***Please make sure that you are putting your comments and assignments into the proper assigned posts :)
ASSIGNMENT SIX: DVD Reflection- Included in your text is a DVD containing video clips of Regie’s conferences with writers in the classroom. There is a detailed commentary accompanying the DVD on page 336 of her text. Please watch the DVD
and then look at her teaching notes beginning on page 336 (Regie suggests just watching without notes first so that you don’t miss what she and the students are doing.) After both watching and reading her notes, write your reflection and please post a copy of your DVD Reflection to the blog.
*NOTE: If you experience problems playing the DVD please refer to the Writing Essentials companion website at www.heinemann.com/writingessentials for directions for playing the DVD. Look in the upper right hand corner for the link.
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Assignment #6 DVD Reflection
ReplyDeleteIt is so neat to be inside someone else’s classroom! We don’t get enough of that in teaching—we’ve had conversations about that as a staff but have not prioritized it to my knowledge. I am so glad Regie put the work into filming, creating a gallery, and including comments both in the DVD and in her book. Seeing the students go through the processes, seeing her patience, and hearing her comments provide me with a great model. I’ve taken so many notes in this class and I’ve tried to implement what I can—sometimes it’s not even prepared, it’s just how I am reprioritizing. When I try to fit so much in a 2 ½ hour day I NEED to remember what is important: reading, writing, and math. It helps me be choosy about my activities, and throw stuff out or use it differently than intended.
Even something as simple as seeing her “authors chair”, which I haven’t used consistently, is motivating to try. Usually I have kids stand to the side so they can model tracking while they read. I can use the document camera as well, but that sometimes gets in the way of intimate sharing.
Watching AlexSandra’s celebration I was reminded of pre-teaching of carets, and then following through in the 1-on-1 at her level. Lahana’s video reminded me that I want to send home Appendix C to encourage interesting reading (nonfiction AND fiction), include a writing station in the home (with stationary, cards, pens, pencils, etc.), writing purposefully (thank yous, lists), increase access to books by joining the public library, having a home library, reading/writing to please not punish, and my favorite, writing notes to their children. My mom ALWAYS wrote my brother and me notes! I loved it and it taught me to do so as well.
Paige’s video included quotes as Regie pointed out; that motivates me to introduce them as well. Normally I do earlier in the year, but I decided not to this year because it seemed overwhelming to this class. I wanted to focus elsewhere. But as I see kids writing more, taking more chances, and including those things we learn in mini-lessons, I’ll do so. After Max’s reading Regie asked “did everyone understand about the monkey”, etc. and complimented on the “tricky” (important) title. She let him share even though he was not done with his piece. Some kids know when they’re not done and some kids get more ideas for extension, revision, etc. in the sharing process. I guess you have to balance out the expectations—when is okay to share when not finished and when is it not okay?
In Ervin’s video Regie praised first and then commented “It’ll be easier for the reader…you don’t want to confuse or bore your reader…” “I’m going to suggest ___”, but then gave him the responsibility of changing it himself. I think I would need more scaffolding and help at the kindergarten level but I do like the use of sticky notes (I use them all of the time in class so the kids would be very familiar with them ☺). I noticed in the Editing Conference that she said to “write fast”, which I am assuming is to prevent over-thinking. She is right—carry over of skills is NOT automatic! Her expectations are clear as she says “you’re never allowed to misspell___”. Accountability is high. The Student Gallery was also neat to look at to put a picture with her book explanations.
I really enjoyed watching Regie in action - working with the students one on one, celebrating their poems and story successes, and seeing the gallery of work that was done on the informational writing.
ReplyDeleteI believe informational writing is a great place to start for my students, so I am glad to see what was published by other classes. We have completed some classroom pieces related to our games this week, but a behavior/expectations book would be a great PBS project, and the pamphlet for the substitute teacher would be a great project too.
