level teams to help implement the Units of Writing. We have also been hosting after school Writer’s Workshop trainings in which we work with teachers to develop their capacity in teaching literacy. A recent focus on mentor texts has allowed us to focus on supporting teachers on being intentional with their instruction when using a favorite mentor text. After seeing Lucy at CRA, I hope to share her passion and skill at teaching literacy by focusing on the features of nonfiction texts. I hope to “forget the pen” a bit more often and build schema for teachers and students alike.

~Melissa @melissawest75

A Journey to Excellence

Courtney Rodgers(@rodgersreaders) is an inspiring literacy coach who represented her school district at California Reading Association's Joy of Literacy conference.  Ross School was the winner of the ILA Exemplary Reading Program Award.  Courtney took me through her school’s 4 year journey to get there.

She explains that first she was able to convince her superintendent and school that there was a need for a universal screener in reading.  They chose the SRI reading assessment to assess their 3rd-5th graders.  They added the 2nd graders to the SRI schedule the following year.

Grades 1 and 2 were using the DRA assessment kit for all their students and following a 4 day a week guided reading model.  Any 3rd grade students scoring below grade level on the SRI were put in these grade 1-2 guided reading groups and received an additional 3 days a week intervention guided reading group experience.

With the advice of a consultant, Courtney’s school was beginning to work from an essential component model for language arts.  There are many models to choose from which all include instruction in Reading and Writing, as well as Listening and Speaking skills. The 2 essential components of the model in which the Ross school district decided to focus on were Shared and Guided Reading.

The consultant then began to push into classrooms and model guided reading lessons to ensure all teachers were following the same lesson template was being followed. Teachers then were able to refine their guided reading groups and be prepared for admin walk throughs in a non threatening way.

The following year consulting focused on working with teachers as a mentor.  She would watch the teachers  teach a reading lesson with their own students. There would be a debrief that followed.

 

For staff development she also focused on the difference between Close and Shared reading. The biggest difference between the two is that when teaching a close reading lesson a  teacher will use a short passage of an above grade level text with his/her students to hone in on and dig deeply on the meaning. Shared reading usually involves a high end grade level text which a teacher uses to model comprehension strategy work.

Building relationships and trust with teachers was huge in order to get her team to want to continue their work with the consultant. A shift in their evaluation process helped this be well received. The teachers are now able to peer assess each other and allows for a coaching scenario in the school.

I appreciate the many handouts that Courtney gave us in her session. Courtney points out that she uses a spreadsheet of standards at her reading table and as she notes which standard she’s working on with her group, she also notes their struggles.  This way she can make better book choices for her groups and continue to differentiate her questions in her following group sessions. One of my favorites is a template for managing 4 and 5 reading groups that can be implemented in a classroom. I enjoyed the many take-aways given as a first year coach!

~Melissa @melissawest75

Share the Joy of Literacy - CRA Conference Blog #4: Mentor Texts

 Using Mentor Texts to Teach Craft and Structure in Writing
Presenter:  Bridget Anderson

On October 24th, while attending the California Reading Association’s 48th, Joy of Literacy, Conference, I was fortunate to attend a session about the use of mentor texts with Bridget Anderson.  A mentor text, simply put, is an example of outstanding writing, to be used to help “move the Whole Writer, rather than individual pieces of writing forward”. Bridget shared, “A mentor text can be a picture OR chapter book, newspaper OR magazine, as well as a brochure OR menu.”

Bridget very eloquently explains how to use mentor texts effectively and began her presentation with this quote:

“The first step in a writing lesson is not to write at all but to read a  well-written text and analyze it!” Lori Oczkus

This is a quote that hooked me from the start of Bridget’s presentation.  I have used Lori’s strategies for years as an educator with my own students and it was even more exciting to see her referenced in a session in which I was feeling very unfamiliar.

Once she hooked me, Bridget explained that the reason one would want to use mentor texts in their Literacy Instruction is that it is a necessary skill for an adolescent to be able to study models as a key element of his/her writing instruction. Students are no longer just being asked what is written in a text, rather now they are asked how a text is written. Basically, they are being taught to read like writers, and conversely, write like readers. Interestingly enough, the key standards for K-5 Reading are students are able to demonstrate an understanding of:

Key Ideas and details, which includes:

1. Reading closely to determine what the text explicitly says; make inferences from, cite specific text evidence to support conclusions when Reading, Writing, AND Speaking

Craft and Structure, which includes:

1. Interpret words or phrases
2. Analyze the structure of texts
3. Assess point of view or purpose

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas, which includes:

1. Integrate and evaluate content presented
2. Delineate and evaluate the argument
3. Analyze two or more texts with similar themes

Bridget chose to focus on Craft and Structure standards with her approach to mentor texts.  She takes two genres of writing: narrative and informational; and breaks down their structure for teachers and students.  

Bridget points out that all narrative books have an intentional beginning structure.

In order to show the structure of such beginnings, Bridget brought in part of her own classroom library.  We had the opportunity to read like a writer, by looking at the beginnings of different narrative books, then decide which structure the author chose to use to begin the story.  Bridget then showcased different pieces of writing done in actual classrooms, which mimicked the structure of using one of the intentional beginnings. She showed whole class interactive writing, small group retellings, and individual student work.

Interestingly, informational books follow a similar model in which an intentional style of beginning is chosen by the author. Shown here:    

As participants of the session, we again had the opportunity to read like writers with Bridget’s personal classroom library.  We chose the structure in which we thought the author used to begin his/her informational book. After teaching these specific introductions by using text examples, a teacher could then do this activity with his/her students.  For example, students can look at the beginning of the non-fiction text they are reading and decode on which introduction the author chose to begin with.

As you may have predicted, an author needs to plan their endings as well.  Students often spend so much time telling their story or including information in their writing, that they lose stamina and just end their writing in a lackluster way. Bridget taught me the specific structures in which an author chooses from to end their book.  Shown here:

We read like writers again and had a chance to look at non fiction writing pieces and see how the author chose to end his/her story.  Bridget showed more examples of student writing in which they applied a particular chosen ending to a story or informational piece of writing.  

Lastly, we had a chance to create a piece of non-fiction writing.  We had an opportunity to work with a partner.  She scaffolded our writing by having us think of a topic in which we know about, we chose baking cookies.  We were then given 3 beginning structures to chose from to begin our story.  We were quickly able to see how we had to decide what type of writing we were going to do in order to choose our beginning. Was it going to be a literary non-fiction in which we told of a time one of us actually baked cookies? Was it going to be more of a how- to book?  Once we decided the style of writing, the rest of our writing could follow a certain structure.

I appreciated the way Bridget so clearly explained the structures of narrative and informational texts and used models of exemplary writing in order to show us how a mentor text can be used to move our students as writers. She not only gave us concrete models we can share with our colleagues, she gave implementation ideas as well.  I came away from her session with a power point I can share with teachers, and a plan for writer’s notebooks or folders, anchor charts, and a broader collection of mentor text ideas.

Thank you Bridget!

If you would like to contact Bridget Anderson: banderson@rialto.k12.ca.us

~ Melissa West