Day 10: #SOL16- Quotes From a Staff Developer

The Slice of Life Challenge is hosted by the inspirational writers of Two Writing Teachers. Each March, they invite people to join them in a commitment to write every day. Here's to another year of daily slicing!


I work in a district where we are so lucky because we get to have Teachers College Staff Developers come several times a year to work with us about best practices around literacy. I have started the practice of keeping a special place in my notes for just lines I love and want to remember. There are always SO many wise statements and quotes to capture. Shana Frazin was with us today, and I kept a list of favorite lines from her that I'm sharing in my slice of the day. 

• “Narrow the gap between students' understanding and our vision.”
• "Whenever we put scaffolds in place, we have to have a plan to remove them."
• “What can I hand off and what can I hand over (to students)?”
• "Anything we can do to capture the talk that is in the air will help kids."
• "Study partnerships that we admire and think about how we can admire them."
• "Help kids figure out being a good partner is like a life thing. It’s bigger than reading workshop or writing workshop!"
• "Have coaching be lean and supportive. How do those two things coexist?"
• “Its always worth wondering about what you don’t write about.”
• “Dreaming is a kind of planning.” (She was quoting Gloria Steinem with this one.)
• “The tyranny of being right.”

Any one of these lines could blossom into a full-fledged post. Maybe one of the lines will speak to someone and they will write off it with a whole new burst of thinking and reflection.

Happy Slicing,

Day 9: #SOL16- On Basketball Games, SAT Chants, and Social Justice

The Slice of Life Challenge is hosted by the inspirational writers of Two Writing Teachers. Each March, they invite people to join them in a commitment to write every day. Here's to another year of daily slicing!

Last night, I had a post ready to go, but at 10:30 pm, I got a text from my daughter with a link to a newspaper article that was going to run in our paper this morning. I have spent the last twenty hours percolating and processing the article and its implications. 

Let's back up to last Friday night. My senior daughter's varsity basketball team played the top team in the state in the second round of the state tournament. It's important to know that we live in a relatively affluent suburb, and we were playing a charter school team from Hartford, a school known for its stellar basketball teams. People predicted that the game would be a blowout, predictions and speculations that enraged my daughter and her teammates. As it turned out, the game was anything but a blowout. It was a hard-fought, competitive, fairly played, and fairly ref'ed game. It was tied at the half. Tied at the end of three periods. With 45 seconds, we were down by 3, and that's when the other team pulled away. In the end, we lost by 9. For any of you who are familiar with end of game strategy, we were fouling, and they were making their foul shots. That's why Capitol Prep won by so many points.

Enough said about the game. Let's talk about the Farmington fans whose behavior was embarrassing on many levels. Our fans came in with sunglasses and Hawaiian gear, and they made their presence known by joining the opposing high school's soloist in her singing of the National Anthem. Their singing was loud and off key. Throughout the game, our athletic director managed our fans. I wish I could remember exactly some of the management he had to do, but I was pretty focused on the game. I will say that Capital Prep's sportsmanship wasn't perfect. Their cheerleaders and mascot were purposely distracting when we shot free throws, and there was some under the radar fouling and pushing on the part of both teams. Since this article's running, I have heard about other instances of very poor fan behavior on their part. Not to make excuses for either set of fans, but the game was a tight, tense battle of committed high school athletes. I wish we could just celebrate and respect those players!

When the outcome of the game was clear, with about 20 seconds left on the clock, some of our fans began a chat, "SAT Scores." I've had people ask what that means. It was a derisive chant, suggesting that Farmington's students do better on the SATs. Our AD stopped the chant right away and spoke to the students who probably started it, but the damage was done. This morning's paper ran the story on the front page. You can read it here.

There are so many issues this story and the way it has been reported has raised. From a parental standpoint, I'm sad for my daughter and her team. The paper made it sound like the game was a blowout, and it was anything but. The girls on the team feel like the game and their play was unfairly described. The paper also made it sound like Capital Prep players and fans were nothing but respectable and gracious--not completely the case either. Those two issues may be partially responsible from the, in my opinion, more important point being missed--

We are living in a racist world, and we don't even know when we are being racist. Our schools have an enormous responsibility, now more than ever, to educate students on principles of democracy, social justice,  and global citizenship. SATs are divisive, inherently biased tests which favor wealthy, white students and help to maintain a racial and socio-economic divide. We don't teach about this; we are minimally aware of it as educators. 

