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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Chapters 4-6
ReplyDeleteWhen considering raising expectations, I began to think about my school’s new focus on “growth mindset.” In this model of thinking, mistakes are opportunities to grow and deepen experience rather than focusing on failure. I love finding creative ways to share this philosophy with my students through literature as well as personal experiences. I think that being relational, building a warm and trusting community right at the beginning of the year fosters the atmosphere for high expectations. I’ve taught loops for first and second grade in the past and found that when I go back to first grade, my expectations are always higher for that group. And interestingly enough, this becomes a positive thing in the long run.
I have used the “gradual release” model for a long time. My goal is to also stay fluid within this model for those that struggle. This means releasing those who are ready to be more independent and to provide ongoing support and encouragement for those who are struggling.
Recently we’ve been writing “how to” pieces. I have found that asking students “who” we are writing our papers for has been very motivating. For example, when we wrote about how to build a snowman, we discussed that many people in our world never see snow and have no idea how to begin to build a snowman! I was also thinking that when we ask students to “prove” their thinking on a math problem, we are asking them to be very clear about the process. Using the right words helps others to understand our explanations. It would be interesting to connect these two writing purposes in a shared writing time to show the need for using the right words, neat handwriting and correct conventions. I am also a bit concerned that many are letting go of handwriting standards in place of computer keyboarding skills.
I love the model of shared writing simply for the fact that it can be used across the curriculum and now for specific standards. As I’ve said before, many first graders come in without the confidence to see themselves as writers, so modeling, and sharing the writing tasks gives them some foundation and experience. I love using the McCracken method with sentence frames as well giving students opportunities to gather language and interesting vocabulary as they write. I know that I need to leave these shared pieces up more often and longer so that student have opportunities to use them for reading, and as resources for more independent writing. My teaching partners and I have been frustrated by the canned reading and writing programs that leave this important experience out, or fill with so many other tasks that there isn’t any time left. There is little room for spontaneity or time to explore writing together. Next year, I would love to spend some time creating a list of writing ideas and add to that list throughout the year.
One of the highlights of this chapter is the tried and true ideas for shared writing. I want to teach “friendly letters” this week of Valentines Day and this chapter gives me some great ideas to get started. Brainstorming who, why and how will be our first task.
It’s very exciting when a young student gets so excited by a story we’ve read or they have read, that they try a writing piece of their own. I love highlighting authors in my classroom and using their “styles” of writing to inspire our own. I agree with Regie that scripted responses are not always a good use of time. We are piloting a new literacy program and one of the “good habits” they encourage is to ask students to do something at the end of a story. So we have practiced retelling, sharing our enthusiasm with a friend, recommending the book to others etc. These ideas make more sense to me than asking for a multitude of reading responses or logging everything read.
Assignment 4, Chapter 4
ReplyDeleteRaising expectations – It is important to have high expectations. Often students will do the minimal... or at least not challenge themselves if teachers accept the writing they produce. Raising expectations can push students to achieve more.
How to Raise Expectations – Routman believes that teachers should start by deciding on what they expect from students school wide on a grade by grade basis. Once expectations are decided upon, teachers should use a number of strategies that promote and require achievement from their students. Teacher expectations ought to focus on quality and quantity of writing, editing/revising criteria, and handwriting expectations. Each facet of writing expected to be seen ought to be modeled.
Hand writing/spelling/editing expectations – Routman described her expectations involving these aspects of writing. She focused on a final product, especially one which may be displayed publicly, as needing to be near perfect in the above areas. While she offered some good suggestions in how to get more out of your students (the Teacher Talk section on page 67 was particularly helpful) she didn’t offer a lot of specific tricks of the trade. One of life’s great mysteries for me is how do I get my students to get better/give a hoot about independently editing their writing. I hope I come across some help later in the book!
Optimal Learning Model – I’ve been thinking more about the art of demonstration and looking for opportunities to do so with my students. More often than not, I’ll do less of this and a lot more shared demonstration. Routman offered a lot of encouragement in terms of why shared demonstration is important. I’ve found myself doing a lot of shared writing in which my students and I write a paragraph together. I write on the document camera, while sharing my thinking and seeking feedback/suggestions and my students copy my writing in their notebooks. Afterwards I have them read what we wrote. Many times we’ll dissect and label the paragraph (this is the topic sentence, this is my evidence, etc.) I wish she discussed this as I do a lot of it and I’d like some acknowledgement that this is an effective strategy.
Worksheets foster mediocrity – As an ESL focused writing teacher I don’t use a lot of worksheets because they don’t lend themselves to a lot of oral language practice. Worksheets are certainly effective for practice skills. They are overused however. Also, the nature of worksheets tends to focus on multiple choice questions which, if you are focusing on high expectations, aren’t as rigorous as open ended questions.
Chapter 5
ReplyDeleteWhere shared writing fits – It is a teacher-lead activity in which the teacher is the facilitator, writer, and coach. It is different than demonstration writing in that it is collaborative in the sense that students get to share ideas and play the role of collaborator and decision maker.
