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Getting to Know Our Writers: Strategies for Any Classroom

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00August 15th, 2019|Classroom Teaching|

By Lynne Dorfman & Diane Esolen Dougherty

A successful writing workshop depends on many factors, including how well we get to know our students. Throughout the school year, but especially in the beginning of the year, it is important to get to know our students as writers. In order to discover their identities as writers, we need to be “kidwatchers” (Goodman & Owocki, 2002). During independent writing time, here are some things you could watch for:

  • Observe student posture, pencil grip, his focus on the writing piece, and where his eyes look in the classroom.
  • Does he reread pages from his writer’s notebook?
  • Does the student write with more confidence when he has free choice or when the writing is more prescribed?
  • Are there some topics or a writing type that the writer prefers (has more confidence) than others?
  • Does the writer spend most of his time writing or drawing? Planning or drafting?
  • Does the writer look at the anchor chart from the minilesson?

Clipboard cruising to take notes and assess your students’ needs is important. Try to target at least five students each day for a quick conversation to move them forward as writers. That way, you will always reach everyone in a week’s time. Ongoing and immediate feedback is crucial to students’ success. Find a method that is comfortable for you. (Dorfman & Dougherty, 2017, 94).

Writing Inventories & Surveys
The writing inventory can be used more than once in a year’s time.  Its purpose is twofold. In the beginning of the year a teacher will discover information about how the students feel about writing and how they feel about themselves as writers. This kind of knowledge is important because it will help the teacher in several ways: create specific writing opportunities to motivate students and have access to information that will help the teacher understand prior experiences. For the student, the inventory provides an opportunity to be reflective about what they already know about writing and how they feel about the process of writing. These surveys need to be shared because sharing gives everybody in the class a vehicle to discuss writing anxieties, fears, and stumbling blocks. Sharing frees students to be honest. They find out they are not alone – that others have these same feelings. The teacher should complete the inventory as well and be a part of this community sharing. In the primary grades (K-2), make simple statements such as “I like to write.” and “Writing is easy for me.” with minimal choices such as yes, sometimes, and no. For upper grades, a four-square inventory with open-ended statements such as “I am interested in…”  and “One writing experience I had was…”  We can learn a great deal about our students and how they progress as writers through these inventories and interest surveys.

Heart Maps
Heart maps (Heard, 2016) help students to recognize what is important for them to write about. The maps can be displayed at eye level so that students can view what the writers in their community value as sources for writing material. Students do not need to complete a heart map in one sitting. They can add to them as the year goes on and as new interests develop.

Simple steps to create a heart map include:

  • Draw a big heart on chart paper or the board.
  • Start to divide the heart into sections as you talk about what is really important to you.
  • Write the word or phrase within each section and draw a small picture.
  • Leave an area or two blank so that you can fill it in at some later point in time during writing workshop.
  • Share with your peer response group. As you hear an example for an area for your heart map that also applies to you, add it to your map.
  • Share in whole group. Hang maps where everyone can see.
  • Pick one that really interests you and write a short entry about it in your writer’s notebook. You can go back to your heart map many times. Feel free to dip in when you want to write an entry or even draft a story. (Dorfman & Cappelli, 2017, 68-69)

Letters from Parents
After obtaining your class list for the new school year, write to parents and ask them to respond with a letter about their child which includes important information for the teacher to know such as their interests. hobbies, sports, friendships, and what they like to read and write about. Teachers can always wait until the first open house and place stationery and/or a postcard at every desk to allow parents to respond while they are in the classroom. Seeking help from the parents strengthens community and may give teachers a clearer picture of the students in their classrooms. Furthermore, these letters may help the teacher to suggest topics of interest to their student writers.

Reflection
Asking students to reflect on their writing from time to time and think about how their attitude, stamina, and skill level have evolved over time helps both the student and their teacher understand their progress as writers. It is a form of self-evaluation and formative assessment. Teachers can ask the following questions:

  • Which piece did you work hardest to write?
  • Which writing piece is your favorite? Explain.
  • Which piece do you think is your best? Why do you think so?
  • What risks or new craft moves did you use during this unit of study?
  • What are your goals for your next piece?

