Author: Stacy

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Classroom

Priceless Birthday Presents

Yesterday was my birthday.  My children were much more excited for the day than I was.  For about a week secret whispers were being passed, craft supplies were being smuggled up to bedrooms, and doors were being slammed shut everytime I walked past.  What I opened yesterday from my three children were the most overwhelming birthday gifts I have ever received…each of them wrote me a book!

My oldest daughter organized the endeavor and her brother and sister joined in with equal enthusiasm.  Bridget wrote a book of poetry Poems for All Seasons-13 Poems to Read Throughout the Year.  Aija wrote The Day I Came, a book about the day she and Leo came to live with us forever, (which also happened to be my birthday two years ago and still remains the very BEST birthday present!).  Leo stuffed some drawings in a gift bag and presented “his book”.  Priceless

Three children who understand the value of their writing and feel so much pride in giving it as a gift.  Our jobs as educators is to make every child we work with feel that pride about their writing. Help every child feel like their writing is a priceless birthday gift worth the effort to give to someone special.  As you comment on a student’s writing today think about what you could say to help them realize the value of their work.

Categories
Classroom Writing

“I am a writer”

This morning I was walking the fifth grade hallway, moving students into block 1 quickly so they could begin the writing section of the PSSA.  Of course, as I was hurrying them I was also chatting with them.  What I heard was encouraging, uplifting, and just plain awesome!  I spoke with kids who were smiling and enthusiastic about taking the test, what?!?  “I can do this” one student told me, “my teacher has given me a lot of feedback about adding content and I feel ready to do that”.  Another said, “I know I have to have a plan before I write and that will help me to stay organized.”  The one that really got me was the student who told me, “we are really good writers in this class, we impress everyone who reads our writing!”

In those statements I can see and hear all of the work teachers have put into their writing instruction.  Out teachers have begun to empower our students as writers.  Making them believe they are writers is the biggest step in developing writers.  I don’t know if the test scores will show it,  I don’t really care right now, I know we are developing writers here…just ask them.

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Classroom

Teacher as Writer

I have been doing a lot of reading lately, for work and for fun (although I think reading “school stuff” is fun …).  All of this reading has me bursting to talk about the books, to tell someone about the great idea I just read about, the beautiful sentence that brought tears to my eyes, or the educational writer who makes everything sound so easy…so many things to say and very little time to actually sit down and say them.  So I decided I would write them, of course, use my writer’s notebook that I talk about so much.  The same writer’s notebook I tell kids and teachers alike to write in.  Of course, writing in the notebook would solve my problem of so much to say, I would get it all on paper, process my thinking and feel great.

Well, things are never that simple.  I sat down to read the other night with my notebook at my side, ready to write every thought that came to mind and nothing.  It must just be the night I thought, so I tried again another night, no luck.  The next day I decided to try during lunch, no luck.  Why couldn’t I think of a thing to write when I felt like I had so many things to say?

This led me to think of those kids who look at writer’s notebooks and claim nothing to say.  A lightbulb went off…talk…it is talk that I am missing.  I had so many things I wanted to talk about but when it came to writing them they disappeared.  I wanted to tell someone my thoughts and get immediate feedback, to see their face when I shared my ideas.  The notebook would not give me the interaction I needed to sort out all of my thoughts.  Many of our kids need that talk too.  There are so many things bouncing around in their heads when it comes time to write they have the same problem I did…too many ideas to even realize they had one worthy of writing.  These students need to talk first, get feedback from another person and sort out their thinking aloud before they begin to write.  Try it out, instead of writing time, try some “talk time”.

Categories
Classroom Professional

Teacher Love

The past week there has not been a lot of love passing around the halls, classrooms, and offices of the school.  The countdown to PSSA is on and as lists are being made, tests are being labeled, and pencils are being counted I haven’t felt like I had a lot of love to pass around. 

Then, as I was feeling completely loveless three things happened that brought the teacher love pouring back into my heart…

First, my fifth grader came home and when asked what they did in language arts today she replied, “well, we worked on some generating strategies for persuasive writing in our writer’s notebooks.”    The look of delight on my previously drab face must have given her a cue to continue…” Yeah, we made lists of things that make us mad, things that make us happy, and things we talk to our friends about a lot.  I have a lot of great ideas that I want to try now, it was awesome!”  I have always loved her language arts teacher but this brought the love flowing out!

