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!

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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_

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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

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By Laura Robb

“The kids who can’t read the grade level text listen to it so they are on the same page as students who can read the text. That’s the only way I can have every student experience the required text.” This explanation illustrates how a sixth-grade teacher coped with a one-novel per semester curriculum in her classes. None of the teacher’s three ELA sections had all students reading on grade level or above. In fact, in this school students in all ELA classes, excluding two gifted and talented classes, were reading from grades one to seven —a range that’s similar to many middle schools throughout the country. 

            Despite the fact that teachers have classroom libraries and students read self-selected books for fifteen minutes each day, students reading three or more years below grade level don’t make enough progress in one year to learn from social studies and science textbooks.  In fact, these developing readers, often feel discouraged throughout the day because they can’t read texts in content subjects and therefore, don’t fully participate in discussions.

            More than forty years ago in his article, “If They Don’t Read Much, How Are  They Ever Gonna Get Good?” Richard Allington affirmed my observations and beliefs for developing readers: to improve their fluency and comprehension as well as enlarge their vocabulary and background knowledge, they need to read engaging, authentic materials throughout the day (1977).  Middle school is, most likely, the last opportunity teachers have to meet the needs of developing readers and by eighth grade have most students reading on or above grade level.  

When ELA and content area classes have books that represent students’ interests, cultures, and reading levels, students can read all day, every day. Equally important, as they improve reading skill and successfully participate in class discussions, students develop self-confidence and the perseverance to improve their reading. In addition to volume in reading, developing readers benefit from short, guided practice lessons that can also improve reading skill.

The Why Behind Guided Practice

Guided practice is instructional reading using a poem or a short text, and you facilitate the lessons that can be completed in 15 to 30 minutes. If you’re unsure whether students have absorbed information from a series of mini-lessons, you can use guided practice lessons to gain insights into their level of understanding. Moreover, during mini-lessons, you might identify a group of students who require additional practice. By supporting students with guided practice lessons, you strengthen their fluency, word knowledge, writing about reading, increase their background knowledge, and improve their recall and comprehension. How students navigate short texts can inform your instructional decisions, as you can:

• Adjust instructional moves by re-teaching a lesson or tweaking students’ goals and workload.
• Present one or two additional guided practice lessons to provide students with the practice that can improve their reading skill.
• Confer with a student to deepen your understanding of his/her work.
• Support a student or small groups by asking them to explain their thinking and then think aloud to model your process and gradually release the responsibility to students.
• Pair-up students and ask them to support one another as they rethink and redo notebook writing.

By observing students during guided practice lessons, you can target interventions and bring all students to a level of understanding that allows them to experience success during instructional and independent reading.

Scheduling Guided Practice

Guided practice Lessons replace all or part of your instructional reading block over two to three consecutive days. You can reserve one week to present a lesson and use it to assess students, or you can set aside three to four weeks and use the guided practice lessons as interventions that boost students’ reading skill.  Guided practice does not occur all year long and daily formative assessments provide the data that informs decisions and schedule adjustments. I have developed two types of guided practice lessons for additional reading practice.

Two Types of Guided Practice Lessons That Work

Both types of lessons build vocabulary, recommend short videos to enlarge background knowledge, invite students to reread passages for different purposes, improve fluency, and provide practice with citing text evidence to infer and support a position.

Partner discussion lessons ask you to do more explicit teaching by modeling how to write notebook responses and use context to determine the meaning of words. Pairs collaborate to complete word work, discuss questions, and choose a prompt to write about in their notebooks. These lessons offer students practice in completing authentic reading tasks and rely on partners scaffolding tasks for each other.

Shared reading lessons invite students to solve reading challenges independently (Burkins and Yaris, 2018).  These lessons ask you to select texts that allow students to solve reading problems independently.  As you pose questions about a short text, you’ll drive students into the text to infer, explore themes, compare and contrast, and enlarge their vocabulary. It’s the students doing the work that develops stamina and confidence to enjoy independent reading at school and home.. 

After students have completed a guided practice lesson, take some time to reflect on your observations and students’ questions and responses.  Doing this can help you decide if all or some students need extra practice with a specific strategy or if you can move on to building students’ reading skill and independence.

Learn More About Guided Practice Lessons

Corwin Literacy has published a book by Laura Robb and David Harrison, Guided Practice For Reading Growth (2020) that includes partner discussion and shared reading lessons for twelve poems and twelve short texts written by David Harrison, so children practice using beautifully written and engaging texts. Below is a shared reading lesson from the book that you can use with your students.

Rain, She by David Harrison

Rain, she watch jungle.
Oh yes!
Rain, she slyly lift each leaf,

tiptoe down trunk of kapok tree,

make sure jungle nice and green.

2Rain, she know when jungle thirsty.

She bang on forest roof,
plunk rubber trees on their heads.

“Wake up! Drink!” she say.

Oh yes!
Rain, she plump up blossoms,
make them nice and fancy for thirsty bees.

