Back to Basics Part 3 - Principal Support

Julie Schwartzbauer contributed today's post. All of Julie's posts about her district's "Back to Basics" plan can be accessed here.

In my last “Back to Basics” post, I wrote about how our coaches are using Mary Catherine Moran’s coaching continuum.  The coaching continuum is allowing our coaches the opportunity to differentiate for the teachers in their building.

The Literacy Coaching Continuum (Moran, 2007)

As our coaches continue to explore the various coaching formats, it is becoming apparent that they need the support of their building principal. If we want to build consistency across the district in best practices, then our principals must be seen as leaders in literacy. Teachers must see that the building principal is committed to the district goals and will play a role in supporting them.

In her book Read, Write, Lead, Regie Routman writes about how a principal can become an outstanding leader when they have a deep understanding of literacy.  We want our principals to know what’s most important to look for and listen for in the literacy classroom, as well as how to give feedback and support teachers.  

When we started with our “Back to Basics” plan our vision was that principals would be part of developing shared beliefs through our coaching PLCs. They would partake in classroom visits with building coaches.  They would work with teachers and coaches through ongoing professional collaboration.   

This sort of collaboration takes time; however, our principals have been part of developing our shared beliefs.  As our coaches continue to meet twice per month, the principals are invited to be part of the PLC.  With knowing how busy principals are and respecting the fact that they are needed in their building, we have asked that if possible, they attend the Shared Beliefs PLC with their coaches.  During this PLC, coaches and principals pour through resource upon resource, focussing on one component of balanced literacy.  As a group of 25+, they develop shared beliefs surrounding that component.  These beliefs are then put into a document that is later rolled out to teaching staff.

In my next post, I will talk about how coaches are rolling out the “Back to Basics” components in their buildings.

A Book Review: Having Hard Conversations

Andrea Reichenberger contributed today's post.

Earlier this month we posted what we were reading and I shared that I was reading:

Having Hard Conversations

Jennifer Abrams. (2009).

Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin.

No matter how many coaching workshops I attend or how many books I read, one skill I believe I have never gotten enough practice with is having those hard conversations.  The opportunities to have them are in abundance, but I often avoid them for fear that I might not handle them appropriately.  I’m sure all coaches would agree that It is difficult to have conversations with our peers whom we work with about their behaviors. However, as I begin to read this book, a quote on page 6 captivated me:  “We can suffocate under the status quo, and our students will not get the education they deserve because we are not courageous enough to speak up and ask each other how to be our best selves. To be more authentic and more truthful in schools every day will allow us not only to survive, but to thrive.” This is important as I reflect on behaviors that I see my colleagues display. I want to ask, is this the best you can do?  And if so, what are you modeling for our students? By not speaking out, it might look to an outsider as if we condone the other person’s behavior and make it possible for him or her to believe that the behavior is OK.

When addressing another argument I often use against myself:  I have no authority, so who am I to address certain behaviors and situations? I took special note when the author quoted Marianne Williamson on page 18.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

The book has a simple lay out and at 99 pages in length (less the resources) is a fairly quick read.  Abrams begins by emphasizing  the need for having hard conversations and then addresses all of the reasons why we hesitate to have them. With each excuse she offers a thoughtful question for reflection that  For example, one excuse I often use myself is that I’m “Waiting for the Perfect Moment.”  The authors suggests to not over-think (which I often do), develop a time limit for planning the conversation as well as creating a deadline for conducting it.  She asks the poignant question, “...do we have the luxury of waiting until next year to focus on an instructional weakness that is not serving students?” (p.15). The answer is, no, we don’t.  

Additional questions that guide the rest of the chapters include asking what is the real problem?, finding the professional language to name it, and making a plan that includes scripting your initial comments.  She also includes a chapter about other important elements to consider when having the hard conversations as well as several resources including an extended list of professional teacher behaviors, school savvy etiquette, and sample scripts. This book helps guide the reader through conversations with teachers as a colleague, a coach, a supervisor, or an administrator. In addition to your collection of coaching titles by Jim Knight, Cathy Toll, and Diane Sweeney, I highly recommend adding Having Hard Conversations by Ms. Abrams.

Sharing with Department Heads (continued from December)

Lisa Weiss contributed today's post. For more information, read Lisa's other posts about her district's "laser-like focus on the intentional use of literacy in the service of our contents." This post is a continuation of "Sharing with Department Heads."

The discussion of the bulleted items from November, with the department heads was fascinating, and after we defined what we meant by disciplinary literacy, I transitioned into the why behind the focus of writing as a 6-12 school improvement goal, and what it meant for all departments/teachers as we considered writing SLO’s.

I “sold” this 15 minute time to the department heads as a mini-keynote. I talked through how, by focusing on writing, and specifically writing standard 9, we are all pulling in the same direction. I suggested that they consider using writing as an SLO for two reasons: we have data from social studies and English as established data points, and all the 6-12 professional development this year is focused on writing. An SLO, quite naturally, is determined by a teacher, and while we want them to write an SLO that makes sense to them, we wanted to encourage them to write one based on the professional learning that was to take place.

