ASSIGNMENT FOUR: WRITTEN REFLECTION-Section Two- Teaching Essentials Chapters 4-6
Read Writing Essentials, Chapters 4-6 and briefly reflect on the following thoughts written below and any additional comments that you have after reading these chapters. Post your reflection to the course blog.
Chapter 4: Raise Your Expectations
• Why we need to raise expectations – ESPECIALLY for our minority and lower socio-economic students
• How to raise expectations in your classrooms as well as in your grade level and throughout your entire building
• What about handwriting, spelling and editing expectations?
• How to use the Optimal Learning Model to support your students’ needs
“Raising expectations” for our students is a big push in all of our districts. Under “No Child Left Behind” many schools have been identified as “in need of improvement” and have been working furiously yet unsuccessfully for over ten years to “close the gap” for our minority children. But more important than improving performance on high stakes tests is remembering that if we raise our expectations and teach explicitly, then our students will rise to the occasion and astonish us with the high quality work that each of them is capable of.
Regie has some great insight into the need to raise expectations of our students and feeling comfortable and confident with the decision to set high standards for all learners. She raises the question, What are our clearly articulated, rigorous yet reasonable expectations? This is a question that we should reflect on as individual teachers, and one that should be the starting point for a conversation within our grade levels, buildings and across entire districts.
We’d like to know what you think of one of our favorite quotes from the book: “Worksheets aren’t good enough. The students who can do them don’t need them, and the ones who struggle with them feel defeated by the red marks, which only reinforce their feelings of inadequacy. WORKSHEETS FOSTER MEDIOCRITY!” (We personally wanted to shout out when we read that!) Please include your thoughts in your Section Two Reaction.
In this chapter, Regie also sheds some light on several topics that teachers often ask about. “What about handwriting expectations?” and “Conventions, Editing and Publishing?” It’s always helpful to get another professional’s point of view on these pressing issues! Enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 5: Do More Shared Writing• Where does Shared Writing fit within the Optimal Learning Model?
• For which learners is Shared Writing appropriate?
• How can we link Shared Writing with Shared Reading?
• How can Shared Writing be used to support word work?
• What are some “Tried and True” ideas for Shared Writing?
Regie's idea of Shared Writing is very different than that of many other professionals in the field. So often we use Shared Writing only with the primary grades. As Regie states, “What a great way to teach and engage all students in all aspects of oral and written language.” If we are to consider teaching through all phases of the Optimal Learning Model, we can begin to see how important Shared Writing is for our students. We think that the idea of using Shared Writing in both upper elementary and the middle schools is a new way of thinking for many of us.
One of the reasons Regie encourages teachers to use chart paper and an easel, instead of projecting to a screen with an overhead or document camera, is that the children are seated right with you on the floor, which usually holds the children’s attention a little better. Another idea that has worked great for me is to move the overhead machine to the group area and place it on the floor in the middle of the group in front of the easel. I then project the machine onto the white space of the easel. It’s great because you’re able to be right there in the middle of the group and have the benefit of writing more quickly onto a transparency rather that chart paper. You’ll need to consider which of your Shared Writing activities you’ll want students to be rereading (don’t forget that you can hole punch transparencies and put them in a binder for future reference) and which you may want posted to your walls on charts.
Regie’s list of “Tried and True Ideas for Shared Writing” (page 112) is very extensive. It would be helpful to take a look at Regie’s list as you create your curriculum map for the year. Where would some of her suggestions fit within your science, social studies, math, reading and writing units across the year?
Chapter 6: Capitalize on the Reading-Writing Connection
• How can we become more effective integrating our reading and writing instruction?
• Are we as efficient as possible with our responses to reading?
• The benefit and necessity to integrate our content area teaching with both reading and writing
• The importance of writing (and reading) more nonfiction
We know research shows that reading achievement affects writing achievement and vice-versa, and we also know that it continually gets harder to fit “it all” into our day. Effectively using reading and writing connections throughout the day in all areas of language arts, math, science, social studies, and even specials such as art, music and library, is our only option.