I use Sitton Spelling, and in that curriculum we are encouraged to write a series of "spelling rules books. This next week we are also going to be working on a spelling book, that we will share with our K book buddies, on long and short o vowel sounds. If my student understand that it will be used by the K teachers and staff, then the audience and purpose is built right in!
The best part of the DVD and the teaching in action projects was the celebration, and the smiles on the faces of the students. They were all so proud of their accomplishments! I found myself smiling and celebrating with them. The lessons and words used by Regie to encourage, suggest, and correct students in writing and spelling were supportive and encouraging words. The students never felt that their work was being criticized or laughed at (in a negative way) by others. The story about the new baby sister was funny, and she was supportive and encouraging despite the fact that the poem needed some editing work and was not finished. The content was the important factor! I so hope to get there with my students - to not only celebrate their writing, but so that the editing, spelling, grammar, etc. comes second nature to all of them.
Watching Regie in action was awesome. She's a fabulous teacher; a master teacher for us all. Her emphasis on the overall celebration of the writing process is SO what we need. What makes her a master is establishing the celebration as a basis for teaching and learning skills! I love that!
ReplyDeleteI learned from observing Regie's work with AlexSandra: the reminder that we (teachers) need to focus on the meaning first when helping a student with their writing, then, we begin to work on the skills. The use of post-it notes is helpful to assist students to transfer new words to their writing. Even though this can be a slow process for many students (at least the ones I work with), it's a great tool to help them move toward independence in writing.
I also learned much from watching Regie in action when she was working on spelling. I like her ability to use the responsive/interactive style of teaching. She refuses to give up on the students while raising the expectations by having the student do the work. Again, this process may be slow at first, but we're helping students gain important skills. I also liked the different approaches that Regie tries to help the student: using visual examples,circling misspelled words,try an alternative spelling that makes sense,practice the spelling word, changing the order of the letters, and asking, "What other words have the "er" sound"? How nice that Regie has given us a "Summary of Expectations For all Students: Editing for Spelling", on page 350. Another future addition to my classroom walls!! There are some great reminders there for me as a teacher, and ideas/strategies for students to assist them with strengthening their spelling skills.
What I'm taking away from this video is a new way to approach spelling skills: I have a 6th grade student who is a strong writer (she has great ideas and is very creative and positive), though she does struggle with spelling. My goal is to take some of these strategies that Regie has pointed out and see how I can help this particular student become more independently proficient at dealing with her spelling challenges. Again, if I have the "laundry list" (p. 350) posted in front of me, I know we'll finds several ideas to help this student.
Thanks Lauren, Jenni, and Erin! It is great to see Regie put her words into action...a picture is definitely worth a thousand words! Lauren – you are definitely at a disadvantage with the ½ day Kindergarten schedule….and you can only fit so much in. I think it’s great that you prioritize for reading, writing & math….did you say you use “The Sisters” Daily 5? If not, you should definitely look into it. Jenni – I absolutely loved the ideas of the children writing a behavior/expectations book as well as a substitute teacher pamphlet…what purpose and audience!!! Erin - spelling has always been a constant struggle for me also when deciding what the most appropriate way to address the spelling needs of my students. Regie offers some great suggestions on both the DVD and in her text! Best of luck as you try some of these strategies out with your students!
ReplyDeleteThis DVD makes all that Regie’s book has to say, really come to life. Watching her in action really makes it easier to understand how good conferencing looks like. All of the conferences were very helpful to watch. There were a few that really stuck out for me, beginning with Erivin. In that conference, she did it in front of the entire class. I thought this was very effective. There were a few things that she did to make him comfortable with this public conference. She gave his lots of praise to begin with. Then she asked him questions to clear up confusion. When he clarified, she wrote the clarification on a sticky note (not verbatim what he should write, just a few words to jog his memory). Then when she gave him a direct suggestion, she asked that he actually do the crossing out on his own paper. I am so cognoscente not writing on students paper and making sure that they have the final say on any revisions that sometimes I get stuck and the student decides not to change anything. I like how Regie was very direct, but gave him some tools to actually do the revision on his own. She also modeled how to actually do revision by asking him to cross something out that was repetitive. She had him use his own pencil. It was fabulous modeling for other kids.
