Day 23: #SOL16- Control vs Influence

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 was not my finest hour of parenting. I have one daughter who especially knows, finds, and pushes my buttons as a mother and as a person. I work hard to balance what I control and what I influence with her. I try to stay within the realm of influence, but sometimes it's hard. Last night she was pushing, and in the land of controlling and influencing, I ventured far into control territory. 

It was after nine when we got home from her concert. In between a meeting, tennis practice, and a workout session, she dashed in, took a shower, raided my closet for a white shirt, grabbed a plate of food, and headed to the high school. From downstairs, I heard her yell at my younger daughter to help her with her hair.

I could go on, but I'll summarize: It got ugly when she got home because I brought up her lack of kindness with her family. "You're crazy," she said. "I have homework, and you always do this. You never focus on anything I do right." It went on. I went from calm to mad, but a quieter mad than usual. However, a mad that walked out of her room with her cell phone and her computer.

"Fine Mom," she called. "I just won't do my homework."

She did do her homework on the family computer, and I did try to go back and fix things, but she wouldn't do any sort of reflection. I'll never force my girls to apologize, but I do expect them to be able to process a situation. Not happening. At least not last night. Her cell phone still sits beside me as I write this post.

Recently, I had a conversation with one of our principals about leadership and the balance of control and influence. I don't think there's a balance, actually. It's all about influence, or it's not leading. But sometimes, when we are stressed, when we are unsure of ourselves, when the task on hand is hard, we revert to practices we might not like, the ones that are more about control than about influence--like taking a daughter's phone or telling a colleague to just do something, or taking away recess or free time. These practices might work at that moment in time, but in the long run, probably not so much.

So what to do about this phone? It's 6:25 am. I have about a half hour to figure that out...

Happy slicing,

End of the Year Reflection

One of my favorite blogs to follow is twowritingteachers.wordpress.com. A few weeks ago, Ruth Ayres posted her own reflection on the end of the year, using the following three thinking stems.

• I learned…

• I was stretched by….

• I am excited about…

• I’m beginning to realize…

Responding to these thinking stems has been on my list since I read her post but I have been distracted by all of the end of the year reports, IEPs and some personal issues. However, I'm addressing these great thinking stems now!


I learned so much about adult learners this year. As part of my internship, my principal had me help with the induction of our new teachers. We are a relatively small school so our seven new teachers represented almost every grade level. We met regularly and we developed almost a curriculum for these teachers. Recognizing the amount of information they had to integrate and incorporate into their daily practice was so important as we helped them prioritize, set goals, and assess their own learning. It was amazing to me to watch them grow as teachers, inspiring each other to share and take risks. 


I was stretched by how to help students write meaningfully. I spent a lot of time thinking about the underlying skill sets of writing compositions of various genres. From there, I created a scaffolded set of isolated skills so that I could effectively teach students and also monitor and assess their progress. Most of my 4th to 6th graders became much more effective at developing topics and incorporating meaningful details or events to support them. Just today, we had a conversation with our sixth graders about the difference between learning to write and writing to learn, such an important place on the learning-to-write continuum. I will continue to stretch my thinking about the process, helping students find their voice and recognize the many purposes of written expression. Writing this blog has helped me (and stretched me!) to think about the learning, insight, and reflection that happens when learners sit and write and I am loving that some of my students are beginning to experience learning from writing. 


Over the year, I used more and more technology in my daily teaching and I am excited to continue this! One of our end-of-the-year professional development days is entirely devoted to technology and teachers will be selecting various workshops to attend. My iPad has helped my productivity and, while I love being able to access documents electronically, it has also been an engaging and highly effective way to teach and assess reluctant learners. Twitter (another exciting aspect of my year) offers me regular suggestions of new ways to incorporate the iPad and other technology into my practice and this integration will remain a top priority for my professional development.


I don't know where to begin what I'm beginning to realize because this statement is at the core of my daily work--I am ALWAYS beginning to realize something within my teaching profession. I think one of the most important responses to this stem is that teaching is coaching at all levels.  Over the course of the year, I read Opening Minds by Peter Johnston and Mindset by Carol Dweck. Both books emphasize the power of how we approach tasks within our learning processes but they also emphasize the power of language with children and adults. I have been constantly realizing how subtle language is and what strong messages we can unintentionally send. These are books that I will reread often, along with Choice Words by Peter Johnston and the Power of Our Words by Paula Denton.


Thank you again to Ruth Ayres for putting these thinking stems out there and compelling me to sit and really think about some of the learning highlights of the year. I admire the simplicity and depth of her statements and encourage anyone making it to the bottom of this post to link to twowritingteachers.wordpress.com and read her post. I also encourage people to spend some time with these thinking stems, revisiting the year's learning. Happy reflecting!

