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.
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.)
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.
“This unit is a journey, and at every bend in the road you have extraordinary lessons to teach. The most important learning and teaching will happen as you and your students grapple with the complexities, and challenges of thinking and writing logically.” (Lucy Calkins, Breathing Life Into Essays p. 149)
Teachers worked on sessions 13-16 this week. Across grades 3-5 we had students writing supporting stories, angling their work, drafting the stories into supporting paragraphs, and working on introductions and conclusions.
This is by far my favorite unit to teach in the LC series. (Poetry in the K-2 series is my other favorite.) I spent some time this week listening to my colleagues talk about their kids and the work that was taking place. Over and over I heard the concern that the students weren’t “getting it” and I remembered feeling the same way. I was reminded today what it was that changed things for me: One day, a tenth grade teacher stopped by my room to ask me about the thesis topics I had posted. He was heading to his wife’s classroom and spotted a display I had made to simply show the different thesis topics my kids had committed to. He was amazed (and impressed, excited, and thankful) that we were beginning to teach students how to structure their thinking and their writing in the primary grades. He asked me if I had always taught essays in grade 3 and I told him no, this was my first attempt. His response to the work encouraged me to look at my students’ writing not as an END, but as a beginning. I was starting something. I was laying the foundation and that work would make a difference in their writing lives in middle and high school.
Remember: Writing is thinking. We are developing our students’ capacities to think about what they are doing just as much as we are teaching them how to structure a 5-paragraph essay. The quote above beautifully illustrates the emphasis and approach I believe we should be taking with this unit, especially on our first go of it. As we move away from the final product being the most important focus, and instead work on creating writers (and by that I mean thinkers…organizers…powerful communicators) we notice that children are learning how to do this work. They aren’t there yet. We aren’t there yet. However, they are taking the necessary step toward seeing writing as a powerful, necessary form of communication worth thinking about.
This week a colleague was describing how one of her students had a thesis that wasn’t working out as well as she had hoped. The good news is that the student realized the problem was with his thesis choice. It wasn’t something he really cared about or new extensively. Sure he is writing the essay, but it isn’t as powerful as both he and the teacher had hoped or expected. Trouble is, at this point in the unit it is too late for the student to start work on a new thesis. My advice? Celebrate the learning. Imagine if this student internalizes some of the strategies, which will lead him to better select, or better organize his essays in the future. What if he never forgets this first essay in Mrs. So-and-Sos 4th grade class and it changes the way he writes forever? Isn’t that the mark of good teaching? Celebrate it. Get him to articulate it. And praise him for learning it. Fitting it all in… We are battling to get this unit in and done. I realize teachers feel like we are pushing through this and it seems impossible. The pace is quick. However, at this point in our implementation and in our spiral development, we need to teach these units to know what we need to keep, add, and emphasize. The first year I taught this series I got bogged down in Unit 2, teaching and reteaching until everyone was there, on the same page, at the same spot. Four weeks of work and I was only 1/2 through the unit. I was burnt out and the students were heading toward frustration. Today, I understand that these units are to be taught each in about a month. For us that is roughly 20 days. The pace is quick. However, as Lucy says over and over, the minilessons mostly aren’t meant to be lessons every student works on that very day. Standing back from the unit, and getting the big picture forces you to make a plan to start and end. The pace is quick. Stay focused.
Consider your final product when you are thinking about time. There have been times when I taught this unit when I used a cut-and-paste method to put the final product together. Once students selected their mini-stories, (which I considered the most important part) I had them glue the stories on long sheets of paper in the correct order with the introduction and conclusion framing the work. Although this product looked exactly as it sounds… cut out and pasted together, it was a visual example of the thinking behind the placement and organization of text. That visual piece gave parents an opportunity to see the steps in this process and to celebrate them with their child.
“Remember that our goals always extend beyond the reading and writing workshop. It is important to teach writing in part because writing is a powerful tool for thought. This session goes a long way towards helping children use writing as a tool for growing ideas on the page. We’re explicitly teaching children to say more and think more, to extend their first thoughts, and to know what it is to see new ideas emerge from the tips of their pens. This is important!” (Breathing Life Into Essays p. 47)
This was one of those amazingly busy weeks! However, teachers worked to move their students into sessions 8-12 which focus on selecting a thesis, refining it and making sure you really know enough to write about it, and moving into writing strong, personal narratives which support the essay points.
