Learning from Lucy - Part Two of Two

As the Literacy Coach here at Chets Creek Elementary, I have been fortunate enough to hear Lucy speak a few times.  Each time is different, powerful and packed with so many tidbits that I cannot ever manage to capture in notes.  Each and every one of the teachers' notes that were shared in the previous post were much more coherant than the notes I manage to capture. I have learned to audio record and spend hours savoring over the audio.  Since so much of this is completely Lucy's words it is in italics.  Please enjoy learning from her as I do:

Lucy answers teacher questions during break

Units of Study:  Implementing Rigorous, Coherent Writing Curriculum
Lucy Calkins
11/15/13

Lucy talks a lot about how we convey the information we learn, as teachers or staff developers. You listen differently for each and …

I need you to be storytellers to others, because the information about writing needs to be told. Who could have ever predicted these changes in education? Who could have ever imagine that tests would be developed where we were told that two-thirds of our third graders would be labeled failures…and that is the plan. This has happened in New York City.  And the people leading that, do they understand what it is like for an EIGHT year old to be told that the big official important label for you is failure.  In times of your life when you were called a failure, what that does to your dedication, your sense of power.  It is debilitating.  And we are grown ups!

And even though today is about writing, I just wanna say about the common core:  It may well become the makeshift Titanic that goes down. This big and grand thing that goes down because of a fatal flaw.  The flaw will be implementation.  Part of the flaw is that people are trying to tell us how to implement the common core. And the people who are telling us are nuts! I mean, I am so committed to helping kids move toward reading more complex texts.  That IS the really huge work.  We are NOT going to get there by getting on the strict diet of texts they can’t read.  It’s just not gonna happen so these people that think you can only discuss text based questions. I wanna ask, “Have you ever been in a school?”  “Have you ever tried to engage a kid?” You can’t talk about the learner?  Dave Coleman, who calls himself the author of the common core literally is quoted online as saying, “What kids need to learn is no one gives a s_ _ _ about you.”  It’s quoted!  It’s all over the internet!  Really?  If you even just read the business stuff about how to make people work harder in business and one of the first things is creating a culture where everyone knows that every person matters.  And we are supposed to tell kids no one cares and devise a curriculum that reflects that.  I’m not saying common core, I’m saying what some are doing in the name of common core. 

Well, we are here to talk about writing.  Let me start by saying the world has begun to pay attention to writing.  There’s a good reason for that.  One is the common core.  But you should not institute any change in your school because of the common core.  You have to institute changes in your school that you believe will enable your kids.  That will take them toward being more powerful and build a stronger community.  There are so many mandates you can’t possibly do them all.  I was talking to Mike Fullen who says, “Over decades of work in school reform I am convinced that one of the most critical problems in our schools is not resistance to innovation but the fragmentation, overload and incoherence the results from teachers and principals adopting too many innovations in an adhoc, superficial way.”  Mike has been studying school reform for years.  Doug Reeves says that innovations adopted to a low or medium degree of fidelity show no results.  They do not lead to improving achievement at all.  It’s only innovations that are adopted with a high degree of fidelity that impact achievement.  It’s like me saying I was on a diet before and after I had that muffin.  That muffin made all the difference when it showed up.  You can see what it does to a diet.  That’s low implementation.  We need to think of ourselves as investors.  People come at us with all this stuff and we have to make decisions.  Warren Buffett says, “What’s my secret as an investor?  My ability to say no. You say yes to the things that are exactly right.” 

I hope today that you will say YES to the serious reform of teaching writing. I’m not interested in you doing writing workshop poorly.  It will make sure it doesn’t work. 

Why is writing such a big deal now?  Technology has made sure that we are all living and breathing writing.  We write as we drive, we wake up writing, we go to bed writing.  560 websites are being developed every minute.  60% of companies have blogs.  The fact that everyone is writing all the time means that everyone has a voice in a way that they never had.  The internet has given the lowly citizen a microphone.

It used to be that it mattered if you had knowledge.  Now you can google them faster than your memory.  Having knowledge is no longer a big deal.  It’s being able to synthesize, organize and talk back to knowledge and writing is great for that. In this day of accountability one of the most profound changes we have to go through is that how the kids do is how we do.  In learning writing, we have a kind of contract with kids.  We say, if you work hard your product will get better in 2 weeks.  If you listen to what I say and do your best….actual visible growth in your work. You should see the difference in dramatic visible ways.  When kids do what you say in writing you should see the difference right away.  And the kids see it and they see what it means to be a successful “learner”.  That’s why this is such a powerful subject to teach. 

When I work with states or cities or towns, I usually begin with what is the bill of rights you give your kids in the teaching of writing.  The non-negotiables every teacher buys into.  New kids come to your class and what is the promise to your kids? It has to be reasonable that everyone would do.
#1 Writing is a subject taught every day K-5 in other words, the kids are literally producing a volume of writing every day.  Kids will never write well if they never write LONG. 
#2 Kids should know what they are working on: personal narrative, song, poem, nonfiction.  They need to know the genre of their writing so they know what they are trying to do.  All of the authors and texts in your classroom are teachers as well.  Kids need to have author celebrations over and over.  It changes their perception if they have “readers” of their writing.  Writing for readers transforms the whole enterprise of writing.  Words on a page made a nation!   Kids need to understand that words can make something as big as anything they can imagine.  Words matter.
#3 Ways to get their work published.  Explicit instruction matters.  Not turning down the lights and saying, “Write..”  Good writing is not in their DNA, they need instruction, modeling.
#4 Only way writing is a tool to be used across the curriculum is if they become fluent writers.  Sentences of thought not words and then paragraphs. 
#5 Relationship and Feedback accelerate achievement.   The relationship between the teacher and student is that the teacher believes the student has capacity to grow in dramatic ways.  If the teacher cannot do then the child won’t be able to do.  The learner has to have a crystal clear goal.  Observe the learner working....observe them changing with a compliment of their growth. Then show them the next step they should take. 

