Grading Gripes

Whenever I tell people of my adventure into Reader's Workshop, I often feel like I am defending my choices rather than just sharing teaching strategies and techniques. The most common question (and usually one of the first three) that makes me feel like I am justifying my methods is: "But, what do you GRADE?" Never mind how much my students are growing and learning as readers and writers...

It makes me sad that education has been reduced to the first five letters of the alphabet (six if your district gives out "Fs"). I am more concerned about giving my kids meaningful feedback, rather than assigning their work points based on my own opinion. I recently started having my students grade some of their own writing, specifically their writing journals. After I gave them the power, I began noticing improvements. Students weren't comfortable giving themselves full credit when they knew they hadn't put in the effort to edit and "flex their writing muscles." I love this new method so much, that I am going to use it more often for class work, specifically with assignments that are of a subjective nature (writing pieces, response journal entries, written responses to reading, etc.). This way, we can have a discussion about their work, with them putting forth enough effort to prove they deserve they grade they have given themselves. I may be so bold as to have students create a portfolio of their best work and come up with their quarterly grades, as suggested by Joe Bower on his blog (click here for a list of his blog posts related to abolishing grades.). 

The only question is: will this be supported or seen and too radical? I am not a parent, so I can't speak for those who have children. However, logic tells me that most parents would rather a teacher spend his or her time guiding students, planning quality lessons, and providing feedback kids can use to actually improve upon their learning (a percentage and a smiley face do not good feedback make). But when I spend hours per evening as an intermediate reading and writing teacher grading close to 50 written responses multiple times a week, it's hard to do all three of those things and feel like I am doing them all well. If more teachers opposed the idea of grades and embraced the idea of feedback, would that help bring about the change we are anxiously awaiting for in education? What do you think?

Spreading the Word About Reader's Workshop

This week I had the great fortune (I can say that now that it's done) to host a "fishbowl" observation for two days in my reading and writing classroom. Several teachers from another school in the county were interested in seeing how I implement Reader's Workshop in a county that has been using the same anthology for over a decade (that's a whole other blog post). Although I was hesitant (who likes being watched all day for two days straight?), I obliged for the good of the children. I figured, the more educators who embrace this individualized style of teaching, the better! 

It all started when a handful of teachers from my school, along with myself, went to their school to see Debbie Miller teach a model reading lesson (side note: I was in teacher heaven). During our debriefing session with Debbie, we discussed why she did what she did and where she would go next. Many of the teachers seemed to have a hard time understanding how they could apply this very foreign teaching style and still meet the requirements set forth by our district. When one of my colleagues chimed in that I was already implementing reading workshop, the questions began to be directed at me. "So, your kids are all reading different books?" and "How do you know they understand what they are reading?" were just a couple of inquiries. And thus, the idea to come to our school and see it all in the flesh was born.

I am by no means an expert. I am continually refining my strategies in reading workshop to align with my personal teaching beliefs. My students are used to this, and they know that at any given moment, Mrs. P. could (and probably will) change her mind if something "just isn't working." I am so thankful to have the flexibility to do this, and that privilege comes from having a supportive administration that allows me to do what I know is best for my students. And this is exactly what I told my visitors. Reading workshop is a work in progress, but I was happy to model and answer questions because I wish I had had someone in either my building or my district to go to when I began Reader's Workshop this year.

I began by pointing my visitors in the direction of great resources to begin gathering ideas and information (I don't know if I could have done it without the inspiration of Donalyn Miller, Debbie Miller, Fountas and Pinnell, "The Two Sisters," and Franki Sibberson). I told them about Twitter and blogging. We chatted about the power of quality graphic novels (I got some sideways looks on that one at first) and staying current with the latest and greatest in children's literature. I showed them how I record my observations and assess my students daily. We talked about what gets graded, what doesn't, and why. I explained how we practice skills repeatedly before I assess whether or not they have been "mastered," and even when they have they are revisited constantly. I showed them my binder that I would be lost without, my students' notebooks, and that you really can teach a lot in 15 minutes. The listened in on our read aloud, one-on-one conferences, guided reading groups, and reteach lessons. And when they reluctantly walked up to me to ask a question (or 12), I smiled and told them I was there to help and give as much support as I could in my own rookie way.

When all was said and done, my principal and fellow coworkers told me what they had heard through the grapevine: those visiting teachers were excited about potentially starting reading workshop at their own school. As soon as I heard that, all the stress, all the anxiety of being center stage, all the questioning about why I had to put myself through it was worth it. If even one teacher in another school begins teaching Reader's Workshop, I will feel like I had a real impact. I sincerely hope that the power students making choices about what they read and how they learn spreads (and FAST) through our district. The kids need it.

Loving Our "Nooks"!

Some of you may know that last year I created a project on DonorsChoose to get "nooks" (aka cushions, pillows, etc.) for my kids to use during Reading Workshop. My project was successful thanks to family, friends, and Twitter followers! Here are some pictures of my students getting lost in the world of reading:

 The kids look forward to this time every day. It is the one thing I keep consistent no matter what unexpected schedule changes may arise. Thanks to my supporters I really feel like I am doing my part to create lifelong readers!

How do you encourage your students to get lost int heir reading in YOUR classrooms?

