G2G – Page 22 – Literacy Lenses

Engaging Children: Igniting a Drive for Deeper Learning K-8

by Mary Howard

May 31, 2018 was a special night on #G2Great when Ellin Keene joined our chat as a first-time guest host. Like many educators across the globe, I have admired Ellin’s work since 1997 when she collaborated with Susan Zimmerman in Mosaic of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader’s Workshop (Heinemann). This week, we gathered together in a Twitter celebration of Ellin’s new professional masterpiece, Engaging Children: Igniting a Drive for Deeper Learning K-8 (Heinemann, 2018). To say that a buzz of excitement has revolved around the publication of this remarkable book and our much advertised #G2Great chat would be an understatement.

The term engagement is certainly not a new one, but Ellin has given us a unique perspective of what this term actually means in a way that no one has ever done before. As an entry point to discuss the critical role that engagement plays in the learning process, she explains that time on task has become an ‘overvalued commodity term bleached of meaning.’ And it is certainly devoid of the spirit of engagement Ellin bring to life in one of the most eloquent descriptions of engagement I have ever read:

This blissful wide-awakeness brings to mind wonderful images of children engaged in the joyful throes of learning, enraptured in a state of being where they become so captivated by a book or learning experience that they can willingly linger in emotion charged moments within quiet solitude or lively conversations in the company of others.

Ellin suggests that our best intentions to motivate children may have fallen flat. In pondering that possibility, we can all draw upon our own memory of a time when we watched children passively go through the motions of surface level learning fueled by little more than compliant obedience. Contrast this view with children immersed in the deep engagement Ellin describes and it would be hard to argue that our best intentions have indeed gone awry for too many children.

The question then becomes how we can create the conditions that would nurture the cognitive and emotional engagement Ellin captured so beautifully in Engaging Children. This kind of engagement is only possible when we acknowledge that students truly do desire this intense state of being and that we are confident that they are quite capable of achieving engagement under the right conditions.

Only a cover to cover read of Engaging Children can possibly do this topic justice, so I know that the book stands alone on its own merit and therefore does not need my review. Rather, I would like to revisit and reflect upon her chat tweets as an extension of some of the essential features Ellin details in her book. It is my intent to use her words as a thread to Ellin’s wisdom. As we work toward achieving the highest level of engagement possible for all students, we can begin by keeping these eight big ideas that will nurture, celebrate and elevate engagement.

Teacher Stories

Ellin shares a wonderful example of recalling and sharing her own engagement story about an airplane landing that was admittedly squirm worthy for this fellow flyer. She uses her story to illustrate the value of drawing from our experiences as a model for engagement. Our #G2Great chat is another example of this kind of personal engagement since Ellin immersed herself in a conversational form of blissful wide-awakeness Twitter style. I was mesmerized by how readily she conversed with fellow #G2Greaters considering that she is relatively new to the chat arena. If we want our students to understand what engagement looks like, sounds like and feels like, then we must become more engagement aware and then turn a spotlight on our experiences by sharing a time when we were spellbound by the very enthusiasm we hope for our students.

Student Stories

But simply sharing our stories with students as models is not enough unless we can use those stories to build a bridge from teacher to student engagement. Children are hungry to have these experiences and so we invite them to share moments when an experience beckoned them to engage in a deep and meaningful way. We do this not as an obligatory act of probing but out of genuine curiosity for our students’ experiences at home or school so that we may create the opportunities, resources or designs that would incite the kind of engagement they deserve and avoid those that would extinguish it. If we are willing to view engagement from their very wise eyes and allow them to share the experiences, we can give them a language for having rich conversations – language that is brilliantly nestled in Ellin’s Four Pillars of Engagement.

Discovery Kidwatching

While engagement conversations with children can enrich future engagement opportunities, our noticings allow us to maximize those opportunities over time. When we make room to be intentionally present in learning moments, we give ourselves permission to enjoy the view. Kidwatching allows us to quietly fade into the background so that we can maintain a view from the sidelines to notice how students interact with the resources and experiences we offer and with each other. Quiet professional ponderings afford us time to soak in what we see without judgement in order to understand possible next steps. These thoughtful choices are guided by what we know about students and can dramatically alter their engagement in the future. I am so intrigued by Ellin’s idea to position ourselves in the room for varied perspective.

Trusting Nudge

Throughout the chat and Engaging Children, Ellin makes it clear that perfection is not the goal of engagement. Knowing all the answers so that we may carefully plan our day without leaving room to change course can cause us to miss signs along the way that could lead to real opportunities. Ellin asks us to invite students to generate passionate questions as a pathway to engagement rather than allowing engagement to stagnate when we merely view it as a question and answer process. Trust implies that we are prepared to be surprised by their responses so that we can celebrate the passions that are sure to lead us in new engagement directions.

Student Ownership

The goal student engagement is always to keep our sights on turning this process over to them. We model, discuss, understand, share, and support so that ultimately we can relinquish the responsibility for engaged learning to students. I love Ellin’s reminder to step back and her acknowledgement that this can be challenging. But when we trust our students, we willingly put them in the engagement driver’s seat and allow passion to be the fuel that propels them forward. Engagement is not a school strategy but a life strategy so we approach this critical topic so that students will carry those ideals with them long after they leave our four walls.

From ME to WE

I recall returning to this wonderful phrase again and again throughout Engaging Children because in so many classroom there is rarely a celebration of the WE that brings us together as a community of learners. I love the idea of courageous conversations where we can create a gathering space for students to come together and share their thinking. This collective thinking is about so much more than who they are as individuals as we celebrate who they are as humans. These conversations will be the inspiration for even deeper engagement as it invites them to create a shared passion trail to new learning possibilities in the future.

Enticing Resources

At no point during my enthusiastic exploration of Engaging Children did I ever feel that Ellin was handing us a recipe tied to a carefully crafted list of ingredients that we would dutifully use in a checklist view of engagement. She reminds us that we each need the books and resources that will entice and excite the learners in front of us rather than disseminating a preselected lists of books. She reminds us to personalize our selections while taking our students interests and passions into account and even engaging them in this process.

Room to Grow

The final tweet is one that I did not recall reading in Engaging Children and yet I realized that it is really a concept that is intertwined across the book. In the hustle and bustle of teaching, it can be easy to view the engagement process as a race to the finish line. And yet Ellin asks us to slow down our pace so that we call allow students to truly live in the spirit of engagement as Ellin defines it. Giving children space and time to think affords opportunities that will allow that thinking to take shape in the company of others through varying viewpoints. This seems to me to be a critical feature of true engagement.

As I look back at these big ideas inspired by Ellin’s hour on #G2Great, I realize that each is a theme woven across the pages of Engaging Children. I am struck by the idea that this is the first book that has actually approached the topic of engagement in a way that actually feels authentically engaging in every sense of the word, both as a learner and a teacher. I encourage you to revisit these tweets and then find the trail that leads back to Ellin’s book.

As I close this post in gratitude for Ellin’s wisdom, I am drawn back to her question:

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 are so fortunate that Ellin is leading the way to help our students fall into the state of awareness, focus, intensity, and joy and we happily go on this engagement journey alongside them. What a remarkable gift Ellin has given us all.

Finally, I include Ellin’s words at the end of the chat simply because it made me smile!

Mutual admiration my friend. Totally mutual!

