Effective leaders create positive cultures through reflection on their practice and the decisions they make.  In education, leaders can be teachers, administrators, and any of the many staff members who make up a school.  All can impact change!

Positive change is complex and often has many moving parts needed for a school to be effective.  A positive environment impacts the culture of a school. You can feel it; you can sense if a school has a good culture. Conversely, you can sense and feel if a negative culture exists in a school. Bottom line, the leader of the building sets the tone for the school and directly impacts the culture.

What does setting the tone mean?  I have known principals who certainly set a positive tone and others who have not set a great tone. What the leader of the school models and says permits others to do the same.  A principal who yells at students gives staff permission to yell. A principal who is never on time for meetings gives others permission to be late. A principal who dresses sloppy permits others to do the same.  Yes, everything done by the leader sets a standard, either through words or actions. As Todd Whitaker says in his book, What Great Principals Do Differently, when the principal sneezes everyone gets a cold.

The principal sets the tone but it cannot be done by one person; all staff has a responsibility to create the school they want.  If you are an administrator consider these reflections as you work to set the tone in your school. If you are a teacher apply these same reflections to your classroom.

As you review the seven points, here is a thought to consider. It is hard for one teacher to ruin the culture in a school, but the principal can absolutely do this independently.  Being a culture builder is one of many critical responsibilities of a principal.

Set the Example:  It is critical for the principal to set the example of what behaviors are acceptable in the school.  This requires consistency and a high degree of congruence between what the leader says and does. Inconsistency results in confusion and staff often not believing what the principal says.  

Say Hello:  Although this sounds small, people like it when the principal says “Hello.”  Walking by staff and ignoring them is rude and communicates an I don’t care about you attitude.  Always and I do mean always say “Hello” to students, staff, and parents. This simple change can make a big difference in how others see the principal, and the tone they set.

Be Interested: Students and staff appreciate the principal who is interested in what they are doing.  If interest is genuine, the principal communicates a sense of caring. If interest appears disingenuous, the effect is the exact opposite.  Use specific praise to compliment teachers and students on classwork or a performance you have seen.

Choose Positivity:  Appearing down or frazzled will have a negative impact on those around you. The principal sets a definable tone for communicating optimism and positivity.

Cultivate Relationships: Positive teacher-student relationships are always part of an effective classroom.  The same is true for a school leader. The principal needs to invest time to build positive connections with many groups: students, staff, parents, and the community.  Something as small as ignoring a parent in the grocery store can impact how others see you.

Be Fair and Consistent: Having favorite staff members is a morale killer.  Be consistent and fair to all staff. Treat every teacher like you treat your best teacher.  

An Open Door:  Desk work cannot be more important than communicating with people.  A message of “I’m too busy” does not help set the tone for a school.

School culture is like a garden it needs to be tended every day.  If the tone is positive, congratulations, you had much to do with creating it.  However, if you or others feel the tone is negative, take a look in the mirror to find the answer.

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By: Linda Rief

In my latest book The Quickwrite Handbook (Heinemann, 2018) I described how I came to do what I called “quickwrites.” Year after year I noticed several kids, frequently boys, staring into space more often than they were putting words on paper. Talking to them, trying to help them with their ideas was not a big help. I read Don Murray’s work about writing fast to outrun the censor in all of us. Sounded good. But for those kids that continued staring into space, telling them to write fast didn’t help if they still couldn’t think of anything to write. That’s when I thought, if I put a short, compelling piece of writing in front of them to show them what someone else did, and encourage them to “borrow a line” and write as fast as they can for two to three minutes off that line, that might give them something to hold onto, something from which to build their own ideas. Write fast, I told them. Don’t think too hard. Don’t plan what comes next. You are writing to find writing—the words you didn’t know you were going to write until you wrote them.

And it worked, and has continued to work, for most of my kids.

Holding on to someone else’s line has been magical in helping my students find their own words. More often than not they can get rid of that line as they continue to draft their thinking in their words.

