Book Study: A Guide to the Reading Workshop, Chapter 1

For those that want to follow along with our current book study, but are not able to attend...

A Guide to the Reading Workshop: Primary Grades by Lucy Calkins

What are the BIG ideas in Chapter 1: First Things First?

“You cannot create what you cannot imagine.”

• Too many children are not learning to love to read. The longer kids stay in school, the less they like to read!

• What are the conditions that make reading bad for you?  What makes reading good?  It's the same for kids!

• Large, for-profit companies with core reading programs are not the answer.  We have 50 years of research saying packaged programs do NOT work.

• The most important thing we can do to lift student achievement is to support the professional development and retention of good teachers.

• Students need to spend most of their time reading in books that are just right.  We will not close the reading gap by having students read grade level text that is beyond their reach.

• We must model the professional learning as adults that we want in our classrooms.

Next assignment for 11-19-15: Chapter 2 - Follow the rest of this book study on Live from the Creek, Chets Creek's professional development blog.  A synopsis of each chapter will be posted that reflects the text and the conversation.

Narrative Post-Prompt

With soft music playing in the background, our students took 45 minutes today to complete their last prompt piece of the year, this time a small moment narrative. Most of these students we have had for two years. Some came in drawing detailed pictures with the ability to orally tell us about the pictures. At most, they could write a few words, like love, mom, dad and their name. A few came only able to scribble.

Lucky for us (and for them!), Lucy Calkins and Teacher's College, introduced their new writing units as we began kindergarten with this group. We eagerly embraced the new units the day they were in our building. We are so fortunate to have a Reading Coach, Melanie Holtsman, in our building that has been steeped in Lucy's work for years and is an often participant in the summer professional development offered by Teachers College, so we had help along the way as we implemented. We had discussions and saw demo lessons.  This is not the adopted writing curriculum for our county, so we are so fortunate to have a Principal with vision that can see the value and find the money to offer this curriculum to our students.  We were able to teach three of the units before kindergarten came to a close last year and then have been actively engaged with the four first grade units all of this year.

We can see the difference it is making in our youngest writers and today the students will produce this final on-demand piece. As I walked around, I could see that students were going back, rereading and editing.  They had their personal word wall outs to check words, and you could see them stretching words that were unfamiliar.  They were going back to check punctuation, and you could see them erasing and adding capitals. But even more than the conventions, I could see that they were adding dialogue (part of the second grade standard for narrative).  They were adding details to their drawings, speech bubbles and labels.  The best thing is that almost without exception, they worked solidly, without a sound, totally engaged for the entire 45 minutes!  Writing stamina is simply a way of life! As we took the booklets up, I wanted to stop right there and read every one!  We can't wait to see what they have written!

Working on the work

One of the best things about teaching at Chets Creek is the WOW days.  WOW stands for Working on the Work and four times a year, each grade level gets to spend an entire day just working together.  We don't do lesson plans because our amazing Resource Team takes the children for the entire day.  I'm not sure it's the Resource Team's favorite day - to have first graders for an entire day - but the kids really look forward to it and come back at the end of the day, raving about the experience.

As is the tradition, each day starts off with a demo teach.  A teacher volunteers to have all of her grade level watch her teach and then debrief the lesson.  The idea is to show something that colleagues can go right back the next day and teach in their own classrooms.  This week, my co-teacher, Tracy Ruark, who is the Science Lead for our grade level, got the call.  Science is not graded at first grade and in reality, there is no real accountability, except that you are suppose to teach it!  At our school, however, there is a real emphasis on Science at every grade level.  Tracy is part of a Science Council that meets regularly to look at Science horizontally.  They meet together to find additional Resources and labs, to read and study, and to work together to make Science through-the-grades more aligned.  So today, we got to see a lab and lesson in the larger unit of "The Earth's Surface."  Tracy is such a natural when it comes to Science,  Unlike so many of her primary colleagues, she has a love for Science and has background knowledge that enhances every discussion.  I feel so fortunate to teach with someone with such a gift.

Below are some of the pictures I snapped as our first grade colleagues talked with the students as they made aquifers with their partners during the lab portion of the lesson.  The students came back and discussed the results of the lab and then recorded in their Science notebooks.

 

 

After the lesson first grade teachers met together and debriefed the lesson.  Tracy made sure that each teacher had the background information and the supplies (bought out of her own pocket) to repeat the experience in their own classes.

