For the past two days, I participated in a car parade through my district to show my students that I care about them, that I miss them, and that I hope to see them soon:
As I write this post to you readers, I am feeling overwhelmed. COVD 19 has instantly made everything I know about the world seem scary and strange. So I try to find my center, I keep returning to the things I know for certain. When it comes to my professional life, I believe that when I teach children how to read, I am teaching them how to better understand the world. When I teach children how to write, I am teaching them how to share their voice within the world.
Now more than ever we need to preserve the integrity of the Writers Workshop. Last week, Katherine Bomer and Corinne Arens joined the #G2Great community to discuss their book, A Teacher’s Guide to Writing Workshop Essentials: Time, Choice, Response (2020, Heinemann). It was an amazing discussion and it left me thinking about their three important facets of writing workshop: time, choice, and response.
Time
I love Katherine and Corinne’s image of a bubble of time when it comes to Writing Workshop. It makes me think of a delicate translucent barrier that preserves thoughtful, intentional work:
Choice
When teachers sit next to students as writers first, they understand how necessary choice is to the writing process. If you are told to write something the process is very different than if you elect to write something. When we are trying to educate our students on the value of writing then we really need to make room for choice. Fortunately, so many members of #G2Great wholeheartedly agreed:
Response
Words connect us all. When young writers understand that they are writing for an audience they truly experience the power of the pen. We can always take pen to paper, or tap the keys against a blank screen to create something that will hold meaning to another. In this way, we are never alone. It is no wonder that when children have skilled teacher-writers to develop their process alongside them, they grow to love writing:
History has come to call on our generation. What will we take with us from this experience? Literacy matters. When the happy day comes that all our students return to school, let’s remember that Writing Workshop will help them make that transition. It will cultivate their sense of self. It will give them permission to explore their thinking. It will be a way to examine their emotions. It will set them free to pursue their passions. We, their teachers, have the power to blow a bubble of safety around that time. We can devote that space for them to choose what they want to write. We can respond to their writing in ways that are both healing and celebratory. Thank you, Katherine and Corinne, for writing this beautiful book and reminding us all:
Please be sure to check out the chat archive on Wakelet here
Last week education in most of the world was disrupted like it has not been in my lifetime. Classes have come to a halt, students have been sent home and the idea of “remote teaching” has taken centre stage. I think back to so many of my friends lamenting the fact that they did not get the chance to send books home with their students. Worried about their access to texts at home while they are kept from schools and libraries amid the shutdowns. I was “lucky” enough to have a chance to see my students one more time and help get books in their hands for what is looking like a very long break. If there is anything that this crisis, and it is one, is going to force us in education to do is look at the “HOW” very differently. In that vein this week on the #G2Great chat we welcomed Kristin Ziemke and Katie Muhtaris and discussed their Book, Reading the World: Rethinking Literacy for Empathy and Action in a Digital Age.
1) What motivated you to write this book? What impact did you hope that it would have in the professional world?This book is really the synthesis of a lot of our work from the last few years. It brings together our experiences as educators and staff developers, our new learning as professionals, and current trends in digital literacy. Our goal in our work is to find that bridge between the tech world and the non-tech world for teachers. We hope that teachers find it a source of affirmation of some of the great things they are already doing as well as find inspiration to try new things. We also hope that it challenges people to rethink how they’ve always approached their practice and to take some risks.
Before we can begin to talk about what literacy looks like in the digital age we needed to seek understanding of what it means to “read”
Reading is not what it was 20-30 years ago (sadly some still hold on to the fact that it is). In a world that is now shut down over a pandemic, we need to be willing to open our minds to what reading really is. The interpreting of text which can really include anything. As teachers and students move towards putting other forms of text to use we have to be prepared for the challenges that might pop up.
One concern that continues to pop up for me is equitable access. So many schools are going to remote teaching and learning at this time and we are all counting on access. Even just this week I have heard from parents and parents who are also teachers who are faced with the hurdle of one or two devices in a home. With 4 kids all assigned to use those devices to be successful what are they to do? We live in a rural area that at times has spotty internet. We are all going to be utilizing digital texts for students to read and responses will most likely also come in digital forms. Like we have noticed in the chat there are plenty of benefits but I think we often miss the concern of open access as not being everyone’s reality.
As we continue to look at ways to not only engage our students in reading, in whatever form that takes, we need to be mindful of not just access but also representation. I was so excited to see that Audible had opened up a library of audiobooks for students to access free to students. Sadly I am told the free catalogue is more limited to “classics” and more old white authors. Less representation. I am mindful in my own classroom to provide texts that students can see themselves in. Luckily my school division has a license to use a digital library that has many options that are both current and inclusive. Students can go into the resource from home and access both digital texts and audiobooks. This service does depend on access but students do get it for free so at least that removes one hurdle.
