Editing & Revising with Peers

As a writer and, as a teacher, I value collaboration with peers. I know that my writing is made more clear, more interesting, and more precise when I rely on a trusted "critical friend" to offer constructive feedback. And so, when the Commonwealth's writing standards included peer revising as well as adult conferring, the inclusion of critical friends in the Writing Process made sense. Beginning in Grade 2, Writing Standard 5 includes this important progression of peer revision and peer editing. [Refer to the Writing Standards ("Code W") by grade level beginning on page 26 of the 2011 Frameworks.]From my experience, elementary students must be taught explicitly how to do this. They need good models of what peer conferring looks like. As a proponent of the Daily Five, I found the 10 Steps to Independence model to be an ideal teaching method for introducing peer editing and revising to my students.Students at the elementary level need some structure for learning how to be a helpful peer editor or revisor; and to this end, I was fortunate to get an offer for some coaching from our former Literacy Coach, Patricia Sweeney.  Pat provided a structure for the students: 2 compliments and a suggestion. Here were the guidelines:

• The author reads the piece from beginning to end without interruption
• The revisor/editor offers 2 compliments. Personal references ("I like...") were excluded; more constructive/objective language included ("When you wrote..., your writing was... (very clear, powerful, descriptive, etc.").
• No "buts" - one of my 3rd and 4th graders favorites, because what 9-year old can resist telling another to get their "but" out of writing. (When you wrote ...., your description was very clear, BUT...)
• The revisor/editor can offer 1 suggestion (so not to overwhelm the author all at once), jotting on a stick-on note. (You might want to .... or Your writing might be more powerful if ...). The author can agree or disagree with the suggestion, but listens and takes it "under advisement".

This structure provided the students with two things: a language framework for offering constructive feedback and an opportunity to apply grade-level writing skills as the "student" become the "teacher".These peer-led conferences always took place prior to conferring with an adult and prior to producing a final version of the writing.  Peers did not assess another student's writing, but offered constructive criticism for the purpose of helping the author improve upon the writing.Exactly what my adult peer editor and revisor does for me.  

When Teacher Has an Aha Moment

I am an avid reader of the Choice Literacy website. I love reading what the leaders in literacy have to say and particularly value those who not only share their pedagogy and thinking, but also work in classrooms with real students.  Franki Sibberson is one of those contributors on Choice Literacy; her writings always make me consider changes that can be made to the way I think about and deliver lessons to my students.This is Franki's post from this morning.  When I read it, it became clear to me that while the pull-outs for Tier 3 interventions give my struggling readers support the way instruction at K-2 does, my on- and above-grade readers need greater independence. And - surprise, surprise - every student needs the opportunity to read independently.  That's something I've said all along: Readers can't grow to be better readers if they never get the opportunity to try out or practice reading on their own. Oddly, I feel validated now - and more determined to make this happen in my classroom.As an experienced teacher, what Franki shares about learning - and letting go - with intermediate readers really resounded with me.  We struggle at our school with  providing just-right support to the readers who should be able to soar as readers with greater sophistication and skill alongside those who need greater support.  Reading Franki's article in Choice Literacy this morning made me see things in a new light: in my new 3rd- and soon-to-be 4th-grade classroom, I have two very different groups of readers. The level instruction must be different and will look different.This appears to fit with what our District reading guidelines.  As a district, we are moving toward book clubs and conferring in Grades 3 and 4. It is a model that I've dabbled in with my third graders - and now it will become more frequent. Our struggling readers receive Tier 3 supports through a pull-out program for 30 minutes a day - that will be their "guided reading".  Thinking of these two models side-by-side helps me to understand how to differentiate the literacy block for all readers.Teacher has had an aha moment.

You convinced me!

