By Travis Crowder

Exceptional writing teachers have taught me valuable lessons about how writers find ideas. Over time, writing has become a space for me to wrestle with my thinking, and I’ve accepted that when I finalize a blog or book, or essay, that piece of writing is only as good as my current understanding of the topic is. It is imperfect, but that’s what makes it worthwhile. It’s an invitation to continue grappling with an idea. It’s in this space that I commune with the philosophy that defines my classroom. I write to discover things about teaching young people. Many times while writing into ideas about engaging readers and writers, I’ve forged new thinking. Generally speaking, I’m always excited to sit down with my notebook and a cup of coffee and just write. Beautiful things lurk at the edges of writing. I’m always amazed at the possibility of discovery. 

It was in this spirit that I sat down to craft this blog post. So many experiences from the past year were, in my opinion, noteworthy things to write about. Because of the pandemic, I shifted from physical to digital notebooks. During hybrid and remote teaching, I learned a great deal about engaging readers and writers, even from a distance. I found the intersection of poetry and writing to be a meaningful place to explore ideas. And so did many students. But each time I sat down to craft any one of these ideas, I found my writing leaning elsewhere. Instead of writing about strategy and engagement in literacy, the ideas tilted toward my current teaching context. 

You see, this current year has been one of the hardest of my career. Not just because of the pandemic— although it has definitely contributed— but because of the continued, intensive push to standardize. Instead of decreasing, conversations about standardization have actually increased. During lesson planning periods, I’ve been asked repeatedly what standards I’m tying my lesson to and to explain the exact procedural plan for the lesson. Trying to argue that many standards are embedded in authentic reading and writing practices is futile. Explaining that identifying specific procedures for a plan is difficult when planning without students is a challenge, especially when traditional ideals plague any sort of PLC. I’m not against standards or having a specific lesson plan, but across time, I’ve learned that rigid alliances between classroom activities and standards and allegiance to a specific lesson plan suffocate opportunities for creativity. The expectation with lesson planning, it seems, is that every activity and assessment will be planned prior to walking into a room of students. Essential questions have to echo the swollen lexicon of the standards. I much prefer to ask engaging questions, but they have been critiqued by administrators who prefer cold, antiseptic questions instead of ones that genuinely excite inquiry. The language we use in our lessons or in essential questions may be academic, but, if it lacks relevance, it’s useless. And if our procedures don’t allow us to follow our students’ inquiries, what good is the lesson? 

The disturbing contradiction I’ve witnessed reveals itself in actions. Lip service is paid to giving students space and time to complete tasks and receive extra practice in a skill area, but allegiances to pacing guides and year-long plans tell another story. Emphasis is placed on completing tasks quickly and moving on to another assignment. Recently, an instructional coach with very little literacy background said, in reference to a skill, Oh, that’s easy to teach. I found an activity online students can use to learn that skill. Here it is. Let me know how it goes. It’s as if a quick online search will meet the needs of every student I teach. Why spend time listening to them talk about their reading and writing lives if an online search will do all of the work? 

In early December, while revisiting an anticipation guide after a novel study, several students explained that they realized how complex ideas are. They realized that gray areas exist. I can’t quantify that or give that a grade. I can’t plot their conversation (and just to be clear, they were facilitating the conversation, not me) on a graph and track progress toward a goal. And who would want to? The conversation took a turn while they were discussing, and it veered away from the main topic at hand. Yes, the conversation was different, but it was still relevant. I didn’t herd them back into territory where the standards, essential question, and goals lived. I let their conversation roam freely. Because that’s what conversation does. It’s fluent and alive and it deepens as we move further and further into ideas. I couldn’t have found a template for a conversation like this online. And I wouldn’t want to. 

Again and again, though, I’ve watched instructional support staff offer worksheets and activities that were the result of an internet search. I’m more interested in moving with the flow of conversation and helping students make sense of ideas they land on, not prescribing documents I find online. Instead of these worksheets, students could be working on independent passion projects, writing about a book they’ve read and loved, or working with a partner to generate more ideas for their writing notebooks. At the end of class, students could share beautiful lines from their writing or powerful lines from their independent reading on a class Padlet, with a partner, or with the whole class. 

Honestly, PLCs have become places where I generate lessons that are difficult to use. The lessons aren’t inherently bad, but I’ve rarely seen a lesson plan proceed as written when it greets a group of students. Instead of trying to create plans independently of students, we could spend our time interrogating our curriculum and ourselves and finding ways to center BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) authors. Instead of centering standards and goals, we could discuss ways to center students and questions of humanity, too. This means decentering the system, and when we decenter it, lesson planning has room to breathe. 

