This is a packed section! To keep the blog manageable for everyone to read and respond...just comment on what's most relevant to you! Please keep your comments brief and to the one alloted post per person.
ASSIGNMENT FIVE: WRITTEN REFLECTION-Section Three- The Essential Writing Day Chapters 7-10
Chapter 7: Be Efficient and Integrate Basic Skills
• How might we integrate skill work into student writing rather than teaching it in isolation?
• Daily Oral Language exercises – THEY DON’T WORK!!!
• The importance of focusing on meaning and quality first
• All writing needs both a PURPOSE and an AUDIENCE
• How thinking aloud can make your teaching more explicit
• Teaching WRITING – not just the language of writing (process, process, process)
• What about writing standards? In your District and State?
• Key writing minilessons
• Revision – how to get students to care about it
• Letting kids in on the secret that – Yes! – Conventions do matter!
• How can we effectively use word walls?
In Chapter 7, suitably titled “Be Efficient and Integrate Basic Skills,” Regie gets to the heart of what so many teachers struggle with: “Fitting it all in!!!” Many of the elementary teachers that we work with are beginning to feel as though their personal motto is: “Jack of all trades; master of none.” We just don’t have the time to teach well what has to be taught. The only answer to this problem is to modify our instruction so it agrees with Regie’s stance that isolated skill work (such as Friday spelling tests, DOL, grammar worksheets…) will not help our students grow into writers (or readers.) On page 144, Regie shares four components for an integrated Writing Workshop:
1. Identify writing genres that would interest students (and meet district requirements)
2. Decide who the audience would be for each piece of writing.*
3. Model your own writing process and show students how you struggle.
4. Have students share writing regularly (for both celebration and great teaching moments.)
*This created the biggest change in my own class’s writing - once my students began to write with an audience in mind, the quality of writing shot right up!
Regie also gets to the heart of what writing with “voice” really is and addresses how to teach children to write with an honest voice in their own writing. She describes voice as “the writer’s unique personality on paper, his own melody in words, her ‘mark’ as an individual. To write with voice, the writer has to be interested in the writing.” We think that many teachers and students are unclear as to how to add true voice to their writing. Regie suggests, “Voice is in the details – but details that show the real person and story behind the words, not just details for the sake of adding more words…”
Integrating those isolated editing skills such as grammar, punctuation, and spelling into our writing will increase the efficiency of our instruction. Bottom line – if the students care about their writing, are writing for a specific audience, and understand that “the importance of editing (and spelling conventionally) is to make their message clear and easy to read for their audience – or reader, they take this job seriously and work hard at making their writing clear.”
Chapter 8: Organize for Daily Writing
• What is our definition of Writing Workshop? What does Regie say?
• How can we have student choice within a structure?
• The importance of writing talk (teachers and students)
• The ultimate nightmare for all of us…scheduling…finding the time to write everyday
• The importance of routines, organization and modeling expected behavior
• Genre study – why it’s important to have both school-wide and district-wide conversations
• The possibilities within genres
Figuring out a way to “fit it all in” is usually one of the most frustrating things many of us face. It starts at the beginning of the year as we first plan our daily schedule and continues throughout the remainder of the year. Considering how you will create your schedule to include a solid chunk of time for both reading and writing will probably be the most stressful piece to the start of your year.
Create a Comprehensive Literacy Framework: Play with your time and consider what changes you might make in your daily literacy framework for next year. Take a look at the samples that Regie provides on pages 185-187 for some possibilities. You do not have to post your schedule, but we believe this is a worthwhile activity to complete on your own.
Chapter 9: Conference with Students
• What is the purpose of a Writing Conference?
• What are the different types of Writing Conferences?
• How can Share be used effectively?
• How to conduct a productive conference
• What about management and routines?