This was one of those weeks. You know what I mean… visiting authors, report cards were due, assemblies (you heard me… more than one!), and the kids collectively, were acting out (we had a fight, bullying issues, accidental falls, tears, etc.). In the midst of it all I had a meeting with the grade level writing team reps, which seemed like a bad idea… until we started talking about writing. The flood gates opened with all the ways this wasn’t working, but we moved into why we are moving our teaching this way, how much we value the vertical collaboration, ways we know we can improve this work today, in the next unit, and next year. The meeting was the highlight of my week.
Our main goal this year was for each grade (3-5) to work through every unit in the Units of Study series. To do that, we first created a year-long plan. We gave each unit roughly 20 days. Even with our holidays and breaks we were able to fit in all the units. The next step was to make monthly calendars for each unit. At first, I worked with a rep from each level to make these calendars. By Unit 3 however, we released the calendar creation to the teams so they could collaborate.
What we’ve learned, is teaching writing daily is critical to student success. However, realistically teachers need a buffer day in the week to catch up/reteach. Beginning with Unit 3, we have decided to provide for that. Interestingly, it doesn’t alter our month calendar much. What might need to be changed are the “product” days at the end. Which fits with what we are trying to do anyway- focus on the process and less on the pretty, perfect, final product. Regardless, teachers are finding ways to fit this in, try the units on, and learn from the process so we can improve our work next year.
What should a thesis look like in grade 3? Grade 4? Grade 5? I wrote about this last week in my weekly post, but it came up in our writing team meeting, so I’ll add some notes here. Basically, there is no right answer, no magic formula based on age or grade, and no way for me to outline a perfect scenario. What I can do is remind teachers that it will depend on two very important factors:
To me, a good thesis then, is one a student feels strongly about and can back up with writing from his own heart/mind.
Value the process. As Lucy describes on p. 110, “…hold to the principle that minilessons are occasions for teaching a strategy or an idea children can use often.” The work in this unit provides students with a voice they can use over and over again when they are taking a stance or giving their opinions. This unit also helps children understand the value of organizing thoughts and points, in order to select what is most powerful. How exciting to have an 8 or 10 year old considering his words and sifting through his thoughts to find those that are best suited for advancing his position on something!
The process of considering what you want to say and how best to say it is something students can use in many school subjects. Similarly, teaching children how to think about what they are saying (writing)- that evaluation- is something we hope they will do as adults.
In my last weekly write up I mentioned I would post one collection idea useful in session 9. (Click Here.) This is just one way children can collect and organize their ideas and thoughts. The goal of session 9, besides having them get organized is to teach them that organization leads to increased productivity and better writing. If you have a student who has been doing this kind of writing for years (your school is more secure in the spiral) then it might be appropriate for him to use a collection process, which works for him. However, if your children are new to this, asking them all to collect using the same strategies is a worthwhile, whole-class goal.
“It is very important to notice that minilessons are not a vehicle for doling out the daily assignment. Instead of saying, “Today, I’d like you to each make a two column chart. On the top of the left column, write…” I say, “Another system I sometimes use is…” The goal of a minilesson is to add to students’ repertoire of skills and strategies, not to dole out that day’s assignment.” (From Breathing Life into Essays by Lucy Calkins p. 17)
All of the grades basically worked through sessions 3-7 this week. These lessons continued to show children how to generate ideas, however they also began to work on the ever-important “framing” of this work, what Lucy calls: Boxes and Bullets. Prep work for next week should include getting the materials ready for collecting stories for each topic idea (bullet) students decide on for their thesis. (See my example of a collection system we are planning to use in every grade this year Here.)
Again, as a coach, I’m not feeling that I’m offering solid support to teachers implementing this unit. (But sometimes that happens.) I’m not scheduled to coach in with any classes, and I’m beginning to feel like I’m out of touch with what is going on. So, I’ve requested teachers try to keep me in the loop. This is what I just sent out to them:
Don’t worry if your students aren’t selecting strong essay topics… yet. Part of the joy in teaching this unit for me, was in watching students develop a voice of authority or an expert stance in their writing. For example, last year a third grader wrote a compelling essay titled: Shawarma is the best food. While at first glance his teacher and I thought this wasn’t a strong enough topic for an essay, we soon learned that the child had strong thoughts about the topic, and that was what was important in crafting a solid piece of writing. My advice, try not to judge the topic. Instead when you are helping students in these early lessons to see if their topics are strong enough to be developed into essays, focus on whether or not the student has enough to say about the topic. Of course, our older students will probably develop more profound topics. However, if you are at the same implementation stage as we are at my school (all grades working through these units for the first time), then fifth graders might also write strong about simpler ideas. We are all learning.
