G2G – Page 5 – Literacy Lenses

Leading Like a C.O.A.C.H: 5 Strategies for Supporting Teaching and Learning

By Fran McVeigh

ByOn Thursday, May 5th, 2022, the Twitterverse lit up during our chat with Matt Renwick about his new book, Leading Like a C.O.A.C.H.: 5 Strategies for Supporting Teaching and Learning. Matt’s first visit to #G2Great was in 2016 as a part of an Administrator Spotlight “Exploring Seven Big Ideas to Maximize School Wide Potential” here.

Matt’s interest in teaching, learning, and leading is well documented. This book review of Regie Routman’s Read, Write, Lead is one piece of his thinking that dates back to 2014.

That statement still holds true today in the ever changing landscape of social media and contentious discourse about the purpose of school, literacy and the cultures they represent.

Why does it matter who leads? Why do we need to think about different strategies for leading? These two recent tweets from Michael Fullan add depth to our thoughts about organizations and leadership.

What is a leader?

a guiding or directing head, as of an army, movement, or political group. Music. a conductor or director, as of an orchestra, band …
dictionary.com

Guiding head? Directing head? Conductor?

The nuances are vast. Many of us have experienced a variety of leader actions that have been affirming as well as actions at the opposite end of the spectrum that may have been less than supportive or varying midpoints.

Let’s begin with author question 1 and Matt Renwick’s own words.

What motivated you to write this book? What impact did you hope that it would have in the professional world?

A decade ago, I wrote a blog post titled: “Can a principal also be a coach?”
This was my second year as a head principal for an elementary school. I was finding it difficult to support instructional improvement through traditional evaluation and supervision alone. What else could I be doing to influence teaching and learning?
My previous experience as an athletic coach led me to explore instructional coaching as a viable approach within my leadership position.
Ten years later, I’ve seen the fruits of this labor in a variety of ways:
· Teachers feeling more confident to take risks and try innovative practices.
· More clarity around what we are trying to accomplish as a school and why it’s important.
· Better conversations with and among faculty around our goals and efforts.
I wanted to write this book so other leaders have a set of strategies to apply in their own schools.
Matt Renwick

Who are the leaders in your building, district, community? And what characteristics do they have in common? Matt Renwick suggests that the acronym C.O.A.C.H encompasses their roles. Let’s start with this set of strategies and some tweets that are aligned.

Create confidence through trust

Organize around a priority

One. Priority.

Not 10.

Not 5.

Start with 1 priority!

FOCUS!

Affirm promising practices

You will see promising practices while on learning walks.

Communicate feedback

Begin with strengths. Be posse

Help teachers become leaders and learners

Author question 2 adds more of Matt’s thinking about teacher takeaways.

What are your BIG takeaways from your book that you hope teachers will embrace in their teaching practices?

Two takeaways:
· Schools don’t need to be “fixed”.
· Leaders should instead focus on their school’s inherent potential for sustainable success.
The first takeaway is a competing response to all the rhetoric we hear around schools as “failing” or “in need of improvement”. This is not helpful language. Students, teachers, and communities hear this and may start to believe it.
To counter this, I encourage leaders at every level to take a step back and first ask, “What’s going well?”
This appreciative lens should reveal a variety of strengths, for example:
· Classrooms with lots of books for independent reading,
· All students knowing at least one trusting adult who cares for them, and
· Opportunities to interact with peers with different backgrounds, beliefs, and interests.
The very structure of school – surrounded by books and friends, and supported by caring adults – makes it an amazing place on its own. Let’s start there and build upon it.
Matt Renwick

And the final author question …

What is a message from the heart you would like for every teacher to keep in mind?

Celebration is at the heart of learning, for both students and educators.
This is about more than just acknowledging success as learners. It’s important to recognize people’s efforts to improve. These milestones serve as waypoints on our collective journey to schoolwide excellence.
For teachers, you can do this every day with your students and many do.
What I am asking pg principals and other positional leaders in my book is to get into classrooms regularly and first affirm what teachers are doing well. These visits are called “instructional walks”, a practice first developed by Regie Routman in her book Read, Write, Lead. Leaders can engage in instructional walks by simply noticing and naming the instruction happening in classrooms, handwriting observations, sharing these notes with the teacher, and then engaging in a brief conversation about their practice. Instructional walks are strengths-oriented and the surest pathway to influencing instruction.
Essentially, I am trying to operate as a principal in classrooms how I would want my leader to be if I were still teaching: recognizing my important work while facilitating authentic conversations about how we might improve both individually and collectively as a school.
Matt Renwick

Matt Renwick is an expert on leadership from both a teacher stance and a building principal stance. His study, his reflection, his continued deep focus on teaching and learning and coaching provides the credibility for C.O.A.C.H. as the five strategies that will be the most efficient and effective. Just think, you could get started on those 5 strategies NOW ( as a teacher or administrator) and you would be miles ahead of your current thinking (and actions) by the start of the next school year!

Go!

Be curious!

– – – – – – – – – – – –

Additional Resources:

Matt’s website link

Books link

Newsletters link

SLOW CHAT: Professional Reflection as a Stepping Stone to Decision-Making

4/28/22 Wakelet SLOW CHAT HERE • 10/14/21 Wakelet SLOW CHAT HERE

by Mary Howard

On 4/28/22, #G2Great held our second SLOW CHAT in our six + year history. Our first one was on 10/14/21 as we explored Fueled by Collective Curiosity and Collaborative Conversation. This week we took a closer look at an essential topic that is critical to the success of teachers and students and yet often takes a back seat to conversational priorities: Professional Reflection as a Stepping Stone to Decision-Making. The word ‘Stepping stone’ in our title is intentional since the professional change is not a map carved in stone but directional possibilities.

WHAT IS A SLOW CHAT?

We launched #G2Great weekly twitter chat on January 7, 2015 with 340 chats to date. If you’ve attended our chat, you well know that when the clock strikes 8:30 EST, after welcoming hellos the twitter flood gates are opened. A fast-paced conversational playground ensues where tweets literally flash into view at warp speed as reading and responding to questions occurs simultaneously with reading and responding to comments. Even after six+ years doing this chat, your co-moderators know this is an impossible feat. For that reason every tweet in every chat from start to finish is lovingly housed in your honor here:

A SLOW CHAT slows down the frenzied pace by shifting from six questions over an hour answered in real time to three to five questions across the entire day answered in a leisurely timeframe. Since people come and go, this is less of an in-the-moment live conversation than a conversation that happens over time the course of one or more days.

A CLOSER LOOK AT REFLECTION FROM TWO ANGLES

It’s hard to understand what reflection is, until we acknowledge what reflection IS NOT since there has long been an educational push and pull in most things that are valuable in our teaching. Exploring the downside of reflection ensures the likelihood that we will adjust those missteps and ground our conversations around reflection from a positive stance.

What Reflection IS NOT

In education we have a near obsessive professional penchant for taking powerful concepts we throw into a blender so that we can keep only those parts that will be cheapest, easiest, fastest and of course, least effective to apply. We often take that obsession a step further by ‘programizing’ bits and pieces into a box that dictates the HOW TO in a simplified way. In other words, we take a good idea in theory and morph it into a barely recognizable act of DOING in practice as we ignore the very THINKING that is paramount to the reflection process. Thus, we reduce Reflection into a singular act rather than the multi-layered process intended. The powers that be then pat themselves on the back for adding reflection to a so-called list of accomplishments and delude teachers into embracing the shallow heartless remnants of the original by dictating the HOW WHEN WHERE (and shaky version of the underlying WHY, often force-feeding teachers fill-in-the-blank mandated forms as justification.

