Wondering what your students should do with their best writing? Jennifer Jacobson, author of No More “I’m Done!” has a couple of great ideas for classroom publishing that don’t take up a lot of time, but make students proud and motivated to write!
Believe it or not, there was a time when primary schools established central “publishing houses.” Students who had done an exceptionally fine job on a piece would be greeted by parent volunteers who typed up the stories and then carefully bound them into books. The books often had sturdy cardboard covers decorated with wallpaper samples, and pages carefully sewn with durable dental floss. The proud students would return to the classroom where they illustrated their books, which were later celebrated. Many books would find their way into the school library for the remainder of the year.
Very few schools still offer this model of publishing. Somewhere along the line, “publishing” came to mean “copying over your work without any mistakes.” All students publish at the same time, removing the motivation to publish one’s finest writing. Instead, students publish nearly identical teacher-directed products.
Here, I am going to suggest a publishing program that falls somewhere in the middle of these two models. Consider setting up an area in your room where you (or better yet, a parent or high school volunteer) can work with individual students. The volunteer sits at the computer, and the child sits next to the volunteer and reads his or her work. Volunteers (who you have trained) type the work using all of the proper conventions: punctuation, spelling, capitalization, proper grammar—keeping the child’s original language whenever possible. If while reading, the student says, “Oh, I should have said . . .” The volunteer types what the child wished he or she had written, thus reinforcing revision right up to the end.
What do you do with the typed work? Here is a list of ideas:
1. Place in a class anthology (The “Big Book”; see page 23)
2. Mount on a bulletin board
3. Read over the intercom
4. Include in school or class newsletters
5. Post on a Web site
6. Have child read in a podcast
7. Record (audio or video) a class radio show
8. Perform as a skit
9. Read at an authors’ tea
10. Compile a class book around a single theme (poems, funny
stories, holiday stories, etc.)
11. Include in a class yearbook
12. Include in the school literary magazine
13. Submit to a student market or contest
14. Give as a gift
I do not recommend that primary students copy over their work. If we regularly ask student to rewrite, we are teaching them two things: write short and don’t take risks. We also take away one of our best motivating tools. Being able to say something reinforcing such as, “Kara! You added so many quality details to this writing. Would you like to publish it?” goes a long way in motivating our students to be thoughtful, independent writers.
August 10th, 2010
Ralph and a spectacular hanging basket of Petunias outside the Tasty Thai restaurant in Kittery, where he and his editor, Philippa Stratton, met for lunch Friday to celebrate the completion of a very successful Ning discussion
We just wrapped up four weeks of lively discussion of Ralph Fletcher’s latest book, Pyrotechnics on the Page: Playful Craft That Sparks Writing.
Moderated by middle-school language arts teacher Amanda Villagomez, the discussion touched on using observation to benefit writing; noticing word play in oral language; mentor texts for word play; and creating classrooms where word play can flourish.
Teachers shared many ways they encourage their students to play with words as well as how they collect interesting pieces of conversation for use in their classrooms. “I love to people watch-whether it’s at the bookstore, mall, or watching people walking in town. While people watching or actually, eavesdropping on their conversations, I get a chance to jot down bits and pieces of their conversations,” wrote Linda Bondi. “Listening to language is as important to a writer as seeing is to an artist,” said Margaret Simon, who added that she takes her writing camp students on a “writing marathon” where they get to listen and observe the conversations around them.
Others noted that they collected great sentences and word combinations from their favorite books, including Tammy Miles, who started such a “craft collection” with her students. “Often times, we’d add to the collection during writer’s workshop. I encouraged the students to mimic other authors and try something new in their writing,” Tammy shared.
Freida Hammett observed that playing with oral language is a bit different than playing with written language. ”For young children and for reluctant writers, I would think oral lanaguage play would be the first, and very important, step. Oral language sends a message, too, that you like to have fun,” Freida said.
During the discussion thread about playful classrooms, Jean Marki noted that Ralph’s book was an eye-opener to her about the way she introduces word play to her students. “Yes, I was introducing word play…but as a task not play. I never gave the kids time to play — to try out the word play on their terms.”
