Monday Motivator #21 2018-19

Keep persevering even when it's hard and ask for help when you've tried all you can. And sorry in advance if this song is in your head all day, but I just love this video.

https://www.facebook.com/uniladmag/videos/little-girl-asks-alexa-to-play-baby-shark/1967799366612091/

Monday Motivator #20 2018-19

Article Community Building Guiding Groups

Purposeful Partners

Tara Barneet & Kate Mills

https://choiceliteracy.com/article/purposeful-partners/

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What teacher hasn’t experienced the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) position shifting that happens when students are asked to turn and talk? If kids haven’t already chosen a spot on the carpet next to a favorite friend, they’ll shift and shimmy so that when they turn to a partner, it’s one of their choosing. And if you think you’ve solved that problem by establishing guidelines for everyone to turn to the person next to him, what do you do about the looks of disappointment and barely audible sighs when they realize that the partner next door may not be their top choice?

We don’t want anyone to be on the receiving end of that feeling of rejection if we can help it. Of course, we teach kids in our class to respect one another and use read-alouds to build empathy, but we have a better way of avoiding the hurt feelings that can happen during turn-and-talks: long-term partnerships.

Long-term partnerships are valuable for reasons beyond avoiding hurt feelings. They ensure that turn-and-talks or any time spent collaborating can happen quickly and efficiently. They also ensure that students get to know each other well: well enough to engage in meaningful conversation and reflection that helps each member of the partnership grow.

As co-teachers, we can clearly see the power of this type of partnership. Having a professional relationship as partners is one of the most rewarding parts of our job. Who wouldn’t benefit from having another person they know and trust to bounce ideas off of, give feedback to, and get feedback from? Because we see the benefits, we make sure to set up structures in our classroom so our students can see the power of partnerships as well.

That’s why, in our class, students have long-term partnerships in several areas throughout the day, including reading workshop, writing workshop, and read-aloud. To help these partnerships be set up for success, we put several procedures into place to form and maintain the partnerships.

Purposeful Pairing

As much as we like to avoid the hurt feelings that can happen when one partner makes it clear that he is not paired with a student of choice during random turn-and-talks, we also want to avoid surprises when we place students in long-term partnerships. To this end, we make sure students are involved in the process.

During the first month of school, we make sure that students experience different partners. We have them partner up with the person adjacent (which is also embedded math vocabulary instruction), opposite, and diagonal from them at their tables. We have them sit next to this partner at the carpet during minilessons. Then we’ll move on to partners who are at different tables, and throughout this “trial” period, we are sure to have some same- and opposite-sex partnerships. Throughout the first month of school, students have the opportunity to work with many different peers and get a feel for what partnerships feel most and least supportive to them.

At the end of the month we introduce partner want ads. We were inspired by Shana Frazin, and want ads always give our students a sense of empowerment that they have a voice in the decisions that affect them.

Want ads are exactly what they sound like: similar to the want ads for jobs that we see in the paper, they list the qualities they are seeking to fill the position of partner. We show an example to students of a want ad that lists the behaviors that we noticed over the past month that work best for us and would help us grow as writers. Then students get to work creating their own personal want ads for partners. Once they’ve created their own want ad for a partner, the ads are assigned a letter and posted on a reserved space on our closet door.

The next day we give students some time to read the posted want ads and write down several letters of ads for which they think they may be a match. Students write down several letters, and our work is to blend their choices with the data that we’ve been collecting all along based on what we’ve observed during the previous month.

Once we’ve created the partnerships using the student input, we make a big deal about announcing the partnerships. We’re met with very little resistance, because students know that their voice was heard in this process and they personally chose the partner with whom they’re being paired.

Here are some guidelines for want ads:

They are anonymous. Yes, we’re fully aware that students may have some idea about who want ads belong to based on clues like handwriting, but we find this step important so that the focus is more on the qualities of a partner and deciding if you hold those qualities. Each want ad is assigned a letter rather than a name. We make certain that every student writes several letter choices so we’re sure to be able to match students with one of their choices.

When Problems Arise in Partnerships

Problems arise in most relationships in life at some point, and we think it’s important to try to solve them. That’s why our first reaction to conflict isn’t to change partnerships. First of all, we’ve spent a lot of time forming these partnerships, so there must be a reason that these students are together. Secondly, changing one partnership has to disrupt at least one more partnership, which may not be facing any challenging issues. Finally, solving relationship problems is a life skill.