We would expect that every professional is familiar with the word “reflection” after all these years, but the question then becomes how it is being defined. I find that reflection has become less of a topic of discussion in schools since it’s not a new concept which often means that the depth of understanding that allows us to embrace it as a practice that lives and breathes in every learning day is often missing. The heartbeat of reflection rises from teaching and learning interactions that occur where real children reside, so let’s turn our attention to explore the flip side of this discussion:

What Reflection IS

Reflection is not the one-dimensional process that I described above, but rather a process of layers of practice that work in concert. When I think of reflection supported by research, I think of a multi-dimensional process that include five big ideas:

Notice that I used the same color, size and font for the words Inspiration and Transformation. This was intentional since I see these as bookends of a process where inspiration is our initial curiosity-inspired desire to know more and Transformation is the ultimate goal, or the action that represents the changes that we have made through our next step choices. The other four words support those moves through Observation (looking at our own instructional moves and the impact that it has on our children), retrospection (looking back in time to take a closer look at our teaching), Introspection (turning that thinking inward so that we can contemplate any adjustments that are needed) and Exploration (contemplating new thinking we can apply in the company of children).

The record keeping that rises from this process is essential as it leaves a paper trail of our thinking so that we can begin to notice professional patterns. I also see this process of capturing our thinking in a concrete way as motivators that can invite us to initiate action research where we record these shifts in practice over time to assess and analyze how it is (or is not) having long term impact on children. For me the power of reflection comes when we find ourselves in the cusp of NOT KNOWING and approach that with a deep desire to understand how we can use the unknown as a springboard to professional adjustments we make in the name of children.

Through reflection we can view our day-to-day choices with a sharper lens as we look inward to analyze the impact those choices have on the recipients of our efforts – our children. Knowing that what we do and say each day reflects our underlying beliefs in action that may or may not reflect our intent, we understand that our best teaching comes from taking a closer look at those choices. We acknowledge that the messy and imperfect reality of teaching and learning invites us to make and modify our choices as they unfold. When we use our belief fueled actions to gaze into a reflective mirror, we are afforded a rich opportunity not only to hold ourselves accountable but to use WHAT IS to envision WHAT COULD BE.

I like the unique slant that John C. Maxwell puts on the reflective process:

“Reflective thinking is like the crock pot of the mind. It encourages your thoughts to simmer until they’re done.”

Allowing our thoughts to simmer gives us time to linger in our thinking after the fact, although I would argue that thinking that rises from this lingering is never “done” but rather reflects a professionally perpetual change process. Day after day and year after year, we use what we learn from our reflections in our current teaching to fine tune and elevate our future efforts. And we do this not only for ourselves but for our children.

We are very lucky to have wonderful educators who have joined our chat discussions over the years, so before I slow this post down to its essence, let’s take a look at the tweets shared in the course of our SLOW CHAT:

TWITTER REFLECTION WISDOM

And so, just as I did in our first SLOW CHAT, I’ll close with a SLOW BLOG by sharing five twitter takeaways from our reflection chat that captivated my professional heart.

SLOW BLOG TWITTER TAKEAWAYS

Reflection is a central feature of our professional practices but it requires that teachers possess a depth of understanding about the research support for this process to implement it effectively.
Reflection is a multi-dimensional process that allows us to use our professional decision-making and students engaged in learning as a pathway to explore new understandings and apply that where it matters most.
Reflection can take place in a wide range of ways but to be effective it must be an ongoing practice rather than a one-shot effort so that it becomes a part of the very fiber of how schools enhance our daily instruction.
Reflection can occur in a wide range of ways but there is power in having other sets of eyes that comes alive when we collaborate with colleagues such as peer observation or video taping a lesson for discussion.
Reflection can inspire us to initiate action research in order to use this process to document the impact on learning over time and analyze that for the sake of making far reaching changes in our teaching for years to come.

LAST THOUGHTS

In a question shared during the chat, we included a powerful quote from Debbie Miller shown in the slide above that is a perfect closing point:

“No one has a patent on the truth. Find yours.”

As Debbie Miller said so eloquently, reflection allows us to position our own teaching as a pathway for internal truth seeking. This seems like a particularly relevant point that is particularly crucial as schools are seeking to mandate instructional compliance and there are growing groups that are forcing their own unsubstantiated truths upon the educational world. Add to that the never ending standardized testing that provides a numerical form of flawed truth that is equally unsubstantiated and we have a professional storm brewing as teacher empowerment is under attack. Teachers are understandably confused by these mixed messages that ask us to be compliant disseminators who blindly follow the lead of others. Teachers who are knowledgeable are rightfully resisting that push and pull between what we are obligated to do and what we know to do. They want desperately to hold tight to a decision-making role that is inherent in highly effective teaching. Reflection affords us a way to turn our teaching inward and gaze from new eyes based on our children and then use this to literally transform the day to day choices we make on their behalf…

And that my friends, is the best form of truth seeking I know.

Answers to Your Biggest Questions About Teaching Elementary Writing

By Fran McVeigh

Anticipation. Planning. Prepping. A waiting period. And then the event begins. Fingers race across the keyboard. “NO, wait,” echoes as I scroll down looking for a specific item. I check each time frame, still scrolling. More self-muttering until the lost is found. Replies, likes, retweets, and laughter fill the hour. A frenetic pace builds up to the closing quote and then just like a story map, the arc of a Twitter chat slows its ebb and flow. Unlike a sporting event with a starting kick off or tip and an ending whistle, time slows but does not end. The chat is over, but then Direct Messages, closing Tweets and emails extend the chat for the next nineteen minutes. Nineteen minutes or 1,140 seconds. Folks continue to chat and celebrate the learning. It’s a never ending chat as the wakelet is published and folks continue to like and retweet the conversational tweets from the chat. Such is the arc of the weekly chat of #g2great. Enthusiastic, energized folks show up to share ideas and learn together for 60 minutes. An uplifting aura surrounds keyboards across the country and sometimes the world as participants add their thoughts and questions in a life-long quest for learning.

No requirements to attend. No grades. No participation points.

Folks voluntarily joining together with a common goal.

A Twitter chat. Virtual interaction among many folks who have previously met in real life, in a variety of configurations/communities, who choose to gather around a common topic for an hour. That’s the weekly focus of #G2Great.

And what a focus on April 21, 2022! There are so many words I could use to describe Melanie Meehan, our guest host for #g2great. She is a regular member of the #TWT group, a district language arts and social studies curriculum person, a coach, a mentor, a mother of four daughters and an active parent who watches many soccer matches! But she’s also a reader and a writer. As a writer, she’s been busy. These three books are a testament to her writing skills! We celebrated Every Child Can Write: Entry Points, Bridges, and Pathways for Striving Writers on October 3, 2019 with this Literacy Lenses post and The Responsive Writing Teacher: A Hands-on Guide to Child-Centered, Equitable Instruction with co-author Kelsey Sorum in this Literacy Lenses post from March 25, 2021.

This quote from The Responsive Writing Teacher is one I refer to frequently:

When you approach writing instruction with a deep understanding of children in your classroom, everything else―assessment, planning, differentiated instruction, mentor and shared texts―begins to fall into place. And you can teach writing with inclusion, equity, and agency at the forefront.
–Melanie Meehan and Kelsey Sorum

We met on April 21, 2022 to celebrate the third book: Answers to Your Biggest Questions About Teaching Elementary Writing, the second in a Corwin series of Five to Thrive professional books. This series has so much promise for teachers and students.

