Going Rogue

When you need to just shut the classroom door and do what you know is right even when it seems to fly in the face of dictates or policy - through research, through professional experience - we call that "going rogue".Recently, I heard someone higher on the food chain that I, say that "we don't read for fun or enjoyment" any more. Seriously.  After I picked my chin up off the table, I began to think about this.  And the person was totally correct; we don't read for fun. We read for purpose and it is frequently not that much fun. For anyone.Before someone jumps on me for not be instructional, I do use literature to demonstrate, model, and instruct. Focused literacy lessons using carefully selected genres and books are necessary to expose students to lots of things they need to become more advanced and literate readers. Totally on board with the concept.  But shouldn't there be some room for fun? Shouldn't kids have some time when teacher reads aloud for pure enjoyment? A time when minds are engulfed in imagination? If we are raising a generation of readers, shouldn't THAT be part of the curriculum, too?This past week, I have gone off the grid not once, but twice. I have gone rogue.  Oh the horror - I read two texts just for fun. And guess what? My students APPLAUDED when I completed the book! They enjoyed it.I hope any of my administrators who read this will understand, it is not because I wish to be contrary or defiant.  I do this because I believe that if we don't include modeling WHY we read for recreation, we've missed the boat on a major purpose for reading. Along with being college and career ready, we need to foster habits for inquiring minds that will take these kids into their adulthood.  We need to read because it is fun.So, expect me to include reading simply for enjoyment more frequently.  I am going rogue.

Music To The Rescue

In a past life I was a musician and a music teacher.  While I lacked the talent and drive to become a professional musician, music has always been something I've enjoyed.In our classroom, when students need to complete a transition from one activity to the other - for example, universal breakfast clean up to Morning Meeting - we play music. We began the year with Pachelbel and are working on Bach at the moment.My students love to talk - usually to me and all at once -  they talk a LOT. And while I understand and encourage this as part of their processing and language acquisition, it can get pretty loud. When we're in Writing Workshop, there are definitely times I want them talking out loud, but there are times when I'd like them "talking" with their pencils and pens.One day this week, as I was preparing to release my students to their writing tasks, I started explaining to them that I would like to begin experimenting with background music during Writing Workshop.  As I write - even now - we have classical music playing in the background so why not?  This was, as many things about teaching are, unplanned.It was not an instant success -- it took a couple of starts before I could convince my students that they didn't need to try to talk over the music. But over the course of the last three days, the background conversations - the ones that were not about writing - have been replaced so that Writing Workshop is most definitely a more focused work period.Yesterday, one of my friends approached me in amazement saying "we wrote quietly the whole time!" And so they did.  Music to the rescue.

It May Just Be a Good Time to Cry "Uncle"

I've heard all manner of reasons for why this year is exceptionally difficult.  I'm a believer in the Daily Five. It makes sense, it's based on research - brain research AND literacy research. I saw my students grow.But I feel that it is time to give it up.The message I've been getting is that in order to follow the curriculum guides, particular lessons need to be implemented.  I tried to creatively roll these mandatory lessons into the CAFE, but sadly, there just isn't time to do the CAFE justice.  Trying to do both the Daily Five/CAFE and the required curriculum is driving me insane.So even though I believe the Daily Five/CAFE is a powerful tool toward helping my students become independent and become better readers than I ever thought possible, I am giving it up. Reading groups, here we go.Sometimes it is better to admit defeat. But better for whom? Of that I'm not sure. 

With An Apology to My Students.....