And so do we and our students. 

Every time I consider lessons or activities, I have to make students the core of my work. I don’t consider their test scores or projected test scores or grades. I consider them— their stories and humanity. I consider what they need, how current events influence them, and how I can sensitively handle issues that bombard them. It takes courage to think this way, though, and honestly, I’m still learning what it means to be courageous in the classroom. But we all need courage to deconstruct those imaginary boundaries that have been placed around our classrooms. These boundaries tell us what is “effective” and “necessary.” But we can do better. I know I can. 

Nothing I do is perfect. There are many days that lessons fail, that students are unmotivated, and that I am not at the top of my game. There are days when students refuse to write, can’t find the energy to read their independent reading books, or aren’t interested in something I’ve planned, certain that it will engage them. But there are also many days filled with deep reading and conversations. There are many days where students can’t wait to talk with me about a book they’ve read or want an air high-five (the COVID version of a high five) because they’ve read another book and last year they didn’t even read one! There are other days when students write poems or responses that make me cry or cheer along with them. These are the days I am overwhelmed with joy. 

Last August, I started a doctorate in curriculum and instruction at UNC-Wilmington. Coursework has focused on curriculum studies and leadership, and since starting, I’ve learned a ton about what it means to think and to write into current iterations of curriculum. I’ve realized, yet again, that choices we are making in education are conscious choices, and while we know that they do not work, we continue to stand beside them. 

I still dwell in hope, though. 

I imagine an educational space where students write and read to find themselves, where they learn about their world and engage in the tough questions that have been part of the human experience for decades. I imagine a place where we attend PLCs to confront our biases and to engage in critical thought about what we teach and how we teach it. And we encourage change and refuse to shy away from conversations that are “too controversial.” 

This is what I imagine. 

As I move further into 2021, I want this flame of possibility to burn brighter. I want my reading life to move me to action and to encourage others to do the same. I know many are out there, and together, we are working for a better educational space. Sometimes I feel incredibly isolated, but I have to remember, as John Lennon said, “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” 

Follow Travis on Twitter @teachermantrav

Learn more about Travis!

By Timothy Rasinski, Nancy Padak, Evangeline Newton, Rick M. Newton

What do the following words and phrases have in common?

• Tractor
• A protracted argument
• Abstract art
• Attraction
• Vanilla extract
• Retractable ink pen
• Traction
• Intractable
• Easily distractible
• Contractions

Of course, it’s easy to notice that all these words and phrases have the word pattern (word root) “tract” in them.    Now let’s take it a step further.  What if you knew that the word root “tract” is derived from Latin and means “pull, drag, or draw.”    Would you be able to define each of the words and phrases above using the words pull, drag, or draw?    Absolutely!

• Tractor:  A farm machine used for pulling farm implements.
• A protracted argument:  An argument that drags on and on.
• Abstract art:  Art that is pulled from reality.
• Attraction:  An amusement that attempts to pull customers in.
• Vanilla extract.   Pulled from the essence of the vanilla bean.
• Retractable ink pen.  A pen for which the tip can be drawn back. 
• Traction:   The drag or pull created by a car’s tires that keep it on the road on an icy day.  Also, in medicine the deliberate and prolonged pulling of a bone or muscle, as by weights, to correct dislocation or relieve pressure,
• Intractable:    Unable to be pulled or dragged away.
• Easily distractible:  To be drawn away without difficulty.
• Contractions.  Two words that are pulled together; or muscles that are drawn together as in giving birth.

Knowledge of just that one word root provides you with a tool for unlocking the meaning (or a part of the meaning) to many words in English – and in the case of “trac,tract” it is well over 100 English words. Equally noteworthy, this includes words students use every single day at home and at school (think subtract, trace, protractor).

            One of the amazing features of the English language is that many of its words come from two important languages – Latin and Greek.  In fact, about 90% of English words with more than one syllable are derived from Latin; most of the remaining 10% are Greek-based (Brunner, 2004). Additionally, these polysyllabic (poly = many) academic words are found in science, math, and social studies.       Equally amazing is the fact that one-word root can be found in 10, 50, and in some cases over 100 English words.     