Wakelet collection of all Tweets from the chat – linked here

Why? New teachers and experienced teachers will benefit from the many features that include: “Equity and Access”, “Agency and Identity”, and “Keep in Mind”. Here is the Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: How do I Build and Maintain a Writing Community?
Chapter 2: What Should Students Know and Be Able to Do As Writers?
Chapter 3: What Are Key Instructional Practices to Know and Use?
Chapter 4 How do I Use Assessment For Students’ Benefit?
Chapter 5: How do you shift agency from teacher to students in the writing classroom?

Curious? Interested in a specific chapter?

I’m on my third reread courtesy of my Kindle download. I’m currently checking my notebook entries against Melanie’s meticulously sourced ideas as I plan for some professional development in writing. I’m double checking and creating two column (or 2 color) notes for Melanie’s words vs. my reactions and thoughts. I’ve been studying writing during week long institutes for the last ten years and I think I have finally scratched the surface of teaching writing.

I often begin with the end in mind and I do so again in this post as I use Melanie’s words to describe her thoughts around this resource. We ask our authors these questions before each chat.

What motivated you to write this book? What impact did you hope that it would have in the professional world?

As the mother of four daughters who have gone to college and are now working, I have a front row view of the importance of writing and people’s ability to use and leverage the power of written expression. Schools have many priorities and teachers take on many responsibilities; I want to make sure that powerful writing instruction remains or becomes important. I also want to provide pathways and possibilities for teachers who are looking to be the best possible writing teacher they can be.
Melanie Meehan

What are your BIG takeaways from your book that you hope teachers will embrace in their teaching practices?

Writing this book challenged me to distill all that I know, wonder, and believe as a writing teacher into the most basic elements. Before drafting, I sat and worked to establish my own guiding beliefs about writing instruction. Those beliefs centered me and served as guideposts as I wrote. My hope is that teachers who read this book will also take the time to establish their guiding beliefs, which could be different from mine. Guiding beliefs create a powerful foundation for developing, revising, and fine-tuning all elements of teaching and learning.
Melanie Meehan

What is a message from the heart you would like for every teacher to keep in mind?

Children learn to write in different ways, and there are many processes, pathways, and possibilities. For many teachers, it’s easier to identify as a reader than it is to identify as a writer, but being a writer and studying my own processes, struggles, and celebrations has led to my greatest understandings and insights about how to teach children to write.
Melanie Meehan

Pathways and possibilities are the two words that challenged me as I read and reread Melanie’s thoughts in response to our author questions. Distilling beliefs and knowledge. Identifying as a reader or as a writer. Those themes took me back to the chat archives!

These three quotes from Melanie’s book were the pre-chat teaser, the opening and the closing. Pause for a minute and think about how these apply to your role. Which one would you like to discuss?

Goals, beliefs, and mindsets. What a treasure trove of ideas! And then just a sampling of Melanie’s tweets below illustrates the chat story line of non-negotiables, choice, writing environment, writing examples, writing identities and timelines, “I’m done”, handwriting and conventions, kidwatching, seminars, resources, student self-assessments and mentor texts.

In Conclusion

Writing is complex. Writing is a combination of physical skills (actual writing or keyboarding) and mental skills that include thinking/generating ideas, sorting out the best and most important ideas for inclusion, how to best present ideas and examples and the entire writing process.

Writing that conveys the precise meaning of the author is complex. Writing style is also individual. Every writer begins, pauses, and stops at different places.

Writing instruction is complex when it is responsive to student needs and dispositions. Teachers, families, and communities need to explore what they value in writing instruction and expand their support roles just as they do in reading because writers also deserve quality support. A knowledgeable guide can help you find access points that will benefit your writers and encourage their growth. Answers to Your Biggest Questions About Teaching Elementary Writing can be that guide for new teachers, experienced teachers and administrators leading literacy work focused on writing.

Additional Resources:

Chapter 1 Preview Link

Corwin Downloadable Resources Link

Melanie Meehan – author page link

Answers to Your Biggest Questions About Teaching Elementary Reading

by Mary Howard

You can access our Wakelet chat artifact here

On 4/14/22, we had the great pleasure to welcome an old friend to our #G2Great guest host seat. Christina Nosek first joined our chat with co-author Kari Yates on 6/7/18 for their book, To Know and Nurture a Reader: Conferring with Confidence and Joy (2018, Stenhouse). This week Christina returned to help us explore her amazing new book, Answers to Your Biggest Questions About Teaching Elementary Reading (2022, Corwin)

Christina opens her book with a loving hat tip to her first-year mentor, veteran teacher Midge. In celebration of the “Midge inspired mentors” that every teacher so richly deserves, we shared Christina’s words below during our chat that is a foundational centerpiece of professional dedication.

In one sentence, Christina offers three essential reminders:

1) Find a mentor who will set you on a success trajectory (and stay on course)

2) Acknowledge the never-ending role of your professional quest for learning

3) Keep children at the ver center of your efforts from the first day to the last

These three beliefs reflect the heartbeat of Teaching Elementary Reading and are intricately interwoven across the pages of the book. Through her words, we are consistently asked to verbalize, internalize and individualize our beliefs often and with a critical lens. It’s worth adding that while our first mentors launch a path to professional excellence, our need for mentor figures continues across our careers. I have been blessed to have countless mentors across fifty years and counting who inform and support my thinking even now. Christina models deep respect for the mentorships that will sustain us even in the most of challenging of times if we are willing to take the time to find and access the inspiration and information they so generously offer us and put it into glorious action.

In each of our #G2Great guest chats, we ask our authors to respond to three questions that offer insight into their book WHY. Since our first question directly reflects the mentors who support us, let’s begin here:

What motivated you to write this book? What impact did you hope that it would have in the professional world?

When I was a first year teacher, I was mentored by a dedicated and loving grade level partner named Midge, who I discuss in the introduction of the book. I was so fortunate to have a mentor to turn to whenever I had a question or concern around the teaching of reading. Many teachers do not have a Midge to mentor them as they enter the profession. I hope teachers can turn to this book in the way that I turned to Midge many years ago.

One of the wonderful things about the entire Corwin Five to Thrive Series is that they are all positioned around essential “guiding questions.” These questions are unique to each book in the series and offer a reader friendly, belief driven experience. Christina poses and responds to six essential questions that include five key areas:

1) community (pages 8-35)

2) organization and planning (pages 36-67)

3) instructional principles (pages 68-101)

4) assessment (pages 102-125)

5) student agency (pages 126-145)

NOTE: I linked sneak peek chapter descriptions on Christina’s wonderful blog

These five chapters are tied together with next step words of wisdom in chapter 6 (pages 146-148). To add to this question-based framework, each of the five umbrella questions have 7-12 subquestions as well as additional questions that accompany wise instructional suggestions and advice across the book. With professional grace, Christina gifts us with our own mentor between two covers.

When we are honored to have an author lead our #g2Great chat twitter style discussion, we ask them to craft their own questions. We do this because it gives us a glimpse into what each author believes are the most relevant underlying book ideas from their perspective and how we can translate the passions that fueled their writing into a chat format so that those same passions will rise to the surface in the form of a twitter discussion. Because we value their responses to their own questions, let’s pause for moment and look at our six questions with Christina’s thoughts about each one in the course of the chat.