Maybe it was the notion of holding on to someone else’s line that led me to Nikki Grimes’ book One Last Word. In this book Grimes has found inspiration from many of the poets of the Harlem Renaissance to write her own poems. The poetry she is writing takes the form of what is called the Golden Shovel. In her words “The idea of a Golden Shovel poem is to take a short poem in its entirety, or a line from that poem (called a striking line), and create a new poem, using the words from the original. Say you decide to use a single line: you would arrange that line, word by word (one word under another), in the right margin. Then you would write a new poem, each line ending in one of those words.”

This is the first year I have tried this form with my students. We had just finished reading Refugee by Alan Gratz. As we read the book I asked them to collect lines that resonated with them from the three families’ stories. I asked them to write down questions that came to mind as we read, and to look up articles and pictures that might help them answer the questions. When we were done with the book I encouraged them to share response or reaction in any form they chose. But, I did show them One Last Word as a possibility.

Although this worked especially well after reading the book Refugee, because of its emotional topic, I imagine these examples could be used at any time for any kind of writing. These were the instructions and examples I gave my students, adapted from Nikki Grimes.

Write a poem by

• using the line/s from a poem, each word of the line becomes the last word in each line of your poem, or
• using a favorite quote from Refugee or any author or book you love, each word of the quote becomes the last word in each line of your poem, or
• using a newspaper headline with a compelling lead or poignant photo attached, each word in the headline becomes the last word in each line of your poem

I gave the students several examples from Nikki Grimes book One Last Word. I showed them how she took the poem “Hope” by Georgia Johnson and used the first line of that poem to shape her poem “On Bully Patrol.” Then I showed them what I wrote.

I used the last line from Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day” because it is a line I use as a mantra in working with eighth graders: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

This is what I wrote, using that line:

Sometimes, in their writer-reader notebooks students tell

Truths that they are admitting to me

And so often I don’t know what

it is

That would help them cope with it

                        Whether the “it” is hunger or homelessness, self-doubt

         or bullying or even dysphoria. As a teacher you

Try your best to plan

A strategy to

Help each child do

What they need to do, with

Compassion and sensitivity. Your

Concern and helplessness make you worry that one

Day this wild

Child, who is only defending herself and

Trying to make the world work for her, will know what to do with her one precious

life.

Linda Rief

Many students found poetry by crafting their poems in this form. Sophie asked, “Do we have to stick with that form, one last word?”

“Absolutely not,” I told her. “Form should never drive what you have to say. It is only a suggestion. Let your words take the form that best fits what you want to say.”

Sophie wrote:

Tallying the Daily Dead

Line from Refugee by Alan Gratz, p.195

When you were in kindergarten

you learned how to tally.

You thought nothing of it,

nor should you have.

It was just a way

to count the numbers

that were put in front of you by a teacher.

You were always told

tallying should not be used for big numbers,

like 65.6 million people displaced at the end of 2016 or,

the 40.3 million displaced

within their own country or

perhaps not

the 22.5 million forced to flee

to another country.

In kindergarten,

you tallied numbers.

Now,

we tally lives.

Sophie M. 8^th grade

I am always looking for a variety of ways to help students get words on paper. No matter what way that might be, we need to remember: try the idea ourselves, give the students examples (ours, professionals, other students), give them choices within the framework, and let the framework go if they have other ideas. The bottom line in writing: finding every, and any way we can, to help students communicate their thinking in order to grow their voices.

References:

Gratz, Alan. 2017. Refugee. NY. Scholastic.

Grimes, Nikki. 2017. One Last Word. NY: Bloomsbury Children’s Books.

Rief, Linda. 2018. The Quickwrite Handbook. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

by Laura Robb

Poetry!  Many teachers avoid including poetry in a reading curriculum. Some teachers don’t use poetry because it’s unfamiliar and wasn’t part of their reading background. Others claim they don’t have time to expose students to poetry. However, I believe poetry is a powerful and important genre that should be integrated into the curriculum in all subjects throughout the school year.