We are so glad that this chapter talks about Share during Writer’s Workshop. Too often this component is skipped by teachers who feel there isn’t enough time in the day to “fit it all in.” However, it’s a vital piece of the workshop and beneficial to all the students. Share sessions are an additional time to teach. The teachers in my school are quite comfortable using Share as their mini-lesson if the need arises. Given the reality of daily schedules they were finding that they couldn’t have a mini-lesson, confer and share everyday. They then realized that their Shares sometimes were the minilessons. For more information about Share we recommend looking at Leah Mermelstein’s Don’t Forget To Share: The Crucial Last Step in the Writing Workshop. In this slim book, Leah explains in detail four types of Share: Content Share, Craft Share, Process Share and Progress Share.
The “Tips for Successful Whole-Class Shares and Conferences” on page 215 are excellent ones to keep in mind. The bottom line for Conferences and Shares is that students should feel successful and want to continue to write. Make sure what you say to the child encourages them to keep on writing. “The conference is secondary; the student as writer and confident learner is primary.”
Chapter 10: Make Assessment Count
• Understanding how rubrics work
• What about Test Prep? THE BEST TEST PREP IS EXCELLENT TEACHING!
• How can we collect reliable data on students’ writing throughout the day?
• Guidelines for grading and providing evidence for parents, administrators and the public
“There is lots of writing assessment going on these days, but little of it actually improves the quality of students’ writing.” As Regie continues she points out that this ‘assessment’ “is seldom used to improve daily instruction.” This chapter is about becoming more knowledgeable about assessments. Regie notes, that unless teachers know how to teach writing well, it can be a waste of time to examine students’ writing and place students on a writing continuum. She encourages you, as a staff to “write together, study together, converse together, gather school-wide data, analyze these data and set goals for improving writing instruction. There is no shortcut to helping students become effective writers and there is no program you can buy that will do it for you.”
Remember to use rubrics judiciously and not overdo it. They should be “used as an evaluation tool, not as the driving instructional force.” “Use professional common sense. It is not advisable to apply rubrics to ALL writing nor to score ALL writing. Just as our students need lots of practice reading many texts without the expectation that they will be assessed on everything they read, they need lots of practice writing without being assessed on everything they write.” (Page 243)
Have your students do a lot of writing! “Extensive writing across the curriculum as part of an excellent writing program is the best preparation for doing well on (standardized) tests. Readers have to read avidly to become readers and the same holds true for writers. Kids who write a lot develop higher-order thinking and understanding that translates to higher achievement on all types of tests.” Be sure to check out “Try It Apply It” on page 246 and throughout the chapter for ideas to incorporate into your program.
As Regie points out in this chapter, “The joy has gone out of writing.” We need to “concentrate on developing kids as learners rather than kids as test takers.”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Rather than teaching skill work in isolation I think it needs to be intertwined with actual writing. I’ve found myself teaching the grammar and practice pages that went along with our old curriculum and realized it wasn’t an effective use of time. I would speed through them and realized if I can take the skills that the curriculum teaches, but not use the actual worksheets it was a lot more effective. We would do the work in our writer’s notebooks making it more applicable to what we were doing. The idea that writing needs both a purpose and audience is something I want to put more emphasis on this year. I always talk to the kids about what we’re going to do, but I think I neglect to always make it clear of why we’re doing what we’re doing. Having a discussion about our audience is important and will provide a more meaningful writing experience.
ReplyDeleteIn order to have student choice within a structure, students need to know the routines and procedures well. They need to know what to do when they finish, where they put their work, where do get the supplies they need, what it should sound like in the classroom, etc. Without teaching and modeling the expected behaviors then I don’t think writer’s workshop can operate smoothly, otherwise the teacher will be putting out fires throughout the writing period. When I was in grad school I observed a kinder teacher who called writing time a special time. He would really build up how special the time was and students really bought into the idea. The room was calm and quiet and student’s focused in on their writing. I use music to indicate quiet writing time, when the music is on students are expected to be writing quietly. In the past I’ve saved author’s chair for the end of week with the thinking that by the end of the weeks students will have more pieces of writing to share rather than having it at the end of writer’s workshop each day, but I can also see the value of having a shorter sharing time each day that way students can share more of their writing process.