The next also involves my fifth grader and her great teachers.  Her parent letter for student-led conferences, usually a rather drab piece of writing, brought tears to my eyes.  Obviously her class worked on not just writing letters but crafting letters.  Her voice came shining through and we learned things about her experiences in school that we didn’t know.  To top it off, she pointed out in the letter where she “played with” using short sentences like the ones in the mentor text her teacher shared with them.  The love was overflowing!!

Finally, as I was walking the halls with a brighter smile on my face due to the love of the past 24 hours, a teacher said to me “we are working on snap shots today if you want to come in and watch.”  I rearranged plans in my head and ran to the room.  What I saw made me forget all about PSSA pencils, calculators, and highlighters.  The teachers used a short paragraph from Little House on the Prairie as a mentor text and then actually used a picture to demonstrate taking a close up snap shot.  The kids were captivated and the images in the picture, being brought closer and closer helped them make the connection.  When I heard a boy say, “It’s like making an inference in reading”  I knew the love was back to stay.

Teacher love…it feels good!

Categories
Professional Writerly Life

Curriculum Writing

I am writing this at 7am, just before I rush my kids to the babysitter race into school, with a rejuvenated spirit and a positive outlook on kids writing.  Why?  Because of the day I spent with an amazing team of teachers writing curriculum…Spending 8 hours in a windowless conference room could be miserable, but surrounding yourself with teachers who have a passion to help all kids grow into writers with their own voice made the sun shine into that dull room. 

Writing curriculum is hard…The time spent on revising sentences so that they express exactly what we intended, the consideration of our audience, brainstorming for the right word.  We were entrenched in the same experience we want for our students, and we want their results to feel as good as ours do to us.

Writing curriculum is hard…That is why it is so crucial that we do it, and why I am so thankful to have such talented people to work with.  If you have a passion for teaching writing, share it, it will grow…maybe into some great curriculum…

Categories
Classroom Writing

Boys with a lot to say…

I know that I have a great job, especially around those times that are super high stress for classroom teachers.  With conferences coming up next week this is one of those high stress times!  Although I do not miss the stress of parent conferences, I do miss the opportunity to conference with kids about their writing on a daily basis.  This week I had the opportunity to spend time in classrooms conferencing with writers and I loved it.

When I think back on all of the conferences I was part of this week three really stand out to me.  Three different boys read their work to me and three boys almost brought me to tears.  Each of these boys have probably brought many teachers to tears before, and not for good reasons, so I was a little nervous about what they would bring to me…What I saw demonstrated the power of writing, and what can happen when children are encouraged to find their voice and use it.

The boys were reflecting on their school year so far, describing strengths , goals, and positive experiences.  Wow! These boys were able to put on paper what they have not been able to say to the adults around them…I am so fortunate to have heard these pieces read by the authors, I was given a chance to celebrate what they can do as writers…

Even when time is tight, make time to have writing conferences, you are sure to be blown away by what your writers can do.

Categories
Classroom Writing

Audience Matters

In our school the traditional parent-teacher conferences have been replaced by student-led conferences. All students share with their parents a portfolio of their work from all of their classes.  The first piece in their binder is the SLC letter, a letter from the student to their parent thanking them for coming and setting up what the parent should expect from the conference.  In theory the letter may sound like a nice idea, a message regarding the conference from the student to their parent and a writing sample all in one.  In reality the letter is one of the most dreaded pieces of writing students and teachers face during the year.  Language arts teachers who encourage student writers throughout the year with excellent mentor text and powerful feedback become task masters…”Get the letter done! Now!”rings through the halls.  The results are what you may expect drab, lifeless, form letters that no one feels good about.

As the season for beginning the “letter” rolled around I was preparing to avoid any classroom during letter writing time, I just couldn’t be part of it.  One day, by accident, I found myself in a fifth grade classroom and the teacher said they were going to begin working on the “letter”…AHHH! I wanted to run, but she was still smiling so I decided to stick it out and see what she had up her sleeve. 