Regie’s suggestion of taking a closer look at how we use written response to reading is a very important one. Careful consideration is needed to decide if what we’re asking the students to do is “worth their time.” For example, if the response we’re looking for will “deepen comprehension, cause the writer to reflect on the content, and/or foster appreciation for the text” then it’s worth it. We whole-heartedly agree with her statement that many of the overly structured assignments such as book reports can alienate our readers! While response journals do have their benefits for us professionally Regie states, “they also take up a lot of our time!” It’s a very organized teacher who can effectively keep up with their responses without feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. Don’t forget the bottom line – “Be sure that students spend more time reading than writing about reading!” (Page 126)
We are so glad that Regie addressed how to effectively teach summary writing. We know that many teachers have a difficult time differentiating between a summary and retelling – I (Jackie) was one of them until several years ago. The snapshots and procedures that Regie shares on how to teach summarizing are invaluable and should be a reference that we all refer back to throughout our teaching year.
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Chapter 4: I am shouting with you! Not to say that I have never used any worksheets, but I have found them to be less than inspiring to my students. Not to mention a pain to collect and mark! My students either use journals (for math, science, and literacy) or they work on white boards for practice. For my writing instruction I do focus on the 6Traits+1, but I do that by discussing each trait as we read books, and then my students meet with me about their writing, we use the Traits to discuss strengths and weaknesses in their work. I have worked hard to keep our comments from only being about conventions, and so it was with some relief that I read Regie Routman’s comments on the importance of conventions. In fact, I read that part of the book to my students! Then I pointed out their reactions to the writing of their grade 2 writing buddies: “I can’t read her words – it’s so messy.” Or “I am not sure what she is saying – I don’t know where the sentence ends.” They were shocked to realize that their own first impressions were based on presentation and conventions!
ReplyDeleteChapter 5: It is a little embarrassing to admit that I have not done much shared writing with my students over the course of my career…. I have made an effort to do more of it with my kids this year, and I have to say: they love it! One thing that I know I have to really work on is making sure to keep it short and quick. I literally have to watch the clock! My favorite part of this chapter, though, was that great list of suggestions! I already did part of a research report with my girls, as they are currently writing research reports on endangered animals. I think that doing a bit as a shared writing really gave them more confidence to get started on their own animals. I am excited to see how they all turn out! Our next unit will be poetry, so I plan on doing lots of shared writing, especially a poem for two voices (ala Paul Fleischman). Other ideas I want to include next year include: What is special about us; summary of a picture book; book reviews, How tos, charts for classroom procedures; observations (for science especially!).
Chapter 6: I love the idea of children using the mini spiral notebooks to jot down notes, questions, or even summaries! Working here in Dubai, reading comprehension for my fourth graders has been a huge focus. I can only anticipate similar struggles with my students in Lithuania next year. I am going to try out having them do more writing in response to their reading to see if it helps them improve. Having said that, I will bear in mind what Regie says about not writing too much about reading! I also agree that students need to read more non-fiction, but more importantly, I need to read more non-fiction to them! I have been very good about reading to my students every day, but I overwhelmingly choose fiction books to share with them. I guess I think of it as our ‘story’ time. This is something that I need to fix, because, as she points out over and over: so much of our teaching can happen during read aloud time. I really HAVE to share more non-fiction books with my students if I want them to self-select non-fiction books and read them with good comprehension.
- Katherine
I'm so guilty of fiction only read alouds this year. I have done a few nonfiction books in the past and my students really enjoyed them, I don't know what I was doing this year that I left them out! I did a great book on the ocean with them and had them develop questions a couple years ago, I got a hand cramp before they ran out of thoughts... :)
DeleteI don't know about you, but Shared Writing experiences have always felt a bit awkward to me. This is probably because I didn't have much of a clue on how to go about them in a sensible fashion, and also because I didn't do it nearly often enough to get comfortable. Changing that outlook and lack of Shared time is on my Top 5 To Do list for next year. I never truly considered it being so valuable for older students, but the more I think about it and read Regie's thoughts on it, the more I realize how vital that step in the process is to writing development.