3Rain, she not forget animals!
Oh no!
She drench fur of sullen jaguar,

make parrots shake their feathers,

drip off howler monkey’s nose.

Oh yes!

4And rain, she never never forget
to pelt and rattle thatch huts,
drip through cracks, trickle down walls.

“Ha!” she say. “This I do for you.
I keep river full, she happy,
I pour your squash a drink.”

5Then rain, she say,
“This I do for me.
I keep jungle nice and green.

Oh yes!”

SHARED READING OF THE POEM, “RAIN, SHE”

Purpose: To understand how personification and onomatopoeia enhance meaning and support visualizing

Lesson Materials:

• Copies for all students of “Rain, She”
• Students file folders for storing short texts; 4 x 6 index card for covering stanzas
• An anchor chart headed with the title of the poem. Post both sentences on anchor chart:  Personification is giving non-living things the ability to do what humans can do. David Harrison personifies rain by making it a woman who cares for the rainforest. 
• Make two columns on the anchor chart. Title left side “Strong Rain Verbs” and title right side, “What You Picture.”
• Video: “Rain Forests 101/National Geographic” (3:41) or another video about rain forests that’s appropriate for your students. https://youtu.be/3vijLre760w >

Part 1. Pre-Teach

Day 1: about 15-20 minutes

• Watch video “Rainforests 101/National Geographic.” (You might want to watch this twice).  Invite students to share all they remember. Discuss green canopy and ecosystems.

● Show photo of the Kapok tree. Have students look at the person compared to the size of the tree. Connect Kapok tree to the green canopy and point out the animals that live in the tree and connect that to ecosystems. A great online resource can be found here: https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/species/kapok-tree

• Ask students to head a page in their notebooks and explain what the “green canopy” of the rainforest is and why it’s important. Circulate and help students by answering questions or helping them frame responses.

Day 2: about 15-20 minutes

• Give students a copy of the poem and read the poem out loud. Have students

read silently.

• Read the sentences on the anchor chart for personification and personifies. Model how you use clues to figure out the meaning of personification. Invite students to explain personifies using sentence clues.
• Have students turn-and-talk and discuss the meaning of these words using context clues.
• Reread the title and ask students to explain how David Harrison personifies rain.
• Reread the poem and ask students to turn-and-talk and find other examples of rain being personified as a woman.
• Introduce onomatopoeia and explain that words that also create sounds are onomatopoeic words. As an example point to bang in the second stanza. Ask, What kind of noise does bang make?
• Have students find other words in the poem that also make sounds: plunk, shake, pelt, rattle

Part 2. Start the Shared Reading Lesson

Day 3: about 20-30 minutes

• Have students retrieve a copy of “Rain, She” and the 4 x 6 index card from their folders. Students use their index cards to cover up stanzas 3 to 5.
• Read stanzas 1 and 2 out loud. As students follow silently, have them spot words that show what “she” does.
• Have students turn-and-talk, share words, and write these on the left side of the anchor chart.

First and Second Stanzas

How do these words (watch, tiptoe, bang, plunk, drink, plump up) help you see and hear what she is doing? Tell students these are strong verbs because they paint pictures and create sounds.

What other words in stanzas one and two relate to water?

• Read aloud the rest of the poem and students read silently.

Third Stanza

What does she do for animals? What words show you this?

Which words are onomatopoeic words?

Fourth Stanza

How are people in the huts feeling about “rain, she?” Use details from the poem to support you ideas.

How does the rain help people?

Last Stanza

Why does rain say, “This I do for me.” How do these words link to what the poet is saying about rain in the rainforest?

• What affect does repeating “oh yes!” have on your feelings? On the poem’s meaning?
• Reread each stanza. Turn-and talk about the picture you see in your mind and the words and phrases that helped create these. Share with the class.

Wrap-Up: Notice what students did well: finding strong verbs, onomatopoeic words, visualizing, and offering text details.

Day 4:  about 15 minutes

Part 3. Teacher Assesses

Complete the Anchor Chart

Additions and adjustments come from the students. You’ll want to see what they can add. If they add little, then students are telling you they require more practice. You can redo part of the lesson or move on and slow down, checking frequently for understanding.

• Have students retrieve the poem from their folders.
• Ask students to choral read as you reread the poem.
• Review anchor chart notes and have students make adjustments and add ideas.
• Review green canopy, kapok tree, personification, and personify and connect to the poem.

Reflect and Intervene: On sticky notes, jot the names of students who didn’t participate or contribute ideas for the anchor chart. Work with individuals or a small group. Return to modeling and then invite students to respond.

References

Allington, Richard L. (1977). “If they don’t read much, how are they ever gonna get good?”Journal of Adult and Adolescent Literacy. 21(1), 57-61.

Burkins, Jan and Kim Yaris (2018). Who’s doing the work? How to say less so readers can do more. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Miller, Donalyn and Colby Sharp (2018). Game changer! Book access for all kids. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Robb, Laura (2020). Guided Practice for Reading Growth, Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Literacy.

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