After lunch we were treated to a debrief from our first grade Reading and Writing lead, Maria Mallon who had just returned from a Lucy Calkins' Workshop.  Our Principal funded teachers at every grade level to attend the one day seminar in Orlando, so that those teachers could come back and teach us the newest information hot off the press!  I guess we are just educational nerds, because we hung on her every word.  Besides just telling us, Maria had taken pages of meticulous notes and obviously had come home and enhanced her notes so that they would be understandable to each of us.  I know it wasn't like being right there, but it was the next best thing!

The day ended with Math lead Cheryl Dillard presenting a rekenreck training that had been designed by our own Assistant Principal Suzanne Shall and tweaked by Cheryl to meet our needs.  Although we have this Math tool in our classrooms, we don't use it as much as we should.  I, for one, shook off the dust, and had it out today using it while I was teaching a new Math game that we worked on yesterday at our WOW, "Close to 20."  Cheryl presented several Resources and new games that match exactly where our students are and what they need.  I couldn't wait to try them out today.  Cheryl made that especially easy because she had been to Office Max and had copies of the charts in larger sizes that we would need and had bought the wooden dice for us to make to play the game.  Therefore, I came in early to laminate my poster and the game was up and running this afternoon.

That's what I LOVE about this day.  It's a time to laugh and enjoy collegial conversation.  It's a time to ask questions.  But most of all, it's a time to learn. So much went into making our WOW day successful: Tracy being willing to find a new lab that met our standards on her own time and to buy supplies that would be needed for the entire grade level; our Principal funding Maria to spend a day with Lucy Calkins and then Maria coming home and spending countless hours on preparing notes that she could present to us;  Our Assistant Principal preparing a rekenrek training for principals in another state and teaching it to Cheryl so she could present the highlights to us and then Cheryl taking the best of Suzanne's work to craft it to meet our first grade needs and then going out and finding all the resources that we would need to come right back to our classes and be able to teach it the next day.  I know I have said it before, but I work with some incredible teachers!! 

Infomational Writing - the Second Bend

One the great things about life at Chets Creek is that we take professional development very seriously.  We often provide professional development on the clock but there is a non-negotiable expectation - you are expected to be engaged and to participate.  Last week first grade met for a day of professional development while our students were treated to a special all-Resource day.  The students really look forward to their special day, and for us, it means no lesson plans for subs!

The day always starts with a demonstration lesson.  Maria Mallon hosted all 14 of us in her classroom for a Lucy-inspired (Lucy Calkins) lesson.  We are just beginning the second bend of Informational Writing.  Maria is our grade level lead so her job is to stay just a few lessons ahead of the pack so she can prepare us for what is to come.  She and Reading Coach Melanie Holtsman worked together to provide the perfect day.

The thing that always impresses me about Maria is that her classroom is just so joyful.  I can just imagine being a little first grader sitting on the floor at her feet.  I would believe every single thing she said!  She is so genuine and it just pulls you right in. I just feel good in her room. It just makes me smile.  Of course, there is also a lot of learning going on.  Her rituals and routines are such perfection that you feel like you want to rewind and figure out,  "How did she do that?"  The children transition with such ease.  On this day she transitioned with a song for fluency.  The kids went soundlessly to their seats on the floor and she started...  First she told them how incredible they were and how proud she was.  Then she launched into the gist of the lesson - which was about using all the tools in the room - the charts and rubrics and mentor texts and words around the room...  Then it was off to writing.  The children look like busy little bees.  Every single child is engaged in the process of writing and the only sounds you hear are productive conversations between partners. Maria does drive by conferences, walking around purposefully stopping to chat with a few students, asking purposeful questions and just generally supervising the flow of the workshop.  Before you know it, it's time to Close and the children quietly put all their supplies away and in a blink are back on the carpet.  When they are settled Maria reads the informational rubric and challenges the children to work toward the second grade standards.  You can see the excitement in their little bodies as they already begin to rise to the occasion.  I think I want to be a first grader again in Maria's class!

Then it's to the conference room where we debrief the lesson with Melanie, commenting on the things that we really liked in the lesson, asking Maria questions about things we still wonder about.  I think each of us questions how we  would do the same lesson and we make a mental list of things we want to try or change tomorrow.  That's what "starting with a demo" is all about.