The purpose of a writing conference is to discuss student work either one-on-one with the student or with the whole class. By doing a conference whole group everyone can learn from the student sharing. I think one of the biggest benefits of a writing conference is it gives the student some direction on their writing.
I think child friendly rubrics are quite valuable. Discussing what you want students to be able to do in their language is quite helpful. This past year I started using kid friendly rubrics more frequently. The students did research on an insect as part of a science unit and then at the end of the unit did a speech on their insect. We created a simple rubric with a few key items, I spoke with a loud and clear voice, I looked at my audience, and I told interesting facts about my insect. Three easy items to follow, but all key when delivering a speech.
After reading chapter 7, Be Efficient and Integrate Basic Skills, I was reminded that students will write some of their best quality of writing when they have a real audience to write for. I need to make sure that the writing that my 5th graders write is meaningful to them. When the writer cares about their reader/audience all the other pieces; revision, spelling, grammar will become more important to them. Teaching skills in isolation will not work. My students will also need to have a large quantity of writing pieces to choose from when it comes to revising/editing/publishing. “ In order to learn when not to revise, students must do lots of writing.” Students need to be able to write and know that it won’t need to be revised ( diaries, journals, letters, etc). I really like the idea of the word wall. I am excited to have one in my room this fall for the students to use as a resource. This was a great chapter and it really did teach me to be efficient and integrate basic skills.
ReplyDeletePrior to reading chapter 8, Organize for Daily Writing, I would have defined a writing workshop as a time when students are writing on a specific topic and I (the teacher) am meeting with students one on one to help them revise/edit their drafts. I usually dreaded this time of the day, because as I was trying to focus on meeting with one student and concentrate on their writing, I would constantly be distracted by what the other students were doing. So, I really enjoyed reading Regie’s definition of the writing workshop, “Think of writing workshop as the time in which everything that writers do to create a meaningful piece of writing for a reader takes place. You don’t have to call it writing workshop; just call it writing.” My writing workshop was exactly what Regie says it should not be ( page 174). Regie’s recurring theme about writing is that quality writing needs to have a genuine purpose and real audiences. Another important piece to getting students to write quality pieces is to give them choice within structure. Regie’s list on page 178 is a list I can totally see myself implementing into my writing next school year. I totally agree with Regie about prewriting and that always requiring students to plan before they write thwarts their writing. I am a list person, so many times before I write I brainstorm a list. And sometimes, I just start writing. I have used graphic organizers in the past, because I felt I needed to to be a good writing teacher. So many times, the kids were like,” Can I just start writing?” and I would continue to nudge them towards completing the graphic organizer (even though I would never use it). Reading this book is so validating to the thoughts I have had about teaching writing. As I think about creating a comprehensive literacy framework in my classroom, I can easily see where writing will become a part of every subject, whether it be writing a story problem in math or writing in our science journals writing facts and labeling pictures. Writing needs to take place throughout the day and not just for a specific period called “writing”.
I love Regie’s expectation that students should only come to a one on one conference when they have done everything they can possibly do on their own. Something that I learned from this chapter is that I need to focus on content first and editing later. My writing conferences in the past have been painful because I tried to work with the student on everything at once! I totally agree with this quote, “ Because most of us have had so little professional development on how to teach writing well, many of us lack the skills and confidence to help writers hone and clarify their messages. So we go straight to editing.” That is so me!! I find Regie’s teacher talk very helpful. She demonstrates very thoroughly what a conference with a student would sound like.
Chapter 7: Thinking back over this chapter, an image that sticks with me is the jig-saw puzzle “whole-to-part” analogy mentioned on page 142. It’s difficult to write well when you start with the individual parts, but without the “big picture”, or engaging topic to write about. An emphasis should be placed on assigning writing that is meaningful to the students. They should be writing for an audience and keeping that audience in mind will help them understand the importance of revising for interest and clarity, spelling and conventions. I read the spelling section of the chapter with interest, as I would like to find a way to make my spelling instruction deeper and more relevant next year. Classroom word walls and personal word walls are useful tools for highlighting commonly used words and collecting more specialized words used throughout the year.