Later, the discussion turned to how to deal with students who are excited about a new skill and so they “crowd” their writing with that particular craft. “ I guess I believe that realistically kids WILL overdo whatever craft element we teach,” responded Ralph. “That’s the nature of learning anything new. Given time the strategy will no longer “stick out” or be over-used but will become integrated into the student’s repertoire of writing strategies. It might be wise to use one mini-lesson to introduce a kind of wordplay. Then, after the kids have tried it out, do another mini-lesson showing an example of a writer who really over-does it. The kids will be able to see it, I bet.”
To revisit the entire discussion and read all of Ralph’s responses, you can still visit our Ning page for the archived version. You can also read an excellent interview with Ralph on A Year of Reading blog.
August 9th, 2010
Happy Friday everyone! This week I picked a poem from Andie Cunningham and Ruth Shagoury’s book Starting with Comprehension: Reading Strategies for the Youngest Learners. The poem is Backyard by Mary Oliver and Andie and Ruth use it in the book to teach students to dig deeper in their understanding. Also, it describes my backyard perfectly at this time of the year.
Backyard
Mary Oliver
I had no time to haul all
the dead stuff so it hung, limp
or dry, wherever the wind swung it
over or down or across. All summer
it stayed that way, untrimmed, and
thickened. The paths grew
damp and uncomfortable and mossy until
nobody could get through but a mouse or a
shadow. Blackberries, ferns, leaves, litter
totally without direction management
supervision. The birds loved it.
August 6th, 2010
“Effective Socratic circles do not happen overnight,” writes Matt Copeland in his book Socratic Circles: Fostering Critical and Creative Thinking in Middle and High School. To prepare for Socratic Circle instruction, teachers need to consider three key areas: classroom climate, the teacher’s role, and teaching students to prepare for high quality dialogue. In this week’s Quick Tip, Matt shares how he sets the climate in his classroom for effective dialogue.
If one had the ability to look down upon a Socratic circle in my classroom from above, he or she would see two concentric circles. The inner circle of students would be facing inward and seated upon the floor, each with a writing utensil and a copy of the selected piece of text being used as a springboard for discussion. The outer circle of students, also facing inward, would be seated in desks directly outside the inner circle, almost literally hanging on every word of the inner circle. One would quickly realize that the only conversation taking place is among the members of the inner circle and that outer-circle members are busy observing and jotting down notes about the inner circle’s performance, all without saying
a word. One would also notice the teacher sitting outside the inner circle, contributing questions or basic information only to keep the inner circle’s discussion moving smoothly along.
After several minutes had gone by, the observer would notice the teacher stopping the inner circle’s conversation and asking them to remain quiet while the teacher led the outer circle in a conversation to provide feedback on the inner circle’s performance. One would see students in the outer circle looking at their notes and commenting on the strengths of the inner circle and offering suggestions for improvement. What might surprise the observer is that the comments of the outer circle would be
focused not on the content of the inner circle but rather on the behavior the members of the inner circle exhibited during their conversation. After several minutes the two circles would switch places and the process would be repeated.
The classroom environment is perhaps the element most crucial to Socratic circle success, both in terms of the physical environment and in terms of the emotional climate. Socratic circles approach reading, discussion, and learning in a way that is unfamiliar to many students. The physical layout of the room and the emotional climate established by the teacher greatly affect a student’s willingness to try something new.
The process of mutual inquiry asks that participants take risks by sharing ideas and opinions regardless of their known “truth.” Students, like all human beings, are sometimes uncomfortable and unsure of themselves when sharing information about which they are uncertain. The fears of being proved wrong, being judged, and/or being scoffed at are very real. The effective Socratic circle leader accommodates and lessens these fears in the classroom. One of the clear necessities is seating students in a circle so that they all can see each other when they are in discussion. Neat, straight rows of desks will not be conducive to an open, free-flowing dialogue. Because students are asking questions of each other and sharing personal ideas and opinions based on a selection of text, eye contact and nonverbal engagement in the conversation are essential. This engagement makes students more confident and comfortable, which makes them more likely to take risks in sharing their ideas.
