A Favorite Picture Book

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers by Mordicai Gerstein

We have a very small amount of time with each of our students. I'll be the first to say that time needs to be intentionally and thoughtfully utilized. Sometimes, though, we just need to read a book together. 

In my middle school classroom, a few minutes of September 11 were, traditionally, set aside for just that purpose - reading a book together.

I gathered students together to read The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, Mordicai Gerstein's 2003 award-winning biography of Philippe Petit - a French man who walked on a tightrope between New York City's World Trade Center towers in 1974, not because it is a unique mentor text or because I wanted to teach students about plot or because I wanted to model visualization. 

I gathered students together to read The Man Who Walked Between the Towers because I believe sharing a story is a powerful way to build community and to connect and to remember.

What texts would you include in a text set about the events of September 11, 2001?

Related texts:
Philippe Petit, High Wire Artist

Resources: Literacy-Related SLOs

Literacy-Related SLOs: DPI's 2015 Literacy (un)Conference

Literacy-related school or student learning objectives (SLOs) provide a unique opportunity to improve academic achievement for students, strengthen professional practice, and collaborate with colleagues. DPI's 2015 Literacy (un)Conference highlights the voices of more than ten Wisconsin literacy leaders; each discusses his/her experience with SLOs.

The videos do not focus on the procedural or compliance aspects of SLOs. Instead, each featured literacy leaders speaks honestly about his/her experience. Topics include:

• the SLO as an authentic inquiry process for educators (think: action research)
• strategic assessment within the SLO process
• rigor and focus
• coaching around SLOs
• literacy-related SLOs (disciplinary literacy)

The videos (each less than four minutes) can be used in the following ways:

• "I never thought about that!" Watch one or more to push your thinking about SLOs
• "I have a video for that!" Be familiar with content of videos to be able to share as appropriate in coaching sessions, professional learning communities, or other professional learning situations
• "My staff development is missing a little something. . . " Select one video to intentionally share with your staff as inspiration as they begin thinking about and/or writing their SLO(s) for this year
• "This is perfect for ______!": Maybe you're not responsible for staff development related to SLOs. Share one or more of the videos with the person/people in your district who may be able to use the videos in their work.

One Word Goal Setting

I like to think that educators (and students) get a fresh start each September. It's like having two New Years every year (January + September) - two guaranteed times to feel bright, shiny, unstoppable, and optimistic.

For educators, September (just like January) is filled with ambitions and resolutions. Maybe it doesn't seem like it, but your school improvement plan, student learning objective (SLO), professional practice goal (PPG), and maybe even your professional development plan (PDP) are resolutions. They might be more data-based and involve more documentation than your New Years resolutions, but they, too, are resolutions.

How are all of those school year resolutions connected? 
What concept unites your professional goals and work?

What single word would you use to summarize that connection?

Now, think about all the ways that single word could become a mantra for you as you work toward your goals. Write it on a piece of paper. Doodle it. Hang it in your work space. Look for it around you. Tell people about it. Keep it near you.

This idea - single word goal setting - is popular in January, as people set resolutions for the year (read more about it from Ali Edwards, My One Word, or One Word 365). It works now, though, too.

Understand is the word that stands out for me in my professional life right now. It seems to be something that unites many things long-term projects.

• I'm always learning about and trying to better apply culturally responsive practices. Really understanding people - who they are, where they come from, what they want and need - is a big part of culturally responsive practice.
• I'm working on a project which will grow into the literature review for my dissertation. That's all about understanding.
• In conversations and meetings and emails and phone calls, I don't always take time to understand. Sometimes I want to help. Sometimes I want to move on to the next thing. I would benefit from just listening with no purpose other than to understand.

What's your word?

What Are You Reading: Summer 2015

Alternately Titled:

My Summer Reading Slump

The Time I Hated All the Books

Abandoners Anonymous

One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine

We usually start each month around here by talking about what we've been reading (see previous posts here). Usually, reader, we treat you to a variety of titles from each contributor. Today, you're stuck with me.

This fall, I’m looking forward to hot coffee, cardigans, boots and tights, and crunchy leaves. I’m also looking forward to curling up under a blanket and reading all of something I cannot wait to tell my friends glowing things about.

It's been a rough summer for me as a reader. I haven't finished much, and I haven't read anything I'm crazy about. I'm not sure what happened. Maybe I didn't slow down enough to read? Maybe I couldn't find the right thing? Maybe it was because my book club took a hiatus? Maybe this happens every summer?

I do a monthly subscription to Audible; I log many, many miles each month. I tried Behind the Beautiful Forevers, The Bedwetter, Go Set a Watchman, and Modern Romance. I begrudgingly finished Go Set a Watchman. I enjoyed parts of Modern Romance tremendously. I'm still listening and laughing aloud to The Bedwetter. I don't think I'll ever finish Behind the Beautiful Forevers.

I can usually find young adult books that hold my attention, but there wasn't much of that this summer either. I finished Personal Effects, a Read On Wisconsin selection and something my book club read. It wasn't my favorite. I abandoned Fangirl. I wanted to like it - I just couldn't get into the fan fiction parts and didn't find myself getting attaching to the characters.

I'm still reading All the Light You Cannot See. It's been months, friends. Months. It's beautiful writing and a captivating story. I just can't do more than a couple short chapters at a time.

So - that leaves Just Mercy and Spinster. They're sitting next to my bed or hanging out in my purse because they're what I'm reading now. I have high hopes that these two are the books that will end my slump.

What did you enjoy reading this summer? What are you reading now?

You can learn more about me as a reader by visiting my Goodreads profile.

Hello, September

Image from Ali Edwards

Hello, September and welcome back to The Literacy Booth. We took a little time off for the summer and hope you did, too!

