One of the steps in the Teacher’s College workshop process is called “Active Engagement.” This phase of the minilesson is one I think deserves more detailed thought and understanding by teachers new to workshop teaching. First of all, active engagement comes after the connection and the teaching of the strategy. It is the moment in the lesson when students actually try out what you’ve just taught. Sounds simple enough right? However, I think it is important to note how this step allows you to do 2 things:

1. Informal Assessment. As students practice, you should be actively moving about the kids assessing where they are with the work. Can they do this? Did your lesson make it clear? Are there a few who still seem confused? Of course, assessing during turn and talk or another whole group moment is an art in itself, but the active engagement phase gives you an incredible opportunity to listen and watch your students.
2. See your teaching articulated. Because every student tries the strategy you’ve just taught, you can see your teaching being “used.”

Many teachers new to this approach are confused by the notion that they will teach a minilesson, but then the students might not be working on what was just taught when they head off for independent practice. The idea instead should be (on most days-of course there are exceptions) you teach a strategy, everyone tries it during the active engagement phase, then those who are ready to use the strategy do so, when they move away to write. As you conference around the room you can ask specific students to use the strategy if you believe it will lift the level of their writing.

Active engagement is an important part of a strong minilesson. Take the time to cultive it in your classroom.

Writing MORE…

When I was at the TCRWP Writing Institute in June the sessions repeatedly returned to the topic of stamina in writing. As Lucy says in her UOS texts: “write long and strong.” But WHY is this so important?

1. Writing is a process. It takes time. It needs to be coaxed and prodded and played with. When you write a lot, then there is a lot more there to work with, to mold and craft.
2. Learning to write for a length of time or over several pages in a sitting encourages “in the moment” revision and editing. Having stamina does not mean a person writes word after word and doesn’t stop. Part of the stamina needed is to stay with the piece, rereading it, reworking it and moving forward. (We want to teach kids to edit and revise and think about what they are writing as they are writing it.)
3. Developing stamina increases student output on tests. There have been reports that high SAT essay scores are directly related to the length of the piece. Now, just writing gibberish isn’t going to make a good piece. But learning how to write long AND strong is important for kids to know how to do.

So what are some tricks for increasing stamina in the classroom?

• Push them. Asking students to write more is one of the easiest ways to increase stamina. Couple that with a conference compliment where you note how a child’s stamina has increased, most children will put pen to paper longer.
• Teach strategies for increasing stamina. Show students how you keep at it by rereading to keep yourself immersed in the piece, for example. Remind them that stamina is required when thinking about the writing as well as editing, revising, and drafting.
• Make it a big deal. One session leader shared how a school she works with made the goal of increased stamina school-wide by agreeing to post stamina goals (time spent writing) on the classroom door. As stamina increased the number changed and the school/class celebrated the success.

I’m reading the new Ralph Fletcher book Pyrotechnics On the Page: Playful Craft That Sparks Writing. My plan was to be part of the Stenhouse Ning group and work through this book with other educators and Ralph himself. (See my post about that here.) However, 2 days into the work, I was absolutely overwhelmed by the constant emails about posts and comments to posts on the Ning. It was just too much for me! So instead, I’m leisurely reading the book on my own. After finishing chapter 2, I’m convinced there is something BIG here for my work with teachers in the Fall… TALK.

More and more I’m learning how oral language development is the most important indicator of reading and writing success. Students who are strong orally are stronger writers and stronger readers. It makes sense, but this is something I don’t think I’ve really put emphasis on in my classrooms or even with my own daughter.

This doesn’t mean I’m advocating just letting children talk and talk and talk. Instead my emphasis would be on being a better listener to that talk. I plan to focus on engaging a child into moving further in her talk while practicing listening better to what is said.

Certainly there are direct links to conferring here, but really I’m thinking about the classroom environment. We need classrooms where children are taught how to talk; then given the space and time to do it. From KG1 (our PK4) to grade 5, developing talkers is an important step we need to take.

At the Writing Institute, I was part of the Principals group for my small group sessions. We were led by Cory Gillette, co-author of the book Breathing Life Into Essays, which is one of my favorites in Lucy’s UOS series. Once I got over the fact that a. I wasn’t a principal and b. my job isn’t to “supervise”, I was able to sit, listen and think about the good advice we were being given.

Overall, I learned having active principal participation (and therefore leadership) makes the difference when implementing and being successful with reading and writing workshops. If a principal simply hands out the UOS books and says “we are a workshop school,” you can pretty much guarantee there will be a few workshop teachers, but you won’t be a workshop school. Instead, a principal who participates in the learning, leads (or requires) the staff to have professional development, and holds teachers accountable to the workshop model, will ensure her students grow from a systematic approach, sculpted by targeted instruction. In other words, a workshop principal creates a workshop school.