Ultimately, having students be able to see and interact with one another builds cohesion, a necessary component in the collaborative construction of new learning. I also have my inner and outer circles sitting on different planes of the classroom. I always have my inner circle sitting on the floor and my outer circle sitting in chairs directly behind them. This allows the outer circle to almost literally look over the shoulders of the students sitting in the inner circle. Because the outer circle is responsible for watching the behavior of the conversation taking place, they need to be able to clearly watch and
observe not only the discussion but also the physical and nonverbal interactions among students. The tiered circles in my classroom help the inner and outer circles see more clearly not only the members of their own circle, but the members of the other circle as well. This helps students see how beneficial one circle can be for the other. Because they can see and interact with one another, there is an enhanced amount of teamwork and cooperation between the circles; both know they are engaged in a cooperative
endeavor.
I have also found that altering the lighting in my classroom helps to improve students’ comfort level. Because large banks of overhead fluorescent lights seem to transform a classroom discussion into something that feels more like a police station interrogation, I fill my classroom with alternative lighting (such as floor lamps or strings of holiday lights hung from the ceilings) on days we hold Socratic circles. The change in lighting relaxes and calms students and makes them more open to the exchange of ideas and dialogue. One of the side benefits to this practice is that they respond very quickly to the lighting change. They know instantly what the order of business is for the day, and they move into Socratic circle mode more quickly, more fully, and with more enthusiasm.
Like the effects of classroom lighting, the importance of the emotional climate of the classroom cannot be underestimated. Sharing personal reactions, connections, and interpretations of ideas and concepts
can be difficult for people of any age. For this to occur, students must feel safe, comfortable, and confident with themselves and with one another.
Before Socratic circles are even introduced, teachers should take the time to engage students in multiple classroom climate activities. The value and benefit of knowing one another’s names, interests, and personalities is immense. We simply cannot work cooperatively with people we feel no connection with, especially in a Socratic circle setting, where each individual is expected to contribute to group understanding.
August 3rd, 2010
Happy Poetry Friday! This week we have a great poem by a student, Crystal Whiteaker, titled “The Skin I’m In” based on Sharon Flake’s book of the same name. Janet Allen uses this poem in a chapter on shared reading in her book On the Same Page: Shared Reading Beyond the Primary Grades. Enjoy!
The Skin I’m In
Every day she’s teased.
With her skin, no one is pleased;
It’s dark as chocolate and
her soul is golden like the sun,
Yet, she’s still an outcast to almost everyone.
She’s constantly pushed around,
but when she screams there is no sound.
She cries secret tears
hoping no one will find her fears.
She puts up with so much day in and day out,
but she never raises her voice to shout.
In the end, she opens her eyes,
To see that their taunts were nothing but lies.
Her lesson was learned and
The bully was burned.
She finally loved the skin
that her body was in.
July 30th, 2010
In Pulling Together: Integrating Inquiry, Assessment and Instruction in English Classrooms, Leyton Schnellert and his coauthors present a comprehensive answer to the current big ideas in teaching: formative assessment, backward design, inquiry learning, strategic teaching, and metacognition. In this edition of Questions & Authors, Leyton talks about the origins and inspiration for Pulling Together, and how he and his colleagues find connections between English language arts and inclusive education.
Pulling Together emerged through collaboration with my colleagues Krista Ediger, Mehjabeen Datoo, and Joanne Panas. Over the last few years, we have met about once a month to build text sets, redesign lessons, explore strategy instruction and wrestle with assessment. However, somewhere along the way, we began to realize that the various approaches that we were pulling apart and trying to make our own actually supported one another. Our inquiry then became something more satisfying and even elegant – an attempt to pull various practices together.