We all need a good laugh - or even just a smile - every so often. Just to remind us of the joy that can be teaching.In the midst of this silly season - this season when there is some hefty assessment going on - I had one of those moments as I corrected a sizable (read daunting) stack of persuasive reviews. Third grade writers are very earnest in their recommendations - even my less nuanced writers try their darnedest to convince me with their very best 9-year-old logic.Here is the writing that made me smile:

Slerp! Crunch! Ahh! China Buffet the place I love, I’ll show you, actually show you all the amazing features with a con about… China Buffet of course. I previously mentioned that earlier. The food: China Buffet has some good food like the refreshing cold and hot, (I meant for it to be hot and cold) beverages which will eternally rock your socks off. You will be doing your stomach a favor!And then there’s seafood, not much of it, but worth it. There’s about a dozen creamy rich flavored ice creamy smooth textured ice cream flavors. There is a fish tank with angelfish, clownfish, and tiger fish. It’s near Sleepy’s and Chuck E. Cheese (and Target).China Buffet has great service. You use tongs to “get” food instead of ordering on a menu and waiting for cooked food. It’s already done!And now for a con, one measly con. Your reaction may be “What! You can’t find the bathroom!” It’s silly yes, it’s there though. I’ve been there numerous times. (P.S. there’s fruit cocktails, pork fried rice, sushi, Jell-o, fortune cookies, chicken, shrimp, clams, etc.).So that’s why you should go check out China Buffet. I rate it 5 stars.

Come to think of it, I would like to do my stomach a favor! Hope there's a table available!

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.

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. 

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. 

A (Non)-Writer Discovers Notebooks

A while ago, our Literacy Coach began talking to us about revisiting notebooks as a means to developing writers and authors.  I'm possibly the last person in education to discover Aimee Buckner and Notebook Know-How, but I am so glad I have made that connection.Not being a writer myself or at least not a disciplined one, I found notebooks and their use just one more thing to do with kids. Our school-wide writing calendars, focused on responses and one new genre of writing every two months was quite time-consuming. I couldn't imagine when we would fit in using notebooks.And then I read this

-- we shouldn't write for significance, but rather that we should write as a habit. Sometimes we'll write something significant and sometimes we won't. It's the act of writing -- the practice of generating text and building fluency--that leads writers to significance.

Wow! Did those words speak to me! What I had been doing "wrong" all this time, both as a non-writer and a teacher of writing, was expecting each morsel to be significant. The notebook is a place to practice, to try out, to experiment. Not only in writing, but in any endeavor, a learner needs a safe place to practice without worry as to the significance of the outcome.This is a discovery that I can relate to. As an amateur photographer, I've been reticent to take my camera with me because I would not have anything worthwhile to show for it.My students are starting to use notebooks now. And while they are not yet a habit, we are learning together to find a safe place to experiment with some of the strategies that professional writers and authors use.We are learning to be learners through our experimentation.

It's the Vocabulary, Part 2

I marvel at the quickness with which second language learners pick up on the structure of English. Most of my kids give new constructs a try without too much fear of seeming like they don't know what they're doing.  As an aside -- and as an Italian/French language" studier", I wish I could be more like them. Maybe then I would actually start to learn another language.Putting the constructs aside, however, the great big deterrent for kids is vocabulary and idiomatic expressions. Even in children's literature. Case in point, this month's Response to Literature was based on the story "City Green" by Dyanne DiSalvo-Ryan. One of the major characters, Old Man Hammer,  transforms throughout the course of the story and we ask the students to respond to how that character changed.Problem number 1: the character's name. Most of my kids were familiar with the term "Hammer" but had absolutely no idea that Hammer could be someone's last name. And why would they? Once we finally got past the fact that a hammer could be a tool and someone's name, we had to deal with the expression "hard as nails". Wait a minute! Nails are things you glue on to your fingers, right? Or something you hammer to hang up a picture? What does being as hard as a nail have to do with some old guy?Here's just one place where students with another language background struggle. Now layer on a high-stakes reading test which uses grade level texts similar to "City Green". And take away the vocabulary and language support provided by the teacher. Seems to me that the playing field is already seriously unlevelled. My students will have to jump over the hurdle of vocabulary before they can even show that they can respond to a text with the same level of finesse that their native English-speaking counterparts do.I'm thinking of this as I prepared another grade level mentor text that I want to use to revisit inferencing this coming week.  The book's title alone, "Tight Times" will probably cause some confusion. The vocabulary support, the explanations of idiomatics will be there so that we can focus on inferencing a plot with which most of these students will have copious familiarity: losing jobs and living frugally.The students will be able to access the comprehension skill, they will be able to apply it to another similar text ("Gettin' Through Thursday"). And we will troubleshoot the vocabulary and idiomatic expressions to assist them. Test scores don't tell the whole story, particularly when so much vocabulary presents such a significant impediment.

