Slice of Life: Creating opportunities for competence and confidence

Every Tuesday, the writing community of Two Writing Teachers hosts Slice of Life. All are welcome to participate by linking up posts or commenting on other participants. 

One of the best parts of my job is working with students in their classrooms. It's also one of the hardest parts of the job because usually, I focus my energy on the students who are struggling and striving. By the time students get to third or fourth grade, they have fairly well-established understandings and beliefs about themselves as writers, and this makes me sad. In this morning's slice,  Clare Landrigan wrote about first-graders who questioned why she addressed them as "readers." Likewise, I see many, many students who do not see themselves as writers. 

We need to change that. 

Today, I worked with a group of four fourth-graders who are just beginning a unit on informational writing. We integrate information writing with social studies, so they had some topics about Connecticut history to choose from. Rather than choosing a topic that would require a lot of research, I asked each of them to choose a war they knew something about. We'd write fast and create a shared piece-- each section would be about one war. Three of the four boys knew a lot about wars, so they were able to get started with their writing right away. With the nudge of some transitional words, they each wrote several sentences about a specific war. While they were off and running, one of the boys shook his head and indicated that he didn't know a thing about any of the wars. I asked him a little about the Revolutionary War, and he teared up, unable to provide anything of substance about it. "How about just war?" I said, trying to do some damage control and stop the tears. "What do you know about wars? You can write a section just about what was is in general." He perked up, and he managed to write a fair amount with plenty of also's, another's, for example's, therefore's, and this is important because's. 

I share this because at the end of twenty minutes, they produced an informational text with sections, different types of information, transitional language, and a plan for an introduction and conclusion--in fact, they were excited enough about it that they told me they'd work on the beginning and ends tomorrow before school--and...they were excited about their writing. "I never write this much," one of them said. "I didn't realize I had so much to say." Three of the four boys felt great about what they wrote, and my teary friend admitted he felt better. Sometimes, I have to settle for better. 

Their work wasn't perfect; it was an approximation. However, it's hard to teach kids to write if they don't write. Somehow, we have to make the work seem doable so that we can celebrate and enjoy the energy that feeling confident and competent brings. Sometimes I wonder if those feelings are right up there with audience and purpose.  Thoughts?

Happy Slicing,

Slice of Life: Picture Books and Powerful Essays

Every Tuesday, the writing community of Two Writing Teachers hosts Slice of Life. All are welcome to participate by linking up posts or commenting on other participants. 

Yesterday at a PD session our presenter mentioned the beautiful essay that Matt de la Peña wrote in Time Magazine, Why We Shouldn't Shield Children From Darkness, and Kate DiCamillo's equally beautiful response to Matt, Why Books Should Be a Little Sad.  Today, one of my colleagues mentioned these essays in a completely separate conversation, and truth be told, I already had tweeted and shared them with several people. Some essays are so important they just keep coming up.

If you have missed these essays, go read them instead of the rest of my post. Really. At least just one of them. Matt and Kate are much more worth reading than I am.

I had pre-ordered Love, so I'd already read it before Matt wrote about the debate with his publisher about one of the illustrations. In Loren Long's illustration, a little boy is huddled under a piano and an empty cocktail glass. When I first read the book, I didn't notice the glass. My focus was on the words and the language--the poetry within the text.

I'm not sure that I can make this comparison as powerfully as I want to because I recently loaned my copy of Baby by Patricia MacLachlan to someone so I can't quote the exact passage that opens the first chapter, but bear with me. Papa tap dances after his first cocktail that makes him happy. He stops after his second cocktail that makes him sad. I'm not sure how different Papa's mood change in a middle grade novel is from the empty glass in a picture book is, and what I think is more important is that if a child notices either one of those details, then maybe that child needs to notice those details. Maybe that child is the one who needs to talk about something, and it's those details that provide the opening.

Thanks to this community,

Slice of Life: Thinking About Social Justice at Teachers College

Every Tuesday, the writing community of Two Writing Teachers hosts Slice of Life. All are welcome to participate by linking up posts or commenting on other participants. 

Sometimes my work takes me in to New York to hear the reflective, provocative, and brilliant thinking of the people who work for the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. While I had other ideas about today's slice of life, I feel far too compelled to share some of the wisdom, ideas, and insight from today's session with Cornelius Minor and Natalie Louis. I've tried to capture my notes in the form of categorized provocative questions and/or statements.

Ideas and questions to begin the thinking:

• We can/must teach children to look at what’s different and find beauty.
• When we don't understand each other, sometimes we assume we do. Before we give advice we should either ask to be asked or wait to be asked. 
• Think about the word diversity as it appears within your district documents? Do we want diversity or do we want inclusion? How do we see the differences? 
• What’s really important for young people to do? look at things that are different and find beauty in things that are different.
• Justice has never been achieved by waiting for a leader to act first. If we want kids to be change agents, then we have to be change agents first. 
• What do you want people to say about you when your career is ending?
• Schedules are a moral document; we are where we invest our time. 
• Engagement isn't a kid problem; it's a system problem. 

