Tag Archives: Readers Writers Workshop

#FridayReads & Becoming (Twitter) Literary Critics

#FridayReads, Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Classroom Culture May 27, 2016 Comments: 3

I am beat. My students are beat. I know you know exactly how that feels.

In an effort to lighten the mood but keep the idea of books and reading alive, my students and I had a little fun with Donald Trump. Now, it doesn’t matter what you think of the man or his politics, his tweets make pretty good mentor texts.

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I’m not the only one to think so — actually, I got the idea from someone Buzzfeed. Some clever writer put together a list of tweets, written as if Mr. Trump critiqued literature. Brilliant.

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So to have a little end-of-year fun, I asked my students to consider Trump’s sentence structure, and then write their own reviews based on the most recent books they’d read. Really, my only requirements:  a clear tone, but they didn’t have to be mean, and correct spelling and punctuation.

Here’s a few for your reading pleasure. Of course, the review makes the most sense if you are familiar with the books students refer to — I get that not everyone is as versed in YA like they might be the canon.

(Side Note:  To those who say students will never move beyond YA or ‘easy’ reading when it’s all about choice. Um, wrong again.)

What kind of end-of-year fun with books and reading — or anything else– have you had with your students? Please share in the comments.

“Give me a speeding ticket…I am reading way too furiously to be within the law”

Lisa Dennis, Readers Workshop, Readers Writers Workshop May 23, 2016 Comments: 6

May can be a desperate time for teachers. We’re just…tired. Fall asleep on the couch after dinner, mainline coffee, bargain with the snooze button, barely recognize your own family, exhausted.

Just think, in the time that it takes to carry a human baby to full term (Baby Ruthie, I’m looking at you), most of us have carried somewhere around 150 (if you’re lucky) students through the year. To clarify this gestational metaphor – by carried, I mean taught. And by taught, I mean pushed. And by pushed, I mean (occasionally) dragged.

Amy wrote about it last week. The crack up. The point at which it all becomes too much and you start to question if you taught them anything. If they are better in any way. If you reached even one. If you’ve been talking to yourself for the last nine months. Because with the approach of graduation, and summer, and sweet, sweet freedom, the opportunities to make that difference seem to dwindle. Students are paying  less and less attention these days, to school anyway, and when coupled with the somewhat spent enthusiasm of teachers, the chances of academic magnificence begins to allude us. Which, unfortunately, makes us even more tired.

However, because we care, sometimes to our own detriment, we don’t give up. Amy, unwavering in her commitment to use every last moment, wrote about this too. It’s the moment where banging your head against the wall one last time means you break through instead of breaking down.

In my own effort to keep the spark alive, I have my students working on final projects that demand they keep reading and keep creating, right up to the end. Additionally, inspired by Shana’s brilliant use of former students as an engaging resource, I called in a heavy hitter.

Austin Bohn, graduate of Franklin High School in 2013, reached out to me a few months ago with the following email. What followed is an exchange of ideas that solidifies for me that our students often don’t truly see the impact that our classes can have on their lives, until after they’ve left us. Austin has always been inquisitive, insightful, and personable. As a college student, I see in Austin the exact type of young man that we hope our students become – thinkers who value where their reading lives can take them. 

Lisa, (because I get to call you Lisa now),

I just wrapped up a discussion post for my Philosophy 4336 course, “Applied Ethics for the Health Professions.” It was just one of those times when you feel as though you’ve hit all the right keys in just the right order. It reminded me of some of the reading and responding we used to do in your classroom. 
I’ve attached a short article and my—also short—post in response to it. In it, I draw on Saxton extensively so you’ll probably be able to navigate by just reading that one. There is another article (Connelly), but you’ll likely not need to read it unless you really want to. 
I hope that you’ll find it refreshing to read something from a former student, knowing you laid a great foundation that allows me to be able to crank these things out on a weekly basis. I really do appreciate your teaching—I’m only just beginning to grasp its value. You taught me how to think!
All the best,
Austin Bohn

Austin and I continued exchanging emails for several weeks, and when he expressed interest in coming to observe some of my classes and share ideas about college life, reading expectations at the collegiate level, and explore the possibility of teaching someday, I asked if he would like to come in and serve as a motivator for my AP classes,

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Austin book talking Ishmael 

post test. Austin had been in my AP class and knew well both the project that my students
are working on and the difficulty to focus when the end is so very near.

Two weeks ago, we made a plan for Austin to come in, share some of his insights and experiences as they relate to college level work, chat with students and provide ideas as they craft their final projects, and observe.

What turned out to be the added bonus, and one that’s already had an impact on my classes, was Austin’s book talk on Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. I wasn’t familiar with the text, (a book that details a man’s encounter with a gorilla who has all and none of the answers about life), but the impassioned argument Austin made for reading the book and what it can teach you about thinking, struck a cord. Specifically, with another young man in my AP Language class.

Bennett Dirksmeyer is a thinker too. A quiet, careful, deep thinker. When he emailed me the day after Austin’s book talk and told me that he went right out and bought a copy of Ishmael,  I was excited for him. To be honest, whenever a book talk “works” I get a satisfied nerd-smile from ear to ear.

So, three days later, when I received the email below indicating that Bennett had already plowed through Quinn’s text, I was floored.

The email below made me cry. Like, A Monster Calls, breathless sobbing (not because I’m tired, or not only because I’m tired), but because this is what we all want. Out of workshop. Out of teaching. Out of life. Out of the end of a long, hard school year.

And no, I don’t mean we all want the email exactly (though I would be lying if I said that hearing a student’s gratitude doesn’t feel amazing), but we want students to grow in their thinking. Challenge themselves, push themselves, take risks, stay up late reading, and come away with new ways of processing this crazy life.

Here is what Bennett sent (with some enthusiastic bolding by yours truly):

Mrs Dennis,

I closed Ishmael at 3:35pm today. After reading, with unexpected vigor I might add, I began to wonder why I plowed through it so willingly. Throughout my reading I thought, and thought, “Why am I liking this?”, “What is making me do this?” It is an important text. It deals with issues leading to very serious implications. It deals with very political and personal questions with very divided answers. New-different-not my-ideas. Ideas I am not accustomed to.