I don’t know the story of your lives, but if I invite you to write or share the turning points, the causes in your life…all of a sudden there is an intimacy.  Avi said -  If you’re going to teach me to write you’re going to have to love me.  John Hattie’s research shows that only two things really matter in accelerating achievement and the first thing is the relationship between teachers and students. Think of your own life and the teachers that mattered to you.  Those are the teachers that knew us!  They SEE you they GET you.  You are all writing about different things but the things I teach you can all be used in any different story.  Things that are about YOU.  The teacher must believe the student has the capacity and can outgrow themselves in dramatic ways.  So relationships are the first thing that accelerate achievement, the second is feedback.  In order for them to get good feedback, they have to have a crystal clear goal.  What their next step is from the last point of feedback… The learner notices what they are doing when you point it out (feedback point one) and then next step (feedback point two) teacher shows or takes them to someone else doing it. If it doesn’t work…the teacher needs to see what they are doing wrong.  It’s not them, it’s you. 

We have to be able to take the talent base in our school and socialize that intelligence.  We cannot all of us be best at everything.  We have to do some “things” to get a more cohesive approach in our schools. 
Structures that need to be in place
#1 Doing units together makes it cohesive, share student work
#2 Must write daily for x amount of minutes.
#3 The way a writing time goes needs to be extremely predictable. 

Health of the school depends on the white elephant in the room.  What are people talking about behind closed doors?  If you are going to add instruction, you have to say what will they not do.  There is not extra time.  But don’t waste TIME!  We used to be able to kick out social studies and science but now we can’t.  You need to talk about it.  About time and how it’s spent.  If you can’t do something, don’t skip days, skip a month.  Deep work has to be done daily. 

When kids begin writing don’t start conferring.  Move around the room first and make sure they are going.  Then small groups.  It doesn’t have to be long small group work.  It’s about pulling them out of their chairs and pointing something out and then leave them working.


Strategies:  
* See kids thinking they are “finished” not writing....Mid lesson teaching point, “Writers, when you think you’re done, you’ve just begun.”
* Instead of turn and talk:  Turn to your neighbor and write it in the air.
* Pick and model a moment for your kids that is a moment they can relate to.  Dialogue or small action....(Common core says begin with an orienting phrase.  Don’t do that.  That comes later. Start with dialogue or small action.)
* When you read these pieces that the kids have written you have to read them like they are golden.  It makes a difference.  Taking the heart of the story and stretching it out. 
*Write with precise nouns and verbs, not adjectives and adverbs.
* Strategies for generating thoughtful entries or ideas or thought patches, take one and write it long

Essay writing strategies … think of a person that matters to you and 3 ideas and pick one and write it long.
or…idea that matters to you and 3 ideas and pick one and write it long

Writers- three ideas and write long about one  (helpful starters)
I’m realizing
for example
all in all I’m realizing
in other words
that is
the surprising thing about this is
from this day forward I’m going to
the important thing about this is
this is giving me the idea that
this connects to

The idea being helping them to reach for something where there is no words to really explain.

Information Writing
We watched a video of Amanda Hartman teaching students to get their topics down for their informational writing.  She says: “I’ll come back long and strong and write more about this later”.

Here are some tips for this genre:
* Spend extra time on structure and elaboration
* Qualities of good information writing:  write with structure but with central idea
* Text features, diagrams, ideas, captions, pop out the central idea
* A lot of books they read are off topic distractions, they need to know good authors stick to central idea
* Information and ideas, you have to ask questions and maybe you don’t have answers


Assessment-
Writing Pathways - in units, in all grades, we ask you to begin year as on demand writing and day after celebration of unit they do another on demand write.  You do that to see the growth.  This reminds you that you aren’t trying to improve the kid’s product, you’re trying to improve the kid. And having that starting piece is also an accountable way of saying to the child, ”Look back at that piece you did in the beginning, your writing should be worlds better!”  If you don’t do this their writing may even go down.  The on demand piece is an assessment and they know it.  They may do their best only then.  Hold them accountable to doing their best always.

When you give kids checklists you have to preach to them about checklists, toward the end of the that unit of writing.  That pilot that landed the plane on water and saved lives, he followed the emergency checklist.  Tell them that!  When babies are born, they go through a checklist of what they should show and when they don’t see it that find out what’s wrong!   Checklists are what people do when things are complicated and important and you don’t want to forget. Talk it up with them constantly.  It helps you be in charge of your own writing.  You are the boss and coach of yourself with this.  Famous, great coaches are hard on their players.  You have to be that person for yourself. 

Today is a beginning.  The teaching of writing is a big subject.  You really can’t do this alone.  Most powerful thing a school can have is a contagious learners, in the company of others. One of the easy ways to learn a unit of study is to have a teacher teach it to other teachers in 3 min of the heart of the lesson and then have them write for 5 minutes.  Great strategy.  Is your school doing to many things not well instead of less things with depth?  Innovations adopted with no fidelity have little impact. 