I'm not in charge of next steps for this situation, but I will be suggesting some. Maybe this series of events can be the start of bridge building. Maybe we should start some book clubs between the two schools which are less than 15 miles apart. Maybe we should have day exchange programs and reflections about those experiences. Maybe we should have much more curriculum that focuses on democracy and the threats to it in today's world--threats that exist right in front of us as we cheer for our children. Maybe the two schools could launch a program between the two of them that could serve as a model for teaching young people about social justice and global citizenship. Maybe we should do more than just call these fans into the principal's office and demand a forced apology, and maybe we need more than just different policies about what behaviors can get students evicted from a game. 

My daughter's experience as a basketball player was impacted by these (hopefully) ignorant, but racially charged chants. The problem grows, though, as these teenagers take these attitudes (or ignorance) into the world as adults, and we all suffer. I value the #SOL community for the reflection, intelligence, insight, and wisdom that so many of you show, and I am welcoming suggestions and thoughts to move ahead with some learning experiences for everyone. 

With great respect to this community,

Day 8: #SOL16- Teaching About Reasons and Evidence

The Slice of Life Challenge is hosted by the inspirational writers of Two Writing Teachers. Each March, they invite people to join them in a commitment to write every day. Here's to another year of daily slicing!


One of the most challenging things for fifth-graders is to begin to develop their sense of logical thinking. By logical thinking, I mean their ability to build an argument. In order to build an effective argument, we have to create reasons and then support those reasons with evidence. I tell the students that it's like a pyramid with the claim on the top, the reasons on the second layer, and the evidence at the bottom supporting the reasons. Somehow the effective linking of a claim with the word because with a reason is extremely difficult for elementary students--sometimes it's difficult for adults, as well. I once heard someone say that because is one of the most misused words in the English language, and I didn't understand what she meant at first. However, now that I study how children learn to construct arguments and how hard it is to teach effective arguing, I understand how the meaning and use of the word because is a challenging concept.

Today, I guest-taught in a fifth-grade classroom, and they were preparing for a debate about whether or not their school should serve chocolate milk. This has become a popular debate in workshop-oriented classrooms because it is at the core of Teachers' College fifth grade argument curriculum.

I made a chart to try to guide the students into thinking within categories of reasons, as opposed to lists of evidence. An important differentiation to make with students is the difference between why, what, and how. When we answer the question of why, we are usually in the land of reasons. I called these why questions, and I taught the students that the answers to these types of questions go with the word because.

I tried to even develop a formula for them to use to test their reason. If their claim couldn't connect with the word because to their reason, then chances were high that what they thought was a reason was actually evidence. One girl understood that I meant when I wrote the following "equation" for her:

CLAIM + BECAUSE+ AN EXPLANATION= A REASON

Evidence is important, and I kept that clear as I worked my way through this chart. Sometimes evidence can even work as a reason. For example, in the above chart, the fact that chocolate milk can cause heart disease could work as a reason if the arguer wanted to keep saying more about heart disease, and it could also work as evidence if it is supporting the idea that chocolate milk should be banned because it causes health problems. The important distinction is that evidence answers the questions what or how.

During the half hour of work time the students had, they began to sort their information in much more meaningful ways, thinking about how the puzzle of reasons and evidence could all fit together to support their claim. Arguing and logic are such important skills, and it's fun to watch students begin to understand the power of a strong argument.

Happy Slicing,

Day 7-#SOL16: Having Students Ask Questions

The Slice of Life Challenge is hosted by the inspirational writers of Two Writing Teachers. Each March, they invite people to join them in a commitment to write every day. Here's to another year of daily slicing!

Yesterday, I used a technique described during a recent Teachers College workshop. Katie Clements did a fabulous job presenting a technique to use during read aloud to engage students to ask questions as opposed to just answer questions. In a fourth grade classroom, I read Jane Yolen’s newest book, The Stranded Whale.  (Could be my new favorite!) As Katie had done with a group of teachers in New York, I had a group of students ask questions, but only through the lens of character development. Another group was responsible for asking questions that pertained to the setting. Two more groups asked questions about figurative language and repetition, while a final group listened and asked questions that dealt directly with author’s ‘message and theme. To scaffold them, I brought in a chart to give them a sense of how to formulate questions, just in case they needed it. (I think this chart could have helped Katie's audience as well, as we were pretty quiet with our questions!)