ReplyDeleteAnother part that really stood out to me was when she was conferencing with the Second Graders on their Secret Stories. I felt like many of the issues that those writers faced are very common in the Second Grade classroom. I enjoyed watching her do Whole-Class Share Conferences as well as One-on-One conferences like she did with Alexsandra. I mostly do one-on-one or small group conferences, so I am definitely going to try whole group conferences too. The important pieces that I noticed to the whole group conferences were that they were intentional and thought out. She first allowed students to celebrate their writing on the previous day. Then she took the papers home, read them, and chose specific students to conference with the following day. Her conferences were very efficient in the fact that she focused on a few things that good writer’s did, throughout all of the conferences, and reinforced those with all of the writer’s she conferenced with. The most amazing piece is that all of her conferences were around 3-4 minutes.
Another thing that I really liked was that she writes a list of things that good writer’s do. I know she addressed this previously, but I am trying to think of how to do it with my class. I think it is an ongoing list and after the first day, she pointed out a few things that she did the previous day and wrote them down. I assume as the year goes on, the students help her add to the list, does that sound right?
I am going to use her lesson outline and try the Secret Stories entire lesson plan with my own class over the next 2 weeks (I’m only half time). I am really going to try to stick with what Regie did and see how it works for my kiddos and what I learn in the process of it. This is the 3rd or 4th time I have watched this DVD, and I find so many more great ideas and teaching tips each and every time!
Assignment 6: DVD Reflection:
ReplyDeleteIt was very helpful to watch Regie conduct the whole class conferences. This really did help me understand what she meant in the previous chapters. In the past, I had only assumed that writing conferences had to be conducted one on one, and I was having a difficult time picturing it any other way.
What I observed was exciting. The students (during the whole class conferences) were really engaged in the activity. The students who were sharing had huge smiles on their faces, and you could tell that they were very proud of their work. What an exciting way to celebrate students’ writing, while giving them feedback and instruction at the same time.
I was a little more mixed with my reactions to the other conferences. As I watched the conference with Alex, I was noticing how long it was taking. I thought the conference went extremely well, and I am sure that Alex learned a lot. However, what would I be doing with my 31 other kids? In the video, she had other teachers in the room and so she was able to focus all of her energy on Alex. Great in theory, but I’m not sure how I would accomplish this type of conference at this time. I know it really depends on the students, and this year, my learners are not very independent.
The editing conference surprised me the most. Again, the conference seemed very beneficial to the student she was working with, but I’m not so sure about the others. There was one girl right in the front row who kept turning around, putting her head down on the desk, etc. I’m not sure this conference would be worthwhile in a whole class share, at least in my room. I do see the benefit of this type of conferencing with small groups who are working on the same area. But my more accomplished writers would definitely be a bit bored if this type of conferencing happened very often. What I did like about it, was that it gave the writer the job of editing, and not the teacher. That is something they could all benefit from.
Sincerely,
Julie
Regie’s frequent use of the words joy and celebration are what it’s all about. This week, one of my students from last year came to me, beaming, with a hard cover book (a story she started last year) that she had had “published”. She was so excited about it, my current sixth graders were enthralled with it, and it was a moment that makes all the hard work worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that impressed me most about Regie was the no -nonsense way of talking about both the good and the bad. Everything was delivered in a conversational style. She didn’t overdue the praise or sound insincere. She didn’t try to sugarcoat or apologize for the constructive comments she made.
The conference with Ervin reinforced the importance of talking through stories and ideas.
The only thing I didn’t like was when she told the second graders during the spelling conference that “they should know” the spellings for the sound “ow” This seemed to be a criticism of the teachers delivered in front of the students. It doesn’t really matter if the students should know something; if they don’t, just teach it to them.