Professor at Harvard has popular course on Happiness.  Your happiness level, very few things affect it.  You get sick, win the lottery and you get sad and depressed but you go back to your normal level.  Very few things make people happier.  One of the only things that does increase happiness is when a small group of people with you work on a cause bigger than you.  Think about a time in education when your work was the best it’s ever been.  It probably wasn’t a time where you came in late and left early.  It’s probably a time where you and your colleagues worked harder than you have ever worked.  You had a common cause and worked for it.  If a well informed person came to you and said, ”Change or you are going to die” and most don’t change. People continue not eating well, exercising or smoking…. 20% that do make change are the people that have a support group.  The secret to having professional capital is that the building has social capital.  Not just getting together to have fun.  Plan together, visit each other’s classrooms, share student work….LEARN together.  Let’s think together and lift each other’s thinking.

Cross posted on Once Upon a Teacher

Learning from Lucy - Part One of Two

Our school was fortunate enough to be able to send our entire group of third and fourth grade writing teachers as well as our literacy coach to hear Lucy Calkins last month, here in Jacksonville, Florida.  She presented about the new Writing Units of Study and Implementing Rigorous, Coherent Writing Curriculum. 

Our photo with LUCY!!! 

     After much thought and gathering of notes from the teachers that attended I thought the best way to share what each of us walked away with by giving you the lens of the learner.... by grouping the third grade teacher take-aways, fourth grade teacher take-aways and mine (literacy coach).  I simply asked everyone to share the things that stuck out in their mind the most and what resonated most strongly with them. We had discussions in meetings about what we learned, but they did not read each other's notes.  I like that their "voice" comes through in what they shared.   Here are the teachers' thoughts:

From Jessica Shaffer:

I love Lucy !

Things I am excited about doing in my class…

Flash Draft-thought this was a great idea so they have a few options and can pick their strongest.

Have students try different leads each day and think if this is where my story goes how will it be?

Story tell their ideas-love this especially for my struggling kids-helps them get started

Mid-workshop-talk with partner-loved this idea because they get to share and they get a short break from their writing.

Bootcamp on Essay structure-I like ice cream because…

On Demand writing prompts

Write goal on every page-add stars/fireworks around goals!

From Carrie McLeod:

What an AMAZING opportunity it was to meet and hear Lucy live in person. Though I learned a million things to improve our classroom writing instruction, most are genre specific. Below I will list a few management things, learned from LC, that we want to implement across our day immediately:

1. No waiting! Our new goal is start our lessons right away and hold high standards of all learners being on the carpet ready and willing to learn ON TIME. This will include transitions within and outside of our classroom as well.

2. We want to address the wasted time at the start of our day. We are requesting that the pledge/song come on at 9:00 sharp so we can start our fluency song immediately afterward and then jump straight into Reading in the morning.

3. We always have mid-workshop teaching points, but have never thought about including a mid-workshop break to share with the learner next to you. We know peer learning is one of the most powerful, so this makes sense!

4. Since our Reading assessments are extremely lengthy, we love that Lucy gave us "permission" to just let the kids write "fast & furious" without a full lesson beforehand. The kids can now complete their assessments and immediately jump into their writing.

From Laurie Justo:

*When it comes to writing conferences, her tips were "Name what is WORKING for them as a writer and encourage it to move forward with momentum.  Then, name their next steps." This is so simple, especially when I want to fix 20 things, I will think of what she said!  Also, I saw the one of the demo lesson teachers read aloud a student's writing when conferring, so they could hear it too.  I so often, read it fast in my head to save time, but I loved watching the child listen to his teacher read his work aloud.

*She talked about how our student's writing is the best assessment of our teaching.  So true!

*I loved her idea of 'On Demand' writing before and after a genre.  Then you can really see the growth of their writing.  I have tried it before a genre but never after.  She said that it is easy for kids to add each mini lesson idea as you teach it day by day, but the true test is whether they can use what they learned and write a whole piece on their own (On Demand!).

*When she talked about time management, this really hit home for me since I feel like that is the theme of our year.  I love how she said 'if you are going to do it, do it well and in its entirety." -or something like that.  She said if you don't have time to write everyday, then take a month off and teach a genre when you can give it your all.  I know we know alot about implementing things with fidelity and consistency, but it is always a good reminder.  She mentioned how districts are so good at throwing a million little things at us that they want us to accomplish. We need to say 'if you would like for me to do that, then what would you like for me NOT to do anymore'.  This way, we can do fewer things, but do those few things in depth.

*One page of writing per day is what she recommended for building writing fluency.  She mentioned how writers need to write more VOLUME!  Writing is everywhere and a part of everything...blogging, texting, everything on the internet!

From Lindsay Hoffmann:

I left the TDE inspired and overwhelmed.  There were many reassurances that what we have done and are doing in our classroom is what our writers need, but there were also many new ideas that can be implemented to strengthen the structure and writing in our classroom.  I am eager to implement the on-demand writing assessments prior to each unit.  In the past, we had completed on-demand prompts for the county, but I really like the idea of a sample in each of the different units.  I like that it is a snapshot of a student's current skills and how Lucy said, their writing should be better than that sample everyday after.  It holds students accountable for pushing themselves as writers.  I'm also interested in the "flash drafting".  We are so used to brainstorming multiple ideas, but not actually drafting them.  Moving through several pieces will keep the work fresh and the kids inspired.  I can't wait to start our next unit!