Students work in this new world can face a limited audience. No one will be seeing the work up on bulletin boards in school hallways and the classroom presentations are on hold. Luckily with technology on our side, we can have digital bulletin boards on services like Padlet. I intend on having class discussions and presentations with Zoom when possible. Perhaps we consider starting a blog for your students to share or a podcast series. The point is that just because we don’t have an in-person audience it does not mean we can’t share. It is just the method of sharing that changes.
2) What are your BIG takeaways from your book that you hope teachers will embrace in their teaching practices? I think one big takeaway we’ve had is that there is a path forward and it can be really positive and inspiring. There is so much happening in the world that we can’t control, but we can create a space where every kid feels the weight of their worth and understands the power of their voice. Tech tools amplify that!
As I reflect on all that will change in the weeks to come, away from my students and I work to figure out how best to keep providing them with quality learning opportunities and chances to grow I worry that the biggest piece they are going to miss is our look at the world. I hope that I have prepared them enough to continue to seek out voices that are different from their own, to be inquisitive and explore the world that is within their reach with the opportunities that digital media and literacy can bring them. I say all this and still, worry, I worry that not all students will have these opportunities and that I am not sure how that equity gap is overcome. I worry in a world that is becoming ever more digital that my students don’t always have the means to access these tools. I am grateful for the opportunity to chat this week over these topics.
Despite all of this craziness, the chaos that we seem to have been thrust into one thing remains the same. We are here for kids.
3) What is a message from the heart you would like for every teacher to keep in mind? We’re here for the kids. Each and every one of them. The ones that look like us and the ones that don’t, the ones we adore and the ones that challenge us. We have to be our best selves for them, that takes work. It’s okay to be vulnerable, it’s okay to shift our thinking and be more open, it’s okay to step back and be a learner.
We have a challenge ahead but I think the more tools we have in our toolbox to face these challenges the better prepared we will be to meet them. Our students will be better prepared and we will hopefully come out on the other side more prepared for an ever-changing world of education.
I am grateful for the opportunity to reflect on this weeks chat especially in our current reality. As a classroom teacher, I am worried, we can’t know with certainty what is coming next but we do have a choice. We can learn to adapt to the new reality or we can continue to hold to what we have done in the past. The thing is the world is not waiting for us and now more than ever that is true.
On 3/12/20, #G2Great was delighted to welcome authors and friends Evan Robb and Laura Robb into our guest host seat to discuss their wonderful new book,Schools Full of Readers: Tools for Teachers, Coaches, and Leaders to Support Students(2020, Benchmark PD Essentials) I feel honored to write this post since Evan and Laura are long-time treasured friends and we have had many spirited conversations about this shared personal passion topic that was the highlight of our chat.
Understanding the inspiration behind a book is a good beginning, so we asked Laura and Evan to respond to this question:
What motivated you to write this book? What impact did you hope that it would have in the professional world?
Evan and I recognized that for schools to use and invest in wonderful books for independent and instructional reading, teachers have to collaborate with the principal, media specialist, literacy coach, and reading specialist. By working and learning together, we believe schools can fund classroom libraries and books for instructional reading. We want students to have choices, read widely, and find pleasure and enjoyment in reading. Research shows volume in reading enlarges students’ vocabulary and background knowledge and improves comprehension.
In the opening words of their book, Evan and Laura cut to the chase with a call to action in the form of a promise to their readers:
Our goal is to provide the information and inspiration you need to bring about a joyous, school-wide culture of reading. (page 3)
Bringing this promise to life requires us to notice roadblocks that may be blurring our view. A joyous, school-wide culture of reading is not the reality for too many children as we see choice reading swept aside as an irrelevant afterthought or in some cases, principals denouncing it as wasted time. For those children, the vision of schools full of readers is relegated to the luck of the proverbial draw as prescribed TO DO lists far removed from our heart quest robs us of precious minutes to bring kids and books together.
Since we must first address roadblocks thwarting our efforts to achieve joyous, school-wide culture of reading in the name of our kids, I’d like to begin by highlighting five major roadblocks standing in our path forward:
Breaking down our Schools Full of Readers Roadblocks
As we contemplate next steps, Laura and Evan responded to our second question:
What are your BIG takeaways from your book that you hope teachers will embrace in their teaching practices?
We want school leaders to foster ongoing professional learning and conversations and develop skilled teachers who can use books to meet the diverse learning needs of their students. We created detailed checklists for teachers, so they can assess where they are with reading, support one another, and self-evaluate as they use the finest books.
