*Names have been changed in both of these posts to protect student privacy
During the independent practice section of reading workshop, Jessica and Evan who are learning English as a second language receive literacy instruction in Everson’s ELL classroom. In the ELL classroom Jessica and Evan are supported in applying the comprehension strategy or teaching point they received from Mrs. Thomsen’s whole class mini-lesson. A few weeks ago, when Jessica and Evan returned to Mrs. Thomsen’s classroom and sat down for share circle; they each had a comprehension tool for telling a story summary. They had been introduced to a three column chart to help organize a summary of a story they listened to on tape.
Jessica and Evan drew pictures and wrote a few words to remind them of their story’s summary elements. When it came time for Jessica and Evan to share, they held up their story summary and proudly displayed their pictures to the class. This was encouraging because Jessica and Evan were usually hesitant to share each morning during share circle; often hiding their mouths and smiles with their hands.
To witness Jessica and Evan share was a proud moment for me and I wondered how the other students would respond. The other students reacted positively to Jessica and Evan’s sharing, complimenting their drawings and exclaiming, “I want to do that! Why did they make those charts?” Mrs. Thomsen then explained to the class that Jessica and Evan had practiced summarizing their story using the chart as a tool. She asked Jessica and Evan to each share one summary element such as the name of the main character in their story; which was the same question all of the students were responding to.
“Belonging to a group means being needed as well as to need, and believing that you have something vital to contribute. Every child can contribute care for others in many ways- by listening with attention and responding with relevance, by showing concern for feelings and viewpoints of others, by developing a capacity for empathy”(Charney, 22).
Both Jessica and Evan shared and exemplified to the group that every student has an important voice and something valuable to contribute. Other students were impressed with the work Jessica and Evan did and asked to see their comprehension chart after the share session had concluded. Reader’s workshop has the component of sharing built into the structure and it allows children to feel included in the community, and to view reading as a valuable tool for creating new understandings.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Student Voices
I've been meaning to Post a few parts of my Cultural Learning Inquiry because through my observations about the learning community I was able to capture a few occasions of students taking responsibility for their learning, in turn making me so proud! Here is one example:
“When our vision of community expands to create a culture and climate for thinking – when rigor, inquiry, and intimacy become key components of our definition- it’s essential that we work first to build genuine relationships, establish mutual trust, and create working literate environments. If we look to the months ahead and envision children constructing meaning by spontaneously engaging in thoughtful conversation about books and ideas, asking questions that matter to them and exploring their solutions, and responding independently to a variety of text in meaningful ways, we must deliberate in September” (Miller, 17).
Mrs. Thomsen successfully executes this advice from Debbie Miller and uses morning share circle as an established routine that supports building genuine relationships. The curriculum and pedagogy of reader’s workshop creates a learning culture of thinking, learning, collaboration and responsibility.
This past week I had the opportunity to witness a thoughtful conversation between two students, which stemmed from their mutual respect for one another as well as the responsibility they share in literacy learning.
Peter and Monica are literacy partners; Mrs. Thomsen has thoughtfully assigned literacy partners and explicitly explained the student’s role and responsibility as a literacy partner. Mrs. Thomsen has modeled respectful and appropriate talk while conferring in literacy partners and will often designate or suggest a time for partners to meet following independent practice. On this occasion, students were asked to complete a story summary using a three column comprehension tool. Students were to write the story summary in three sections, stating the setting, characters and problem then providing main events, and lastly explaining the solution. Once students finished their story summary Mrs. Thomsen asked them to turn it into the “in box” and then independently read their non-fiction book.
Since I was aware of the expectation to read non-fiction after finishing the story summary, I quickly noticed Peter and Monica move to an open table with their story summaries in hand. I walked over to the desk where they sat facing each other and observed this scene:
Peter: “Would you like to read your summary first, or should I?”
Monica: “You can read your summary first since it was your idea to share.”
Peter proceeded to read his story summary, and then Monica read hers.
Peter: “You included all the details which is good, but I think you need to take some details out of the middle. I’m not trying to be mean!”
Monica then read her middle section and compared her content to Peter’s. Peter had summarized the main events in two sentences, compared to the four sentences Monica had written.