LINKS

Ellin Keene Website

Ellin’sFourPillarsofEngagementInfographic

HeinemannlivevideodiscussionwithEllin

EngagingChildrenFacebookGroup

HeinemannPodcastwithEllinKeeneandTomNewkirk:

Preventing Summer Slide: Flexing Our Summer Literacy Muscles

By Fran McVeighWhat does summer mean in your community? Is it about freedom from school routines or is it about supports in place to help families maneuver the tricky days and nights when parents need to work and children have more freedom? Our #G2Great chat on May 24, 2018 had both questions and answers for “Preventing Summer Slide” but also some cautionary reminders about remembering to meet the whole needs of children. “Summer Slide” is bigger than just literacy. In these days of declining school budgets and increasing demands, this may not seem feasible YET but let’s begin with some of those general considerations for increased collaboration and communication in your community.

Have you considered these principles?

If your summer work is already planned, take a few minutes to think about the basic needs of the students in your community over the long summer break. Will they have adequate food, shelter and transportation? Will their basic physical needs be met? How do you know? What about their social-emotional needs? How will you know that your planned summer work is effective? What information will you be collecting from the participants and their families?

Preventing Summer Slide: What will it take?

I found two major goals/processes in this week’s chat. The first follows the research findings of Allington and McGill-Franzen. They found that providing books for students to read at home over the summer was both cheaper and more effective than summer school programs. (link) Ways to do that include:

Giving students books
Having school libraries open
Teachers who continue to have book conversations during the summer
Teachers loaning books
Groups that give books

Any and all of these actions allow students to continue reading, flexing their literacy muscles. With high levels of practice, just like in sports, students maintain their current levels of confidence and competence. Students who read, write, and talk about their passionate and/or pleasurable literacy work increase the likelihood of counteracting “summer slide”. If any of this work can also involve partnerships formed in the student’s own household, there is an even greater likelihood of maintaining or increasing skills over the summer when one or two hours per week are dedicated to shared literacy actions like a narrated photo book of fun and play during the summer!

A second goal or process advocated for totally changing our approach to summer work is evidenced by this tweet.

Would efforts be more effective if there was a deliberate plan to include the following components: community-based, culturally relevant, strength-based, family-centered and literacy-based in order to LAUNCH SUMMER LEARNING?

What would each of these elements look like?

Community-based

Capitalize on activities available through county parks and recreation offices, municipal music/arts/museum programs, and even explore “service options” with elderly housing units. Weekly bingo games with senior citizens can be a treat for students and seniors. Plan field trips to locations in the community. Set up a comprehensive schedule that builds on Red Cross swimming lessons or open gym sessions. Evidence of community-based efforts to promote literacy would include this sign posted in Gilmore City, IA and shared via @herz6kids.

Culturally relevant

Build relationships that cultivate strong culturally relevant interests and include teacher-student relationships that empower and motivate students. Check community calendars for meetings and events that provide cultural experiences. Promote peer teaching and learning relationships that may begin in books but further extend to face-to-face interactions.

Strength-based

Allow students to have choices in activities in terms of recreational activities and sports as well as reading, writing, speaking, listening, drama, and math activities. Build on what the students can do, want to do, and mirror the lives they see at home and in their neighborhood.

Family-centered

Build on strengths of the family by asking other members of their household to participate and respond to activities both at home and in the community. Create books of shared family stories and events. Encourage all family members to write about the same events from a different point of view. Collect recipes, songs, or poems to share with others.

Literacy-based

What if summer literacy-based work was about choice, wonder, passion, and not the same old routine from the school year? The use of Wonderopolis or independent choice would be one source of promoting joyful self-exploration that helps develop life long readers and writers.

For further information about a successful summer launch and summer program, check out this tweet from Valinda Kimmel.

“Summer Slide” was first reported in 1906, and folks have been searching for solutions ever since. There is NO, ONE single solution. It’s a complicated problem with many solutions that will assist students in maintaining or growing reading, writing, and learning. Collaborative partnerships will be necessary in order to provide optimal learning environments for all students. Considering novel solutions that involve new learning environments and opportunities to explore personal choice and wonder to this century old problem will allow students to thrive and not fall prey to the “summer slide.”

Selected tweets that were the source of ideas for this blog post:

Additional Resources:

Wakelet archive for #G2Great chat – Link

Video – McAuliffe on YouTube (for parents) – Link

Allington- Summer Slide article Link

Pernille Ripp – “On Summer Checkouts”

Valinda Kimmel – “3 Surefire Ways to Avoid the Summer Slide”

NCTE Middleweb:

NOTES FROM THE NERDY BOOK CLUB Book Floods and Book Deserts

Donalyn Miller, Colby Sharp, Cindy Minnich, and Katherine Sokolowski

180 Days with Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle

By Fran McVeigh

What a night! Before the chat began Paul Hankins suggested that our theme song might be Petty’s “Free Falling” and as it ended Colleen Cruz talked about re-reading the stream “…to bask in the glow of @pennykittle and @KellyGToGo.” Either celebration would be so appropriate for that hour in time. Less than ten minutes was all it took for #G2Great to trend in the top “3” due to the wisdom flying through the twittersphere so I knew narrowing down a focus for this post was going to be a challenge as Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle joined the #G2Great chat table for their first time on May 17, 2018 to discuss 180 Days: Two Teachers and the Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents.

I first heard about this book last November at NCTE 17 from a panel presentation consisting of Nancy Atwell, Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle. The chair for the panel was Nancy’s daughter. Her introductions were fabulous. Each one was better than a five paragraph essay – well constructed and so thought-provoking. I was mesmerized. I was entertained. I was so curious.

In that session Kelly and Penny shared the overview of their collaboration and I knew instantly that this was a book that I could not wait to get my hands on. But it wasn’t just the content of their presentation. I was completely awestruck by their behaviors. When Nancy Atwell went to the podium, Kelly and Penny (seated on stage) took out their notebooks, poised to write and then did write throughout Nancy’s presentation. I was so amazed by this that I tweeted out a picture that showed them, on stage, writing while Nancy was speaking. Then when it was time for their part of the presentation, it was no surprise that at times, they finished each other’s sentences . . . truly collaborative partners. Here’s the picture and a link to a brief description of their session.

Many may think this is a book only for secondary ELA teachers.

WRONG!

I would recommend this book to EVERY literacy coach, curriculum, and/or department chair in the district as well as every administrator.

Why?

Because the first half of the book deals totally with values and beliefs that define the decision-making process for teachers. Elementary teachers can review it from the lenses of how they prioritize their own literacy instruction, coaching, and observation because the reading and writing standards are similar PK -12. Their work would be parallel to that of the secondary students and teachers. (Not all primary teachers will believe that this book is relevant, so don’t force them to read it!)

As the lead up to this chat, I wrote a blog post on Tuesday with many of the links listed at the end of this post. I also watched Twitter comments during the week, and then Brett Whitmarsh, (@HeinemanPub), posted this podcast the morning of the chat. It was a read aloud by Kelly and Penny.

A read aloud of text that I had read twice before.

A read aloud that I have listened to twice.

The depth of my knowledge after multiple readings and listenings cannot be measured objectively, but I can tell you that the “story” behind the text and my connections to the text have increased exponentially. I will probably listen once more as I continue composing this piece. I didn’t annotate the text, I didn’t take copious notes. I really worked on “holding my ideas” across the text with some jots and post it flags as I “spied” on my own reading in hopes of finding the big ideas.

