Reader's Theatre-Last Day in 5th grade

We spent the last day of our dyad experience getting 5th grade kiddos ready for their production of Reader's Theatre. The class was to put on two plays: Dog Breath and Scrambled United States. They prepared for two weeks, made all the props themselves or brought in things from home. We invited their families and our kindergarten buddies to come. At last the big day arrived, and the students put on the plays. It was really great to see them come alive and enjoy being "on stage". They did a fabulous job and fun was had by all. I have learned so much for this placement. I have observed in many classes at least one at each grade level. It has been a great experience to see so many different classroom management styles. I have taken copious notes and have begun to flesh out what might work for me. I have taught math to 5 th graders and lived to tell the tale! I have learned how to teach math through centers, mini-lessons and walking to math. I have assessed students in reading and math, taught several language arts lessons and been responsible for many daily tasks in the classroom. It has been a great learning experience to see how my dyad teacher manages his classroom. I am ready for a break and to go back to my main placement with some new ideas.

Writing process and my students

In reading Routman Chapters 7 and 8 this week, I am thinking of the differences between writing to prompts for WASL expectations,district standards and rubrics and with the kind of classroom that Routman is describing. Routman talks about having writing be meaningful for students and engaging students by teaching first and labeling writing later. In other words, we should let our teaching and our students get "hung up" with the terminology.(Routman,Ch.8,p. 195) I have noticed in my dyad placement with 5th grade students that my master teacher has a journal for each subject, science, math, writing and reading. Each one of these journals have table of contents and organizes both handouts which are glued into the journals, but lots of their own notes that they can refer to later on. At first, I thought of this as a great way to organize their work for these subjects, but after reading Routman, I can see that this also helps their writing for non fiction. By keeping these individual journals, the students get to use their own writing as a means to expose them to the notion of expository writing without the label. "Starting at kindergarten students should be introduced to nonfiction text with features such as table of contents, captions, headings, labels, diagrams, charts, drawings."(Routman,Ch 8, p.196). This is exactly what my 5th grade students are doing in their science journals. They are meeting that writing standard without really realizing it. Using state reports, research and writing journals to meet some of the state prompts; my master teacher is providing a framework for students establishing writing that is more meaningful to them.

In chapter 7, Routman talks about keeping standards in perspective. We can become exhausted trying to cover all the requirements. Routman tells teachers," I will teach your students how to do all that is required, but the easiest and most efficient way to do this is to first engage students in writing about topics that they care about for a reader who matter to them."(Routman,Ch 7, p.149) In using many modes to learn writing, letters, book reviews, journals, memoirs and non fiction writing; students will develop their writing stamina over time. You can use whole class sharing of good conventions and voice to elaborate on the standards that you are trying to meet. In my main placement with 2/3 grade students by giving the students time to read and write each day, the students are building their reading and writing skills. They have written letters, researched a topic that they were interested in and did a poster with collage and writing, wrote a short paragraph about their triorama on a read aloud book. My master teacher uses shared creation of word walls for these writing assignments. She is then serious about the students using the well placed word wall in their writing and has expectations that students will spell those words correctly. All these strategies are helping these kiddos to become better writers.

Chaperoning a Field Trip to the Bug Safari/Pike Place Market

Today, I was asked to be a chaperoned for a 6th grade field trip that couldn't get any parents to sign up. Why is it that we begin to think our kids don't need us at 12 or 13 years of age? They really need us all the more. Anyway, we went to the Bug Safari and Pike Place Market. We had a scavenger hunt at Pike Place and toured Beecher Cheese. Then we went to the Bug Safari. The 6th grade class has been studying all kids of bug life this year for Science. We saw hissing cockroaches, tarantulas, scorpions, venomous centipedes. It suddenly dawned on me why parents weren't volunteering for this field trip! The kiddos thought this was very cool. They have hissing cockroaches in their classroom! I am becoming more and more in awe of the 6th grade teachers! I was again amazed at these kiddos. Well behaved and so interested in everything. Some have never been to Seattle or seen the Space Needle. They want to know what everything is and are inquisitive and engaged. Love that! When the 6th grade teacher got back at 2:00pm; the students went to recess and then back to the classroom and wrote thank you notes to chaperons. These notes will be in my portfolio to keep. I started this dyad being terrified of 5th and 6th graders, and I end with the understanding that they are just kiddos who want to learn and are interested in succeeding.

Does assessment do more than rank our students?

