Search results matching tags 'education' and 'reading'

Literacy Lava! FREE PDFs zines for incorporating #literacy with creativity. Quality Resource

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 01:00:00 GMT

See on Scoop.it - Education Matters - (tech and non-tech)

9 issues available to teachers, librarians and parents to print out and use with kids/classes.”

KB…Konnected’s insight:

Wow! Literacy Lava offers more than a boatload of ideas, strategies, resources from people passionate about children’s literacy and learning.

Scroll down the page and find more resources including “Using Comic Editors with Kids”.

I’m adding this to “Cool Comic Creators for KIds”

See on susanstephenson.com.au

MS Language Arts: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 16:56:13 GMT

Probably a subtitle more like: “Bravely going where no language arts teacher has gone before” might’ve been more appropriate.

Our middle school language arts teachers have been on quite a journey this year, and we’re capping it off with our second joint meeting tomorrow (ALL 14 teachers from grades 6-8 at both MS buildings, plus an intervention specialist, plus a media specialist). We’ve tackled BOTH text complexity and curriculum mapping simultaneously this year, and to say that it’s been chaotic is an understatement. But, it is with absolute appreciation for the hard work of these teachers that I can say we have accomplished something awesome.

Tackling Text Complexity

We started the year by making a decision 6-12 to look at the books we are currently using and figure out if they still fit in the context of the Common Core. In October’s department meetings (voluntary, after school), MS and HS teachers inventoried their book rooms and text purchases to create one list of all books currently used at each grade level. They also looked up the Lexiles for each of the texts.

I was operating under the assumption that if it fit the Lexile, there was no need to discuss whether or not the text fit in the grade level, but if it didn’t, then we needed to use a qualitative rubric to debate its appropriateness. We tried this, and quickly realized we could spend all of our precious department time debating the merits of a book until we talked ourselves into making it fit. So, using a qualitative rubric to assess books with lower Lexiles did not work for us.

Going back to the drawing board, as a group the MS teachers decided that no book whose Lexile was lower than the suggested grade band (925 on low end) could be used as a whole-class novel. We had a LOT of books on our list that weren’t up to the Lexile level, and we moved those to our “differentiating for struggling readers” list (more about this in a minute). With permission of our department heads, here is the list we finally settled on at the middle schools: ELA Text List*

We are now working to choose 1-2 texts (1 fiction and 1 informational) that will be the basis for common units at each grade level across the two buildings. So ALL 6th grade teachers would use the same whole-class novel and the same whole-class informational text, for example.

(*Side note: This list is our list of texts that work for our school district. Other districts may read the same texts at different grades)

The Parallel Conversation: Mapping Units

About a year ago on this blog I started talking about Sarah Wessling’s “fulcrum/context/texture” text idea (p. 22-28), which I love. I wanted to combine this idea with the PARCC Model Content Frameworks whereby a “fulcrum” text (Wessling) becomes the “extended” text (PARCC) and “Context/Texture” texts (Wessling) become the “short texts” (PARCC).

I then wanted to use this combined idea to reconcile the argument between “grade level” texts (those that meet the complexity expectations) and “instructional level” texts (those at student’s reading levels. (Again, something I discussed here and here). This Prezi describes how we will be pulling the three efforts together tomorrow to create two shared units at both buildings:

Going back to the ELA List above, books in the right column can only be used as context/texture for students reading below grade level, whereas books in the left column are the choices for whole-class, “extended text” usage. Planning for writing/research, language, and speaking and listening standards can be done within the context of planning thematic/topical units.

I’ll be spending much of this afternoon creating a visual representation that teachers can use tomorrow as a graphic organizer. As soon as its available, I’ll share.

My Takeaways:

Teachers shared that tackling both text complexity and mapping at the same time was a challenge.
On using the qualitative rubric–it was very easy for us to talk ourselves into defending any book at a grade level. As we all know, any book can be made infinitely more challenging depending on the level of the task, but we had to set a bar of expectation based on something concrete (like a Lexile score).
MS teachers (at least in our case) are coming from an instructional structure of constant differentiation. Our teachers have, rightfully so, taught reading at levels as defined by each students reading level (determined by an assessment). Asking them to require all students to read a high-Lexiled text is a complete mind shift for them. We are proceeding cautiously with the understanding that we are experimenting; we are going to scaffold the heck out of grade-level texts, and we are going to pre-plan close readings for struggling students over essential excerpts from the book. We are going to plan units that will provide appropriate amounts of context through differentiated pieces in preparation for the grade-level text. This is going to be a huge challenge, but we are moving forward with an expectation of revising.
Teachers see value in this kind of unit planning and like the idea of text sets.
I see little value in the textbook anthology–if the texts don’t fit our unit sets, why would we need 500+ pages of random stories? We design our units, not the textbook publishers. We could venture into iBooks and creating our own unit “text books.”
We have to keep a focus on the language strand. Grammar always tends to be moved to the back burner, but we need to ensure it as a priority.