            With this in mind, it seems natural (nat, natur = born, produce) to make the study of Latin and Greek word roots a part of any vocabulary instruction from grades 1 and up.    Traditionally vocabulary has been taught in the following equation (equ[i] = equal):  teach one word, learn one word.     With a Latin-Greek word roots approach the equation changes to teach one word root but learn multiple (and often challenging) words.

            Of course, this begs the question, “How might I teach word roots?”     The first step is to identify which word roots to teach.    Below is a sampling of common word roots.

________________________________________________________________________

Common Bases

aero(o)            air, wind         

audi, audit      hear, listen                             

bibli(o)            book                           

bio                   live, life                                  

chron(o)         time                           

dem                 the people                  

graph, gram       write, draw                            

hydr(o)            water                         

labor                work

mand               order  

max                 greatest

phon                voice, call sound

photo              light

pod                  foot

pol, polis         city     

port                 carry

scop                 look, watch

stru, struct     build

terr, ter          land, ground, earth

Common Prefixes

ante                 before

anti, ant          against, opposite

auto                 self

bi^*                    two

co, con             with, together

ex                    out

mega, megalo big

micro               small

multi                many (Latin)

poly                 many (Greek)

pre                   before

re                     back, again

super, sur       on top of, over, above

tele                  far, from afar

tri^*                   three

un                    not

uni^*                  one

Note^*:  uni, bi, and tri can also be taught as numerical bases

___________________________________________________________________________

The next step in instruction (stru, struct = build) would simply be to choose one or two roots per week and make the roots and the words that belong to the root visible for students.  We call it “meeting the root.”    Here’s an example of two “Meet the Root” word charts that a teacher could put up for display early in the week. 

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­___________________________ 

Word Root:   Bi = Two/2

Bicycle

Bicuspids

Biceps

Bifocals

Biplane

Binoculars

Biannual

Bipartisan

Bilingual

Bicameral

Biped

Bisect

____________________________

Word Root:   Terr/Ter = Earth

Terrace

Terrain

Territory

Terrier

Terracotta

Subterranean

Extraterrestrial

Mediterranean

Interment

Lumbricus Terrestis

___________________________

Introduce students to the root and its meaning, then discuss how each of the words have embedded in them the root’s meaning.    Students may already know many of the words, but others may need some scaffolding from you (e.g. bipartisan, bicameral, interment).    Then, throughout the week, make reference to the words on the chart and even add more words to show the generative (gen = birth) nature of the word root.    Challenge students to use the words in their own written and oral language.

            Other days of the week can devoted to having students break words belonging to a word root family into parts in order to extract (trac, tract = pull, draw, drag) meaning – we call this ’Divide and Conquer;” read and respond to contextual passages that contain multiple (multi = many) examples of the words from the word root family; and even playing games that involve students in  having fun with the word root and its family of words.     Ten to 15 minutes per day can have a profound impact on students’ vocabularies and their approaches for learning new words.

            Reading specialist Hillary Loftus, says that a word roots approach gives students a degree of confidence (co, con = with, together; fid = trust) in tackling challenging words:

“If a student can recognize the meaning of just one part of a difficult word, this provides him a toehold on the new vocabulary. Students don’t give up as easily because they already know something about the word.”

And isn’t that what we want to develop in students ? – Not only help them enlarge their own vocabularies but develop in them competencies and dispositions for taking on new or unknown words on their own. 

            However, it is not only students’ vocabularies that will benefit from a word roots approach, but also their reading, writing (have you ever seen a writing rubric that does not include “word choice?”), and even their  performance in the academic disciplines.   Indeed, if the language content of science, math, and social studies is made up of word roots derived from Latin and Greek, a word roots approach to vocabulary is certain to improve students’ knowledge of words in these areas.

            Alan Becker, a former K-5 English Language Arts supervisor (super = over; vis = see) brought a word roots approach into his schools after seeing the dramatic impact it had on reading comprehension in his own classroom:

“At the end of each year, the district that I was working in saw 2-5% gains in student performance in reading, always inching closer to my goal of full proficiency in reading and reading in the content areas. By using Greek and Latin roots to teach vocabulary the district met and exceeded predicted growth models in reading.”

            An approach to word study that focuses on Latin and Greek word roots across the grade levels offers a new, efficient, and engaging approach for increasing students’ vocabularies and improving their reading across content areas.    Using a word roots approach to vocabulary may lead teachers and students to express (ex = out; press = squeeze) what Julius Caesar once declared after achieving victory – “Veni, Vidi, Vici” Vocabulary!