Then it's to the work of the day.  As we wait for the Calkins Reading Units to be released this summer, we know we need to ramp up our reading instruction. Melanie digs in and begins to challenge us to push the continuum of thinking in our classrooms.  She frames the work that will be expected in second and third and fourth grade that is changing with the Common Core so that we begin to define a path from where we are to where we need to go.  Melanie doesn't give us the answers.  She doesn't spoon feed us but challenges us to think.  We don't need dummy-proof curriculums. We don't need scripted Core Curriculums but we do need teachers that think.  We need teachers who can look at the data, but so much more than that - teachers who can read the room, who KNOW their students as learners and from that wealth of information can take the standards and define the teaching that needs to be done. That's what will transforms education.

Follow the Bend in the Road

As we decided on our first standards-based bulletin board for the year, our Reading Coach, Melanie Holtsman, challenged us to take the lessons that we were teaching in Lucy Calkins' New Units of Study and to demonstrate the students' work as a result of some of the lessons.  It was an idea we had never presented before on a bulletin board so, of course, the challenge was interesting.  I'm always up for a challenge! Normally we like to take a finished genre of writing and show all the ways that a student has used what they have learned but on this board Melanie wanted us to look at student work after each lesson. We decided to accept the challenge with our bulletin board tied to our Wizard of Oz theme, Follow the Bend in the Road.

This was the "task" and standard.

Task

This year First Grade has embraced the new Writing Units of Study written by the Reading and Writing Project at Teachers College under the direction of Lucy Calkins.  We are teaching this “Small Moments” Narrative unit for the first time.

As we opened our first days of Writing Workshop we reminded students of all that they loved about writing in Kindergarten and we welcomed them into a new year’s writing as authors.  We talked about their writing “muscles” and all the books that they were going to write!  We established the rituals and routines of the Workshop.

The lessons displayed on this bulletin board only address the first “bend” in the narrative unit.  The “bend” is like the first set of mini-lessons that go together.  The students stopped at this bend and celebrated their writing, before beginning the next leg of the journey.

Standards

LAFS.1.W.1.3
Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure. 


We looked at four different lessons.  This is a sample of an Introduction, the student work and the commentary from one of those lessons.

Translation: One time I went to my cousin's. It was my first time catching a lizard's tail. It was moving. My mom was there. I put it in the grass and my sister was there.  I went (back) in the afternoon. Then her lizard got stuck in the bush. Then I held the lizard's tail. Then I went to go wash my hands.

The First Bend

Today we came to the first "bend" in our narrative writing unit. We have been using the new units of Study from Teachers' College.  After a few weeks of writing small moment stories, the children used a red pen to edit one of their finished pieces. And then, like a museum, the students put out their work and invited their friends to stop by and read their completed story.

After looking at each other's work, the students compared their own baseline pieces to their finished piece and discovered that they has really grown as writers. A few years ago I would never have imagined that first graders could do this type of peer review or self-assessment but today, they did! Thank you, Lucy!

Testing Rant

I have already ranted about the excess amount of testing in our county at the beginning of this school year for our youngest learners.  In our sixth week of school this year, our district finally revised its testing calendar and dropped the Science, Music, Art and PE pre and post tests that they had originally required of Kindergartners.  They also dropped the Reading, Math, and Science tests they had originally required at the end of each nine weeks and only required post tests in Reading in Math.  Hallelujah! However, they added  post tests for the computer programs we have been using... when we were able to get to the computer lab, as we worked around the computer testing program (we have one lab for 1300 students!)  To say this year was full of disorganized chaotic testing is an understatement.  The amount of hours of instruction lost to a ridiculous testing schedule is disgraceful.

Lucy Calkins made a statement about testing being the Titanic of the Common Core, and I think she is right. I'm not sure how testing got tied to the Common Core because there is nothing in our new standards that require the type of testing that is being done today.  Certainly we need to understand where our students are at any given time so that we know how and what to instruct, but it seems we've just gotten into testing, as if by simply testing students, they can improve!  We miss the point entirely.  Assessment completes the prescriptive cycle of identifying through assessment, writing a prescription, selecting the appropriate resources to instruct, instructing, and then assessing again to identify the new targets.  Testing without engaging appropriate instruction is simply wasteful. It's malpractice.