Basic Skills in Literacy

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 22:31:39 GMT

I’ve been working recently to realign lesson plans and strategies available through the Ohio Resource Center (yes, my place of employment) to help teachers/districts begin implementing the Third Grade Reading Guarantee (3GRG) this year (keeping in mind that although required reading diagnostics begin this year, it doesn’t begin impacting students until 2013-2014 with students entering third grade that year). Because most of my professional experience has been in grades 6-12, it’s been a slight learning curve, but I’ve actually managed to get a deeper understanding of the K-5 CCSS through the work I’ve been doing. And in fact, I am seeing connections between early literacy skill building in grades K-3, reading interventions in grades 4-12, and how literacy skills relate to the CCSS.

Literacy Skills in Early Elementary

The ORC has a wealth of information available for building literacy skills in the early grades, and I just want to take a moment to mention some of the resources because, to be honest, before I began working at the ORC, I didn’t know it existed–and what a shame that was!

PreK tools–ORC has an entire website devoted to Early Childhood. There are over 400 lesson plan/activity/experience resources and tons of books and activities for building literacy skills. As a parent who wants her child to be ready to read by kindergarten, there’s a lot of value to me in this site.
Literacy K-5: This is primarily what I am working on right now with the goal of having all our materials aligned to the CCSS before school starts (whew!). By digging into the work on this portion of the site, I learned more about teaching reading than I did in obtaining my teaching license.
The K-2 and 3-5 bookshelves are cool because they are organized into sets of books that address either a specific literacy skill (fluency, vocabulary, etc.) or a shared theme (Native Americans, People in Ohio).
The “Reading” section features the five basic reading skills: comprehension, fluency, phonemic awareness, phonics, and vocabulary. Each section includes specific lesson plans, professional development tools, videos of teachers putting the reading skills into practice, and assessment items.
And the “Reading Strategies” section that provides standards alignment (*I’ll come back to this in a moment), tools, activities, lessons, and instructional guidance on the reading strategies research has shown to be trademarks of strong readers: comparing and contrasting, connecting to prior knowledge, determining the importance, making inferences, predicting, setting a purpose, summarizing, and visualizing.

Basic Skills Through All Grades

When I wrote the other day about RtI and FA, I discussed not knowing how to teach reading because as a secondary teacher, particularly as a high school teacher, my focus was content not skill building. The basic tools and guidance on the Literacy K-5 site (especially the Reading and Reading Strategies sections) are applicable to teaching reading skills at any grade level because really, the skills we need to access a text are the same throughout all grades.

So, when we think about providing reading intervention to our high school students, we can look at it the same way an elementary teacher looks at teaching the basic skills, and we can still use grade-level appropriate texts to teach those skills. What if we refer back to Sarah Brown Wessling’s thoughts on fulcrum, context, and texture texts and use the context text (which I discussed scaffolding to each student’s ability level–allowing them to practice a skill in an “easier” text) to teach and strengthen those same skills that are taught in elementary (the Reading and Reading Strategies listed above).

Even more powerful…what if we use screening/diagnostics to figure out which areas students struggle with and plan units that address the specific skills.

…..My thinking started to run away with me, so I had to step away from writing and try creating a visual. Check this out:

What you’re seeing: If I were creating a unit plan for The Great Gatsby, I would start by pulling my learning targets from all my deconstruction templates of standards–note here I used knowledge targets from Reading Informational Texts, Reasoning Targets from Speaking and Listening, and Product Targets from Writing. I would plan activities throughout the unit that address these targets (UbD–start with end in mind). Throughout the entire unit, I would continually focus on and formatively assess these targets.