Once we know the roadblocks that deter our efforts to create schools full of readers, we need to turn our thoughts to building a bridge that can lead us to the reader centered schools we desire. Two quotes in the book seem like a good segue to our bridge:
Be creative about transforming your classroom into an oasis of books and the joy they bring. Laura Robb
Growth comes from taking a risk–trying something new, failing, reflecting, and refining instruction. Playing it safe maintains the status quo. Evan Robb
Spurred by our creative efforts to transform our learning spaces into an oasis of joyful reading using our determination to take risks, we can now turn our thoughts to the next step in our journey by exploring five new considerations for building our bridge:
Building a Bridge of Schools Full of Readers Possibilities
As we come to the close of this post, here is our third question we asked Laura and Evan:
What is a message from the heart you would like for every teacher to keep in mind
Volume in reading matters! Research shows that the more students read, the more skill and expertise they develop. We want to see independent reading of self-selected books at school and books in all subjects that represent the instructional range of learners. All students should have materials they can read and learn from throughout the day.
Final Thoughts From Mary
As I perused our #G2Great chat to prepare for this post, I was energized by the steadfast commitment our educators brought to the schools full of readers spirit Laura and Evan write about so eloquently in their book. The enthusiasm rising from inspired tweets is a reminder that teachers everywhere are honoring this spirit in their respective learning spaces. We know that this celebratory view of reading is not about window dressings with a ‘Look at me” mentality but creating classrooms where our readers can blossom in the company of others.
In closing, I am drawn back to Laura’s words along with three other tweets reflecting that our dedication is not to some readers but to all readers. We know that we will never have a school full of readers until every child has the same promise of leading readerly lives in our classrooms and beyond regardless of what they bring to the learning table.
… and that gives me great hope that we can truly have Schools Full of Readers!
Chances are good that if you become a teacher, you love to talk. Teachers know it in their bones that talk is important. It’s important for so many reasons: building strong relationships, the transference of learning, articulating one’s values and point of view within a pluralistic society, We are so grateful that authors, Shana Frazin & Katy Wischow joined our #G2Great community for a powerful conversation. Their new book, Unlocking the Power of Classroom Talk published by Heinemann belongs in your stack! Reading this book, and viewing its resources is like having master coaches in your corner helping you along the way.
Joyful Teaching
We asked Shana and Katy, what are your BIG takeaways from your book that you hope teachers will embrace in their teaching practices?
Talk is a powerful vehicle for learning AND a great way to bring joy into every subject. There are predictable cycles and purposes in conversation that, if we learn them and keep them in mind, will help us be more powerful thinkers.
Shana Frazin & Katy Wischow
Joyful teaching experiences begin with strong relationships built on talk. Once students truly believe that we honor their talk, we can teach them how to honor each other’s talk. This foundation of intentional talk forms a caring learning community. One where deep thinking will flourish.
A3: I also think about Lucy Calkins' advice that during a conference we must give Ss our full attention. This communicated that there is no other place we'd rather be at that moment than right there, listening. #g2great
A6: Just like students, engaging talk comes from when Ts are talking about something THEY want to talk about! Using Ts interests, passions & inquiries gets us one step closer to powerful, impactful talk. #g2greatpic.twitter.com/WAyZho5wdv
Making the choice to author a book is a huge commitment. We asked, What impact did you hope that your book would have in the professional world? Shana and Katy shared their WHY:
We wanted to help answer the questions we get from teachers all the time about how to make classroom conversations more engaging and meaningful. We wanted to keep talk front and center as we all wrestle with how to help all kids find purpose and passion in their schoolwork and lives.
Shana Frazin & Katy Wischow
There is a lot of pressure to keep instruction moving along at a high level of productivity. Sometimes it may be tempting to limit students’ talk. Don’t do it – talk is the very thing that will ignite their learning process. They need to find the words.
A7 If only all teachers could understand that talking helps kids process their learning and is essential for growing ideas. I’ve been in way too many quiet, compliant classrooms. It’s painful. #g2great
A6 Ss talk when we create space for them to engage in topics that my them feel included in decision making, is relevant to Ss daily lives & is respectful of Ss personal passions. Asking them to ID probs they’d like to solve in the world is proving to be a great in also. #G2great
Shana and Katy’s message from the heart for every teacher to keep in mind…
We want teachers to remember that the heart of being a good teacher is knowing your students well. When talk is centered across the curriculum, students have abundant opportunities to reveal themselves as readers and writers, researchers and activists.
Shana Frazin & Katy Wischow
A student-centered approach to teaching rests on knowing who they are and being fully present when you are with them.