Thank you for sharing all of your thoughts and weaknesses! I am so glad that this class supports us in our struggle to learn and allows such honesty!
When reading chapter 4, I immediately identified with the need to raise expectations! I teach in a low socioeconomic area, and it is in a rural location, and I know that people do not have high expectations for students in my class or in our school. Needless to say, this makes teaching writing very difficult. I really appreciated the visuals and demonstration photo from pages 58 and 59, I that ought that they would make great pieces to put up in class and add bullet points or highlight them as we discuss them in mini lessons or in a shared writing experience. The posters could then be reminders for students if they have writer’s block or ideas to suggest during conferences. I feel like I use many of the prompts for telling more in writing, but the comprehensive list is so helpful. The handwriting discussion is also very interesting to me; I have a few students with handwriting that is rarely legible to any extent. I often tell them that I am having trouble reading their work. For a couple of the students, I know that the handwriting issue is because they are being lazy or trying to rush the work. This truly frustrates me and other staff members who do try to earnestly read the work but simply cannot. When asked to resubmit the work in better writing, it does happen, but it’s exhausting the student and me! I appreciated the positive spins that Regie put on getting children to use better writing, but unfortunately, one particularly stubborn soul does not care what or how I say something. THOUGHTS??? I also totally agreed with disdain being shown regarding worksheets! That isn’t writing. Not real writing at least. I have used a few worksheets in my teaching time, but they usually focus around pre-writing ideas and brainstorming. I also don’t grade them; rather the student keeps them as sources for writing topics and ideas. And I definitely participate with the students! I also do a sentence arranging activity like Regie showed in chapter 5.
ReplyDeleteWith chapter 5 I am SO guilty of the misconception of shared writing experiences. I rarely used them in the past, but want to try them more and more. I definitely thought of them as primary activities, not meant for older grades. However, after reading the serious list that Regie made (Tried and True Ideas…) I clearly had to rethink my perspective quite a bit! HOLY COW! The list was seemingly endless, and there were so many that I wanted to try immediately. Granted time is limited and considering the year is rapidly coming to a close, I will likely have to save the vast majority for next year! I can definitely see the link between Shared Reading and writing, and have used linked activities a few times, but want to start using it more often. This would be especially beneficial in my reading class as a way to bring up some of my lower writers with the support of stronger writers. I am already reworking my lesson plans for next week’s novel study! I can’t wait to have my students involved in a retelling or book review Shared Reading/Writing experience based on our class novel, Because of Winn Dixie. I also want to keep a running list of vocabulary or interesting words from the text that students can then reuse in writing pieces or Shared activities.
I know ~ I loved seeing examples of posters, too! I know how much I use the posters that the kids and I created about reading; we refer to them all the time. I will definitely be adding some for writing.
DeleteAs far as handwriting goes.... I really have mixed feelings about that issue, as I have horrible handwriting myself. It has been a struggle my whole life, and sort of an embarrassment as an adult. My dad used to make me practice handwriting at home, to no avail. Now at work, I type almost everything. I have been known to recreate forms that were handed to me, so that I could word process my responses. So... with regard to children, I do feel that some students can improve their handwriting rather effortlessly. But for some, I try to offer the computer to them as often as possible. This does not work for quick writes, of course, but for many things it does.
I am also always a little nervous about shared writing, but I have to say that when I do it, it is so useful. I, too, have a goal of incorporating more shared writing into my day next year.