Rather than making changes when there are signs of conflict, we support partnerships in finding solutions to their problems by creating opportunities for open conversation about them and brainstorming ways the partnership can address the problems in a proactive manner, checking in frequently and celebrating with the partnership when they work through their trouble.

One partnership that comes to mind is Brian and Katie. When we observed them, their frustration with each other was visible by their body language: rolling eyes, arms crossed, turning away from each other. We decided to check in individually first to see if there was an issue, and sure enough there was. Katie felt that Brian was being “bossy,” and she was able to explain it by naming the language he used. Instead of making suggestions that Katie could try, Brian’s suggestions sounded more like, “You should . . .” During the time the following day when students were giving one another feedback on their writing homework, we pulled up alongside Katie and Brian to check in, supporting Katie in telling Brian about the problem she was having. Since we are sure to focus very explicitly on the language we as teachers use, as well as the language that our students use with each other, Brian was able to recognize that the language he chooses matters, and we were able to support him in naming what he could do differently going forward.

During turn-and-talks in the following weeks, we made sure to listen in to their conversation to help hold them accountable to the plan that Brian had made with Katie. We noticed when Brian made that subtle shift in his language from telling Katie what she should do to suggesting what she might try, naming what he had done and why it was so important.

Once partners work through conflict, we think it’s important to help them name the steps that they took so that it’s transferable to future conflicts. In the case of Katie and Brian, it might sound like, “Do you see how when you had a problem, you were able to tell each other what it was? And then, because you’re the kind of people who care about what the other person has to say and how each other feels, you made a plan to fix the problem. You kept working at it until it felt like your problem was solved. Any time you have a problem with each other, you could try this.”

We find that when we take the time to help students form partnerships and work through conflicts that arise in the partnerships, they can be a rewarding experience for everyone involved.

AUTHOR

Tara Barnett and Kate Mills

Tara Barnett and Kate Mills are teachers in New Jersey. Their favorite years in the classroom have been the ones they co-taught together, when they experienced the powerful effects of professional collaboration for both the teachers and the students in the classroom. They blog together at Tara and Kate.

Monday Motivator #19 2018-19

Article Assessment Tools, Teaching Reading

Reading, Engagement, and Kidwatching

https://choiceliteracy.com/article/reading-engagement-and-kidwatching/?print=true

AUTHOR

Katrina Edwards

I looked up from my reading conference with Jordan to see that David was building a mighty impressive book fort, Mateo and Tucker were exchanging Lego figures behind books, Jasmine had just returned from her third mid-workshop trip to the bathroom, and Sophia and Lucia were lying across Hokke stools spinning in circles and giggling with books in hand. It was not the image of reading engagement I had imagined we would be capable of at this point in our year together.

For a moment I felt stuck. How can I respond to this need? How many ways can I teach and reteach what reading workshop looks like, sounds like, and feels like? For my kinesthetic K-1 readers, it was time to find another path to deeper reading engagement. Thankfully I stumbled upon the engagement inventory checklist in Jennifer Serravallo’s The Literacy Teacher’s Playbook K-2.

“Readers, today instead of meeting and talking with you, I am going to stand back and watch. I am going to notice all of the things you are doing to read deeply in your books. I am going to keep track of what I see on this checklist so we can meet and talk about the patterns we notice.” I had to resist the urge to sit and confer with readers and dutifully observe what I saw, scanning the room and recording and coding my students’ actions every five minutes. I developed a quick coding system: B—in bathroom, SB—switched books, LA—looking around, BF—building a book fort, FP—flipping pages, RR—rolling on rug, TF—talking to a friend, ER—engaged reading, and RW—responding and writing a sticky note. In 30 minutes I had recorded each child six to seven times on my chart. With this evidence I could quickly see patterns of behavior for each child and general trends in the classroom.

As I expected, the distractions were infectious: if someone left for the bathroom, others followed; if someone started playing, others joined; if someone moved spots, more readers moved. I noticed that after 20 minutes many of my more emergent readers were flipping pages or seeking out others to whisper to. I also noticed that many readers remained engaged throughout the workshop, and if for a moment they were off task, they frequently reengaged independently. This was a strength I could use! I could also identify students who would benefit from additional engagement strategies.

