I see that it's been more than a month since I last posted. This indicates that I have been busy doing many things other than blogging: visiting family, traveling, reading, shopping, driving, and most recently, recovering from jet lag.
This also indicates that my list of tasks to be done over the summer should have been done (see previous post). Here's my update on that work:
Twilight Series: I finished reading all four books, and have decided they have little to recommend about them. However, it's good to know this so I can talk about them with kids. The Twilight books were 4 of the 13 young adult books I read, posted and reviewed on Shelfari (which I recommend highly).
Time for Meaning: I re-read this 1995 book and found it just as rich and meaningful as before. I love Randy Bomer's easy-going self-deprecating yet confident style of writing.
Teaching Grammar in Context and Fair Isn't Always Equal: I didn't get to these two books, but I did order and begin reading through several other books on teaching conventions:
• The Power of Grammar: Unconventional Approaches to the Conventions of Language by Mary Ehrenworth and Vicki Vinton
• Catching up on Conventions: Grammar Lessons for Middle School Writers by Chantal Francois and Elisa Zonana
• Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction (4th ed) by Donald R. Bear, Marcia Invernizzi, Shane Templeton, and Francine Johnston (and I got the related books for middle school spellers)
• Vocabulary Their Way: Word Study with Middle and Secondary Students by Shane Templeton, Francine R. Johnston, Donald R. Bear, and Marcia Invernizzi
Beatrice And Virgil: This was a fascinating read, and I did decide to use it for Book Club this year. I’m anxious to see what others think about the relationship between the two main characters, and how they interpret the ending!
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: I read this too, but was not thrilled by it. I won’t read the other two, nor will I go see the movie.
Oh yes, summer was busy. Busy with holiday reading, busy with professional development, busy with travel and family, busy with the day-to-day business of shopping and cooking and cleaning, busy with movies and talk and other entertainments. But also busy with reading for pleasure and lifelong learning. Wonder what I'll want to read next summer?
August 25, 2010
July 4, 2010
Teachers College of Columbia University Summer Writing Institute
Spending the past five days at the Teachers College Summer Writing Institute in New York City has lifted me as teacher of writing to new levels! My school sent five elementary teachers, the elementary literacy coach, and four of the six of us middle school teachers to the Institute this year. Going as a group was such a gift; we spent the week buzzing about new ideas, talking through what was a tweak to our practice, what was brand new and whether we could teach it now or later or never, how to share our new learning with our colleagues, and how to support each other as we take risks as teachers this coming school year.
I first attended this institute in 1995, and then again in 1999. Since then, I have worked with Writing Workshop in my classes, read countless professional books, and led professional development workshops on the topic. I felt pretty confident going into this institute, but I was still ready to lift the level of my teaching, so I kept an open and curious mind.
I leave with layers of new thinking on top of the concepts about which I felt confident and form the base for Workshop teaching. I heard about the power of writing every day, about how Gladwell’s finding that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to reach greatness really carries weight when it comes to writing. Ok, we can’t expect 10,000 hours in schools, but research shows that students make dramatic gains in writing proficiency when they write with volume and stamina and regularity. My middle school colleagues and I are committed to daily writing, even if it is only a 10-minute quick-write in their notebooks.
I leave with new thinking about Mentor Texts and the research finding that nothing lifts the level of the quality of student writing more than using Mentor Texts. My colleagues and I are committed to setting aside professional development time to sit together and read texts like writers, continuously asking ourselves, “How did s/he do that?” so that we are ready to show our students how to read like writers themselves.
I leave with new thinking about the precise art of the mini-lesson: the architecture, the example text, the importance of taking risks as a writer in front of your students. I understand the power of being a writer to teach writing, but I learned how to re-work story parts to use as examples for the lesson. This makes so much sense, but it was not something I had done before. I will add this to my repertoire.
I leave with new thinking about on-demand writing: how it can be used as a pre-assessment data point to guide my teaching through a unit, how it can be used as a post-assessment to show all the learning that occurred during the unit, and how laying the two side by side is a celebration of growth to show my students. This layer comes with many questions, however, mostly to do with time, and will need some further study before I can really wrap my head around how this can work in our school.
June 19, 2010
Reading for Many Purposes
We are one week into our summer vacation, and I have discovered I have four books going today. Each one fulfills a different purpose:Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction (Bear, D.R., Invernizzi, M, Templeton, S, & Johnston, F. Pearson, 2008): This book is helping me on two fronts: my work next year teaching middle school language arts, and helping my poor adolescent spellers at home. For years, my kids have told me, "I can't spell", and I have let it go, thinking it would come as they matured. However, at ages 12 and 14, they are still not proficient with some rules of spelling. After being introduced to this book by our elementary literacy coach this year, I bought a copy to experiment with, and my own kids are the guinea pigs this summer (lucky them!). If this seems like a successful approach, I'll try it out with my class this coming school year.
Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key (Gantos, J.): On my quest to update my repertoire of young adult literature, I have been devouring titles from the secondary librarian's Best Books for MS list. Joey Pigza is my favorite so far. I am keeping track of my YA reading on Shelfari.
Time for Meaning: Crafting Literate Lives in Middle and High School (Bomer, R. Heinemann, 1995): OK, I know I already wrote about this professional book. But I'm now 3 chapters into it, and remember why I love it so much. Randy Bomer speaks from the front of the classroom, showing his teaching and reflecting as he goes. He makes mistakes, thinks about them, fixes them, and explains his process. Throughout, he keeps the goal of helping adolescents use print to make meaning of their lives central to everything he does. He keeps me focused on the big picture even as I consider adding pieces like word study to my language arts class.
Beatrice and Virgil (Martel, Y.): I have to keep feeding my adult pleasure reading life, even though I am busy reading other things too. Making time for good quality literature is one of my life pleasures. Besides, I have to choose a book for my adult Book Club to read this coming year!
Along with these books, I am also reading blogs and reviews and facebook posts and emails and Newsweek, each for their own distinct purposes. When I hear from students, "I don't read" or "I don't like to read" or "I'm not a reader", I need to remember all the different reading I do in my life, and try to help those students recognize that they, indeed, are readers, even if they don't pick up a novel to read for fun at night. I hope that I can help them match up the kind of reading they like to do with the texts that can build their reading skills and their sense of being a lifelong reader.
June 14, 2010
Cultural Chasms
There are times in my life as an international educator when I encounter situations that baffle me. Take an article I read on June 6 in a UAE newspaper, The National, which described a mass wedding involving 400 bridegrooms (but no brides) who feasted on 205 goats and 20 camels all paid for by the host city’s Municipality at an estimated cost of 5 million dirham (about $1.4 million). The brides will get their own reception on June 30 after they sign the marriage papers with their grooms. There is so much in this local interest story that is beyond my cultural experience or understanding. I think of these times as Cultural Chasms.
I wonder how often my students encounter Cultural Chasms of their own in my classroom. I am a white, middle class, American woman; I bring that cultural background into my teaching. However, my students are from a wide range of cultural backgrounds and experiences. The recent trend of “multicultural” education advocates celebrating the cultural holidays of the students within a class (including Kwanzaa; I have yet to meet anyone who celebrates this holiday, despite living overseas for over 20 years and six of those in Africa), reading books that reflect the cultures of the students, and even learning words in the languages of the students’ homes as a way to honor their cultures. I do not dispute that these ideas are better than ignoring cultural differences; however, they seem like symbolic gestures from a Eurocentric perspective, and I do not think this is enough to cross the Cultural Chasms.
Instead, I advocate establishing a classroom with a true openness to accepting and learning from each other’s cultures within the class, including my own WASPy culture. I am learning to look past my own biases, which judge the unfamiliar as bad, and consider the value inherent in the situation. For example, in the mass wedding story above, I admire how strongly the Emiratis hold onto their traditions despite the rapid changes around them. These traditions provide a stable foundation for their society. In my other postings, I marveled at the Kenyan optimism, at how each day was a celebration of what they had instead of focusing on what they didn’t have. I envied the extended Ecuadorian families; my students spent weekends full of grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunts. And in China, I reflected on how the good of the group and wishes of the family took priority over the individual’s in a society trying to build a coherent common vision.
June 5, 2010
Summer Reading
Summer vacation looms, just days away. Promises of living out of suitcases, staying with relatives, and long hours with nothing scheduled beckon. Those long hours yearn to be filled with summer reading. Here's what I have on my reading list so far:
The Twilight series: Not my usual cup of tea, but moving back into sixth grade English Language Arts means being ready for conversations around young adult literature. These four books will be the first ones I post on my trial of Shelfari, an online reading log/blog. From there I will be reading as many young adult books as I can, based on recommendations from my 12-year-old daughter, my librarian husband, and lots of online lists supplied by NCTE's Inbox Blog. I've lost momentum these past two years being out of the classroom!
Time for Meaning: Randy Bomer's book on teaching secondary English through the genre-study approach is one to re-read before returning to the classroom. His no-nonsense take on teaching the enormous Language Arts curriculum in unreasonably short Middle and High School classes is just what I need. Our Middle School is implementing a new genre-study workshop approach in our ELA classes, and I need to have Randy's words in my ears as I lead the department through this change.