While reading chapter 6, the thing that I appreciated most was the play-by-play for doing summarizing with Shared Read-Alouds. I have done some lessons that were along the same concept, but the wording and ideas that Regie presented were more streamlined and overall encouraging. I am a big fan of writing for the content areas, but also sometimes find it very challenging to find the time to properly teach said writing, when you’re on a curriculum expectation crunch. There have been small steps that I have taken in order to encourage that writing, adapting my tests in social studies to be written responses. We take time to discuss the materials that will be on the test, verbally talking about the topics and exploring them. Then we take brief notes on the topic and discussion. Students can then use their notes to aid them on the test. We did do a brief lesson on how to take our information and connect it to the questions, but after reading the four tips from Regie, I have more ideas on how to instruct students, not only for social studies, but also for my readers! I personally enjoy reading nonfiction text, because I like learning about new things and finding out about the world around me. When reading a nonfiction piece with students I aim to maintain my enthusiasm and do think alouds regarding the text. I want students to be passionate about their world too! Granted I love reading fiction too, I consider myself a total nerd who loves nonfiction just as much. I even bought an old book on national parks at a book sale this weekend for the sake of reading it!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Melissa, about writing in the content areas. I also agree about finding time. I think that it is hard to have time for each of the shared writings and each step. I really like how you adapt your social studies test to written response questions. I think many teachers think it is faster to grade, but it is just one more time for them to practice essential real world skills.
DeleteKathy,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea to read the section from the text to your students and then share their comments about their peers papers!
Yeah! Good for you for adding more shared writing into your instruction. Yep, Jackie and I both have to “watch the clock” especially when we confer. But it is important to keep things moving along and allow time for the students to write or for you to confer with other students.
The Common Core State Standards are HUGE here now. So the big push is more nonfiction for students. Both their reading and being read to. Regie has advocated for years that students need to be reading a large diet of nonfiction texts. One thing to consider is not only to do a unit on text features, but also text structures. There are many types of nonfiction books and their structures all differ slightly. So you can have a cooking book, a how-to book, a biography, etc… helping students understand how each of these types of books are laid out and work will help them with their understanding.
Hi Melissa!
Don’t feel guilty about reading fiction. There are many wonderful fiction stories that serve many educational purposes. We need a healthy balance between fiction and nonfiction. I would be so sad if all I read was nonfiction to my students. Another thing to keep in mind that is worth sharing with your students is that we do NOT have to read nonfiction books from cover to cover. In fact, rarely do people sit down and read an entire nonfiction book. (This is not including nonfiction authors that have a strong literary element like: Seymour Simon, Steve Jenkins, Gail Gibbons, David Adler, Kathleen Krull.) (On a side-note these authors are awesome to introduce your students to for strong nonfiction stories.)
Your ocean book made me think of the various forms of KWL charts. Which lend themselves nicely to nonfiction stories, lessons and units. Here are some other versions you may want to try with your students. I’m sure there are plenty others out there or you could create your own.
On the K-W-L I like to add "S" at the end for "Still Want to Know." You don't have too, but I like to demonstrate to the students that often when we learn something new it leads us to wanting to know (or learn) something else. There's a bunch of variations on the KWL chart. Here are a few:
Variations
K-W-F This is what I Know, This is what I Wonder about, This is how I will Find out
K-T-F This is what I Know for sure, This is what I Think I know, This is how I Found out
O-W-L This is what I Observed, This is what I Wonder about, This is what I Learned
P-O-E This is what I Predict, This is what I Observed, This is how I can Explain it
K-W-L-H Same as K-W-L plus, This is How I learned it
Yes, shared writing is quite powerful for older students as well. Primary teachers seem to be more comfortable with using shared writing but as Regie notes it is beneficial to all students.
Even though this class is small this term with only three students, you have all been doing an excellent job sharing and responding with each other. It makes the term even more enjoyable for us when participation is high. Plus, we are also able to learn with you!
Handwriting… I personally think it’s important. It’s one piece of how the world judges you and like it or not, people do make judgments. (Also included this is how we speak, dress, act.)
