They Are Gold!

Today's post is brought to you by Lisa.

Lucy Calkins writes about how we have a choice when looking at the standards: we can look at them as curmudgeons, or we can look at them as they are gold. At a first glance, it appears as though there is much to be a curmudgeon about, but when teachers have the opportunity to slow down, to read and think about what these standards have our students engaged in, there are far more reasons to look at them as they are gold.

Over summer I taught an Advanced Institute with the lovely Robyn Bindrich and Paul Walter, through the Fox Valley Writing Project, and the focus of the course was all about the Common Core State Standards. The days were generally set up for us to do some writing, discussing texts, and learning about a new CCSS topic each morning; the afternoons were designated for the teacher leaders to investigate their inquiry topics, collaborate with peers, and begin thinking about the professional development they could offer as a result of the Institute. There was one activity that got such an overwhelmingly positive reaction that it made me think about how wise coaches would be to emulate it because, through the simple act of slowing down, to investigate one standard, much insight was developed.

The activity was shamelessly robbed from Doug Buehl; it was a modification of a crosswalk of the standards that I saw him model at the Wisconsin State Reading Association’s Convention last February. What we did, at our Advanced Institute, was this:

1. I wrote the kindergarten standard for opinion (argument) writing on a piece of chart paper.
2. I wrote the first grade standard for opinion (argument) writing on a separate piece of chart paper.
3. I then modeled how I went about determining what was similar and what was different between the two standards, and I recorded what was different at the bottom of the first grade paper. 
4. The teachers were then to follow that example. I had them grouped so that all of the elementary people, all of the middle school, and all of the high school participants were working together. In the end, I wanted them to see the K-12 progression, but I also wanted them to be engaged in a discussion around the grade level standards that were most applicable to each of them. Each grade level group worked to understand the standards, discussing one piece of much lager puzzle.
5. After grade level teams were able to discuss the differences between standards, every person was “assigned” a grade level to report out on. I began with reminding everyone of what the opinion (argument) standard looked like at kindergarten, and how it was different from first grade. The next elementary teacher shared the second grade standard, and then shared the differences between it and the first grade standard, and around the room we circled, one person reporting out the differences between two grade levels, with everyone listening and thinking about what was required at each grade level. Every one in the room had the opportunity to see where the standard was born, and how it grew at each grade level, ending with how it looked for high school juniors and seniors.

We did this exact activity for narrative writing and informational/explanatory writing. When it came to the days we focused on the speaking & listening and language standards, we had to modify this activity because those standards did not lend themselves as well to this crosswalk.

The discussion we had, as teachers shared differences between grade levels, was fascinating. We wondered, hypothesized, inferred, questioned, and problem-solved along the way. The discussion was powerful, and I think there are some reasons, found within the process of the crosswalk, that attributed to the rich discussion. The most important, in my not-so-humble opinion, is that teachers were focused solely on the standard of opinion/argument writing; this one standard was given all the attention during our new learning portion of the morning (approximately one hour). I admit that this was a luxury that we often don’t have in schools, but when there is a need, we can often be creative about finding a way…

The second reason I think this was so powerful was because in schools, we generally look at the standards that we are to teach, at the grade level we teach—we may look behind and ahead a year, but there is rarely time to look at the life a single standard. It’s a different story that teachers create when they look at the entire progression versus a limited look at the standard they must teach, and possibly a few that hover around the grade level they teach. When looking at the entire K-12 progression, there are subtle differences and those small differences make the task of transitioning less daunting. A teacher begins to tell him or herself that if the teachers before them teach their standards, their grade level standards are manageable.

The last reason I think this activity produced such an interesting discussion, is that when teachers are given the time to think about the K-12 life of a standard, they see how their grade level standard fits into the journey, with the end goals at 11th-12th grades. When we only look at isolated standards, we often complain that the standard does not make sense at our particular grade level, but when we see what has happened with the standard by the time it gets to our grade levels, and where it is expected to go after it leaves us, the entire scope and sequence makes more sense. We see how our efforts to teach our grade level standards play into the next grade level, creating a sense of a hidden accountability to next year’s teacher.

I recognize that fact that I had an ideal situation—time to provide this type of activity, with time to reflect on what was discovered. I fully understand how BIG the ELA standards are; I get it, but if we want our teachers to think of them as gold, we need to find ways to provide time that slows down the thinking about standards, and shows how each grade level contributes to the end goal!

Lisa references Pathways to the Common Core (Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman). A portion of the book is available online. See pages 7 - 8 for the passage Lisa references in which Calkins describes viewing the standards as gold.