Teaching Grammar in Context: Probably my biggest weakness as an ELA teacher is teaching grammar and conventions in an effective and meaningful way. Part of my discomfort is that I was not taught these things well, so I have a weak knowledge base and no good role models. Constance Weaver's book gives practical suggestions for how to teach the structure and rules of the English language within the context of reading and writing workshop. This is another re-read for me, but is still the text that is referenced by the professional authors I trust.
Fair isn't Always Equal: Rick Wormeli presents a compelling case for differentiating instruction and assessment based on formative data. I "get" it (intellectually), but I also don't "get" it (practically), and sitting down for another think about his suggestions in the context of sixth grade ELA and Social Studies will prepare me for the mix of kids that walk through my door in August.
Beatrice and Virgil: Yann Martel's new book was a birthday present, and sits ready for me to dive into. I'm considering it for a Book Club book this year, but don't want to recommend it without reading it first.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Everyone I know has read Stieg Larson's mystery series, so I guess I need to jump on the bus. Mystery is not my favorite, but I hear this one is gripping.
May 28, 2010
Lessons Learned
There are two more weeks to this school year, and all I can think about is teaching next year. I am returning to the classroom after two years, with a caboodle of new learning from working through a Masters Degree and my job as Curriculum Coordinator. These two years have taught me some big lessons:
1. Language Arts teaching is all about transferable skills. It is about learning the processes and strategies for reading any text and writing any piece and discussing any topic. Reading units become less about the specific text (e.g., Wringer) and more about applying reading comprehension strategies or understanding character development or how to read nonlinear text. Writing units become less about the topic (e.g., character essay) and more about finding topics that are meaningful or using mentor texts to learn new crafting moves or how to adjust for purpose, audience, and genre. When approaching teaching in this way, I begin to question the value of some of the assignments I used to give. When planning, I must ask myself 'How is this useful for this student in the long term? Is this something that can be used with any text/writing piece/discussion topic?' If the answer is no, then it becomes yet another activity that keeps kids busy without moving them forward in their learning.
2. My kids come to me with lots of learning behind them, and they will carry what they learn in my class with them to the next grade. Somehow I lost that vertical idea in the day-to-day pressures of classroom teaching. But remembering that my class is but one notch in the long-term learning process puts my teaching in perspective: I don't have to teach as if students are empty vessels, nor do I have to teach every skill to mastery. Knowing what my students already know-- through familiarity with the previous curricular units and pre-assessment-- and knowing what they will be doing next year makes my teaching focused and targeted. This way I can move every student forward.
3. Planning is key. I have always been good at planning, but now I see that weekly plans, even unit-long plans, are not long enough. Laying out the year, planning how one unit sets the base to be applied and extended later, planning how skills and concepts are distributed and spiraled, makes for a logical and organized sequence of learning for students. But even year-long plans aren't long enough; vertical planning with teachers at grade levels before and after really makes that progression come to life.
4. Trust your gut. Education is full of new trends, conflicting ideas, "best practice" of all kinds. When reading professional journals or news articles, I get a gut feeling that the idea fits right in with what I believe is true, or that it just doesn't sit right. When it's the latter, I need to consider what it is that makes me uncomfortable: maybe it's such a new idea that I don't have any previous knowledge to hang it on; maybe it flies in the face of educational theories I embrace (e.g., constructivist learning, whole language); or maybe there is too much opinion without any research to back it up. Rather than jumping on the latest trend touting itself as "best practice", it's important to consider it in context of what I believe is best for kids.
I'm sure there are more big lessons, but I'll stop there. I hope that as I jump back into the mad rush of classroom teaching, I can hold onto these big ideas. If I forget, will you remind me?
1. Language Arts teaching is all about transferable skills. It is about learning the processes and strategies for reading any text and writing any piece and discussing any topic. Reading units become less about the specific text (e.g., Wringer) and more about applying reading comprehension strategies or understanding character development or how to read nonlinear text. Writing units become less about the topic (e.g., character essay) and more about finding topics that are meaningful or using mentor texts to learn new crafting moves or how to adjust for purpose, audience, and genre. When approaching teaching in this way, I begin to question the value of some of the assignments I used to give. When planning, I must ask myself 'How is this useful for this student in the long term? Is this something that can be used with any text/writing piece/discussion topic?' If the answer is no, then it becomes yet another activity that keeps kids busy without moving them forward in their learning.
2. My kids come to me with lots of learning behind them, and they will carry what they learn in my class with them to the next grade. Somehow I lost that vertical idea in the day-to-day pressures of classroom teaching. But remembering that my class is but one notch in the long-term learning process puts my teaching in perspective: I don't have to teach as if students are empty vessels, nor do I have to teach every skill to mastery. Knowing what my students already know-- through familiarity with the previous curricular units and pre-assessment-- and knowing what they will be doing next year makes my teaching focused and targeted. This way I can move every student forward.