Peter then showed Monica how he had written a few of her details in one sentence saying “Harriet wasn’t interested in anything fun.”
Monica had listed the specific things the character Harriet, wasn’t interested in- such as eating popcorn and watching television.
After accepting Peter’s advice Monica re-read Peter’s summary to give him advice.
Monica stared at the paper and said, “Hmmm… well you included all the parts in your summary. You need to go back and space these words out.” Monica’s response illustrates her understanding of the components of story summary and the responsibility a reader has to convey his/her thoughts in a clear way.
In Peter’s defense, he does have a cast on his writing hand; yet Monica first evaluated content then moved on to give advice on the appearance of Peter’s work.
The interaction between Peter and Monica was an example of two students taking responsibility for their learning. Mrs. Thomsen had modeled appropriate partner talk which Peter and Monica followed in a respectful way. Peter’s reassurance that he was “not trying to be mean” reassured Monica that she could trust he was simply giving advice in hopes to help her.
In Don’t Forget to Share written by Leah Mermelstein, she states, “Partner shares are a vital learning tool. Many people shy away from partner shares, perhaps because they are harder to manage… partner shares give kids opportunities to practice things by themselves so that they can internalize them” (page 85). Peter and Monica’s interaction was a direct example for me of how two students took responsibility for their learning and worked together to practice having a literary conversation. As a result they were able to have an opportunity to internalize how to identify the components of a summary in writing. Their example supports my assertion that the curriculum and pedagogy of the reading workshop creates a learning culture of responsibility, thinking, and collaboration.
The interaction between Peter and Monica was of their own accord; Peter approached Monica and asked if she would like to share with him. Mrs. Thomsen had not even suggested students work with literacy partners during this particular workshop. Since Mrs. Thomsen had modeled partner work and created a community of sharing, this pair was excited to share and learn from one another.
“When our vision of community expands to create a culture and climate for thinking – when rigor, inquiry, and intimacy become key components of our definition- it’s essential that we work first to build genuine relationships, establish mutual trust, and create working literate environments. If we look to the months ahead and envision children constructing meaning by spontaneously engaging in thoughtful conversation about books and ideas, asking questions that matter to them and exploring their solutions, and responding independently to a variety of text in meaningful ways, we must deliberate in September” (Miller, 17).
Mrs. Thomsen successfully executes this advice from Debbie Miller and uses morning share circle as an established routine that supports building genuine relationships. The curriculum and pedagogy of reader’s workshop creates a learning culture of thinking, learning, collaboration and responsibility.
This past week I had the opportunity to witness a thoughtful conversation between two students, which stemmed from their mutual respect for one another as well as the responsibility they share in literacy learning.
Peter and Monica are literacy partners; Mrs. Thomsen has thoughtfully assigned literacy partners and explicitly explained the student’s role and responsibility as a literacy partner. Mrs. Thomsen has modeled respectful and appropriate talk while conferring in literacy partners and will often designate or suggest a time for partners to meet following independent practice. On this occasion, students were asked to complete a story summary using a three column comprehension tool. Students were to write the story summary in three sections, stating the setting, characters and problem then providing main events, and lastly explaining the solution. Once students finished their story summary Mrs. Thomsen asked them to turn it into the “in box” and then independently read their non-fiction book.
Since I was aware of the expectation to read non-fiction after finishing the story summary, I quickly noticed Peter and Monica move to an open table with their story summaries in hand. I walked over to the desk where they sat facing each other and observed this scene:
Peter: “Would you like to read your summary first, or should I?”
Monica: “You can read your summary first since it was your idea to share.”
Peter proceeded to read his story summary, and then Monica read hers.
Peter: “You included all the details which is good, but I think you need to take some details out of the middle. I’m not trying to be mean!”
Monica then read her middle section and compared her content to Peter’s. Peter had summarized the main events in two sentences, compared to the four sentences Monica had written.
Peter then showed Monica how he had written a few of her details in one sentence saying “Harriet wasn’t interested in anything fun.”
Monica had listed the specific things the character Harriet, wasn’t interested in- such as eating popcorn and watching television.
After accepting Peter’s advice Monica re-read Peter’s summary to give him advice.