When students stop to reflect, the new learning becomes permanent. When they are the goal setters, they are part of the assessment process and have some ownership which fosters commitment.

As teachers, we participate in all the activities in our writing workshop classroom to be part of our writing community. In this way, not only do we get to know our students as writers, they get to know us as well.  As students share their reflections, they have opportunities to imagine the possibilities for their writing. As teachers, what more could we ask for!

 

References
Dorfman, L. R. & Cappelli, R. (2017). Mentor texts: Teaching writing through children’s literature, K-6.Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Dorfman, L. R. & Dougherty, D. (2017). A closer look: Learning about our writers with formative assessment. Portland, Me: Stenhouse.

Heard, G. (2016). Heart maps: Helping students create and craft authentic writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Owocki, G.& Owocki, G. (2002). Kidwatching: Documenting children’s literacy development. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Diane Esolen Dougherty (left) is an education consultant and
co-author of A Closer Look: Learning More About Our Writers with Formative Assessment, K-6.

Lynne Dorfman, Ed. D. is an adjunct professor at Arcadia University, Glenside, PA, & Co-director, PA Writing & Literature Project.

The Power of the Cross-Check: No Penalties in the Reading Process

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00March 26th, 2019|Classroom Teaching, Reading Recovery Teaching, Teaching|

by Jamie Lipp

My oldest nephew is a Division One college lacrosse player (proud aunt). Recently, we traveled to a game to watch him play. In the middle of an intense play, one of his teammates used his lacrosse stick with both hands to push another player from behind. Apparently, this is frowned upon, as whistles blew, flags flew, and an announcement was made that an illegal cross-check had occurred. One minute in the penalty box he went!

Witnessing this, it occurred to me the that the phrase ‘cross-check’ has multiple meanings. A homonym of sorts. The English language is funny like that. In sports such as lacrosse and hockey, a cross-check will send you straight to the penalty box. As for the reading process, the cross-check has a more positive connotation. And there are certainly no penalties for cross-checking while reading.

The dictionary defines the act of cross-checking as verifying one source of information against another. Cross-checking when reading is just that. Clay (2016) defines cross-checking as a strategic activity in reading where a child notices a discrepancy in his own responses and checks one kind of information with a different kind of information. It is an awareness, a closer look, a second glance, another attempt. A “something’s not quite right” observation resulting from self-monitoring.

So, why is cross-checking important? Cross- checking signals the child is becoming more active while reading. He is no longer inventing text, but rather, attempting to integrate multiple sources of information (meaning, structure, visual). He has self-monitored and is now ‘weighing up’ the possibilities. This increased awareness allows for attempts that become better, then more accurate, and ultimately, correct responses. Cross-checking requires the child to monitor the ‘bad fit’, search for alternative sources of information, and integrate these sources by checking the initial information he attended to against some other source of information (Clay, 2016). Essentially, the ability to cross-check is a golden ticket to reading independence.

Cross-checking must be taught for, observed, praised, and expected as our students progress as readers. We can teach for the development of the strategic action of cross-checking in a variety of ways. When reading, we must encourage students to use multiple sources of information at difficulty. Doing so requires careful modeling, prompting, and thinking aloud. Teachers can specifically point out when students have initiated cross-checking behaviors, and even when they have not. In the classroom, we can observe for cross-checking behaviors during guided reading lessons, shared reading, and especially through analyzing running records.

An observant teacher will identify the hesitations or multiple attempts that signal the child has self-monitored and is attempting to cross-check. This teacher will carefully analyze running records to notice where this occurs, how frequently, and what information sources were being integrated. When patterns emerge, the teacher can support the student to attend to the sources of information he is frequently neglecting. The cross-check challenges us to move our thinking beyond, simply, “he just doesn’t know that word” to teach for all that is happening within their processing systems. Further, attention to cross-checking behavior forces our awareness beyond an accuracy and self-correction rate, as it should be!