Letting Go

One of my New Year's Resolutions - the list is really long! - is to try not to be such a control freak about what we do in the classroom. I'm letting go of the idea that I need to be at school before 6:30 am (our school begins at 8:30) and that I can't possibly leave before 5 pm to get things done. Yesterday I left the house at 7 am and discovered that there is a world of sunlight out there!Well, the reform movement can also be applied to my students. Yes, in general, they are a handful, but just maybe they will step up to the plate if I shift some responsibility on to them.Up to this point, I had very complicated management for what part of the Daily 5 Cafe each student was responsible to complete on a daily basis.  I felt the need to do this because of the requirements for small-group instruction within our school - Safety Net students must meet with teacher and literacy partner (also a teacher) twice each day. Out of a 40 minute block, that does not leave much time for self reading, does it? And when do these very needy kids get to experience (and possibly get jazzed up by) other aspects of literacy? It was a puzzlement.So, I've shifted things around so that the whole group lesson is scheduled for a half-hour instead of 15 minutes. Will I spend 15 minutes in lecture mode? Heck no! I just am keeping that time so that kids can go off and start other things before they are in full small group rotation mode.  I think it will work - at least it did yesterday.Additionally, the rest of the students who are not in a small instructional group, now have the flexibility (I think my exact words to them were: "I think you are grown up enough to handle this....") of completing the D5 activities in whatever order pleases them. They have to make 3 commitments: 1) to read for at least 20 minutes every day without interruptions, 2) turn in their response journal on the assigned day and 3) not to spend all of the D5 block standing in front of the classroom library chatting it up.As I was testing students yesterday (our mid-year Fountas Pinnell tests start now), I looked around the room in amazement. It was quiet, the conversations that were taking place seemed to be about literacy, and outside of 2 students who were testing whether or not I'd notice, no one was in the classroom library socializing.It is hard for me to let go. Most of the time I feel responsible for making sure everything goes perfectly -- and there's the problem. It is not just my responsibility - it is a shared one. And as far as perfect? Well, these are kids, so I need to remind myself to park perfection at the door.So far, so good.

It's the vocabulary, stupid

Well, not just the vocabulary, but for my urban kids, that surely is a major factor.  This week, our writing focus - visualizing a text - was driven by a poem written by Carmen Lagos Signes:

Pumpkins in the cornfields,

Gold among the brown,

Leaves of rust and scarlet,

Trembling slowly down;

Birds that travel southward,

Lovely time to play;

Nothing is as pleasant

As an Autumn Day!

Such a seemingly bucolic text loaded with typical fall scenery. So what vocabulary did my third graders find to be a challenge? Scarlet, rust (multiple meanings get them every single time!), pleasant, Autumn and.... cornfield.  Without explicit instruction - defining, finding synonyms, antonyms, using the words in sentences - visualizing this text would have turned into a meaningless regurgitation of the author's words.

A simple text, one with which my students would have some familiarity and experience, and the task of writing what the mind saw during the reading, so impacted by challenging vocabulary, challenging especially for second language learners. I am humbled.

Finding my compass - again

I've put it off for nearly as long as I dare. It is time to start getting ready for a new school year. Completing my list for summer has suddenly kicked in to overdrive: there's still much (re)painting to complete, sorting and throwing to do, cleaning and gardening/landscaping. But suddenly, there is a pressing need to squeeze it all in quickly -- the students return in about a week.I used to get pretty worked up about starting room preparations as soon as we turned the calendar to August. This year for the first time in my career, I've managed to make it all the way to the last 10 days before school begins. I suppose that's growth. Hopefully it's not burnout.I love what I have chosen for my life's work. But sometimes, more often now than in the beginning of my career, there are far too many experts telling me how to do my job. And demanding proof that I am doing it. This week,  I am in the processing of completing my self-assigned professional reading: The Cafe Book by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser - better known as "The Sisters". Reading this book is helping me to find the balance between all the frenetic demands made on teachers today and a calm and purposeful learning experience for my students. Here is a quote from Debbie Miller that the Sisters included in their book (page 60) which caused me to sit up and take notice:

...when getting done takes precedence over the doing, when finishing becomes more important than the figuring out, we've lost sight of why we became teachers in the first place. (Miller, D. Teaching with intention: Defining beliefs, aligning practice, taking action, Grades K-5. (2008). Portland, ME: Stenhouse. p 106

As I read and reread Debbie Miller's words, I realized that this is what has been causing me unease with what I do. In the rush to turn in this, that, or the other evidence, I have lost my bearing: why I am a teacher. I chose to teach because I believe that it is important to give every child the opportunity to soar to heights neither of us imagined possible. I do this on a selfish level because, when that moment of connection happens, when child and teacher both realize that something wonderful has happened, it is the most exquisite of emotions that makes all the hard, hard work worth everything.This year, my personal goal as teacher, will be to refocus on why I teach, to not let outside forces undermine why my students and I are here, working together. And if I let some of those demands for evidence slip, if I'm late with something someone somewhere wants in order to show that I have been working, that is what will be.You can find me here in Room 207 helping my students figure out how to take the next step in their learning path.

The Office - Mini style

Maybe it's been around for a while and I'm just catching up on my reading, but I just learned about a new "tool" for students. Lucky for my budget it won't cost anything more than some manila file folders, tape, and time.The new tool is called the Mini-office. I was intrigued by the term when I went Googling for literacy stations after reading Debbie Miller's Practice with Purpose. I like the thinking behind a mini office: the most often used or referenced tips - in my case for Writing - are posted strategically on the manila file folders. The folders are arranged to form a three-sided display keeping those tips right within eyesight of a student. What I like about this tool is that, depending upon the writing project, the references posted on the mini-office can be customized to fit the writing or generalized for any writing.Mini offices are on my shortlist of ideas to try out this Fall. Now to think about what essential information will help my students.Links for Mini Offices:Busy Teacher CafeABC TeachTeaching Heart

Readers' Notebooks - Revision 1

Because our school's literacy program is tightly tied to Fountas and Pinnell (and whose isn't?), my students have actively used Readers' Notebooks for quite a number of years. The conveniently packaged sets from Heineman are sold in 5 packs for $28 (web price, regular price $40!). Multiply that $28 by at least 5 for a minimum class size of 25 and add on shipping and nearly half of my classroom supply budget has been expended. The cheapskate in me just couldn't pay that amount of money for convenience. And so, my eternal hunt for the perfect notebook configuration was born.Beth Newingham, a third grade teacher from Troy, Michigan and Scholastic contributor and advisor, has shared her organization of Readers' Notebooks on her school website and on the Scholastic web.  For the past 2 years I've used flexible 1-inch binders, purchased for about $1 each (on summer sale at Staples). Then I've added some of Beth's forms for tracking reading and responses. The binder system works, but I see 2 problems for me: one is that the students are also required to have a Writers' Binder - which makes another bulky item to store - and I would like my students to be able to refer to our conferencing goals more formally.So before this school year ends, I am working on developing a self-assembled Readers' Notebook which will be bound with GBC bindings (those plastic spiral things) and utilize section dividers made from cardstock. The sections of the notebook under consideration are:

• Reading Log (a new page for each month)
• Mini Lesson Materials (How To References)
• Personal Reading Goals and Progress Record for Student
• Response to Reading (once each week - required)
• Readers' Notebook Assessment (one for each marking term)

Will this work? From the reading I've been doing, I think it will - the big question is will it work for the students?Our next school year promises to be one where the draconian budget cuts have a profound impact on classroom support. Whatever is put into place needs to be something I can manage without support as it looks like our Title I Reading program is being picked to the bone. Experience tells me the need is to keep it simple; to leave the grand and complicated plans behind. If it can't be implemented successfully without help, let it go.