The last book I truly read and loved and finished was Paper Towns by John Green. I read the text with so much vigor, surprising vigor, at that.

I felt that same vigor and that same ‘give me a speeding ticket because I am reading way too furiously to be within the law’-ness, and that same ‘I’m gonna have to stop and get an oil change

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Bennett – A “Pretty Cool Guy” 

for my head because the motor is running, but I’m not going to’-ality.

And I continued to wonder (sometimes aloud) – “What do I love so (expletive) much about this book?!”

I sat and thought about it.
And I thought.
And thought.

And it dawned on me.

I love this book. Not for its themes, or the author’s word choice, or the overall message contained between its covers. But for the reason that it caused me to start up that thing between my ears, and think.

I think I get it now.

And that’s pretty cool.

Thank You, for passing these skills on to me, so that I can do this with them.

I regret none of American Lit with you Freshman year (I read every word of The Scarlet Letter, and for me, that was scary-awesome), Brit/World Lit with Mrs Adelmann Sophomore year, and AP Lang with you this year. Thank you, you rock.

Books are cool.
I’ve always loved them.

But, now I appreciate them. And the pretty cool guy they’ve helped me become.

Bennett 

So let me try and instill (rejuvenate? invigorate? fuel?) a little hope in my worn and weary teaching partners around the world as this school year winds down and I know we could all benefit from a little love:

While we may be trying to merely survive until the end of the school year, to get through it in one piece in order to pick right back up and get ready for next year, teachers inspire. You, reading this, inspire students throughout the year. Even when we are tired, we inspire. With our passion for the written word, our desire to watch learners grow, and our commitment to allowing students choice in their exploration (with our guidance), we inspire.

Sometimes we are lucky enough to see it first hand, to hear about it, and literally embrace the students who let us know how they have been changed (I hugged Bennett on his way into class the next day. He seemed appropriately horrified). Other times, we never know for sure. But, as Quinn claims in Ishmael, we seek pupils to get them thinking, because careful thought can save the world.

The more we tell kids about the importance of reading, show them we are readers, put life changing books in front of them, and passionately share the experience through conferences and their written work, the more students we can reach on a deep and powerful level, because they know we care.

Yes, I’m tired. Really, really tired. But, Austin and Bennett (two pretty cool guys), have reminded me that all the work we’re putting in as a community of learners can really mean something. It can change, and maybe even save, someone’s world.

Most especially in May, when I might argue that many of us need it most.

What is helping fuel you at the end of this school year? Please comment below with your ideas on saving the world, one student (and teacher) at a time! 

#3TTWorkshop — Part Two Student and Teacher Buy In

#3TTWorkshop, Amy Rasmussen, Lisa Dennis, Pedagogy, Readers Writers Workshop, Shana Karnes May 19, 2016 Comments: 2

This post is the continuation of a conversation from the previous post in response to an email we received from our friend an UNH colleague Betsy Dye.

How do we help students understand what we mean by choice, especially when they’ve been given ‘choice’ before in the form of ‘choose from this list of books or topics.’?

Shana:  Again, I think modeling is key here.  I show students my roller-coaster of reading, including the trashy romance novels I indulge in despite my Masters degree in literature.  I show them my pile of abandoned books, for “life’s too short to finish bad books.”  I show them classics that I sort of wish I’d read, but never have.  And then I show them my notebook pages of books I’m currently reading or want to read.

It also helps that I have students complete visual and written reading ladders each year, and I show new students the previous year’s ladders to illustrate individualized choice.  And again, here’s where the class reputation comes in handy as well.

Lisa:  ^This. Our stories as readers and writers are gold, especially to some kids who have no such models in their lives. My students laugh at my copy of Don Quixote on my desk. I started it in September. I am 200 pages in. I’ve read over a dozen books since I unintentionally stopped reading that tome, and I had to promise some of my juniors that I would finish it before they graduate next year, but I’ve covered a lot of ground by not allowing myself to get weighted down. Yes, we must press students to finish texts and not become kids that drop book after book without really pushing themselves, but we must also remember that when they do find the one, it can lead to the next one (especially with our gentle guidance) and hopefully many more to come.

In terms of writing, it’s more modeling and the application of the skill each and every day. Sometimes, it seems, it really comes down to endurance. Many kids only write when they have to, which causes them to sit in front of a screen, pound out the required pages, and move on. However, when they get into the habit of writing, when it becomes exploration instead of a narrowly focused task, it becomes less like completing your taxes and more like picking out what to wear. One you do not only do once a year with heavy sighs and confusion because you are basically out of practice and unwilling to do more than the required work. The other provides you with an opportunity to choose, express yourself, and build confidence.

Finally, the classroom library comes to mind. Variety here is key. Students need to see that they aren’t limited by the short list they might receive at the beginning of the year in other classes. If your library has options and you talk about those options often, they will believe. If you build it…they will come.

Amy:  I’ll repeat Shana:  Confer. Confer, Confer. The more we engage in conversations with our students about what we mean by choice and books and writer’s notebooks and everything else in the sphere of workshop, the more they will understand and take ownership of their choices. We must be willing to admit that choice is hard when they’ve never had it, or they’ve only had tiny tastes of it. So many students are afraid of being wrong, afraid of “the grade.” It’s through our conversations that we have the best chance of eliminating these fears and helping students trust themselves along the way.

How do we open the library shelves to our seniors and help them move beyond the four to six novels they’ve read each year for the three previous years?

Amy:  I’ll start with stating the somewhat controversial:  I doubt most of our seniors read

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Not my students’ actual conversation but still. 🙂

all the required novels teachers selected in those earlier years. Every year I ask my juniors how many books they read the year before. Some say they read only the required books. Some admit to starting but not finishing them. Some tell me they didn’t read those books at all. If we are going to make all the decisions about the books we choose for our students, we have to be okay knowing that not all of our students will read them.