As I was leaving school this afternoon, I caught this picture outside the Test Administrator's Office.  Fifty-eight boxes were taped and labeled, ready to go to the District's Testing Office.  That's not the state required high stakes test that was given in the Spring but 58 boxes of required county tests given to our K-5 students at the end of the year.  These will be used for performance pay for teachers, eventually, although the inaccuracies are mind boggling.  I know that the intent is to move the county forward, but it just seems like the implementation has been boggled at every turn.  We were fortunate to have a Test Administrator who was able to shoulder the enormous time and responsibility of organizing the distribution and administration of such a massive testing schedule (I guess you could say her part time job was being the only Assistant Principal at our very large school!)  Her talent and perseverance were noticed and appreciated by all.

As for my school, we tried, as we always do, to carve a course through the mine field and to just keep doing what we know works.  We gave the assessments that we absolutely had to give, although it is difficult to trust the results of a new test - we were not able to depend on it for anything.  We did the best we could in a "red" school (meaning we do not have the technology infrastructure that we need to support the expectations of computerized testing) and tried to soothe the hysteria of high performing teachers  who often were on the verge of tears knowing how hard they had worked and how much they wanted to prove it. The principal continued to work on relationships and easing the stress and pain, instead of playing into the panic.  She continued to assure our faculty that if we continued to keep our eyes on our students, we would prevail... and we have.

With a population that is changing (our second language and free/reduced numbers continue to climb) our results continue to remain high (we had the highest writing scores in the county!)  Our teachers are collegial and continue to depend on each other.  We are not always in charge of our own fate, but we are in charge of our destiny. We continue to see through the fog into the eyes of the children.  Now that is leadership.

Opinion Writing

For our final Kindergarten Writing Unit, we finished with Opinion Writing using Lucy Calkins' new writing lessons. The depth in the lessons really stretched our thinking and our delivery.   We have been thrilled with the level of writing the children have been able to produce.  It is certainly true that when the level of instruction improves, so does the level of writing!  These are a couple of examples of the children's work.

The first one comes from Levi who was super excited that he was able to use one of our vocabulary words, private, in his writing!  His opinion is that he should be able to go to the bathroom in private - without his baby brother opening the door on him! He gives the reader a little story when he says that his brother put his hand in the toilet water. He even gives the reader a solution for fixing his problem on the final page!

 I want to be private when I go to the bathroom because my baby brother

opens the door on me!  One time my baby brother broke into the

bathroom and stuck his hand in the toilet water!

Yay! My baby brother is not broken in the bathroom.  I am away (from him).

1.Put him in his bed. 2. Walk away. 3. Go to the bathroom!  Thank you for listening.  Love, Levi

Ana decided to write her letter to a large audience - the people at the beach.  She begins with a story about going to the beach with a group of family and friends. She thinks they should quit going to the beach because they could get sun burned, even when they wear sun screen.  She gives some compelling reasons for skipping the beach and taking the chance of a sun burn such as getting sick, missing vacation and having to put ice on your back.  Her delightful pictures and speech bubbles give plenty of extra detail.  Pretty good argument Ana!

Dear people that go to the beach,

I think people shouldn't go to any beach anymore because you can get really bad sun burn  because...

 

Because one day I and Mommy and her friend Amber and Laura (were) all at the beach and my sister got sun burned.

 

Even when you got sun screen you can get sun burned because you can get sweaty. If you get really sweaty you can get sick. 

 

Then you'll have to go home and you will miss all of the vacation.

Then you're going to have to stay home having ice on your back.

The children wrote letters to their families, many asking for a new pet.  We so convinced the children that they could change the world that Paige was quite distraught when her letter for a new puppy did not produce the desired result!  Other children took on bigger topics such as Jehan who wrote to his neighbors trying to convince them not to pollute the pond near his house because it is making the fish sick and Finn who wrote the Chinese government about his concern that they are taking sharks' fins for medicinal purposes! Nazar and Finn had quite the discussion as Finn wrote to try to save the sharks and Nazar took the opposite argument trying to get rid of sharks based on a shark attack he had witnessed.

To celebrate, our kinder class met with a 1st grade class.  We paired each kinder partner with a first grader.  We shared our persuasive letters and they shared their narrative stories. Each partner pair practiced giving compliments and we ended with cookies and juice.  I think it was a relationship that will continue because it gave both groups an authentic audience for their work.    The most exciting part for me is that we will be looping up with this group of children to first grade.  Can you imagine what this group will be able to produce next year when we get to this unit?  Can't wait!

