Reading like a Reader, Reading like a Writer

Photo by Syd Wachs on Unsplash

This summer, I spent three thought-provoking days learning from fellow teachers at Inland Area Writing Project (IAWP) summer workshops on the UCR campus. When I signed up, I was excited to take new writing techniques and ideas back to my classroom to assist with my writing instruction. I had no idea that these workshops would change my approach to teaching literacy as a whole. The workshop teachers (all real life teachers and college professors) had great ideas for teaching writing, but one notion was mentioned again and again by all of them was- "Read like a reader, read like a writer." Now, I don't know if I've been living under a rock for my entire teaching career, but this was a novel idea to me. I started researching this 'Read like a reader, read like a writer,' and what I found made me eager to get back into the classroom and try it out!

Taking the strategies from the workshop and into the classroom

Like most teachers, I instantly started thinking about not WHAT I was going to teach but HOW. I started reading some of my favorite short stories through both lenses. The first time I read as a reader. During this read, I'd concentrate on what my mind was doing while reading (metacognition). I'd also annotate my thinking on the page. Then, I'd reread the same passage through the lens of a writer. I'd look at the details the author added about the character's house and the purposeful varied sentence structure. I noticed things that I didn't see the first time I read, but found myself clueless as to how I'd teach my students how to practice these new strategies.  

It's an art and craft kind of thing. Reading like a reader is art, 

immersing myself in the story and losing sight of the world. 

reading like a writer is craft, paying attention to the structure, 

picking things apart so I can learn. 

-Sandy Fussell

During my research, I found the work of Steve Peha of the website Teaching that Makes Sense most comprehensive. Below is my plan on how to introduce this new thinking to my students:

1. Steve Peha's document starts by defining what it really means to read like a reader and read like a writer. I feel like my students will need this information to understand the journey I'm taking them on this year. • Reading like a reader. We might think of this as the "normal" way of reading where we try to figure out what a piece of writing means by understanding the words a writer is using. But even this "normal" way is more complicated than it seems. • Reading like a writer. When we read from the perspective of a writer, we focus less on what the writer is trying to say and more on how the writer is saying it. Specifically, we look at the techniques the writer is using to get his or her message across and how those techniques affect us as we experience the text.
2. Introduce annotating- Because I teach 6th grade, I know I'll need to explicitly teach this skill, so my students will understand what my expectations are and will be of them in the future. To introduce annotating, I will be using the list of six things Peha believes that all readers do: predict, question, infer, feel, connect, and evaluate. I'm predicting that this step will take a couple of weeks to teach.
3. Finally, I will be introducing "Read like a Writer" to my students. Peha uses the six traits of writing for this step: organization, ideas, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions. My thought is to do this using mentor texts multiple times before and during the writing process.

This is all a plan and a work in progress. If you have any tips or experience with using Read like a reader-writer in the classroom, please share! I can use all the help I can get. 

Follow along to see how our writing transforms, 

Jenni Merry

My Journey into Conscious Discipline

An Introduction to Conscious Discipline

    Over the years and among the many teacher blogs I read,  I have heard similar positive comments coming from a movement called Conscious Discipline.  A desperate teacher would post a question regarding a particularly difficult behavior issue in class, and many of the suggestions repeated those two words.  After the past few years dealing with  extreme cases of difficult behavior issues in my own class, I was becoming that desperate teacher.  I knew these students needed  more than  I knew what  to give them to self-regulate in a classroom setting.  I  decided to  check it out.

     With a professional development stipend, I purchased the online course for Conscious Discipline. It includes the book, a video series, and a 1-year  subscription to extra content  online.

Discipline isn't something you do to children, it's something you develop within them. -Dr. Becky A. Bailey

        The first thing I learned was that this journey into Conscious Discipline is a transformational change that requires us to change our mindset as well as our skill set (p. 25).  It was reassuring to me to read that this whole process would take about three years, as I generally get overwhelmed with change (don’t we all?!).  There was relief to read that in Year 1, I should keep the system I have in place (currently-a clip chart), but also practice the new skills I am learning in this process.
       Connection is key in building relationships.  My goal is to facilitate more intentional face-to-face moments with and among my students.  This includes eye-contact, physical contact (high-five, touch thumbs, etc...), presence, and playful situations.  I will conduct this at least one time per hour of the school day. I will set a timer to remind me, but I am hopeful that this will occur in natural transitions in order to form a habit.  We do have a morning meeting each day where each student is greeted by name face-to-face by at least one other student. I also personally greet each student as they walk in the door first thing.
       Next month, I will start becoming "Brain Smart" as I delve into Chapter 2 while adding more of the rituals from Chapter 1.  Check the link in the title if you are interested in taking this journey with me!
   