TWITTER QUESTIONS/RESPONSES

Q1 Drawing from the “Five to THRIVE” series theme, let’s establish our #G2great baseline. What do you value most in reading instruction that is designed to help children THRIVE? What practices are non-negotiable?

Q2 What are specific ways that teachers can grow and nurture the reading communities in their classrooms?

Q3 Describe one high-impact instructional method or routine that both engages students and stretches them as readers. How do you know the method/routine works for your students?

Q4 What does it mean to use reading assessment in the service of students? What does this look like in the classroom?

Q5 What advice would you give to a new teacher who is learning about the teaching of reading or to a veteran who wants to make their reading instruction more authentic?

Q6 One goal of our #G2Great chats is that you will take action after the chat. What have you seen or heard tonight that you a) want to learn more about? b) want to implement? Or c) want to revise to meet the needs of your students?

Christina’s responses clearly illuminate what matters deeply to her, both in her book as well as over twenty years in her own classroom. Let’s extend this by sharing her response to our second question on her book takeaway hopes:

What are your BIG takeaways from your book that you hope teachers will embrace in their teaching practices?

My hope for teachers is that they embrace following the lead of their readers in the classroom. I want teachers to feel inspired to teach the readers in front of them rather than follow a canned curriculum page by page. Afterall, we are teachers of children, not of curriculum.

In Teaching Elementary Reading, Christina heightens our responsibility to envision a broader perspective that is sorely needed in our schools right now while also cautioning against the one-size-fits-all approaches and practices that have long maintained a stranglehold in our schools. She asks us to expend our time and energy in the most effective, productive, and yes, joyful ways by making a commitment to let go of those things that set up roadblocks to what matters most. This process of “letting go” reminds us of the harmful impact on our learning day when a clock rigidly dictates every choice we make. Christina reminds us that we always have a choice about how we spend the important moments of our day and that those choices clearly reflect that we see ourselves as “teachers of children, not curriculum.”

One of the choices Christina enthusiastically asks us to embrace is reflected in this second quote above we shared during our #G2great chat. This is not only a choice that she embraces in this book, but one that she has embraced in her own classroom since I have known her. Volume is a topic that Christina holds dear and she approaches this with deep conviction for three areas of reading she refers to in her book: reading to learn, reading to be entertained, and reading to grow.

Before I close this post, let’s return to Christina’s third question:

What is a message from the heart you would like for every teacher to keep in mind?

It’s ok to feel that you do not have all the answers right now. Learning and growing as a teacher is a continual journey. Never stop seeking out the ways to best support your students. I am a very different teacher than I was even five years ago. I hope to teach differently five years from now. Serving students is all about learning and growing.

The most important thing you need to know right now is that you are on a continual learning journey to be the kind of reading teacher who values your own learning because you know your students’ learning depends on it.” (p 6)

MY CLOSING THOUGHTS

Early in the book, Christina cuts to the chase and focuses her attention on what matters most in our teaching as she brings Teaching Elementary Reading to life across each page filled with essential advice.

“Good teaching always involves following the lead of your students above all.” Christina Nosek, page 17

Every suggestion, every idea, every description and every question Christina posed and responded to so eloquently brings us back again and again to the reason for all we do – our students and what is in their best interest. Teaching Elementary Reading is a book of questions; but even more than that it is about crafting questions that rise out of curiosity and commitment to children and using them as a springboard for the view that teaching is a process of reflective introspection that helps us to make the best possible choices on their behalf.

As I began writing this post and revisiting the incredible questions Christina crafted to guide her readers on their own journey, it occurred to me that generating questions can initiate a powerful process of exploratory discovery. Just as I am certain that Christina fine-tuned her thinking in the course of breathing life into each question, we too could do the same. Just imagine if teachers created a growing list of BURNING questions, using those questions as the gentle nudge that can lead to a “continual learning journey to be the kind of reading teacher who values your own learning because you know your students’ learning depends on it” Self-discovery begins with the questions that drive us to know more, to understand more, to be more and to apply those things in our teaching. And when those questions inspire us to reflect on our innermost beliefs and commitment to kids, it can awaken the best kind of teaching and learning that occurs in the company of and in the name of kids.

I am very privileged to call Christina Nosek a dear friend, making this opportunity to craft our #g2Great post this week an added honor.

Thank you, Christina!

Shake Up Shared Reading: Expanding on Read Alouds to Encourage Independence.

By Brent Gilson

A record of the chat can be found on wakelet

This week the #G2Great team welcomed Maria Walther to discuss her new book Shake Up Shared Reading: Expanding on Read Alouds to Encourage Student Independence (2022, Corwin). It was a fast and furious chat of passionate educators sharing ideas and of course books.

As an early teacher, I discovered the power of shared reading. Classes were captivated by the stories of a young pig or a group of kids who discovered their teacher was an alien. As a Canadian in elementary school, we had Robert Munsch books at the ready and kids on the edge of their seats. In one particular shared reading experience, the power of shared reading was on full display as we read I’M HERE by Peter Reynolds.

That year in our class we had a student that had some pretty significant behavioral challenges. Kids had a hard time understanding the tantrums and the often disruptive behaviors. As they gathered to listen students began to make connections from that story to their own interactions with this student. That shared moment with text lead students to develop a newfound empathy for their classmate. This is just one of many moments in those early days of teaching that really illustrated to me the power of shared reading.

As the chat began rolling the community spent some time reflecting on the topic

For my own practice, I think about the opportunities I have to utilize shared reading experiences with my Junior and Senior High students. The power that comes from sharing a poem, modeling the reading, the thinking in community is always a rewarding experience. Even the opportunities to think through a novel and the author’s craft. These teaching moments can’t be replicated with worksheets.

As the chat continued we discussed the various ways shared reading experiences show up in our classrooms.

The environment that we try to establish is a key piece to the success of Shared Reading in the classroom. I think about the sense of wonder that was established as I read novels to my third graders or the fun that would fill the room as junior high students would follow along as I read The Adventures of Huggie and Stick or the emotions that spilled over while we practice Notice and Note reading That Squeak. All of this was made possible by the environment that we built as a community.

The opportunity to use Shared Reading time to assist in other teaching moments makes it all the more important. Modeling thinking, working on strategies, building relationships, and forming a love of reading are all byproducts of time spent in shared reading experiences.

Of course, what would shared reading be without the amazing books we can access and bring into the classroom? I loved the time spent at the start of every year reading The Graveyard book with my 6th-grade classes. I loved the moments we spent on the edge of our set reading Refugee by Alan Gratz. So often the favorite memories shared by students are those moments they recall as their teacher leaves them at the cliffhanger end of a chapter… to be continued. Finding the right book can be a challenge luckily Fran Mcveigh created a little Padlet full of suggestions for your classroom.

The #G2Great team is so grateful to Maria Walther for her time and this wonderful book and chat. I am personally grateful for the reminders that even though I teach the big kids that we can all take time to enjoy the joys of shared reading.

AUTHOR REFLECTIONS

We always appreciate the insight that only authors can give us about their book. Below are Maria’s reflections on three questions that offer us an insider’s view.

1) What motivated you to write this book? What impact did you hope that it would have in the professional world?

