Raising Readers and Writers

In the summer of 2007, I experienced the best professional development with the Columbus Area Writing Project.  I decided to apply because I did not think I was doing a very good job of teaching writing and I definitely did not see myself as a writer.  What a difference CAWP has made in both my professional and personal life.  It was here that I met with a group of teachers from diverse backgrounds who all shared the belief that if students were to be better writers, they needed time to write.  I gained confidence in myself as a writer in the process.  It’s because of this group that I have grown as a teacher, writer, and a person.  I’ve made new friends and have had so many wonderful opportunities all stemming from CAWP.

It all begins with a few days at the beautiful Kenyon College where you will meet the co-directors Dr. David Bloome, Dr. Kevin Cordi, Dr. George Newell, Robin Holland and Melissa Wilson.  You will have time to write, and think, and write some more (and of course, eat some good food).  A bond quickly forms with the other participants.  You become a family.  After that, the group meets on campus at OSU for 2 weeks where you will share teacher practices, enjoy Dave’s “10 Minutes of Theory” before Robin’s timer cuts him off, hear phenomenal guest speakers, discuss current readings, and have time to write within the community.  It truly is a wonderful experience.

This year, the summer institute runs from June 13 – 15 at Kenyon, followed by the last 2 weeks of June at OSU.  You can find more information here along with the application.  I found my voice through the Writing Project…you can too!

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.  ~Carl Sagan

I am very fortunate to be part of a teacher inquiry group with the Columbus Area Writing Project (CAWP).  I love this group of women…they feed my soul, stretch my thinking, and help me grow.  It’s so nice to be part of a collegiate group who believe in the power of writing teachers being writers and know that students need time to write for authentic reasons if they are going to get better at it.  Our goal?  We want to examine our practice so that we can improve some aspect of it.  We began meeting at the beginning of the school year; meeting twice a month to look at research about researching, read teacher research, discuss nonfiction and informational texts, and the review the Common Core Standards.  Our discussions are lively and varied. 

We are at the point now that it’s time to think about our research question.  Brenda Power and Ruth Shagoury in The Art of Classroom Inquiry suggest spending time journaling about our classrooms.  What do we notice?  What is happening?  Are there patterns emerging?  As I reflect on my classroom this year there are several things I notice.

I have a group of boys who are not excited about writing to put it mildly.  My enthusiasm for the written word has not swayed them.  I’ve given them choices, our writing is authentic and purposeful, and I’m not seeing much progress.  All of the boys in this group are voracious readers and for the most part above average students; however, they put little effort in their writing and they rush to get something down on paper so that they can be done.

Students have trouble gathering information for their research and putting it into their own words.  That seems to be a problem across grade levels.

There is the group who LOVES to write and they fill reams of paper.  Their writing lacks focus and depth.  I describe it as writing in circles. 

I am sure that what I notice is not unique to my classroom.  I’ve taught long enough to have these groups every year.  I want this year to be different though.  I want to focus on one of these situations to see what I can do to improve my students’ writing.  (OK…those of you who know me, know that I want to focus on everything and fix all of it).

Next, I wrote some of the things I wondered without censoring my thoughts.

• I wonder how I need to change my teaching in order to engage the boys mentioned above.

• How do I help students use paragraphs correctly?

• I wonder how to help students gather information in their own words and make their learning their own.

• I wonder what would happen if I held writing groups.

• I wonder what would happen if kids weren’t pulled from my classroom and I had uninterrupted time to work with them. (My ELL students are gone for an hour and a half and miss Writing Workshop completely…very frustrating).

• I wonder how my conferencing would help students improve their writing if I kept mentor texts with me to guide students.

• I wonder if my kids would do better (organization, idea generation, fluency) if they had some kind of supports to guide their writing.  What would those supports be?

• Is there a way to engage my reluctant writers that I haven’t already tried?

This is just the beginning of my musings.  After tomorrow’s meeting, I may think of something completely different.  My goal will be to narrow my focus and draft a question in the next week.  I’m looking forward to this journey of inquiry and will keep you posted on my progress.  Any feedback is welcome.  Leave a comment if you have any ideas.

“Commitment unlocks the doors of imagination, allows vision, and gives us the “right stuff” to turn our dreams into reality.” ~James Womack

Last night while on Twitter, I caught Cathy Mere’s post about One Little Word which led me to several different blogs whose words were very thoughtful and inspirational. You can see the original challenge here with a link to a list of possibilities. Several words appealed to me…balance, wonder, authenticity, and seek. As I was sharing my thinking with my third graders (who also wrote about their one word today), I began with the word “seek.” As I was writing, I realized that although there are many things I am seeking, I wanted to do more than seek, I wanted  follow through. I wanted action.

So, the word I choose is commit. I have to be careful that I commit only to the things I know I can accomplish; the things that are of utmost importance to me. After this year, my husband and I will be empty-nesters which makes my first commitment easy.

