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!