Shared writing is appropriate for all learners according to Routman. She emphasizes that ELL students and students from poverty benefit especially from shared writing. She cites the opportunity to teach and model oral and written language to students with less exposure to academic language.
One can link shared writing and reading by using written products for reading practice during writing/literacy blocks and elsewhere throughout the school day. Teachers could hang chart paper and/or copy shared writing products and have students read these for practice and for exposure to quality writing.
Supporting word work – Shared writing documents can be used to support word work in a variety of ways. Routman suggested cutting up sentences, doing word sorts, using cloze worksheets, etc. using documents created during shared writing experiences. I don’t recall her explicitly saying it in the text, but I believe motivation and exposure to quality, contextualized writing is the basis for using shared writing (as opposed to random worksheets).
Tried and True Ideas – I was a little confused by this section. The heading suggested to me that she would list strategies, but basically she listed a lot of genres and/or ideas for what type of writing you can use for shared writing exercises. Basically her list suggests that activities from genre writing to bullet point lists are appropriate for shared writing. I believe she is suggesting that any time you are engaging kids and showing them how to write, they will be learning.
Chapter 6
ReplyDeleteEffectively integrating reading and writing instruction – We need to start by recognizing the important link between reading and writing. Upon doing that we need to look for ways to integrate the two together. Routman suggests many ways to do this in chapter six. She suggests activities such as having students use their own writing to practice reading, writing book reviews and blurbs, writing summaries of fiction and informational text (with guidance) explicitly teach reading comprehension skills as well as ways to reflect upon reading.
Our efficiency – Routman cited that literary response journals can be time overly time consuming for students and especially teachers. Also, she cautioned that students should spend more time reading than they should responding to reading. Also, writing responses should not suck the joy out of reading.
Personally, I am charged with teaching ESL and writing together in a 45 to 55-minute time slot. I don’t know if I’m efficient. All the reading I have my students do (which is not a lot, frankly – I have so much else to cover) is directly related to whatever writing unit we are doing at the time. For example, we just did a character analysis unit, so all reading was focused on them each reading a chapter from a particular book. The question I need to be able to answer confidently is am I doing enough to support my students writing by bring reading opportunities into our time together.
The benefit and the necessity – Routman made many arguments in chapter six about the benefits of/need to integrate different content areas with reading and writing. Basically her idea is that reading and writing are two of the most important skills students need to develop in order to be successful in school. Integrating the two into different subject areas allows student to use reading and writing to successfully access curriculum, express themselves effectively, and think critically.
Non-fiction – This is certainly a new emphasis in education. Historically educators have spent less time on information text. For that reason and because accessing informational text is extremely important, we have a responsibility to provide greater emphasis on the genre. Common Core standards have placed heightened importance on information text. Our students will be better equipped therefore, if we feature more informational text reading/writing units.
Chapter 4-6
ReplyDeleteThe last paragraph of this chapter has got me totally distracted! I cannot stop thinking about the sentence, “what would you attempt to do it you knew you could not fail?” Fear in general, but fear of failure, drives many of us on different levels. It stops you from taking risks, or even the first step toward your dreams, aspirations or simply trying something new.
I teach 1st grade…I have high expectations of students in my classroom from a 1st grade standpoint. I want my children to have the mechanics of writing, without being heavy handed. I want them to have legible handwriting without drilling them to death. I don’t want to bring about fear with corrections.
Raising the bar in my room is done with student reflection or peer/teacher suggestions. We analyze writing together, discussing the positives and giving suggestions. When children mention handwriting or leaving spaces to help ease reading the story, it’s more powerful than when I bring it up. I love it when students ask questions about another students writing… such as, who were you with, what was your favorite part of ________... it helps the writer think about what their audience is interested in. This thinking makes for more interesting, detailed and personal stories.
Our district writing program is all worksheets…. I know, right!!! We have deviated from this, after doing it for one year with “fidelity.” Our students didn’t grow or produce nearly the depth of what previous students have done.
Every writing concept or genre in my class is taught with the shared writing model. At my grade it is appropriate for everyone. We all learn from each other and it’s great to watch how encouragement and suggestions boosts confidence. One successful genre we just finished was “how to” writing.” I will be moving to opinion and non-fiction narratives about polar bears and penguins.
During the read to self portion of Daily 5, I have experimented with a few things. They first one was being a voracious reader. They loved this new vocabulary word, it was very collegiate. I challenged them to read as many books as they could, then the next day to read at least one more than the day before. Students were so excited and wanted to share how many books they read, what the book was about and how much fun they had! The next strategy I tried was to “do something” with their book after they read it. I did this for many days with them to give them ideas of what they could do. Their favorite so far is retelling using beginning, middle and end, writing and drawing about their favorite part and using the story to create their own story.
Hi Karen,
ReplyDeleteI also am glad that there has been a focus in education on growth mindset. Sharing this philosophy with students through literature and your own personal experiences really resonates with the children. I love talking about Abe Lincoln or Michael Jordan with students. Sharing that Michael Jordan was actually cut from his High school basketball team, yet he went on with determination to practice and improve gives a great example. (Though many students now my not be as familiar with who he is.)