Pulling together seems to be a theme for me; I have spent much of my teaching career finding connections between my two passions: English language arts and inclusive education. For me they go hand in hand, classroom communities with diverse student populations open up opportunities to explore multiple perspectives and literacies from the inside out. Krista, Mehjabeen, Joanne and I use inquiry as a planning and teaching framework because inquiry invites students to engage with ideas and experiences by asking questions and developing and sharing their own perspectives. Planning from our knowledge of students – what they know and believe, looking at their strengths, interests and stretches – helps us to develop culturally relevant curriculum. For us, ongoing formative assessment plays a big part in inquiry-oriented classrooms.
Through teaching English language arts and co-teaching with peers (in my role as a resource teacher), I have learned to invite students to tell their stories and develop their own insights. Instead of looking for right answers, I ask students to develop an idea and/or interpretation and to explain their understanding using evidence. When there is an aspect of oral or written language that we all want to develop – a common outcome – I invite students to generate criteria with me. Even if criteria or rubrics exist, I prefer to involve the students in figuring out what our shared criteria might be and invite them to find positive examples of these criteria in their own and others’ writing and thinking. In my teaching I work from a belief that all students bring experience and skill – I don’t expect all students to at the same skill or knowledge level, but what I do communicate is that each of them needs to move from where they are as a learner to a deeper, more accomplished place. In my planning and teaching, I’m asking students to pull together their background knowledge, the texts they read and create, the criteria we develop together and the mini-lessons I teach to help them get closer to those criteria. Together my students and I make curriculum together. The learning outcomes or standards are part of this curriculum, but so are we.
Inquiry learning builds enduring understandings and thinking strategies. In Pulling Together we show how we have combined inquiry, formative and summative assessment, and strategic teaching. Within inquiry units we find that we can both (1) help students to develop deep, conceptual understanding and (2) explicitly build the thinking skills they need to help them develop these understandings. In each unit we focus on a few key thinking, reading, and writing skills. This is how we develop thoughtful readers and writers, who choose to read and write beyond our classrooms.
To help us in this process we:
1. Start with the end in mind. We look at the learning outcomes and/or or standards to determine what we want students to know and do in a unit. We also think about what themes and/or aspects of the human experience we can students to explore. Then we group these into one or two big ideas. By the end of the unit, we want students to:
- link examples and ideas across texts and explain how they are related to the human experience
- explain how technology shapes the way we live our lives
- use more than one medium to analyze and share a personal example of technology impacting how they communicate and behave
2. Recast big ideas as questions that can be explored through inquiry. Joanne, Krista, Mehjabeen and I were able to shape an entire three month unit around the questions:
How does communications technology shape our humanity?
How do we communicate with each other?
How does technology impact the way we communicate?
How does the way we communicate change the way we behave?
How does communications technology humanize and/or dehumanize us?
3. Plan one or two performance assessments for the unit. These allow students to show the understandings and skills they have developed. For this unit students:
- wrote a personal essay on the topic how communications technology impacts them personally
- created a video, blog or broadcast (ie podcast) on how communications technology affects humanity/ society/other groups
- reflected on their learning in their metacognition journals
4. Engage in lots of formative assessment especially descriptive feedback and student self-assessment. These activities and assessments are not usually for marks, but rather to help students practice working with ideas and approaches, getting feedback along the way. In this unit:
-students co-created a personal essay, guided by the teacher, on the topic “how does YouTube affect behavior?”
-they created a communications technology timeline
-They participated in quickwrites, a class blog, group discussions, information circles, and read and discussed articles on the impact of technologies
-wrote a reflection on their learning in their metacognition journals
5. Teach mini-lessons use gradual release of responsibility for key knowledge and skills.
- Students saw a teacher model ways to brainstorm ideas, start essays, create a flow for their ideas and back up their ideas with examples.
- The strategies and approaches used and practiced along the way were the same ones they used in the performance assessments.
- By the end of the unit everyone had a change to see examples and practice with feedback related to criteria.
- All students had more success as they got personalized feedback related to shared criteria.
