Winter Break

 As Thanksgiving approaches, I find myself thinking back to my classroom days. It seems like the days of December flew by with choir performances, band concerts and general excitement over celebrations during the month. How quiet it must be in schoolrooms and hallways today.

There was also the anticipation of a winter break, a time to relax with a good book, time to spend with family. Like quite a few other teachers, I also took time to begin preparation for January. I always felt renewed walking back into the classroom with some fresh ideas.

Is it the same this year? I hope so. I hope teachers can take this time away from zoom and classroom responsibilities to re-energize - to investigate ways to make their online classrooms more accessible and desirable for students. In that vein, I'm going to mention The Teaching Channel, which is connected with The Learning Channel, that I've mentioned before. The following is a clip of upcoming free webinars with video clips of actual online classrooms. Take time to go to the Teaching Channel website and find out more.

"School closures around the world have launched us into the largest unplanned experiment in the history of education. Doug Lemov and the Teach Like a Champion team have analyzed hundreds of hours of online teaching footage to identify best practices and provide a clear guide for educators and school leaders to effectively teach online. 

Each 45-minute webinar will feature clips of real educators teaching students remotely as we explore the most effective ways to engage and educate students in an online classroom."

Teacher Webinars

• Thursday, November 19th: Boosting Engagement, Rigor, and Connection Online, Part 1 (watch recording)

Again, this is just a clip...there are many more options to help you with effective online teaching.

This will be our last post until January. We hope your Thanksgiving and winter holidays as well as the time off are energizing and will give you a chance to rest and prepare for the important months ahead.

TEACHER FEEDBACK

 “You have to love what they do; try to understand what they do; and not be promiscuous with what they do.” – Quincy Jones

 

Teacher – student writing conferences play an extremely important role in the writing classroom; however, I have not found a template that insures a successful one.  Having attended numerous workshops and read many texts on the subject, however, I do believe certain criteria exist.  

 

My ultimate goal in my writing classes was to help students toward becoming independent writers.  In my advanced writing classes I reminded my students that I was only one reader – that I might be able to offer some helpful insights, but that they needed to realize that as they continued on, they would encounter many other readers.  I encouraged them to seek out other readers (parents, other students, other teachers) of their work. 

 

Here are some suggestions I gained from Ralph Fletcher (one of my go-to mentors):

 

1.    Think of yourself as a reader and respond as such.  

2.    Make the conference a conversation – involve the student.  (How’s it going? What do you need help with?)

3.    Find things to praise.  (I had a graduate assistant who shared that he discovered pointing out good aspects worked more effectively than identifying the weaknesses.)

4.    Limit the time – maybe focus on just one aspect.

5.    Share places in the writing where you encountered problems or were confused.

 

Remember to teach the writer, not the writing!  In a previous post I shared that using a class novel as a mentor text is a great resource. In addition to classmates’ writing and published authors’ writing, become comfortable sharing your own writing (through all the various stages of creation).  If possible participate in a writing group with other teachers so that you can share your experiences with your students. A standard component of our Minnesota Writing Project summer institutes was participating in writing group. I found it was invaluable in my own classroom to share examples of feedback (both written and oral) that I had received and to show the revisions I made in my writing.  

 

A final thought: “Many ideas grow better when they are transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes 

 

 

 

Writing Workshop during a Pandemic

Micki and I are extremely pleased to offer this post by a colleague who was extremely active in the Minnesota Writing Project until she moved to the state of Washington.  Our loss was certainly their gain!

 

Throughout my 40 year career as an elementary and middle school teacher, professional developer, teaching principal and instructional coach, I have used the “Writing Workshop” approach to teach writing to all levels of students, primary through adult.  I was lucky enough early in my teaching career to work with someone who was trained at Teachers College.  I loved the enthusiasm in her classroom around writing, the ownership her students had and the pride they showed when their writing was “published”.  I watched and tried her workshop techniques and strategies and was hooked.   The formula was simple... start with a demonstration mini lesson (often using a mentor text) to teach a skill or strategy, do a shared writing with students as a group (I write as they give suggestions), watch as they individually try the strategy themselves and then allow them class time to own the strategy and use it independently going forward.  This has never failed to produce far better writing than any structured writing program I have ever seen.  Students often take the strategy and come up with original writing that was better than anything I would have imagined ahead of time.  As a part of this model, I try to “publish” student writing in as many ways as i can ... sometimes I publish the shared writing as a group project or publish the individual writing in anthologies or individual “books” of all kinds.  This writing is made available to real audiences, in the classroom, at home or beyond.  The process creates independent writers who use different strategies to create their own kinds of writing.