Why poetry? Poems tickle the imagination and cause laughter! They tell stories like “Casey at the Bat” a narrative poem by Ernest Thayer, and “Lord Randall,” a medieval ballad.  Poems capture feelings, a moment in time, and the variety is boundless: short lyrics, conversation poems, Japanese haiku, list poems, sonnets, small poems, and villanelles. They all have rhythm. Some poems rhyme; free verse poems don’t rhyme. Contemporary authors write novels in free verse. Check out Crossover by Kwame Alexander (HMH Books for Children 2014), Witness by Karen Hesse (Scholastic 2003), and Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (Puffin Books 2016).

What’s magical about poems is they beg to be heard! Read poems to students and invite them to read poems to each other. The photographer uses a camera and film to capture a moment or tell a story. The poet uses words and figurative language to help readers “see” through the poet’s eyes, mind, and heart!  

Be a Risk-Taker

You don’t have to know a lot about poetry to bring this genre to your students. Explore together.  Start by checking out dozens of poetry books from your school library. Spread the books out around the classroom and invite students to choose two they want to read. Then, set aside two to three classes for students to read and reread poems and choose a few to read aloud to a partner. Powerful poetic language and imagery can become part of children’s memories when you try some of the ten ways to bring poetry into students’ lives.

• Start the day in self-contained classes by reading a poem. Offer one for dessert after lunch, and close the day by reading a class favorite.
• Open and close middle and high school classes by reading a poem.
• Ask your school librarian to find collections of poems relating to a subject: sports, science, history, math, music, art. Have partners read their poems to each other and discuss what they’ve learned about a specific subject.
• Invite students to read a favorite poem to their group or the entire class.
• Start a “poetry talk” project for an entire semester.  Have students choose a poem to memorize, say it to you and reply back by sharing a poem you memorized.
• Have students choose a favorite poem, illustrate it, and create a display in your classroom and/or the school library.
• Share poems for two voices by Paul Fleishman with students and ask partners to select one they’d like to perform. After practicing, have pairs perform for the class.
• Invite students to silently “do” or act out poems they select or you choose. A great resource is Let’s Do A Poem edited by Nancy Larrick (Delacorte 1991).
• Choral read poems students and/or you select. Divide students into two to three groups that read a section of a poem together.
• Read poems to generate ideas for students’ writers’ notebooks.

Reading Poetry Matters

Poetry tunes students’ ears to figurative language and imagery, all the time showing them how much words matter! For striving readers, it offers an open door into the reading life. Surrounded by lots of white space, the poet’s words invite instead of intimidate.  Moreover, reading poetry builds students’ experiences with literary language, enlarges their background knowledge and vocabulary, and develops the self-confidence needed to tackle longer poetic and prose texts.

By reading, rereading, and listening to poems, students absorb and memorize the poet’s words and images, and the poems become part of their memory forever! Every time I see the sunrise I find myself whispering the first two stanzas of this poem by Emily Dickinson:

I’ll tell you how the sun rose,
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,

The bobolinks begun.

Then I said softly to myself,

That must have been the sun!

I want students to know, love, and be acquainted with so many poems that the words will be imprinted in their memory, ready to surface when an experience calls the poem to the forefront of their minds. When poems become part of students’ DNA, critical thinking develops as they associate a poem’s meaning with a personal experience. I recall Joshua scratching his head in class and shouting, “Fleas./Adam had ‘em,” and students’ reserved giggles transforming into ripples of laughter!  Yes! Words embedded in memory link our experiences to the poet’s and our lives are richer for it!

Follow Laura on Twitter @LRobbTeacher

Check out Evan’s blog posts on ScholasticEDU!