From Jaclyn Earnest:

My biggest a-has from Friday were that we should do an on demand piece at the beginning of the unit and then again at the end of the unit to compare the two pieces of work. Also, the amount flash drafting that students should be doing in the beginning of every unit. I love both of these ideas and it did not occur to me before to try it this way. I also enjoyed watching the videos of her and her colleagues conferencing with students during the workshop. In regards to conferencing, I took away that it is not something that should happen right away. The students should all first be settled and you check in with students then start pulling to conference based on what you see. I like the way SHE read the student's piece and emphasized the parts that were on track and strategically noted the parts that needed improvement.

From Gerri Smith:
Highlights- Narrative Writing:  Seed ideas:  a person who matters, make it one time, use small moments and write it long.
                   Opinion Writing:   Think out the outline, Pick a topic, give three reason (use parts, kinds and times) to show the three reasons.
To get students to elaborate more use one of these Points:  in other words
                                                                                              that is  
                                                                                              as I say this I'm realizing
                                                                                              so all in all I'm trying to say
                                                                                              for example
                                                                                              this shows
                                                                                              another example is
                                                                                              I use to think but now realizes
                                                                                              from this day forward I'm going to
                                                                                              the surprising thing about this
Last thought is conferencing:  When kids are left trying to think of something to write pull a small group with those students.

From Cheryl Chascin:

·         Students need to know the genre they are writing.  What am I being asked to write?

·         Students need to look at the work of others in that genre.  What does this look like?  What do I know about writing this well?

·         Students need to be aware of their audience/reader.

·         The relationship between the teacher and student is one of the most important things.  The student is aware that their teacher believes they are capable of producing dramatically good work.

·         When conferencing, notice what the student is doing well, then give them a crystal clear goal as a next step, providing individualized instruction, if needed, to reach that goal.

From Jenny Nash:

You can judge a school by how many elephants are in the room.

           We’re blessed to be working at one of the best elementary schools in the nation.  But, we’re not perfect.  And for every issue we’re talking about in our classrooms, in partnerships and behind closed doors, there’s an elephant walking the halls.  Let’s make sure our writing instruction doesn’t wear a trunk and a tail, shall we?

           Let’s talk writing fluency: our writers are falling behind.  Common Core State Standards expect a level of writing fluency that the majority of our writers are not meeting.  Lucy Calkins explicitly defined writing fluency as the result of how much you write.   This means our mini-lessons need to stay mini, so our writers can hold a pen or pencil in their hand and write strong and long for thirty minutes or more every single day, reliably.  Never again should any student utter the words, “Are we going to write today?”  As teachers, we need to anticipate stamina and fluency struggles, and be prepared with strategies – mid-workshop teaching points or shares are just a few – to help our young writers stretch and push themselves and write more.

           This is a lofty goal, and it brings to mind a certain four-letter word:  TIME.  I’ve been struggling with time for years.  We have a long-standing love-hate relationship, time and I.  To this, Calkins scoffed slightly and said, “Time is life.”  We’re never going to get enough, are we?  Resource two, three, or four days a week – makes no matter.  There will never be “enough” time.  So, we need to choose, carefully and wisely, how we spend it.  Stop and reflect.  Where is your time going?  How can I run my classroom more efficiently?  How can I wrestle these ticking hands to the ground and pin them to the sticking places that I choose?  Is it in the transitions?  Am I talking too much?  Do I allow my students to interrupt my mini-lessons?  Do I need to reorganize materials routines?  It might be as simple as taking the time to talk openly with your students about these things, enlisting their help in making the classroom run more efficiently.

           “Time on task” is a basic principle of best teaching practices, but it’s more than just that.  It’s essential to a young writer.  Without time to wield their pencils and weave their own words, writers will not improve.  Not in fluency and not in craft.  Like riding a bike, playing a musical instrument, or reading a book, writing is a skill that requires doing it over and over again to “get good”.

           If that’s all writers needed, our jobs sure would be easy.  Wouldn’t they?  But, of course, that’s not all.  Another big idea Mrs. Calkins instilled in those of us in the audience was feedback.  Feedback takes many forms.  First and foremost, writing feedback comes in the form of writing conferences.  It’s easy for us to get so wrapped up in planning fantastic mini-lessons, reinventing active engagement strategies, and finding fantabulous writing tips and techniques, that we lose sight of perhaps the most powerful tool we have – writing conferences.  Calkins’s basic conferring structure has not changed since her earlier work – compliment and teach.  Begin by noticing how the writer has changed for the better and point this out to them explicitly and with great fanfare.  Celebrating even the tiniest successes with specificity and enthusiasm is essential.  Then, quickly and strategically teach them in a way that leaves them with a crystal clear goal for their writing.  Your concise instruction should be a “how-to” for their next step.

           But feedback also comes in other forms.  One of the biggest new opportunities I see in the new Units of Study kits is the assessment process.  In Writing Pathways, Calkins and her team outline an on-demand writing assessment process that will measure students’ writing by comparing their products to sets of exemplar texts, yielding a sort of developmental level for the writer.  Using on-demand prompt assessments as bookends to each unit of study, we can share with each student and their family a writers’ growth over the course of each unit and the year as a whole.  Calkins explained that adding just this one new piece to the schools with which she works has made profound impacts on both student performance and motivation.