After sharing this information, I had the department heads talk to a partner, reconstructing my messages about why we were moving to a writing goal, how W9 was chosen, how W9 still relates to our reading goals from last year, how the professional development calendar focuses on writing, and how all of this ties to SLO’s. As pairs of department heads verbally processed the information, I walked around, clarifying questions. I did this for two reasons. I needed them to understand all of this information so they could articulate it to their colleagues in their departments, and I needed the opportunity to address any misunderstandings.

Although people were kind, I knew this was unexpected information, and it was clear that  they were considering the ideas, as well as anticipating the outcomes. I wanted to share some examples of high schools where teachers pulled in the same direction and saw astonishing results. I went to an old favorite, Mike Schmoker. In Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning, Schmoker gives examples of high schools where teachers systematically and consistently engaged kids in close reading, and/or monthly formal writing assignments, and/or Socratic discussions, for example, and then reported what that did for student learning--at Tempe Preparatory Academy, 100% of students passed their state examinations in reading, writing, and math! I wanted to show the department heads the results of all of us speaking the same language, and pulling in the same direction!

I pulled an excerpt from the text, “Simple, Redundant Literacy,” for the group to read and discuss, and I ended by sharing my simple, redundant literacy professional development plan for the district. Here’s the gist of what I shared:

• I promise to keep it simple!
• I promise to share one, maybe two reading strategies.
• I promise to model how to model the writing you require of your students.
• I promise to teach you how to assess the writing as a content teacher. I promise to keep it simple!
• I promise that we will follow a learning progression like this: learn a new strategy, then have time to plan for the use of it, implement it, and then return to the student work to analyze. Whenever we learn something new, we are going to take the time each week at collaboration to think more and plan for the intentional use of it!
• I promise to slow down if you’re not ready to move on, and I promise to differentiate for those buildings that need something different.

It was a great day, and I think the words of one teacher sums up how the day went for most of the department heads. Afterward, a teacher I met for the first time that day, one who taught a content where the idea of writing could be tricky, approached me to say: Nobody, absolutely nobody, was excited about coming here today to hear about literacy, but you made it okay, and I think I can do this because I think your plan is simple, makes sense, and I feel like you are going to support us.

Not a bad first impression!

What Are You Reading: February 2015

1. Barb read Boxers and Saints by Gene Luen Yang. She says, "I picked this one up because it is a Read On Wisconsin! selection. It's a set of two graphic novels depicting China's Boxer Rebellion (a part of history I embarrassingly knew nothing about) from two points of view. My discussion of the book with colleagues included a lot of talk about text complexity, which is interesting to consider with a graphic novel."


2. Lisa is reading Five Levers to Improve Learning by Tony Frontier and James Rickabaugh (two expert Wisconsin educators!!)


3. Heather is reading Choice Words by Peter Johnston. She describes the book as having many "ideas on how to best use language for effective learning outcomes" and also says, "I know everyone has read this before... I missed the boat. I am checking it out finally."


4. Carrie describes the The Writing Thief by Ruth Culham as ". . . a book that continues to remind us of the importance of modeling and mentor texts. Essays from influential writers included in the text stress this same idea or can be used as mentor texts themselves."


5. Carrie is also reading Best Practice: Bringing Standards to Life in America's Classrooms by Steven Zemelman, Harvey Daniels, and Arthur Hyde. She says, "This book is about excellent teaching and powerful learning.  This book defines best practice for young teachers, principals, administrators, instructional coaches, parents and school board members."

6. Jaimie is reading the Millenium Trilogy by Steig Larsson which begins with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for personal reading. She describes it as a "great mystery with lots of twists" and says, "It definitely keeps you thinking."

7. Bobbi is reading Coaching Conversations by Linda Cheliotes and Marceta Reilly. She says, "This coaching book provides a myriad of questioning strategies to help facilitate a change in practice in order to improve student learning."

8. Bobbi is also reading Code Name Verity by Elizabeth E. Wein. Bobbi explains, "This piece of historical fiction takes place during World War II (1943). A British spy plane flown by a young female pilot and her best friend passenger crashes into Nazi occupied France. The passenger, 'Queenie,' is captured and interrogated by the Gestapo."

Use the comments to continue the conversation by telling us what you're reading.

Comprehension Focus Groups: An Informational Lens

Heather Zimmerman contributed today's post. More of Heather's posts about comprehension focus groups in middle school can be found here.

We finished up the first Comprehension Focus Group (CFG) and are now in full swing of the second CFG.  I decided for the second CFG that we would focus on informational texts.  I really wanted to tie in another class to this learning, so the students could be frontloaded with new information to come.  I had looked at the curriculum for social studies and science and was able to find the most in regards to leveled texts for the social studies curriculum that is covered second quarter.