ReplyDeleteI would say for the students who have messy handwriting that I would (kindly) have a conversation with them about the importance of legible writing. I would then talk to the students about what is going on with the handwriting. (I’m assuming this is not a fine motor issue or IEP issue.) I would than explain that certain pieces need to be best handwriting like final copies or work for the hall. As long as the student is able to re-read their work constantly, I would let them write how they wanted when it wasn’t very important to me. I would be clear with them on expectations. Perhaps pull out examples of their work that you saved to show: Never ok, Ok, Best copy. (Having it be their own writing is important so you can clearly see what they are capable of.) Be sure to set up a system to let the student know what the expectation is for each piece. (Trying to be sure not to embarrass them.)
If the students are able to I would also offer they the opportunity to keyboard. Either with a ---oh I forget what those little typewriter things are called that so many schools have, I think you know what I mean, on the computer or on a tablet. I would allow this for even quick writes. As long as the student was doing work and not fooling around I have no problem with them using whatever tool that helps them. And if you are worried that other students will complain…fair is not equal. This is what this student needs. It is not play time. Usually classmates are fine with this.
One other thought would be to try different writing utensils. What about fat pencils, pencil grips (the ones that put your fingers in the correct place,) pens or thin markers. Maybe the novelty would be exciting for the student.
Some students just have messy handwriting. But it still needs to be legible. If you are concerned that it may be something beyond effort, perhaps a PPT or CST (whatever your school calls the meetings for evaluation) can be arranged and the child observed or tested.
When I was in the classroom, I always made the students do all the letters printing before I taught cursive. It was a good motivator because the students wanted to learn cursive handwriting. Handwriting only took 15 min. and if you do all the letters both printing and cursive your are only talking about 52 days. Oh, this is another idea, for some people cursive is easier for them than printing letters. Maybe you can teach or try cursive writing for students with messy handwriting.
A last note on this, as a librarian I often teach keyboarding and it is very important to me that students are instructed about the proper hand positions and feet and body positions. I believe that they need to learn this to avoid problems and bad habits later in life. When is the best time for this? Different people have different ideas. My thoughts are that ¾ is the best time to teach keyboarding because earlier the children are pretty small and can’t always reach letters or sit without boxes under their feet. BUT so many teachers/parents have kids using the computer and “typing” in the primary grades that I would be in favor of teaching keyboarding earlier to help them learn the correct positions. This is one of many of my soapboxes, but I just thought I’d put it out there for you to consider.
ReplyDeleteI’m so glad that you are finding many useful resources from the text. We are obviously biased but we really love Regie and her books. :D I’ll say it again, I’m sure, but be sure to re-read the text next year, you’ll take away even more each time you do.
One thing that was true years ago, and may still be true is that if you have posters up during the year, they can stay up for the students during state testing. This way they can refer to them if needed. I’d double check with your administration if this is still the case, but it’s a good thing to keep in mind and to remind students about.
Oh my husband would love to read the book on National Parks. Is it any good? What is the title if you don’t mind sharing? (Father’s Day is coming and Powell’s is still a favorite store of mine, even from 3,000 miles away.:D)
One tip I found very useful was that when doing a read aloud to lower the book down to your lap when it is your thinking so that the students can tell what is in the book and what are your own thoughts. :D
I teach keyboarding to my students, although it's only 30 minutes a week, using the free website that tracks their progress and skills. www.typingweb.com.
DeleteThe National Parks book was okay, especially for $1! But it is older and only covers half a dozen parks in detail. I would, however, recommend the following two books:
The National Parks: America's Best Idea buy Duncan and Burns (Ken Burns does phenomenal work!)
Your Guide to the National Parks by Oswald
Enjoy!