Takeaways from Instructional Rounds

Our school hosted instructional rounds this week and for the first time, in our district, a few teacher leaders were invited to participate in the process.  As a teacher leader, I was excited about this learning opportunity and knew that I was going to have many important takeaways that would extend my thinking as a teacher, literacy coach, and leader. 

As Melanie Meehan shared in our previous post The Power of Videos in Instructional Rounds, we have many new teachers so we focused our ‘Question of Practice’ on our new teachers by looking at specific standards: planning, learning environment, instruction, and collaboration.  I was a participant in the ‘Instruction Group’ and we visited classrooms varying from 1^st grade all the way to 6^th grade. In each of the five classrooms that we visited, we observed reading workshop.  As a teacher who writes and revises the reading curriculum in our district and coaches new teachers in literacy, I loved being able to see the current progression across grade levels in reading instruction.  Visiting these classrooms during reading workshop, I was able to observe and think about the level of vocabulary used during mini-lessons, the level of student independence, the level of student talk with classmates, and the quantity/quality of writing about their reading on post-its or in reader’s notebooks. 

Although students are practicing similar reading skills in all grade levels such as inferring, predicting, synthesizing, questioning, and interpreting, we want the skills to become more complex as the grades progress.  For the most part, I did see a progression, but there is always room for improvement in this area of complexity and rigor.  The Common Core State Standards emphasize text complexity, skill progression, and rigor so I am looking closely at our reading curriculum with this lens to make sure we are increasing the level of skills and level of rigor in our classrooms in each grade level for our students. 

One way that we can help to identify, reflect, and implement more rigor in our teaching is to observe across grade levels to see firsthand what students are learning and doing independently in the previous grades.  I also think coaches and school leaders will benefit from observing reading workshop (and other subjects) across grade levels, focusing on one skill at a time.  For example, they should visit classrooms from 1^st grade to 6^th grade with the lens focused on inferring, developing theories about characters, etc. so they can see the skill progression that is currently in place and evaluate whether there are too many overlaps. Pathways to the Common Core , which I wrote about in a recent post, recommends shared walk-throughs with colleagues to focus on the ways second graders through sixth graders grow theories about characters (pg. 19).  By doing this, we will see if strategies are being recycled each year or if the progression is developmentally appropriate and is rigorous enough for our students.  By observing across all grade levels using the same lens, we will be able to identify and reflect on the skill progressions as well as make necessary revisions that foster a rigorous curriculum for our students each year.  

Participating in Instructional Rounds extended my thinking as a teacher leader and literacy coach in many ways.  I would love to hear about your own experiences with instructional rounds, the takeaways you have, and the impact it has on your teaching and coaching.  

The Power of Videos in Instructional Rounds

Our elementary school hosted instructional rounds today and so all of the district's administrators arrived at 8:00 this morning. Our principal, Grace, invited a few of the building's teacher leaders to participate, including me and Melanie Swider. During her welcome and powerpoint presentation, Grace reviewed how many new teachers we have, as well as how many teachers are in new positions. Teams of administrators would be visiting five of the new teachers' classrooms to evaluate how the extensive induction programs we have provided throughout the year have helped them develop their practices. Nerve-wracking for the new teachers, no doubt, but an authentic and meaningful problem of practice to explore!

Grace assigned the administrators into specific teams with each team looking at a specific standard. She had one team focus on planning, one focus on instruction, one focus on classroom environment, and one team focus on collaboration. I stayed with the collaboration group and we watched a series of video clips in the media center. While I don't think that this is the norm for instructional rounds, it was an incredibly powerful activity to share with administrators from around the district!

The five video clips that we watched were:

1. One of our PLCs reviewing a lesson that they had shared with each other. One of the fourth grade teachers consistently had students doing well on district writing assessments in elaboration so the team decided that they would watch her lesson and determine what she was doing that was so effective. The video showed them talking about their noticings, their own students, and next steps. 
2.  A PLC setting up a SMART goal at the beginning of the second cycle of inquiry. Grace facilitated this meeting and the video showed strong dialogue about reviewing data, establishing baselines,  developing a plan and hypothesis, and setting criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of their action steps.
3. A kindergarten PLC discussing how to improve the books that the children were reading and how to improve the shares that happen in their classrooms. 
4. One of our New Teacher Meetings where teachers were talking about what tools and resources they have used throughout the year to help them develop professionally.
5. A coaching session between Melanie and three of the new teachers.

From watching these videos, we could see the clear patterns of teachers taking risks, sharing practices, wondering with colleagues about the effectiveness of their strategies, and pushing each other to reflect not only on their own work but on each other's practices as well. I had initially wondered how effective sitting and watching videos of meetings would be for administrators but having experienced it, I can attest to rich conversations and meaningful feedback that is possible from this activity. I am just finishing my administration program so I have only been on the receiving end of instructional rounds until today. Have others used video clips as part of rounds? What have your experiences been if you have? I'd love to hear!