For Mehjabeen, Krista, Joanne and I, we are working to help students develop foundational skills for working with texts, ideas, each other and beyond the classroom. What is key for us is that it is the thinking skills and communication approaches that allow students to deeply engage with and understand complex ideas and information being taught. This is a principle of inclusion – all students have a right to access ideas and techniques that can help them to develop themselves and engage with others and the world.
It is exciting for us is to hear and read how students’ thinking and understandings are developing. By spending this extended time developing thinking skills, we have found that our students are able to grasp increasingly complex ideas and synthesize information and concepts with insight and appreciation. Using inquiry and performance assessment has also helped students to see the unique perspectives of their peers and any number of ways that these insights can be represented and communicated. This provides us with a deep satisfaction as teachers; pulling together inquiry, formative and summative assessment, and strategic teaching is helping our students to develop the ability and sensitivity to appreciate diversity and difference.
July 29th, 2010
We have a great great tip today from Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli, authors of the recent Nonfiction Mentor Texts: Teaching Informational Writing Through Children’s Literature, K-8. Lynne and Rose not only share how they select nonfiction mentor texts for their classrooms, but this Quick Tip is also full of excellent mentor texts recommendations.
As you look through the books that occupy your classroom library shelves or the favorites you stash on a special shelf behind your desk as your indispensable read-aloud selections, how many of them would count as nonfiction texts? In the nonfiction count, how many are narrative nonfiction texts, such as biographies and autobiographies, or selections that read more like narratives, such as Bat Loves the Night or One Tiny Turtle by Nicola Davies? How often are your students writing nonfiction during your writing workshop time? How do you choose a nonfiction mentor text for the young writers in your class?
Kristo and Bamford (2004) define nonfiction as the literature of facts. They describe the main purposes of nonfiction writing: to deliver information, explain, argue, and/or demonstrate. In this book, we are defining nonfiction texts in a much larger sense than as informational trade books and picture books. We are also including other kinds of expository texts, such as cookbooks, newspapers, magazines, brochures, and travel guides, as well as Internet selections.
Portalupi and Fletcher (2001) discuss the importance of familiarizing our students with high-quality nonfiction literature and the subgenres that have developed within the informational picture book selections. Kristo and Bamford (2004) discuss several types of nonfiction books that writers consider depending on purposes, intended audiences, and possible use by those audiences. Authors can present a topic narrowly but in great depth or they can broadly cover a topic. It is important to learn about the different kinds of nonfiction books that are available to our students in order to make sensible selections for mentor texts.
Many of the nonfiction books we are recommending are life-cycle books, such as One Tiny Turtle by Nicola Davies and Monarch and Milkweed by Helen Frost, or survey books, such as All About Frogs by Jim Arnosky. We also have used many how-to books, such as A Kid’s Guide to Washington, D.C. by Diane Clark. Identification books (field guides), such as Jane Kirkland’s Take a Walk Books, and photographic essays, such as Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman, are other types of promising nonfiction books to use as mentor texts. We are also impressed with the wonderful selection of picture book biographies, such as Thomas Jefferson: A Picture Book Biography by James Cross Giblin, Into the Woods: John James Audubon Lives His Dream by Robert Burleigh, and Rachel: The Story of Rachel Carson by Amy Ehrlich.
In order to create an energizing sense of freedom within writing workshop and opportunities to write nonfiction across the content areas, we can make use of a variety of types of nonfiction books depending on our purposes for writing. When we allow our students to make decisions about how they will deliver and present information, we provide them with a sense of ownership, so vitally important to the notion of commitment to the process and product of writing nonfiction.
We have found that fiction books can also serve as mentors when writing informational and persuasive texts. Hey, Little Ant by Phillip and Hannah Hoose and The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow are two examples. Informational picture storybooks, such as All in Just One Cookie by Susan E. Goodman, Everglades by Jean Craighead George, and Penny: The Forgotten Coin by Denise Brennan-Nelson show students yet another way to present information in a friendly and interesting format.