I wrote this book while adjusting to no longer having my own classroom (after 34 years) and to living during a pandemic. I knew that I wanted to continue to support and partner with teachers in any way that I could. I’ve received so many kind tweets, notes, and e-mails about the positive impact Ramped-Up Read Aloud has had on children because it has helped teachers, librarians, and families engage in joyful interactive read-aloud experiences. I wanted to take the ideas in that resource a step further.
There is never enough time in the teaching day, but during the past two years instructional time has become even more compressed. My motivation in writing this book was to help teachers to see the endless teaching possibilities that can be found right inside their students’ favorite books. Then, spotlight those skills and strategies in short bursts of shared reading. If the ideas in Shake Up Shared Reading get one child hooked on books or make one teacher’s life even a teeny bit easier, then I’ve met my goal!

2) What are your BIG takeaways from your book that you hope teachers will embrace in their teaching practices?

I’m hopeful that teachers who read Shake Up Shared Reading will embrace short bursts of shared reading. A short burst of shared reading happens when teachers and students collaboratively reread vibrant picture books with a laser-focus on either processing or comprehending text. Each short burst follows the gradual release of responsibility model with a “my turn, our turn, your turn” structure. After the short bursts, learners are invited to take a writer’s stance while innovating on the text.

3) What is a message from the heart you would like for every teacher to keep in mind?

There is no one who knows your students better than you do. Trust your professional expertise. Prioritize meaningful and joyful book experiences like read aloud and shared reading because they strengthen your learning community and support students’ reading development. Watch learners’ eyes light up when they predict where a story is heading and listen to their laughter as they grasp a humorous play on words. Schedule time every day to share a text and share the learning.

Writing Clubs: Fostering Choice, Collaboration and Community in the Writing Classroom

by Fran McVeigh

On Thursday, March 31, 2022, the #G2Great chat featured Lisa Eickholdt and Patricia Vitale-Reilly discussing their book Writing Clubs: Fostering Choice, Collaboration and Community in the Writing Classroom. Neither author is new to #G2Great. Lisa was a guest host at #g2Great for The Power of Student Writing as Mentor Text on September 3 and 10, 2015 and Patty was a guest host on June 8, 2017 for Engaging Every Learner and October 19, 2017 for Supporting Struggling Learners. This new text about Writing Clubs has a magical and practical feel after the disjointedness of education in the pandemic years.

The subtitle says: Fostering Choice, Collaboration and Community. As I reflected on that phrase and thumbed back through the text after our chat, I chuckled to myself. Of course the three Cs were in alphabetical order. However, the most logical place to begin is community and then work backwards through the remaining Cs. Let’s get started.

Why Community?

The Writing Clubs that Lisa and Patty describe in this book are based on a writing workshop classroom. That means that certain conditions already exist and one of the most important is community. The trust. The respect. The safe environment. All writers value each other and their experiences. That power of a community naturally and planfully evolves into a collaborative setting when teachers capitalize on the time that is available for students to write.

Ideas for building community from Lisa and Patty:

Why Collaborate?

Research on the power of talk appears across the content areas. The increase in engagement, written production, increased depth of thoughts . . . all are possible with collaboration. The teacher has some decisions to make. Should students work as partners? Triads? Partners squared with a second partner group? Space determines some limitations and yet technology can transcend physical space when students are ready to read, review and offer feedback on each other’s work.

Why Choice?

Choice.

Do students really have choice?

What’s the reality?

Do students “get to choose” what they write about in their student writing notebooks? What they write on a daily basis? When they write? The formats they use? What do we know about what students WANT to write if we would only let them?

Consider this . . .

Conduct a status check for students. Then also conduct a status check for teachers. Move into a deep look at writing identity. If the writers have a timeline of their writing identity, have them code the times when they had choice in their writing. They may code choice of topic separately from choice in format. What information are you looking for? What information will guide your future instruction?

Why does choice matter? Carolyn succintly says it here.

When teachers responded to a question about choice, these kindergartners had 95% choice. Some high school students had little to no choice in writing. Similarly, college students had few choices.

So are students writing because they are compliant students? Do they view themselves as writers? Are they writing enough to improve? Where do they go for feedback? Do they have real audiences? Real purposes to write?

And then Part 2 of the book . . . Chapters 3 – 8 . . . the good stuff! Complement Clubs and Stand-Alone Clubs

“I barely have time to teach all the requirements. Where will this fit?”
Teacher question

Maybe you will find logical places in your calendar. Those few days before a longer break. A more casual setting during state tests. Those final days of a semester. Where writing clubs will fit for you and your students may need more exploration, but make a plan. Don’t let it fall off your radar.

The good news is that Lisa and Patty provide the rationale for complement clubs in process, craft, and digital clubs. Stand-alone clubs are genre, author, and conventions clubs. And (drumroll . . .) these clubs can be face to face, hybrid or digital learning. The frameworks have considerations for each type of learning environment.

So many resources. So many opportunities. So much joy in writing.

Lisa and Patty provide examples such as the chart below on collaborations or possible authors, or a month long outline of a club. These examples make this book a necessity for any teacher looking to ramp up their writing instruction and student engagement in writing! With Lisa and Patty’s expertise as your guide, you can consider the clubs that would benefit your students and begin immediately!

You’ve read a lot about the chat and the book from my perspective as a writer and reader helping folks navigate the writing terrain that I see and hear in districts. Let’s hear from the authors about their intentions and expectations for this book!

What motivated you to write this book? What impact did you hope that it would have in the professional world?

Patty began using writing clubs in her classroom years ago and saw the tremendous difference it made with her students. She loved how these clubs fostered choice, collaboration, and community. When she shared this idea in sessions she and Lisa were leading, the participants wanted to know how they could implement writing clubs. After seeing the teacher’s excitement, the idea for the book was born.
We have seen the impact writing clubs can have on students’ writing. Providing students with time to collaborate with their peers on self-selected writing projects and studies, can reignite the workshop classroom. We hope teachers will take the idea of writing clubs and run with it. We give examples of six types of clubs teachers might implement, but we’d love to see what new clubs teachers come up with on their own.

What are your BIG takeaways from your book that you hope teachers will embrace in their teaching practices?

The title of the book really says it all. In particular, the words after the colon: Choice, Collaboration, and Community. We believe these three C’s are the key to excellent writing instruction. Our book puts forth methods and ways to promote each of these concepts. Our hope is that teachers will incorporate these ideas into their instructional practice as we believe they make a world of difference in kids’ writing.

What is a message from the heart you would like for every teacher to keep in mind?

As writers, we have witnessed firsthand the power of collaboration and feedback. Lisa belongs to a critique group that meets once a month to discuss each member’s current picture book. Patty has her own writing posse who she meets with to flesh out writing and professional development ideas. We have learned that writing well is a lifelong pursuit and receiving peer feedback along the way is invaluable. In addition, it’s fun! Our meetings often include food, wine, and books (some of our favorite things). Teachers are expert at taking something adult authors do, and finding a way to put these ideas into practice with students. Writing clubs are a great way to bring the idea of critique groups into our writing work (keep the wine for the adults though :)).

Concluding Thoughts

This quote …

plus a bit of “Joy Writing” or “Greenbelt Writing” (Hat Tip to Ralph Fletcher) needs to inform our educational practices. How, when and where we incorporate low-stakes writing, more choice, collaboration and increased community is literally up to us. This book, Writing Clubs, gives us the tools and the best advice from two author-practitioners who have worked successfully with writing clubs!