ReplyDeleteChapter 8: TIME! It’s something that I have been thinking about as I read previous chapters. How do I find the time for teaching writing as it should be taught? Just as chapter 8 says, it has to be made a priority, with specific time set aside for daily writing as well as integrating writing across all subjects. This year I think my day will be structured very differently from last year. I am also wrapping my head around “choice within structure”. A constant theme throughout the book is the importance of topic choice, yet there is a need for guidelines, and many ideas are given in the book for projects such as “a school guidebook” or “valentine letters”. So it seems the goal is to give an assignment with some simple criteria, but leave enough choice within the project that the students can get excited about the topic.
Chapter 9: The concept of “whole-class share” was a revelation. I have always considered conferencing to be a one-on-one activity, and have found it difficult to meet with all students. It struck me that whole-class share, write aloud, and shared writing make up the bulk of Ms. Routman’s teaching (p.211). There is an important reminder in this chapter, to make initial conference comments positive, and to phrase the “teaching points” in a kind and constructive manner. I noted however, that the expectations for editing are high, and the feedback much more pointed. In reading this chapter, I have a concern that I mentioned in an earlier entry. That is how quickly my students want to get their work done, and how much they dislike re-writing their papers, even when it’s a topic that they care about. Maybe more emphasis on audience and purpose for the writing will make them more enthusiastic about those final drafts and published work!
Chapter 10: Grading writing is difficult; I have trouble with anything that is subjective. I’m happy to see that “rubric” is not a dirty word in Writing Essentials. I find that rubrics are useful tools that can help clarify expectations and give some objectivity to a difficult subject. It’s a great idea to involve the students in the design of the rubric. I also appreciate the tip to only score select assignments, however we are supposed to enter at least one grade per subject per week. Perhaps that weekly score can be an effort grade. I hope that by teaching excellent and purposeful writing the kids will do well on their standardized tests. I agree that “teaching to the test” is generally not successful, nor does it make for joyful, well-rounded learners.
I too loved the idea of a whole class share. I can't wait to try this out with my students!
DeleteI apologize to be behind on my coursework but my new son arrived early Sunday morning. Mom and baby are happy, healthy, and trying to sleep a lot.
ReplyDeleteAs I have previously stated, although I personally have not been comfortable writing in front of my students. Part of this is due to the grades that I teach and the amount of students in the classroom. Having 40 seventh graders watch me write a few sentences while I think aloud about the correct wording, punctuation, etc. Explicitly explaining the purpose is critical for students to understand the meaning of “why are we doing this?”. I will say that the chapter 7 components of the writing workshop that Regi writes about transfers well to the middle grades. I would include some aspect of rigor to the list. I appreciate that we should make writing enjoyable and offer many different options but in my experience as both a teacher and a student, that students are not always going to have a choice with their writing. Of course in a workshop environment choice should be a priority but sometimes students need to write a certain way to a certain audience (and it might not be the most fun thing in the world!). This is something that we all have had to do and, if our education is to advance to college, will continue need to do well.