• I commit to leaving work at a reasonable time so that I can be home for dinner with my daughter and husband. (Hey, if I get home early enough, I can cook that dinner too).
• I commit to taking time each day to take care of myself.

• I commit to surrounding myself with others who stretch my thinking and help me grow both professionally and personally. These people are vital to me.  They provide support and validate my thinking.

• I commit to my beliefs that given the right opportunities, children can do anything. I will continue to give my students authentic learning experiences that are purposeful even in the face of skepticism.

• I commit to spending time reading for pleasure. I already spend lots of time reading professional books and kid books. There’s nothing like settling in with a cup of tea and escaping into another world.

• Finally, I commit to taking more risks as a writer.

I am looking forward to 2012.  Who knows what it will bring!

Tonight’s Twitter #titletalk topic (held on the last Sunday of the month at 8:00 EST) was how social networking has added to your PD, instruction, and reading life. The chat was flying with all of the comments about how social networks connect like minded people, creating a community of people who all love books and talking about books. I have to say that taking part in Twitter (which I do in spurts) and being a member of Goodreads has opened a whole new world to me. I have “met” lots of people (virtually…some in person) and have learned about so many different books that I would not have otherwise known about. One of my new friends is Amy Meyer (@mrsamymeyer) who teaches in a district close by. We connected on Twitter when I tweeted that I was looking for another third grade class to share book ideas with via Skype. Both of us are fans of Wonderopolis, so our first skype session centered on what we wondered about each other. It was a great way to introduce ourselves.

As I thought about how much what I read is influenced by my friends on Goodreads and Twitter, I wondered how I could bring that to my students. Twitter is blocked, so I wondered if we could use the resources we already had. I asked Amy and another third grade teacher who teaches in my district if they would be interested in doing a skype book talk once a week. Both were eager to join me and we now meet once a week with each class to share our own good reads. The kids look forward to this time and their own book boxes are filling with new books. It’s so fun to listen to the chatter in the background as students in the other class share books that my own kids have read or are reading. It’s especially exciting when I hear my kids say, “I’m going to ask my mom to take me to the library tonight.”

Here is a clip from one of our book talks. Happy Reading!!

This weekend I was in Chicago for NCTE’s annual conference. I always love going because there are so many amazing people to meet and learn from. Two of those amazing women were Cathy Mere from Reflect and Refine and Katie Keier of Catching Readers. I presented with them on Saturday morning. Cathy teaches first grade and Katie teaches kindergarten, so we had a range of student ages among us. One of the important points made during our presentation was that digital literacies do not take the place of traditional books and reading experiences. They can be used in conjunction, each one giving students opportunities to fall in love with reading and writing. Below you will find our presentation. It is similar to the one Cathy and I presented at CAWP’s conference with this one concentrating on reading instead of writing. There will soon be a link to Katie’s presentation on the last slide of the one below. Google Docs and Power Point did not work well together when we tried to blend the two. The lessons we learn!

If you’d like to view the presenter’s notes, you can see them here.

This past weekend, I worked with some amazing educators from the National Writing Project. Science teachers from elementary level to college level gathered in Tiburon, CA to delve into the new science framework. Our task? We explored how NWP might be able to support the roll-out in the future. As always, anything that NWP touches is phenomenal. I will admit that I was a little nervous going to this meeting. I don’t see myself as a science teacher. I teach all subject areas in my self-contained third grade classroom and reading and writing are the foundation of all of my teaching. When I introduced myself, I said that I was a teacher of wonderers, thinkers, learners, readers, writers, mathematicians, scientists, and historians. I am not a science specialist (and I was a little worried when my “secret” came out). But, as we started to talk and think together, it soon became evident that we all had something in common…we all love teaching and believe that all kids can learn when we give them the right opportunities. We are all teachers who value a classroom environment that invites inquiry and conversation among students.
Tanya Baker, from NWP led us through the weekend. We looked at the reading and writing we ask our students to do. We delved into the the framework, focusing on a phrase that spoke to us (see an excerpt from my thinking below), discussed the crosscutting concepts, and the scientific and engineering practices that are the foundation of the framework. On Sunday afternoon, Doug (a geologist from the University of Maine) took us on a geologic timeline field trip where he explained the formation of the earth. I learned about geocaching from Kara and now I’m anxious to see what I can discover here in central Ohio.
We ended with Now What? As I reflected on everything we had talked about a few things resonated with me. I’m interested in what argumentative writing might look like in the elementary grades (engaging in argument based on evidence is the most difficult practice to teach at any grade level). I also want to focus on refining my own practice based on the framework before branching out to others. I definitely think there is a place for teacher consultants from the writing project to support science teachers in literacy. You can’t have science without reading and writing!
Here is an excerpt from my thinking:
pg. 1-3
…science curricula in the United States tends to be a “mile wide and an inch deep.”