___________________________________

Additional Resources:

Writing Clubs Study Guide Link

Lisa Eickholdt Link

Patty Vitale-Reilly Link

Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation

You can access our Wakelet chat artifact here

by Mary Howard

On 3/24/22, #G2Great chat welcomed first time guests, Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan. Professional books are published rapidly, even in a global pandemic, but the moment we discovered their remarkable book, we knew that Shane and Jamila had crafted a very special gift between two covers in the pages of Street Data: A Next Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation (Corwin, 2021). We quickly learned why Street Data was receiving so many accolades and we wanted to use our twitter chat platform as one more path to get their stunning book into the hands of educators and decision-makers.

Before I turn my attention to the incredible thinking that Shane and Jamila shared on our #G2Great chat, I’d like to begin by drawing from Street Data:

ILLUMINATING THE AUTHORS’ STREET DATA “WHY”

When I’m afforded the blessing of writing about a book spotlighted on our #G2Great chat, I always begin with a deep dive into reading, watching, and listening to whatever I can find that will offer me insight about the book ideas. I happened on a Corwin webinar that was done when the book was published in 2021 so I was delighted to find that it can still be viewed by registering after the fact. In this wonderful session, Shane and Jamila each shared their Street Data “WHY” and this was just what I needed to open this post:

Jamila:

“What would the world look like if my children, if black children, if all children were free? It’s the question I’m asking. It’s the dream I’m chasing.”

Shane:

“This book is about radical dreaming and it’s about cracking open spaces of possibility first and foremost in our minds and our sense of imagination.”

Their heartfelt words further elevated the impact I felt when I first read Street Data. I can’t imagine a better extension to their wise words than the response we received from Shane and Jamila to our first of three questions.

What motivated you to write this book? What impact did you hope that it would have in the professional world?

The concept of street data was a seed planted in The Listening Leader (Jossey-Bass, 2017), Shane’s first book and our first collaboration, that people were really attracted to. We started playing with it and then Shane said, “We are learning a lot… we need to write about this.” I (Jamila) was out in the field with leaders, learning a ton about the challenges they were experiencing in leading for equity. We both have our own children who are working their way through this system, often with great struggle, and that is where it all emerged.

Impact: Wanted to make the connection between theory and day to day pedagogy. Wanted to bridge the gap between what is traditionally framed as “equity work” and the transformation of teaching and learning.

Impact: Create a pathway toward an education system focused on agency of text test scores.

STREET DATA DEFINED IN THE AUTHORS’ WORDS

In the Prologue, Data in a Time of Pandemic, Shane brings clarity to the meaning of Street Data:

Street data is the qualitative and experiential data that emerges at eye level and on lower frequencies when we train our brains to discern it. Street data is asset based, building on the tenets of culturally responsive education by helping educators look for what’s right in our students, schools, and communities instead of seeking out what’s wrong….

WHY STREET DATA IS DESPERATELY NEEDED NOW

There are some books that bring chills when reading and Street Data definitely did that for me. From the first word to the last, I was struck by how much this book is needed and should be read by every educator and school leader:

In one of our chat questions, we shared this wonderful book quote from Shane

I’m quite certain that there isn’t one person reading those words who does not recognize that Shane’s first sentence is tragically alive and well in education: “Current testing practices dehumanize young people and teachers while leading us further and further from educational equity.”

Now let’s pause for a moment and look at the response Shane and Jamila shared with us on our second question. I don’t know many authors who can speak volumes in so few words but they certainly demonstrate that here:

What are your BIG takeaways from your book that you hope teachers will embrace in their teaching practices?

Data can be humanizing. Data can be liberatory. Data can be healing.

Equity work is first and foremost pedagogical work

I’d like to follow those three essential beliefs using the slide that we shared just before our chat with Shane and Jamila began:

It occurs to me that responding to the profound question that Shane and Jamila posed at the top of that slide should be at the center of our discussions in every school across the entire year. In page after page of Street Data, Shane and Jamila eloquently respond to their question, offering a call to action with a flexible template to support schools in bringing their words to life where it matters most – in the company of children.

I can’t stop thinking about their first belief: “Data can be humanizing” since the way education has approached data across the years is the epitome of a dehumanizing view that has elevated the long existing educational inequities that blind us to who our children are both as learners and amazing humans full of potential. I often wonder how many future leaders we have lost because of these systems perpetuated year after year. We expend precious minutes collecting data and then use those numerical values to label children – sorting them into the haves and have nots without any perception of the child beneath the data. Then we further exacerbate the issue by enthusiastically reducing children to mere blips on a spreadsheet radar screen. Through a testing process entrenched in the very culture of our educational systems, we are asked to willfully ignore the brilliance that exists within each child just waiting for us to notice, celebrate and respond to if we can look beyond the numbers to see the child in front of us.

In Street Data, Shane and Jamila eloquently help us to understand the heart of equity with detailed suggestions to embrace the “street data” that surrounds us and humanizes the assessment process in ways that will lift our instructional choices. But to embrace “street data” we must also be willing to embrace student agency so that we can draw from experiences that keep students at the center of the learning process as teachers take a step back to admire and celebrate brilliance in action. By putting children in the learning driver’s seat and offering choice with space and time to use it, we are afforded on-the-spot access to rich assessment grounded in and inseparably linked to learning in action.

The authors make this point beautifully in Street Data:

“We have retained a vision of what is possible when we build classrooms and schools and systems around students’ brilliance, cultural wealth, and intellectual potential rather than self-serving savior narratives that have us “fixing” and “filling” academic gaps.”

TWITTER WISDOM FROM SHANE AND JAMILA

I’d like to turn our attention back to our #G2Great twitter chat because the words of Shane and Jamila complement and extend Street Data beautifully:

Before I share closing words, I’d like to turn to a very important response from Shane and Jamila based on our third question:

What is a message from the heart you would like for every teacher to keep in mind?

Be brave and start somewhere. Use the Equity Transformation Cycle in the book to listen deeply with a mindset of radical inclusion; uncover root causes of inquiry with a mindset of curiosity; reimagine current reality with a mindset of creativity; and move forward with a mindset of courage.

Grow your awareness of your ways of knowing and being by choosing the margins.

My Closing Thoughts

I am so grateful for the opportunity to write this post to celebrate the important ideas that I believe will become a transformational stepping stone for educators and schools who are wise enough to read and apply the vast wisdom in Street Data. When I was searching for insight for this post, I happened on a YouTube Video that was posted when Street Data was first published. In Author Reflections, Shane and Jamila each pose a question that asks us to make Street Data a reality:

“What would it look like for the student experience to be designed for them and even by them. My hope and intention is for every person who’s thinking about what it looks like for their child to have school designed with them in mind.” Jamila

“The book is just the seed but my hope is that together we can cultivate this thriving garden of student voice.” Shane

It seems appropriate to close with words of wisdom Shane and Jamila shared on our chat. We are so grateful to you both for inspiring us all!

LINKS

Jamila Dugan’s Website

Shane Safir’s Website

Shane Safir on Twitter @Shane Safir

Jamila Dugan on Twitter @JamilaDugan

Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation (Corwin, 2022) (purchase Street Data)

Author Reflections with Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan (YouTube Video)

Corwin Video Session with Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan (Still available for viewing)

Street Data: A Conversation with Jamila Dugan and Shane Safir (podcast)

Street Data: A Pathway Toward Equitable, Anti-Racist Schools (podcast)

Beware of Equity Traps and Tropes by Jamila Dugan

Authors Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan: 5 Things You Need to Know To Be A Highly Effective Educator or Teacher: An Interview With Penny Bauder

Teaching As A Radical Act

Read Islah’s Interview HERE • See Our Wakelet Chat Artifact HERE

Post written by Islah Tauheed

“One of the biggest lessons I learned is that we don’t empower children; we simply provide the tools for them to embody their inherent power.” ~ Arlène Casimir

I think at this point of the pandemic, we can all agree that the education system in America is deeply flawed. As teachers we gained insight and a first hand view of those problems up close and personal each day. We teach in buildings that are sterile and cold. We are told to implement a curriculum that is not reflective of the children in front of us. We work under leadership that silences many facets of our identity. When we choose to shift our thinking about teaching as a radical act, we make a decision to lead change in these problems. It was such a pleasure to join the Twitter chat this past week and join other educators looking to make big changes.