Conferring and sharing: The heart of writing workshop. Just as you were doing in the past units, pulling alongside these young writers and asking “How’s it going?” is the key to moving each student, small groups of students, and ultimately the whole class forward. If you imagine your job during independent writing time is similar to being a journalist embedded into an army unit during a battle, conferencing is the key to understanding what is happening out there “in the field.” It is when you learn what is really going on, and not what you are being told is happening. In this unit, sharing what you see, hear and learn during a conference will have real power. I’m not referring to a student sharing his/her work here. Instead I’m thinking about you, the teacher, talking about what smart idea you’ve just read or smart writing move you learned a student used. Highlight what you see and explain why it is so smart. Just as the content of a minilesson isn’t a task you expect students to complete all together, at the same time, during independent writing; sharing the smart things you see is simply planting the seed for other students to pick up on… tomorrow, or better yet, when they are ready. (Pages 42-43 in Breathing Life Into Essays for more on this.)
Connect the learning back. Although we aren’t doing it deliberately yet, my school will eventually discuss how this work directly relates and connects to moves we want students to make in reading. The “conversational prompts” introduced in session 4 to push thinking forward are amazing tools to introduce into other curriculum areas. Whenever you are asking students to deeply think, write or discuss something, these prompts can help. The more practice students have in phrasing their thinking and layering it like this, the better they will become at it. However, one caution, as Lucy reminds us in her coaching notes on p. 47: “… When children begin to bring these phrases into their writing, you’ll notice a child may write a phrase such as “This makes me realize…” without begin aware of the meaning in that phrase…” My advice? Don’t expect students to memorize or become experts at using these phrases. Instead, allow them to try them on, attempt to use them, and help them understand how they work. The perfect place to do this? During your conferences.
Important Reading: An FYI. The writes up on pages 71 and 83 at the beginning of sessions 6 and 7 are important to read and digest. Sessions 7-9 introduce deep, slow, deliberate work. In fact, I find them to be different from any other sessions Lucy presents.
“Although essays are fundamentally different from narratives, the process of writing is remarkably similar. Whether we are writing stories or essays, we begin by living writerly lives, collecting bits that we grow into developed texts. The bits we collect are structured differently depending on whether we’re planning a narrative or an expository text, but the topics can be the same. Keep in mind that people can follow an expository structure while writing about very personal topics—and that’s the plan for this unit.” (From Breathing Life into Essays by Lucy Calkins p.2)
“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” was his response. “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”’ — Lewis Carroll
Grades 3 and 4 started Breathing Life Into Essays last week with grade 5 beginning this week.
I’m not scheduled to coach into any classrooms for the next two weeks. However, as teachers dig into this unit there might be opportunities for me to provide support. Prior to our Winter holiday, I met with each grade level to walk them through the unit. One of the key pieces of my presentation was to look at this unit in stages:
After a break it is always hard to get back to it. Just do it. We have a plan. In fact, we have multiple plans. Our year-long units of study calendar is set up to ensure we complete all six units in the series. The dates for completion are clear and allow us time to work through each unit. I remember how hard it is to get kids focused after a break. However, we have lots of teaching to do and needed to get started with our writing- right away. Sometimes this deeply focused response and structure provides children with a safe and comfortable way to re-enter school.
Follow the sessions, but make them your own. I’ve worked through the units in both the primary and intermediate units of study series and have found that Lucy’s stories and anecdotes are often easy for me to use when making a teaching point. (Which isn’t cheating- I’m learning from her, just like the kids are learning from me.) However, there are times when her words don’t fit in my mouth. Of course, in that instance I need to find my own stories and believe in my own words. Finding that is hard when you are new to teaching writing instead of simply assigning writing. This work takes time. My advice: try. Just as we are asking the kids to try and find big moments in their small ideas, take a risk and put your own story/idea/anecdote out there. Write right along side them, if you can.