Happy Teaching!

Erin Grebel

So the writing journey begins...

The start of a new school year is always exciting.  Teachers return with a fresh mindset determined to

change or adjust instruction from last year....and....so the journey begins.  Last year, I focused my Spotlight blog entries in writing after participating at the Invitational Summer Institute sponsored through the Inland Writing Project.

As I implemented many new writing strategies into my classroom instruction, I felt that I needed to dig deeper in certain writing aspects and this is where a new year, a new journey, begins.  This year I will be focusing on explicitly teaching and practicing the 6 Traits of Writing more thoroughly.

The 6 Traits of Writing includes the following: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions.  This month I am focusing on ideas.

Last week our class started a narrative story.  I had collected some super cool Writing Traits items like my Scholastic kit: The Trait Crate which includes mentor text to help frontload the six traits along with posters and a reference book.  I also had a Traits of Writing big book which someone had left in our community "grab-n-go" table of our staff lounge...(this was a treasure of a find!).

I explained to the class how writers sometimes struggle with not only coming up with ideas to write about but supporting details in order to expand on those ideas.  So here were two days worth of activities in a nutshell:

1.  Think of your comprehension skill of the week.  Ours was Problem/Solution.  Try to align this skill with a student-produced narrative essay.

2.  Provide students the "problem" of their narrative piece.  I gave my students the sentence "Suddenly, I heard the dark clouds roar like _____ and it began to rain cats and dogs!"  I left the line blank in order to review similes.  Students decide independently to write their own simile.  I also included an idiom as this was the vocabulary strategy of the week in our Wonders reading program.

3.  Students fold their graphic
organizer into six sections and draw borders using a sharpie.  They label the first two boxes "B," the next two "M," and the last two boxes "E."  These will be their beginning, middle, and end sections of their stories.

4.  I then proceeded to ask the class to think about something that may happen in real life that could be ruined by a sudden storm.  They came up with a lot of interesting ideas for their beginning event.  The problem would be the actual rain storm.  On the back of their graphic organizer, they selected their event and then proceeded to think about main characters, supporting characters and any details that they could possibly include in their stories.

5.  Next we proceeded to share these ideas for their stories with partners.  Students

gave each other feedback and encouragement to keep writing.

6.  I then allowed them two draw their panels with as much details as possible.  They could color their panels as well.

7.  They also received post-its and place the post-its on the panels in which they wanted dialogue.  They quickly "scripted" some dialogue on their post-its since this is part of the narrative writing standards for fourth graders.










8.  Now they are ready to write their first draft. After spending two days of sharing ideas, I feel they will have much more to write about during their first draft.

Happy Writing!
Gus Macuil

Building Relationships With Students

Classbuilding and Teambuilding

Why do teachers who do more Teambuilding and Classbuilding obtain higher academic scores? Teambuilding and Classbuillding  create relaxed alertness, the ideal state for learning. When students meet their needs for security and belonging, they are free to engage in higher-level learning. Disruptions and discipline problems decrease, speeding up student learning. When students feel safe, known, respected, and appreciated they enjoy school more, like their teacher more, and are more prepared to learn and work hard."  -Dr. Kagan

Starting off the year on the right foot by building relationships with your students will help your entire school year to run smoothly and successfully. I can personally attest to this, as I have had a number of students over the past few years, who I saw HUGE amounts of growth in their academics, once I had built relationships and made connections with them.  Once they knew that I was truly rooting for them and cared about them and their well-being, it gave them an extra motivation to work hard. I had a student last year who came into my class struggling, he was a bit of a disaster, struggled with behavior and academics.  After spending a great deal of time connecting with him and building relationships class-wide, by the end of the year he was one my best and MOST FAVORITE students! He excelled with growth both academically and behaviorally and said to me one day, "Miss Brown do you know why I always try my hardest now? because I know you really care about us and you really want what's best for us." It was VERY eye-opening and warmed my heart.  It's a very rewarding feeling.  Building relationships with your students truly benefits both the students and YOU as the teacher!