In chapter 8 there is the discussion of how to define writing workshop. This is something that I wrestled with last year and I came up with an additional role of my writing workshop. In middle school, where students have 6 different classes, the literacy workshop class is meant to reinforce what is being learned in Language Arts. As for the schedules presented on pages 185-187 for an elementary classroom, I run my middle school ‘lit workshop’ on a day-to-day schedule: Monday, Wednesday and Friday are writing days while Tuesdays and Thursdays are for reading the entire class period. We explore a different genre of writing each quarter and at the start examine options that the students can write about. This correlates well with the ‘Predictable Structure’ and ‘Establish Daily Routines and Model Expected Behavior’ that Regi writes about. It is nice that what worked last year is reinforced a bit by the textbook
In Chapter 9 Regi begins the discussion of appropriate Student Conferences. The idea of whole class share is intriguing and something that I have never attempted to do. This seems that in order for this method to be successful it would need to be set up carefully towards the beginning of the year until the students are more comfortable. When I think of student conferences I think of one-on-one. This is mentioned and I particularly like how Regi expects the students to come to any of her conferences having put in a good deal of work and revision. In regards to peer conference, I have had some successes with this but need to hone my methods so its not a case of ‘the blind leading the blind’.
Congratulations on your new bundle of joy!
DeleteAssignment #5 – Written Reflection to Section 3 (chapters 7 – 10)
ReplyDeleteKatherine Holtgraves August 3, 2014
I was really interested in this section – great work for me! I spent a great deal of time, slowly going through Reggie’s suggestions. I put them in a notebook in “groups” so that I could in-service and hold meetings on the following groupings next year:
Establishment of routines and procedures for writing
What exactly is Writer’s Workshop
Reading your writing out loud
Writing Conferences
How to effectively get to all your kiddo’s in a writing conference weekly!
1. Whole group/class shares
2. Roaming Conferences
3. One on One Conferences
4. Peer Conferences
Recording methods for each of the above conferences
Content Conferences
Editing Conferences
Revision Conferences
Spelling – Raise your expectations and how to teach in writer’s workshop
Mini Lessons –
Sample projects
Then I constructed a year of writing in our school for 4/5 and 6/7/8. I have done this before, but this time, it was through the lens of Writer’s Workshop and the development of strong writers – regardless of what writing test is coming towards us.
Wow – this took me some time. I put together sample projects and thought about what a WHOLE year in the life of a writer might look like at our school. I decided that one final per month, and at the end of the year, these finals bound together into a beautiful “take home” hand made book – would be the hallmark of our writing year.
I need to think more about assessment – I laid out what I initially think about grades, and expectations for teachers, but it just seems like too much. I hear loud and clear Reggie saying, “don’t’ waste time on assessment that does not further writing skills”. We have for too long, used the “writing rubric”, and that is not what students use daily in their lives. They can certainly use it in class, but they do not use it when they are writing a piece. This is what I mean about meaningful assessment.
Ch. 7
ReplyDeleteHow can I integrate skill work into student writing rather than teach it in isolation? I’ve never even considered this. I probably do some skill teaching as I model writing, but to only teach skills within the writing is new for me. I agree, and have for year, that WORKSHEETS ARE A WASTE OF TIME. Just like spelling lists and tests, unless the work has meaning it DOES NOT TRANSFER. The task must have meaning. For years I have been taught that students’ need a rubric prior to writing. I am seeing, through Regie’s eyes, how that can be changed. Writing first and editing later….working on specific skills in shared writing and polishing through group, peer and individual conferencing. I appreciate being reminded to think and talk about whom the audience is. Who are we writing for? I especially liked the section on Authentic Voice (that’s what I call it). I loved reading about Andrew-the straight “A”student that struggled to write with an authentic voice when doing his college entrance essay.
Ch. 8
I finished this chapter not quite sure what Regie’s Writers Workshop would be, not in a traditional sense anyway. What I heard was that writing needed to happen every day. If I don’t make time for it, then I don’t value it or value something else more. A successful writing classroom has writing every day, guided practice, sharing, whole group and peer. A classroom must be “set up to be an environment of success”. There were all kinds of ideas on how to give students choice while keeping structure. I see each week with a lesson/shared writing experience and then time for students to write on their own. After the whole group conference, I can get a sense of who needs one on one conference.