I would then begin finding LOTS of texts, multimedia, etc. that discuss the 1920′s, Prohibition, bootlegging, and New York to build context for the main piece of the unit. I would also make sure I have context texts at all ability levels so everyone has equal access to the context for the novel. While completing learning activities that are standards-focused using the context texts, I would plan for and concentrate on certain reading skills that the students need to continue developing their reading abilities. Here, I highlight two, but any of those strategies I mentioned above will work. In the context texts, students should be comfortable enough with the reading level of the text that they can focus more on the reading strategy.

The same goes with texture texts. Lots of texts at all levels so that while students are reading and applying skills to the fulcrum text, they are also continuing to practice them with “easier” texts.

Teaching the fulcrum text either with or before the texture texts, I would focus on scaffolding appropriately so the “red” and “yellow” students can practice the skills they are learning using a grade-level (in some cases, very challenging) text.

I hope that was relatively clear–it’s one of those things that works well in my head and on paper, but in reality may not be as practical as I think. The idea is that we continue to address those basic skills in conjunction with our standards-based learning targets and incorporate all those ideas about FA and RtI.

But some of those basic skills aren’t IN the standards.

This was what brought me to this post today. While trying to align the skills “making predictions” and “determining the importance,” I realized there is no standard that discusses, mentions, or even infers some of the literacy skills that we know work for kids. My first thought was to get rid of the resources from the ORC site–after all, if it isn’t in the standards, it won’t be assessed; if it isn’t assessed, we don’t teach it, right?

Given more thought, though, I came to the realization that those skills and strategies are what give our kids access to the standards. We don’t have to use every strategy every time (hence the pre-reading debate–we don’t have to pre-read for every text), but we have to teach those skills within the course of our instruction to allow our students to access the curriculum. Strategies/Skills aren’t in the standards because the standards are the end product, the goal, and strategies/skills are the means by which we get students to reach the goal. It’s difficult to align a strategy/skill to a standard because they are stable pieces of our “good instruction” toolboxes that never go out of style with each educational trend. We just need to figure out how to incorporate what we know about good instruction with what we know about the intent of the standards and what we know about the needs of our learners (easy task, no? )

Why I Would Not Post “I Can” Statements

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 18:04:43 GMT

I was checking out the Google searches that were leading people to my blog today, and I saw an overabundance (over the last month) of people searching for “posting ‘I Can’” statements. Once the images of automaton teachers and automaton students reciting the daily learning objectives in monotonous, synchronized voices subsided, I decided I needed to address this issue head on.

There is a difference between sharing learning targets with students and turning the Common Core standards into a checklist.

1. Deconstruction

Deconstructing is a process by which one dives into the very broad, non-specific, somewhat convoluted Common Core standards statements (a phrase ODE is shying away from) and tears them down into manageable learning targets that a teacher can envision. The process that I posed, which has gotten tremendous traffic on this blog, is only one kind of process, one that works in my very linear mind, but one of only many processes to try and understand the expectations of The Core.

Deconstruction amounts to specific learning targets for knowledge, reasoning, performing, or producing.

2. Sharing Learning Targets

It is important that learning targets are shared with students because they need to have a clear understanding of the expectation. What is it, exactly, that you are asking them to know and/or do? When they know this information, they can focus on the outcome. If, for example, you want them to trace the development of a theme, and you tell them to “trace the development of a theme,” they should know they will be assessed on their ability to trace the development of a theme and not their spelling and grammar. The beauty of clear expectations is it makes your grading easier (you know what you are looking for) and their work and progress toward learning easier (I know exactly what I need to work on).

I would actually avoid using the “I Know…”, “I can….”, “I understand…” sentence starters for the learning targets because 1) they are boring, 2) they produce a sense of completion when the target is reached as if no further learning can/will occur in the future, and 3) any student over the age of 10 is going to feel demeaned by the childlike redundancy.

3. Posting Learning Targets

When I see that people are concerned about posting learning targets, I immediately worry about this checklist mentality that develops when the standards are broken down into such manageable pieces. It would be easy to create a looooooooong checklist of all the learning targets and check them off as they are taught and assessed, but this practice (one that has been the ill of the standards movement) is in stark contrast to the cyclical progression of the Common Core standards. I would hate to walk into a classroom and see lists of learning targets and checkboxes around the room.

The beauty of the Common Core is the interwoven nature of the standards themselves, which also applies to the deconstructed learning target statements. It would be impossible to teach the development of theme (RL) without also addressing what the text says explicitly and what is implied (RL). It would be impossible to write an argument (W) in response to a text without first understanding how the author uses claims to support his argument (RI). Any good ELA lesson would combine learning targets from standards throughout the ELA strands. When planning for assessment, though, you could zoom in on one target at that moment in time, but signifying to students that this target has been taught, assessed, and completed by checking it off on a poster in the classroom does not recognize this interconnectedness. Students aren’t “done” learning that target, but that is what they think when this happens. Heck, I’d say some teachers may check off the learning target and consider it a done deal once it has been taught and assessed at one point.