Shana:  Ha–I know that kids don’t always read what’s assigned, because little goody-two-shoes me didn’t read what was assigned.  And I loved reading.  In fact, I read John Grisham under my desk while my teacher talked about Catcher in the Rye.  I tell students that story, and show them the many weather-beaten Grisham novels on my mystery shelf, and ask them about their guilty pleasure reads, or their life-changing reads, or their escape-from-reality reads.  [Amy:  or their Wattpad reads] All of those discussions start a conversation about the possibilities choice reading might offer, and we go from there.

Lisa:  I asked. They don’t read. They tell me sweetly, but still, they don’t read. Students I had as sophomores will gladly share with me as seniors all the ways they worked to convince me they read The Scarlet Letter, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 

Amy:  Lisa, I had students publicly confess to not reading a thing in my class in a Facebook group I had several years ago. Stabbed me right in the eye because at the time I had no idea they could be so sneaky — and smart — and still make high grades in my class without reading the same American literature books you mention. It’s like they subconsciously deny the canon!

Lisa:  So…how do we open our shelves and help seniors move beyond the books they never read? By offering up a wealth of books they can read, telling them to look through the books at home they’ve always meant to read, sending them to book recommendation lists, talking with them about what they might want to do after high school and suggesting books in that vein, having them talk with peers who have kept up with reading and have recommendations to share.

I had a student who graduated in 2013 come back to observe some of my classes this week. He book talked Ishmael to my AP students today, and I just received an email from a student saying that he went to Half Price Books and picked up a copy tonight. 

The power of suggestion is strong. If I am surrounded by people working out, I might consider getting off my couch. If I am surrounded by people complaining all the time, I start to complain too. If I am surrounded by readers, I am going to see what all the fuss is about. Many of our students want to read, but they need time. We can provide it. Many of our students want to read but need suggestions. We can provide those. Many of our students want to read, but only what they want to read.

Bingo. Let’s start there and build on it.

How do we help our colleagues get started with workshop?

Lisa:  By inviting Three Teachers Talk to provide professional development! No, seriously. It’s how my team in Franklin saw all the possibility that workshop holds and how to actually make it work day to day. So that comes down to support. Comparatively speaking, curriculum in a textbook is easy. Curriculum you’ve taught for fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years, provides comfort. Running off packets of study-guide questions isn’t too terribly difficult either. Building meaningful lessons from scratch is really hard work. I’ve lived it, and I’ve seen it happen at Franklin as we work to move our 9th and 10th grade classes to workshop. If we didn’t work at it together, it would be infinitely more difficult.

Shana:  Support is essential.  Whether it’s the kind of support one finds in a workplace colleague, or connecting with a like-minded friend via Twitter or a blog, workshop teachers are part of a community just as nurturing as the ones we strive to create in our classrooms.  It warms my heart and fuels my spirit to think of Lisa and Amy working on this craft in their Wisconsin and Texas classrooms, and it invigorates me on days I think I’d rather just run copies of a worksheet.  We’re all trying our best to craft strong, student-centered classrooms, and whatever guidance and support we can provide one another is a non-negotiable.  Pedagogical reading recommendations, webinars, and Twitter chats can all help our colleagues dive into workshop, and be buoys when we need them, too.

Amy:  Yes, to all that, and I can think of two other little things we can do to share this work with our colleagues:

1) invite colleagues to visit our classrooms. I am such a visual learner. When I see a strategy taught, over reading about a strategy in a book, I am much more able to use it successfully with my students. The same holds true for how workshop works. I read Nancie Atwell’s book In the Middle. It is a great book! But I could not imagine how I could make what she described work in my 9th grade classroom with 33 students. It wasn’t until I experienced writing workshop myself via the North Star of TX Writing Project Summer Institute that I got a vision of what workshop looked like.

Too often we teach like castaways on tiny islands, cut off from everyone else. Invite other teachers to walk through, sit a spell, engage in the same routines the students are doing. I think that is the single most powerful way to share the workshop philosophy with other teachers.

2) share student work, excitement, and testimonies. More than our own testifying to the power of workshop, it’s our students’ voices that move teachers. Do you remember the first time you watched one of Penny Kittle’s videos where she interviewed her students? Shana, I think this is the video we watched the summer we met at UNH. I love these boys.

Student voices = the sometimes needed push to fall over the cliff into this exciting workshop way to teach and learn.

Do you have topic ideas you would like us to discuss? Please leave your requests here or in the comments. Thank you for joining the conversation.

#3TTWorkshop — Teaching Students How to Thrive in Workshop

#3TTWorkshop, Amy Rasmussen, Lisa Dennis, Pedagogy, Readers Writers Workshop, Shana Karnes May 18, 2016 Comments: 5

#3TTWorkshop Meme

We received the following request from our UNH-loving friend and inspiring educator Betsy Dye who teaches in Illinois. She got us thinking.

Betsy’s email:

What advice do you have for a teacher about introducing workshop to classes who are unfamiliar with it?  What are some of the effective ways to explain to students what they’ll be doing if they’ve never experienced a workshop classroom before?

While of course I’ve had students who have taken to and embraced the idea of workshop immediately,  I’ve had others who often fall into one or more of the following categories:

–students who have become so apathetic to what they’re doing because of no choice that they now prefer to be told exactly what to do which doesn’t require a lot of effort on their part
or
ninth graders who used to be enthusiastic readers and writers until middle school when whole class novels replaced independent reading and when whole class prompts were assigned for all writing and who’ve consequently lost their passion for reading  and writing
or
students who have been told they will have choices … but then have been pigeonholed when an actual assignment was given (‘you can write about anything you want as long as it happened in the 1700s in England’; you can read anything  you want as long as it’s a fictional historical novel’); these students don’t really trust me when I say I’m all about choice
or
seniors who have spent three years stuck in the whole class read/whole class discuss/whole class write essays cycle, and who have read only about 4 to 6 novels a year

I’ve also had a few colleagues ask how to get started and while I’ve been able to provide a few suggestions, I’d sure love some other input.