Kindergarten Narrative

Our school purchased the new Lucy Calkins' Writing Units this year, not as an approved district curriculum, but from internal school accounts, because teachers begged for the new material!  We couldn't wait to get our hands on this new work by Teachers' College because we knew it had been vetted in real school in NYC by a group of teachers and coaches who collaboratively wrote the units and then taught them and revised them before they ever made ii to the pages of a manual for other teachers to follow.  The units arrived in the middle of the year, but our kindergarten teachers dived right into one of the new units - narrative.  We have not been disappointed

We've completed the unit.  Now is time for our annual kindergarten work-over-time standard-based bulletin board.  This board usually features a kindergartner's beginning piece and then a piece about mid-year and a final piece, all with commentary.  However, since we just finished this amazing Calkins' unit, I decided to do something a little different in honor of our new learning  I decided that  I would use the baseline and post-prompt pieces in our new narrative unit to show how some of our youngest writers had grown over the 6-8 weeks of this single new unit.  I posted a first day of kindergarten piece, and then the baseline prompt and finally the post prompt for the Narrative unit  for three students.  Below is one student's work..

The Kindergarten Narrative Standard
W.K.3 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in order in which occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened.

The Task
Using Lucy Calkins’ new Narrative Writing Unit the class spent eight weeks working through every lesson, repeating a few that we felt we might have taught poorly the first time around!  Before beginning the narrative, students were asked to write a story about something that had happened over the Winter holiday (we started this unit the day we returned from Christmas/ Winter break).  They were given one workshop period to complete the project.  That piece was scored using the Reading and Writing Project- Grade K Narrative Rubric.  At the end of the unit the students were asked to write another story and the same rubric again was scored.  Remember that we had not taught the first two new units in the series but did teach the e-unit lessons published earlier by Teachers' College. 

Sawyer's Narrative

Narrative Baseline Prompt

  

Translation: Unreadable
Baseline score = 2.0

Structure	Sawyer’s baseline piece does not meet any of the criteria of this element.  It is written at the pre-kindergarten level or below.
Language Conventions	Sawyer's piece looks like a string of letters and is simply unreadable.  However, if he tried to reread the piece, he has probably put some letters for the words he has tried to write.  You can even find a few sight words (the, Santa, eat). Sawyer probably did not use the word wall as these sight words are all part of his spelling vocabulary, even at this early stage.  If given the chance, Sawyer probably could have read his piece and surely could have described in great details the event he had written about, because he is gifted expressively and quite animated!
Development	Not only does Sawyer's drawing have no detail or labels, the reader  has no idea what it is!

 

Narrative Post Prompt

1.It was my brother’s birthday.  For breakfast I had Dunkin’ Donuts.

2.Next I had a water balloon fight.

3 I played outside.  I was really happy.

Post prompt score = 3.5

Structure	Sawyer’s birthday story has three numbered pages, with a beginning, middle and end.  He has a first page that tells the beginning, It was my brother’s birthday, and has an ending page that tells what happened last, I played outside. The end page also explains how he felt, I was really happy.
Development	Sawyer does label many of the things in his illustration. It is difficult to tell what many of the things are in his drawing but that is probably because he is always in such a hurry and is not interested in illustrations!
Language Conventions	Sawyer starts all of his sentences with capitals and uses the capital I, but he uses punctuation inconsistently.  He spells many sight words correctly and is not afraid of bigger words, such as brekfist for breakfast.  He easily reads his own writing.  There has been a huge improvement in Saweyer's handwriting as he realized that other people had to be able to read his stories.  His use of spaces also makes the work more readable.

 Analysis

In comparing Sawyer’s two pieces, the progress is rather apparent and amazing.  His baseline piece is unreadable.  To go from that to a simple story with a beginning, middle, and end, is dramatic in such a short time. The reader has to be impressed with the sheer progress in readability. The use of spacing and improvement in his handwriting during this short period of time are also striking.  So, it is no surprise that his greatest improvements on the rubric are in Structure and Language Conventions.  Sawyer proudly shared this piece with his peers.  He could barely stay still to read it, he was so excited! Way to go Sawyer! 

Open Your Eyes

Our County announced this week that they will probably be cutting Math and Reading Coaches for this next year in some schools (probably higher achieving school - ever wonder why they are high achieving?)  What are they thinking?  I guess poor coaches ARE a waste of money, but if you have ever had a really good coach, you know that they make all the difference.  We have a coach like that at Chets Creek.