Learn more about Laura’s ideas on reading- check out- Teaching Reading in Middle School

Recently, I was interviewing candidates for a language arts position.  Several candidates just finished college and were eager to start a teaching career.  Included was one question all candidates had to respond to: How would you teach a particular short story to a group of students?  A frequent answer I received was, “Read it to the students or let the students read it out loud.” Letting students read out loud in front of the class is commonly referred to as popcorn or round-robin reading.  One candidate proudly explained a reading game called “bump,” where students would read out loud and could intermittently call on another student to continue the reading. Bump permits students to embarrass one another or to catch another student not paying attention.  No student should graduate from any college or university and bring such archaic and at times hurtful methods into a classroom. Popcorn, round robin, and bump reading should never be part of an elementary, middle, or high school classroom!

As a middle school principal, I am often asked what types of reading should occur in a middle school English classroom? What is a balanced literacy program? My answer is not that complex: “Reading can and should be taught.”  In addition to the teacher reading aloud for students’ enjoyment, every middle school classroom should have three types of reading:

• Instructional Interactive Read Aloud
• Instructional Reading
• Independent Reading

Instructional Interactive Read Aloud

An interactive read aloud allows the teacher to model in a think aloud how to apply a reading strategy. This modeling during a read aloud builds and/or enlarges students’ mental model of how a strategy works. For this aspect of instruction, I suggest that the teacher models with a short text that matches the genre and/or theme that ties a reading unit together.  Short texts can include a picture book, an excerpt from a longer text, a folk or fairy tale, myth or legend, a short, short story, or an article from a magazine or newsletter.

Here are six of many skills and strategies that you can model in interactive read-aloud lessons:

• Making inferences
• Linking literary elements to a text
• Identifying big ideas and themes
• Locating important details
• Skimming to find details
• Emotional responses

The interactive read aloud is teachers’ common text. Once teachers complete the modeling over five to eight classes, they have a reference text to support students by reviewing a lesson. Then, they move to reading aloud from texts that resonate with students.

Instructional Reading

Instructional reading occurs during class. Students need to read materials at their instructional reading level, which is about 90 % to 95% reading accuracy and about  90% comprehension. Organizing instructional reading around a genre and theme—for example biography with a theme of obstacles—permits students to read different texts and discuss their reading around the genre and theme. One book for all does not work.  Based on a false assumption, one-book-for-all assumes that no one has already read the book and everyone is on the same reading level.

As an example, the class opens with an interactive read-aloud lesson that lasts about ten minutes.   Next, a transition to instructional reading. Find books for students in your school library, your community public library, in your class library, and the school’s book room (if you have one).  Instructional reading books stay in the classroom, as students from different sections may be using the same materials each day.

Instructional reading asks students to apply specific skills and strategies to texts that can improve students’ comprehension, vocabulary, and skill because these texts stretch students’ thinking with the teacher, the expert, as a supportive guide.

Independent Reading

Students should always have a book they are reading independently. By encouraging them to read accessible books on topics they love and want to know more about, you develop their motivation to read!

Have students keep a Book Log of the titles they’ve read and reread. Do not ask students to do a project for each completed book; that will turn them away from reading.  Reflecting on the value of independent reading is important. Getting hung up on how you will hold students accountable is not valuable. Remember, enthusiastic readers of any age do not summarize every chapter they read in a journal. Neither do you!

Students should complete twenty to thirty minutes of independent reading a night, and that should be their main homework assignment. If you’re on a block schedule, set aside two days a week for students to complete independent reading at school. If you have 90 to 120 minutes for reading and writing daily, then independent reading should occur every day.  This is not wasted time. When students read the teacher can read part of the time which communicates a great message to students: adults read independently, too! Equally important during this time, teachers also confer with a few students about their reading.

Including the three types of reading in a middle school curriculum brings balance, engagement, and motivation to the curriculum and holds the potential of improving reading for all students. We must be better than popcorn reading as a go-to-method for a teacher to use with students.  We must be better than reading out loud for an entire class. We need a balanced framework, a balanced literacy program. Encourage your teachers to give the three types of reading a try. The goal is to increase students’ reading skill and help students become lifelong readers. But the goal is also to reclaim the professionalism language arts teachers and students deserve.  

Website: Robb Communications

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