Ch.10
I expected a chapter on assessment. Color me surprised to learn that the assessment came hidden inside of all that writing, sharing and conferencing! LISTEN, AFFIRM, REINFORCE, ASSESS, TEACH, SCAFFOLD, SET FURTHER GOALS. Repeat. Again, I adore the idea of the Whole Class Share! Add in teaching kids how to listen and guidelines for feedback, a lot of learning will be happening at once. Everyone engaged at once! I also like the idea of having each writer share with a partner so every piece is read and every writer is heard. The goal is to put editing back on the kids in the hopes of student writing independence.
Chapter 7: As I was reading this chapter I realized that I had once used some of these practices, but didn’t really know why I was using them so when the pressure to raise test scores came I stopped using some of them. I see now though that the part-whole system that we have been trying to use to raise our writing scores is not going to help. I am looking forward to using word walls, personal dictionaries and higher expectations for spelling errors next year. For years I have also complained that my students do not revise their writing or read it out loud, but again I never modeled this for them. I am sure as I start to demonstrate this for my students their writing will improve.
ReplyDeleteChapter 8: This chapter was so rich with great practical suggestions. I began to picture how my classroom might look next year. I will try very hard to make time for daily writing and daily reading. Though I don’t think I will have as much time as I saw in the example schedules. I tried to layout my schedule, but I am a little concerned that it will be hard to fit in, as things are always hard to fit in. However, I want to meet with my colleagues and together maybe we will be able to put in enough time for writing. The other thing I loved from this chapter was the genre study, as it will be extremely useful for our school.
Chapter 9: I was surprised by this chapter, as I didn’t realize the variety of different writing conferences. I like the efficiency and quick but thoroughness of combining the roving and whole class shares. I also liked the freedom of making sure kids are truly ready for the one-on-one editing conferences so that it saves time. As Regie says, do a lot of frontloading and it will save me a lot of time as a teacher, yet the students will learn more and be more independent learners. Sounds great to me! I am excited to try out student led conferences next year as my students learn more about how to do one-on-one conferences.
Chapter 10: I have to say that the section on putting high-stakes testing in perspective was so useful and exactly what I needed to hear. This last year at our school especially, was very much about teaching to the test. I really identified with the comments of Kari Oosterveen on page 245, where she said that after the test the kids acted like school was over for the year. Also, after changing her teaching it brought back all the reasons she went into teaching and boosted her confidence. I hope that that can be me next year. After taking this class I will be able to enjoy my teaching and the kids’ learning.
Hi Alix! Absolutely! Putting more of an emphasis on audience and purpose will raise the quality of your students’ writing. I think both you and your students will enjoy having more sharing and celebrations during the week. Plus this way more students have the opportunity to share. It’s also powerful, if you are able to do this, to show videos of other children (not known by the students, say from a different school or previous years) that have done the same project or examples of their work. This way you can point out what worked well, what would improve the delivery. How it’s hard for the audience when voices aren’t loud enough or are spoken too fast. But I would never, ever want to embarrass someone and critique in a negative way work that the students know. Sometimes I can have older students or other kids role play while I’m filming to demonstrate these points. I have found our conversations around these examples from other classes have been incredibly motivating and clarifying for my students.
ReplyDeleteHi Kathy, Awesome reflection! We love hearing this from teachers in our class. ☺ Yes, we agree, Regie just makes it so clear what many of us have felt and believed but haven’t been able to articulate. ☺ I know I may make a quick list or notes but I usually just start writing. Graphic organizers have never been something that works for me. I think they are great to clarify a topic for a class or audience as a visual, but in my own writing I just write.
I firmly believe that teacher education programs need to do a much better job of helping beginning educators learn how to teach writing. Even though this text is a little older we feel it’s a great nuts and bolts guide to writing instruction for all levels! ☺
ReplyDeleteHI Sheryl! It’s great to also hear that you are finding some good things to think about for your upcoming year! ☺ Yes, choice within structure is huge! Giving students the parameters that they need to be within, but allowing them the freedom to make the piece their own really makes a difference. Yes, we must teach and students must learn how to respond to a prompt…but our main goal is to develop better writers who enjoy writing. People don’t continue to do things they don’t like or feel bad doing…they just don’t. We need to turn writing into something that is special and fun and important for them.