A3 Greeting kids at the door, starting off small group, chatting when we're waiting in line, I love to ask Ss to tell me who lives at their house, what they did on the weekend, who fixed dinner (and what was on the menu). The simple Qs tell me a lot about my kids. #g2great
A6: Choice, choice, choice, some agency and then more choice. Letting Ss go to talk about the topics and texts that matter to them from their point of view. Starts perhaps with questions that don’t have a single answer…. #g2great
On Thursday, February 27, 2020, our five part series “Weeding Harmful and Misguided Practices” was capped off with our #G2Great chat for Grading and Assessment. What a fun series. What a daunting task to close out our series with this post.
Assessment is one of my favorite areas to study. I remember when a good friend of mine came to our agency to be our “Assessment Guru.” We had many conversations about the differences between learning and achievement as well as the many roles of assessment in literacy. Some conversations were quite spirited as we both grew our understanding in the application of best practices that would “Do the Least Harm.” Although cancer took that colleague and friend way too early, I remember that every meeting always included two things: 1) the meaning of the word assessment and 2) some quotes about the purpose of assessment so I am going to follow her example to begin this post.
What does assessment mean?
Assessment in Latin comes from “assidere” which means to “sit by.” Every assessment with students should be a matter of “sitting by” students. Every. single. one!
What quotes speak to us about assessment?
The #G2Great team chose the following four quotes to introduce this chat. The quotes specifically name reading and writing but they could also apply to speaking and listening as well. Which of these quotes would you add to your personal quote wall? Which align with your beliefs? How would we know?
Within this series we have stressed identifying practices that may inadvertently be harmful or even toxic for students, teachers and their communities. In the areas of assessment and grading, many folks have strong beliefs about the efficacy of their own practices. Many ideas often “work” in the hands of a skilled and knowledgeable teacher, but could they be improved on? Are there even more possibilities that could enhance student learning and decrease the toxicity of standardized testing situations that stress out and create anxiety even in our kindergarten students?
Think of a child you know well. Picture this child as you continue reading this post. How will your conversations and decisions impact this one child? Let’s get started!
What harmful and misguided practices should we weed? Rather than identifying a few tweets that exemplified the chat thinking, this list was collected from my review of all the tweets in the Wakelet archive.
Take Action: Take two minutes to think about something you can eliminate from your own assessment and grading practices. How much time will you gain from this change? When will you begin?
What practices should we strengthen and/or add to our assessment and grading repertoires? This list was also collected from the tweets during our chat.
I love that this green list is longer than the red (stop doing) list. If everyone at the chat and/or everyone reading this post were to remove one less productive practice and add just one better idea to assessment and grading, students and student learning would benefit greatly. So would the one child that you are focusing your attention on. Another action might be to take the green list to a departmental meeting, PLN, faculty, or leadership meeting and come to consensus on items that would enhance learning for all our students.
Alignment of beliefs and values is critical. We just spent time developing our own team mission statement for #G2Great so we would have some criteria for our actions and decisions. Beliefs, values, pedagogy, assessment, and grading also need to be aligned. Alignment increases the likelihood that everyone “in the boat” is rowing in the same direction, and thus the goal of increased learning will also be met.
Take Action: Where will you begin? Take two minutes to consider what you might add or strengthen in your current assessment and grading repertoire? Who will you add as an accountability partner? What will success look like? When will you have a conversation with your partner? Where might you begin with addressing your beliefs and values for assessment and grading? How will you know that your work is “helping” the student you named earlier to grow?
What is one area of assessment that has research behind it that all teachers should have on their radar?
Formative assessment.
Formative assessment has the potential to double the rate of student learning. The. potential. when. done. correctly! The. potential. when. the. focus. is. on. students!
Formative assessments have the following characteristics:
ungraded
quick
during the learning cycle
information is used to inform instruction
are for learning
are a part of the “process” of learning
may be about comprehension, learning needs or academic progress
may be designed by students
may have multiple answers
Formative assessments are not about having five, six, seven, eight, or nine of the characteristics above; instead, they are about the intent or purpose behind the assessment. What do we need to know in order to advance learning? What might need to be retaught? Which students are ready to move on to the next learning steps? Any of these questions could be the reason behind a specific ungraded, formative assessment.
Take Action: Take two minutes to think about your formative assessment practices. When and where are you most often adjusting instruction? When and where could you be more systematic in your use of formative assessments?
Where else do we turn for guidance in assessments? Our national literacy organizations have joint policy statements about major issues. It should be no surprise that the assessment standards were revised in 2010 when the “No Child Left Behind” accountability and assessment craze was sweeping the nation.
What do ILA and NCTE say about assessments?
Here are the joint 11 standards for assessment. Which ones do you value? How do all 11 align with your assessment processes? Which ones match up with your current assessment and grading practices? Which ones are you planning to strengthen?