Amy:  First of all, I think asking ourselves how we get students, no matter their predisposition, to engage in a workshop-inspired classroom is something we should revisit often. Every year and every new group of students deserves our focus and best efforts so they have the best year of learning possible.

I have to remind myself that just because one group of kids understood and engaged well one year does not mean the incoming group of kids will the next. This year is a perfect example. I’ve wracked my brain, but I must have missed a core piece of the buy-in pie at the beginning of the year because many of the things that have worked in prior years have produced constant push back in this one. I’ve already got two pages of notes with what I want to do differently, or better, next year.

What advice do you have for a teacher about introducing workshop to classes who are unfamiliar with it?

Shana:  My strongest piece of advice is to make sure students know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it during each lesson segment in a workshop structure.  At the beginning of last school year, I had a student named Robert who was constantly angry with me for what he saw as workshop “catching him off guard.”  He didn’t know how to predict what we might do next after ten years of whole-class novel sameness.  He felt afraid that choice amounted to a trick, and that he wouldn’t be able to be as successful as he’d been in previous English classes.  

Robert reminded me that for many of our students, the workshop is wildly unfamiliar, and that for many teens, change is scary.  I had to be deliberate in my language, in our routines, and in my classroom organization in order to constantly reinforce for students what we were doing and why we were doing it.  I made sure to always have an agenda on the board, including a “what’s next” segment that showed how the day’s lesson related to the next class, and also made sure to review and preview during each day’s mini-lesson.  I found that once I reiterated to students that a day’s lesson was going to be used in a specific way, they began to make the connections between lessons that I only saw in my lesson design.

Lisa: Our district has been utilizing workshop for several years in the K-8 realm, but high school workshop is relatively new to our department, and completely new as the prefered delivery method. That said, I think the most important element to stress with teachers is that the enthusiasm they project has a huge impact on student willingness to buy in. This is true with or without choice, but when I am suggesting to my students that they be readers and writers, I need to model, live it, breath it, and love it.

Amy:  One of my first exposures to workshop instruction came from Marsha Cawthon who teaches in Plano, TX. She invited me to visit her classroom. Wow. The walls were painted deep inviting colors, and she’d moved out the ‘school-looking’ furniture and brought in home furnishings. The room welcomed something different. At that time, Marsha told me that when the room is different than what they are accustomed to — desks in rows and stereotypical school posters, etc — students know that the class and the instruction will be different. I started painting my walls, grouping my desks into tables, throwing a rug on the floor, and bringing in cast off furniture and book shelves.

Lisa:  Amy speaks about the impact the physical classroom has on this process. I think that makes a huge difference, too. Our enthusiasm shows in our classroom design. We as teachers know that we are selling a product. That means if we convey our enthusiasm through the way our rooms look, the level of excitement we project about a text through a book talk, and/or our sincere line of inquiry during conferences, students know if we really practice what we preach and use what we are selling. Let your enthusiasm for literature and writing, and in this case they are broad terms because they afford so many options, set the foundation for the year. Ask students a lot of questions, invest in their answers, and moving forward with confidence in what you have to offer them can, and in many cases will, empower them and change them for the better.  

What are some effective ways to explain to students what they’ll be doing if they’ve never experienced a workshop classroom before?

Amy:  Of course, I tell students on day one that the teaching I do and by extension the learning they will do will be different in my classroom. I know they don’t believe me. I teach 11th grade. Talk about kids that are set in their ways. Some checked out of school a long while ago, and they are just going through the motions. Most hope to go to college though — that’s a plus for the AVID program in which all of my students are a part of. I have taught 9th, and 10th grade before though — often the students at these younger grades are even harder to convince that workshop instruction differs from a traditional approach where the teacher makes all the choices in reading and writing. Sometimes kids do not want to make choices. It’s sad, but they are way too jaded already. I know everyone who’s taught for even a little while already knows this. So what can we do?

Rituals and routines. I think that’s at least part of the answer. We set up rituals and routines that we stick through like super glue, and we do not waver or change plans if at all possible. We practice, practice, practice until the routines become the norm. We help students recognize the moments that work and work well. For example, my students read at the beginning of every class period. The routine is set:  walk in the door, get out your books, begin reading. When I am on my game at the beginning of the year, and I welcome students at the door and remind them to sit down and begin reading, I have a much easier time than the daily reminder I end up resorting to. We save valuable reading and instructional time when we get right into our books. Then, when students read, I confer. This routine is the spokes in the wheel that keep my workshop instruction thriving. The more I consistently confer, the more students read and write in abundance and at high levels.

Lisa: I will echo what Amy says with wild abandon. Routine. Use the precious minutes for, as Penny Kittle says, what matters. Again, with our students entering high school with a workshop background, I think the biggest challenge for our official move to workshop next year will be for teachers to learn/grow through experimentation and for students to see what the accelerated expectations are at the high school level. Though, I think for all students, whether they have workshop experience or not, the routine provides a normalcy that quickly unifies the classroom. When students know what to expect every day (time to read, book talk, mini lesson, etc.), expectations have already been set. Then those routines can be built on to encourage consistent reading, deep analysis, focused revision of work, collaboration, and ultimately, the community of readers and writers forms.

Shana:  Again, we are in accord.  Routines and rituals are essential to the workshop.  Once those student-centered practices are made normative, and students know that their risk-taking within a workshop community will not result in punitive actions like bad grades, it is then that we can encourage the freedom and autonomy essential to advancement in a workshop classroom.  In addition to all this, I’ll say that after a few years teaching at my high school, my class established a reputation, and students entered the room trusting my practice rather than questioning it.  Students talk to one another about workshop classes, and those who’ve heard about the concept come in willing to try it out because they know the gist of what it’s all about.

How do you help inspire learning and engage those students who seem to prefer to be told exactly what to do?