Sometimes we need a fiction book to serve as a catalyst to write about a topic or to imitate the form, voice, or syntax of an author. Consider the fiction books Dear Mr. Blueberry by Simon James, Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt, Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin, or Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White to find ideas, formats, and even strategies for writing persuasively. Around the World: Who’s Been Here? by Lindsay Barrett George is written in the form of letters from a teacher to her class. Sometimes a fiction story presents facts through a unique voice, as in Pamela Duncan Edward’s Barefoot: Escape on the Underground Railroad, told in the voices of the woodland
and marsh animals.
Sometimes we select mentor texts to provide a clearer picture of our multicultural society and the distinctive voices that can be heard in these books. Consider Voices of the Alamo by Sherry Garland, Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges, Teammates by Peter Golenbock, Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki, Virgie Goes to School with Us Boys by Elizabeth Howard, and Hiroshima No Pika by Toshi Maruki. It is important to find mentor texts that help us recognize and imitate qualities of good writing while at the same time fairly repre-senting the diversity that exists in our country. These texts can build bridges to new understandings about ourselves and others. They provide us with models of high-quality literature to help us learn how to write about diversity issues with dignity, style, and grace.
Duke and Bennett-Armistead (2003) advise teachers to expose their students to a variety of texts, because research suggests a reciprocal relationship between the kinds of texts children become familiar with and the kinds of texts they choose to write and are able to write well. They write, “Children who are not exposed to much informational text are not likely to develop informational writing skills as quickly as children who are” (129). Shelley Harwayne (2008) states that kids need mentor texts that are distinctive. At Celebrate Literacy 2008, a conference sponsored by the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project in West Chester, Harwayne suggested that we should help our students borrow techniques that are distinctive—that our young writers need mentor texts that are distinctive. She talked about the importance of reading-writing connections and reminded us that Peterson (2007) described reading and writing as good neighbors with a big hole in the hedge that separated their properties to allow them to pass freely back and forth. Kristo and Bamford (2004) would concur; they elaborate on this same idea: “Teachers work hard from the beginning of the school year to “marinate” their students in good nonfiction. They read aloud highquality nonfiction so that students develop an ear for how good expository writing sounds. Their lessons about reading and writing nonfiction scaffold their learners so they feel accomplished with what they can do all along the way.” (166)
We agree completely! Writers begin to understand that from the moment they begin to think about writing a text (finding a specific topic and engaging in prewriting) until long after the writing of the first draft (talking about it with others, revising it, and reflecting on how the writing has changed and grown in sophistication), they are beginning a journey. This journey will take them to and connect them with subsequent mentor texts and new writings—and, consequently, will lead them to new journeys. We know that students become better writers of nonfiction because they try out new things and take responsible risks (try out or imitate the writing techniques in mentor texts that they are capable of doing with a little practice and guidance). It is only through risk taking and experimentation that our writers will continue to grow and become better writers tomorrow than they are today.
July 27th, 2010
This week’s poem comes from Robin Turner’s recent book, Greater Expectations: Teaching Academic Literacy to Underrepresented Students. Robin uses the poem Cincinnati by Mitsuye Yamada in a time literary analysis writing exercise with his Puente class. At this point in the school year, Robin’s students are reading Elie Wiesel’s Night and the class is very interested in World War II. Robin hands them this poem after reading a couple of other poems to practice analyzing out loud.
Cincinnati
Mitsuye Yamada
Freedom at last
in this town aimless
I walked against the rush
hour traffic
My first day
in a real city
where
no one knew me.
No one except one
hissing voice that said
dirty jap
warm spittle on my right cheek.
I turned and faced
the shop window
and my spittled face
spilled onto a hill
of books.
Words on display.
In Government Square
people criss-crossed
the street
like the spokes of
a giant wheel.
I lifted my right hand
but it would not obey me.
My other hand fumbled for a hankie.
My tears would not
wash it. They stopped
and parted.
My hankie brushed
the forked
tears and spittle
together.
I edged toward the curb
loosened my fisthold
and the bleached laced
mother-ironed hankie blossomed in
the gutter atop teeth marked
gum wads and heeled candy wrappers.
Everyone knew me.
July 23rd, 2010