Working to achieve this goal requires a deeper understanding of yourself. We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are. Taking on tasks such as dismantling a racist school system or implementing culturally relevant learning practices can seem vague and ambiguous to a team member who is uncertain, yet the only way to deal with adaptive challenges is to grow. Restructuring a school system requires us to take on new mindsets or beliefs to find solutions. Often these mindset shifts can happen as a result of what we learn from children. There was so much advice given out this past year from “experts” on teaching during a pandemic. However, most of the chat members shared that their biggest lessons came from students within their own classrooms.

The responsibility of healing a system is a collective responsibility. Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared human endeavor. In the case of radical education, the human endeavor that teachers want is to further society through education. Joining social media platforms like Twitter helped add members to my community of practice. I enjoyed reading about other people you follow and what you learned from them.

Transformational leadership seeks to advance universal freedom from oppression, exclusion, and violence, and freedom to participate in economic, political, cultural, religious and educational activities equally. (Perkins & Richards, 2007) Teaching is the beginning of our journey towards achieving this noble goal. I am so proud to stand with all the teachers lifting the voices of students and putting them first every day. Though seemingly ideal, we remain future minded and aware that it is only together, we are strong enough to enact change. Holding on to this belief in the face of resistance is the most radical act.

A Few Words of Appreciation From Mary Howard

Midway through 2021 in the middle of a pandemic that showed no signs of slowing down, our #g2great co-moderators recognized that there was a need to celebrate educators who were doing truly remarkable things. We called this chat Educator Spotlight and had our first guest, Nawal Qarooni Casiano on 8/26/21 . We knew early on that Islah Tauheed needed to be celebrated for her dedication to children as a second grade teacher and now through her extended role as an Assistant Principal supporting her teachers in honor of children.

About two years ago, Towanda Harris told me about Islah Tauheed and shared some posts she had written as well as her My Two Cents Worth With Towanda Harris podcast she had done with Islah. I wrote about that podcast HERE. Before I knew it, I was looking for everything I could find with Islah’s name on it (see links at the bottom of the page). I was completely professionally smitten by the incredible things that Islah was doing and eager to learn even more. That appreciation has only grown since I have had the chance to visit with Izzie via Zoom in preparation for our chat.

We are so grateful that Izzie honored the #G2Great community who hunger for inspiration and information and she brought all of that and so much more. This beautiful post that Izzie wrote is one more reminder why she is much needed in education and why we feel privileged to honor her on our Educator Spotlight

Please read on with some resources below to get to know Islah Tauheed

ISLAH WORDS OF WISDOM ON #G2Great Twitter Chat

Q1 Tonight we are reflecting on the title of our chat, “Teaching As A Radical Act,” based on an interview with our guest, Izzie Tauheed. What does that title mean to you?

Q2 Tauheed said. “I teach for the children in front of me, so they feel safe and loved and affirmed in this classroom space.” How does student ownership show up in your classroom spaces?

Q3 When asked about my students, I described them as “They are brilliant, thoughtful, inspiring, and hopeful”. What has a student taught you this year?

Q4 I am influenced greatly by community we have here on Twitter and the resources that are shared. What’s one thing you’ve read that has made you a better educator?

Q5 Using strong literacy practices, we can guide our students to become engaged agents of change. My passion is to guide students in changing their communities through environmental justice. What are some areas of change you and your students are seeking to challenge?

Literacy is Liberation: Working Toward Justice Through Culturally Relevant Teaching

By Brent Gilson

For the archive of this chat please check out the Wakelet here

This week we had the pleasure of having Dr. Kim Parker join us to discuss her new incredible book Literacy is Liberation. The title caught me immediately when Dr. Parker announced this book would be coming out and made me think of other leaders in the field of literacy like Dr. Gholdy Muhammad and her important work.

At a conference a few years ago Kylene Beers and Robert Probst were speaking about literacy and asked us what we thought literacy was. Of course, we got the standard answers shouted from around the hall: Reading, Writing, Talking, Representing… Kylene then put forward the comment Literacy is Power and Privilege. This got the wheel turning, as I have been studying and trying to learn more about practices that we use in the classroom this idea of Literacy as power comes up often. As I read the title of Dr. Parker’s book I thought it was a perfect way to describe what Literacy really is and the power it has.

As the chat kicked off we had the opportunity to reflect on the title of the book and our understanding of what Literacy is Liberation might entail.

As we discussed our early thoughts the common link between all those in the chat was that literacy needs to be intentional for everyone in our classroom. That we need to be doing what is best to aid ALL students in being successful. This means we need to be responsive. Shift with the interests and abilities of our students. Plan with a strength-based mindset and then work to help all students realize their potential by addressing those individual needs.

The conversation moved towards our curriculum and the intentional decisions we as educators need to make to ensure that the literacy practices in our classrooms are indeed liberatory. What is the story our curriculum tells? Who does it provide opportunities to see themselves in? Who does it leave out? How can we as educators push our curriculums (often a political document) towards a more equitable and liberating experience? In my own classroom, I have found simple but purposeful steps to make my content more inclusive while still operating within the curriculum. Moving away from texts that are 30, 40, and 50 years old to texts that are more relevant today is often seen as some revolutionary act with those who lead these discussions (Dr. Parker is also a founding member of #Disrupttexts) being targetted by those who would prefer a curriculum that erases students in the name of upholding white supremacy. The idea of auditing our curriculum and the resources that support it is not something that should be seen as revolutionary it should be the norm. As the world has changed significantly since 1960 so should our resources and curriculum in a purposeful effort to provide liberation through our literacy work. These shifts might not always be easy but if we center our decision-making on our students’ needs, interests, desires, and experiences it provides us with opportunities to center around Culturally Relevant Pedagogy which is good practice regardless of student demographics.

As our chat wrapped up we spent some time reflecting on the topic of harm. Specifically how the choices we make in our classroom can harm our students. Two lessons I have learned in my visits over the years with Dr. Parker have really shaped a lot of my interactions towards intentionally avoiding potential instances of curriculum violence. The term itself was new to me and this article was one that Dr. Parker put in my path. I think about the unintended results of a Black student having to read a book like To Kill a Mockingbird which many have recalled being uncomfortable with because of the language used including the N-word. How can a Black student feel that sense of liberation that literacy work can bring if their white peer is given permission to read that word aloud in class? While not intentionally causing harm the impact is there and impact is always greater than intent. Another piece of wisdom Dr. Parker has shared with me is to not assume “best intentions” or extend the benefit of the doubt when people do make choices that oppress students or groups of people. We all make mistakes and calling attention to those mistakes and learning from them are important steps if we as educators intend to be co-conspirators in the quest to have liberatory classrooms for all students.

As I work through reading Literacy is Liberation I love the inclusion of Takeaways and To-Do’s that Dr, Parker includes in each chapter. She provides us with not only the theory but tangible practices that we can bring into our classrooms in the service of all students.