Typically, The Literacy Booth treats you to around three posts per week (usually M-W-F) with each post from a different WI literacy coach. We will resume our typical schedule in October - more about that later in September.

Meanwhile, I (Barb) will use September to write about a variety of things that are on my mind. 

So, hello! I'm Barb. If I haven't met you yet, I am a literacy consultant at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. I'm lots of other things, too - reader, student, cook, ice cream lover, fun "auntie" Barb, TV watcher, wanderer, friend (to name a few).

I picked the words above - "Hustle less and live a good life more" - because I want to remind each of you to remember to live a good life - a good work life and a good personal life.

It's a new year. Goals are being set; routines are being established. Our shoes and crayons are new; everything seems possible. Make a habit of slowing down, being intentional, taking time away from the hustle to live a good life.

In that spirit, I'll leave you with some of my favorite summer selfies - all times I felt like I was living a good live amidst the hustle. From upper left -

1. I saw a few shows at American Players Theatre this summer with an assortment of friends, including my fellow literacy consultant, Laura. My favorite was Streetcar Named Desire.
2. I celebrated the Fourth of July on my BFF's patio beside Green Bay. There were smiling kids, sparklers, grilled meat, and s'mores.
3. I saw a ridiculous amount of live music this summer - including an adult sibling vacation to Eaux Claires.
4. I worked this summer. Luckily, my work often involves collaborating with some of my most favorite people. I'll use some blog posts this month to tell you about fun summer work.

Use the comments to introduce yourself. Who are you? What do you do?

We've Seen the Model - Now What?

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 service of our contents."

My vision of how this would play out changed once we returned from winter break. I thought that once teachers had the look and feel of the gradual release, the next steps would be planning for that same process of modeling and guiding writers. Time was provided each week during January collaboration times for such planning, and I had February 4th set as a time for teachers to come together to look at student writing--to see how their modeling, and use of GRR worked for their students.

By mid-January teachers were asking for more time to prepare. As I had conversations with teachers it was clear that this was an entirely new way of providing instruction, and fear was ruling. It became abundantly clear that we do not have a culture of learning established in our secondary schools. While it was not a shocking revelation, it was an insight that forced me to reflect on how starting with belief statements, or starting to build a culture of learning, would have been wise. Since I missed the boat on that critical aspect of professional development this year, I considered how we might be able to lead teachers into that culture shift next year. Turns out this was a glaring problem to many of the secondary leaders, and we are currently engaged in the messy work of planning how to foster that culture with teachers next year. More on that in the fall...

Back to January: I have the sense about me to listen to what the teachers say, and they were saying, “Slow down!” I knew it was necessary to pull back, and allow more time for teachers to plan for writing models, but applying the brakes was a disappointment because there was a tradeoff of time involved. To provide more time on the GRR, we were not going to be engaged in learning about and practicing close reading with the depth I had envisioned. I also felt, in some ways, that by allowing more time that some teachers might think we were sending the message that we do not need to continue using the GRR when the message was quite contrary. The message was this: We’ve heard you. We’re going to slow down and allow for more time to plan. We will not throw a new strategy at you in April, but….we need to continue practicing the GRR when modeling writing because the GRR is not going away, nor is our focus on writing.

The revised plan created more time in January for learning about the GRR with articles, videos, excerpts from Better Learning, and additional teacher demonstrations of modeling student writing--all dependent upon what teachers needed in each building. February was the new time frame to be engaging students in GRR when teaching writing; reading the writing students completed was also an expectation.

March 11th was the date that was designated for reviewing student writing and having conversations about the writing. I created a student work protocol, and placed teachers in small groups, with an English teacher or a literacy or instructional coach in each discussion group. I felt the English teacher was critical to the success of the conversations because, as teachers of writers, they hold the most insights when analyzing student writing. In the end, feedback was overwhelmingly positive! Many coaches reported that people, again, were saying that this was the best professional development session they had been to--we had similar feedback in December! The literacy coaches who were sharing this feedback, all commented about the depth and quality of conversations that took place. It was a time devoted to thinking about students, their writing, and the feedback that could be offered to students, and teachers appreciated the process.

We spent March engaging students in another round of writing, so the April literacy-focused professional development session was an additional opportunity to read, converse, and analyze student writing. The last (May) collaboration session of the year will focus on our data from English and social studies classes, the data sources for W4 and W9 goals; I am excited to receive all of it, as I have had many conversations with excited literacy coaches--boasting about the writing growth students have made this year. I’m anxious to see what that means as a district, and wondering what that means for professional development next year...

Coaching Teachers in Supporting Student Centered Writing

Bobbi Campbell contributed today's post. More of Bobbi's thinking can be found here.

The following resource was created after a discussion with a grade seven team of Language Arts and Social Studies teachers.  The problem they were trying to solve was two-fold:

1. How do I get my students to engage in the revision process?

2. How do we conference with every student in a timely way? 

Because of these issues, I created the following document specific to argument writing. As we engage in student-centered coaching cycles with teachers, we need to remember that the focus must be on student evidence of learning. Student learning includes building choice within parameters (promotes self-efficacy), shifting the cognitive load from teacher to student, and promoting the growth mindset by allowing students to reflect on the process of revision and the direct correlation to writing improvement. 

CLICK HERE to access the complete document 

(which includes differences between revision and editing, an argument criteria checklist, and directions for use).

The beauty about student-centered coaching is that whatever resource you create, the measure of its effectiveness includes feedback from the students themselves as well as teacher reflection on the adult implementation. Implementing this resource to support the revision and editing process is  recursive in nature and may require numerous iterations until success is achieved. The important piece is that we use evidence of student learning to shift our practice, or to problem solve next steps.