Remember there is comfort in a spiraled curriculum. (But only if everyone at your school is teaching within and along the spiral.) Depending on how long your school has been working through these units and what grade you are teaching, your job within the spiral will be different. Right now at my school all the teachers are working at the beginning of the spiral. For all the children, writing essays is NEW. Next year, 2/3 of our learners will have one year of this work under their belt. They will be able to do more writing and deeper thinking. At that point our expectations will need to change and realign. For now, trust the units and move through the sessions with a beginning and an ending in mind. Remember the units build on themselves too. What you spent the last five months teaching, will be used in this unit. As Lucy says, “Each unit stands on the shoulders of the unit before it.” This is hard work. The essay unit is actually one of my favorites to teach. The first time I attempted it, I was amazed at the voice of authority my 3rd graders learned to tap into. They wrote about topics that mattered to them with well-thought-through reasons aimed at convincing an audience of their opinions. The children grew right before my eyes as writers, and as thinkers. The work wasn’t nearly as hard for them as it was for me. Part of the problem was I approached the unit thinking, “There is no way 3rd graders can write essays!” I was putting too little stock in our abilities as learners (myself and my students.) This unit was the turning point in my career as a writing teacher. I began to think about teaching differently and I began to think about my students’ capabilities differently. This is hard work. But it is worthwhile work.
Find a way to share this work with parents. Think about how differently you are teaching writing compared to how you were taught to write. Parents best guess about how to teach comes from their backgrounds as students. When you are ready as a school, plan to share the thinking behind this teaching, with parents. As a literacy coach it is easy for me to talk about a our “reading community”. It makes sense to ask parents to read with their children each night. Where does writing fit in? How can we make writing as family-friendly as reading? (I hope to have more on this in future posts, however if you have an idea, please share by posting a comment.)
“If a teacher told me to revise, I thought that meant my writing was a broken-down car that needed to go to the repair shop. I felt insulted. I didn’t realize the teacher was saying, “Make it shine. It’s worth it.” Now I see revision as a beautiful word of hope. It’s a new vision of something. It means you don’t have to be perfect the first time. What a relief!” By Naomi Shihab Nye
All grades (3-5) worked to revise, edit and/or publish this week.
Grades 3-5 teachers are preparing for celebrating our students’ hard work. To continue our own professional learning, all teachers met with me this week to celebrate completing this unit.
We collaborated in both grade level teams and in vertical teams by reflecting on:
When You’re Done You’ve Just Begun. Although this phrase was intended to help children with the “I’m dones!” it is also helpful for us as teachers to realize we will continue to get better at this work, too. In fact, I recently read this description on the blog WYN Education Associates that celebrates the reflective nature of this best-practice model:
Our kids are writers. One of the most important discussions I sat in on at our celebration was between the grade 5 teachers who shared their students’ final typed drafts. The conversation seemed applicable to all grade levels when considering student writers. This is what I heard these teachers reflecting on:
Collaboration is vital when creating a culture where this work will flourish. As I listened in on vertical discussions between grades 3, 4 and 5 teachers, I was reminded of how powerful a learning community can be. As one teacher listed his frustrations teaching this unit, other teachers from other grades were there to offer support and ideas. I mentioned then, and I want to reiterate it now: No one is in this alone. Through our (sometimes forced) collaboration within grade levels and across grades, we are supporting each other on this journey. We are building a culture where discussing our kids, as opposed to my kids is the norm. By doing this, we are strengthening the learning and teaching experience for ALL members of our community.
Next step: Bringing parents into this work, more on that in January.
“The only man who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew every time he sees me, while all the rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.” – George Bernard Shaw
“When you’re done you’ve just begun.” Lucy Calkins (Primary Units of Study)
“When you are through changing you are through.” Martha Stewart (Vanity Fair, November, 2009)
The teachers in grades 3, 4, and 5 are all working their way through Raising the Quality of Writing. They are in different places and on different lessons, but all working toward ending this unit before our Eid holiday break, November 26th. This week I coached into a 5th grade class. My job was to walk the substitute through “Ending Stories” Session 12 and “Editing: The Power of Commas” Session 13. Also, I facilitated a 1/2-day meeting with our writing team representatives at these grade levels to talk about this work and plan for next steps.