Melanie Holtsman is a learner.  She doesn't depend on the poor quality one-size-fits-all professional development offered in our county.  Instead, she develops herself.  Last summer she was able to use the pennies of professional development money that were available, search out someone she could stay with in NYC, and then fund the rest of her trip personally so she could attend Teachers' College in NYC.  She came back full of research, lessons and ideas, and connectivity.  She was able to take the best of what she learned and intertwine it with our school's needs to design lessons that would enrich our teaching and provide the deeper thinking that is needed with the Common Core.  She took the best book that she heard about from teachers who were students with her to develop one of the best book studies we have ever had.  There is no question that it was the flint that started the fire that spread through our Reading this year.  She  is approachable and can come into a room of Kindergartners or fifth graders, confer with a handful of students, and diagnose exactly what is needed.  She has a kind and reaffirming way that makes it easy to see her as a collaborator instead of a evaluator.  My co-teacher and I are involved in a mini-cycle of teaching writing with her right now, at our request.  We were struggling through some lessons in persuasive writing in Kindergarten and needed some guidance to help us uncover the problem and help see a clearer path.  What a difference we are seeing now that she has taught a few lessons for us, helped us teach a few and then helped us see the next steps.

We so often talk about lifting the level of teaching and we know that this type of one-on-one coaching beside a teacher is the most effective way and yet, when we see it at its very best, we miss the opportunity to grasp that exceptional quality, shine and polish it, and use it.  Why is it that the powers that be just keep trying to find the answer in change after sweeping change instead of finding the jewels in its midst and polishing those?  Open your eyes.  The answer is right in front of you!

Falling in Love with Close Reading

I love reading a  good book that offers me something that I can use immediately in the classroom.  Better than that is a book study where I can read and think with colleagues who have similar passions. By discussing what I read, just like our children, I guess, I form new ideas and build on my thinking.   Before the holiday, Reading Coach Melanie Holtsman asked who would like to study the new book, Falling in Love with Close Reading by Christopher Lehman and Kate Roberts.  Melanie had been introduced to the book and the authors during her study at Teachers' College this past summer.  Close reading is one of the new buzz words that came with the common core and we have been actively pursuing good information on the subject, so I, along with 30 other colleagues, quickly signed up.  We've done lots of book studies over the years at Chets Creek and done them in all sorts of different ways with different leaders and configurations, so I was interested in how Melanie would choose to roll out this Book Study.

As usual,  Melanie did not disappoint - using her natural insight and creativity, she decided to incorporate some of the lessons and strategies she had learned this summer into the book study.  She also has kept in touch with the authors of the book through Twitter, so each week, Melanie LEADS the study with a short introduction, some time for the participants to talk about what they read, and an activity that helps teachers feel the engagement of a learner.  When I can, I attend both the morning and afternoon sessions, although they are on the same topic - I guess I'm really a professional development junkie!  However, the mix of the participants is difference and it never fails, that the emphasis is different because of the interests and engagement of each group.  We've only studied the first two chapters and already I am hooked on this design for a book study.  I can't wait to read each new chapter and to see how Melanie will help us look closer at our reading... and our lives.  I'm sure this isn't easy for Melanie.  It's not like this design was just laid out there and she's following some script.  She really has to think deeply and creatively about how she can present the content to a group of adult learners who have such expertise and high expectations.  She takes risks, the kind of risks that she is asking teachers to take.  She teaches us the way that she expects us to teach our children.

I have attended so much professional development during my years as a teacher and much of it has honestly been VERY BAD.  It is so refreshing to look forward to reading a chapter and to get up on the morning of the book study and hurry to make sure I'm not late so I won't miss a single minute.  That is the same feeling I want in my students each morning that they come to class!  The best part is that I leave the book study with a new insight and a smile on my face - invigorated and excited! 

Working on the Work

Today was one of my favorite days.  It was a WOW day (a Working On the Work day), now referred to as PLC (Professional Learning Community)Days by the county.  Our children spend the day with our Resource teachers and we spend the day studying together.  We started off our WOW with a demo lesson by our Literacy lead, Maria Mallon.  All 14 of us loaded into Maria's room to watch her masterfully teach one of the new lessons from Lucy Calkins' new Units of Study for Teaching Writing.  We opened with narrative writing after the holiday and Maria demonstrated the 5th lesson, the last lesson in the first bend of the narrative genre.  I love watching a colleague work!  Maria masterfully taught the children how to use their pencil for reading and for writing.  She taught them to use the eraser end for "rereading your work and the point for writing new words" as the children co-wrote the beginning, middle and end of a story together about our trip to watch the Polar Express at the church next door.  Besides using a magic pencil  I also loved how she demonstrated using "writing in the air" as an active involvement.  Maria gave each student his or her own writing pencil and then had them use it to "pretend" write or "write in the air" a she wrote on the paper on the board.   Both of those tips - using a magic pencil and writing in the air - are things that we can teach in our classroom tomorrow.