It is a bit of a scary time as we have political forces intentionally trying to limit discussion and erase whole parts of history around the world. Literacy is Liberation is another resource that can provide teachers with the support they need to create more equitable, culturally relevant, justice-focused classrooms where all students are seen, heard, respected, and uplifted as they develop into their full genius and brilliance.

Additional Resources

Mentor Texts That Multitask: A Less-is-More Approach to Integrated Literacy Instruction

Thursday nights are just awesome. The #G2Great chats are inspiring, intellectually fulfilling and soul satisfying. Our chat with Pam Koutrakos on March 3rd hit some new personal highs for me. As the chat ended, I was collecting tweets for this blog post. I had 17 “must haves” and then after three hours of sleep, I was wide awake adding more tweets to my document with a completely redrafted focus. And then the third version settled me as I deleted, rearranged, and redrafted headers and content. What is the essence of this text, Mentor Texts That Multitask? Let’s start with a definition.

What is a Mentor Text that Multitasks?

Here is Pam’s definition.

How will we chose mentor texts?

Pam has laid the groundwork for three reflective inquiries that can guide text choices: identity, community and curriculum. Let’s use a graphic from her text to delve a bit deeper.

So why this book? Why now?

Pam’s answer to the following question is one of the reasons that I love this resource.

What is a message from the heart you would like for every teacher to keep in mind?

Teaching is complex, challenging, and incredibly important. I appreciate teachers and celebrate all that is already being done in classrooms. In writing this book, I have not tried to create a new program or completely new approach to teaching ELA. Instead, I hope readers walk away with a reminder that hard work doesn’t have to be draining or depleting. Teachers can find energy and joy in tweaking or reworking some of the “great stuff” already in place. This book represents a sustainable way of moving forward. It shares an adaptable framework teachers can customize time and time again. There is no “right” or “wrong” way to do this work and there is a lot of excitement found in tinkering with different ideas and seeing how students shift and shape what we initially imagined.

So without further “ado” let’s dig into Identity, Community, and Curriculum for just a few insights from the chat (and some illustrations from the text). We will keep this question in mind as we read, reflect, and begin our own work: “How can we ‘tweak or rework’ the great mentor texts that we already have?”

Identity

Identity deals with the “WHO” in the classroom? Whose voices? Whose experiences? How will we know? Placing this as the “first filter’ stresses the importance of “student-centered” classrooms. One very easy way to find out is included in this first tweet: an audit of the classroom library.

A second part of this identity work includes voices. At present that also means we need to consider translanguaging that moves beyond students “seeing” themselves in the books to students “hearing” themselves in the mentor texts. Maria Walther adds more information about translanguaging below.

The blog post from our chat for En Comunidad is here.

Community

Community and Identity have some overlapping areas. I think honoring and encouraging student talk is a key to increasing engagement. Students have to do the work of learning. This means teachers and school staff need to be fluent in the languages in daily use in their community. Pam shares additional ideas about linguistic repertoires in the tweets below.

Curriculum

As the final area to be considered, curricula includes whatever occurs during the school day.

Additional Notes on Inquiry

Inquiry is critical in student-centered learning. It keeps the “curiosity” burning which is a key component of student-centered learning as Pam shares below in her definition, her list of misunderstandings, and her two examples.

Let’s see what Pam has to say about her motivations for this book.

What motivated you to write this book? What impact did you hope that it would have in the professional world?

When I worked as a consultant, I was able to visit so many wonderfully unique school communities. However, I noticed that there were two challenges teachers across districts shared most often: insufficient time and lack of quality resources. The ever-evolving nature of education (and insufficient funding!) frequently requires teachers to do the unimaginable with whatever they have on hand. Teachers are knowledgeable, skilled, creative, and dedicated, but this work can sometimes feel incredibly frustrating and overwhelming.
On the flip side, I also considered the perspective of students. The fast pace set for learning often results in students feeling as if they are always being taught something brand new each time a bell rings. The concepts presented period to period and day to day often seem unrelated. Learning often feels compartmentalized and disconnected.
I also reflected on my own personal journey. I could personally relate to these teacher and student predicaments. As a young student, it never even occurred to me that I could use my experiences in one class to help me in another. And when I first started teaching over two decades ago, I was always searching for the “perfect” text to use with each lesson I taught – and the never-ending search for all those “perfect” mentor texts was not only time consuming, but also expensive – and often ineffective. When I look back, it hurts my heart because I now know I could have been using that time much more wisely (and efficiently).
This all came together when I visited a local district. I started the week working with an experienced group of upper-elementary and middle-school teachers. They were feeling a lot of this familiar pressure and stress – too much to do and not nearly enough time to get it all done. That day, we deviated from the intended plan and set the playful goal of facilitating all whole-class and small-group experiences and providing all 1:1 feedback with the same 2-page spread from the class’ current mentor text. The next day, I returned to that district to partner with kindergarten teachers (who taught using a half-day model). Time was tight- so we decided to co-plan and co-teach using one text to support reading, writing, speaking, listening, and phonics skills. We created integrated, “highly literate” experiences that transcended any one facet of literacy. Throughout both of these sessions, I could almost feel the collective level of stress decrease and the capacity for joy increase. It was then I knew for sure that I wanted to write about how we can thoughtfully craft lesson sets using a “short stack” of high-quality, multitasking mentor texts. In doing so, teachers recover more time and energy to plan, students gain more time to practice, and perhaps most importantly, everyone gets more time to play!
When we re-allocate our time and reimagine current models of planning, we are freed up to focus on students and prepare joyful, asset-based, student-centered instruction.

And our final question with Pam’s response.

What are your BIG takeaways from your book that you hope teachers will embrace in their teaching practices?

The day-to-day work we do as educators is complex and multifaceted. I hope teachers find a bit of “ahhhh” and a lot of joy in redefining the role of mentor texts. In the book, I share ways to maximize time. By curating just a few quality resources, we can enhance instruction. This “less is more” approach is not only appealing, but also effective! A lean selection of multitasking texts yields flexible, integrated, and multifaceted learning. By spotlighting these tools in inquiry experiences and more traditional modeled and guided lessons, teachers become prepared to not only weave together reading and writing, but also phonics, spelling, vocabulary, and grammar – and even content areas. Students create connections and begin to understand how to apply and transfer knowledge- across subjects and time.
We can enact our deep commitment toward asset-based instruction that is unwaveringly responsive to students. We can invite learners into the endless possibilities for learning that exist within the pages of books. And none of this needs to feel depleting. I sincerely hope that after reading this book and discussing it with colleagues, teachers are able to reduce decision fatigue and feel prepared (with plenty of practical ways) to integrate multitasking texts students LOVE all across the curriculum… while of course, continuing to center students and keep them at the heart of all we do in classrooms.

In Conclusion . . .

Mentor Texts that Multitask is not about finding perfect texts. It is also not about a brand new fancy idea that teachers need to learn. Instead it is about collaboratively working with peers to consider “How we can ‘tweak or rework’ the great mentor texts that we already have?” This will be an efficient and effective use of our time because we will be locating texts that can be used multiple times across the day and the year. And this final quote is why JOY will be able to return to teachers’ work!

Additional Resources:

Lesson Set for The Proudest Blue: A Story of Hijab and Family by Ibtihaj Muhammad (2019), With S. K. Ali Link

Preview of the text: Mentor Texts That Multitask Link

Video: Shake Up Literacy Learning with Multitasking Mentor Texts Link