How and when will you “sit by” students to check in on their learning? How will you encourage research-based assessment and grading practices? How will you include student voice and choice in the development of assessment and grading practices that will fairly and equitably “assess” learning? Where will you begin?
Eliminating or weeding harmful or misguided practices will free up time and energy for more effective and efficient research-based practices. You have identified some ideas in the “Take Action” sections. Students, parents and communities will appreciate the opportunity for active involvement (although they may grumble) in the changes. Provide time for students to increase their knowledge so they can self-advocate for appropriate learning activities and assessments. Include everyone. Continue to think about that one student guiding your decision. GET STARTED!
“To ensure that technology integration is meaningful this school year, step back and review your curriculum goals for the first quarter. With your curriculum goals in mind, how can you use technology to provide relevance to students, meet their individual needs, and do something that wouldn’t have been possible five or 10 years ago? The use of a Chromebook, interactive whiteboard, or tablet isn’t always the answer. But when you locate a moment in your unit when students can participate in a video conference with an expert, collaborate with a partner classroom on another continent, or build empathy as they watch a video of life in another corner of the world, powerful, integrated learning experiences can happen.”
Monica Burns in Embracing a Tasks Before Apps Mindset (ASCD, 2018)
On Thursday, February 20 #g2great hosted Part 4 of the series Weeding Harmful and Misguided Practices by focusing on technology in the classroom. To view the entire chat, you can access the Wakelet here.
It’s important to give special attention to Monica Burn’s quote above in her ASCD article published in 2018. We often think of technology in the classroom in terms of consumption of information. There must be the shift from consumption primarily to creation of content.
Consumption of content is empowering indeed and can yield impetus to transform. Could we instead change our thinking to include opportunities for creating products that give evidence of student learning? There is value in having access to technology that provides up-to-date information in real time. Technology has the raw potential for more collaborative learning environments. Students are able to work together in powerful ways online. They are able to work together to create products, solve problems and interact with others to find workable solutions.
“…teachers who do develop innovative uses of technology are more commonly in learning environments that serve affluent and advantaged students. Most educators are familiar with the “digital divide” as the gap in access to new technologies found between more and less affluent students, families, or school communities. In the early 2000s, sociologist Paul Attewell (2001) proposed a second digital divide: the usage divide. In his research, Attewell used anthropological observations in schools and classrooms to document the different levels of parent support at home and content rigor in schools. Even when access gaps are closed, white and affluent students are more likely to use technology for creativity and problem solving with greater levels of mentorship from adults, while students from minority groups and low-income neighborhoods use technology more commonly for routine drills with lower levels of adult support.”
Justin Reich in Teaching Our Way to Digital Equity (ASCD, February 2019).
Paul Attewell cautioned in 2001 that: “[There is a] real possibility that computing for already-disadvantaged children may be dominated by games at home and unsupervised drill-and-practice or games at school, while affluent children enjoy educationally richer fare with more adult involvement.” It’s important that the issue of equity was raised in our chat Thursday evening. We must, as educators, constantly reflect on whether our use of technology in facilitating student learning is aligned to educational standards and individual student needs.
“So educators should ensure that technology doesn’t remove the social component to learning; it should instead include opportunities for students to engage in meaningful conversations and reflect with others on what they are working on (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015).”
Liz Kolb in Smart Classroom-Tech Integration (ASCD 2019)
Technology must be thought of through the lens of how much value is added to the student learning process. In this learning task, does technology enhance the learning over more traditional resources typically applied? Teachers would be wise to reflect on whether value is added by integrating technology for the specified activity over a more traditional practice. It’s true that the added value could provide a more authentic learning experience. It could also aid and support by providing scaffolds and support to allow students personal success in learning.
This series, Weeding Harmful and Misguided Practices, serves not only to rid our classrooms of less than productive practices, but can also serve to provoke reflection on the most effective tools and application of sound pedagogy.
Join us for the final installment in this series on Thursday evening, February 28.
On 2/13/20, #G2Great continued our five-part series: Weeding Harmful and Misguided Practices. Two previous posts in our series included Access to Books on 1/30/20 and Behavior Management on 2/6/20. I am so grateful for this series topic as I am convinced that engagement is a hefty contributor to make-or-break learning. The attention we place on ensuring cognitive and emotional engagement can either elevate the learning process or leave it wandering aimlessly along a dead-end street to nowhere. In order to alter this dead-end trajectory, we must first consider the harmful and misguided practices that warrant weeding in order to focus our attention on essential engagement success features.
Have we become so overwhelmed by what we teach—checking off one standard after another—that we have forgotten that engaged students are much more likely to retain and reapply that content? Do we believe that students can learn to fall into the state of awareness, focus, intensity, and joy that we value so much for ourselves?