Monica stared at the paper and said, “Hmmm… well you included all the parts in your summary. You need to go back and space these words out.” Monica’s response illustrates her understanding of the components of story summary and the responsibility a reader has to convey his/her thoughts in a clear way.
In Peter’s defense, he does have a cast on his writing hand; yet Monica first evaluated content then moved on to give advice on the appearance of Peter’s work.
The interaction between Peter and Monica was an example of two students taking responsibility for their learning. Mrs. Thomsen had modeled appropriate partner talk which Peter and Monica followed in a respectful way. Peter’s reassurance that he was “not trying to be mean” reassured Monica that she could trust he was simply giving advice in hopes to help her.
In Don’t Forget to Share written by Leah Mermelstein, she states, “Partner shares are a vital learning tool. Many people shy away from partner shares, perhaps because they are harder to manage… partner shares give kids opportunities to practice things by themselves so that they can internalize them” (page 85). Peter and Monica’s interaction was a direct example for me of how two students took responsibility for their learning and worked together to practice having a literary conversation. As a result they were able to have an opportunity to internalize how to identify the components of a summary in writing. Their example supports my assertion that the curriculum and pedagogy of the reading workshop creates a learning culture of responsibility, thinking, and collaboration.
The interaction between Peter and Monica was of their own accord; Peter approached Monica and asked if she would like to share with him. Mrs. Thomsen had not even suggested students work with literacy partners during this particular workshop. Since Mrs. Thomsen had modeled partner work and created a community of sharing, this pair was excited to share and learn from one another.
GLAD
I am an English major... if you couldn't tell. Once I start writing it's difficult for me to stop which may be one reason why this blog seems daunting to me at times. It's hard for me to write a short check in or short reflection, I just want to explain, explain, expand, expand. =) This post is going to be short though. I didn't want to overwhelm my last post with this information, so I decided to be courteous and add these thoughts to a new post. You are welcome!
I wanted to convey quickly a few of my take-aways from the GLAD presentation last night. First of all, I absolutely loved that the two teachers began the year teaching their first GLAD unit about What it means to be a learner. Students were exploring what it means to be a thinker, writer, reader, problem solver - responsible, tenacious --- all of these words students hear everyday in school but may not fully understand, define, or take on as an identity. Will a student really believe he/she is a writer during writer's workshop if he/she doesn't fully understand the role of a writer and what a writer does?
I thought it was such a great move on behalf of the two teacher presenters to start their year off studying what it means to be a learner - and all of those other roles a student takes on throughot the day. What I like about GLAD is that the first part of the structure is to (I may be a little off here- I know it's motivate I'm not sure if I'm right on about the first term) but to Immerse and Motivate students. The Motivation factor to me was such a huge peice of making this structure effective. Students should be motivated to learn - and a unit studying what it means to be a learner and take on the roles of reader/writer/problem solver/classroom citizen - should be MOTIVATING to students.
Dawn, one of the teachers last night, said on the first day of school her students wrote their names on an Interest Survey she gave them, then placed their pencils down. They were finished. She thought to herself, how can I motivate them to want to learn? How can I teach them that their job here is so important and that they can learn!? Well she developed the first GLAD Unit around those questions and I thought it was a great model to me of how I can motivate students to learn.
I've been thinking about motivation alot lately as I see students whispering and simply flipping pages through their books during Independent Reading. How can I help to motivate them - to get them so excited about the opportunities for learning they have during Independent Reading, to help them own the fact that their learning now will have an impact on their learning in sequential grades?
Last night I thought specifically about one of my students to loves loves skateboarding - he shares about it almost everyday and has written about it as well. Well, Dawn (the teacher from last night) wrote to Tony Hawk because she was teaching her students about being tenacious and she asked Tony Hawk if he had any examples or advice for her students about being tenacious. Well, Tony Hawk wrote her back and sent her one of his report cards in which his teacher wrote "Tony is one of the most tenacious students in the class." This story was awesome and Tony also shared with Dawn how he worked so hard to land a 900 - (360/360/180) he tried in competitions over and over, until he finally landed one in a competition becoming the first skateboarder to ever land a 900 in competition. What an incredible example of teancity and what an incredible way to motivate students -- especially my student who loves skateboarding.