As students caught on, the engagement was super high, and the questions students asked stunned both their teacher and me. What we realized listening to them and watching them process is that for students to be able to ask the question, they probably had to be able to answer the question. That being said, some of the students brought up some sophisticated ideas. For instance, what did the whale represent to the narrator? And, what was the significance of the repetition of eye imagery?

After I left, the classroom teacher asked students to reflect in their reading notebooks about how it felt to be the question askers instead of the question answerers Here’s what fourth-grade students wrote about the process.

"Asking questions during read aloud helped me go farther into the book, farther than I ever have before.The questions made me think harder for an answer which made me think about the true meanings in the book. In short, it made me really understand the book."

When we asked students to give a thumb up or down about whether they liked this approach, almost all of the students reported liking it. The two who didn’t fascinated me with their answers: "I just wanted to hear what happened in the book," one said. "It was hard!" the other said. "I just couldn't get the hang of asking questions."

Happy reading, writing, and slicing!

Day 6: #SOL16- Sentences With Double Meanings

The Slice of Life Challenge is hosted by the inspirational writers of Two Writing Teachers. Each March, they invite people to join them in a commitment to write every day. Here's to another year of daily slicing!

I'm still celebrating National Grammar Day which was on March 4th--the only calendar day of the year that is also a command. I posted a slice about it yesterday. 

With grammar on my mind, I had a long drive with my daughter Julia, who is a high school senior. She was a captive audience for me, as I was trying to think of sentences that could have double meanings along the lines of March 4th/ march forth. Julia knows the classic missing comma example: Let's eat, Grandma/ Let's eat Grandma, so she caught on quickly. 

We came up with:
Will he read the whole book?/ Will, he read the whole book!
Mom is their dinner./ Mom, is there dinner?
Where are pants from my brother?/ Wear our pants from my brother!

If anyone could come up with more, please include double meaning sentences in the comments. I'm looking to build a collection!

Happy Sunday!

Day 5- #SOL16: I Missed National Grammar Day!

The Slice of Life Challenge is hosted by the inspirational writers of Two Writing Teachers. Each March, they invite people to join them in a commitment to write every day. Here's to another year of daily slicing!

I'm a little disappointed because I learned that today is National Grammar Day too late! (Disclaimer: As I write this post, it is March 4th. Not March 5th.) You can read more about National Grammar Day here. I found out about through some favorite twitter friends. There are some very funny tweets to be found using the #GrammarDay hashtag.

One of my favorite nerdy pastimes is thinking about how to teach grammar in meaningful, engaging, and even funny ways. As someone pointed out on Twitter, March Fourth is the only day of the year that is a command. Think of the teaching possibilities that lie within the Common Core Language Standards:

Homophones and frequently misused words: Look at what happens when we remove the "u". The date become a command, just like that.  It's not quite as impactful and important as the comma in Let's eat, Grandma, but one letter really makes a difference.

Commas in Dates: Today, March 4, 2016, would have been a perfect day to review the comma that belongs after the 4, because students would have been intrigued to think about why we should march forth on March 4, 2016.

Capitalization of months: No capital needed if the command is to march forth, but you better have a capital M if you are talking about March 4th.

I definitely need to remember to celebrate March 4, 2017. It's a day to mark on the calendar with as much enthusiasm for linguists as Pi Day (3/14) is marked for mathematicians.

Maybe we can have a missed March Forth Day on March 7!

Cheers,

Day 4-#SOL16: The Writing Connection

The Slice of Life Challenge is hosted by the inspirational writers of Two Writing Teachers. Each March, they invite people to join them in a commitment to write every day. Here's to another year of daily slicing!

To be honest, I almost didn't take the SOL Challenge this year. I know this is a trope, but there is a lot on my plate. Maintaining my personal blog even weekly has been challenging. However, at the eleventh hour, I found myself filling out that participation form and drafting my first post of March. 

Tara Smith's post on the second day describes the connections she feels to her daughter because of books. "At lunch time, feeling the need to connect with her somehow, I reached for one of her favorite Harry Potter books," Tara wrote. 

Yes, books connect us, and so does writing. 