This week I have something to celebrate. I believe the substitute in grade 5 was successfully able to teach the sessions after we met and walked through them. This is what we did: According to the plans left by the teacher, we knew that the last 2 teaching sessions were to be taught at the beginning of the week, and that the end of the week would involve students revising, editing, and typing on the computers. So both mornings, I came to the classroom and we talked through the lesson using this “Sub Sheet” (Click to view.) I made this 3-part lesson template to help distill the lesson into manageable parts. The goal was to keep it simple and most importantly DOABLE. So, we looked over the session pages in Raising the Quality, we looked over the one-page write-ups we have for each session*; then we talked about how the lesson would go in 3-parts:
We need to begin seeing this as DOABLE. When I first met with the sub this week she wasn’t sure she could teach/manage this work. However, after our work to keep it simple (and therefore successful for her) on that first day, she was much more confident. I believe we have a duty to demystify this teaching. Substitutes can teach these lessons. However, they might not be able to bring in all the complicated moves you would use if you were there. But what is the goal? To me, the goal is to teach one skill, give the kids time to write, and to maintain the structure of the minilesson by ending with a share time. Keeping it simple allows the work to continue. Similarly, the tone we use to approach this work is important. If we tell a substitute that this is going to be confusing, impossible, or that she can’t do it… that is exactly what will happen.
We need to begin to see this is DOABLE for ourselves too. At our 1/2-day writing team meeting, we talked about how hard this shift has been, but then we also discussed how much better we are getting at teaching it. I’m thinking we will all eventually do what I did with the 5th grade sub… Just as you might watch a dancer do a move, then step away and try it on your own, I suggest we—
Again, the Units of Study materials are not scripts. No one wants you to say exactly what Lucy says. However, at times it helps to do just that. At times, it is important that you can visualize how this should go. In the spiraled curriculum, staying within these lessons is important. If we begin to plan and execute lessons as I described above, then we will be responding to the needs of our kids. This will change these lessons in a good way: ensuring differentiation and providing assessment driven instruction, while still maintaining the spiral.
*Please contact me if you are interested in seeing our one-page write-ups for each session in the Lucy Calkins Units of Study series.
“I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English – it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.” By Mark Twain
This week I helped out in grade 4 with lessons on generating ideas (Session 3) and asking, “What Am I Really Trying to Say?” (Session 6). I was also involved in many conversations about this whole process. Everything from: How can we possibly fit this in? to Using the mentor text Peter’s Chair to teach about the story arc just confused the kids- why did Lucy do that? (see p. 92 in Raising the Quality of Narrative Writing for a bit of an answer)
We are past Halloween. We have finished and sent out report cards. We are nearly done with parent teacher conferences. How many times have I said, we are very, very busy? And yet…
The work is hard. The preparation, the teaching, the marking, all of it is hard—because it is new for us. However, we are also seeing results. We are beginning to develop students who see themselves as writers, who realize they have stories in their lives, and who with increasing confidence, will apply and use the strategies we are teaching every time they pick up a pencil or put fingers to a keyboard. We are also beginning to develop transferable teaching skills. Skills we can use in reader’s workshop and later we can apply to our other teaching.
Last year I had the opportunity to work with a group of teachers who didn’t want to do this. However, they went along with me and waded into the LC pool. They were feeling much the same as teachers are now. However, there was also a moment when they recognized this was better teaching, and they just had to push through and get better at it. Once that happened, I knew we would make it. In fact, last year as we neared the fourth unit, I encouraged them to take a break and to just stop there. (Truth be told, they weren’t required to be doing this…) Would you believe, after all the worry and stress they refused to stop? “This is the hardest, best thing we’ve ever done!” they told me. “We can’t stop now!”
We can’t stop now! Keep moving forward. Continue to reflect on what you are trying to do and how it is going. Work with colleagues to celebrate what is going well and to articulate what isn’t working well… yet. If you really, still believe…
Come see me or post a comment here. I’m eager to hear what your plans are for teaching writing. If you have a better idea, I’m listening.
During our Staff Writing Celebration a few weeks ago I was asked to list some of the ways I have celebrated and published final pieces in writer’s workshop. Thinking this over was a great exercise for me, both as a coach and as a teacher. The more I worked on it, the more I realized capturing this in a document was a great way to show how the celebrations in one grade level as well as across grades, could spiral in their complexity. Attached is my 1st draft of this idea. Please click HERE to view it in Scribd.
Please let me know if you have any ideas for improving/adding to this document by commenting below.