We expect our students to do more than simply decode the text at hand, as reading and decoding cannot be used synonymously. There is more than visual information to attend to while reading. Clay (2016, p. 135) tells us, “cross-checking on information is an early behavior.” Good news, this means we don’t have to wait until a student is reading high levels of text to expect it. And when we see it, we praise it, because we want it to continue.

Most importantly, we must acknowledge the power of the cross-check as a powerful strategic action that occurs throughout reading. In the classroom and beyond, understanding that hesitation a student makes, or a second (or third) attempt at difficulty to be a signal of higher-level processing is critical. Supporting this strategic action to become more frequent and sophisticated can “level the playing field” for our readers. The ball is in their court, or in the case of lacrosse, the stick is in their hands.

To our growing readers, cross-check away! To my nephew, stay out of the penalty box.

Go Knights!

Reference
Clay, M. M. (2016). Literacy lessons designed for individuals. (2nd ed.). Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

 

Jamie Lipp is a Reading Recovery trainer at The Ohio State University. Follow her on Twitter @Jamie_Lipp.

Get to the Root of It

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00March 8th, 2019|Classroom Teaching, General Education|

by Kristi McCullough

While receiving Literacy Collaborative training, the professors always told the class that word-study instruction needed to be “powerful” and “generative.”

I remember thinking to myself, I know “powerful” word study means doing hands-on activities and attaching the words to authentic text. But what does “generative” mean?  And what does that have to do with learning words?

Upon reading Greek & Latin Roots: Keys to Building Vocabulary (Shell Education) by Timothy Rasinski, Nancy Padak, Rick M. Newton, and Evangeline Newton, I learned that we cannot possibly teach students every word in the English language.  However, by teaching a few word-study principles, we can help students unlock the meanings of countless new words they come across in their reading.

As elementary teachers, we present numerous lessons and activities for phonics principles and decoding strategies in word study. However, a great deal of power lies in also teaching Greek and Latin roots (i.e., prefix, suffix, base).

Previously, such instruction was saved for advanced courses or high school, but knowing the relevant research and its striking statistics has caused a change in our thinking.

  • Over 90% of the words in the English language with more than one syllable are Latin-based. The other 10% are Greek-based. Meaning, that every two-syllable word (or bigger) is comprised of word parts that carry meaning.
  • Each word part taught (i.e., prefix, suffix, base) has the potential to unlock 5-30 new words for students. By explicitly teaching the meaning of one root word to students, teachers potentially expand students’ vocabulary by upwards of 30 new words.
  • If a single teacher provided instruction on 30 roots, that would unlock the meanings of 150-1,000 new words for students per school year.
  • If every teacher in grades K-12 taught 30 roots per year, students’ accessible vocabulary would grow between 2000 and 13,000 words by graduation!

This is the power of the generative principle. Possessing knowledge of one word part generates knowledge to unlock many more words.

Convincing teachers to target root instruction is not difficult, but it does result in a common question. Which roots should I teach?  Is there a list for my grade level?

The Word Parts To Teach resource consists of beginning or advanced prefixes, suffixes, and bases. They are listed alphabetically and include the meanings and examples of each.

The key is to determine which 30 roots your students need this year. Don’t spend time working with roots they already know.  However, don’t skip over the most common roots because you assume students have mastered them. That said, consider the following when selecting this year’s word parts.