Consider the expectation that levels of text complexity should increase throughout the year–can you ever really “check off” a “cite what the text says explicitly” learning target if the texts are increasingly more difficult? No, because the expectation is that students will struggle again and again with the same learning targets as the year progresses.

So, yes, I’m a little nervous when I see these kinds of search phrases. We need to move away from the checklist mentality of learning and think about learning as a spiral in which we will revisit, revisit, and revisit learning targets as they become more challenging through the school year as well as in subsequent years. Take those checklists off your walls, please!

Using Subtext (an iPad App)

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 18:05:05 GMT

At IRA I stopped at the Subtext booth and was completely surprised to find out that it was a FREE app for iPads. I just started exploring it today to see how it might be used in a classroom, and I thought I’d pass along what I’ve found.

First, you have to download it. Search the app store for Subtext. Download it. Ta-da! Step one complete

Once you get signed in, you’ll find an invitation to a couple “getting started” groups, and your sign in screen should look something like this:

Using the icons in the upper right corner, you can create a “group” for each of your class periods. For the purpose of this demonstration, I created an English 9 group, which you can add using the following information. (This is also what your students will see if you send a group email. Or, you could just give them the code.)

You can then search for books to add to your bookshelves. While you will have to pay for some books, you can access all out-of-copyright texts for free. For a list, check out Gleeditions which offers free e-texts of all common core materials. I used the texts listed on this site when I was searching for books because I knew I’d be able to come up with a free copy to download.

Here’s what adding books looks like:

And here’s what your students will see when they look at the bookshelf you have created for them:

Once you are reading a text, you can add your own notes, which I can see being useful in a variety of ways: encouraging deep reading by calling out specific questions/words/passages as the students read, differentiating for varying levels of comprehension (you could set up the readings by instructional level instead of by class period), eliciting conversation from students as they read. If I were using this app, I would encourage students to try reading the entire text first and then go back to view the questions–I have always been annoyed by footnotes and sidenotes because they break my reading concentration, so I imagine these questions in the margins would become distracting to students.

To add a poll/quiz, quest, discussion, or link, you tap and hold on a word or phrase:

In this preface to the piece, I wanted students to get an understanding of what $8.00 would be like today, so I linked them to a site:

When more questions (etc) are added, they show up as an icon with your picture (which happens to come from your Facebook account if linked). Students can tap the picture and respond to the question.

What a cool free app. I’ve been hearing about a lot of schools purchasing iPads in Ohio recently, and I hope the plan is to use them in ways that are innovative, engaging, and enhancing instruction. After all, the technology itself isn’t the innovation, but how you USE the technology is.

Hope this helps!

Teaching Methods and the CCS

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 12:52:00 GMT

I just read this post by Vicki Vinton (at the suggestion of Darren Burris–@dgburris–thanks!), and it raised a couple of points I hadn’t thought of in regards to using Coleman’s text-dependent questioning strategy.

Vinton says, “But the text dependent question approach relies on teachers directing and prompting students to what they want them to see, not on teaching in a way that empowers students to more independently notice what there is to be noticed through their own agency.”

I can see how this strategy may end up reflecting the kind of teaching I criticized in my text-dependent post. If, for example, I were teaching a close reading on a passage from The Great Gatsby and I used text-dependent questions to zoom students’ attention in on materialism in the passage, I am, effectively, doing the same things I was doing when I dissected The Butter Battle for my students in the pre-reading stage. Is there a way, then, for teacher bias and teacher interpretation of a text to NOT influence the kinds of questions asked? Can text-dependent questions be broad enough to allow students to uncover the meaning of the text on their own? Or, will even text-dependent questions give too much information away running “the risk of creating teacher dependent students instead of strong, flexible readers”? (Vinton)

Vinton examines the exemplar lessons on achievethecore.org, which require students to read silently, the teacher to then read aloud, and then work on close analysis. She says, “students will read and listen to the passage passively, waiting for the teacher to tell them what to do.” I can also see how this would happen–after all, the fundamental reason for pre-reading is to engage students’ prior knowledge and provide a purpose for reading. Without any prereading activities, without knowing why they are reading, how well will students engage with the text? (I would argue, though, that appropriate context building through the use of context texts in lieu of a prereading activity such as an anticipation guide would help students be prepared for a cold reading.) If text-dependent questioning is the only teaching method a teacher uses, then yes, I can see how students would not know what to do with the text without guidance.