           But feedback is only one of two major factors that affect student achievement.  The other is relationships.  Students learn best from someone they perceive as someone to be someone who truly cares about them AND has faith that they will make immense gains.  On a daily basis, we need to instill our faith in our young writers in them.  We need them to feel safe enough in our gentle, admiring hands for them to pour their heart out onto their pages.  I’ve long noticed that teaching writing workshop teaches me more about my students than any other subject.  We must make it a priority to create an environment in which our students wouldn’t think twice about writing stories about wetting their beds, having bad dreams, cutting off all their bangs, telling a lie, or their very special blanket that they still can’t sleep without, even now that they’re such a “big kid”.  Writers need to know their teachers fully expect them to meet every single standard – exceed them in fact!  Writers should all be taught to believe that they are amazing writers and whole-heartedly loved, through and through.  Calkins referenced Avi when she said, “If you’re going to teach me to write, you first need to love me.”

           Throughout the day, Calkins reminded us that writing is as essential to a child’s education as math or reading.  It should be a part of the Students’ Bill of Rights.  We can protect their right to write by carving out half an hour or more each and every day for “their turn” - the work period - to write, providing frequent, high quality feedback through our conferences and writing assessments, and building strong relationships with every single writer in our care.  There was so much more learning to the day – unit bends, writing cycles, finding a teaching focus, using mentor texts, point of view, text organization, and more – but I’m working hardest on these three goals first.  It is these three goals that I’m carrying with me in my back pocket, every step I take, every lesson I teach, and every time I sit down next to a big-eyed, young writer, and say, “How’s your writing going today?”

Secrets and Songs of Text

Secrets and Songs

I had the absolute pleasure of learning from Mary Ehrenworth at Teachers College Reading Institute. 


Her session was entitled:  Secrets and Songs:  Deepening What Children See in the Texts They Read

What are some ways to teach close reading so that kids will love reading?
Seeing more and being alert to the secrets and songs of text. 

Secrets and Songs of Close Reading

How can we teach students to see more in the texts they encounter?  You get out of reading what you bring into reading.  You need to know about the things the text is talking about (the nuances it’s referring to)
How can we innovate so that this teaching is engaging, intellectual and joyful?
What methods increase transference?  The highest level of instruction is sometimes your read aloud but there is low transference.
What kinds of texts might we incorporate?  If they do it then it will be rewarding... That’s increasing the likelihood of transference.

One example activity:
I immediately took note that Mary referred to this as visual text.  Read this visual text and see what story it tells. 


Guernica by Pablo Picasso

Mary Ehrenworth

While looking at this Picasso painting she spoke about why Picasso painted it ( “Guernica” was painted in response to a bombing in northern Spain by German and Italian warplanes during the Spanish Civil War.  It is a mural sized painting that represented the horrors of war.)  Teach kids to notice what there is to be noticed.  Turn to partner and speak about what you see.

The next thing would be using words to describe these things you see and back it up with evidence. Make sure to teach kids to be specific but kind of literary. (Lots of times kids skip the hard part of text- make sure they stop and look at every little thing)
Is the painting sad or what?  desperate? Not hurt, desolate?  What specific word would describe these characters or one of these characters rather than just any character in any book?  She asked us to try that with a partner by saying, “Your idea, then your evidence.” Either one character, all characters or compare/contrast characters.

After we spoke for a minute she interrupted us with a mid-teaching point. “Let me tell you what I notice with some nice reading work I see going on here: I heard readers saying the characters seem ____ because______.  There is no one right answer when texts are complex so it’s about seeing all the sides of something and telling why you see that or read that.  Then synthesize it to what is this starting to be about.  “What in the text makes you say that? ”Complex texts are about more than one thing and why do you see what you see?”  Teach kids not to say the characters ARE, say the characters SEEM....

So we talked about what is happening in this text, what is happening with the characters and then what is this text starting to be about...  message, underlying theme....chances are with complex text there are more than one.  So get in the habit of saying: possible idea, evidence and then your partners should be saying, “What makes you say that?”  Ask them to point to the part that demonstrates what you are saying.  So Close Reading is about wanting to see more in the text. 

As another example activity:  She then gave us the lyrics to the Mackelmore song: “Wings”  Equally complex but different kind of visual text.  She suggested we read it with our partner because one of the ways to increase your comprehension and help you see complexity in text is to compare your thinking with someone else. 
Read it and think about who is in this story and what does it seem to be about. 

"Wings"
(feat. Ryan Lewis)

I was seven years old, when I got my first pair
And I stepped outside
And I was like, momma, this air bubble right here, it's gonna make me fly
I hit that court, and when I jumped, I jumped, I swear I got so high
I touched the net, momma I touched the net, this is the best day of my life
Air Max's were next,
That air bubble, that mesh
The box, the smell, the stuffin', the tread, in school
I was so cool
I knew that I couldn't crease 'em
My friends couldn't afford 'em
Four stripes on their Adidas
On the court I wasn't the best, but my kicks were like the pros
Yo, I stick out my tongue so everyone could see that logo
Nike Air Flight, but bad was so dope
And then my friend Carlos' brother got murdered for his Fours*, whoa

See he just wanted a jump shot, but they wanted to start a cult though
Didn't wanna get caught, from Genesee Park to Othello
You could clown for those Pro Wings, with the Velcro
Those were not tight
I was trying to fly without leaving the ground,
Cause I wanted to be like Mike, right
Wanted to be him, I wanted to be that guy, I wanted to touch the rim
I wanted to be cool, and I wanted to fit in,
I wanted what he had, America, it begins