 

That worked for 40 years.  Then came the pandemic.  The school where I worked was shut down completely last March.  Teachers had very little time to prepare and generally fell back on more canned approaches to everything, including writing.  Predictably, the writing they received back from kids was bland, artificial and unsatisfying ... to everyone involved.  While trying to support teachers virtually, in my coaching role, I was also stymied.  How do we recreate the writing workshop model in a virtual way?  Soon after the lockdown, I got a chance to try.  My grandson, who lived five hours away, needed more challenge than he was getting from his online school program.  I agreed to do a weekly writing lesson with him.  Because I wanted him to have an authentic audience, I invited two students his age from my community to join us in the Zoom meeting each week.  For me, it was an opportunity to learn about technology tools that could be effective in this remote learning environment. For the kids, it was a chance to learn and share their learning with a peer group. I started with Google Classroom and Zoom.  I began by doing my short mini lesson with the group.  I would share a picture book with them and we would notice things the author did to make the writing effective.  Then I would write with them, using a screen share.  We would do a piece of writing together, using their ideas while I scribed.  Then I would ask them to try this kind of writing at home and bring it to the next week’s lesson to share with the group.  I would post the link to all the work we had shared on the Zoom call for them to access, plus other examples, videos or other resources.  I would check in with each of them during the week to see if they needed individual help.  They would share their drafts with me through google docs as they completed them, and we all (me included) read our work aloud at the next meeting.  I would ask them to listen to their fellow writers and share what they noticed.  After the sharing I would give them the choice to try this kind of writing for another week, or to go on to a new strategy or genre.  Throughout the spring, we explored all aspects of personal narrative writing, moving from personal narrative to fiction, created all kinds of prewriting formats (timelines, neighborhood maps, webs, scrapbook pages, character posters, etc), wrote newspaper and magazine articles, created poetry, worked on inquiry projects on topics we chose.  We published a poetry and fiction anthology, inquiry PowerPoints and slideshows, and a “Pandemic Newspaper”.  One of the students took an article she wrote for our class, sent it in and was published by a magazine that accepted student submissions.  Another student’s parents published her inquiry work on “Arctic Animals” in hardcover book form through an online publisher.  We wrote together until the end of June.  All of us felt like the experience was highly successful.  The students grew in their confidence and became a real support group for each other.  I have heard from their parents that they think differently about writing now and have continued to write on their own.  I have shared my experience with teachers in my district and see that many have gone back to this workshop model with their remote and hybrid learning classes this fall.  Teachers are much more skilled now at online teaching and are doing a much better job than last spring at engaging students and using the flexibility that remote learning gives to allow kids more independence and choice in their learning.  That fits exactly with the writing workshop model.  Sometimes a challenge like teaching in a pandemic makes us rethink exactly what is important about what we are teaching and what we are not willing to compromise about ... but also what other ways we can accomplish these important learning goals.

 

I retired this summer, so I am not working directly with teachers this fall, but I have been asked by our local Arts Alliance to create video writing lessons for remote learning teachers throughout our county.  I am working now to figure out how to recreate the workshop model in video form.  It is a new challenge, but I am giving it a go and learning along the way.  More about that later… maybe!

                                                                                                             --Anne Andersen

 

CONFERENCE GROUPS

 “No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft.” 

                                                                                                         -- H. G.Wells                                                                                                                                                                         

In our last couple of entries we shared some ways for students to begin to give/receive feedback on their writing.  Pair/share– just listen to my draft and share a reaction, such as what stood out to you or Say Back what you heard work effectively for beginning writers.  However, as writers mature, more complex feedback can be required.  Creating conference groups (usually 4-5 students) definitely increases the opportunities for students to develop stronger writing. 

Take some time to develop expectations for sharing writing because creating these groups can be tricky. Perhaps ask students to identify one/two classmates for their group.  Also, I found that mixing stronger writers with weaker ones benefited both.   