I think that science education in elementary grades has definitely been “a mile wide and an inch deep.” With No Child Left Behind, state standards, and state testing, teachers have felt the pressure to cover lots and lots of topics without really digging deep to help students build a strong foundation. Teachers have had to present content that students aren’t really ready for, pressing on so that more content can be covered with or without student understanding. The breadth of the topics covered was overwhelming for both teacher and students. Being able to slow down and let students explore, ask questions, and make connections is very important. By reducing the number of topics covered, teachers will have time to further develop concepts on which students can build a firmer foundation. Sometimes it’s better to just slow down, think, have conversations, and think some more.

Check out the pictures from the weekend…you can see it was a beautiful place to work.  Many thanks to Tanya, Jack, Trina, Doug, Karen, Debbie, Kara, and Trey.  I was honored to work alongside you.

This free slideshow personalized with Smilebox

Cathy Mere (of Reflect and Refine) and I are presenting at CAWP’s first writing conference tomorrow, Writing and Reading Our 21st Century Lives. I am looking forward to hearing our keynote speakers (Sonia Nieto, Troy Hicks, and Asma Mobin-Uddin) and listening to fellow writing project teacher consultants share their thinking and their practices. Below you will find our presentation.

Kudos to our fearless leader, Robin Holland for taking on this endeavor. I am excited to be part of this wonderful opportunity.

After last year’s success with blogging, I knew that I wanted to do it again this year.  I shared several blogs with my students and they immediately became enthralled.  After doing some reading on the “Getting Started” section of Edublogs, I decided to start this year with some collaborative posts.  That way, the kids get some practice writing posts together and we can spend time on craft lessons focusing on what makes a good blog entry and comment.  One thing I’ve learned in my years of teaching is that it is worth the time it takes to build a strong foundation in order to get quality work.  We decided to write a mini-newsletter for parents about some of the highlights of our year.  They chose their topics and got right to work.  I typed the entries in (I know…an exciting way to spend my Friday night) and used Smile Box to create a slide show.  It is my hope that parents will comment because we all know that getting comments is part of the fun!  It makes you feel good that someone is reading your work!

If you are interested in blogging with your students, I encourage you to do so.  It’s very satisfying to see your students become excited about writing for authentic purposes and audiences.  Edublogs will walk you through it step by step.  Your students will become better writers and you will find that reaching out to a larger community is powerful.  Want to see our first blog?  Check it out here.

The Columbus Area Writing Project is hosting its first writing conference, Writing and Reading Our 21st Century Lives on October 22nd.  We have a wonderful line up of keynote speakers and presenters.  Keynote speakers include Sonia Nieto, Asma Mobin-Uddin and Troy Hicks.  Concurrent Sessions will include: Classroom Practices, Technology, English Language Learners, K-12 Writing, Standardized Testing, Assessment,  New Media Tools and Practices and more.  For more information, click here.  We are looking forward to a great day of learning!

A huge thank you to Franki and Mary Lee at A Year of Reading for recognizing Raising Readers and Writers as a versatile blog!  I am honored.

Part of the requirements for being a versatile blogger is to thank the person (or people) who recognized you and provide a link back to their blog, provide 7 tidbits of information about you and pass this award to 15 other blogs you have discovered.  I really appreciate Mary Lee and Franki for the boost I needed to post on my blog…it’s been crazy busy and blogging has unfortunately fallen to the wayside.

So here are 7 things about me and my blog:

1.  Franki and Mary Lee were my inspiration to start my blog 2 1/2 years ago.

2.  This is my 20th year of teaching.  I stayed home for 6 years when my kids were little, so I’ll be a 100 when I retire.    I’ve taught 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th, as well as I was a K-12 itinerant teacher for children with hearing impairments.

3.  I am a teacher consultant with the National Writing Project.  (If you ever have the opportunity to take part in the Columbus Area Writing Project, do it!)

4.  I am participating in a teacher inquiry group that is researching how children research/write informational text.  I’ll be posting about that in the future.

5.  I love integrating digital reading and writing into my workshops and love seeing kids be excited about connecting with a wider audience.

6.  I am continuing to explore how to integrate writing into the content areas in authentic ways.

7.  I am always on a learning journey!

15 blogs that I’d like to recognize (in no particular order)

Gretchen @ Meat Toast (Gretchen is a fellow teacher consultant with CAWP…I love her stories about growing up).

Pat and Katie @ Catching Readers Before they Fall.

Patrick @ All-en-A Day’s Work

Kassia @ Math Exchanges

Ann Marie @ AM Literacy Learning Log

Donalyn @ The Book Whisperer

Kevin @ Kevin Cordi Blog

Liz @ Wandering and Wondering in Libraryland

Ruth and Stacey @ Two Writing Teachers

Tara @ A Teaching Life

Laura @ Camp Read  A Lot

Amy @ The Poem Farm

Maria and Josh @ Two Peas and Their Pod (A baking blog plus Maria shares books she’s reading…what more could you want…books and baked goods!)

Susan @ The Book Maven

Kate @ Kate’s Book Blog

Thanks again to Mary Lee and Franki for all of your inspiration!  I have learned so much and met so many people since I started on this blogging journey.