Amy:  Everyone on the planet loves to have choices. This includes students who seem to be so apathetic they wait until we make the choice for them. Of course, Don Murray said something like this “Choice without parameters is no choice at all.” Sometimes too much choice looms too large for students. Lighten the load. Lower the stakes. Instead of saying “Read anything you want,” say things like “Why don’t you try a book from these interesting titles?” (and set down a stack of five or six) or “Let’s talk some more one-on- one. I bet I can make a reader of you yet.” This puts the challenge on you instead of on the student. Interesting how many non-responders will respond. Sometimes it takes awhile, but we can almost always win the challenge of engagement.

Shana:  I agree–all choice is no choice.  That’s why I like to consistently model what choice in literacy looks like.  When students see my example–I know the kinds of books I like, and I choose from within those genres, or I know the kinds of writing topics I’m interested in and write within those topic frames–they begin to understand what choice might look like for them.  Lisa’s colleague Catherine wrote about intentional modeling here, and I think that’s an essential part of the workshop.  When students see my passion for creating my own path of literacy advancement, they begin to see what theirs might look like, too.  Oh–and never relenting when kids ask for the easy path helps, too.  🙂

Lisa: What comes to mind immediately is how ironic that teenagers would ever want to be told what to do! In so many areas of their lives, like all human beings, we desire to forge our own path if we are truly given the resources and support to do so. Students often want to be told what to do when they are too afraid to take a risk or too trained to let other people think for them. Shana’s point about being a model is my strategy here too. Never be afraid to be geeky about your love of reading and writing.

Where I think I may have gone a bit wrong in the past is that I would try to translate my love of reading and writing through the texts that only I chose. This will hook some students, but without the ability to take a passion for reading and apply it to what they want to read, I was only ever hitting a few kids with each text. It’s like mushrooms. My husband, sweet as he is, has been trying to get me to like mushrooms for over a decade. Now, I do enjoy food, and I will gladly eat all day long, but I am never going to like mushrooms. In fact, when they appear, I am basically done eating (and yes, mushrooms just appearing is a real, hard hitting issue). Mushroom rants aside, we can’t take what we like and expect kids to invest.

We need to show them that we read and write, that reading and writing connects us to what it means to be humans (all humans), and we can all grow from it. Sometimes it takes a long, long, long time, but with the wide expanse of choice, we have a much better chance of reaching each and every student. And…bribe them. 😉

How do we reinvigorate a student’s passion for reading and writing?

Amy: I hesitate to lay all the blame on middle school, but I do think something happens during these years that can often dampen a love of reading and writing in our students. I remember reading a text by Alfie Kohn wherein he said something like “Just when students are old enough to start making wise choices, we take the choices away from them.” I know some would argue that sixth graders are not very wise, but I’d argue right back. Sure, they are. They are wise to the things they like to read and the topics they like to explore in their writing.

My twin sons had a workshop teacher in middle school — the only two of my seven children who did — I think it was seventh grade. Both Zach and Chase learned to like reading, something that did not happen in middle school. They also learned to write. They chose topics like football and winning the state championship like their older brother. They wrote hero stories about saving their friends as they imagined themselves as soldiers surrounded by gunfire. My boys are now close to 22. Chase has spent his first full week at Basic Training with the Army, and Zach plans on joining the Navy when he returns in a year from his mission in Taiwan. They are both masterful writers and eclectic readers. I owe a lot of thanks to that middle school teacher.

Lisa: Show them you care about what they care about, and you care enough to push them to care about a wider and wider world.  That means meaningful conversations (conferring), opportunities to explore student interests (choice writing/reading), passionately sharing your own ideas and insights (book talks, selection of mentor texts), and subscribing to the motto that variety is the spice of life.

I’ve read a lot in the past few months that I would have thought was out of my comfort zone. For example, I read my first graphic novel, Persepolis. Ahhh-mazing. I’ll be honest. I was judgey about graphic novels before, but now, I am hooked! Once hooked, I book talked the text and shared with students the story of how wrong I was about graphic novels. We talked then about books, genres, and experiences with reading that surprise us. I think it’s good for students to be nudged (shoved) out of their own comfort zones sometimes. At the same time, they aren’t going to jump back in the game without those experiences that come from a place of pure passion and joy. So…we must really get to know our kids, make suggestions that speak to them as best we are able, and then give them time. Time is precious to all of us, but to teenagers, it would seem, they have little to no time to read. We must make time for them in class (give them a taste) and then work with them to make the time (even ten minutes at a time) to keep coming back for more.

Shana:  Confer, confer, confer.  When we talk to kids and find out what they are passionate about, we can help them see the connections between their passions and literacy.  Further, we can introduce them to important links between success in their interests and how reading and writing can put that success within reach–my vocation-driven West Virginia students aren’t interested in the literacy skills that college might require, but they do care about being able to read or write a technical manual.

We can also help students discover new passions through reading–after reading Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air in tenth grade, I fell in love with Mt. Everest, and I still read anything I can get my hands on about it.

We’ll continue with part two of this discussion tomorrow. In the meantime, please add your comments. How would you answer Betsy’s questions? What did we leave out?

#3TTWorkshop — Some Thinking on Feedback and How We Use It

#3TTWorkshop, Amy Rasmussen, Conferring, Readers Writers Workshop April 20, 2016 Comments: 2

 

Did you know there are 167 synonyms for feedback? reaction, response, answer, reply, assessment, comeback . . . criticism . . .

By definition, feedback in the business world means: Process in which the effect or output of an action is ‘returned’ (fed-back) to modify the next action.

In the mini-lesson I posted Monday, I mentioned that I’d asked my students to write for five minutes in response to this:  Think about your reading growth and improvement this year. Can you honestly say you are better now than you when you walked in the classroom in the fall?

TTT reader Leigh Anne commented:  “I love this idea. . . I do wonder though, what were some of their responses to how they grew as readers this year. I only teach 6th grade, but answering this question seems to be a struggle for them. I can’t image how junior AP students would answer it.”