You answered your question just as I would have. I really think if they care about their audience and the reason why they are writing the piece they will want to correct the writing as much as possible.
I can say, that my sons’ (they both had her) amazing teacher sent writing work home that had errors and wasn’t perfect. As a parent I was like, “OH!” but I know exactly what she’s doing and why. And the end result, when you look past spelling or punctuation mistakes or grammar errors was incredible. My boys’ writing was so descriptive, imaginative and creative that I find it hard to believe they would have grown like this if they were worried about every little mistake we often point out when we want a polished, published piece. She held them accountable for what she expected to be correct and perfect but really let other stuff go so that the children had the freedom to create. But, as I said, I did need to take a second to get past my initial expectation of “perfect” papers in spite of everything I know. :D
Yes, I was thinking as I read your post to ask if you could submit an effort grade instead of a letter grade. I truly believe that writing portfolios are the best way to show growth over the term and year. Just keep a simple folder and put pieces or copies of the pieces into it (DATED!! I’m a huge date person on papers…you can even get a library date stamp and kids can date their own paper if you want.) I share portfolios with my students and invite them to put pieces in that they are proud of for some reason. If I am able to I’ll put a sticky note on it to remind up why it was selected, but this isn’t crucial. Parents love to see portfolios and they clearly show me where the students have been and where they need to go.
Andrew! Congratulations on your new son to you and your family! What a special exciting time this is! Boy does it go fast…I can’t believe my daughter is three already (going on 47.) Enjoy and get some sleep when you can!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, we def. need to teach students to write to prompts (if you will) but it should be just a piece of the writing experience. And I think keeping 40 seventh graders interested in anything for a long time would challenge the most experienced, veteran teacher. That is just a huge class size, but it’s what many people in Oregon are currently dealing with so we have to do the best that we can.
Have you considered breaking the group into half? Having 20 write with you on whatever your lesson/topic is while the other 20 are independently working? I’m not sure if this would work in your situation, but I’ve “split” classes like this when I had to teach two different math sections (based on numbers) at the same time in the same room. It takes a little more planning and creativity but may be a possibility for you sometime.
I also love when I find something from an expert or text saying what I’m doing is right or the correct option. ☺ I’m with you on peer conferences. I have found it takes a great deal of work (especially at the elementary level) to help students learn how to be constructive and helpful for their peers. The “blind leading the blind” is a great analogy.
Hello Katherine,
This is a great list! I think you will find spending time on all of these to be very valuable. Even if your staff thinks they know what each means or how to do them, it’s so eye opening to have the conversations and ultimately get everyone on the same page. My last school spent several staff meetings discussing and clarifying what the difference between strategy groups and guided reading groups were. I know that there is a lot of confusion among teachers about what the differences are between the two. It wound up being a very interesting and informative use of time. Many of us thought we knew exactly what they were, but at the end we had a common understanding and language of what was happening in our classrooms and across the levels of the school.
That is a big job to think of the writing for a whole year across the grades. Given that everyone is in different places with the writing skills—is there a way to move towards a portfolio assessment, which also includes the students in their evaluation at your school? Perhaps not for the total grade but maybe a portion? I can even envision students goal setting and having ownership over their learning to a degree. Just a thought. ☺
Greetings Randee and Caitlin!
ReplyDeleteRandee, there is A LOT in this text. So pick the pieces that work for you or make the most sense to focus on and when you are comfortable with that then move on or re-read some sections. ☺ It sounds like you took away a lot from these chapters, which is fantastic. We also like the Whole Class Share.
Caitlin,
Many of us have also “let go” or “forgotten” some of the successful approaches and lessons we’ve used in the past as more requirements and curriculum have been heaped upon us. I think the difference now, after reading this text, is that we are clear in why we use those sound methods and are able to justify our stance if need be. (Or do what we know to be best for the students with our doors closed.)
