A Simple Way to Get Your Students WRITING

Our school district has been doing a book study on The Best-Kept Teaching Secret by Smokey and Elaine Daniels.  In case you haven't read it--the secret is that kids need to write more often.  I think we all know that already but I don't know if we truly understand how much writing impacts reading and other academic areas.  In the book, the authors give a plethora of ideas for how to get your students writing, regardless of whether you teach elementary or high school. There are tons of pictures and examples, which make the book an easy read and also quite entertaining.  Many of their suggestions revolve around letter writing and why this is a great way to get to know students better and build a community within your classroom.  I love using letters as part of my curriculum and did so when I was a classroom teacher. Since I've transitioned to my current position, letter writing has been one thing I've let go. I'm exited to start including more of it in my curriculum.
I've also been more cognizant of how often I am asking students to write responses after they read.  We know that reading and writing go hand-in-hand, yet I spend a disproportional amount of my time focusing on reading without incorporating many writing skills that will support students in reading.  I've been soliciting more writing recently and, while some students still complain because writing is hard for them, I have seen the writing impacting their reading and spelling skills.  As a Reading Specialist, my primary focus will still be on reading but I intend to include more written responses into my lessons.  Of course, I am talking about thought-provoking and creative writing activities--not writing answers on blanks on a worksheet.  We all know that this type of activity does not have the same impact when it comes to improving students' reading and writing skills.
One activity that I have incorporated recently is both simple and fun.  I am working with a group of first grade students on extension activities.  These are kiddos who are scoring way above grade-level in reading and many of them are also in our Gifted and Talented program. I love working with these types of students because they challenge my thinking as well.  This week, we worked on identifying the problem and solution in a story.  One of the stories we read was about a dragon with a sore back who needs a more comfortable bed. His human friend finds a solution when heat from a dragon's snort makes all of the corn in the field turn to popcorn.  The students loved reading this story but they loved writing about it even more, especially when they got to write on the white board with the dry erase markers.  With all of the technology we have today, we sometimes forget the overwhelming joy students have when they are allowed to do "teacher things."  This was certainly one of those things that they thought was cool.

Each student had the opportunity to write his or her thoughts on the board.

While the students loved writing on the board, this was also a very quick way for me to tell who really grasped what the problem was in the story and who needed to do some deeper thinking. Many of the students only wrote a short sentence, but you can see in the picture that one of them wrote a summary.  She definitely knew the problem and solution in the story and I let her help me reflect aloud on the story for the other students so that we could all consider  how the characters resolved the situation.  The entire activity took about 15 minutes (with 6 students) and by the end, everyone had a firm grasp on how to identify the problem and the solution in the story, as well as several other topics that came up during our discussion, which often happens with these creative thinkers. (We had a long chat about mythical creatures and why a dragon is a mythical character but Superman is not.)

A summary of the story, written by a first grader.  I love how she was able to synthesize  the whole story into a few sentences so succinctly.

How are you incorporating writing in your classroom and how are the students responding?

"We're Going to Eat Bananas!"

Early in my career, I had the honor and privilege of working with a principal who forever changed my philosophy about education.  He is one of the most intelligent, kindest, inspiring individuals I've ever had the opportunity to meet and working with him for two years was the catalyst for me to pursue leadership positions and aspire to be more than a classroom teacher. He saw potential in me--he saw potential in everyone--and he encouraged me to follow the path to administration.  I believe I've found my true calling because of his encouragement.  He encapsulates the true meaning of the phrase "servant-leader" and I hope someday to have a tenth of the wisdom that he has.
Though this principal was certainly born with an aptitude for leadership and inspiring others, he also continuously read the literature. He was always digging into what the educational leaders were saying, analyzing texts, and trying new methods of best practice.  He would share what he was reading with all of us, sometimes by recommending books and articles but often just through the words he chose.  Many of the mantras I now have as an educator have come not from their true sources but from listening to him repeat them time and again. He was constantly reminding us that, "we own all kids."  This is something I certainly take to heart.  He would remind us that, "leadership is not a position."  We are all leaders. If we see a task that needs to be done, it is our responsibility to move forward and solve that problem.  He was always talking about rigor and building capacity.  I have a much deeper understanding of what being a servant-leader means because of the words he consistently repeated to us at staff meetings, in conferences, even while passing us in the hallway.
Many times his words were paraphrased from something he had been reading.  This next example is no different and though I've read the true source, I like his version much better because it made it real for all of us.  At the time, I was a kindergarten teacher and he was talking about preparing 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders for TAKS (our previous state assessment).  While he may not have been speaking directly to me, I understood what he was saying and I took it to heart and applied it to my class as well.  He would say,  "If our students are going to be asked to eat bananas, then we're gonna practice eating bananas. We're not going to color bananas, we're not going to draw bananas, we're not going to complete a worksheet about bananas. We're going to eat bananas!"

