Note: These section are packed!!! Pick and choose your discussion points so that the blog doesn't become overwhelming and packed with so much information that participants won't want to read each others' comments. :)
Sections Four and Five- Advocacy Is Also Essential and Teaching In Action: Lesson Essentials
Assignment Eight: Read Writing Essentials Chapters 11-12 and Section Five. Reflect on the comments below and any additional reactions you have after reading these chapters. Post your thoughts to the course blog.
Chapter 11: Build on Best Practice and Research • What are some of the key research findings most relevant to writing instruction?
• What are the practices of highly effective teachers?
• How can you be part of the ongoing professional development discussions in your building?
• What about test scores? What are the characteristics of high performing schools?
• Think twice before adopting a “program”
Regie begins this chapter sharing her experiences doing residencies in schools and the surprising (and delightful) discovery that whole school cultures changed during the course of their work improving literacy instruction. As she said, “This is what education should be about…whole schools working together so that all students (can) succeed.” How is the climate/culture in your school? On your team? One reason we continue to look to Regie for inspiration is that we feel she is so practical. There is not one right way or method to teach writing. “That is why formulas, programs and recipes don’t work. Every context, school and person is different and has different needs. Literacy is not a set of acquired or learned skills.”
Chapter 12: Make Every Minute Count• You need to “REDUCE THE PAPER LOAD!!!”
• What can we do that will save us time and allow us to focus more on meaningful instruction?
• Regie states, “Take more time to see the light!” Don’t get bogged down with daily worksheets and isolated exercises.
Though this chapter is short it is full of valuable ideas and reminders! Regie reminds us in this chapter to stop and reflect about what we are doing in the classroom. Ask yourself: Is this the best use of my time? Is what I’m about to do going to help my students become more joyful and accomplished readers, writers and thinkers?
“It might be that the best use of your time is to read a professional book, see a movie, visit with a friend. Sharing your experiences with your students may be a more useful way to get them to think about their writing than marks and comments on a paper.” “It’s hard to come to school all excited about teaching if you’ve spent hours the night before pouring over papers.” It is a disservice to our students and ourselves “if our out-of-school time is all about paperwork.” In fact, “Teachers’ comments on students’ papers do little to improve writing, even if the comments are positive ones. It is far more effective to conference with students and focus on specific writing issues with the student at your side.”
Also “(b)e sure that most of your writing time is devoted to writing, not preparing for writing or doing activities about writing. Safeguard sustained writing time; it’s critical for becoming a writer. Limit take-home work for students too, and place more emphasis on free-choice reading. Having more reading experiences positively impacts growth in writing skills.”
Regie closes this chapter by reminding us to breathe, relax and enjoy writing- and your life! “One way to reduce stress and have more energy for teaching and advocacy is to have a life outside of school. I worry about teachers and principals who work twelve-hour days. I have seen no research that shows educators who work the longest hours get the best results or that longer reading and writing projects teach more about reading and writing. Keep evaluating whether what you’re staying late for-or the hours of work you take home-will help your students become more effective readers and writers."
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I appreciated the consolidated list of key findings in writing research, best practices of teachers, and traits of effective schools in chapter 11. Many of those bullet points were recurring themes throughout the book: the need for students to write every day with specific feedback; the need for rich conversations about writing; the need for authentic writing with a valued reader; having high expectations; and, modeling writing for students. I also appreciated the focus on studying writing, not on using a program or formula. I can still remember one year where my former school really pushed an expository writing program. After teaching it, my students could write expository paragraphs with a topic sentence, three supporting ideas with details, transition words, and a closing sentence. But I also realized that the writing was so constrained and formulaic. It was boring! I could’ve exchanged one student’s writing for another, just switching the topic. It was what the students were supposed to be writing, but it wasn’t good writing.
ReplyDeleteOne of the bullet points that stood out to me was that good teachers have an “independent spirit” and use their professional knowledge to determine whether or not a directive will be most effective for their students. I have certainly been guilty of, as I’ve told my friends, “smiling and nodding at meetings and then doing what I know is best when I shut my door.” Fortunately for me, I am now at a school where the professional culture is one in which research-based teaching and best practices are highly regarded and expected, and teachers are given a lot of freedom to make decisions so long as they can justify those decisions with sound reasons. Whenever some new idea is brought up at a meeting, someone will invariably say, “What’s the research on this?” It’s almost become a running joke, though it is a good thing. There is a culture of collaboration at my school, and ongoing professional development is an expectation. I do think that we could do better with having more professional dialogue about literacy. We could also do more with our assessments. We are so lucky that we do not have the same pressures surrounding high-stakes testing that schools in the U.S. do. However, we do use a variety of in-class assessments that we could be cross-scoring or mining for data to then use to drive our instruction.