"When teachers are able to take the time to build a stronger relationship with their students, it's possible to create a stronger understanding of what individual students need to achieve higher levels of growth. By doing this, teachers can adapt their classroom activities to better meet the needs of students"  -Kirby Hall

Building relationships with students is a very simple way to implement behavior management in your classroom.  The closer of a bond you build with your students, the less likely they are to have behavior disruptions within your classroom. ADDITIONALLY, this also leads to students academic success.  It's  win-win!

Here's how you can get started:

 1) Start by utilizing team building structures on a daily basis the first few weeks of school.  Kagan defines these as a non-academic activity that promotes positive social interaction between small groups (table groups) in effort to get students to learn about and feel comfortable with one another. Here are some great Kagan structures that I used to support team building the first few weeks of school:

• Me Bag- Students are given a paper lunch bag and asked to take it home, fill it with a designated number of items that represent them, and bring it back to  share with their teams.
• Team Word Finder- Similar to the game Boggle, teams are given one paper that has a square grid of letters on it, they have to work together as a team to create words.  The longer the word the more points that word gets.  You can do team celebrations once the activity is finished.
• Sentence Builder- Very similar to the activity above except in this  one, students are provided with pre-cut words and have to work together as a team to build as many sentences as they can.
• Would you Rather... Kids love this! They're given a list of 2 scenarios (both kind of silly) students take turns going around the table (Round Robin) stating which they would rather do and why.     
• Team Cheers-  Have teams/table groups create a team cheer once they've had an ample amount of time to get to know each other and feel comfortable.                        

2)Classbuilding: Kagan defines Classbuilding as a structure that provides mutual support among all of the students in a class, and creates a positive context for learning.  It is important that students see themselves as part of a larger group- the class- and not just as members of one small team.  A couple of ways that I have done this within the first few weeks of school:

• Find a Friend Scavenger Hunt: A sheet is provided to each student that has a number of categories (ie favorite sport, favorite food, etc).  Students fill in their own answers and then mix around the room until they have found a friend who shares their same answers.
• Mix-Pair-Share: This structure can be used with ANY "getting to know you" type of question, have students mix around the room, pair up with a partner whose not from their table, and share their answer to the question you provided them. They can Mix and share multiples times for the same question thus, allowing them to converse with many different partners in the room.
• "Taco Bout it" Cards- Students are provided with cards to ask questions they have about the teacher, their classmates, their classroom, and the school year- they then put each question card in the corresponding bag and the teacher will pull them out one at a time, read and answer the questions, inciting discussion as it pertains.
• Community Circles: In short, this is a structure which helps teach students to communicate and share feelings in a classroom setting.  Students are to stand or sit in a whole group circle.  The teacher gives them a prompt or sentence starter where students then go around the circle (passing an object to signify their turn) and share their thoughts/feelings.  This is only done successfully when you have instilled that sense of community and safety to share among others. You want to start out with fun or simple prompts- perhaps they are only sharing a one-word answer, and then can slowly move into more complex topics.

 

Just remember that both Classbuilding and Teambuilding activites are to be non-academic and promote positive social interactions between the teacher and students.  It's NEVER too late to get started!!!

Collaboratively Learning,

Megan Brown

megan.brown@omsd.net

On the Road Again...

   

     If you were around in the 1970s like I was (wearing culottes and a matching vest), you may remember that old country tune titled "On the Road Again" recorded by Willie Nelson. For the last year or so, that song has loosely chronicled my professional life. First, I (along with everyone else at my school site) was relocated to portables. Even though I didn't have the security of being in my regular classroom, at least I had the certainty of knowing that my third-grade colleagues were only a hop, skip, and a jump away.