We celebrated Ellin’s book on #G2great 5/31/18 and her wise words below illustrate the heightened level of engagement we desire for ourselves and our children:
But this blissful state of wide-awakeness will never happen by chance. We cannot merely wish upon an engaged learning star and expect blind faith to take over. Student engagement happens if we apply thoughtful conditions Ellin describes so eloquently in her book. But in honor of our series theme, we are also committed to contemplating harmful and misguided practices that warrant “weeding” so that we can invest the time and energy we need on the practices that are most likely to fuel that blissful state and thus bring engagement to life in practice rather than simply in theory.
In this post, I will briefly suggest of the few weed worthy harmful and misguided practices and then explore those practices that can maximize our efforts so that we can reclaim our responsibility for engagement. While no practice comes with an engagement guarantee, thoughtful choices can dramatically increase the potential that student engagement is the reality from both sides – that of the teacher and the learner.
Let’s begin by looking at some harmful and misguided practices worth weeding followed by some #G2great tweets in honor of this goal:
Seven Harmful and Misguided Practices that Warrant Weeding
Below I have selected some #G2great tweets that are framed under Fran McVeigh’s question slide tweet. These offer a chat centered view of what may need weeding:
Now that we have considered some of the practices that are worth weeding, let’s turn our attention to those that are designed to support and enhance engagement. It’s relevant to this discussion to emphasize that both ways of seeing engagement are needed since alleviating won’t necessarily translate to elevating. Without exploring what we don’t want to do as well as what we do, we may inadvertently set up an immoveable roadblock to engagement. While there are many things to consider, I’d like to add seven practices that can enrich student engagement.
Seven Practices that Can Enrich and Elevate Student Engagement
Once again, I’ll share some #G2Great tweets that extend these practices:
I decided to highlight two tweets in this section that feel like the bookends of student engagement with key features that we need to consider.
Mandy reminds us that we cannot hope to make these important shifts to balance the scales in favor of engagement unless we take the time to assess our students at all stages of the learning process across the day. This helps us to identify factors most likely to impact engagement as supported by our assessment evidence. In this way, assessment connected to in-the-moment observations and analysis becomes action research that allows us to make the best possible decisions toward this end. Mandy’s lovely reminder that assessment can “shine a light on student thinking like a flashlight” seems so relevant to this discussion.
I close with Barb’s tweet because children and their level of engagement in daily learning is our most critical consideration. As Barb reminds us, this does not mean that engagement is what we offer some children, often those who are already connected to the learning or who have had past positive experiences that increase the likelihood of engagement. Rather, we ensure that ALL children are engaged in learning including those who bring their own challenges and past negative experiences to the learning process that can make engagement more complex and require our focused attention.
Since I opened my blog post reflection with words of wisdom from Ellin Keene, it seems appropriate to close with her words:
Opportunities for our students to “become more and more responsible for their own engagement” is the intent of our #G2Great Weeding Harmful and Misguided Practices series. To fully recognize the potential positive impact of each of our topics, we must alleviate practices that set us up for potential negative impact of those topics. This duo purpose allows teachers to focus on practices such as modeling, discussing and those I shared above that will transfer responsibility to students. It is impossible to elevate engagement until we get rid of what stands in our way. If we focus on shallow fill-in-the blank or one-size-fits-all approaches that ignore choice, need and interest, we cannot hope to achieve the kind of engagement that leads to a blissful state of wide-awakeness or begin to turn the reins of engagement over to children. In other words, we must say “NO” before we can say “YES.” It’s both as simple and as complex as that.
We are so grateful to each of you who bring your professional passion and commitment to our #G2great chat week after week. Your enthusiasm for exploring the practices that will enrich your teaching through celebratory conversational queries continues to inspire us all.
I’d say that’s what engagement feels like, wouldn’t you?
We hope you’ll join our last two #G2Great chats in our series
I love a good series. To me, a series of Twitter chats is sort of like binge-watching a favorite Netflix show… I just can’t get enough! Our latest series, Weeding Harmful and Misguided Practices doesn’t disappoint. It is so relevant and meaningful because it suggests there is always room to grow. This is especially true when it comes to behavior management, it is critical to try to get it right. What better way to do this than to have a good conversation with smart and dedicated teachers? On February 6, 2020, #G2Great held the second of a five-part series on Weeding Misguided and Harmful Practices Behavior Management.