  • Check the Standards. Look through the Vocabulary Acquisition and Use Standard to see specifics on a grade-level focus for the types of roots students need to notice when reading and writing.
  • Gauge the background knowledge of students in the class. With the Word Parts to Teach resource in hand, check the last page for the most common roots in the English language. Use this page to note priority roots for instruction with primary students, as well as English language learners. Continue to check the list for Beginning prefixes, suffixes, and bases to determine which roots students need to know. If students are older or more advanced, check the list of Advanced roots that correspond with their content-area vocabulary.
  • Consider topics taught in content areas beyond language arts. Look for concepts covered that might include word parts. Certain social studies and science concepts lend themselves to specific roots (e.g., liber/free, alt/high, ). Look through this year’s math vocabulary, too. There are often word parts that signify the meaning of numbers (e.g., milli, centi), shapes (e.g., gon, hedra, etc.), and functions (e.g., sub, multi, div, add, etc.).

Taking the time to select an exclusive list for your students ensures their knowledge of words will increase. Limiting the number to just 30 new roots for the school year allows students to have adequate classroom time to engage in powerful, hands-on activities that quicken the retrieval of roots when reading and writing.

Generative instruction is not about just giving students a list of terms to memorize for the weekly test. Instead, generative instruction is about showing students how to use their acquisition of known roots to solve new words on the run.


With over 20 years in education, Kristi McCullough has been a classroom teacher, Reading Recovery teacher, and Literacy Coordinator.  She is currently a literacy consultant with Smekens Education, helping teachers across the Midwest implement a balanced literacy approach.

Writing Workshop: Potential and Possibilities for Cultivating Purpose, Power, and Passion

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00February 6th, 2019|Classroom Teaching, General, General Education, Reading Recovery Teaching, Reflections and Commentary, Teaching|

by Wendy Sheets

Writing Workshop is a context that has the potential to help students develop as writers within a literate community. As students learn to live as writers, building a repertoire of tools and strategies, teachers have a role in cultivating purpose, power, and passion in meaningful ways. All three are necessary and impactful elements of an exceptional, gratifying Writing Workshop.

Purpose
First, as teachers, we must consider the purpose of the workshop. Let’s face it: Our hope is for students to become increasingly better writers who create thoughtful, interesting, well-crafted pieces of writing, and who love doing it. Our purpose, then, is to provide daily, momentum-building opportunities for writers to experience something new so they may extend their repertoire of generative tools related to craft and conventions.

For our writers, their work only becomes relevant when there is a purpose for writing. Writing provides an outlet for writers to share thinking that is meaningful to them in some way. Purpose increases the level of investment. Therefore, writers need to have freedom and flexibility, along with guidance, to make choices about their topics, the genre and structure that best communicates their message, their audience, the research necessary to plan for their writing, the details they include, the paper, graphics, text features, font, and decision to publish. If a goal is for students to become lifelong writers, their writing should fit them personally, with ties to their own lives, experiences, and interests. As members of a writerly community, students learn about one another and more readily share what is personally meaningful as well. Within this context, writers engage with purpose each day as they work on creating that which is meaningful to them.

Power
Within the Writing Workshop, students gain power as their writing process is strengthened. This happens through experiences that include daily writing minilessons, independent writing and the use of a writer’s notebook, writing conferences, and share time.

Daily, whole-group writing minilessons provide explicit strategies for writers to extend their understanding about craft and conventions. Craft minilessons may be related to organization, idea development, language use, word choice, and voice, and all serve in making writing better and more captivating. Conventions minilessons may include any aspect of writing mechanics and grammar, allowing for writing to be understood and appreciated by an audience. Mentor texts enable authentic, meaningful demonstrations of craft and conventions. As writers take on new learning about craft and conventions, they add to their repertoire of possibilities to potentially try out with every piece of writing. Check out some examples I share in chapter 18 of the text Responsive Literacy (Sheets, 2018).