I had the same concerns as Julie. Some of the conferences seemed long and I could imagine my class of 27 sixth graders, mostly boys, checking out. So, what would I do about it? I might have them all fix something in their own work that related to what I was working on in that conference. Obviously, a spelling conference with sixth graders wouldn’t take that long.
In all, very helpful for setting a tone for a whole class conference!
I think one of the most challenging aspects of teaching is the isolation I feel in the classroom when it comes to sharing teaching strategies and specific lesson approaches. I wish that there were more ways that teachers could share time together within the student contact day. Being able to watch Regie interacting with students I could really see the chapters to this book come alive in the way she speaks, interacts and celebrates words with the students. As I watched the DVD I realized how much more time I need to spend celebrating the student’s writing- not just the papers that we spend days on- but the opening up the classroom discussions to allow students to share their free writes. I need to think beyond a single assignment and focus on the whole child’s development and attitude towards writing.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching Regie in action and taking to heart her message to bring the joy back into writing I feel like I was able to really focus on this and help my students and help myself feel good about my teaching.
This last week we completed our state writing tests in class. I could see the worn down look on my student’s faces. On the last day of testing, before we began that last session I took my class outside. Our school is located amongst the foothills of
Mt. Hood. We have trees, mountains wildlife all around us. I had the kids grab their writing notebooks and we went outside and their assignment was to write what they saw and felt. It was a beautiful day- sunshine, blue skies, crisp winter air. I watched the strain of the test melt off the students’ faces as they wrote. When we went in the students asked if they could write poems from what they had written outside. The students wrote and illustrated some of the best work they have accomplished all year. We took the time to share and give specific feedback for students. I am in the process of laminating and binding the poems into a class book. The pure freedom and pleasure the students took in the writing was a celebration for us as a community of learners.
One of the techniques that Regie uses that really struck me as important was reading and praising specific aspects of a student’s writing in a whole class situation. I liked how Regie would allow the student to share their writing and then read the piece again sharing why the writing was meaningful. AS often as possible I try to really highlight great writing when I am reading aloud to the class from varies sources, but I hadn’t thought about re-reading a student’s piece of writing to emphasize the strong points.
I think the most meaningful lesson I learned from watching the DVD is slowing down to relax and delve into words with my students. I set the pace of my classroom and I need to slow it down to take the time to really celebrate and share the joy of writing with my students.
Thanks Nicole, Julie, Katy, and Virginia. It definitely seemed as though being able to watch Regie “in action” through various clips of her different types of conferences really pulled things together for each of you! Julie made a comment about the length of time for the conferences…over the years I’ve done my best to try to really shave off the time of my conferences. Trying to stick with the focus of my minilessons as well as only one teaching point has really helped!
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ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed watching the public conferences with the students. Because the student texts were poems, the conferences could be short and sweet. I like how Regie celebrated with the students, especially their use of humor, and I really enjoyed learning about how much Max’s conference and experience with Regie helped him bloom as a writer and student.
I like how she made the kids do the edits themselves. Her attention to not writing on their paper was enlightening.
Now, I was bothered by both of her conferences with Derek. In the first one, it seemed so obvious that his story wasn’t true, he was just making it up as he went along. What do you do in those situations? Do you just let it go on? Do you say something? The biggest issue with his making up the story is that he struggled with chronology and it lacked voice.
And then there was the spelling conference. I am SOOO glad some other people have commented about it too. For me it was brutal to watch. We can actually see the other kids losing interest while she works with Derek. What’s the right balance? I feel like she’s losing the high performing kids while she works with the low performing kids! I appreciate how she didn’t give up on Derek. I know it helped him, but what about the self esteem of the rest of the class. I especially wondered about the rest of the class in light of the the “ow” issue. I too felt like she was chastising the teachers and students in front of the class. But moreover, on the video, we hear a kid near the recorder saying the correct answer. Apparently Regie doesn’t and chides the class for not knowing it. How is that nameless, faceless kid in the back going to feel?