I am seeing some confusion in the ELA world about how to implement the CCSS, which is resulting in some of the tension against Coleman. Even in the Engage NY videos, Coleman explicitly says his text-dependent questioning method (and those lesson exemplars on achievethecore.org) are one method for meeting CC expectations. If you taught every lesson the way Coleman teaches the Frederick Douglass lesson, your students would be bored out of their minds, and they would absolutely read and wait for the teacher to tell them what to do.

As I said in my comment on Vinton’s post, there are many ways to meet the intent of the standards. Gallagher, Fisher/Frey, and many other experts are touting other teaching methods and strategies that also reach the intent of the standards. I think some of the Coleman backlash comes from misinformation in that many are assuming his method is the only method, and having watched many of his videos and read much of the research surrounding CCS, that is not the vibe I am getting. I believe he is encouraging teachers to use their professional expertise to raise expectations. Asking questions like, “Where did they go? What did they do? Who is the main character?” is doing our students a disservice and not teaching them appropriate literacy skills, but asking text-dependent questions is not the only way to increase rigor in our classrooms.

Vinton says, “But what if, instead, we taught students that every reader enters a text not knowing where it’s headed, and because of that they keep track of what they’re learning and what they’re confused or wondering about, knowing that they’ll figure out more as they both read forward and think backwards?” Ultimately, I think this is the intent of the CC; we want students to become critical readers and to struggle with complex texts. The truth is there are many ways to achieve this!

My comment on Vinton’s post:

Coleman states throughout those videos that his method is one method of teaching more rigorously with texts, and I think there is some value in his method. I think what has happened is that teachers have moved far away from letting the text speak for itself and letting students learn how to grapple with a text. In my own teaching, I was more apt to give the answer and/or focus students’ attention on my own takeaways from a text than to let them struggle through on their own. The value to me, then, in Coleman’s text-dependent questioning method is refocusing the attention of teachers and students on what the text says, not on what the teacher says the text says.

The methods themselves are not the focus of the standards; the standards themselves do not say, “You must teach using text-dependent questions.” Instead, experts are interpreting the standards and focusing in on reading strategies that make students more accountable and raise the rigor expectations. Educators must look at all of the methods/strategies being suggested by these experts, compare these with what they are already doing, and ensure are challenging students at a level reflective of the CCS expectations (i.e. teaching students how to struggle with text rather than telling them the answers–after all, no one is going to tell them the answers when they read as adults). When you pair Coleman’s text-dependent questioning method with the work of Gallagher and Frey/Fisher, you can get a more complete picture of common core expectations. For example, pre-reading isn’t off the table, but using methods Gallagher details in “Deep Reading” that do not unlock all the secrets of the text prior to reading the text DOES meet the intent of the CCS. Asking text-to-self questions is also not off the table, but as Nancy Frey says, these questions should be INFORMED by a close reading of the text first.

Teaching methods abound for reaching the new standards, and your “What we Know/Wonder” strategy is another great idea to add to the toolbox. Thanks!

IRA–Chicago, IL

Anonymous — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:43:53 GMT

Just got back from IRA last night and what a fantastic trip!!! Being both my first ever conference experience greater than 20 miles away from my home as well as my first ever trip to Chicago, this was one of the best learning experiences I have ever had the opportunity to take.

Sunday–

Arrived. Stayed at the Sheraton. Was surprised by the number of cars out and about at 6:00 on a Sunday evening, but even more surprised that cars in Chicago seem to have no concept of driving in lanes (perhaps a consequence of the sporadic and crooked road lines? I think so.)

Monday–

After finding my way to the shuttle, I somehow made it to McCormick Place. There were SO. MANY. PEOPLE!!!

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Steve Perry–Wonderful speaker (all the keynotes were simply amazing!)

Key Takeaway: We know there are bad teachers in some of our schools. If you know a bad teacher, it is your job to get them out of teaching. We are doing a disservice to our profession and our students when we let bad teachers stay in their classrooms. He said, “teaching is a high art,” and some people are not born to be teachers. He said we have to stop making excuses about why we can’t teach kids (their parents, their home lives, their lack of motivation), and we have to do. He said, “I don’t want you to try; I want you to do. You don’t want a doctor to try to help you, you want them to help you.” Dr. Perry was a swift kick in the butt; one I think a lot of us need in order to feel good again about who we are and what we are doing as teachers.