In reading both Elbow and Routman, I begin to understand how much is loaded into the difficult job of teaching and assessing writing. Elbow seems to  be questioning the whole aspect of ranking students with grades and rubrics. He argues that "ranking leads students to get so hung up on these oversimple quantitative verdicts that they care more about scores than about learning."(Elbow,p.190)  In a system where ranking students leads to better classes, AP and Honors Programs, and often better teachers, in the high school years; Elbow says this ranking has lead to so much confusion by teachers that there is "the tendency to think that if we renounce ranking and grading, we are renouncing the very possibility of judgment and discrimination." (Elbow, p. 191) H e leans towards evaluation and liking writing, and lots more time for students to free write each day which is not evaluated. This goes along with my experience with students this year so far. Most recently with Juanita 2nd graders when we were given the students' Dragon Stories to work on with very little guidance. Almost immediately without knowing or understanding, I started to work on editing conventions with my 2nd grader. I was certainly not inspiring her to create interesting ideas or conferencing with her to help her to find her voice. This kind of repeated correcting with red hash marks and stabbing in the dark at writing, was my own personal writing experience as a child. It will be a challenge to learn a new way, but ultimately worth it.  Routman takes another approach, which seems to be end up at the same place but gets there in a different way. She wants us to prepare the students for high stakes testing. In the course of your writing curriculum, you make a place and time for preparing students to do on-demand writing to a prompt. " Writing on demand is a fact of life. Students need to be able to write essays and respond to prompts on required tests..or as job seekers on applications" (Routman, p. 248)  Routman suggests that as teachers we keep this perspective. We prepare the students for tests by reducing their anxiety and helping them to be "test wise". This is just a part of overall writing curriculum. By collecting writing samples in the students portfolio and having students writing everyday, teachers have a chance to show parents multiple examples of students' writing and be more humane about grading and assessments in general. Routman wants us to be realistic about the atmosphere we find ourselves in as teachers, to work within the given system and to try and have students take responsibility for their own writing and learning. This is where both Routman and Elbow agree. They both want students to peer conference and take responsibility for their own quality writing. Routman wants her students to aim high, " we want students to be asking: did I do enough, have I done my best, have I met the criteria, will my writing engage my reader, have I communicated clearly?" ( Routman,p.255) In creating a classroom that takes into account meeting the current testing requirements while establishing a safe community where writing is taking place everyday, not always to be published, sometimes just for the fun of writing; the hope is to establish students who write for the love of it, because they have learned to write from their heart. No easy task!

Observing Parent Teacher Conferences

I spent the conference days moving from my main placement to my dyad placement observing over twenty conferences.  Both my schools are Title 1 and sometimes conferences included a crowded table of safety net, special education, guidance counselor, interpreters, teacher, student teachers, parents and sometimes students. I was amazed at the thoroughness of assessments, portfolios and preparation that goes into conferences and grading. It was so good to see two different teachers and approaches to conferences. Parents of all the students in both my placements were amazing and there was one constant; all parents want the best for the children. Both master teachers connected to parents by asking what their concerns were and then listened. After all, parents know their children better than any of us sitting at that table. We all shared the same goal, for the student to succeed. I am thankful this weekend for my family, great food, my friends and my health, but I am also thankful for my students and what they have taught me over these short months. I am excited to go back to my 2/3 grade kiddos in January.

Wiggins on what is an Essential Question?

I found this article and felt compelled to share. While trying to create a unit for our instructional design class, I am having trouble with all these big questions. What is the objective, the assessment, the look to's and look at's. This article gave me a bit of clarity. So I am passing it on. Hope this helps.


Wiggins on What is an Essential Question?

Helping Students to write independently

As I read over Routman Chapter 9, Conference with Students, I think of writing with my 2/3 graders at the beginning of the year. I can see that I took too much control of their editing and didn't give them a chance to work on their own stories. I think this comes from trying in vain to help my own children with their writing as they were older. I would be their editor. It would become a case of lots of marking through and rewriting, all in an effort to help them be better writers. I don't think I accomplished that! I can see parallels in our work on our own literary vignettes as students. By learning what it is to be a writer ourselves going through the stages of rough drafts, reading our work aloud in small groups and rewriting, we too can learn more than if we were told to write and then received our first attempts returned filled with red marks. Using whole group, small groups and peers to help with the process of writing, we help the student writer to feel more independent and competent. " Keep in mind that our goal is to have students monitor their own writing and problem solve independently so they can eventually draft, rewrite, revise, publish, and edit mostly on their own."(Routman, p.235) I can see more clearly reading Routman how to practice my responses to be more helpful, but to continue to place the editing responsibility back to the student.