I guess I had mixed reactions to the DVD. It’s so obvious that Regie is a wonderful supportive teacher. She inspires great results from the students she works with. But I didn’t feel like the spelling lesson sent the right message to the entire class.
One of the first things that I noticed while viewing the DVD was the amount of praise and positive feedback she gave the students. She had written about this in the book, and we all know how important positive feedback is (one school I worked at had a rule of 10 positive comments for every censure made), but I was still very impressed when I saw Regie lavish praise on students. She was able to greatly celebrate their writing. One could see, especially in the whole class shares, that students were proud of their writing and were feeling empowered. This kind of celebration will just make more students want to write well and share. Likewise, the students in the audience were attentive, engaged, and positive themselves. I liked the way Regie would use this, saying things like, “everyone laughed, which showed that you entertained them.” Regie’s feedback was specific and genuine, and it was easy to see students like Max or Derek get excited about their writing. And while Regie’s remarks to kids were overwhelmingly positive, she was corrective when she needed to be.
ReplyDeleteAnother skill that Regie demonstrated was her ability to evaluate and provide feedback on the spot. She expressed her thoughts out loud, explained why she liked or was confused by certain elements, and used a variety of strategies to scaffold and teach. For instance, at times she had the students write additions or corrections to their writing, but if necessary, Regie provided more scaffolding by writing on post-it notes for them. She also kept working with the students until they got it. In the mini lesson on spelling, the student continued to practice and address his mistakes until he got them. Viewing the lesson, I could tell that some of the other students in the class were getting a little antsy, but Regie positively addressed this with “I appreciate you watching and not trying to help,” again showing her awareness of the class, but sticking with the goal.
I am definitely glad that the DVD came with our text. Being able to see both the whole class share and one-on-one conferences that had been covered in the book was very helpful. It was encouraging to see students be genuinely excited about the writing. I felt empowered by what I saw as it is something that I can immediately incorporate into my teaching.
All of the conferences on this DVD were of students much younger than the ages I teach, so I have to use my imagination to see how the strategies would work with my students, as well as draw from my own experiences. What I first think about is how Derek is put on the spot in front of his peers to discuss his story with an adult. He seems comfortable enough, but I wonder how engaged he really is, or is he distracted by having all of his peers looking up at him (the ones that were paying attention). He answered all of Regie’s questions and was able to talk about his story, but I much preferred the conference with AlexSandra, which was conducted in private. I say this because I know my students are very self-conscious about their skills, and so I ask myself: “Is the conference in front of the class celebrating and helping to create pride in one’s work, or is it building on the self-conscious feeling?” Only one way to find out…
ReplyDeleteAnother big difference between Derek and AlexSandra’s conferences was that Derek was not responsible for making any changes to his writing as the conference was happening. Regie seemed to me taking notes (did they meet one-on-one before this), but Derek was only answering her questions. On the other hand, AlexSandra was responsible for making many of the edits her and Regie discussed, and was asked how to rephrase certain parts of the story, where Derek was more or less answering “yes” or “no” to Regie’s questions.
I also really liked the clear and concise way Regie tells the students, “I don’t understand.” This speaks to me so much because this is what we hear from our students that encourage us to rephrase directions or try to explain our message in a different way. Isn’t this the message our students need to hear about their own writing in order to encourage them to clarify their writing? Regie also seemed to write notes on a “Post-it” for AlexSandra to take back with her. Some reminders or suggestions the student can use when they are back working independently on their writing. I liked this, since so many of our students don’t do well with receiving and remembering verbal messages.
There was one place on the DVD that I disliked. In the Spelling conference, Regie says to Derek that he his “never allowed to misspell” that word again (or something like that). This seems harsh! Will Derek be fearful of failure and never even TRY to spell this word again if he doesn’t know how to spell it? This is how many of my struggling reading and writing students behave—if they don’t know how to do something, they are paralyzed by the fear of failure. So I wonder if Derek was empowered by these statements or if they felt more like threats. Anyone have an opinion here? I just always tend to think of my highly defensive, highly obstinate students.