So I took snapshots of four students’ writer’s notebooks and transcribed what they wrote.

notebook response

For quickwrites, I ask students to write as much as they can as fast as they can as well as they can. Then, we always read over our writing and try to revise.

Before you read (in their own quickwrite language), I’d like to suggest that while this simple writing exercise served as self-evaluation for students and set up the personal reading challenge activity, more importantly, it served as valuable feedback for me. We spend an awful lot of time self-selecting books and reading them. One way I know if the investment in time is worth it is to ask my readers. As a result, I now know how my students feel about their progress, and I have ideas on how to “modify the next action.”

“This AP English is being challenging to me. When I entered the classroom, I felt like I was about to collapse. But as I continued to take the challenge and accept it, I am now way better than the beginning of the class. I might not improve like everyone but I improve in my own way. My improvement might not reach advance level but I beat my lowest level. I used to read children’s book, fairytale with 10 pages , still it was hard for me to notice what is going on. Compare to those days, I have now understand almost all the chapter books. This class had helped me more than I could imagine, but my improvement right now isn’t enough, I still have long way to go.” ~Sui

Next action:  Sui said she now understands “almost all the chapter books.” I’ll talk to Sui and find out what she thinks might help her understand all the chapter books. She may be able to tell me where she gets confused. If she does, I will be able to offer strategies and support so she will continue to improve.

“I haven’t done all the required reading in a timely manner, however, I have grown slightly as a reader. My pace has increased with some books, but also slowed down due to difficulty of certain books. That happens to everyone, hopefully, because it could just be me. I still have a focus issue with reading, but it has improved within the time frame of this year. I’m not where I should be as a junior in high school, but it could be worse.” ~ Cerin

Next action:  I’m curious to know if Cerin truly believes she might be the only one who has to slow down when reading more complex books — and I didn’t know she has “a focus issue.” I need to talk with Cerin and find out what she means by this and determine how I might help. I know she’s abandoned several books this year. Maybe she’s one of those expert fake readers, or maybe she still hasn’t found any books she likes enough to finish.

“Honestly, I can say that my reading has improved since the beginning of the school year. I can say this because before I lacked motivation when it came to picking up a novel. It might have had something to do with lack of interest with the topic. Also, I found myself skimming through the text and not critically annotating the pages, but now looking forward this semester my book is tattooed with my thoughts, and each word read one after another.” ~Unity

Next action:  First, I must tell this girl how much I love that “tattooed” bit! I know Unity spent a lot of time reading and annotating the non-fiction book she chose for our research mentors. She shows me here how proud she is of that, and I need to recognize and celebrate her efforts. Our next one-on-one conference may turn into a discussion on the notes she made in her book and why. I need to see her critical annotations.

“I can honestly say that I got so much better at my reading in English classroom. When I enter this year I could not tell if the book is non-fiction or fiction, but after Mrs. Rasmussen talked to me one on one I can tell which one is non-fiction and fiction. I am currently reading the book that is challenge on me but I really want to catch up with my classmate on reading skill and level. I improve so much this year and like reading now. I never like reading in my freshman year or sophomore because I thought reading is useless and it take all of my time. But now I like reading fiction book because I see myself in the book and it get into my head.” ~Siang

Next action:  Siang’s challenged herself for a while now. I need to be sure she is not stuck reading a book that bogs her down too much. She’s been frustrated with reading in the past, and she finally found success with some fairly easy reads. Fluency means comprehension, and that is where the story is. By saying she likes to read fiction, Siang is really saying she likes good stories. I need to make sure she finds another one.

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Were all student responses quite so encouraging? No. These are juniors in high school after all. I’ll say this for them though: they are usually brutally honest when I ask them for this kind of response.

One student wrote that he has not improved as a reader this year, and he does not think he needs to. He feels like he’s as good as he ever needs to be. (I wish this was satire — we are in the middle of that right now.) Alas, it is not. This young man does the bare bones minimum to show he’s learning anything — just keeps his head above passing, goes through the motions. But his response is valuable feedback, too.

“Hey, kid, we have about seven more weeks of school. I’m not done with you yet.”

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? They enter our rooms, and we give them our all. In my case, my all gets charged by the hope I have. I hope my students will grow as competent, confident, intelligent, and compassionate citizens. They can energize the world.

I believe reading more and reading well is the fast track to all of that.

Please share your ideas on getting  — and giving feedback.

#FridayReads Top 10 Books that will Give You a New Perspective on Death

Readers Writers Workshop April 15, 2016 1 Comment

Back in November Shana and I talked about how to make our assessments more authentic. We seem to talk about assessment a lot. We talk and then write. We wrote about our semester exams and the thinking behind them in response to a query from a reader. One part of our exams included asking students to create top ten lists of books they had read. Shana and I find it beneficial to not only help students find books they will enjoy reading but to use information about our readers to help their peers. We’ve got several of these student-made top ten lists to share as models. Maybe they will help you match books to your readers, too.

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Jessica was already a reader when she entered my AP Language class in the fall. She wrote about herself on the first day of school: “I consider myself to be creative and artistic. I love to draw and write. I wish I could be more prosperous.” I don’t know if writing will make her prosperous, but I think Jessica definitely has a future in it if she chooses to. She’s quirky and sharp. Her wit is a gem, and I love reading everything she writes. She named her blog “Giraffes Make Bad Co-pilots” after all.

“Top Ten Books that will Give You a New Perspective on Death” by Jessica Ortiz

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This book sits at number one on my list because of its unique way of portraying death; this story is told from Death’s point of view, recounting the younger days of a girl named Liesel Meminger, who is adopted by a new family in the midst of World War II. Death encounters her a number of times throughout his work, watching as her story unfolds amongst the several tragedies that follow her in her dreams.

Rotters by Daniel Krausrotters

This book revolves around the strange life of Joey Crouch; a sixteen year old straight-A student whose father just so happens to be a grave robber. After a sudden turn of events take his mother from him, Joey is forced to live with the reclusive man that his mother somehow used to love, and must follow him into a world he would have been better off not seeing. I placed this book at number two on my list because of its thorough imagery, and its immersive walkthroughs detailing the art of burial and reburial.