References

Brunner, B.L. (2004). Word Empire: A Utilitarian Approach to Word Power (2^nd ed.). Star Nemeron Educational Innovations.

Rasinski, Padak, Newton and Newton are authors of numerous (num = number) resources on a word root approach to vocabulary instruction:   

Rasinski, T. V., Padak, N., Newton, R., & Newton, E. (2020). Building Vocabulary with Greek and Latin Roots: A Professional Guide to Word Knowledge and Vocabulary Development (2nd ed.). Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Educational Publishing.  (Professional Development Book)

Rasinski, T. V., Padak, N., Newton, R., & Newton, E. (2019). Building Vocabulary from Word Roots.  Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Educational Publishing.  (Vocabulary Instruction Kit – Grades K-11)

Rasinski, T. V., Padak, N., Newton, R., & Newton, E. (2013).  Starting with Prefixes and Suffixes, 2-4 (Getting to the Roots of Content-Area Vocabulary), Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Educational Publishing. 

Rasinski, T. V., Padak, N., Newton, R., & Newton, E. (2012).  Practice with Prefixes and Suffixes, 5-8 (Getting to the Roots of Content-Area Vocabulary), Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Educational Publishing. 

Connect with Dr. Tim Risinski on Twitter @timrasinski1 

Email Dr. Tim Rasinski: trasinsk@kent.edu

The Robb Review Recommends!

Daily Word Ladders by Timothy Rasinski is available at: https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/teacher/search-results.html?search=1&prefilter=&text=daily%20word%20ladders

The Megabook of Fluency is available at: https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/teacher/search-results.html?search=1&prefilter=&text=rasinski

The Fluent Reader can be found at: https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/teacher/search-results.html?search=1&prefilter=&text=rasinski

Resources for Building Students’ Vocabulary and Word Knowledge are available at: http://timrasinski.com/products.html

By: Jacob Chastain

Quality writing does not happen in a vacuum. Likewise, it is not improved by endless and boring worksheets, grammar practice, and writing in isolation from in-authentic sources.

         Writing, at least writing worth reading and doing, occurs when the writer has something they genuinely want to say, reflect on, or respond to. But how do writers gain the tools to do so? Many companies would like to tell you that a computer program (a modern-day workbook) is the solution. Just sit your students in front of a screen and have them correct sentences for thirty minutes a day and you too can have a writer who knows how to use a comma correctly! Teachers, ill-trained or supported in authentic practices accept these programs in the name of simplicity or mandates and move on. Meanwhile, they get to suffer as they read draft after draft of poor, lifeless writing from their students and lose faith over time that they can teach writing or that students can do it well.

         The interesting piece to this scenario is that the teacher using such computer programs (or worksheets) to teach writing are often ignoring what they are doing in reading. In reading, this teacher probably looked at a section of a story, article, or poem, asked some questions, and quite possibly even analyzed language to some extent, looking for meaning. These are all solid teaching moves within reading, but why not use those in writing as well? Why create two separate lesson plans, when the first can serve both sides of what needs to happen in a literacy class?

         Students should read like readers and read like writers. They should be tasked with experiencing the text and all that it offers, and then be challenged to look at it from a different perspective and ask the deep question, “How did the author do that?”

         By just focusing on reading as a reader, we train students to be consumers of information, and never creators or synthesizers of it. We passively ask students to consider what the author was meaning when we could also offer for them to create their own meaning using the model in front of them.

         Rather than just asking what the theme in a poem is, we can extend this to ask students how did the author convey that theme through language, symbols, and structure.

         Rather than just asking what the argument of a piece was and if it was effective, we could ask what is the most effective way for them to argue for what they are passionate about.

         Rather than just asking about text structures, we can invite them to try text structures we have seen to elevate their own pieces.

         Rather than just looking at a beautiful sentence or paragraph and discussing it, we can ask our students to look at the craft of writing, the use of commas, periods, and dashes, and get them to see grammar as a tool for meaning, rather than punishment and nuisance.

         If you are using great literature in your class, and we all should be, then the models are already there for you. Students don’t need worksheets, and you don’t need to be the greatest writer as their teacher. They need to see great writing in texts they can relate to, and you need to be equipped enough to be able to invite them into a multi-dimensional look at the examples all around them.