This is a tumultuous time to be a teacher - many, many new mandates are arriving this year making for a lot of teacher discomfort as we try to make sense of things.My own personality is that I am an early adopter - not always a good thing I'm sure, but I do tend to try new methods and materials out fairly readily. We have been struggling with Interactive Read Alouds (IRA) and Writing About Reading (with the unfortunate code name WAR in this district - just saying).  The changeover to a more strategically envisioned IRA lesson seemed like a natural extension of the Making Meaning  program we've used in our district for about 10 years.Writing About Reading (sorry, can't say WAR - I grew up in the 60s) also feels like what our students need. But the message we're getting, whether intended or not, is that we need to have our students up and proficient for their grade level expectations nearly immediately.In the rush to get our students performing at higher levels, it is far too easy to forget that the students may not be prepared to be successful. So sometimes they are not. Even with pressure on educators, whether perceived or real, can make for a tricky mix - we want our students to do well, we want them prepared for the new and increased demands on them, and we feel like it should happen NOW.Last week, I needed to submit an independently produced written response so my grade level could practice applying the district rubric with consistency. So I did and the writing was AWFUL. I had been explicit with students about how to plan for the writing and then set them loose. Bad!What I didn't do was about as devastating as what I did do. I didn't gradually release the responsibility for writing to my students who had not had this writing experience before.So I did what most teachers do - I backed up, apologized that I hadn't shown them or given them what they needed and started over.  We took a short text from Gouvdis and Harvey about animal adaptations, posed the essential question ("How do different animals adapt to hear in their environments?"), and went to work with a shared modeling. We talked - this is a 75% ELL classroom so we talk first - we made notes together on our planners, we shared our ideas for a topic sentence and a closing sentence, we found the (required) 3 pieces of evidence supporting the topic and then we turned our notes into sentences and paragraphs.The take-away from this is that asking kids to do something for which they are unprepared is wrong. I now realize that I had been asking my students to do something they didn't yet know how to do; something we needed to work on so that gradually the responsibility could be released to them.Sorry kids. I promise to do a better job of teaching you from now on!

Reading About Reading

Although widely thought of as a math geek, at least as far as elementary math pedagogy is concerned, I am spending some time this summer researching literacy.The first book on my "must read" list happens to be Richard Allington's What Really Matters for Struggling Readers. It will come as no surprise that many of my readers struggle, and so far I've found Allington's work very informative and affirming.  Maybe that has a lot to do with the Daily Five and its structures; many of these are based on Allington's work.When I think about fluency, I know rereading an appropriate level text is important.  Allington advocates for a couple of strategies that have enormous potential with my readers: Tape, Check, Chart and Tape, Time, Chart (Allington, R. What Really Matters for Struggling Readers. (2012). Boston: Pearson Education. p 110-111).When I take a running record of a child's reading, I always share what the checkmarks and codes mean. In Tape, Check, Chart, students read a short text into a tape recorder, mark it up using child-friendly markings, and over the course of multiple readings (Allington suggests 4 with a different color pen for each mark-up) increase fluency and accuracy.  Tape, Time, Chart provides similar practice with fluency.As I think about Daily Five activities for the coming school year, I know that the addition of these two choices will be powerful, not only for the students but for me.

Raising Rigor in Readers' Notebooks

I used to look with envy at those spiffy Readers' Notebooks available through a nationally known publisher.  In fact I envied them so much, I figured out how to customize a similar notebook for my students to use.And while they seemed to work pretty well, I've come to realize that maybe the beautifully GBC-bound notebooks and forms I'd created were not all that.Asking my students to write a weekly response in the form of a letter to which I would write back produced writing about reading. But what I mostly got was a retelling (plot) or even worse, an "I like this book...." without a "because".I'm reading Aimee Buckner's Notebook Connections and discovering something about what has passed for a reader's response in my classroom. Because my students were so wrapped up in writing a letter to the teacher - and maybe even in getting it done over revealing something they were thinking - the thoughts about reading and literacy were pretty much on the surface.I want my students to learn to do more than that! Upping the rigor of a response means that I will need to teach students to first notice their thinking and then record it.  And then dive deeper into what the author chooses to do when writing; it's all interconnected.So I'm no longer envying teachers who can purchase those fancy Readers' Notebooks for kids. I want to raise the rigor on what students write in reading responses. I want them to think in depth about a text and wonder. I want them to notice an author's craft and how it impacts a reader.What I am thinking about for next year is a much more simple tool for holding ideas than the fill-in the form I've grown comfortable with over the last 2 years.  Students need a space to record a year's growth in becoming literate, a place to keep track of genres and kinds of books (given the opportunity, some of my kids would only read Arthur books!), and a place to record and notice not only their own thoughts as they read but how an author crafts writing.It's a tall order with many opportunities for missteps on my part. By breaking down the Readers' Notebook to what is essential, I hope for depth in thinking. A spiral notebook and some self-sticking tabs should do the trick.