[Chorus:]
I want to fly
Can you take me far away
Give me a star to reach for
Tell me what it takes
And I'll go so high
I'll go so high
My feet won't touch the ground
Stitch my wings
And pull the strings
I bought these dreams
That all fall down

We want what we can't have, commodity makes us want it
So expensive, damn, I just got to flaunt it
Got to show 'em, so exclusive, this that new shit
A hundred dollars for a pair of shoes I would never hoop in
Look at me, look at me, I'm a cool kid
I'm an individual, yea, but I'm part of a movement
My movement told me be a consumer and I consumed it
They told me to just do it, I listened to what that swoosh said
Look at what that swoosh did
See it consumed my thoughts
Are you stupid, don't crease 'em, just leave 'em in that box
Strangled by these laces, laces I can barely talk
That's my air bubble and I'm lost, if it pops
We are what we wear, we wear what we are
But see I look inside the mirror and think Phil Knight tricked us all
Will I stand for change, or stay in my box
These Nikes help me define me, but I'm trying to take mine, off

[Chorus:]
I want to fly
Can you take me far away
Give me a star to reach for
Tell me what it takes
And I'll go so high
I'll go so high
My feet won't touch the ground
Stitch my wings
And pull the strings
I bought these dreams
That all fall down

It started out, with what I wear to school
That first day, like these are what make you cool
And this pair, this would be my parachute
So much more than just a pair of shoes
Nah, this is what I am
What I wore, this is the source of my youth
This dream that they sold to you
For a hundred dollars and some change
Consumption is in the veins
And now I see it's just another pair of shoes


So what happens in this story? A boy who wants a pair of shoes, a specific kind?  And then? Dark moment, friend’s brother killed for shoes?  Why wear them?  And then?  Chorus is like inner thinking of fly, what do they mean?  Get away?  Then he gives like a mini lecture and a plea for change? 

What is really hard about this is this is what is expected of our kids on state tests. The tests are normed on a minute a page and a minute a question.  And the kids are really being asked to do close reading, which involves rereading.  They have to go back and ponder and linger and think.  So you have to give them opportunities in your class to know that the first thing you have to do is ask yourself do I even know what this is saying?  Often our kids basically comprehend but they have to be trained to say to themselves, “What am I really noticing?”  When you are doing this work what is helpful to kids is being introduced to technical vocabulary. 

Here are some words you might use in technical vocabulary of looking at music verses text from a book:

Watch the video:



What did you notice after the chorus in the imagery and tone?  Speak to the people for a minute in your group about the lens you were using.  You don't always have to explain it out.  What they saw, or heard, or thought is ok.  One of the things that kids struggle with in state tests is tone. In this video, the tone switches with male voice then kids voices.  Why do you think the performer did that?
 What was happening with his tone when he got angry?

Here are some insructional methods for this:

 Do you see yourself using visual text as a tool to teach text complexity in your clasroom?  This got my mind turning with ideas!  What do you see yourself doing?

Cross posted on ONCE UPON A TEACHER

Ramping Up Readers' Workshop

Most of us who are elementary teachers know we are going to have to teach readers to grapple with complex text in order to help them meet the more speedy growth that common core requires but we don't know yet what exactly that will look like in our classrooms.  We can't go faster or squeeze in more lessons so we need to be very prescriptive about what strategies we use to move our students through text levels and help them respond critically writing about what they read. 

Kathleen Tolan

On Day 2 of Teachers College Reading Institute, Kathleen Tolan reminded us about not forgetting to use the important metacognitive strategies in our lessons but showed us ideas to help students dig deeper for more complex work. 

*  Visualization and Envisionment help students be more engaged in their reading because they see it in their minds eye.  What you envision may be wrong until the text corrects you.  As a reader, you adjust to what the author is showing you with their words.  This is why reading fantasy can be so hard because you don’t have a schema for what something may look like.  You can practice this with kids by reading aloud and having them close their eyes while you read something.  They can sketch what they are see in their mind movie.  This is a whole part of reading that can be lost to some students.  Build the world of the story.  When you can do this and you really understand the character you can better make predictions.  Prediction engages students.  It makes them want to find out if they are right.  Kids can be unspecific about what they think “I think she will be able to do it”  Make them predict the steps that leads to their prediction.  When the prediction is wrong, then you have some work to do about why they predicted wrong. 

* Character work is important because it helps us understand why characters do the things they do.  What are the traits of this character?  Help kids understand which traits might be positive or negative, what happened in the story that might change the character’s traits.  Find text evidence to support it or things that are evidence to the contrary.  Read over your jottings during reading and find out how they go together.  Group your jottings together to make new ideas.  Look at your jots through the eyes of another character.

*Theme in a book is not looking at what book is about.  It is about the aspect of that topic.  Example:  Book is about Friendship.  Theme is how friends can be there for you when you are going through a hard time.  Don't let kids get away with broad statements.  They should be used to you saying, "Say more...".

*Make a chart of sentence starters for students to dig deeper and tell more about their noticings and judgements after reading.
To add on...
This makes me realize...
My other theory is....
The bigger idea I am having now is....
In other words...