And then came the chat.

The two areas from their book title that continue to fascinate me are both “engagement” and “empowerment”. Do you know high school students? Do they routinely feel engaged? Do they routinely feel empowered? How does this play out in real life with the students that Kelly and Penny have in California and New Hampshire?

Engagement

How do students get to the “deep thinking that reflects intellectual growth”? Allowing student choice is a critical element. How much choice? This is most evident in reading where Kelly and Penny propose that 50% of student reading is independent reading where students choose their own reading text. How does the “content” fit into a plan to give students choice? This entire book is about answering: “How does it all fit in?”

When students are engaged, teachers and students will be able to dig into deeper levels of understanding. Core beliefs found in their previous books, like Book Love, by Penny and Readicide by Kelly share foundational thinking for their literacy instruction but 180 Days: Two Teachers and their Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents provides the nuts and bolts about what this really looks and sounds like in classrooms. Then you will discover their ideas on how to accomplish it. This is simultaneously overlaid with the WHYs so that you can follow the thinking that drove all of Kelly and Penny’s decisions.

If students have choice, some teachers believe it feels “loosey-goosey” and seems like “free falling” because the teacher cannot plan out the year during back to school workshop days.

Free falling.

Falling without a net.

But as a teacher plans there is a need to keep a laser-like focus on the end goal for the year while also waiting to see the eyes of the students before outlining the year. Within this plan is the flexibility to add/change to meet the interests of students. An example from this school year was a mini-unit that Kelly created, planned and ultimately shared after the Parkland shooting. (Mass Shooting Unit Link)

Tweets from Kelly and Penny that Support Engagement:

As I read back through the Wakelet, I identified three themes that I felt supported “Engagement” in our chat. We will be hearing more about engagement in two weeks when we discuss Ellin Keene’s gorgeous new book, Engaging Children: Igniting a Drive for Deeper Learning, but for now the themes of Joy, Reading and Writing Lives, and Standards and Assessments from Kelly and Penny’s tweets support increased student engagement and helped me organize my thoughts. Do note that I deliberately left in the number of retweets and likes so that you can see how the #G2Great chat members (and or other friends within the first 12 hours) responded to this wisdom.

Which tweets stand out in your mind?

Which ones would you like to continue a conversation about?

Empowerment

Empowerment is the second promise from the authors. What does empowerment mean? Again, students who feel they have choice and voice in their daily lives will feel empowered as well as able to reach a higher level of engagement. The two elements are not easily separated. The curriculum allows students to strengthen their reading and writing skills. The daily framework for instruction allows students to be more successful with less “push” and “scaffolding” by the teacher. Knowing that half of their time during the year will be spent on self-selected books is empowering. Respecting students’ lives outside of school is also empowering for students as it reduces external stress in their lives.

The clearer the learning targets, the more efficient and effective the instruction becomes. The clearer teachers are about their belief systems, the easier they can articulate the relevance to the students. And yet, truly empowering adolescents will require change in the actions and work of students as well as teacher’s roles. Students will have the power to control their learning within the class. The teacher’s role will be reduced as students take the lead in discussions and book club work. This is not work for the faint-hearted. Students will resist in the beginning.

WHY?

Because it is work!

Why does it matter?

Because the WHY should be guiding all decisions!

Tweets from Kelly and Penny that Support Empowerment:

Specific tweets from Kelly and Penny that supported “Empowerment” seemed to fall into two categories: Actions and Work of the Students and Teacher’s Roles. When students are empowered, there is no need for “fake” accountability systems. Students meeting in book groups with students across the country were interested in completing their work in order to be a part of the cross-country collaboration. Note particularly what one of Penny’s seniors said as reported in Penny’s first tweet below.

Which tweets stand out in your mind?

Which ones would you like to continue a conversation about?

The chat revealed that Kelly and Penny originally began with 20 core beliefs and they did whittle it down to 10. Their schedules provide for daily reading and writing. Kelly (from the book and a live PD session last week) has 10 minutes of reading and writing every day. Time matters in terms of how it is used each day, as well as across the year and throughout the secondary careers of our students.

Time matters:

Just as I can tell you that a thousand seconds = 16 minutes,

a million seconds = 12 days,

a billion seconds equals 31 years,

and a trillion seconds equals 31,688 years.

Seconds do matter! A sense of urgency is needed!

Being responsive to our students does not mean employing a whip and timer for every time segment in class, but it does require that we pay attention to the balance of time and not waste precious minutes that take away from student application and transfer of reading and writing. At all grade levels. With all students.

Those are non-negotiables. The videos in the book are priceless. I remain impressed with the collaborative nature of this work. The need to have another professional to discuss your ideas with, to plan together, to teach in each other’s classrooms. How can book clubs meet virtually in California and New Hampshire? What do students (used to sun and sand in California) who may have never seen snow fall from the sky have in common with students from New Hampshire who ride snowmobiles to school in the winter?

What questions remain?

How do YOU fit it all in?

What will YOU do to engage and empower yourself, your peers, and your students? How do YOU fit it all in?

Additional Resources:

Wakelet (to review all tweets from the chat)

Podcast part 1 – Read Aloud

Resourceful – Planning

Travis Crowder Review

Kelly Gallagher website

Penny Kittle website

Teaching Hope to the Next Generation

by Amy Brennan

Hope is the thing that I hold onto. As long as I can remember, I remember hoping. I was a child and I remember hoping my dad’s car would start. I remember when my mom was dying of cancer, hoping she would be cured despite the fact she had an incurable form of cancer. Hope is what helped me through those 2 years as my mom struggled for life. Hope is what carries me now, 24 years later with other trials I face in life. Hope carries me. Serendipitously, the book, Making Hope Happen entered my life. It is a book I read over and over, because I have come to realize the power of hope and when I look at people around me, at home, in school, I notice there are people who are hopeful and there are people who are not. I think the reason I go back to this book so often is because of Dr. Shane Lopez’s message that hope can be shared with others.

Hope matters.

Hope is a choice.

Hope can be learned.

Hope can be shared with others.

-Dr. Shane Lopez

Hope does not mean that the thing you hope for has to happen, it just gets you through to where you need to go. I struggle when I am with someone who does not have hope. In intrigues me as I wonder why I can be hopeful, even in the darkest times and others have no hope even in not so dark times. When I see children in school and I recognize that they do not have hope I struggle to figure out a way to give them hope. In the world they are growing up in, they need hope more than ever before. As an educator, I have to ask myself, “How can I teach hope to these children?” Inspired by Dr. Shane Lopez’s Ted Talk, and book, “Making Hope Happen: Create the Future you Want for Yourself and Others” the #G2Great team decided to take Dr. Shane Lopez’s advice and create ripples of hope for students everywhere through our #G2Great chat on Thursday, May 10, 2018. Until I wrote that I date I did not realize it was also my mother’s birthday, Happy Birthday Mommy, this is perhaps the best gift you could ever receive. I know when #G2Great trended that night and when this blog post is published (late because I drafted and revised too many times) I know the ripples of hope are alive and in motion spreading those who need hope to continue their journey. Hope carries us through life.

The power in hope spreading across our schools can be seen through the tweets from our #G2Great PLN.

Hope is…

Hope can be learned and shared…

Hope needs ambassadors… be one

This post is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Shane Lopez and my mother, Jane M. Kruger – both who always inspired hope.