Not only was Tony Hawk a tenacious athelete but he was a tenacious student - never giving up and trying his best to learn.
So this turned into a long post, I apologize! I just wanted to get some of these thoughts out I was impressed with the presentation, especially with the motivation part --- I want to continue to find ways to motivate my students to be excited about learning and their role of being a reader, writer, and problem solver!
I wanted to convey quickly a few of my take-aways from the GLAD presentation last night. First of all, I absolutely loved that the two teachers began the year teaching their first GLAD unit about What it means to be a learner. Students were exploring what it means to be a thinker, writer, reader, problem solver - responsible, tenacious --- all of these words students hear everyday in school but may not fully understand, define, or take on as an identity. Will a student really believe he/she is a writer during writer's workshop if he/she doesn't fully understand the role of a writer and what a writer does?
I thought it was such a great move on behalf of the two teacher presenters to start their year off studying what it means to be a learner - and all of those other roles a student takes on throughot the day. What I like about GLAD is that the first part of the structure is to (I may be a little off here- I know it's motivate I'm not sure if I'm right on about the first term) but to Immerse and Motivate students. The Motivation factor to me was such a huge peice of making this structure effective. Students should be motivated to learn - and a unit studying what it means to be a learner and take on the roles of reader/writer/problem solver/classroom citizen - should be MOTIVATING to students.
Dawn, one of the teachers last night, said on the first day of school her students wrote their names on an Interest Survey she gave them, then placed their pencils down. They were finished. She thought to herself, how can I motivate them to want to learn? How can I teach them that their job here is so important and that they can learn!? Well she developed the first GLAD Unit around those questions and I thought it was a great model to me of how I can motivate students to learn.
I've been thinking about motivation alot lately as I see students whispering and simply flipping pages through their books during Independent Reading. How can I help to motivate them - to get them so excited about the opportunities for learning they have during Independent Reading, to help them own the fact that their learning now will have an impact on their learning in sequential grades?
Last night I thought specifically about one of my students to loves loves skateboarding - he shares about it almost everyday and has written about it as well. Well, Dawn (the teacher from last night) wrote to Tony Hawk because she was teaching her students about being tenacious and she asked Tony Hawk if he had any examples or advice for her students about being tenacious. Well, Tony Hawk wrote her back and sent her one of his report cards in which his teacher wrote "Tony is one of the most tenacious students in the class." This story was awesome and Tony also shared with Dawn how he worked so hard to land a 900 - (360/360/180) he tried in competitions over and over, until he finally landed one in a competition becoming the first skateboarder to ever land a 900 in competition. What an incredible example of teancity and what an incredible way to motivate students -- especially my student who loves skateboarding.
Not only was Tony Hawk a tenacious athelete but he was a tenacious student - never giving up and trying his best to learn.
So this turned into a long post, I apologize! I just wanted to get some of these thoughts out I was impressed with the presentation, especially with the motivation part --- I want to continue to find ways to motivate my students to be excited about learning and their role of being a reader, writer, and problem solver!
Blah Blah Blah
Last night I went to the North Sound Student Reading Council's presntation on GLAD (Guided Language Acquistion Design). GLAD is a framework that was created to help make content comprehensible to all students - especially those students learning English as a second language.
It was such a great presentation and I went home taking my new knowledge and reflecting upon the Math Lesson I taught on Tuesday. I taught a lesson out of Investigations about Number Strings - adding multiple numbers together such as: 8+6+4+2. I prepared for the lesson understoon the lesson - but while I was teaching I was looking out at all of those faces and thinking "Oh no, they don't get it." The lesson was all about taking a number string and breaking it into smaller parts - using the facts they know to complete a longer problem. So, 8+6+4+2 students recognized that 6+4 is 10 - yet the process from there (basically the purpose of my lesson) started breaking down from there.
As a class we completed a few number strings together, I asked students to tell me how they would begin then what we should do next... ect. When they went back to their desks though there were blank papers. I stopped the class and modeled a problem again, asking for student suggestions and guidance. I worked with students in small groups.