Throughout the day, I check in on comments, and I'm always happy to see comments from the people I have met through the writing community checking in and leaving a message. I'm also happy to meet new people through their comments and through the posts where I head to read and see what they are writing. And also, just as Tara connects with her daughter through books, I connect with my own daughter, Larkin, because this is her third year doing the Slice of Life.

Larkin is away at school, and even though I talk to her a couple times a week (sometimes more, sometimes less), reading her posts throughout March and seeing what she celebrates and highlights through her writing each day is an unbelievably powerful connection. It's one thing to put up pictures, which all of my daughters do, but it's another thing to take the time to reflect and write about them. 

(Quick plug for Larkin: she blogs at lalalalark.wordpress.com. She's funny, insightful, and generally short-winded, and she welcomes comments!)

Writing is something we value as a family. Even as I sit drafting right now, my youngest daughter is plunking away at her keyboard, sharing snippets of her story with me when she creates a special line or image. Maybe in another few years, she will be away at school connecting with me through the Slice of Life Challenge. 

Happy Writing!

Day 3-#SOL16: The Opportunities of Revision

The Slice of Life Challenge is hosted by the inspirational writers of Two Writing Teachers. Each March, they invite people to join them in a commitment to write every day. Here's to another year of daily slicing!

On Tuesday, I went way out of my comfort zone and I served as one of the presenters for a webinar about inquiry. Don't get me wrong--I am comfortable with the concepts of inquiry; in many ways I am more comfortable teaching an inquiry lesson than a direct instruction lesson at this point. However, sitting at my desk and talking to unseen people with three other presenters who I couldn't see either felt strange. An important reflection about the experience that I had as I drove home had to do with how much I love writing as a form of communication. 

Writing, unlike speaking, gives us unlimited opportunities to revise our thinking and self-edit what we put out for others to read before they read it. Yes, once we hit the publish button, there's an element of permanence, but not like speaking. When we speak, there's not nearly the same opportunity for redo's. We can say phrases like in other words, or what I mean to say, or I'm trying to say, or let me try to be clearer-- I have even come to use the phrase "Bear with me, as I'm drafting" when I am speaking out loud. But still, our words are out there within the permanent imprint of a webinar. 

All in all, I think the ideas we shared were important ones, and I hope that people do take some time to listen and watch. It was definitely a stressful hour--even longer as the ten minutes before it started were particularly nerve wracking. I could offer some tips for anyone who is about to facilitate their first webinar, but I'm glad I did it. 

I'd just rather write.

Happy writing,

Day 2-#SOL16: Challenging Students to Ask the Questions

The Slice of Life Challenge is hosted by the inspirational writers of Two Writing Teachers. Each March, they invite people to join them in a commitment to write every day. Here's to another year of daily slicing!


As our district's writing coordinator, I don't have a classroom of my own, so I don't always get to try out some of the new ideas I hear about in my land of professional development and inspiring conversations. I have been doing a lot of work this year about inquiry in the classroom, so I am constantly on the hunt for opportunities to get students asking questions. Today, I tried out a read aloud in a grade 3 and grade 4 classrooms where I had students ask the questions, rather than me. It was great. 

Here's a chart I shared with them to support some of them as they worked to formulate questions. I explained to them that we help out students with thinking prompts in workshop instruction, and we can also offer some support to help students become better questioners. 

I read the students Cheyenne Again by Eve Bunting which is a pretty intense picture book about a Native American boy who was taken away from his family to be educated during the late nineteenth century. Over the course of the book, I asked students to write questions--sometimes five questions, sometimes three questions, sometimes one really good one that could be used as a turn and talk. Engagement was high, maybe because the premise of the book intrigued them, maybe because I was a guest reader, but also because they loved thinking about questions. Some of the questions and wonderings were amazing and deepened by understanding and interpretation of the book. At one point, and I highly recommend this, I challenged them to pick just one of their questions and ask five more questions within that one question, really digging deeply into the wondering around that particular question. This strategy could be used for a picture, a short video clip, another read aloud, a cartoon--anything, really. The instructions, broken down simply are:

• Write down three to five questions you are having. 
• Choose the most interesting question.
• Write down three to five questions that all relate to that one question. 
• If you want an extra challenge, begin the second round of questions all with "What if?".

You will be surprised and amazed at the deep thinking that happens, and you will love the engagement levels!