Digging Deeper

How do we help our children know that there is hard work that will have to be done for a book?  Tell them.  When you are modeling for your students you need to point out what you are doing specifically, because this is hard work and they need to know exactly the steps to do.  It is possible to over-scaffold or over-coach but you need to be honest about the hard work they are doing so they expect to struggle and reach for the answer.

Because reading is invisible, we have to make it more tangible for kids. There is not a reading skill that we don’t use in life.  Watch their actions and point out when they predict and infer and make connections when they are just living their lives as readers.

Cross posted on Once Upon a Teacher

Helping Our Youngest Readers Move Up the Ladder of Text Complexity

Natalie Louis

This session was presented by Natalie Louis who is the co-author of Writing for Readers
(Heinemann, 2013) a unit of study for Kindergarten writers. 

The lower grade is potentially in danger with text complexity.  It's a huge learning curve from what we've been doing.  We need to find new ways to move readers forward faster.  Don’t abandon Fountas and Pinnell.  We still need reading levels, the progression of students has just been ramped up.

In kids book baskets, in the past the teacher would mostly have the students independent level.  We started to play around with the formula in the baggies.  Marie Clay says what most grows readers is the instructional level (stretch level). So already we aren’t putting the right thing in the book bags.  Reading Recovery studied and discovered kids grow one level every two weeks, so most of the instruction wasn’t at instructional level.
So we decided to get more instructional level texts in baggies - more shared reading with a small group, sometimes one to two levels above their grade level.

I want to read that book with you!!!!!

Kindergarten teachers understand the power of shared reading.  How you know its a good shared reading - the kids are excited and UNRULY!  And its mostly implicit (just doing reading - don’t talk about it).  Less blah, blah, blah, more do, do, do.  It’s why they want to read.  They hear that model of you reading and want to sound just like it.  If your kids are all sitting still, hands folded -it’s not a good shared reading (all eyes on same text - 1 book).  More like a MOSH pit where kids want to surf toward the book.  That's what she wants to see in classrooms.  Excitement! 

You do the dance of shared reading.  As much as they need, until they DO back.  Gesture for them to try, don’t talk about it. Continue saying "Join me if you can." as you turn the page.  Just read it with them.  We are talking levels below I , J. 

Take guided reading books and use them for group shared reading.  Teacher is only one with copy.  All eyes on same text.  The idea is that at the end they might be able to read by themselves. 

Kids below benchmark get this burst schedule of shared reading instruction from you.

Example "Burst Group Schedule"

You would do two week cycles where you take one group and see them intensely and work with the instructional books in their baggie.  This won't take much time!  These are low level books you can shared read the entire book pretty quickly.

Day 1: Two or three instructional texts (meaning books 2 or 3 levels above their independent level)  in shared reading. Saying to the kids: Join me if you can.  The kids are shouting out things they notice and you just don’t respond.  Keep reading and stopping and saying “Join me if you can”
Day 2:  Two shared reading two above level
Day 3: Guided reading at their level
Day 4:  Two shared reading  two above level and decide how each is doing
Day 5:  Informal or Formal assess to see if their level moved unless they are totally lost still

This can help them “burst” ahead.  Even if you can move a few up faster the one behind can get more focused one on one help.

Partner Reading - There is no reason to have a reading partner unless there is trouble.  If things are good...you don’t need help.  A partner is there for help.  Make sure kids know why they have a partner - so there’s someone else to help when there’s trouble or join the joy!  They need to understand the why of partner reading.

Every child has that one book they keep picking up that is WAAAAY above their level.  Maybe its a book they've seen an older sibling read, maybe it's a topic or popular character right now, but whatever it is - Let them have it!  I call this the child's northstar book - way above your level but you will LEARN to read for this book. They want to read this book so bad they try to sound these huge words out when they are really a C level reader!  Mark it with a post it and say this book is special because it is hard for you but we will give you a shot.  Guess which book they work on hardest?  If I say a book is "just right" and you struggle with it what are you saying in your head to yourself in your head?  "My teacher said this book is just right and I can't read some of these words - ugh I'm so dumb."   A hard book they know is hard  they say, "Oh, I don't know lots of these words but she said it was hard for me so no big deal."  but they work harder.  Let them have it but label it with a sticky note with a star so they know that is their special hard book they chose.

As an aside...I remember when my son was in Kindergarten and hanging at the C level for so long and desperate to read Star Wars easy readers.  I bought them anyway to keep at home and I would read them aloud to him at times but he sat in front of those books longer than any others trying to sound out "Obi Wan Kanobi".  I'm pretty sure "the force" (or his Northstar books) propelled him through those primary reading levels. :)

I think the Common Core Standards and text complexity will force us to continue looking for new and different ways to get those "bursts" in reading levels.  Do you have any tips or trick to share?

Cross posted on Once Upon a Teacher

Duval County Teacher Academy, Day 1

I LOVE the beginning of school.  Everything seems so new and exciting.  This year I'm starting with a five day County Teacher Academy.  I thought I'd blog it from one Kindergarten Teacher's point of view.  The views expressed are mine only!

Over four hundred teachers gathered in a local high school's cafeteria for the morning session!  Too many teachers and not enough chairs - hard, backless benches for a two and half hour morning presentation - two screens the size of postage stamps to try to view the PowerPoint - bathrooms with no toilet paper that hadn't been cleaned for the start of school - not such a good first impression...   However,...

Language Arts and Reading
The session began with a heartfelt expression of the influence K-2 teachers have on the children in their care.  "The number one predictor of graduation from high school is how well a student reads at the end of first grade.  We can never underestimate the 180 days that we share with each child."