Keeping fluid is an important part of the OLM. Thanks for noting this. We need to release those students who are ready to work independently while continuing to support those that need the scaffolding. Everyone in the class is not always in the same place as they work towards independence.
I also believe it is important to teach not only handwriting but also CORRECT keyboarding skills. Keyboarding time, in my opinion, is not a time for teachers to check emails or grade papers. They should be circulating the room to ensure that students are sitting with proper posture, feet flat on the floor (or box), have their eyes on the screen (possibly with their hands covered,) and their wrists should be up with their fingers lightly on the home row. (You might be able to tell this is one of my “things.” :D) If students aren’t trained how to correctly keyboard then they develop poor habits that over time could harm their bodies. (Ok, I’m hopping off my soapbox now.) It’s also important to remember that before third grade (possibly 2nd) that students’ bodies are not big enough for a full size keyboard. This is why I like ipads for primary students. They aren’t going onto a computer and developing poor habits but are becoming familiar with where the letters are as they use the tablet.
How did the friendly letter lesson go? I agree. I also like the “Do something- Good Habit” list of ideas. We need to be giving our students more time to discuss and share their thoughts about literature with others in order to build their enthusiasm, appreciation and love of writing.
Hello Brian,
ReplyDeleteBeing sure that the students are clear who their audience is and what the purpose of the assignment is in addition to Regie’s suggestions def. helps students care more about their writing and editing. But, I have to say that I found it illuminating when I worked at a high school and one of my duties was the writer’s workshop. Having had most of my experience in elementary I was shocked, and I kid you not, I was shocked that the high school students I worked with were just like elementary students with regard to revising and editing their writing. They did NOT want to do it. They felt that they put their ideas down and were done. Perhaps it takes time and practice for them to really start caring about their message, or hearing that how their message is received is related to how clear their writing is and how free from distractions like poor spelling or grammar. Do any other people have ideas from their own experience with getting the students to care more about their editing and revising?
Hi LeAndra,
Ugh, sorry to hear about the district writing program. Yuck! It just makes sense that students need ample time to practice writing rather than filling out worksheets. Keeping examples throughout the year, or portfolios, is a great way to share with the children how much progress and growth they are making in their writing.
Yes, when other students share their thoughts and questions with their classmates it is very powerful and motivating. This is where the time for discussion and sharing comes in and how valuable it truly is. We want to develop the children as writers not just get through our curriculum by June.
Have you talked with your students about goals yet? This is a wonderful topic to share at all grade levels. You could have a goal chart posted in the room with regard to their reading. Kids, especially elementary, love filling in charts and watching their progress grow.
Ch. 4-6
ReplyDeleteI learned long ago that when you set the bar high, children will aim for it. It’s not that I demanded it from them, but the fact that I knew they could do it. I had faith in each student to accomplish big things and in turn, they did to. Of course I must have read about the idea of having high expectations in a book somewhere (probably a Regie Routman or Debbie Miller :) ) Some children have a natural drive to always do their best, but some children only do the minimum expected. I realized that when teaching 2nd grade, I fell in my own trap of expecting a minimum of three sentences along with beginning/intro sentence and a concluding sentence. I couldn’t understand why some of the very capable kids weren’t writing more and to their ability. Why would they? They met my minimum requirements. This year in first grade, I haven’t mentioned quantity thank goodness. Now reading about expectations, I understand my mistake and am reinforcing quality. The other statement from the book that I wish I would have clued into earlier was “if you’re reading everything your students write, they’re not writing enough.” I don’t get to read everything they write, however I know we don’t write enough, specifically in the form of free writes.
I wish I could send our fire marshal a copy of chapter 5 to prove that all my anchor charts, non-fiction fact posters and word charts are necessary in my classroom. I enjoy the process of writing with the students. Our district has really focused on non-fiction literature and writing so much that it has dominated our shared writing time. I need to add more narrative whole class shared writing pieces. More balance. Shared writing is a time that everyone can safely contribute and feel successful. It also is a great way to demonstrate good language use, which many students need to have modeled over and over. One strategy I’d like to try is to type up one of our writings and use it for many activities, including cut up sentences. I know Karen has done this and it was a powerful experience for the students.
Having used Comprehension ToolKit at the 4th, 2nd and 1st grade level, I am confident that my students can take notes and pick out the most important information in a non-fiction text and write about our science or social studies topic. However writing a summary isn’t as easy. How do students add enough information to retell the story without adding too much detail. Even though Oregon no longer administers the State Writing Assessment, I know that “explain your thinking” is an expectation on our new SBAC test and they are expecting kids to be clear and concise. I am looking forward to working with the students so that we all become more effective summary writers.
More balance...a great reminder for all of us in many areas of our instruction and lives. :D Yes, many teachers share that they've been focusing so much on nonfiction and informational texts that they are neglecting fiction and narratives. Striving for balance is an important goal to keep in mind.
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