Audience…that was it.  As the class began the discussion about the letter the teacher took the conversation to audience.  Who is the audience?  What do they expect from this letter?  A simple concept, one we talk about often when writing, changed the whole perspective of this letter.  Instead of following a form and writing what the teacher and the SLC guidelines expected, the kids began thinking about their parents and what they want to know.  The results were some of the most touching and honest letters I have ever read.  One word, one concept. the effect that one word can have on writers is amazing. 

So as you push forward in writing this week think about one word that may challenge and change your writers…it may be audience.

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Hidden Gems Book Talk

LA Teachers Book Talk

Tomorrow begins our language arts teachers book club on Hidden Gems.  I think this is a great book to begin with because it is very teacher/reader friendly.  What I mean is that you can pick it up, start to read, and you’re hooked.  Katherine Bomer turns writing instruction into an interesting story that you don’t want to put down…no need to drink lots of coffee and keep yourself awake through this one.  I hope all of the teachers feel the same!

Categories
Classroom Grammar Writing

Writing in Math class

Last week I finally broke out of the Language Arts, Social Studies world and ventured into a math class. I have been trying to talk top math teachers about the important role they play in teaching students to write in math. I received a lot of skeptical looks in return, over time the skeptical looks turned to more of a patronizing nod. That is until we began to administer benchmark math assessments to our fifth grade that included two multi-step problems requiring written explanations. As a team we sat down to score the explanations and it became very obvious that although our students had made a lot of progress in their writing in general, they did not know how to write a clear, consice math explanation. These explanations were filled with opinions, vague language, and even some attempts at humor (math teachers do not really appreciate math humor on an assessment!). After the last scoring session one brave math teacher took me up on my weekly offer to come into math class and talk about how to write in math.

I knew I had one chance to show the teachers how important this was and it really worked. I did a mini-lesson showing the students a recipe written as a recipe and the same recipe written as a narrative, with very literary, discriptive language. They could see right away why math writing needs to look more like the recipe. Give the reader what they need to know, the process used to solve the problem, nothing more, nothing less.

After a great discussion the students got to work practicing and giving each other feedback. Suddenly I felt right at home in a math class, we were talking the talk that I am so familiar with.

By the time I made it back to my office that afternoon I had three more e-mails from other math teachers wanting to set up writing lessons. Kids need to know that writing is part of understanding in every content area…we are now on our way at our middle school.

Phys. ed. may be next……

Categories
Assessment

Snow Day #2

Today is snow day #2 for our school district. Aside from doing crafts, playing countless boardgames, and refereeing fights with my three kids I found time to begin rereading Hidden Gems by Katherine Bomer. The fifth and sixth grade language arts teachers in my school will be reading this book in a book study group and I am facilitating the group so this time I picked it up to read through the lense of a classroom teacher reading it for the first time. This book is amazing and a must read for all teachers who spend time around student writers of any age. As I was reading, the on-demand writing samples that are sitting in my bag waiting to be scored kept popping into my head. I have to admit I have been carrying these last few papers around with me for more than a few days. They are the papers that did not get scored by the teacher teams during an afternoon of scoring, and I am supposed to read them, determine their score in five domains, and give them back to the teachers. Catherine Bomer reminded me why I feel so reluctant to do this. What can I really communicate to the teacher and most importantly the student writer about thier writing through a set of scores from a rubric? Who am I to determine if the style of this piece of writing is proficeint or basic?
Scoring a writing piece is inevitable, eventually everyone needs a score to track growth and report to “higher ups” (administrators, states, and most impotantly parents) but the work that comes before the score is what really matters. I have so many questions I want to ask about each paper: how does this student see themselves as a writer, what have they been working on, what do they think of the piece? I feel some consolation becasue I know in my school many of those questions are beginning to be asked by teachers.
As I begin to tackle the pile of student writing I am going to keep Katherine Bomer in my head and ‘notice’ what the students are able to do, celebrate the passion they bring to their writing, and plan some teaching demonstrations to model the type of feedback our student writers need to grow.
Before you read another piece of student writing read or re-read Writing Gems, it will convince you that you ‘have the best job on the earth.’