A topic discussed at length by this group was about developing “A Learner Bill of Rights.” This document would articulate for teachers, students, and parents what the school promised it’s writers. (Of course it would be developed for other subjects as well.) This document would start out something like “At ACS, we promise students in grade(s) will…” and would include skills, strategies, and attitudes deemed important. When I first heard about this idea, I thought, “We have that,” thinking as I was about our, Look Fors and Shouldn’t See document generated with teachers and the principal as an observation tool. But now, I realize what Cory was describing was more of a mission or a vision-type tool. One, which we could post in the office, hand out to parents, and share with our learners.

Here is my draft (this would of course need to be created with a group of people…)

A Learner Bill of Rights: Writing

In the elementary school at ACS, we promise our students…

• will be given instruction in how to write well, and not just writing assignments.
• can write from their hearts, about subjects which are important to them.
• will write everyday.
• will have multiple chances to share their writing.
• will grow as writers as they progress through our school.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the blog over at Two Writing Teachers, do it. I learn so much from these ladies! Which is why, I was amazed when they contacted me to be one of their guest bloggers this summer.

(You can read my post by clicking HERE.)

I’ve never told Stacy and Ruth this, but their blog format, two co-writers on a blog was the inspiration for my daughter’s blog: Over here, Over There. Her best friend is an Australian living in China. They are co-writing a blog to stay connected, to become immersed in this technology, and to share their stories of travel and life as 9-year old TCKs. It has been a great learning experience!

For many years now, I’ve been part of a debate about why, when, and how we should use Lucy Calkin’s series The Units of Study for Teaching Writing. I encounter misunderstandings surrounding these books everywhere I go. While at the Writing Institute this summer, I listened intently to what Lucy herself had to say about using these books. (Happily, she said basically what she wrote in the introduction to both the primary and the intermediate series.)

1. The books are teaching tools. They teach students a unit of study (how to write inside a genre) while teaching teachers how to instruct within the basic outline and frame of a writing workshop.
2. The K-2 and 3-5 series are solid curriculum for setting up and digging into writing workshop as both narrative and expository writing is taught.
3. The units are transcripts of actual lessons taught in real classrooms. (At no point does Lucy expect teachers to use her exact words. However, she has heard from many teachers who have used her exact words to help them teach this way. (I myself belonged to this group years ago when I first got my hands on these texts)
4. The boldface text in the books is the most important part to follow (if you are following it at all) as it outlines the key teaching points of the minilesson: connection, teaching, active involvement, and link.
5. The goal is to outgrow these books and to author your own units of study in and across grades.

For my part, this information was a relief as I’ve been pushing teachers at my school to use the books to help them become workshop teachers. I want us to refer to them, to use them like training wheels until we are ready to ride off down the road on our own. That said, I think the most important use of these books is to help a school develop a strong spiral across multiple grades. As my small group session leader put it, “Writing is a skill developed through use.” Giving students a chance to USE the skills and strategies we teach, multiple times throughout a unit and again and again across grades means they are more likely to walk away with real learning. Learning they can access and use at another time, on another day, independently.

Thanks Lucy.

Ok, here is my confession. I’ve spent 3 days getting moved into our summer home, and 2 more days  doing ANYTHING but blogging. This isn’t because I am burnt out and don’t want to think about the TCRWP Institute. It also has nothing to do with just wanting to be on vacation. My problem is simple… my notes from the conference are a disaster! It is going to take me weeks to weed through and interrupret them. Isn’t that just… sad?

Of course, this makes me think of the teachers I work with and the kids I teach. Learning how to organize information in the “information age” is essential.

Clearly, I need a tune up on this skill myself. Thinking back to the conference, there was so much going on, from Keynotes, to large and small group sessions, to conversations with my colleagues from ACS to deep-thinking discussions with my professional-twin Sarah (from Shanghai). I started off each morning typing; then ran out of battery and moved into the notebook we were given. I tried to store information in my head, I wrote notes on napkins at lunch and even on the back of the final certificate we were given to show completion of the institute.

Not knowing where to start or how exatly to being, I’m just going to dive in and make sense of it all.

Pared down, thoughtful posts full of useful information are sure to follow. 

Today I attended TCRWP Writing Institute for the first time. I am participating in the Principals Cohort as a Literacy Coach. (Which is interesting because in the literacy coach training I’ve had, there is a clear line between coaching and supervision.) Today I attended the Keynote address by Lucy Calkins, the large group session for grades 3-5 teachers, also led by Lucy, and finally, the first small group session for “supervisors” (principals and coaches) led by Cory Gillette, coauthor of the unit, Breathing Life Into Essays.