Special thanks to Dan Sinnott who shared Shane’s work with me through one email on 7/28/2016 and spread more ripples of hope. Forever grateful.

Being the Change: Lessons and Strategies to Teach Social Comprehension

by Mary Howard

On May 3, 2018, we (me, Fran McVeigh, Jenn Hayhurst and Amy Brennan) were delighted when Sara Ahmed graced our #G2Great chat stage as first-time guest host. Educators everywhere admire Sara Ahmed, so collective excitement was high. From the moment our #G2Great family settled in for a conversation around Sara’s exquisite new book Twitter style, Being the Change: Lessons and Strategies to Teach Social Comprehension, the virtual swarm of passionate tweets began to literally flash across our #G2Great chat screen at warp speed.

I first began following Sara’s amazing work in 2015 when she joyfully burst into my professional view in a remarkable collaboration with Harvey “Smokey” Daniels: Upstanders: How to Engage Middle School Hearts and Minds with Inquiry. Since then, I find myself soaking in her brilliance and heart through social media, webinars or even face-to-face meetings at NCTE and ILA. Sara brings a lovely mix of humility, humanity and wisdom to all she does so it is always an honor just to be in her presence.

As soon as I received Sara’s book, I flipped back the cover and began reading. It didn’t take long to understand why Terrence J. Roberts used the word “gift” three times in his foreword. Sara’s dedication to this profession transforms the words “Being the Change” from a title on the cover of a book into a profound commitment that takes shape through her sense of urgency writing. This spirit is evident from the haunting opening story of her father to Sara’s words of hope for the future tucked lovingly into each lesson she so beautifully crafted in the company of her students so that teachers can bring them to life in their own classrooms. Yes, I can’t think of a more appropriate descriptor than “gift.”

Whenever it’s my fortunate turn to write our #G2Great chat reflection, I usually gather tweets as a springboard for my thinking. But no matter how many times I perused each of our inspiring chat tweets, I kept wondering if my gathering approach could possibly do a topic of this magnitude justice. I did, however, find myself returning to one tweet exchange between Sara and Tricia Ebarvia since it felt so reflective of the underlying message of Sara’s beautiful book.

The idea of giving our whole self by assuming an open listening stance really struck me. Sara modeled this stance across the entire chat. Even though she joined us on a very early Bangkok morning, she was completely present in each chat moment as she enthusiastically engaged in appreciative dialogue with everyone. I was inspired by Sara’s admission that she is not always successful at open listening and as I contemplated being the change as a work in progress, I turned to Sara’s definition of social comprehension:

This topic felt so big that I struggled to find a direction for this post, a struggle that continued as I flew home the night after the chat. And then it happened in the quiet solitude of the night sky! Without warning, one of the most amazing and humbling experiences of my life flashed into mind and the direction of this post came into view. I wasn’t sure how looking back would translate on paper but I loved the idea that Sara was part of this looking back. The experience is still fresh almost two years later, so heeding the beckoning of a lingering memory seemed important. While my memory of actual event was clear, I’m grateful to my far younger and thus far better ‘rememberer’ friend, Justin Dolci, for jogging my date and place memory).

The experience I am going to share invited me put it in writing, so this is a personal reflection of social comprehension from an insider’s view. Therefore, I will be taking some liberties with this post by setting my sights on an adult perspective. I believe that we cannot be our truest best selves for children until we become our truest best selves for ourselves first. The promise for Being the Change begins within each of us and so the work starts by gazing into a reflective mirror as we ponder the misconceptions that may be thwarting this important work ahead. I am suggesting that being the change resides within each of us and therefore we must have a laser focus on ourselves before we can have a lasting impact on our children, I’m going to do this by looking back so that I can look forward.

In July of 2016, I attended the International Literacy (ILA) Annual Conference in Boston, MA. Shortly after the conference began, an electric energy spread across the conference halls when we heard that Sara Ahmed and Cornelius Minor would be hosting an impromtu session for ILA attendees to engage in dialogue around recent tragic shootings. Brett Whitmarsh interviewed Sara and Cornelius the day before the event in this Heinemann video: When the World Hands You Curriculum. Sara explains the impetus for this session:

“We’re coming to a place now where people are asking more questions than they are coming with answers and that’s a tremendous spot for learning – for growth. I think creating a space where people can listen, where people can talk and just lean in and say they don’t know is really important.”

I knew I had to be part of this essential “not knowing” conversation since it certainly fit the way I was feeling about the world. On July 20, 2016, I rushed with friends to the small gathering room and we made our way to the front row. The room quickly filled to capacity and as I looked around, I saw both familiar and new faces (Kwame Alexander even sat on the floor at the back of the room). As soon as Cornelius said his first words, a quiet hush fell on the room as often happens when people choose to come together to emotionally connect with others even though we may be strangers. I listened intently to the remarkable initial discussion and then it happened…

Cornelius opened the stage to anyone who wanted to share their stories for the group. Heartfelt personal reflections of struggle, pain, and loss were recounted as quiet sobs reverberated across the room. The raw human emotion was palpable, and each story lovingly reached out and touch anyone lucky enough to be in its path. I listened to each story as tears fell down my cheek, feeling pure gratitude to be in that moment in the presence of such courage. Yet I still vividly recall conflicting emotions washing over me. On one hand I felt humbled that strangers would trust this little old woman from Tulsa Oklahoma with their heart, confident that it would be received in love!

But at the same time I felt an odd sense of shame I couldn’t shake. Suddenly I had an overwhelming desire to stand up and thank these brave educators for sharing their lives with me. I wanted to walk across that room and hug those who spoke as well as those who listened. But what caught me by surprise was the nagging sense that I needed to apologize. I am still struggling even now to understand that odd mix of gratitude and guilt in a small love-fueled room in Boston. I didn’t know what I wanted to say but suddenly I felt like a coward for not saying something. After all, how could I sit in silence and fail to return their gift of courage? I still feel the shame that held me back from standing bravely beside these beautiful courageous humans and express how I felt in that powerful moment, believing that my story would seem so small.

But as I write this now, I wonder if feeling connected in that room was what I was meant to do – or perhaps it was all I knew to do at that time. I wish I could have been brave in that moment, but maybe sharing how I felt wouldn’t have been so brave after all. I had never experienced this kind of unselfish giving but looking back I think I was looking from a loving lens but also from a selfish one. Forgive the double negative, but I felt ashamed that I could not NOT be a 68-year old white heterosexual woman born in the U.S.A. into a middle-class family with loving parents who shielded me from world terrors and close-knit siblings who continue to wrap protective arms around me. Somehow, gratitude and shame intermingled as I felt conflicting desire to express my love for everyone in that room while also wanting to apologize for who I am.

Others have written about this amazing experience far more eloquently than I am able to do in this emotion-laden moment including Julieanne Harmatz and Carol Varsalona. But I am grateful to Sara for giving me the words to be able to relive this from another perspective in a moment I will hold dear for the rest of my life. I am ready to acknowledge the guilt of that moment but also to let go and celebrate this opportunity to have lived it and see only the blessing of that lovely moment.

You see these beautiful humans showed me that we must learn to be open listeners even if the lesson took awhile to reach me. These caring strangers who surrounded me taught me far greater lessons than speaking up would have done at that moment. Maybe choosing not to stand up to share my voice was not the point. Maybe it was about being sitting quietly with an open heart so that I could truly bring my whole self to the experience. I’m not sure why it took two years to understand this lesson, but I am grateful for the opportunity to relive that moment from a new way of seeing. The love I felt for everyone in that room in Boston is as real to me now as it was in 2016.