Writing with Focus

Have you ever noticed that sometimes your brain is so full of ideas, that once you sit down to put them on paper they come flooding out and the focus becomes muddy? For a lot of students (especially mine), the answer to that question is a big, fat, Y-E-S! Through the years, I have noticed that my students have great ideas, but difficulty sticking to those ideas in their writing. Or, they try to write too big, and the interesting fall by the wayside in an effort to get down the events that happened on a particular day. That's why I had to share the awesome writing project we did earlier this year. I would LOVE to take all of the credit for this one, but I actually got this idea from a coworker who had been struggling with the same issue with her students. 

We wanted our kids to be able to pick an interesting topic, but then narrow the focus of their writing so that they could add great details and be more descriptive. Often times, when students pick a topic that they have a lot to say about, the writing becomes too general and jumps around. We wanted the students to "linger" in a specific moment in time with their audience. To do that, they had to focus their writing from broad to specific. To help my students understand this idea, we first viewed the book Zoom by Istvan Banyai. The students and I discussed that the more we "zoomed in" on each picture, the more details we were able to discover. I then related this to a microscope. As you zoom in on a microscope, you obtain more information about your subject than you would have gleaned by simply using your eyes. This visual reminder helped immensely as the students began their writing projects.

 Image courtesy of http://msmcclure.com/?page_id=6313

We started by picking events that we remembered very clearly. But, instead of writing about the entire experience, we "focused in" on a moment. It was challenging for the kids to not write about an entire trip or an entire day, but with some help they got there. I gave them a graphic organizer (see right) that was an upside-down triangle. I modeled the process of narrowing our writing focus with my own trip to the zoo during summer vacation. Rather than write generally about the whole day, I decided to write about watching the new baby gorilla playing in the pool of her enclosure. The narrowing of my topic went like this: Summer Vacation> Trip to Washington, D.C.> Zoo> Gorilla Enclosure> Watching the baby play in the pool.




Rather than have the students take off and start writing, we spent time developing good leads and then choosing the most interesting one. We discussed how to incorporate sensory language into our writing to help the reader feel as though they, too, we a part of our experience. We ended with how to write a conclusion, or "wrap," that tied back to our lead and brought our writing to a satisfying end. Below are some pictures of our final writing display, as well as examples of student work. 

 

 

I hope you find this post helpful and try it out with your students. Have you done any interesting writing projects this year?

Life's Been Great in 228!

If I could sum up the school year so far in one word, it would be...

BUSY!

This year I have committed to teaching reading and writing workshop and not using our county anthology. I am so fortunate to be able to have the freedom to make this decision, as I truly believe it is what is best for students. However, it is new territory for me (and many of my colleagues), so I have been up to my eyeballs in work. I know that many say reading and writing workshop seems like it would be easier to plan, but if you are doing it correctly it's really a lot more challenging (in my humble opinion). Although there are not as many worksheets/dittos/busy work, planning is based on the needs of the students and therefore requires frequent assessment and careful analysis of student work. So, not only am I grading my students' work but I am also frequently taking notes on it and comparing it to previous work. Despite the heavier workload for myself, I do love it. And the best part is...so do they.

So, what exactly have we been up to? Keep on reading to find out!

One thing I did differently this year is change how I use my response journals. The way they are set up is the same (click here to see blog post about setup), but instead of the students writing about their independent reading, they write me letters about our read aloud. This year, I found a great idea on Pinterest to help me model how a well-written letter should look. As a class, we read The Junkyard Wonders by Patricia Polacco. (This was a great lead into R.J. Palacio's Wonder, by the way!) I wrote a letter to the students on chart paper, and then together we identified the components of the letter and discussed the expectations. This letter now hangs in the classroom as an example that they can refer to throughout the year.

I also gave the students "Thinking Stems" that I found in a blog post by Nancy at Teaching My Friends.   to help them discuss their thoughts about our reading. These are glued onto the very first two sheets of their notebooks. In addition, the students take notes in the back half of their notebooks that they then refer to as they write their letters. Not only is the note taking helpful to their writing, but they also use their notes to drive discussion about what we have read.

Character Study Anchor Chart

During the first part of the year, the students and I have been focusing on characters in our reading. I have taught many minilessons about the complexities of characters, beyond just character traits, feelings, and relationships. We have kept an anchor chart about all of the thinking we have done about characters so that the students may refer to it during their reading workshop time. It has been so amazing to hear their conversation about characters and see their thinking deepen in their work. I am so proud of how far they have come! The best part is now they are making tons of text-to-text connections because they have been studying their characters so closely across texts. 

Our growing list of character trait words!

A favorite activity of mine that we did was coming up with more precise language to describe characters. For this lesson, I started out by discussing the common words I see students use when discussing character traits (e.g. mean, nice, caring, kind, etc.) Then, I gave them new words and in groups they came up with synonyms, examples of character actions that would fit with each trait, and names of characters from books we have read that fit each trait. Then, as a class we grouped each trait into one of three categories: Positive Connotation, Negative Connotation, or Neutral. Now my students have access to words that are much more meaningful when they write and discuss their thinking about characters. And, as we come across new "precise language" about character, we add to our list!


 What has been going well in your classrooms so far this year? I would love to hear from you!