     But then everything changed last spring. No longer was I going to be the third-grade team leader as I had been for years and years, nor would I necessarily be a third-grade teacher. In my new reality, I would have a third/fourth-grade combination class with ten third graders and seventeen fourth graders and my new home would be one of our permanent portables--not the classroom I had become so accustomed to in the main building. 

     This was certainly going to take some getting used to. But such is the life of a teacher. I was hired to teach students in the Ontario-Montclair School District. Period. Assurance of a particular grade level, a room number, or even a school site were not part of my contract. With this in mind, I resolved to embark on this new adventure with my characteristic positive attitude and my love for learning. I would glean as much information about the fourth grade as possible. For instance, during the summer, I went through the SBAC released questions.
     I even resigned from being a Spotlight teacher and writing my monthly blog. I wondered if I, a newbie in fourth grade, had anything of any real substance to share. The last time I taught fourth grade was when it was third grade--pre "Common Core." I felt like the only things I could put a "spotlight" on were my inadequacies.

     Then I experienced a complete change of heart. Why not invite other teachers to watch me struggle as a first-year fourth-grade teacher. Yes, in being completely transparent, I would be vulnerable. But if I expect my students to embrace a growth mindset and "put themselves out there,"
then why shouldn't that same expectation hold true for me also?
     So, I'm inviting you to come along with me as I grapple through this school year.

I'm on the road again!

Lola Jollie
Euclid Elementary School
Proudly serving 3rd and 4th-grade students

   

Making Meaningful Connections

Welcome to the new teachers in OMSD and welcome back to the returning teachers.  For me, it is hard to believe that the summer is over - it feels like it goes faster and faster every year.  I hope that you found some time to relax and re-energize for this school year.

As I reflected during the summer on what I wanted to focus and improve for this school year I eventually came to the idea of 'connections.'  And as I started to think about this more and more, it continued to get bigger and bigger.


It started with making stronger connections with my students.  I believe that when we make connections with our students that they will work harder for me.  I also wanted to try and create a positive atmosphere before my students ever met me.  So, I wrote each my students a personal postcard and mailed it to them a week before school welcoming them to our classroom.  While this took some time, I found value in writing each of their addresses because the community area became real to me as I envisioned where each of my students lived around school.  It was nice on the first day when a few students said that they got my postcard - and I feel that the first day had a more positive atmosphere.


Then I realized that making connections also involves the parents.  So in an effort to make better connections with my parents I decided to create a website for each of my subjects.  My own child had a second grade teacher who did this last year and I found it very useful as a parent to reference throughout the year.  After building the website on Google Sites, I realized that it was not very difficult and it was worth the time and effort.  While I have heard comments that teachers do not always update their website, I am going to try very hard this year to keep it updated for my parents.  The ultimate goal would be to have it in Spanish as well but at this point it is something that I am working on to make better connections with parents.

https://sites.google.com/omsd.net/deanza-math7/home

https://sites.google.com/omsd.net/deanza-math8/home

https://sites.google.com/omsd.net/deanza-imi/home

And finally, I am trying to make better connections with colleagues on campus.  This year I am working with a couple new teammates so it is my goal to build a working relationship with these two teachers so that we meet the needs of our students and each other, create meaningful common assessments, and design lessons that have a better impact on our students.  I am still project based focused so creating a working relationship where everyone feels their input is valued is important to me.  In addition, to my department I want teachers at my site feel free to come and visit my classroom whenever they want - in the ideal world, I would enjoy teachers showing up to my class without telling me ahead of time. 



For those of you who follow my projects - my 8th graders are currently doing "Journey To Space" demonstrating their understanding of scientific notation and exponents.  My 7th graders are doing "Comic Strip Stock Market" where they have a portfolio of $100,000 - we are using the website, www.howthemarketworks.com (more about this next month - if you are interested in creating your own competition and assign students articles to read about the stock market, then I would suggest exploring this website.)  Finally, my Integrated Math I students are doing "#MathInMyLife" based on the game Life - today students got their job salaries to help them buy items of their choice.


I invite you to join me this year as a write about my personal focus for the year.  And I invite you to come and visit my classroom whenever is best for you or schedule a Spotlight Teacher visit.

Teaching and Still Loving It,

 Kevin Stott

De Anza Middle School