When writers plant seeds within their writer’s notebooks or apply new learning from minilessons to their own pieces of writing, they gain power and agency in constructing their work. Writing conferences support the thinking of each writer as instruction is differentiated during a writer-to-writer conversation. With opportunities to provide feedback, teach something new, coach as the writer gives it a go, and make explicit links to ways the writer may apply the learning to independent work, the instructional possibilities are endless. While writers gain power as their teacher comes alongside them to lift their thinking about one focus at a time, conferences offer additional benefits. According to Carl Anderson (2018), ““The relationships that grow out of writing conferences are not the by-product of conferring – they are one of the important goals, since these relationships are so central to students’ growth as writers” (p. 10). As students gain power as learners and also find meaning in discussing their work with you, their teacher, they are positioned as writers who have agency in making important decisions. The share time at the end of the workshop offers another opportunity for writers to share their work, learn from others, and for you to glean important insights that further inform your instructional decisions.

Passion
When writers engage with purpose and continue to develop in powerful ways, they often find themselves passionate about their work. Writing should be a joyful occasion. When it is viewed as drudgery or simply a school task that must be completed for the teacher, it is difficult for students to feel invested. I find that the reciprocal nature of reading and writing is important to tap into for many reasons, including building passion. When sharing and discussing a variety of high quality texts during Interactive Read-Aloud or Guided Reading, learners begin to engage differently. As they think deeply about texts – literally, inferentially, and critically – they may read with the eye of a writer. For instance, if I appreciate the way Ralph Fletcher uses the craft of metaphor in Twilight Comes Twice, I can try it out in my own writing. That’s exciting!

Passion develops when writers have choice, share the stories that are meaningful to them, and explore options for improving the craft of their writing. All of this is in service of communicating their message to their audience with purpose and power. Remember that hope I mentioned earlier in this article? Writing Workshop as a time and space where purpose, power, and passion are cultivated does offer the potential for students to become increasingly better writers who create thoughtful, interesting, well-crafted pieces of writing, and who love doing it. It’s up to us to cultivate – fertilize, plant, sow, grow, develop, and foster – that purpose, power, and passion. Think of the possibilities you’ll reap!

Anderson, C. (2018). A Teacher’s Guide to Writing Conferences: Classroom Essentials. Heinemann: Cambridge, MA.

Fletcher, R. (1997). Twilight Comes Twice. Clarion Books.

Sheets, W. (2018). Writing workshop for grades 3-6. In P. L. Scharer (Ed.), Responsive literacy: A comprehensive framework (pp. 262-280). New York: Scholastic.


Wendy Sheets is an Intermediate & Middle Level University Trainer with Literacy Collaborative at The Ohio State University.  She will present two sessions during the upcoming 2019 National Reading Recovery & K-6 Literacy Conference in Columbus, OH: Coaching Around the Reading Process on Sunday at 1:30 pm and Literate Identities: The Power of Classroom Interactions on Monday at 3:00 pm

Who Owns the Learning? The Importance of Adopting a Facilitative Stance

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00January 22nd, 2019|Classroom Teaching, General, General Education, Reading Recovery Teaching, Reflections and Commentary, Teaching|

by Maria Nichols

Henry: No!! They gotta go the other way!

Ella: To the waves!

Teacher: Angel? You have that look …

Angel: [nodding] Yeah – I’m trying to – like, why do they go all wrong?

Sara: Yeah – they get all confused. It’s really, really sad.

Angel: But – like, why?

Teacher: What are you all thinking?

Marceline: It said the lights – I think they’re all glowy. Sorta like stars or something.

Josue: Oh – maybe …

This bit of talk comes from a class of second graders engaged with Philippe Cousteau’s Follow the Moon Home: A Tale of One Idea, Twenty Kids, and a Hundred Sea Turtles. The children were wrestling with the perils that await the newly hatched turtles, including confusion caused by the lights of beachfront homes. Their talk is understandably tentative as they construct, and their teacher’s actively leaning in, watching, listening, and nudging.

Brian Cambourne speaks to the critical nature of engaging children in thinking and talking together in this very way, reminding us that “… learning, thinking, knowing, and understanding are significantly enhanced when one is provided with opportunities for ‘talking one’s way to meaning’…” (1995). This process actually shifts children from passively, compliantly absorbing the teacher’s thinking to actively constructing ideas that are bigger and bolder than possible inside a single mind alone.  And, when children construct in this way, they truly own the learning.