Sessions: Reading Like a Writer, Writing Like a Reader; When Texts Get Complex: Assessing Comprehension, Crafting Goals, and Getting Students to the Next Level; Engaging the Disengaged Teenager in Academic Literacy

Key Takeaways: I learned a lot about the connections between reading and writing, something I personally frame with my Common Core lenses. I think we’re making great strides toward recognizing these connections. I think about my own approach to teaching writing, which typically involved essays that were separate from and unrelated to reading unless in the form of a literary analysis of a text we read.

Dinner: (I know, it’s a little creepy and too Facebook-status-like for me to include my Chicago cuisine choices, but trust me the food in Chicago was one of the most important aspects of the trip) GIORDANO’S PIZZA, Chicago style deep dish–OH MY GOODNESS.

(I’m going to hypothesize that the mile round-trip walk to and from Giordano’s was enough to negate each and every calorie from this deliciousness)

Tuesday–

Keynote: First, we heard from Dr. Steven Layne, and second, Ron Clark of the Ron Clark Academy.

Takeaways: Both speakers had us laughing, crying, and right in the palms of their hands. I thought it was unfortunate that they didn’t amass the crowd from Monday morning (too much sleeping in?), because they were enthusiastic, energizing, motivating, and inspiring. Dr. Layne talked about “balcony people,” those people who sit in the metaphorical balconies of our lives, always cheering us on, which inspired me to write this Facebook post to people who probably never even knew the impact they had on me–

Then, Ron Clark, who I would love to lock in a room with my two-year-old to see who would wear the other down first, made me criticize and critique things about myself as an educator. He talked about teachers who do cool, innovative things that get kids excited about school and how there are some teachers who discourage this because they aren’t doing it. I’ll throw myself under the bus here….Last year, a new 9th grade teacher started at my school. Now, I tend to think that I think outside the box, but she was so far outside the box with her creativity that I couldn’t even be in the same ballpark! She did this really cool poetry activity where she brought in Christmas lights, strung them around her room, moved desks into little tables, bought Starbuck’s Frappuccino that students could buy, and turned off the class lights. This “Cafe Garree” became the talk of the kids. They read poems and had a fun time. On other occasions, this same teacher dressed like characters in books. How cool? But instead of telling her how cool I thought everything was, and I did, I told her she was spending too much time killing herself for the activities. Here was an innovative, creative person getting kids excited, and I was encouraging her to stop. Ron Clark made me think twice.

Sessions: Teaching Students to Read Like Detectives (Nancy Frey, Doug Fisher), Write Like This: Teaching Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts (Kelly Gallagher–I was the official Stenhouse Tweeter!), The Seven Keys to Common Core Writing Success

Takeaways: In the Fisher/Frey session, I appreciated that they are making connections between all these initiatives. Nancy said, “The RtI approach is essential to Common Core implementation,” something I have begun touting in my own work. Their view of close reading, which helped me define my own view, is that in the past, teachers have done all the heavy lifting of reading, but now, students get to do it on their own. Be sure to check out their text-dependent questions ppt, it’s excellent. Kelly Gallagher taught me how to teach writing. He said in order for students to write in a genre, they need to swim in that genre. His approach is 1) read (what does it say), 2) analyze (what does it mean), 3) emulate. He said sometimes “emulate” can be uncomfortably close to “copying,” but that’s how we learn everything we do. For example, if you want to learn how to shoot free throws, you will watch how pros do it, and copy their moves exactly. So long as the “emulations” are not being published or sold, consider it practice for students learning to write. I was so enthused by Gallagher’s session, I couldn’t wait to start talking to everyone I know. Something as simplistic as deconstructing a strong mentor text can help students learn to write–how cool.

Dinner–Again, super important. We ate at the Grand Lux. This restaurant was beautiful but the prices were reasonable!

Wednesday–

No keynote today.

Session: Anytime “free books” are involved, teachers will flock, and Wednesday morning, we all flocked to the “Bullies, Bullied, and Bystanders” author session with Rita Garcia Williams, Siobhan Vivian, Heather Brewer, and Jay Asher. Each author talked about his/her own experiences with bullying and how these manifested in their books.