One-on-One with Insights

The engagement inventory was a fantastic tool to support reading conferences. I explained to David, “I want you to listen to what I saw you doing during our workshop. Then you can tell me if you notice a pattern: looking around, talking to a friend, drinking water, building a book fort, engaged reading, engaged reading.”

David smiled and said, “I was playing a lot, but when I started reading, I kept reading.” We were able to talk about what helped him start reading (“Once I set up all my books, it was a force-field and nobody could talk to me”) and decided that he could choose a more isolated reading spot curled up in a cubby so that none of his precious reading time would be spent building book force-fields!

The inventory data gave me a tool to shift from telling students what I wanted to see in our workshop to talking with children about how their engagement was fluctuating during our workshop. “I see that the first four times I looked, you were deep in your reading, but the last two times you were rolling on the rug. Can you remember what changed for you?”

Mateo and Tucker discovered that they wanted to sit apart from each other because their powerful friendship made them forget to keep reading. Jasmine acknowledged that she didn’t really need to go to the bathroom; she just needed to stretch. She set a goal to read three books, stand up or stretch in her spot, and then read on. Sophia swapped out the books she was bored with for more engaging books, and sat on an air pillow to wiggle as she read.

Students were able to reflect on their reading habits and began to notice the habits or distractions that would pull them out of productive work and which habits and strategies were supporting them. They began to make more strategic choices to support deeper reading engagement. I repeated the inventory once a week or on alternating weeks, and was able to use information across time to discuss patterns of engagement without judgment. It gave us a good start, but it didn’t tell the whole story.

Lucia was slowly increasing her stamina, but engagement was a significant challenge for her in all areas across the day. She struggled to take responsibility for her actions and often felt defiant and angry. When I met with Lucia and showed her the checklist, she told me my records were wrong. “You are just looking at me at the wrong minutes!  All the other minutes I am reading!” How would I tackle this one?

The following day Lucia was draped across a stool, book on the floor—spinning. I picked up an iPad and began video recording. I started with her spins and then circled the room. I could feel readers suddenly shift and reengage when they noticed I was recording. It was more powerful than my clipboard and didn’t require the coding system. Readers wanted to be noticed reading and thinking! As I came back around to Lucia, still spinning, I paused the camera and sat down.

“There’s something I want to show you. I think I captured more of the minutes this time.” We watched the video together and she didn’t speak. I leaned in. “Who did you notice really thinking deeply in their reading bubble?”

She smiled. “Jordan—he was so deep in the book world, he didn’t even look up once.”

“Anyone else?”

“Yeah, Marianna. She was in her own spot and she was thinking and reading and smiling.”

“What did you notice about your own reading?”

“I was in one spot and my eyes were in the book, and I was spinning a lot and reading a little.”

“Is it easy for you to spin and read at the same time?”

“Yes, except I read a little and then spin, and then read and then spin.”

“Oh, so it goes, read-spin-read-spin-read-spin. That sounds like an important pattern you noticed: sometimes you are reading and sometimes you are spinning. Hmm, so what would you want to change to make your reading practice more powerful?”

“Well, I think the pattern needs to go read-read-read-read-read. So maybe I need to pick a better spot. It’s hard to read-read-read-read when I’m spinning.”

“Yes, I imagine that would be very hard. Tell me more about what makes a good spot for you . . .”

With a video engagement inventory I could quickly scan the room between conferences and then show a segment to a specific child or small group. I kept my recording to 30 seconds or less and focused on capturing the most engaged readers. The video inventory contained more information than I could record in notes. I could scan and see which books kids were reading, I could see how they were organizing what to read next, I could track where they were reading in the room, and I could see students working to implement a strategy we talked about over time.

I began projecting clips for the whole group during our reflection circle and asked students to think and comment on where they observed readers working for greater engagement. Suddenly students were sharing their own reading victories and noticing the victories in others. Students were trying strategies I offered and integrating strategies they observed in peers. We were no longer stuck thinking and talking about what we wanted workshop to look, sound, and feel like; we were using video evidence to describe, evaluate, and celebrate the reading engagement in our community.

It isn’t a magical fix. We still have days when distraction and disruption overcome us.  The difference now is that we have clear visual models and expectations, a bundle of engagement strategies to turn to, and a shared investment in sustaining deep engagement. If we start to slip, I can pick up my iPad and before I tap open the camera, readers shift and sink into their stories—no checklist needed—so I can keep reading with the child next to me.