In Comprehension Through Conversation (Nichols, 2006), I explored specific talk behaviors – drawing in a range of voices, growing ideas and negotiating meaning – that are foundational to engaging children through talk. But, there’s another critical piece to the process—one that involves a deliberate shift in our own instructional stance.

In the bit of talk about Follow the Moon Home, you may have noticed that the teacher’s interjections were brief, yet powerful. She’s not leading the talk – she’s facilitating the talk. A facilitative stance differs from traditional, teacher-driven instruction in that it doesn’t funnel children’s thinking or attempt to corral their process. Rather, facilitation opens space for children to engage in an honest flow of talk and meaning making.

Thoughtful facilitation has four overarching qualities (Nichols, 2019):

Facilitation Is Invitational
Our facilitation should invite all children’s voices into the meaning making process. We hear an invitation from our 2nd grade teacher when she uses the signs of thinking on Angel’s face to draw him into the conversation, and when she creates space for others to respond to his question. Invitational facilitative moves may sound like this:

  • What are you thinking?
  • Is anyone wondering ___?
  • I’m noticing a look on your face …

Facilitation Is Responsive
As we facilitate, we listen intently to the flow of children’s talk, alert for constructive possibilities. We may nudge specific lines of thinking to deepen and broaden them, or we may nudge towards new lines of thinking – but always in ways that honor the children’s process. Notice that our teacher responds to Angel’s question and Sara’s thinking, nudging for thoughts about their noticing and wondering as opposed to layering in her own predetermined questions. Responsive facilitation may sound like this:

  • That’s interesting. Why do you think … ?
  • Can you say a little more about that?
  • What do others think about this? 

Facilitation Is Agentive
Our facilitative language speaks to relationships in the meaning making process, and lays bare our beliefs about children’s capabilities. Language such as, “Now, who can tell me…?” positions us as central to the process, while language such as, “What are you all thinking?” positions children as capable thinkers and collaborators who are central to the process. Agentive facilitation may sound like this:

  • What are you thinking?
  • Have you considered…?
  • How is that thought settling with you?

Facilitation Is Meaning Driven
To support children as they construct understanding together, we attend to the ebb and flow of meaning making, tailoring our facilitation to their needs. We lightly support when meaning is flowing and nudge a bit more if it’s faltering. We might refocus children on a confusing part of the text, encourage them to notice more in a particular passage, or support them as they connect bits of thinking— but always remembering that the meaning needs to be their own. Our teacher’s move to position Angel’s question as a springboard for the children’s thinking communicates exactly this. Meaning-driven facilitation may sound like this:

  • Does this thinking seem to make sense…?
  • Let’s reread a bit, and see if …
  • How do these thoughts fit together …?

When facilitative support is invitational, responsive, agentive, and meaning centered, children come to realize the power and potential of their voice—both individually and collectively. In these classrooms, children truly own their learning.

 

References
Cambourne, B. (1995). Toward an educationally relevant theory of literacy learning: Twenty years of inquiry. The Reading Teacher, 49(3),182-190.
Costeau, P. (2016). Follow the moon home: A tale of one idea, twenty kids, and a hundred sea turtles. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.
Nichols, M. (2006). Comprehension through conversation. Portsmouth, NH:   Heinemann.
Nichols, M.  (2019). Building bigger ideas: A process for teaching purposeful talk. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

 

Maria Nichols is a literacy consultant and Director of School Innovation for the San Diego Unified School District. She is the author of Comprehension Through Conversation. Maria will be a featured speaker at the 2019 National Reading Recovery & K-6 Literacy Conference, February 9-12, in Columbus, OH. Her session entitled “Talk Matters! Supporting English Learners in the Dialogic Classroom”  will be presented on Sunday 3:30-5:00 pm and Tuesday 8:30-10:00 am

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