Takeaway: I never did enough when it came to bullying, and I wonder if some of my sarcasm didn’t come across as bullying to students. Can’t change the past, can only affect the future.

Dinner: Gino’s pizza. Not quite as good as Giordano’s, but delicious nonetheless.

Thinking About Literacy

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:33:13 GMT

I posted the following comment in response to Kathleen Porter-Magee’s post “Are ‘just right’ books right for the Common Core?” Kathleen discusses three types of reading levels: independent (those students can read on their own), instructional (those that are slightly challenging), and frustration (those that cause too much frustration).

Though the Common Core stresses the use of grade-level appropriate texts, I’m beginning to think about how we can build context for a text (without giving away the content of the text) through Sarah Brown Wessling’s strategy of fulcrum, context, and texture texts, and I’m combining all of this thinking with the RtI framework for supporting students…

I’d like to conjecture (using previous responder’s term) a little for a moment. I, too, agree with having students read grade-level appropriate texts. I also agree with the text-dependent questioning and deep reading strategies advocated by Coleman and others. I think there is a way we could begin combining approaches to see these concepts through to fruition in ELA instruction.

Let’s look at the RtI framework for addressing the needs of struggling students. If students in need of Tier 2 and 3 intervention begin receiving grade-level appropriate intervention in the earliest grades, perhaps some of the comprehension issues we see at the secondary levels will be weeded out.

But for those students for whom additional interventions in earlier grades do not correct comprehension issues, maybe we could combine RtI thinking with the fulcrum/context/and texture text framework discussed by teacher Sarah Brown Wessling. A fulcrum text is the “centerpiece of any unit of study.” It is the most complex text the student will read in the unit. This would be, instructionally, the grade-level appropriate text. In my thinking, this would also be the text which would receive Coleman’s deep reading treatment–little prereading, focus on text-dependent questions, etc.

Brown Wessling defines “texture texts” as those read in conjunction with and/or after the fulcrum text. These are used to highlight or draw attention to elements of the fulcrum. ”Context texts” are those that come before the fulcrum reading and build prior knowledge (establish context) for the fulcrum. The use of context and fulcrum texts to build up to and deepen the comprehension of the fulcrum is both paramount to the reading of the fulcrum and it stays true to the reading expectations of the common core.

I don’t see any reason why students receiving Tier 2 and 3 interventions and/or students with comprehension issues couldn’t read texture and context texts at their reading ability while receiving appropriate scaffolding on the fulcrum text. If they are provided with supplemental texts at their independent and instructional level and taught comprehension skills using those texts that can translate to comprehension of grade-level appropriate texts, is this not providing them with necessary skills while keeping them appropriately challenged?

I think combining many of the literacy and comprehension strategies is an excellent direction for driving instruction. We can’t expect a struggling student to simply jump into a challenging text, but by intervening with skills and strategies at their independent/instructional levels and showing them how to translate those skills/strategies to grade-level appropriate texts, it is possible to provide necessary supports and hold those high expectations.

Book Club Jobs

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 11:00:40 GMT

One great way to keep your students engaged during novel-studies is to assign them all jobs. There are lots of neat variants of these on the web, but I found the one listed below last year sometime online, and saved it for future use. I would source it, but I can’t remember or find the link.

Via Wikipedia

Here is the plan:

Students are each given yellow construction worker hats, and different “jobs.”

The “architect” is responsible for making prediction about the story.

The “job inspector” is responsible for clarifying points throughout the story.

The “electrician” is responsible for designing good discussion questions (“that create a spark”).

The “brick layer” is responsible for summarizing what they’ve read.

For each part of the story, the students take turns doing their “jobs.” (The teacher should divide up the book into small, one-class-period-sized-segments. Students take turns reading, or an adult could read to them, but they should read the passage together. (Although, now that I write this, I don’t see why it also wouldn’t work for your students to read the assigned section for homework”.) At the end of each section, students take turns fulfilling their “job duties.” After each comprehension strategy has been used, students change jobs. This continues until the book is ended.

I love, love, love book club jobs. I haven’t tried this variant, but I’m looking forward to trying it out!

Limitation of eReaders

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:41:15 GMT

Welcome to the age of electronic books infestation. You would think that book publishers are shaking in their boots by their threat. In my humble opinion, I believe that they pose a significant threat to the publishing industry. However, children picture books will remain “king” in the traditional paper form. Can you imagine being in […]