As I write this, I am reminded of Sara’s beautiful message: Doing the work of social comprehension erodes the boundaries between “us” and “them.” I hope I wasn’t inadvertently doing that since eroding the boundaries requires us to acknowledge the thinking that resides deep within that can blur those boundaries. So I am standing up here and now sharing my heart through my fingers on a keyboard and using that experience as a learning opportunity. Looking back is a lovely reminder that all of our stories matter, regardless of who we are or what we look like or what experiences we can or cannot bring to the conversation. What I do know now and what I want to remember is that feeling of love for strangers who crossed paths and thus hearts so long ago. Maybe deep love and appreciation for others is what social comprehension is all about. I’d like to believe that relationships are the undergirder of this process.

In her book, Sara’s resounding message comes through loud and clear that “kids are our curriculum.” It seems to me as this flood of memories hovers over me that the world really did hand me a curriculum in that moment. And when the world does so as it certainly is doing these days, we can be moved to broaden our scope by making our work with students the impetus that has potential to change not only how we view our schools but how we view ourselves, others and the world around us – and how we CHOOSE to interact with each of them in a way that will leave a positive mark in this world. I’d like to believe that the next time I feel compelled to share my heart willingly with gratitude, I would choose not to let my whiteness stand in the way of being brave. This seems so important since I’m not sure that I can bring my whole self to children unless I can bring my whole self to adults. Suddenly this work seems so much more expansive and ever so critical!

In Being the Change Sara reminds us what I find comforting at this moment:

I am comforted by the idea that we can make the world a better place in our own way even when we are not even sure how to begin. This beautiful book is our heart guide as we embrace social comprehension and the ever so relevant transparent conversations that are essential to that process. Without even knowing it, Sara helped me to understand that if we’re willing to engage in open listening and to bring to each experience a compassionate heart as an observer of the world… well then the stories that others so lovingly bring into our lives could fill our hearts and minds with the fuel that could implore us respect the identities that we all bring to this world. I now understand that every story has value – even my own!

On the morning of our #G2Great chat, Sara wrote me an email that I captured in this message below:

Well I can assure you that your remarkable book will bring your hope to life, Sara. We are so grateful to you for making this world a better place and we will each find our own way to “Be the Change” alongside you. And I am grateful to you for allowing me to see this experience in a whole new light. ❤

Inspiring a Culture of Readers

by Amy Brennan

As summer approaches, students, teachers and administrators begin to think about summer plans. Different types of plans come to mind – vacations, beach days, summer camps, and for many there remains an uncertainty that comes from school closing for the summer months. How to we prepare our students for summer? How do we ensure that all their growth over the school year doesn’t get lost over the long, sun-filled summer? How can we ensure that they have opportunities NOT for worksheets, NOT for summer projects, but for READING, the pure joy of reading. This alone can help to eradicate summer reading loss. We need to inspire our students to read all school year long so that we develop a natural culture of readers. If we establish a culture of reading at our schools, the members of our school community will take the culture with them for the summer. At the #G2Great chat on April 12, 2018 we sat at our virtual table and shared ways to inspire readers across all grades.

Collectively Define “Culture of Readers”

As with anything, we first wanted to define what we collectively meant by a culture of readers across all grades. Having a common defintion is important to leading and inspiring any kind of movement. The chat generated so many descriptors that define by example what a culture of readers looks like.

To begin, just a few things can get us moving towards a culture of reading. We need to have books available to read. Once the books are there we need to create an invitation to read. After we have invited readers to the the world of reading we need to allow choice and time to read. Valuing books and readers requires that we set aside resources to purchase books, we set aside resources to store books in bins, on shelves, and on display. Relevent texts need to be available – every member of the school community should be able to see themselves in the books available. When we see ourselves individually, only then collectively we see our community. Discussions about books generate more reading. Book recommendations and choosing to read books together provides opportunities for discussions. Publicizing the books we read, posting the books we are reading on classroom or office doors, or bulletin board in the hallways – these steps all help to inspire a culture of readers. A culture of readers develops from these collective experiences at the building level. It only takes one person in a school to be the leader in this charge. Be that person – find your first follower and the others will follow. Develop your collective culture of readers together as more and more followers join your movement. Reach out to all school community members; administrators, teachers, parents, teaching assistants, teaching aides, secretarial, custodial and lunchroom staff and enlist them to be a part of the culture of readers.

Get Started

Once we define and put into place structures and develop shared beliefs around reading it is important to spread this across to leaders, teachers, staff and parents. This shift will be most effective and lasting if we are all inclusive – all members of the school community can talk about reading. Sharing books, talking about books, reading books around school throughout the day. All members of the school community should be able to talk to students about the books they are reading. Beginning with a shared book acorss a school can really begin this process. In my former school, we gathered the whole school community around a shared read-aloud – the first one was Wonder by R.J. Palacio. We welcomed students back to school after the winter recess with decorated halls sharing quote of kindness and engaged students in adding decorations and quotes as the read aloud spread through the building.

Develop Your School’s Unique Reading Culture

Once you’ve started, well that is when your school will begin to develop its own reading culture. Include all stakeholders, listen to all ideas and the school will build its own culture around reading. There are so many ways and so many ideas out there, but the important thing is to collectively engage the school community so that the culture represents that school.

Ready, Set, Go!

If your school does not already have a culture of readers, be the first to get the movement started. Be positive, have energy and find those first followers who can help you begin the change. Get students involved, they are the reason this is so important and often they have the most creative ideas – unlike the adults sometimes in a school community their minds are not usually restricted by they way things have always been. Students’ minds flexibly think about possibilities without being held to a vision of what was or has been always done. Above all – READ – people will follow you.

#BowTieBoys: Exploring Instruction Through Students’ Eyes – Group Work and Collaboration

By Fran McVeigh

My post for the #BowTieBoys guest host stint at #G2Great in March seemed easy. I reread the questions, reviewed the tweets, considered formats and began writing. In fact it was so easy that I began worrying about this second post. What would be different or unique? What would be the bookends for the learning?

I am in awe of these middle school and high school students: their focus, drive, poise and incredibly articulate positions on so many issues in education. As I worried about appropriately expressing my respect for their work, I remembered that April is synonymous with poetry. So I created this acrostic “fan poem” about the #BowTieBoys before we even had the chat and had my first 19 words.

After the chat, I was still in search of my goal for this blog post – stuck with my 19 words and the title. I dreamed of a post worthy of clearly and succinctly articulating the depth of their participation as guest hosts for #G2Great on April 26, 2018. But I felt like the center fielder who had missed a line drive straight up the middle.

So I researched, reading previous Literacy Lenses posts as well as posts from the #BowTieBoys. I even DM’d Jason Augustowski about a post outlining the origin of this group. You can find those details in his biography here. I read through the Wakelet artifact, collected tweets and reread the archive again. Ideas swirled in my head. And then I reread the title: Exploring Instruction through Students’ Eyes: Group Work and Collaboration and the theme coalesced around that title. No surprise. The title became my North Star, my purpose.

This group of students, ranging from 8th graders to juniors, wrote the questions, responded to the questions, and had multiple conversations with educational folks during the #G2Great twitter chat. In essence, they collaborated with each other in the question development and then participated collaboratively in group work during the chat. They executed group work and collaboration in an online format while sitting together in the same physical space. Middle school and high school students!