The final session was in many ways the most informative. Here is a brief synopsis of some of the topics we covered today:

• How to use explicit training to create a professional community and to help teachers overcome their own writing baggage with explicit training.
• Identifying and reminding teachers of the purpose behind all we do in workshop teaching: Teach the writer not the writing. Keep minilessons short so you can maximize the bulk of the writing period for conferring and differentiated instruction. Success looks like progress, not mastery.
• When observing teachers, principals and coaches can keep in mind the following characteristics of effective workshops:

1. TONE- The teacher sets a tone in the classroom which allows for risk taking and values students as writers.
2. ENGAGEMENT- The teacher uses appropriate, funny, dramatic stories during the demonstration.
3. EXPLICITNESS- The teacher uses clear language throughout the lesson. This is easy to confirm if, after watching the lesson, students and observers can answer How do I do the strategy? When do I do the strategy? Why do I do the strategy?
4. THE LESSON IS MEMORABLE- The teacher provides a lesson students can recall, remember and access. (Teaching tracks like charts are used.)
5. ACCOUNTABILITY- There is a clear expectation that what has been taught will be approximated by students, especially if it was taught during conferring or small group work.

Look for another update tomorrow.

NY, NY! I’m so happy to be in the Big Apple! Giving ourselves a day to just BE in NYC, my husband, our daughter and I caught the new hit musical Memphis yesterday. It was so much fun! We walked a thousand (according to a 9-year old) blocks to get there from our hotel, pushed through people to get to the cheap(er) ticket queue, then killed 3 hours before the matinee shopping in Macy’s on 7th Ave. A wonderful Sunday afternoon in the big city!

This morning I woke up fully thinking about the real reason I’m here: Teachers College Reading and Writing Project Summer Writing Institute, which starts tomorrow at Columbia University. I’m part of the Literacy Coach/Principal group throughout the conference. I will be able to sit in on sessions for K-2 and 3-5 teachers at different points during each day, but my focus will be on the role of the coach. (I’ll be honest, I have some mixed feelings about this. I’m a teacher first, and I feel like I might be missing out being in this “other” group. We’ll see…)

Thinking ahead, these are some questions I have now, which I hope will be answered this week. (Of course, I’m probably going to answer questions I don’t even know I have yet. I’ll add those as they come up.)

1. How can “smaller” schools (I’m thinking about independent schools like International schools and those without the benefit of district-style planing and professional development) build a sustainable workshop model? (Beyond the obvious- hire people who know how to do it. How often does that actually work out?)
2. What would a plan for developing teacher capacity across multiple years look like?
3. How can you move a staff forward, while still planning for teacher turn-over?
4. How can parents be given information/training about workshop which will make them confident in the model?
5. How can teachers who are more comfortable with top-down rather than side-by-side models of instruction be transitioned into this kind of teaching?

Rereading these questions, I realize one BIG idea I’ve been thinking a lot about lately: connecting international schools.

As a member of this community, one who will move from school to school and country to country throughout my career, I want to STOP recreating the wheel. There are going to be teachers at this conference from my schools- international schools- from all over the world. With the internet, with regional conferences (NESA, EARCOS, ECIS) and international conferences like TCRWP, we CAN come together like never before. Why don’t we?

I just facilitated the final Writing Workshop Implementation Celebration meeting for our 3-5 teachers. (Next year we will continue to meet following each unit to share vertically, but we will no longer be NEW at this.) We spent some time talking about mentor texts each grade level should use next year. It was exciting to hear teachers ready for this next step as it is so important for our differentiation of the LC units. As we were discussing the texts, I reminded teachers that we don’t need to get attached to texts, but rather we need to open our eyes to many, many possible texts for teaching the skills and strategies writer’s use. If we really do continue to grow as a workshop school, I hope we, as teachers, can read a text, recognize what the writer has done; then move to sharing what we see with our students. That means the expectation of “reading like a writer” is one each teacher must be capable of doing, not just our kids.

As a school we have walked 500 miles in Lucy Calkins’ shoes this year. We needed to jump-right-in- there and work at teaching like Lucy, if only to get a real sense of what this was all about. Next year, my role as a coach will be to pull teachers back from Lucy’s transcript and help them find their own words and ways within each unit. Being a mentor-text teacher is one of the best ways to do it. When teachers can see what a writer has done, they can highlight it for their kids. (And of course this is a transferable skill teachers can use with both reading and writing workshop.)

It has been a long, hard, worthwhile ride. I am definately getting on the plane (in 5 days) feeling like we accomplished something here. TCRWP- here we come!