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Seventeen year-old Mia Hall is dead; or, at least, she gets to choose whether or not she is.  Facing the aftermath of a devastating car accident that claimed the lives of her entire family, Mia falls into a coma and has an out-of-body experience that leads her to a recollection of her past, reminding her that she still has someone left to live for. This book is third place in my opinion, because it centers on life, death, and how one girl overcame both.

The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch by Daniel Kraus

This story follows a young man named Zebulon Finch who is gunned down at age seventeen, only to be resurrected minutes later for reasons unknown to him. From that point on, he is unable to die; he must live through every era proceeding that one, and can only wish for death. I ranked this one at number four due to its use of historical accuracy and its original twist on the otherwise overused immortality-cliche.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Susie Salmon was brutally murdered at age fourteen at the hands of her neighbor, and must now watch her family and friends struggle to overcome her disappearance. Susie herself has trouble moving on, and finds that Harvey’s other victims feel the same; she wasn’t the first one, but the father she left behind is determined to make sure she will be the last. I decided to rate this one at number five because of its unique perspective, and the author’s development of these two separate worlds that are parallel to each other.

me and earlMe and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

Social misfit Greg Gaines has only one real friend with whom to share his passion for film with; Earl Jackson. Together, these two spend their time concocting productions that are mediocre at best, and have mutually agreed to reveal them to no one. That is, at least, until Greg is forced by his mother to rekindle his old friendship with a girl named Rachel, who was recently diagnosed with leukemia. I rate this one at sixth  because its story depicts the struggles faced by those who support loved ones with cancer.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

This story is told from the point of view of a cancer patient named Hazel Lancaster,

describing her experiences in the ‘Literal Heart of Jesus’ support group, and a certain amputee whom she later fell in love with. The two bond over a shared interest in literature, leading them on a strange adventure that left them with more questions than answers. I chose this book for number seven on my list because despite the loss of the one she loved most, Hazel chooses to take her life into her own hands.

Heaven Looks a lot Like the Mall by Wendy Mass

After Tessa suffers an abrupt  accident in her high school gym class, she believes herself to now be in heaven, which seems to look exactly like the interior of her local mall. It is here where she begins to recall her entire life up to that point; both the good and the bad. This book is my number eight because of its interesting depiction of the afterlife, and the spunky attitude Tessa regards her past with.

Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevinelsewhere

Liz is fifteen years old when she is struck by a taxi and killed, sending her into an afterlife she was not expecting in the least. When she wakes up on the deck of a strange ship called the SS Nile and is to be ferried to an island known as ‘Elsewhere’, she begins struggling to accept the fact that she has died; even as she watches her own funeral take place from the observation deck. I rank this book at number nine because it puts a twist on ideas of reincarnation, and sports a more original picture of the afterlife.

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

The very privileged Samantha Kingston lived a rather charmed life, that is, until it ended. She is however, given a second chance at saving herself; seven chances, to be exact, and Samantha has resolved to use them to aid her in unfurling the mystery that surrounds her death. I decided to leave this one for last, because it depicts an image of just what someone can find themself capable of doing in the face of a looming death.

 

Student Bio:  Jessica considers herself a reader and says, “I am constantly finding reasons to be bored with my otherwise uneventful life. Being the inactive person that I am, naturally, the only adventure that I can find within arm’s reach, lies waiting under a dormant paperback cover. (Always paperback, if possible; I’m too cheap for hardcover.)” She enjoys writing fictional stories, drawing, jamming out for no reason at all, and daydreaming until inspiration strikes her. Three words Jessica uses to describe herself: unconventional, imaginative, and comical

#3TTWorkshop — Assessing Student Work in a Workshop Classroom

#3TTWorkshop, Amy Rasmussen, Pedagogy, Shana Karnes April 7, 2016 Comments: 4

What does assessment look like in a workshop classroom?  #3TTWorkshop Meme

Amy:  Interestingly, I just saw a tweet by @triciabarvia yesterday that said “Growth, when ss do something better than they did before (as a result of assignment/lesson, that’s success.” In away that’s really what assessment should be, right? We should be noting growth and improvement, and celebrating successes. I think we forget this sometimes, especially in regard to what we view as assessments and students call grades. Too often we overlook the learning and focus on the 78 or the C+. (That is all most of my students focus on.)

Assessment in my classroom drives my students crazy. I think they feel like I am that elusive balloon they cannot pin down and pop. Poor darlings. I refuse to give in to the grades routine. I want to see improvement. I want to see them take the skill I know I’ve taught and then apply it — better yet, go beyond and do something clever with it. So to answer the question, “What does assessment look like?” is kind of tricky. I think too often teachers spend time assessing student work in ways that is not meaningful. We can waste a lot of time.

But if we’d plan a little differently and make assessment a natural and moving part of our learning journey, we would save time scoring work and enjoy talking to our students more. At least that is always my goal.

In my classroom, assessment takes the shape of written work:  play in notebooks or on notecards, exit slip quickwrites, and sticky note conferences, plus, of course, major writing tasks with formal and informal conferences and oral and written feedback. Assessment also shapes itself into lots of student self-evaluation: “Look at the instructions, the model, the expectations, did you meet them, why or why not?”

If I didn’t have to take grades I wouldn’t, but I assess everything all the time.

Shana:  I go back and forth when it comes to how I value process vs. product vs. what Tom Romano always called “good faith effort.”  There are students who have mastered skills important for reading and writing, but who haven’t fully committed in terms of being vulnerable and trying to advance their skills.  Then there are those students who explore powerful themes and show amazing growth in their abilities, but still can’t spell or use commas to save their lives.

Because I wrestle so frequently with this dilemma, I end up grading not on where each student is at in relationship to our academic content standards, nor on where each student is at in relation to their peers, but rather how far they’ve come since the start of the unit/school year/week.  And I do this by doing what Kelly Gallagher does– “a lot of fake grades.”  🙂

Amy: Me, too!

