Monday Motivator #29 2021-22

 

An Elixir for Writers

https://choiceliteracy.com/article/march-18-2022-rehearsal-for-writers/

You can’t edit a blank page.
—Nora Roberts

Giving space to talk is one of the secret weapons of teachers of writers. I used to believe that writers needed silence. The silence was loud in my classroom, and truth be told, it was uncomfortable. Writing was painful for everyone in those days.
I was worried that if I offered time to talk, students wouldn’t be on task, and time would be wasted. I worried about a lot of silly things when I first started teaching. So day after day, silence weighed heavy in our classroom, bogging down fingers and stunting the words moving to the page.
If kids aren’t writing, then it is difficult to teach writers. Something needed to be done to loosen the words on the page. There are a lot of gimmicks that promise to do this. They are tempting in their guarantees to get kids to write, and provide teachers with “stuff” for students to do. Yet I wasn’t convinced my students needed more busywork. They needed to write.
The more I investigated how writers work, the more I realized that most writers talk about writing. They might not verbalize every single plot twist, but most writers have a buddy or two with whom to talk about their ideas and figure out the snags.
In a prepackaged world it may feel counterintuitive to simply give space for students to talk as writers. You don’t need a fancy slide with bulleted questions or a cute worksheet to record questions and responses. All you need is a routine designed to get students talking as writers.
Talk is an elixir for writers. Having a few moments to chat lets the words slide onto the page more easily when students are given the time to write. It’s simple but true. 

Shine on!
Ruth Ayres
Editor in Chief

Monday Motivator #28 2021-22

 

Looking Back to Move Forward 
Bitsy Parks

It was the first day back after winter vacation, and I looked at the plans that I had penciled in the week before break. “Review reading workshop expectations: independent reading, reading habits, tricky word strategies, and text connections.” Later in the week my plans were a little more exciting, such as introducing new books, including Caldecott contenders, and starting a new reading unit on characters and questioning. After the long break it’s hard to know just where to start back in, so I didn’t question my plan, and sat down with my first graders.

During our community circle earlier that morning, I had heard about their vacation adventures and their favorite holiday treats. Many students looked excited to be back, a few were a little unsure, and all of them looked a little tired, as did I. It’s always hard to transition back to alarm clocks and cold, wet mornings. As I gathered my students on the rug to teach my reading lesson, reviewing workshop expectations, I looked out at their expectant faces and knew my penciled-in plans weren’t going to work. In that split second I knew I didn’t have the desire to routinely review anchor charts and learning from the fall as I had written in my plans. I knew I needed and wanted something more: a less boring lesson and, more importantly, a lesson that engaged my students, letting them actively participate and practice the learning we had done all fall.

Right then I revised my lesson plan. Instead of following the typical minilesson structure, I simply told my students to think of all they had learned in the fall and turn to share with a partner. I told them to think about how I taught reading lessons and about the charts we had made to record our thinking. Then I told them that today they would be the teachers. Using what they knew about my teaching, especially the anchor charts that we had created, today they would teach their classmates. With their reading partner, they would talk and remember all they could about our learning before vacation. And then the two of them would create an anchor chart of the most important learning to reteach their classmates. Once I gave them these instructions, I quickly reviewed aspects that made a good anchor chart, and off they went.

While students took time to talk with their partner, I scrambled to gather supplies for chart making. After pairs told me they had a plan, I gave them a chart-size sticky note. Students drew and wrote, and when they were finished, we hung our charts around the room and studied each other’s words. We shared what we noticed about the charts and what good learning we were reminded of.

For example, this chart explained what students had learned about independent and partner reading in words and pictures:

Independent Reading:  

Find your space to read.  

Be quiet.

Partner Reading:  

Pick a book and

Share it with your partner.

Students were thoughtful and respectful while studying their peers’ work:

        Although this chart isn’t specific to reading workshop, I found it sweet to see what this partner team thought was important to remember about our class.

    Try your best in school.

1. Try to be kind.

2. Try your best on reading.

3. Write as much as you can.

4. Don’t talk when the teacher is talking.

This lesson was a spur-of-the-moment decision but got the kids engaged, working together, and reviewing our fall lessons. And the review didn’t just involve my students; it let them lead it! We wrapped up the day energized and confident that we were ready to jump back into our workshop routines.

This year as I prepare for break and our return in January, I will definitely revisit this lesson. With a little more thought, planning, and preparation, such as having the materials ready to make the posters and giving students an anchor chart format, I look forward to seeing what my students will come up with to review and to teach each other!

https://choiceliteracy.com/article/first-grade-reflections-looking-back-to-move-forward/

Monday Motivator #27 2021-22

 

Student Self-Assessment Strategies

Over the course of the year, I have watched my daughter’s level of engagement rise in the work she does for her high  school English class. In her AP English class, she is asked to grade herself and present the evidence for her self-assessment to her teacher at the end of each marking period.

I have been trying to replicate this experience with some of the fifth graders in our district. The class has just completed  the first argument essay within their Research-Based Essay unit, and they are getting ready to begin a second one on a different topic. Before they begin, I want them to evaluate themselves as researchers and writers and set some goals for the rest of the unit. Therefore, I talked to some of them about grading their own papers and thinking about their strengths and weaknesses.

Through our conversations, it became clear that the students were not sure how to clearly state their strengths as writers or their areas for improvement. We grade student writing with an analytic rubric that has indicators for six traits of writing: focus, organization, elaboration, fluency, voice, and conventions. Our students have seen these rubrics for three or four years, yet when I asked them what these traits really entailed, they weren’t sure.

I asked their teacher if I could try a new lesson with his class, and the next day, I presented them with a blank chart of how we evaluate writing. Each student got their own copy of the chart, and my instructions to them were to try to describe in their own words what is meant by each trait of writing. I told them that I could describe each trait, but my language might not make as much sense as their own language. I really wanted to create a chart that had definitions that the students understood. As I came across responses that would help everyone, I handed out markers and asked students to share their ideas on a master chart.

As the master chart developed, their own personal charts developed as well.

 

I emphasized to students to write only what made sense to them on their own paper. Everyone’s chart should look a little different, I said, but all of the students should end up with a tool that would help them evaluate their own writing. After about 15 minutes, we had a class chart that looked like this:

The only words I can take credit for on this chart are under Focus—“Everything in the paragraph goes along with the same idea.” The students came up with all the other indicators and even put their initials next to their ideas. The green faces on the right side of the chart indicate whether writers haven’t done too much within the trait (a “1”) all the way up to their doing an unbelievable job (a “4”).

The students’ next assignment was to self-assess their first essays. One student called me over to say that she was not sure about how to grade herself within the trait of fluency. On her own chart, she had very little written down for that trait. I suggested that she visit the classroom chart and see if there were other indicators that her classmates had written that would help her make decisions about her own writing. She took her own paper up to the front of the room and found two additional ideas about fluency. She was then able to decide on giving herself a 2+ for fluency. “I think in my next essay, I should try to have more transition words,” she said. I agreed. I might have been able to tell her that from just reading her essay, but the concept is much more powerful for her because she figured it out for herself. I can’t wait to see how her next essay goes!

I am always interested in ways to involve students in their own learning processes. Goals are important in all aspects of life, and at all ages. However, to set goals, we need to understand what we really want to achieve. Having students create their own set of indicators in language that they not only understand but actually come up with themselves will really help them be able to self-assess, set goals, and improve as writers and as learners.

Melanie Meehan

https://choiceliteracy.com/article/student-self-assessment-strategies/