In 7th grade, students cover the Middle Ages and in 8th grade students learn about about American Revolution.  I spent a lot of time trying to find books that would best meet the needs of all of my students, help them learn the curriculum, and also interest them.  At the beginning of the unit we looked at text structures (description, sequence and order, compare and contrast, cause and effect, and problem and solution) and practiced using a few articles to see if they could choose an effective text structure to take notes with.  I ended up using the text structures as part of our discussion during phase two.  We also reviewed text features during the preparing phase to review titles, headings, bold faced words, the glossary, etc.  As we know, students know about these features but do not always see the importance in using them.

I also did quite a bit of research to see what graphic organizers I wanted to use.  For graphic organizers, I decided to look at Doug Buehl’s work on “Questioning the Author.”  Part of the reason for turning to this strategy was because our district literacy coordinator is planning on sharing this with staff during this school year, and I had no experience using it.  I figured I would build my knowledge with this strategy for the coaching side of my role.  I also looked at Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis’ work in “The Comprehension Toolkit.”  I created a graphic organizer for students to hold their thinking through the CFG.

Link to graphic organizer

The plan for students was to use the graphic organizer to deepen comprehension and also to keep track of questions they had.  This would then be used during the writing phase, as a way to research unanswered questions and create a pamphlet for social studies teachers’ classrooms.  

Here is a list of texts I used.  Some were certainly better than others, but they all worked.  We also, did not read the books cover to cover.  We started off together, but I also gave them choice throughout phase one.

Middle Ages (Studied in 7th grade)

• Knights and Samurai by Vicki Tyler Wilt (Mentor text)
• The Black Death by George Capaccio
• The Middle Ages by Allison Lassieur
• The Magnificent Medici by Erin Ash Sullivan (Focused on the Renaissance)

American Revolution (Studied in 8th grade)

• If You Lived at the time of the American Revolution by Kay Moore (Mentor text)
• George vs. George by Rosalyn Schanzer
• The Revolutionary War by Elizabeth Raum
• Those Rebels, John & Tom by Barbara Kerley

Student Centered Coaching: How Do We Change Teacher Practice Through the Art of Questioning ?

Bobbi Campbell contributed today's post. Read more of Bobbi's posts about student centered coaching here.

January is always the time of year when I feel most reflective and commit to changing something that I can control.  This year I am committing to changing my questioning techniques. I want to try to use David Perkins research on offering meaningful feedback to teachers and coaches in order to increase student learning.

We all know that truly changing instructional practice comes from the choice within the person needing to change.  That is what is so glorious about student-centered coaching - the focus is on the student, not the teacher.  It is through the art of questioning from the coach that can

move teachers to finding the answers within themselves. The overall purpose of the coaching is always on the student learning.

Perkins (2003), states that offering meaningful feedback can be categorized by the following:

1. Clarifying questions or statements
2. Value statements or questions
3. Questions or possibility statements

To help facilitate coaching conversations, here are a few talk stems from,“Coaching Conversations: Transforming YOur School One Conversation at a Time”  by Cheliotes and Reilly.

Clarifying Questions:

• “How do you see this different from…?”
• “How did your students respond to this process?”
• “What gaps did you notice within your student work samples?”

Value Statements/Questions:

• “You have really thought about this deeply.”
• “I see evidence of…”
• “It provides high engagement for students by…”

Reflective questions or possibilities:

• “What are you considering in regard to…”
• “What connections have you made to…”
• “I wonder what would happen if…”

I highly recommend reading the entire book! In closing, remember when giving feedback, ask yourself the following questions:  is the feedback productive? Is it specific enough to result in a change in practice? Is it respectful?

Bringing Back the Book Club

Carrie Sand contributed today's post.

Bringing Back the Book Club: 

An examination of the wondering: “Why do book clubs work in my classroom with students but not for professional development with teachers?”

Last month I thought about the variety of ways that I’ve provided professional development options for teachers in my role as a Literacy Specialist. While I am happy with the wide range of strategies that I’ve used, especially my success with using online PD formats, one option that I continue to re-examine is the book club for teachers. Starting in November, I created a goal to implement and maintain a purposeful model for using books clubs. Below is my reflection on the process and my implementation plan.

Why my obsession with trying to make this work?

Because I think about my own learning….while classes and conferences are nice,  almost 99% of my own professional learning comes from the books and articles that I choose to read. Which makes me wonder...what about those teachers who never make the time to read on their own? How does their learning continue?

The other question one may wonder is why now? Why in the time of year when we are all busy with lesson plan writing, grading, end of semesters, and holiday concerts?

Because once again I reflect on my own learning  process; every June I leave my classroom with a stack of professional resources that I didn’t find time to read throughout the year. I optimistically think about the long three months ahead and the leisure time I’ll have to browse all the resources I’ll ever want to implement come September. Then I snap back to reality and realize that a) very little about summer is usually leisure time and b) whenever I read about professional development options in the summer by September I’ve either forgotten them or don’t have a good plan for implementation.

Professional development and professional reading is at its best when the need is immediate and implementation can begin the next day. So how to change my structure to actually make this work….

Thinking about my implementation plan for book studies, my goal is to move away from the whole school required book to team lead conversation and selection. In this way I hope to replicate my own learning process of personal inquiry. I hope this new approach allows teachers to take control of their learning and implementation of best practices within their own classrooms.