Banana anyone? Pic courtesy of etipsfree.com

On the surface, it may be difficult to understand exactly what he was saying but with some thought and reflection (and some explanation!) it made a lot of sense.  What is it that we expect our students to be able to do?  Think at a higher level and be able to answer higher-level thinking questions on STAAR (our current state assessments) and in life.  How are we going to prepare them to do this? By teaching them how to read and analyze texts, story problems, scientific reasoning problems, etc. at the same level they will need to be able to in order to be successful on STAAR and beyond.  He wasn't saying let's passage them to death--quite the opposite, he was saying we have to replicate the demand of the assessment through authentic work (as in Schlechty's Working on the Work, which is not the same as busy work) that prepares our students for assessments and for the real world.  Furthermore, the vast majority of worksheets, fluff, and other lower-level activities are not going to prepare our students for the rigors of assessments or life. Just as coloring a banana is not the same as eating a banana, doing a worksheet that helps us find words that have prefixes and suffixes is not akin to understanding the meaning of those words in the context of a book or a difficult reading passage.  Being able to dissect a word on a worksheet does not necessarily lend itself to a student being able to use context clues to figure out the meaning of a word in text.  We must consistently give our students the opportunity to practice eating bananas if we want them to be able to eat bananas on the "Big Day".
How do you determine if an assignment is actually helping prepare your students or if it's just filling time? You can start by asking yourself the following questions:
1) What do I expect my students to accomplish by completing this assignment?
2) Will this assignment prove to me that my students understand the SE (student expectation) at a higher-level?
3) Will my students ever be in a situation in life or on an assessment where they will have to replicate the exact skills or knowledge they are practicing with this assignment?
Answering these questions should give you a clear indication as to whether or not the assignment is a good one or if it's not going to help your students eat bananas.  If you are having trouble finding an assignment that does fit the criteria of all three of these questions, you may be making things more complicated than you need to. Many of the SE's in reading can be taught through great literature, which makes it much more simple for teachers and students alike.  There is no law that says your students have to complete worksheets. In fact, in the last four years that I was in the classroom, I may have used a total of ten worksheets--and that's probably stretching it.  I know that math teachers often have a different purpose for using worksheets and I understand that purpose though I also encourage math teachers to make learning as authentic as possible as well.  Story problems go a long way toward stretching the students' thinking and they are a lot more fun when they're not on a worksheet. Math and science journals are great alternatives to worksheets. For reading, one of the simplest and best ways to get students to truly think is by asking them to record their thoughts in a reading journal.
Think of the great teachers and administrators you have had the opportunity to work with.  What was it about them that made them great?  How can you replicate those qualities in yourself and in your students?  How can that transform your classroom? I'd love to hear your ideas for making work authentic for your students.  Please leave a comment if you have a great idea you would like to share with other educators.

Awesome Idea: Flipping a Book Study and PBL

As you know, I am currently at TCEA in Austin and I attended several amazing sessions the last two days where I got a lot of great ideas to use with the students I work with and with classroom teachers at our campus.  I will be sharing a lot of these ideas in the days and weeks to come but my most favorite idea today revolves around the idea that we can flip a book study for our gifted and talented students and also incorporate a project based learning experience! I'm not quite sure where this idea came from, I had it while I was in a session talking about something else, but I absolutely love it, so let's go with it!
I chose our GT kids for this particular project because we are a PK-2nd campus and I don't know that all of our students would be able to easily access the technology I am planning to incorporate or if they would be able to handle some of the higher level content I am hoping to incorporate into the lesson plan. I am working with our GT teacher to solidify our plans but this is the basic premise:
We would select a short novel that is appropriate for our 1st and 2nd grade GT students.  All our lessons would be broken down by chapter or two chapters and we would incorporate the flip by teaching the lesson ahead of time and recording it.  These lessons will most likely be posted on this blog for the students to watch or possibly on edmodo--or both.  The students would need to read the assigned portion of the text, watch the video, and then answer a few higher-level thinking, opened ended response questions. We would also do a lesson about appropriate responses, the kinds of questions to ask yourself while reading, note taking, and questions to ask during conversations with others.  The students would meet to discuss their responses in class and share the notes and questions they jotted down while reading.

BrainPop Jr. exhibit in the Exhibition Hall at TCEA

Bats in our belfry! Can you see the little black speck ?  We had an unregistered guest at TCEA today!   

 They would also be working on an Inquiry Circle Project as evidence of their learning. If you are not familiar with ICP's, I highly recommend you read Comprehension and Collaboration by Stephanie Harvey and Harvey Daniels.  It's basically an idea that stems from PBL (project based learning)  but the most important difference is that the project doesn't have to be directly related to the text--it just has to circle back to it.  For example, I read Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff with a group of 5th graders last year. I explained ICP's to them and helped them brainstorm ideas.  One of the students decided he wanted to research Hershey's chocolate.  He created a Glogster all about the history of Hershey's. How is this related to the novel?  Hollis is eating a Hershey bar in a scene from the book. Hence, the circle!
ICP also involve some circling by the teacher.  It's incredibly important for the instructor to circle everything back to the Student Expectations you are trying to address through the text.  You have to be very mindful of where your students are headed with their topics and make sure it always ties back in to a pertinent skill or piece of knowledge students are expected to acquire.  Daniels and Harvey are very good at explaining strategies to ensure this happens in their book, which became a Bible of sorts for me for a couple of years as I learned to utilize ICP's with my higher level thinkers. Since that time, I've also tried it with my struggling students and it can be incredibly powerful for them as well.
For our GT students, I am hoping to give them lots of different options for their final presentations.  I have used Animoto, Xtranormal, Voki, Blabberize, Weebly, Wikispaces, Glogster, and several other sites before with great success. It seems like most of my students want to choose a PowerPoint and I do not think I will let this be an option this time. Prezi, maybe, ppt. no thank you!  One of the best parts of TCEA for me has been learning about a lot more really amazing websites and apps that work a lot like the ones I listed above and I'm hoping to be able to use some of these!  If anyone would like more information about how I've used these presentation tools before, please let me know and I'll be happy to discuss and link up some examples.
I've had three or four "Ah-ha" moments today and I can't wait to try out some of the other amazing ideas we've had during our sessions and from the conversation that's been generated from them.  If you're at TCEA and you've had an amazing moment of inspiration, please share it in the comments!  We'd love to hear it! Even if you aren't here and you've been inspired by something recently that's made you say, "Oh!  Wow, I can do this!" please let us know!
Tomorrow, I'm planning to post about another super idea we got from a presentation at TCEA.  It involves Xtranormal, Rachel's Challenge, and Classroom Management--three of my favorite topics!