Happy writing and reading!

2016 Slice of Life Challenge: Day 1- I'm Doing It!

The Slice of Life Challenge is hosted by the inspirational writers of Two Writing Teachers. Each March, they invite people to join them in a commitment to write every day. Here's to another year of daily slicing!

I've been struggling with the commitment of thirty-one days of writing, combined with thirty-one days of commenting. At the eleventh hour, I am taking the March challenge for the fourth consecutive year. Here are some of my reasons:

• I have met incredible people through this experience, and pleas note that met is not in quotation marks. I have met them at conventions, at coffee shops, at workshops, and for walks. They have been instant friends because of the connections we have made reading about each other's lives for a month. 
• I believe in writing. I am a better person when I write because I notice, interact, process, and reflect more when I am in a writing state of mind. I am a better listener, observer, and even participant in life. 
• I am a better writing teacher when I write. We ask our students to write every day. To think of new topics and develop them. To reveal and share their process and product to classmates and anyone else who is in the classroom that day. When I am engaging in a similar process, I have better insight, empathy, and advice for when students are stuck.
• I know that I can forgive myself if I don't write every single day or if I don't comment on as many blogs as I mean to. The prizes are awesome, but the reasons to do the Challenge are so much greater than the prizes. At the end of the month, I know that I will have new stories I have not thought of yet, new friends to look for at shared learning opportunities, and new insights about writing and its importance in my life. 

My word that has been guiding me through 2016 is wonder, and right now I'm wondering about my sanity as I embark on this challenge. I think I'm pretty sane though. And I'm looking forward to it. If my words have convinced anyone who is reading this post, you have a couple of days to get brave and jump in. You'll be glad you did!

Cheers,

It's Monday! Here's What I'm Reading--

Jen Vincent at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee Moye and Ricki Ginsburg at Unleashing Readers cohost It's Monday! What are You Reading? weekly on their blogs.  To see what others are reading and recommending each Monday, or to participate, be sure to head over to these blogs.

Tara Smith put The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin on my radar a few months ago, but I didn't get around to picking it up until last week. I'm so glad I did. (Warning: you will want to have time on your hands when you start this one because it's a little addicting.) Ali Benjamin does a fascinating job of moving between the past and present, as well as intertwining an almost informational component to the story, as the main character deals with grief by immersing herself in a study of jellyfish. There are so many important conversations that could come out of this book, as it tackles bullying, stereotyping, divorce, and perhaps most importantly, grieving. This book would be wonderful read aloud because of the engaging plot, but also because of the incredibly powerful scenes contained throughout the entire book. 



Pax by Sara Pennypacker has been a title that has come up over and over from other bloggers, as well as on my Amazon If you liked this, then you'll like this list. (How does Amazon always seem to know the books I want to read?) Like The Thing About Jellyfish, there are two stories to keep track of in Pax, a writing style that fascinates me as a writer. The stories of the fox and the boy alternate, and Sara Pennypacker is masterful at leaving readers with a critical situation. What important messages about peace and war exist in this text! At first I thought the depth of the story would have to do with the relationships between the main character and his father, as well as with the fox. However, as I continued to read, I realized that there were so many messages and themes around the complexities and damaging effects of war. It's an incredible book with hard-hitting, memorable scenes and interactions. 

Happy Reading,

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Jen Vincent at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee Moye and Ricki Ginsburg at Unleashing Readers cohost It's Monday! What are You Reading? weekly on their blogs.  To see what others are reading and recommending each Monday, or to participate, be sure to head over to these blogs.

Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate arrived at my doorstep last week, and I had uninterrupted reading time over the weekend.  It's one of those books that if you haven't read it yet, I'm a little envious of the experience that lies in front of you. Maybe because of the cover, I was anticipating an element of fantasy, but the plot line has nothing fantastical about it--it's real life poverty and homelessness in the life of an incredibly authentic fifth-grade boy. We were with friends over the weekend, and I left the book in the hands of our host, so I can't pull direct quotes from the book. However, the concepts of homelessness not happening all at once, but little by little, has stayed with me, and the importance of a little magic when we struggle resonates as well. With the short chapters, spot on dialogue, and hard hitting lines and messages, I can't imagine too many better books for read-aloud time. So, so good. 

Happy Reading,