Interesting comments:

• Children learn to read in a jagged fashion -not in a straight linear line so it is not uncommon for a child to skip levels as they learn to read.  How does this effect us? We must be ever vigilant that we do not allow students to plod along going through every single level, but instead allow them to skip along at their own rate.
• Even in kindergarten 50% of reading should be informational.  How does that effect us?  In Kindergarten and first grade in particular, we have worked hard to increase  the non-fiction in our leveled libraries.  Would love it if someone would go through their entire leveled library and see how close we really are.  Any takers?
• Rereading is a key skill in the Common Core - not just repeating the reading but reading for a purpose.
• When you plan the questions that you are going to ask about a text, pay particular attention to vocabulary and syntax.  How does that effect us? As we begin the year with our star books, we should make sure to highlight the vocabulary and talk about it in a second or third reading of the book.   That's in addition to the specific vocabulary activities that we have written for the books.
• Our 3rd-5th grade students do poorly on multiple meaning words on FCAT.  We should spend time discussing these type of words in our readalouds. How does that effect us? This is another opportunity to look at our Vocabulary words from the star books.  I don't think we really talk about the different meanings of words in our Teacher's Guide.  For instance, the word disturb.  We should go back and add multiple meanings as we discuss these words.
• We must continue to read complex stories during read aloud.  Simple stories are thin in meaning, are limited and restrictive.  How does that effect us?  We should probably choose 3-5 of our star books that we think have the most complex story lines and develop complex questions to use in an expanded read aloud.  We need to encourage our children right from the start to discuss the story and to go back into the book for text evidence.
• You can't just ask questions during readalouds that are truly complex off the top of your head.  You have to plan the questions. How does that effect us? All the more reasons to plan the questions for a few of our Star Books.  This would make a great early PD session for us.
• Text complexity is really a unit around a book, not a single lesson.  The book will be read many times.  Not all of the more complex, text-dependent questions would be asked during the same lesson.

Data, Insight and Inform
  All of our K-2 data on the many assessments that we will be taking will be reported in the county's data system.  This session was a bust for me.  For one, the screen was too small, too hard to read and I think I would have had to be more familiar with Insight and Inform to really gleam the information shared.  I sort of glazed over after the first few minutes. How does that effect us?  I guess this means that Suzanne needs to be ready for many, many questions from K-2 folks who will need to understand this system well!  Another good early PD session for Kinder teachers - maybe as soon as the first data comes in.

Interesting comments:

• Art and Music teachers will be giving their own assessments 5 times a year (I think this is new information).  It saddens me because it means that we will be giving up at least five Music and five Art periods for assessments.  It already seems that we have too little resource in our very large school so the loss of any of that precious time for our students is depressing.  They love Art and Music so any time that they lose actual instruction will make them sad.  I'm not sure exactly how that will work for kindergartners if the assessments are individual...
• On top of the FLKRS (which will include the FAIR without the Vocabulary) kindergartners will be taking Reading, Writing, Math and Science assessments.  The first set of tests will be baseline and will be done in the first ten days of school and then at the end of the first, second, third nine weeks which will only cover the nine weeks work, and then a final end-of-the-year assessment. It certainly seems like a lot of missed instructional time.  We were told that there has been some discussion about the amount of individual testing required for kindergartners and that a group of kindergarten teachers were meeting to discuss just how long the testing will take.    It's good to know that we have an Administration that is willing to listen and reconsider.

Building Book Baskets using Common Core
This session was presented by folks from American Reading Company.  The county has purchased 4 bins of trade books, 30 books in each bin, for each classroom teacher (I'm thinking that means 8 bins for each co-teach class.) They are expected to arrive before the children do, but are not yet in the schools. The books are leveled with the Common Core in mind using a new leveling system (we spent most of our time learning this new system).  Each level has qualitative descriptors, much like the Fountas-Pinnell System that we are currently using, but these are updated with the Common Core parameters.  Each bin of books will be unique, in that the titles will be different.  In other words, each of the 12 kindergarten teachers will have a different bin of book titles but the same four levels.  The idea is that the teachers swap books every few days to give the children access to a variety of books.  I think for us that would mean we trade bins about every two weeks. What does that mean for us?  This is quite a challenge and one I have been thinking about all day.  Certainly it makes no sense to relevel all of the current books that we have.  I estimate each classroom library probably has at least 1500+ books so the better idea might be to level all of the ARC books according to the Fountas-Pinnell levels and then put the books where the need is (time consuming, but possible).  I am absolutely thrilled that the county is purchasing 120 new books for our leveled libraries!  What a great addition!

Other interesting comments:

• Best practice - Using sticks in a cup with the children's name for random calling keeps students engaged. How does that effect us?  We need the App Stick Pick @$2.99 that could be used under the document camera.  This would be especially appropriate for kindergartners who are learning to recognize each other's names and their own (see right).  You type in the class names and the App chooses a name at random, which appears on the screen.  Cute, huh? 
• Best practice - Turn and Talk - Got that!
• Independent reading is being defined as 99-100% and Proficiency as 90% comprehension (our friend Richard Allington)
• Text complexity includes quantitative (computer formula), qualitative (levels of meaning assessed by humans) and reader and task. How does this effect us?  Hope this looks familiar because this is the rubric that Susan had us look at during book-of-the-month to figure text complexity.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's insights (?) from a kindergarten teacher.