3. Planning is key. I have always been good at planning, but now I see that weekly plans, even unit-long plans, are not long enough. Laying out the year, planning how one unit sets the base to be applied and extended later, planning how skills and concepts are distributed and spiraled, makes for a logical and organized sequence of learning for students. But even year-long plans aren't long enough; vertical planning with teachers at grade levels before and after really makes that progression come to life.
4. Trust your gut. Education is full of new trends, conflicting ideas, "best practice" of all kinds. When reading professional journals or news articles, I get a gut feeling that the idea fits right in with what I believe is true, or that it just doesn't sit right. When it's the latter, I need to consider what it is that makes me uncomfortable: maybe it's such a new idea that I don't have any previous knowledge to hang it on; maybe it flies in the face of educational theories I embrace (e.g., constructivist learning, whole language); or maybe there is too much opinion without any research to back it up. Rather than jumping on the latest trend touting itself as "best practice", it's important to consider it in context of what I believe is best for kids.
I'm sure there are more big lessons, but I'll stop there. I hope that as I jump back into the mad rush of classroom teaching, I can hold onto these big ideas. If I forget, will you remind me?
May 24, 2010
Natural-born storytellers
At the International Festival of Authors in Toronto in October, Diana Athill, British author, interviewed Canadian author Alice Munro, who recently published a short story collection, Too Much Happiness. In the interview, Athill asked Munro if she believes there are natural-born storytellers. Through the dialogue between the two authors, they both came to the conclusion that, yes, there are people in this world who are storytellers and there are others who are not (the full podcast is available at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/in-other-words/exclusive-munro-athill-podcast/article1333923).
As a teacher of writing, I must call this into question. My message to students is that all of us are writers; all of us have stories to tell; all of us can learn from the masters and become writers of craft and meaning. But if two great, experienced, professional writers such as Athill and Munro believe it's all inherited in one's genes at birth, then why bother? Why not send the message to students, "Hey, some of you have it, and some don't. So… whatever."
I do not consider myself a natural storyteller. I enjoy writing, I think I can craft an eloquent essay, but stories do not spring fully formed from my head like Athena from Zeus' forehead. Then again, I don't spend each day with the expectation that I will write something, that I must come up with yet another idea, another story to spin. Maybe if I lived as professional authors lived, I would become a storyteller-- the self-fulfilling prophecy: I act like a storyteller; therefore I am a storyteller. But I don't have the time or commitment for that; I am a teacher and a mother, my days are full. So is my prophecy: I don't act like a storyteller; therefore, I am not?
No, I have to believe what I preach, that we all have important things to tell the world. Maybe it's not fiction that I write (for the very reason that I have no story ideas), but I can tell a story about my own life, or about my own thinking, or about someone else's life or thinking. And I can tell it well, with crafting moves learned from masters like Munro. This faith in my own writing, which has improved immensely since I started teaching the art of writing (do as I do, and as I say), makes me believe that all people are storytellers. My job is to help the more reluctant ones find their voice so they can join the others that already know the joy of sending their words out into the world.
As a teacher of writing, I must call this into question. My message to students is that all of us are writers; all of us have stories to tell; all of us can learn from the masters and become writers of craft and meaning. But if two great, experienced, professional writers such as Athill and Munro believe it's all inherited in one's genes at birth, then why bother? Why not send the message to students, "Hey, some of you have it, and some don't. So… whatever."
I do not consider myself a natural storyteller. I enjoy writing, I think I can craft an eloquent essay, but stories do not spring fully formed from my head like Athena from Zeus' forehead. Then again, I don't spend each day with the expectation that I will write something, that I must come up with yet another idea, another story to spin. Maybe if I lived as professional authors lived, I would become a storyteller-- the self-fulfilling prophecy: I act like a storyteller; therefore I am a storyteller. But I don't have the time or commitment for that; I am a teacher and a mother, my days are full. So is my prophecy: I don't act like a storyteller; therefore, I am not?
No, I have to believe what I preach, that we all have important things to tell the world. Maybe it's not fiction that I write (for the very reason that I have no story ideas), but I can tell a story about my own life, or about my own thinking, or about someone else's life or thinking. And I can tell it well, with crafting moves learned from masters like Munro. This faith in my own writing, which has improved immensely since I started teaching the art of writing (do as I do, and as I say), makes me believe that all people are storytellers. My job is to help the more reluctant ones find their voice so they can join the others that already know the joy of sending their words out into the world.
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