Chapter 12 speaks to every teacher, because I don’t know a teacher who doesn’t feel constrained for time. There’s so much to teach, and it never feels like there is enough time! The need to connect with our students is important because they need to trust us, and we need to establish a community of learners. The most important thing that I want to remember is to have my students spend more time on their writing and reading than I spend preparing for it. It’s the idea of working smarter, not harder or longer, that will benefit both my students and me in the long run.
I know, I'm not a fan of scripted programs at all. I think sometimes that new teachers like these programs as they are easy and you know what you are doing…page 45 today…
ReplyDeleteGood for you for having "flown under the radar" in the past to do what you know is best for your students. Sometimes this is what we must do. You are lucky to be in such a supportive, collaborative and professional environment.
It's good to be reminded that we want our students working harder than we do…working smarter; not harder helps us to stay enthusiastic and excited about our profession. As you said, both the students and us benefit when we make this shift.
Assignment 8: Section
ReplyDeleteAdvocacy: Going against what the district mandates seems terrifying. Although, it is a disservice to the students if teachers aren’t making informed decisions about the teaching in our school, I have a family that needs me to be employed. This subject is hitting home with me right now because our district has adopted a new Language Arts curriculum. The reason for the adoption is simply because the seven years have past since the last adoption. What happened to that last adoption, you ask? After two years, the staff decided that it was not a good fit for our students, tore it apart and literally only use the guided reading level books. The latter makes much more sense because the decisions were informed and with our students in mind. I plan on researching best practices, and this section is a good place to start.
Reduce the Paper Load: This year, I stopped reading students’ writing without them with me. The main reason being so many of them, at least in the beginning of the year, needed the author’s oral reading to understand. They also need my response to be oral so they could understand what I was trying to teach. I also agree that for the students, it needs to be in the moment to really have meaning for them. There is a sense of guilt that goes with not doing that work every night. I feel like I must not being doing my job since I am not bogged down assessing writing all the time. I try to reassure myself that they need to be there while I am reflecting on their writing.
What I will do so much more of next year is the public conference. Talk about bang for your buck. It makes it very real for the students. It also takes away the contrived reenactment of the student telling what they learned in their conference. Showing it live makes it real to all of the students, not just the one sharing.
Lesson Essentials: Whether or not I teach these lessons next year, the planning outline changed my thinking. I will use it every week or month before planning my writing. Starting with audience and purpose, then planning the lesson will make a huge change in motivation of the kids, as well as, the teaching points that will be demonstrated. Having an audience in the kids’ minds changes what is necessary to teach.
Appendix A: I took the survey before reading this book and took it again now that I have completed it. The biggest change in thinking is revising while you go. I have always taught the kids to reread while they write so they know what to say next. However, we always waited until the writing was finished to revise and edit. I suppose that comes from how I was taught. No wonder I cannot get the kids to do it effectively. I will directly teach crossing out and cut and paste.
I agree that starting my writing planning by thinking of an authentic audience is going to be a big change in my instruction next year! I think I might need help though, to identify lots of "real" audiences for my students to write to. Luckily I have a large team that collaborates well, so I'm sure they'll help with that part.
DeleteHi Kelly N.
ReplyDeleteDef. don't do anything that you feel uncomfortable with. You don't want to lose your job. But it sounds like you are starting to think of ways to research and perhaps ask questions with your staff that might benefit your students. Sometimes we just need to shut our door and do what we know is best for our students.
I also take very little work home now and don't go into to school that much. It's a healthy balance and as Regie says we need happy, well balanced teachers in the classroom. Plus, students need tons of opportunities and time to write and not all of it needs to be "corrected." It's just like reading… they practice and read often and do not have teachers always there correcting every single error that they make. (That takes the pleasure out of reading or writing.)
Kelly S. Don't feel like you need a million different people to be your audience…just getting students aware of who their intened reader is, is a huge step. Plus you can think about your audience being the principal, the school board, parents, the community (blog or newsletters or even newspaper,) the kitchen staff, other students, the specialists, etc...