Were the students doing this for participation points?

Were the students doing this for a class requirement?

Was there a rubric where the teacher was making tally marks for participating comments?

Would a student be “marked down” for “not speaking up”?

The answer to each of those questions is a resounding “NO!” And therein lies the purpose. These students are learners who understand that they learn in different ways, like to respond in different ways, have different interests, but yet they are united in their passion to provide input in order to improve their educational lives. They read professional texts by Penny Kittle, Kelly Gallagher, Laura Robb, Linda Rief, etc. and strive to improve their own knowledge on their own time and in their own ways. (Does that sound familiar, dear readers, who have found your own personalized learning on Twitter, Voxer, or in books by similar authors?)

Student perspectives on learning are necessary in order to improve educational practices AND learning. Teachers need student feedback, beyond assessment numbers, that range from classroom environment to routines/procedures to the content and instructional delivery systems.

WHY?

Dr. Mary Howard is fond of telling us that our “WHY?” is our most important question to answer for any instruction, assessment or even planning. And she is so correct. Beyond teachers and administrators knowing the WHY, so must the students. The WHY cannot be left for students to infer. It should be obvious. It should be stated often. And it should be the driving force behind every decision made in the classroom, of the classroom and for the classroom.

Why Group Work?

These tweets really helped me collect a wide range of thoughts about Group Work.

Why these tweets? Because of the key words that popped out in this word cloud.

Several priorities for Group Work had surfaced: Allowing all students to have a voice, providing opportunities to add ideas, affording time to discuss and/or gather information, new viewpoints and ideas, and encouraging others to interact. Aren’t those all habits and behaviors that employers want? Why would we ever be surprised that students want these? The surprise might be that students have not previously felt comfortable with sharing these needs. The surprise might be that some teachers don’t collect feedback from students. The surprise might be that the feedback is perfunctory and never acted upon.

But WHY NOT?

Why not have a combination of interactions daily in the classroom that allow students to learn together? Why not provide choice in interactions? Why not ask the students (voice) when learning is working as well as when it is not working?

WHY Collaboration?

For this second big topic, I again returned to the tweets for the benefits of collaboration.

Merriam Webster defines collaborate as “to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor” so it does overlap with the previous Group Work conversation. The heart of collaboration is that new thinking or product emerges as a result of collaboration. As you can see in the tweets, the students recognize that combinations of individual and group work are needed and that there needs to be a real purpose, not “just” a principal or teacher evaluation for the collaboration. The process of collaboration should include frequent checkpoints so that both the students and the teacher have frequent feedback on the effectiveness of the collaboration. Student ratings or rubrics designed collaboratively with the teacher and negotiated with group members are often effective. Will all groups be 100% effective every day? Probably not without some specially designed instruction, tasks and productive work that builds respect, trust and a community of learners commited to deep learning.

But WHY NOT?

As shared in the tweets, collaboration is not necessary for all tasks. Students recognize fake collaboration to impress an observer or to mark it off a checklist. And perhaps the beginning of a class period is not the best time for collaboration if students have not yet settled into the learning mode. Are there some tasks that are better suited to individual work? Having real world, meaningful tasks tends to make collaboration more successful.

WHY does it matter?

The goal is mutual learning. Students collaboratively involved in the learning processes have a deeper understanding of teaching just as teachers involved in collaborative work have a deeper understnding of student learning. When this commitment to education and learning is reciprocal, magic happens. That magic was evident in our #G2Great chat with the #BowTieBoys. Students. Teachers. Learners ALL. Understanding WHY is the essential element.

ACTION To Consider: Take these remarkable questions and discuss them with your teachers and classmates.

And summarize with:

WHY is Group Work important?

Is all Group Work equal?

WHY is Collaboration important?

How do Group Work and Collaboration support student learning? Find your WHY and find your guiding principles for learning!

Please follow the #BowTieBoys on Twitter:

Kellen Pluntke @kellenpluntke

Spencer Hill @spencerrhill99

Joe O’Such @joe_osuch

Christian Sporre @CSporre

Ryan Beaver @rbeaver05

Connor Grady @ConnorGrady11

TQ Williamson @tq_williamson

Rishi Singh @RishiSingh08

Sam Fremin @thesammer88

Dawson Unger @dawsonunger

Jack Michael @jackmichael776

Tam Mandanis @TMandanis

Aaron Eichenlaub @AEichenlaub729

Nihar Kandarpa @NKandarps

Jason Augustowski @misteramistera

Additional Resources:

Storify from April 26, 2018 chat	Wakelet Link
Storify from March 8, 2018 chat	Storify Link
#BowTieBoys Blogs	thebowtieboys.blogspot.com
4 minute video from 3/9/18 after #G2Great chat	Link
#BowTieBoys YouTube Channel	Link
#BowTieBoys Biographies	Link

Previously on Literacy Lenses:

#BowTieBoys Exploring Instruction through Students’ Eyes: Creating a Positive Environment

A Reflection on #NCTE17 with the BowTieBoys – Exploring Choice from Students’ Eyes

BowTieBoys -Exploring Instruction Through Our Students’ Eyes

JV BowTieBoys – Exploring Instruction Through Our Students’ Eyes

Sam Fremin: Viewing Instruction Through a Student’s Eyes (storify)

Reclaiming the Principalship with Tom Marshall

by Jenn Hayhurst On April 19, 2018, #G2Great’s PLN welcomed Tom Marshall to the fold. We had an inspired conversation about his new book, Reclaiming the Principalship Instructional Leadership Strategies to Engage Your School Community and Focus on Learning In Tom’s book he extends a beautiful invitation to “Make the word principal an adjective again. Join me, Head Learner, on the journey of reclaiming the principalship in the name of learning!” This is a powerful challenge. He is asking us to consider a richer more meaningful definition of what it means to teach and lead. How would school be different if we were learners first?

This left me wondering, what if…

What if we were learners who fostered collaboration and coaching?

Collaboration is alive and well. There are so many ways to learn with colleagues. We can learn with teachers in our schools and we can learn with teachers from around the world. Learning can be scheduled and it can be spontaneous. When we decide to raise the bar on our learning lives and open ourselves up to coaching we create a whole new dynamic. Coaching offers the benefit of a shared learning experience. The more we learn together the more informed that learning becomes because everyone has something important to offer:

What if we were learners who were responsive leaders within a learning culture?

Being responsive to needs requires us to think deeply about what is happening so we can plan a course of action. Leaders who make this an inclusive process, one that encourages us all to think of creative solutions, promote a learning culture. Tom reminds us that this relevant work, whether it is at the building level or classroom level, should pass a litmus test – does this benefit student learning? All of it – our evaluations, school improvement plans all of it can be swayed by a learning stance:

What if we were learners who honored each other’s values while growing professional discourse?

Classrooms are dripping with formative data and it tells a story. It reveals what we value and where we may need to go next. Every time we push ourselves to be honest and authentic about instructional practice we invite growth. This is the first step, the beginning of more substantial conversations that build upon strengths and reflection.

What if we were learners who built on community and momentum if we nurtured inner curiosity?