Do No Harm…
A1:" First do no harm” guides us as we pause and use Ss behavior as assessment. What is the behavior telling, showing, teaching us? A reminder to open our hearts/minds & listen in to what Ss are trying to say through their actions. #g2great
A1: "First do no harm" It is so important that we have the student's interests at heart. Teachers are there to support first and foremost so we should never negatively judge a student especially based on the opinions of others. #g2great#stroudandproud2020
A1 Why would we trust a THING to do the work only Ts can do? Using a system of public humiliation is not only harmful but ignores the real issues for the behavior in the 1st place. This public format also brings the privacy law into question. #G2Great
We teach because we hope to make a positive impact on our students’ lives. What is better than making meaningful contributions toward students’ social and academic growth? However, relationships come first and shame is a barrier to forming relationships. Instead of viewing behavior as something to manage, view it as formative data. What does this student need? Showing students that we have their interests at heart is the better way. A strong teacher-student relationship is formed by inter-personal connetions and not charts and clips.
Clear Responsibility…
A2: putting more value on compliance instead of helping kids learn how to manage themselves. #G2great
A3 They are children and depend on us to help them and make sure we show empathy and compassion. Disruptive Behavior is a sign of deep hurt and pain. Our job is to support and understand. #g2great
As I read over these tweets I find myself nodding and smiling. We are teaching children how to live and be in the world. When we take a moment to pause and manage ourselves when life in the classroom gets stressful we are modeling how to deal with complex emotions like stress, anxiety, confusion or even disappointment. What better way to teach students how to better manage their feelings and actions? As we do this work together, teachers and students, we are co-creating safe learning environments and that is what we really want for our kids, isn’t it? We can be the teachers they can depend on. The teachers who lead with empathy and compassion. Yes, this is what behavior management can look like.
Let’s keep a good thing going. We hope you will join us next week
#G2great is kicking off a five-part series on Weeding Misguided and Harmful Practices. The first in the series was Thursday, January 30, 2020 and we tackled the harmful practice of not providing adequate book access for all children.
It may seem odd that we would feel the need to address this issue, but we must as many children in America live in what can be defined as book deserts. We, as educators, can positively impact this by a commitment to ensure that we provide books in individual classrooms, frequent campus libraries with our students, and encourage kids and their families to make visiting public libraries a priority. In short, we can and must advocate for books, and more books for every child.
Multiple studies have documented the impact of classroom libraries: there are more books in the classrooms of high-achieving schools, and more students who read frequently. As reading researcher Richard Allington put it, “If I were working in a high-poverty school and had to choose between spending $15,000 each year on more books for classrooms and libraries, or on one more [teaching assistant], I would opt for the books … Children from lower-income homes especially need rich and extensive collections of books in their school …”And they need actual books, not electronic devices that store books. Real books don’t require electricity or batteries. They survive rapid changes in technology and digital storage. –Nancy Atwell
As with exposure to vocabulary, access to books can have both immediate and longer-term impacts on a child’s academic and socioeconomic outcomes. Living in a book desert “may seriously constrain young children’s opportunities to come to school ‘ready to learn,’” Neuman and Moland write. A lack of access to books may help explain why, according to some research, children from economically disadvantaged communities score 60 percent lower on kindergarten-readiness tests that assess kids’ familiarity with knowledge as basic as sounds, colors, and numbers. And researchers say living in a book desert in one’s early years can have psychological ripple effects: “When there are no books, or when there are so few that choice is not an option, book reading becomes an occasion and not a routine,” they write.
–Where Books Are All But Nonexistent by Alia Wong (The Atlantic)
We know more books for more kids means that opportunities increase. Collectively, educators and those we enlist can make sure students have ready access to books they can and want to read.
Wherever we find ourselves working as educators, public or private schools, universities, or community work, we must work ourselves to increase book access. If you have not yet begun, take that first step to adding books to classrooms, school or public libraries. What ever form your activism takes, begin now.
Book access is critical for the development and growth of students as proficient readers who build and nurture their budding reader identity. It’s not a luxury for kids to be able to easily find books they can and want to read. It’s a necessity. And we can work to ensure that every child has access to books.
Join us later this week on 2.6.20 for Part Two in the series Weeding Harmful and Misguided Practice: Behavior Management.
On Thursday, January 23, 2020, Travis Crowder shared his wisdom with the #G2Great community around his new book, Reflective Readers: The Power of Reader’s Notebooks. The Wakelet link above will yield hours of clarity, direction and awareness of reading selves which are at the center of reflection. Because being REFLECTIVE is the heart of this book, this post begins with Travis and his reflections.
What motivated you to write this book? What impact did you hope that it would have in the professional world?
Since I began teaching, reflective thinking has been at the heart of what I do with students. As my instructional practice moved from traditional to a workshop approach, I found myself asking students often to look back at their reading and their reading lives and write what they noticed— new understandings, beliefs, feelings, and the changes they saw in themselves as readers and thinkers. Without even recognizing it, these ideas became the foundation for action research I was doing in my classroom.