Melanie Holtsman, our Literacy Coach, is the producer of our literacy professional development and she and Maria designed this learning opportunity together.  Melanie studied at Teachers' College last summer so she has been able to artfully incorporate pieces of that "Lucy" training into our professional development this year.  She shares some of her learning from the summer and from a recent day with Lucy with us, and the greater community at our school PD blog, Live from the Creek.  Check it out.  It's almost like being at Teachers' College!

Melanie always tries to have us experience something as a learner so that we feel comfortable incorporating it into our lessons.  Today she had us "write a story in the air" -  tell a true story from our childhood to a partner - thinking about the beginning, middle and end..  She suggested this as  way to have our students get ready to write.  In other words, instead of simply telling our students to "turn and talk" about what they are going to write, to actually have them tell their partner the story with a beginning, middle, and end to jumpstart their story writing.  Can't you just see how that would work?

After lunch together - we always order in to save time! - our Science lead Tracy Ruark took over for the last hour.  Tracy shared the content of boxes that were loaned to Chets by the Safari Club for us to use in Science.  We looked at pelts and skulls and I even learned about "scat" - felt like I'd visited Duck Dynasty!  The boxes also included books and lesson plans.  I know how much fun the teachers had with these items, so I can just imagine how the children will engage with them!  We ended by talking about Tracy's latest Science lab with Sound.

I LOVE the teachers I work with.  They are engaged.  They are never at a loss for questions and share an endless supply of creative ideas.  There is no questions that I will be a better teacher tomorrow because I shared time with them today!

Are Teacher Evaluation Growth Scores Fair?

Lucy Calkins recently said in a workshop here in Jacksonville,  In times of your life when you were called a failure - what that does to your dedication, your sense of power!  It is debilitating.  Oh Lucy, how I understand that quote - how sad that I understand that quote...

 I feel like someone just kicked me in the gut.  Rarely have I ever felt like that as a teacher - once when dealing with an extremely difficult circumstance with a parent - once when dealing with a heart wrenching circumstance with a child.  In both cases the situations were so unfair and unjust that I just couldn't reconcile my own sense of fair play and justice.  Now is another such time.

I have always believed good teacher evaluation, that moved us toward pay for performance, could be a good thing for our profession.  I believed that teachers that worked hard and really went the extra mile deserved pay commensurate with  their skills and effort.  I was certainly never afraid of accountability or being evaluated.  As long as I continued to be a learner who was willing to give 100%, I felt like all the details would work themselves out.  I liked the idea of a career ladder for teachers who didn't want to leave the classroom. I knew some type of evaluation beyond the Principal's yearly visit would be part of the formula, and while I always worried about fairness, I put my faith in the system.  Now I know, first hand, what it feels like to work hard and go the extra mile and then let a committee's interpretation of test data tell you that you have not done all that you can for the students you teach, even though you KNOW that is NOT the case.  It feels like someone thrust a dagger in your heart.  

In my situation, it is really not the test itself that was at fault, but poor communication that resulted in 10 teachers of first graders at my school being denied credit for the success of their students.  Basically, a computer-based test was used that  didn't allow for the teachers to document the growth of their higher students.  Students topped out at the beginning of the year so there was nowhere to go at the end of the year but to repeat the same high scores - which equaled no progress! Did you get that?  There are a million details that come into play - one paragraph in a 150 page manual written in 2009 that alludes to testing at a higher grade level, training where "testing up" was supposedly explained but somehow missed by an entire grade level of teachers, a Coordinator who supposedly relayed the information to principals that never made it to teachers,  teachers who knew the problem and asked for direction and were told that testing up could NOT be done, teachers who followed the chain of command thinking they were doing the right thing, a district that decided to make an allowance for the same problem the year before but not this year - I could go on and on, but it really doesn't matter.  The plain and simple fact is that teachers who worked hard to do the very best they could for their students - students who DID make the progress - are being denied the growth scores that would label them "highly effective."