Leaders who set clear goals and pair them to a metaphor make it take root within a faculty. Teachers who come together around a goal build community and that is powerful. Whenever we tap into our personal power and harness it supports a shared vision we are making a huge impact on the lives of our students. Writing plays an important and meaningful role in this process. Taking time to stop and reflect is a game changer:

What begins with a “What if…” can lead to powerful changes and important discoveries. Tom’s wonderful book was written to encourage us all to adopt a learning leadership stance. Thank you Tom. Your wisdom and passion are exactly the right next step forward in education.

It’s All About the Books

By Fran McVeigh

Make no mistake about it. This book, It’s All About the Books: How to Create Bookrooms and Classroom Libraries That Inspire Readers, is about making sure that ALL students have access to books. And our #G2Great chat with guest hosts Tammy Mulligan and Clare Landrigan was trending within seven minutes of the opening tweet on April 5th. The pace was fast, furious, filled with the famous (Kylene Beers, Laura Robb, and Penny Kittle to name a few), and packed with powerful learning. As participants, we were given guidance and flexibility through the talented wisdom of Tammy and Clare (and the experts that they base their work on) that would also allow us to insert our own vision and passion to meet the needs of students in our classrooms across the continent. Neither the chat nor the book is about meeting proficiency levels (although books are the appropriate tool) or choosing a set list of books (your student needs will vary), but were both focused on many critical aspects of developing book collections. This post will focus on just two of them: Access and Design.

What does access to books mean for classroom libraries and bookroom collections?

Every student deserves quality books that he or she can read in order to be a reader. Books are the tools of readers. Access to books cannot be left to chance. That means that within a school building every student needs access to a classroom library and probably some form of a collaborative collection in a bookroom in addition to the school library. When access to books is a priority, every first year teacher will walk into a classroom full of chairs, desks, and tables that also has a classroom library that is fully-stocked. The teachers and administrators understand and believe that when students read a lot – both texts they choose and can read – they will become lifelong readers, and that classroom library is an indicator of the strength of their belief. A final element of access will reflect that the collection will “grow and extend” with the students. The books that are the focus at the end of the year may be totally different from the books that were in the library on opening day. Some books will remain constant but many other books will be replaced as students outgrow themselves as readers and demand different topics and types of books as the school year evolves.

What is the benefit for the students?

Books will be celebrated and students will know that one goal is to build a reader’s identity so some books will match the students. They will see themselves in the books and will also be able to see all the other members of their community. Each student will have access to the number of books that they need at school and at home that is necessary for him/her to be an engaged and inspired reader. Students will talk about their books with peers and adults. Students will also have a great deal of choice in what they read as well as when and where they read. Their days will be filled with opportunities to spend extended time reading so that being “lost in a book” is a routine habit. Because we also know that book choice is personal, not every student will want to read the exact same book. Opportunities for choice will need to be encouraged on a regular basis in order to develop and strengthen the habits of readers. Many books will be needed. Tammy and Clare tell us:

“Books are our tools to develop lifelong readers. The only way to merge true choice and accessibility is to have options and lots of them!” (Heinemann, It’s All About the Books, p 12)

What is the benefit for the teachers?

Every teacher will have access to books necessary to meet the needs of their students. These books will match the purpose: whole group, small group (guided or strategy), partner, and independent reading as well as instructional needs: Read Alouds, writing mentors, science content and/or social studies content. Access to quality books will enhance instruction and engage and inspire students. Access coupled with equity will mean that classroom collections will no longer be dependent upon teachers personally funding their own classroom libraries.

In order to achieve this access, all teachers will be expected to work collaboratively to identify the existing inventory of books available in the building and then strategically plan for the best use. What does that mean? Perhaps there are six packs of guided reading books that are gathering dust in current guided reading libraries. Maybe they could be better utilized if they were inserted into classroom libraries or set up for book club usage or even independent reading. Specific gaps in types of books that students like and want to read can be addressed systemically after establishing priorities and developing an organized purchasing plan. Teachers with access to a wide range of books will be able to share their own passion, agency, and that sense of inquiry that exists in their own reading lives without the pressure of being personally responsible for provisioning every book the students read.

Selected Tweets about Access:

Why is design important for classroom libraries and bookroom collections?

In the book, the chapter about design begins with a Steve Jobs quote:

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

This means that in order for the books to be effective learning tools, there will need to be many books. Tammy and Clare offer suggestions on how to calculate the number of books that must be available for students at each grade level. Do involve the students in decisions because they will be a part of “how it works.” Don’t quit because you are discouraged by the staggering number of books needed because, Tammy and Clare also say:

“When teachers share texts and rotate inventory, stocking a school with authentic literature is a very affordable option. It truly is more bang for your books.” (p. 83)

#1 Design Issue: What to do with Book Levels

Much has been written about book levels by such literacy giants as Fountas and Pinnell, Donalyn Miller, Kylene Beers, and our own Dr. Mary Howard. I love the phrase “Intent vs. Impact” that Tammy and Clare use in their book and in their podcast. Levels are instructional tools that are intended to be guides – not absolutes and definitely not to limit a student’s access to books. (But wait a minute, access was the last section!) Levels are not going to define a child’s reading so levels will not be the ORGANIZER for books which brings us back to design. Some questions to be answered are: How will books be organized? How will they be displayed? Which books?

What is the benefit for students?

Taking book levels off of shelves and baskets does not meant that “anything goes” just as access doesn’t mean that students can only read a “Level H” for example. Middle ground means that book baskets can be organized by “concepts or ideas” such as “LOL” and the books in the LOL basket on the top shelf may be A-B, while the books in the LOL basket on the second shelf may be C-D, and the books in the LOL basket on the third shelf may be E-F. Students have access to any of the baskets but when they are choosing books that they can read independently, they can first decide on content: animals, friends, LOL, etc., and then check out the basket on the shelf that they are typically reading from. No one will ever say, “Now, Johnny, what level should you be reading?” Instead the conversation about books will be around the content and the strategies/skills/habits that the student uses as they tackle the books. Book levels will be inside the front cover or on the back cover, but they will not be the FIRST decision when choosing a book.

What is the benefit for teachers?

Teachers will need to know the qualities of the levels, not to define students but to know just which book will be the next “ladder” for instruction, which will be a challenge or stretch, and which will be “just right”? This actually gives the teacher more flexibility because it is easier to drop a level or two for beginning work with a more difficult skill without causing student or parental panic. With practice students can quickly move through appropriate books for the WORK they are engaging in rather than the “But I’m supposed to be reading H books!” that often currently surfaces.

Students can also be active participants in the book organization and the design of the classroom library so this means less work for the teacher. The classroom community can work together to create their own categories as they help curate the collection. Their “work” will also enable them to better appreciate the scope of the classroom collection. I’m always amazed when I’m in a classroom and students from another grade quietly step in, select a book from behind the teacher’s desk, and return to their own classroom. It’s important to know where those “book floods” exist that students actually have access to when they are in search of their next great book.

Shared teacher design is accomplished with the use of a bookroom or collaborative collection that helps provide the volume, range and choice that matches students’ interests. This collection exists to supply access to a world of ideas for students when they need them. Classroom libraries can easily be refreshed or rotated each quarter or each major school break so the teacher has a more ready supply of books available without a run on Amazon, Scholastic or other book sources. Sharing texts and especially series books makes provisioning libraries with authentic literature much more affordable. A five year purchasing plan, prioritized by gaps, can stretch farther than an individual teacher’s purchases.