The reality of schedules is that there isn’t enough time. So do the best that you can. When Jackie and I taught second grade together we really had to be creative in coming up with our schedule due to all the normal reasons. So what we wound up with one year was a four day schedule for literacy with fifth day for something else. (What?? I can’t remember now. ☺) We also, other times, had rotating schedules that were 6 days long to make things fit. Do the best you can while keeping in mind to have time for students to read and write every day (or most days if that’s what it needs to be for you.) I do find, though, that creative thinking and problem solving usually develops when teachers are forced to think outside the box. Otherwise they often just go with status quo.
We hope so also! Here’s to more joy for you and your students!!
As I was reading Chapter 7 (while keeping in mind that I need to be writing a lot more in front of my students) I realized that I have never taken the time to really edit my writing in front of them. When I would write in front of the class, I would make sure I already knew exactly what I was going to write about and how it would look. We would talk about editing and rereading writing to make sure it made sense and looked right, but I have never shown them what that would look like using my own writing. Makes perfect sense and definitely something I will add this year!
ReplyDeleteScheduling a good chunk of time for writing has been difficult-especially since my writing block is set by the school schedule. This year we have a 45 minute writing block first thing in the morning. Some of that time will be used up with taking attendance, announcements, and students arriving late to class. I will have to take a close look at the schedule and find some consistent times during the day where we can share and have “writing talk”.
Finding time to conference with each student has always seemed too big of a task to conquer-especially at the beginning of first grade when some of the students think they are done writing after a few minutes! It was good to read Regie’s thoughts on whole-class share-it makes conferencing with each student doable. I found the teacher talk for conferencing especially helpful.
The last few years, I have found it helpful to use some child-friendly rubrics for writing. I am expected to use rubrics to score their writing for report cards so making some of them child-friendly helped me set clear expectations for the students and made it easier to relay those to the parents in language they could also easily understand.
Assignment #5:
ReplyDeleteThe idea of writing for an audience is huge, so many of my writing students “hate” writing. I never put tons of thought into how they must feel without knowing who or what they are writing for other than for Ms. Ferguson to “grade.” Giving student’s time to share their writing during each writing group is something I am going to focus more on this year. Our reading curriculum has a grammar component with a workbook. Last school year was the first year I ever used it (I was told to try it by administration). I hated it and my students didn’t improve at all. This coming school year I am going to incorporate the grammar lessons into the writing groups when they are completing writing journals. The proven strategies are going to be copied and in my writing folder for use during the school year. This is a great tool.
Daily writing is difficult to do in my setting as a special education teacher. I only see some students a few times a week for writing group. However when I do see my writing students, it will be important to set expectations. I also want to take this information to my administrator and see if it could jump start a conversation about creating writing guidelines across the grade levels.
Conferencing with students is my new favorite thing. I love the idea of having an individual conversation with students about their reading and writing. The idea of a whole class conference is great too. It allows me to use students as models instead of my own writing. It gives students a boost of confidence as well. In my setting peer conferencing is very difficult because of time constraints. I want to explore how I can use this within my setting this school year. This whole chapter has some really great ideas.
I rarely grade my students writing. It takes a lot of time that I just do not have. The idea of creating simple rubrics with my students sounds wonderful. I also want to incorporate more peer scoring into the revision process before a writing sample is turned into me. Giving more feedback during the writing process is more beneficial than a score when the writing has stopped.
Awesome Julie. I'm glad you plan to write AND edit in front of your students this year. Also, if you want to wait and confer with students individually after January I think that's fine. You need to do what your comfortable with and think is best for your students.
ReplyDeleteBrittany, glad to hear you plan to focus more on allowing students time to share this year. Well, at least you "tried" the workbook, so you can honestly tell your administrator that it showed no improvement and didn't work. :D
Excellent! Good luck with your conversation about establishing grade level writing guidelines! We love conferring also! Glad you enjoyed this section.