Excellent, I will def. check those titles out and know Ken Burns work. :D I don't know typingweb so will also check that out. I have a list of keyboarding sites students can do at home. :) Mary
DeleteIn chapter 4 I thought that Regie really nailed it when she said that high quality writing isn’t always long. That, raised expectations means students need to learn to write with depth and what it means to write with depth. I think that being efficient writers is very important and always work with my students on staying basic but capturing the whole picture and details. I think once they understand that and can create simple efficient writing, Regie is right, they become more independent and prideful. I also like watch she says about published writing being perfect before publishing. I think that students need to know what it means to be creative and have fun writing, but they still need to go back and edit anything they want to publish. I think that is a valuable life lesson. I think that goes along with how Regie talks about raising expectations is handwriting, spelling, and editing. I would have to say that throughout this course I am finding that this is my weakest point. I don’t spend much time on handwriting at all, and there are a few students that definitely could use the work. I find that spelling and handwriting get pushed to the back seat with all the new stuff to fit into the day. I need to try harder to make this a standard in my class.
ReplyDeleteI am taking the suggestion to my data team meetings tomorrow, that we look at previous student writing and have a standard of reasonable expectations. I think as elementary teachers, we have so much to do that when grading we tend to forget or be biased against our own students. I find it harder to grade my own students’ papers because I find myself giving the breaks, when I shouldn’t. Especially the minority students and those who I know “really know how to do it, but just didn’t show it here.”
I love love love the shared writing chart on pg 59. I know that it isn’t part of chapter 5, but it shows the shared writing about what it means to write more/tell more. I want to use this next year for sure. I love that we can do it together and then they can use it the rest of the year. I think that makes it a great representative of the optimal learning model. It is like a revolving lesson. Every time they need help they can look at the chart and remember the lesson and what they are supposed to do. Love it. My kids do that with an academic language chart in my room and they love using the sentence frames to answer questions on paper and orally. I think using it in this way can support word work. I also really like how Regie gives great teaching tips on the side about asking your students about how they know what they know. I like the questions here, because it is validating their answer and showing you respect their answer.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 6 Regie talks about integrating reading and writing. I usually pick my read aloud as series books that kids would love the first and want to keep reading the rest of the series. It works well, but now I really want to integrate my read aloud with my writing topics. I am thinking about adding shorter texts and I am also ashamed to say that I never really thought to use read aloud as a time to showcase non-fiction. I have really used only in our reading block and in our small group reading interventions. I also want to incorporate reading response journals. I think that is a great idea to get them writing about reading. I appreciated reading Regie’s ideas for teaching summaries. I feel like it is nice to see a firm list of things that work and not just rely on the way you “think” is best, but to have it validated and new ideas. I am going to use some of these statements to help them start summarizing better, and use them as sentence frames. For example : The main thing the author is saying, or I am going to put that in my own words and say it like this.
I agree, Jessie, that there are many great ideas we can use to get our students writing more. I also liked the idea of having students write book reviews (rather than book reports), and then maybe displaying these so that students can use the book reviews to help them choose books to read. I know that when I go to a book store, I look for the reviews the staff posts about books.
ReplyDeleteI agree Kathy! You have a built in audience because the other students are going to read the suggestions. I would think the students would be more engaged with writing book reviews over a book report that only the teacher was going to read. :)
DeleteHi Jessie,
ReplyDeleteGlad you found some new things to consider from this section. I think it's a great idea to pick read alouds from series that you think may interest your students and they will want to read then next one. Including nonfiction and also integrating with your writing program will only enhance your instruction. (Poetry is great also, as it is often short and you can get to the meat of your teaching point...like inference or descriptive word choices.)
(Sometimes I do think teachers can go "overboard" with trying to squeeze instruction into every single moment of the day. Sometimes, just listening to a good story, without connections, predictions, responses, etc... is important also. Just for the enjoyment of the story. Plus students are picking things up and predicting on their own and likely have authentic conversations about the story anyway. :D) (I know, yes, we need to be intentional and purposeful but I also think we need to let students hear a story for the joy of it. Have you ever watched another teacher who is stopping and starting and instructing during a story and you just want to say, "Just keep reading, you are interrupting the flow of the story?" :)
Having your students write about their reading is a smart way to integrate writing across the curriculum.