I wrote this book to share my thinking with colleagues who are intrigued by the critical literacy work we do, as well as educators who are wanting to see shifts in students’ reading lives. I stand on mighty shoulders. My work with readers is heavily influenced by other educators who have learned alongside their students. I hope that teachers will take my ideas and place them beside their own. I don’t see my work as a replacement of the work teachers are already doing, or a program; instead, it’s a model of thought, one that has helped me move my readers forward. It has deepened their thinking, helping them see how they’ve grown in their personal reading lives. I hope that it will help the professional world look at reflection differently, and hopefully, engage us in a discourse that will ultimately make our students grow into confident and more capable readers.
What are your BIG takeaways from your book that you hope teachers will embrace in their teaching practices?
First, it’s important to know that response and reflection are not synonymous. They serve different purposes in the life of a reader. Second, it’s important to have a balance of them in the classroom. When I started writing about reflection several years ago, I noticed a beautiful dance between response and reflection— the ebb and flow, how one naturally moves into the other. So often, writing about reading stops at response, and although responses to texts are paramount, reflective thinking is what moves kids into deeper analysis. Last, I want teachers to help students read better versions of themselves. We teach in a climate where kids have forgotten what it means to connect. But we can remind them of their sentience. With books and time to respond and reflect, we can help them see the models of the world that await them in stories. And over time, I truly believe they will impact their world.
So what did we explore during the chat? Three key items emerged as I perused the Wakelet and revisited my notes. Those items are: clarity, direction, and reading selves. You know your own practices best. Will you begin with reflective work in your own reader’s notebook or with the work your students are doing in their readers’ notebooks?
Clarity
The chat began as does Reflective Readers with a discussion of what “reflection” is and isn’t including its relationship to “response”. Both response and reflection can include personal thoughts but it really depends upon the depth of the work which can be readily accessed in a student’s writing in a reader’s notebook. This notion of similarities and differences between response and reflection led me to making a personal T chart to compare the two in order to help me both define and understand them. A response is often tied directly to the surface facts or elements of the story, character, or plot lines. A reflection usually reveals more thinking that connects the text and the reader. As I explored this idea for several days (remembering that I see the questions in advance), I considered my past experiences and opened up my own reader’s notebook. Response, response, response. That is what seemed to be expected in many classes and in work that requires text evidence. Multiple choice tasks. Tasks with “right” answers. . . Those all led to responses. Reflection came in when I spent time digging into a specific topic/theme and compared texts or how I personally connected texts in novel ways. How does clarity of REFLECTION help you to deepen your own understanding?
Direction
Where does our reflection lead us? The direction of our thoughts depends on our reading, our texts, the time and space that we provide for reflection, and our goals and values. Reflection cannot be rushed. Reflection provides “the contour to our experiences, and forms the geography of our thinking.” (Crowder, T. Reflective Readers. p. 6) Students can document their own growth and change in their reflections as Travis so beautifully shares the frames in his portrait gallery of students. Do you want to up the game for students? Frame their work. Provide frames or mats to showcase the importance.
Reading Selves
What are the habits of readers? What are the most important habits of readers? Your values influence your answers. One inarguable habit would be that one needs to read and read a lot. Volume of reading matters. It may have a different effect at different stages in life, but reading is at the core of being a reader. But is reading a lot sufficient to be a reader? I would argue that it is NOT sufficient. Instead it is the reflective thinking that develops additional life-long reading habits.
Just as we began with thoughts from Travis and myself, the conclusion will circle back to Travis’s message from the heart and my final thoughts about Reflective Readers.
What is a message from the heart you would like for every teacher to keep in mind?
The professional text that is at the center of this chat is a culmination of my thinking over the past several years. It is not a program or prescription for readers; instead, it’s a way of thinking about kids and their reading lives. More than anything, this book is the story of my literacy work with young people. I value the stories they bring to the classroom, the things that make them who they are, and I want them to see reflection as part of their story— of their reading and their learning. Giving students opportunities to respond and reflect with tools like hashtags and Tweets give them another lens through which to see their reading. They aren’t the only tools, though. I’m confident that the things that you do in your classroom to help your students tell the story of their learning are brilliant. Placing them beside my thinking will only strengthen what you’re already doing. And placing my thinking beside yours will nudge my readers, too.
Is reflection only for school days? I think not because I believe reflection is a lifetime pursuit. That is why this topic and text has fascinated me. I have to both respond and reflect on my own reading before I can ask students or teachers to do the same. Our own practice with responses and reflections will guide our learning journey as we develop our own portrait galleries. When we value competent, confident readers for today and tomorrow, our students will develop into the reflective readers that we need!
Additional resources:
Benchmark PD Essentials: Reflective Readers: The Power of Reader’s Notebooks (Link)