         This approach creates deeper thinking in students. Over time, they begin reading in a way that is far more critical than a reader that has had a one-sided education. Rather than just consuming news, for example, they will now be able to distance themselves away from the material long enough to ask, “What was the author doing here? Why did they write this headline like this? What was the point of this structure?”

         Teachers all over the world will bang their heads against the wall trying to get students to think about the author’s purpose and infer meanings in texts, but never offer students the chance to play those roles themselves and actually be the writer! It’s hard to grasp why someone might do something without ever stepping into their shoes. As students write more and think about their purpose for writing more, they will be able to read texts with more nuance and depth than they could previously. 

Experience crafts deeper thinking. 

Social media: 

Facebook—Facebook.com/teachmeteacher

Instagram—@teachmeteacherhost

Twitter—@jacobchastain_

By: Lester Laminack

We live on a twenty-two-acre portion of an old farm nestled in the mountains of western North Carolina. Our property has acres of woods and acres of open meadows where cows grazed, and hay was harvested. I keep those meadows mowed. It takes about six hours on a small tractor to mow all of them and I do that at least twice each month. Six hours sitting on a tractor, wearing sound-muffling-headphones, is a great time to think. It is actually one of my new revision tools and a great time for reflection. When I am writing and hit a wall, I start the tractor and mow and think. When something is troubling me, I mow and think. 

Recently I was obsessed with the words: critic, criticize, criticism, and critique. I was rolling them around in my mind noticing their similarities and reflecting on how we interpret them. It seems that we are in a time when critics are present at every corner and on every tweet and post. News outlets and social media seem to thrive on criticism. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I find all that negativity draining, and it has me thinking. 

Some may argue it is only semantics, but I believe we feel the difference between criticism and critique. In my mind, criticism almost always comes from a negative place. Criticism lifts up what is wrong, incorrect, missing; all the negatives. Criticism seems to delight in finding flaws and flaunting them. You aren’t likely to want to help if someone says: “Just stop, that’s not how you load the dishwasher. You don’t put the plates in like that. Good grief.” Negativity never helps me move forward, improve, or make change. In fact, I find my reaction to negativity is quite the opposite. Negativity most often leads me to pull back, to withdraw, to avoid. 

I view critique, on the other hand, as coming from a positive place. Critique is what my editor offers when we have a conference to talk about one of my projects. She points out the strong parts of the manuscript, she lifts up what is working well, she speaks to those places where the language “sings”, where the characters and the dialog move the plot along, and points where the story “shines.” Then, within the context of that safety net of support, she draws a tight focus on a couple of places that are not working as well. Any attention to negatives is presented within the context of what is working, and she shows how the negative bit she chooses to highlight is detracting from all that is working well. 

If you are thinking this is some sort of coddling or ego management, then so be it. I’d rather think of it as guidance. Within the context of what is working well, the negative can be seen more clearly, more objectively. That is to say when negatives are presented in this way, I am able to see more clearly why something isn’t working and how it detracts from the story I’m trying to tell. Critique helps me to understand what I do well, what I have under control and gives me a window into where, how, and why I can improve. I find that critique, when defined this way, actually makes me a better writer. The next draft is tighter because I can reflect on what is working as I address what is not. Because I understand the intentions of my editor, I am energized to jump back into the work knowing exactly where to focus my attention.

From this perspective, critique is an act of caring. It requires that you reflect on what works in addition to what doesn’t. It requires that you consider your comments within a context, to pause and recognize that something isn’t “wrong” simply because it isn’t the way you would do it (e.g. loading the dishwasher). It asks you to consider whether your suggestion is coming from a place of support and potential for growth.  Critique is the positive energy of a critic.

Of course, this line of thought took me to school. It gave me pause and nudged me to examine interactions with both students and teachers. It is easy to notice the flaws, to see what is not working. It is easy to point those out. But, is it helpful? Is criticism beneficial to our students or our colleagues? I don’t think so, especially when criticism is coming from a negative place.

I find that criticism most often becomes a default mode when we are operating under stress. I believe most of you will agree that this has been one of the most stressful periods in our memory for our schools, our teachers, our students, and their families. When we are stressed, we are less likely to think clearly, less likely to consider the impact of our intentions, and less likely to think through how our feedback may impede or facilitate growth and positive change.  With that in mind I invite you to pause and reflect the feedback you give your students when offering suggestions for growth.

Lester’s books are on Amazon!

Learn more about Lester Laminack, check out his website!

Follow Lester on Twitter @lester_laminack