First of all, I am so glad that we are reading this book. I have spent a lot of my time reading it thinking about how I wish I had known these things about the Common Core as I entered my year teaching. I think that my reading, writing, and language instruction would have looked a lot different - although I am currently tweaking it and making big plans in my head for next year. One of the effects of this book is that I have found that it is easy to beat yourself up about your instruction - at least it is for me!
The first thing that stuck out to me a huge way were the expectations for writing. I mean, did you read those? The sample kindergarten papers were incredible. I felt deeply challenged and deeply distraught as I read through those examples about where my students are as readers. I felt distraught about the standards that I have been holding my students to this year. While, yes, they have grown a ton as writers, the Common Core holds high, high expectations for the tone and process incorporated in writing in the fifth grade. I felt deeply challenged to hold my students to those standards. I want to use Appendix C to show my students what my expectations are and what they are capable of through their hardwork in our writing workshop. This writing is made more probable and possible through integration. Calkins discusses the need to weave writing throughout the course of the day so that students are gaining the time for practice with the different types (not genres!) of writing (p. 105). Through this practice, writing truly becomes a life skill that students can use no matter what occupation they come to in their futures (p. 110).
I was also struck by the research need for the argumentative texts. The expectations of the Common Core are that "student should not just lift quotes from texts and plop them into their opinion and argument writing, but instead analyze their sources of information with more and more nuance, and then use that analysis within that writing" (p.135). This quote blew me away. These are truly things that I did not learn to do effectively until I got to college and truthfully is something that I often still struggle with today. Students have to first understand the content THEN analyze it THEN write effectively about it. That is a powerful, powerful skill. My students have done research to help them with their argument and opinion writing, but so far this year, we have not delved into texts that would drive their writing. I want to think about how I can scaffold this moving forward and make it a part of writer's workshop.
My final realization (although there are certainly many more) is that I really did not know much about the speaking and listening standards. As I was getting to know the curriculum this year, it is something that I largely skimmed over as I worked to consider how to teach my students to use the correct verb tense or find the main idea of a text. These standards are lost often in my school as teachers jockey for control in their classrooms and push students to sit and work quietly. These standards require collaboration and debate and questioning. Reading through these standards and actually pulling them apart reminded me how important these conversations and talking time is. While this is something that is very much incorporated in my room, I want to use this more. The chapter also spoke of "using technology with a purpose" to aid with the speaking and listening standards(p. 167). I am thinking more about how I can incorporate this purposeful technology use with the "rigorous, curricular-aligned conversations" that students are having in book clubs (p.168).
Overall, I am looking forward to getting to know the Common Core standards for reading, writing, and language better over the course of this summer in preparation for next, or in the words of Dr. Smith devour them. This book has been a huge step in that process already. I want my students involved in heated academic debates and writing stellar pieces all through the workings of pointed, instructional research.
I, too, was struck by the writing samples that the authors cited from the Common Core. My first thought was, "Can I even write a narrative piece like that?" because obviously if I cannot do it, then how will my kids do it? Personally I think that I'm the weakest at narrative writing, but the authors emphasize the importance of narrative writing within the K-5 grades. I remember starting the year strong with my narrative teaching (I used a lot of lessons from Lucy Calkins and Carl Anderson) but because it was my first time teaching writing in this way, I wasn't confident and therefore my students didn't truly internalize these skills. I have learned so much about writing instruction this year, and this book definitely helps me figure out what to prioritize and how to use the learning progressions to help inform my instruction. I'm glad that this book also reminded me of the great resource: http://readingandwritingproject.com/ (if you haven't checked it out, it's awesome). I want all of my co-workers to read this book!
ReplyDeleteI am completely with you regarding your comment about the speaking and listening standards. The good thing is that even though we had not devoured them, I know that we have been implementing a lot of them into our classroom practices (such as book clubs). I wonder how we could incorporate technology into our students' book clubs -- I'm thinking something along the lines of our students keeping blogs to record their Reader's Response to their books, but that's just an idea. However, my students are SUCH slow typers so they would never have the time to write all of that out (especially because we only have 3 computers). But let's keep on thinking about that for next year!
I'm not sure what your plans are for next year (regarding what grade/subject you will be teaching), but I would love to collaborate with you to figure out how to make our Writing Workshop better for next year and our book clubs, too. I admire the way that you teach writing and I think that you have a lot of skills in this area that I can benefit from :). So just letting you know that I would love to brainstorm with you this summer about that!
Kelsey,
ReplyDeleteWhen you know better, you do better! We have to remember this so we don't beat ourselves about about the constant reflection and changes that are apart of our instruction. I agree with you that is easy to read Pathways and say OMG why am I barely just realizing this? Yet again, we are still very few of those who are analyzing and reading this powerful analysis of the CC standards we are all required to teach.
I love that you picked out the quote about the importance of students being able to understand and analyze information so that may write about it. You are absolutely right about a lot of these skills being taught once we've got to college. That just reinforces the CC shift towards making sure that our students are college and career ready. These skills and standards of high expectation but if we can start from kindergarten with developing these skills and setting the bar high, then the transitions could be more smooth and logical for students.
Kelsey,
ReplyDeleteYou are so on point when you highlight Calkins examples of analyzing text and weaving writing throughout the day. I think it simplifies things we think about how adults write. In all of our courses we are called to read, understand, analyze the text and then respond to it via discussion or in a writing (much of how we are doing now in our blogs!). Why should our students' writing be any different then the way we write? As I write this post, I realize that blogging may be a powerful tool (especially for upper elementary) to develop their skills of analyzing and conveying their opinion.
The kinder writing samples were simply AMAZING! While it was a humbling reminder that I have not been holding my students to high enough standards when it comes to their writing, it was at the same time exciting about the possible writers they can become. It shows that our students are capable of becoming thoughtful writers that can convey their ideas clearly and artfully.
Kelsey,
ReplyDeleteI love how these blogs help me to resynthesize the reading. You discuss so many things that I thought about, but maybe glossed over. Reading these posts give me that second chance to think more deeply about things. You talk about how you plan to use the writing exemplars included; I thought Bout how helpful those were but didn't give a lot of thought to how I plan to use them. Now I'm planning how I will incorporate those.
You also talk about the research aspect of writing. This is definitely a weak area for me!! The reading have me a lot of direction for this. I'm grateful to be moving away from telling students to put what they've researched in their own words (embarrassing--- but it's what was drilled into me throughout my schooling) but it's also challenging when we consider what is expected of them! Let's share strategies for this. Great post!
Kelsey!
ReplyDeleteI always love reading your entries because we share the same context. I completely agree with you about the "wow" factor of the section on writing. Holy moley. What a fabulous idea to share the writing samples with your students. I also want to share these with my grade level and parents to be able to show exactly what it should AND CAN look like. Fabulous idea and completely stealing it. There are so many things that my head is already swirling around with for next year and along with all of the changes I want to make to writing, incorporating meaningful technology is one of them. I felt this tied in so well with Dr. Lynch's talk about video games. Is the technology I'm using in my classroom a productive learning experience or is it a center that will hopefully keep my students quiet so that I can focus on my guided reading group?
This book has brought up so many important thinking points for me in my future in the classroom. Let's maybe talk about how we could use what we have read in this book to do some similar things in our classrooms on grade level and perhaps how we could put some practices in place school wide.