How do you design assessments?

Shana:  I used a lot of scantrons my first year of teaching.  Those kinds of assessments were pretty easy to make, if time consuming–long, multiple-choice tasks that were topped off by a few essays.  After a year or two of fighting with the scantron machine and my conscience when I noticed that oftentimes a kid’s essay was much stronger than his multiple choice section (or vice versa), I threw tests out the window.  I haven’t given a test in five years.

Now, I focus on designing assessments that are as unique as the units we work through.  A unit of study revolving around the exploration of complex themes cannot be assessed, well enough, in my opinion, using a multiple choice test.  So instead of trying to gauge a student’s interaction with Macbeth that way, I use Socratic Seminars.  Or projects.  Or reflections.  Or presentations.

Amy:  Yeah, I tossed out the multiple choice tests at the same time I introduced choice-independent reading. Even the shorter texts we read together as a class are worthy of much more than a scan tran. Harkness discussions and writing about our thinking allow students room to stretch a bit and show us what they really know.

I design assessments by thinking through my end game. Of course, teaching AP Lang means I must prepare my students for that exam each spring. I know my students have to write convincing arguments, synthesize sources into their arguments, deconstruction other writer’s arguments, and read critically — sometimes some pretty old texts. To design assessments means to start there and then work backwards into the instruction.

For example, I know my students must be able to synthesize sources into their arguments. So I may decide on a couple assessments — say a Socratic Seminar where students discuss three related texts. They must come to the discussion armed with questions, annotated texts, and join the conversation. Then, I may challenge students to find three more texts related somehow to the first three. Now, we move into writing an argument in which they must synthesize at least three of the texts. That essay becomes another important assessment because all along the way I’ve taught mini-lessons:  academic research via databases, proper citation, embedding quotes, transitions between paragraphs, interesting leads, combining sentences, etc.

Everything I teach as a mini-lessons gets a matching mini-assessment somewhere along the line to learning. By the time I read those synthesis essays I have a pretty good idea of which of my students understands and can apply each of those skills. I’ve conferred with them and retaught as necessary, and when I read that final paper I rarely have any surprises.

I think maybe one of the reasons I love a workshop pedagogy so much is because of the grading. It is just not the same as it was when I taught in a traditional model — it is better!

 

Do you have topic ideas you would like us to discuss? Please leave your requests here.

 

Choice as the Keystone in Secondary English Classes

Pedagogy, Presentations, Professional Learning Community, Readers Writers Workshop April 4, 2016 Comments: 4

Shana and I were privileged to present a session during #TheEdCollabGathering on Saturday. If you joined us live, thank you! If you’d like to see our session, here it is. If you have questions we did not answer, leave them in the comments. We’ll do our best to answer.

Choice as the Keystone in Secondary English Classes

A big thank you to @iChrisLehman and the EdCollab Community.

#FridayReads of a Different Kind of Joy

Readers Writers Workshop March 4, 2016 Leave a comment

 

Sometimes we just need a little joy.

I know it is almost spring break, and the attitude’s toward thinking and learning and producing quality work have been bleak lately. (Evidence = 12 out of 24 students turned in the last assignment, and only seven of the 12 finished all the parts of it.)

My head’s been banging on the desk a little too much lately. I know you’ve been here a time or two yourself.

Teaching is hard.

Then we get gifts like the one I got today:  a blog post written by a student who shows she not only understands the philosophies behind my pedagogy — she likes it. She believes she’s learning.

Please read Jessica’s post.

I’ve read it five times today, and I smile just thinking about lines like this: “I feel strongly that this free-range form of teaching can be beneficial to other students as well, in the way that it both implements a refreshing break of classroom custom, and prepares us for the life of decisions that waits beyond the embellished paper borders of our high school diplomas.”

Choice matters, my friends.

I would love to hear of your most recent successes with students. Please join the conversation by leaving a comment.

From John Green to Jane Austen: Student Choice and Motivating Non-Readers

Amy Rasmussen, Pedagogy, Readers Writers Workshop February 24, 2016 Leave a comment

Anyone who knows me knows I talk a lot about moving readers and writers by offering choice in the classroom. Without a doubt, the more I study the research on reading acquisition, the more I confer with my students and try to write about it, the more I immerse myself so I can immerse my students in engaging YA and award-winning literature, the louder my voice gets.

I am a full fledged advocate of readers and writers workshop at the secondary level.

And I’m not backing down.

This semester I have a student teacher who hears it from me every second of every day. Almost.

My ultimate goal is to tattoo Zach’s brilliant young mind with everything I’ve learned about teaching the past ten years. Everything that sent me to and cemented my pedagogy in workshop. And I think choice seals the ink that may change his teaching career forever.

But this pedagogy is not easy. Just like in a traditional classroom, students put up their fists and sometimes fight dirty. Sometimes they want to be told what to read and what to write and how to think. Sometimes too often.

And that is when this job gets hard.

Lately, it has been hard, and Zach has seen my frustrations. But he is smart, and he sees through student b.s with laser-like charm, problem-solving as I vent and complain.

I should be more controlled I tell myself every morning. Careful-what-you-say-Ame. But I can’t help it — my job is my sleeve. If I didn’t care so much about my students, their lives, their futures, I’d call it a day and tell Zach to take charge and have fun.

But I want him to learn. I want him to last in this profession that eats ’em up and spits ’em out. So I’ll share.

I’ll share what I’ve learned and how I’ve learned it. I’ll encourage. I’ll prod. I’ll challenge.

He’s a keeper I can already tell.

How do I know? Well, I asked if he’d write a post for this blog about reading YA literature for the first time. What does Zach do?

Oh, he writes, but he starts his own blog and tells me today: “I’ve got this friend who’s student teaching over in Northwest ISD, and she’s started blogging, so maybe we’ll start this new-teacher blog thing….”

You can still see my smile.

Here’s Zach’s post about his first adventure into YA literature. You’ll read it, and then you’ll want to hire him.

Yeah, I know.