I really enjoyed watching the video clips of the students sharing their writing. It was encouraging to hear all the praise Regie gave them as she was listening. Seeing her conferences in action made them easier understand. I liked how she kept them short and focused. One thing I noticed she did with Ervin was have him be the one to actually cross out text that needed to be deleted. I often discuss these kinds of changes with my students but (to save time) I make the edits myself. Giving the pen back to the student and letting them make this change themselves makes more sense. I think it validates the change for them.
ReplyDeleteI have many writers like Derek – they have an interesting story but it drags on and on and lacks a conclusive ending. I like how Regie brought this to his attention and asked, “How can you end it because you don’t want it to go on forever?” I thought that was an encouraging way to ask without ending it for him. I wasn’t overly impressed with her whole class approach to editing his paper however. She seemed a little harsh with the ou/ow spelling confusion. While I agree it is important that students learn phonics and spelling I am afraid some students’ would shy away from writing if they felt there was going to be so much pressure to spell correctly. It is the ongoing dilemma … do we encourage quality writing or correct spelling. I have taken a gentler approach to saying “Forevermore, you are never allowed to misspell “again.” And, again, later, “You may never in your whole life ever misspell “over” again.” I am saying, “Now you all know what the correct spelling looks like, let’s try to remember this so we can all spell this word correctly in the future.”
I want my students to discover a love for writing. I encourage correct spelling and the use of all the resources in the classroom (word wall, word charts in their personal writing folder, Quickwords booklet, etc) but what I find is that many students do not use them because they are not aware that they are misspelling the in the first place.
Conferencing is an area in which I still struggle. I am very visual and like to see actual examples. Watching Regie conference with a writer in the author’s chair, and with student one-on-one was a great learning experience for me.
Overall I have benefited from watching these video clips. But I do think coming into someone’s class and teaching a lesson and actually being the classroom teaching makes a huge difference in how feedback and positive “strokes” are delivered. We (I) get so focused on “data driven results” that we forget it is OK to take our time and make learning fun and encouraging.
DVD Reflection
ReplyDeleteIt was so great watching a master teacher in action. The DVD was a great asset to the book. Watching some of her strategies, techniques, and conversations will make it easier to implement into my daily writing instruction. I totally loved seeing the students work samples and whole class writing projects. Being new to 3rd grade I have been having a hard time getting a good feel on what to expect writing to look like. It is really nice to see color copies ideas I can use in my classroom. I love that she puts the students pictures with their work.
Another area I found really valuable was when Regie was working with Derek. So often the struggling students get discouraged and don't want to write. And, I will admit I often get frustrated. I love how she celebrated his ideas and made an outline for him to put his words onto paper. Derek was also so happy to have something to share with the class.
I look forward to using Regie's spelling strategies with my class. I like how she made kids come up and edit their own work, no daily practice sheets. They can see the value in editing when it involves them. I also like how she gave individuals no more excuses words. She talked them through the process and them made a pact with them. I love it!
The DVD will be really great to refer back to and to handy when needing a quick reference or sample for colleagues.
Thanks Hillary, Derek, Lindsay, Clara, and Jennifer, for your comments about the DVD. You guys all made some great points. I agree with Hillary and Lindsay that it maybe would have been better to address Derek’s needs during a conference. It is hard to find the balance with spelling expectations, but that didn’t need to be whole class. On the other hand though, I do think as Derek stated that the overall tone of the DVD clips were very positive and supportive in guiding students with their writing. As Clara mentioned, it’s very different when an outside teacher steps into the shoes of the classroom teacher. Not only might it be easier to deliver the positive feedback, but they are also missing all of the “background knowledge” of prior student learning as well as information about individual students. As Jennifer suggested…see if some colleagues would like to view the DVD as a group.
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