I realized that to me, adding a number string is easy. I start with the combination I know 4+6 = 10- then I know to add the remaining numbers left in the string, to that sum of 10. As much as I tried to explain and model this to students I just felt like my content was getting more and more un-comprehensible. I may have well just been saying, "blah... blahblah...blahblah" Yet it wasn't only what I was saying --- it was how I was writing the problem.
In the lesson I taught, the curriculum didn't model for me how I should show students to organize their equations. I automatically did the first equation 4+6 = 10 brought the 10 down to the next line 10+ (a remaining number) = x, then x + (the last number) = your total.
Oh my goodness, of course students were having trouble - (and to my defense of course I had trouble teaching it) these are multiple step problems that students can do in their heads but when they are asked to show their thinking and write down these steps... I almost feel like the math gets lost in the recording. Students were having trouble making the connections between how they solved the problem in their head and how they can write those steps on paper. I know they were having trouble because I wasn't being the most effective in showing them.... but I tried different ways and I know it was difficult for me to find the perfect way because it is so implicit for me now. I've had math for years and I know how to show my work, I know how to organize addition problems in multiple steps.
It was just a rough lesson on Tuesday because I wasn't sure what else to try, what else to say, or how I could find those words to explain to them the writing that was on the whiteboard. To explain the equations I used to solve the multiple addend problem.
I know I am learning and this was a good lesson for me - I realized that especially when you take a lesson out of a curriculum you really have to think through the various parts that the lesson just assumes will be understandable to students. I hadn't thought of how to most clearly show students how to show their work- and they had many different steps they took to solve the problem. This would have been a really important aspect to talk with Marcia about before I taught the lesson --- now I'll be on the lookout for those aspects for sure!
It was such a great presentation and I went home taking my new knowledge and reflecting upon the Math Lesson I taught on Tuesday. I taught a lesson out of Investigations about Number Strings - adding multiple numbers together such as: 8+6+4+2. I prepared for the lesson understoon the lesson - but while I was teaching I was looking out at all of those faces and thinking "Oh no, they don't get it." The lesson was all about taking a number string and breaking it into smaller parts - using the facts they know to complete a longer problem. So, 8+6+4+2 students recognized that 6+4 is 10 - yet the process from there (basically the purpose of my lesson) started breaking down from there.
As a class we completed a few number strings together, I asked students to tell me how they would begin then what we should do next... ect. When they went back to their desks though there were blank papers. I stopped the class and modeled a problem again, asking for student suggestions and guidance. I worked with students in small groups.
I realized that to me, adding a number string is easy. I start with the combination I know 4+6 = 10- then I know to add the remaining numbers left in the string, to that sum of 10. As much as I tried to explain and model this to students I just felt like my content was getting more and more un-comprehensible. I may have well just been saying, "blah... blahblah...blahblah" Yet it wasn't only what I was saying --- it was how I was writing the problem.
In the lesson I taught, the curriculum didn't model for me how I should show students to organize their equations. I automatically did the first equation 4+6 = 10 brought the 10 down to the next line 10+ (a remaining number) = x, then x + (the last number) = your total.
Oh my goodness, of course students were having trouble - (and to my defense of course I had trouble teaching it) these are multiple step problems that students can do in their heads but when they are asked to show their thinking and write down these steps... I almost feel like the math gets lost in the recording. Students were having trouble making the connections between how they solved the problem in their head and how they can write those steps on paper. I know they were having trouble because I wasn't being the most effective in showing them.... but I tried different ways and I know it was difficult for me to find the perfect way because it is so implicit for me now. I've had math for years and I know how to show my work, I know how to organize addition problems in multiple steps.
It was just a rough lesson on Tuesday because I wasn't sure what else to try, what else to say, or how I could find those words to explain to them the writing that was on the whiteboard. To explain the equations I used to solve the multiple addend problem.
I know I am learning and this was a good lesson for me - I realized that especially when you take a lesson out of a curriculum you really have to think through the various parts that the lesson just assumes will be understandable to students. I hadn't thought of how to most clearly show students how to show their work- and they had many different steps they took to solve the problem. This would have been a really important aspect to talk with Marcia about before I taught the lesson --- now I'll be on the lookout for those aspects for sure!
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