In addition, to create effective conference groups, you need to give the students some guidance. Here are some suggestions for peer response that might be helpful in preparing for conference group meetings (even breakout groups online!).   

CONFERENCE GUIDELINES 

1.  On conference days, members will gather to read, and one by one each writer should read aloud his/her composition to the group.

2.  Before any discussion takes place, the writer should indicate the type of assistance desired most.  (problem spot?  organization? etc.) 

3.  Each listener should then briefly respond to the entire piece.  A good practice is to identify words, phrases, or images that work quite effectively.

4.  Next each listener has an opportunity to ask about something that is unclear or something that needs more explanation.   

5.  Listeners should avoid telling the writer what to do, but they may respond to direct questions from the writer.  (“Do you think I should omit this section?”)

6.  Remember: this is not an editing/proofreading conference.  Members could seek that feedback in the written responses OR preferably, they could seek a partner to read a LATER draft.

Another approach is for each student to provide draft copies to their group members with the following instructions: 

1.    Please give me feedback for the following questions I have about my writing.

                        Question #1     

                        Your feedback:

                        Question #2

                        Your feedback:

2.    Underline those parts of my draft you especially liked, found effective, or found   memorable.  In the left hand margin next to each part underlined, briefly note why you underlined it.

Possible reflection for that process:

1.    The single most helpful comment (written or oral) that I received was:

2.    As a result of the group feedback, I changed my draft in the following ways:

3.    My conference group as a whole worked well in these areas:

4.    My conference group as a whole had difficulty with:

Remember you are the writer of the piece, so decisions about what you will change and what you leave unaltered are up to you.  However, writing is a social activity, so you need to be aware of what you can do to communicate with your readers as clearly as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            

 

 

Picture Prompts

 As I may have mentioned before, I love the New York Times' Learning Network. New ideas appear on a regular basis. Today, I received this one which features 144 picture prompts for writing - Perfect for online classes. Incorporate a picture prompt with a new concept you want students to try and then use RAG groups (see previous post) for feedback and revision. Have fun!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/learning/144-picture-prompts-to-inspire-student-writing.html

Read-Around (RAG) Groups for Feedback

 A favorite method of providing feedback in my classes has been through Read-Around-Groups or RAG. This works particularly well with short rough drafts completed after a writing lesson on a particular skill you want students to try, or on sections of papers where students are looking for the use of various techniques.

For example, if I have been working with my class on effective introductions and thesis statements, I will have my students create rough drafts of their essays, and we will use the Rag process to give feedback. 

Process:

Day 1

1. Students create rough drafts implementing a current writing concept the class has been working on

2.  Students put a codename on their paper instead of their real name, so other students are not influenced in their opinions of a friend's paper.

Day 2

3. Create groups of 3-4 students; remind them of what they will be looking for in the papers they read.

4. Shuffle and divide papers between groups so that everyone has a single paper to read.

5. Have each group assign one person to be a reporter/recorder of the best example in each group of papers that illustrates the concept being worked on.

6. Once all papers have been distributed, remind students what they will be looking for in the papers (Introduction? Transitions? Conclusions? Evidence?) using a stopwatch/timer, give each group 3-5 minutes (depending on length of excerpts) to read and pass around papers within their group.

7. Allow 1 minute for them to decide on the best example in their group and for the recorder to mark the paper's code on a piece of paper.

8. Rotate the papers from one group to another in a clock-wise fashion. (Rotate all at the same time) Continue timing, recording and rotating the papers until all papers have been read and recorded by each group. (This may take an entire class period).

9. The recorders hand in the list of "best" examples decided on by their group. Inevitably, a few papers will be chosen over and over by all groups.)

Day 3

10. Teacher asks the writers of the most frequently selected papers (2 or 3) to read them to the class. A discussion follows with students commenting again on what they thought stood out in those papers.

11. Students revise their own rough drafts.

This is a very engaging process but it only works when all participants have a draft to submit. If someone does not have a draft, I have them sit off to the side and work on their own draft.

For me, this process has always worked best when students were reading short excerpts rather than entire papers. Try it - modify it - enjoy the process.

Is it possible to do this online? If students submit their drafts to you online, is there a way to arrange breakout rooms to look at and discuss papers? I'm not sure. Let us know, if this might be possible in a modified way. I hope you'll try it!