Selected Tweets About Design:

All proceeds from the sale of this book will go #BookLove to fund elementary or middle school classroom libraries as explained in the following two tweets:

Books are the mainstay of student learning. Students gain such a feeling of accomplishment as they name that first book they can read or write. Literacy identities are important. This book, this chat, and the additional resources posted below literally add to our own passion for books, our “book love”, Reading is important because it improves our communication skills and enables us to learn about places and people that we may never see. It also helps build vocabulary and writing skills as we communicate better and even become better persons. Books can help us with all of those skills and this book, It’s All About the Books, by Tammy and Clare can help us inventory, prioritize and develop a plan to further extend our budgets and ultimately our learning! This book gives you a proven process, with a ten year track record, that will help you maximize your resources for increased student and teacher access and design and organize all those resources in your classrooms and bookrooms.

And if you already have Access and Design under control in your classroom libraries and bookrooms, there are many other chapters that deal with: Why a bookroom? Where to find diverse books? Technology? How are “Texts” defined? What about summer school access? Tammy and Clare will guide you through all the answers!!

Check out these Additional Resources

Events

Heinemann Publications Live Facebook with Tammy and Clare

Wakelet/Storify from #G2Great chat April 5

Podcast with Tammy and Clare

https://hubs.ly/H0byPMq0

Link

goo.gl/YPeYd7

On the blog

Slice one – “A Reader Reminds Me”

Slice two – “The Power of a Book”

Print Resources

It’s All About the Books – Heinemann webpage

Sample Chapter

goo.gl/CNxQpw

goo.gl/SCsNKe

Instructional Design with Students in Mind

by Mary Howard

On March 29, 2018 #G2Great settled in to initiate an important conversation as we explored the topic, Instructional Design with Students in Mind. Teaching with “students in mind” has been a recurrent #G2Great theme since your chat co-moderators (Mary, Fran, Jenn, Amy) believe deeply that effective teaching is student-centered rather than publisher or teacher-driven. Over the past three years, we have celebrated this theme even if the words students in mind didn’t appear in the title.

This week, our dialogue focused on varied instructional design areas that include read-aloud, conferring and small groups; the impact of workshop model; and the role of productive struggle, predictable structures and transfer. As I looked back at the inspired tweets that rose from our chat discussion, I was immediately struck by the interconnectedness of these components that help us to keep students at the center of those practices.

Based on this observation, I realized that it made sense to focus this post on that interconnectedness. Instruction cannot occur in a vacuum where each component is considered in isolation but how those components can work in tandem. In other words, powerful “pieces” of instructional design combine seamlessly across every learning day as they begin to intersect into a proverbial instructional puzzle that is much bigger and far more powerful than those “pieces” could be on their own. I am convinced that our ability to create an instructional design with students in mind will require us to explore that design from a global instructional perspective.

With this idea driving my thinking, I decided to address our questions collectively and noticed Seven Student-Centered Design Themes. Not surprisingly, these themes are also interconnected as I considered each one using an overarching driving question, “How do we keep students at the center of our day-to-day practices?”

Student-Centered Design Theme #1: BE COMMITTED

The source of our commitment and a central feature of this discussion was clearly the idea of falling in love with reading and writing through daily engagement designed to increase volume. We understand that keeping students at the center assumes that we are able to address both the instructional and emotional needs of our learners. This design theme is purposefully placed in the first position as 0ur willingness to celebrate or ignore this theme can dramatically impact student learning for better or for worse. Instilling lifelong love of literacy and maximizing the critical role of volume is central to our student-centered design theme.

Student-Centered Design Theme #2: BE RESPONSIVE

In an age where scripted programs continue to spread like a virus across our schools, it is more important than ever for us to remain steadfastly responsive to the unique needs of students. These programs are riddled with preconceived questions that come with predetermined answers, thus putting the program at the center while crowding children out of their rightful place. When we generate more questions than we ask and create opportunities that respect student thinking in the context of learning, we make a much-needed shift from program or teacher-driven instructional design to a focus on student-centered learning.

Student-Centered Design Theme #3: BE CURIOUS

Another important theme explore teachers’ role as dedicated professional noticers. As teachers who are thoughtful and curious about children, we know that we must pause within the learning moments. These moments give us time to step inside the learning process so that we can gaze upon and ponder what we see and hear and what that means. Through these reflective wonderings, new possibilities begin to come into view and help us to consider next step opportunities. This continuous cycle allows us to move seamlessly between a fluctuating role as teacher and learner so that we can happily follow a curiosity-inspired trail to greater understandings.

Student-Centered Design Theme #4: BE INVITATIONAL

As we become more curiosity-inspired, we begin to recognize the impact of our practices when we embrace an invitational spirit. This happens when we are able to let go of the ineffective notion of the teacher as leader at the helm of the ship so that we can step aside as students to assume the lead role. We acknowledge that in doing so we are also inviting students to wade in the productive struggle pool of potential, knowing that they will emerge victorious and better for it as we wait in the wings to offer feedback, encouragement and carefully timed support that does not rob them of opportunities to linger at the thinking helm without us.

Student-Centered Design Theme #5: BE FLEXIBLE

As we begin to relinquish our own responsibility in order to give students increasing ownership of this process, we must also learn to change our mindset by assuming a flexible stance. We acknowledge that flexibility comes with great rewards and so we are willing to let go to contemplate the opportunities that rise from this flexibility. This shift to a broader view of options can come with uncertainty that allows us to expect the unexpected and notice wonderful surprises that come our way as a result. This does not mean that we do not have a map to guide us, but that we are willing to meander our way to new pathways informed by students engaged in the messy process of learning.

Student-Centered Design Theme #6: BE INTENTIONAL

Across the chat, the idea of being intentional in our efforts to keep students at the center of all we do was celebrated. While intentionality was peppered across each of the chat questions, this topic almost always took us full circle to how we could use this new view to promote transfer of learning. Intentionality is not a passive process but one that requires us to be professionally purposeful as we recognize that transfer is the gold standard of all we do. Without transfer, “learning” will remain forever just out of reach, so we keep this ultimate goal in our sights at all times. In this way, we ensure that learning will not be stuck in a single teaching experience but will live on through exposure within varied contexts.

Student-Centered Design Theme #7: BE JOYFUL

It seems appropriate that our last design theme brings us full circle back to the first one and is the thread that is interwoven across the other five. Our commitment to love of reading and volume bring us back to joyful and magical learning that merge into synonymous understandings. It was clear from the beginning to the end of the chat that our efforts to keep students at the center of learning always comes back to our desire to motivate, inspire, engage and beckon our children into joyful literacy. We agreed that magical book experiences were the main ingredient of that joy and recognized that our ability to approach learning with a celebratory lens focused squarely on our learners was critical to the joy process from both a teaching and learning perspective. And though this perspective we can enrich and elevate our ability to keep students in mind.

The dedication of the professional family that Fran, Amy, Jenn and I have worked tirelessly to gather together every Thursday night on #G2Great is a testament to our recurring theme of keeping students in mind in every aspects of instruction. Our incredible collaborative learners do not gather on #G2Great in a quest for one-size-fits all narrow activities. Rather, they gather to engage in a shared learning that will inspire each of us to become our best selves so our students can become their best selves. This is the heart and soul of our goal to keep students in mind. The dialogue that lifts #G2Great into Twitter trending each week reflects the student-centered devotion that our #G2Great educators bring gloriously to life in classrooms across the country.

And we are honored to celebrate the heartbeat of those conversations!