Thinking about social justice:

• Who has power? 
• Who is choosing to stay silent?
• How do we take responsibility to hear everyone?
• How can we make an impact?
• How do you differentiate social justice? What is the level of injustice that that kid is ready to embrace? 
• What would you outlaw if you could outlaw something to decrease the chaos in life?

Teaching empathy-Questions to ask students, especially within the context of read-alouds:

Questions for teachers:

• How do we actively teach kids to build relationships?
• Where in our day to we teach empathy?
• How do you think about your curriculum for read aloud? 
• What do the books we read say about class, gender, race, socio-economic status...?

Questions for Students:

• Who will you be in a moment of conflict?
• Who would you be in this read aloud?
• Why does the book end on an earlier page? 

Thinking about what we ask students to do:

• Be comfortable with discomfort. 
• Persistence is a skill that can be taught. The ability to persist through a no is a skill we can teach kids.
• Complexity of the task and complexity of the text changes, but not the skill, not the goal.
• How do we find issues that matter to kids? Justice projects can take a lot of different forms. Engage them in things that matter to them. 

So much to think about in these statements and questions, and this is my distillation of about eight pages of notes. If you are reading this, you are probably someone who has already given thought to many of these issues. Thank you. How do we get others on board with the responsibility and power that we have as educators in a chaotic, unpredictable, and unjust world?

Peace,

Some of My Favorite Books from 2017

One benefit of using Goodreads to keep track of my reading is I can easily reflect on the books I read each year by looking at my shelves, ratings, and reviews.
After looking at my 2017 shelf on Goodreads, here are some of my favorite books I read last year:


Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall
This is a perfect read aloud for so many reasons! It is great for teaching about small moments in narrative writing since it truly stretches out the moment when Jabari is trying to regain the courage to dive.  It is also perfect for teaching/modeling how to use the strategy "Somebody, Wants, But, So" to summarize the story, identifying lessons learned, character impact, character change, and so much more! This is now one of my many favorite picture books.

The Thing Lou Couldn't Do by Ashley Spires
Ashley Spires also wrote The Most Magnificent Thing, which is one of my favorite picture books for teaching about growth mindset so as soon as I saw she wrote this, I had to buy it! This book is another perfect read aloud for teaching and discussing growth mindset with your students.  I love that this book uses the phrase "not yet" in this book since that is such an important phrase for having a growth mindset.  This book is a great read aloud for all grades, including primary.  Enjoy!

A Bike Like Sergio's by Maribeth Boelts
Maribeth Boelts is the author of Those Shoes, which is one of my favorite picture books so as soon as I saw she wrote a new book, I had to buy it and read it! This book reminds me of Those Shoes so it would be great to read aloud both of them to compare/contrast the books.  This book would be a great read aloud during a character unit or Social Issues book club unit.  It is also a great book to use when teaching "Somebody, Wants, But, So" to summarize, identifying character motivation, character change, character impact, turning points, and lessons learned.



A Boy Called Bat by Alana K. Arnold
This is the first book in a new series and I look forward to reading book 2 when it comes out in March.  This book would make a great read aloud in grades 3 and up and would also be a great book club book in grades 4 and up during a character or social issues unit.  In this book,  Bat is a nickname for Bixby Alexander Tam. Bat's mom is a veterinarian, who brings home a baby skunk one day. Bat immediately has a connection with him and wants to keep him as a pet.






Falling Over Sideways by Jordan Sonnenblick
I love Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick and always read it aloud to my 5th grade students each year and they loved it!! So I was so excited when I saw he wrote a new book and immediately added it to my list to read.  This is another great read aloud, book club book, or independent reading book for the upper grades.  He reminded me a lot of Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie so it'd be great to compare and contrast the two after reading them!





Restart by Gordon Korman
Gordon Korman has written so many great books that kids love so I had to buy and read his latest book, Restart!
This is a great read aloud, book club book, or independent book for grades 6 and up.  In this book, the main character, Chase falls off a roof and doesn't remember anything! Is this a chance for him to make some better decisions in school, with friends, and family? Is this his opportunity for a fresh new start? You will have to read it to find out! This book will keep students engaged!





Happy Reading! :)

Slice of Life: The challenge of getting started

Every Tuesday, the writing community of Two Writing Teachers hosts Slice of Life. All are welcome to participate by linking up posts or commenting on other participants. 

Full disclosure: this is the third start of a blog post I've made. I've started one about contrasting yesterday, the last day of vacation, with today, my first day back at work in 2018. I've started on about my daughter's yoga class. I've deleted both. Do you ever do that? Start posts and get stuck on them? Start posts and think who is ever going to read this? Start posts and then think why on earth will anyone care about this? 

At our yoga class, our instructor says that one of the hardest things to do is to get there. Maybe that's sort of like writing. Maybe we just have to start--commit to it--get ourselves going-- and once we get enough on the page, we are more compelled to keep it. 

At school today, I watched a classroom of third-grade students writing and writing their information pieces. One child, a little girl who struggles and strives with her writing, had a hard time getting going, even though she knew what she was going to write. Tomorrow, I can tell her that I know exactly how she feels. That sometimes the toughest thing we do is just getting those first few words down on the page because once we do, we can use those words to lead us along.

Happy Writing, and Happy 2018,