Model, Model, Model

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."

Wanting to play off of the positive energy that our fall professional learning generated, I wanted the next steps of our professional development to show 6-12 teachers what modeling writing looked like in their content areas.

I invited all the stellar 6-12 Fox Valley Writing Project teachers I know to demonstrate the gradual release of responsibility when modeling writing on December 10th. My plan was to have every content teacher view a model, using the gradual release of responsibility, of writing by a Writing Project teacher who teaches that content. For example, I invited my friend David, a biology teacher, to model writing to the high school science teachers.

I plan, and God laughs. Naturally, that was not quite how things worked out. I ended up having to group some of the contents with smaller numbers of teachers together, because I could not get enough teachers to model in the elective classes. The groupings can be found at the bottom of the agenda (link) if you are interested in seeing how I grouped teachers.

Each FVWP demonstrator was partnered with an OASD facilitator, who was either a literacy coach or a principal. The agenda was set so that the OASD facilitator had the responsibility of setting the goal for the afternoon, introducing the demonstrator, leading teachers through the guide for how to prepare for a writing demonstration, and getting feedback on the session. The FVWP demonstrator was responsible for engaging the OASD teachers in writing and the gradual release.

The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. The high school science teachers really appreciated what David had shown them. One of the science teachers told me that this was the best collaboration she had ever been a part of in her 20 years in the district; another went to his principal and showed her how he was going to recreate his lesson plan for the following day, emulating what he saw David model! Impressive. Most people left the professional development session with a clear understanding of what modeling writing looked like in their contents.

Next came the tricky part--consistently building the modeling of writing into practice.