These are some of the BEST teachers that I know.  Five of them are Nationally Board Certified.  Half of them have been "Teachers of the Year." They are all overachievers who, I am sure, have some of the highest Principal evaluations in our building, because they would be satisfied with nothing less.  Most of them have leadership oozing from their pores.  These are exemplary, seasoned teachers who have built entire careers on being "highly effective."  They are leaders who have provided demonstration lessons all over the county - actually, through videotape, all over the country! About half of them looped their kids from Kindergarten to First.  In Kindergarten they were "highly effective," but as first grade teachers, with most of the same students, they are, all of a sudden, only "effective."   I wonder how the parents of the students who were rated as not showing growth - some of the highest students in the grade level - would feel if they knew?  It is because these teachers continued to teach and introduced so many first grade skills in kindergarten that they had such high scores at the beginning of first grade. So basically they are being penalized for teaching at such high levels as kindergarten teachers!  While this does not effect teachers' pay, at this time, it might in the future.  However, I doubt even one of these teachers will care as much about the pay as they care about not being considered highly effective, which implies that they did not do all that they could do for the students in their care- that some of their best students are considered as not make any growth - that they are failures...  This is about their names - their reputations - their professionalism.

I am one of those teachers.  After almost  40 years - with an entire career of being "highly effective" - this year I am only "effective."  Don't get me wrong.  I haven't spent my life teaching so that I could get some fancy label.  I absolutely love what I do.  It's a calling for me - a mission field.  I can't imagine doing anything else and at this late date, I certainly will not be making changes in my professional commitment.  But... it is demoralizing.  Honestly, it feels like someone just kicked me in the gut. It's not only me.  I have watched some of the finest teachers I know let this get to them... and I understand. It also effects our Principal and Assistant Principal, the Guidance Counselor, the Reading Coach, The Media Specialist - all of those who have to depend on our growth scores, along with the rest of the K-5 school, to prove their own effectiveness.

I know that nobody said life is fair, but until we can figure out a fairer system for evaluating teachers, I will stand with those who oppose this type of measurement.  And right now, we all have a moral responsibility to shed light on a failing teacher evaluation system.  Can we ever put our faith in a system that allows this to happen?

Close Reading Conversation continues...

Last week we had the county's Director of K-2 Reading come and do a demonstration lesson for our kindergarten teachers.  We don't usually get to watch lessons from outside of our school, so this was a treat.  Besides, how many Directors of Reading do you know that would come into a kinder class and demo a lesson?

This week our reading coach, Melanie Holtsman, took the big leap and taught a different type close reading lesson in the same kindergarten class.  Melanie was not a kindergarten teacher but she is a risk taker and willing to put herself out there for the greater good.  As you can see from her video, she is a natural and the age of the students really doesn't matter.  She's simply a master teacher. She crafted her lesson around her learning from the Summer Institute at Teachers' College so she used the idea of visual text - in other words, looking at pictures!  Now doesn't that make sense?  What I notice when I watch the video is this new verbiage she uses,  like, "I seem to think... "  "I'm starting to think..." "My thinking is growing and changing..."  She also asks for evidence, evidence, evidence. That's what I see as different so that she moves the students into deeper thinking about the pictures - uh, excuse me - visual text!

Make sure to go to Melanie's blog and let her know what you think about the lesson.  Before the lesson, Melanie told me she'd probably pass out, but looks like she managed pretty well!  Thank you Melanie!

Launching the Writers' Workshop in Kindergarten

We had hoped that our county would adopt Lucy Calkins new grade specific Writing Units. However, when they didn't we decided to buy them through school funds and they have arrived!  It has been so exciting to be our Kindergarten Writers' Workshop with Calkins' first Launching book.  We are so proud of our kindergartners as they are "fancying up" this first unit in writing - Teaching Books.  The children have been writing books about things they know a lot about and let me tell you, they know a lot of stuff!  We have worked up to 15 minutes of quiet independent writing each day.  We know how to close our eyes and think about a topic, how to select the right paper for what we want to write, how to plan by touching each page and thinking about what we want to say,  how to start with a picture and add details, how to add words by stretching them out and writing the sounds that we hear, how to use the word wall (on the ceiling!) how to add labels to our pictures,  how to ask questions and get suggestions from a partner, how to staple our pages together, how to use a date stamp and how to put our first and last name on our books.  We have become a busy community of writers!  Thank you, Lucy Calkins!