Back to Basics: Building Roll-Out

Julie Schwartzbauer contributed today's post. Read Julie's previous posts to understand more about her district's Back to Basics plan.

Appleton has 16 elementary schools.  Each school has at least one literacy coach. Our larger schools have two.  Most of our coaches have a divided role; they are part interventionist and part coach. The focus of their coaching is not only the Back to Basics components, but also that of meeting the needs of individual teachers.

When we rolled out the first Back to Basics component to our coaches, we developed a shared beliefs document along with additional resources that coaches could share with their teachers.  As part of the Back to Basics plan, coaches were encouraged to visit classrooms to observe teachers implementing the component. These visits were meant to be seen as informative, not evaluative.  As I stated in my previous post, it was critical to have principal support.  

After the classroom visits, coaches would meet with their coaching PLC, concentrating their discussion on the following questions:

• What made the instruction in the focus component good?
• What did you notice about the teacher’s use of language, planning, instruction, etc.?
• What did you notice about teacher/student interaction?
• What did you notice about student engagement?

Coaches were then asked to develop a coaching plan for their building, focusing on the component.  Coaches were to use the Coaching Continuum to determine how they would support their teachers.  Would they offer support through planning, modeling, formative assessments, sharing of resources, analyzing data and student work, co-teaching, presentations, etc.?  As district coaches, we felt it was our job to “clear the path.”  We wanted to support building coaches throughout the building roll-out, and help them overcome any obstacles that might get in the way.

When coaches came back to the coaching PLC, we were disheartened to find that things did not go as smoothly as we had hoped.

In my next post, I will share the steps we took to improve our building roll-out plan.

Lesson Study: Guided Practice

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

Recently, our literacy team  developed a sample lesson plan including the dialogue and actions of the teacher as well as the dialogue and actions of the students.  Making the thinking visible within the lesson plan allows for an opportunity for educators to be involved in a lesson study. During a lesson study, school-based teams can identify the areas where guided practice is visible, as well as identify other areas where guided practice can be inserted. The videos found within the Tools and Resources: Guided Practice can be used to prompt further discussion and collaboration.

For this lesson, we highlighted guided practice during a lesson on the following content standard:

• Use words, phrases, and clauses [ to link the major sections of the text], create cohesion, and clarify the relationships between claim(s) and reasons, between reasons and evidence, and between claim(s) and counterclaims. (CCSS ELA W.9-10.1.c)

Note:  While I typically work with middle schools, I have added one high school this year as evidenced by the grade 9 standard.  Please note the new learning in the standard which is indicated by the use of brackets [ ].

The strategies used are explicitly labeled and examples are provided within the lesson plan where you will see a lesson on using co-constructed anchor charts to improve student writing. Don’t be daunted by the length of the lesson, as it is 16 pages due to the fact that all Teacher Talk, Teacher Moves, Student Talk, and Student Moves are all included within the lesson.

Links to the Tools and Resources:

Tools and Resources: Guided Practice: This document includes research articles and videos.

Example Grade 9 ELA Lesson Plan : This lesson can be used for a lesson study.

Disciplinary Literacy: A Science Focus

Carrie Sand contributed today's post. Carrie's other posts about planning professional learning can be accessed here.

As a literacy coach who is housed in a high school building, I spend a lot of time thinking about and having conversations centered around disciplinary literacy. 

Recently, my principal asked me to incorporate one hour spotlight refreshers during our monthly inservice days on the topic of disciplinary literacy for content area teachers grades 6-12. Using a small group approach, I recently worked with the science department to incorporate some ideas and strategies from the Doug Buehl's book Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines. 

When discussing disciplinary literacy, the elephant in the room tends to be, “How do I teach literacy on top of all of my other content requirements?” In order to address the issue, I like to begin all content area conversations with some sort of reflection on values and requirements. For this particular inservice, I had the science teachers begin by engaging in a free write activity reflecting on the questions: “What do you value teaching students about in your content area? In other words, what must students walk out of your classroom knowing and what skills do you give the kids to achieve this?” 

After writing, I encouraged the teachers to share ideas, and we noted patterns. After examining our beliefs as content area teachers, I lead teachers through a conversation of how these values do and possibly do not match with our requirements as teachers. In this particular conversation, I used the Wisconsin Foundations for Disciplinary Literacy to mark where our values are emphasized within the standards versus where there may be times when the standards conflict with the things we value. Typically, though, this conversation tends to empower teachers that the literacy standards for content areas support their goals in helping students become proficient readers, writers, speakers, and thinkers in their content field.

After establishing our values and requirements, we were finally ready to investigate some strategies to help us reach our goals. Within his book Buehl claims that students in our content areas often feel like “discourse outsiders.” This phrase refers to the idea that many students come into our classrooms without the vocabulary, concepts, or experiences to proficiently interact with the content of our curriculum. Therefore, as the classroom expert, teachers must find the strategies to help students engage in our curriculum by, what Buehl calls, “bridging the gap.” 

As a science team, we began an investigation of strategies in the book that would best help our students “bridge the gap” within our science classrooms. One strategy that I modeled for our teachers was a text marking protocol, utilizing text structure frames. Buehl provides a protocol for marking that requires students to first determine the structure of the text. By giving students skills to identify specific structure traits and guiding question stems, students are able to identify different text structures such as cause-effect or problem-solution. Once a structure is identified, students can mark using a coding strategy based on the structure. For example, in a cause and effect text, students may use a C or an E to identify key concepts within the text. By using the structure and then a specific protocol for marking, students no longer “guess” at what is important enough to highlight or mark. Using the strategy as a team, we created a model by using a piece of text from Buehl’s book:

Part of the tenuousness of our personal knowledge base in science is that science knowledge does not stay put. (P) Instead, as life-long learners, we, just like scientists, need to continuously evolve our understandings to reflect new evidence,new findings, new explanations, and new theories. (S1) Hence a critical role of complex texts in science is to present on-going evidence based alternatives to unschooled conceptions of the physical and biological world. (S2)

Together we created  a coding system that identified the problem with a P, one solution as S1, and a second solution as S2. After looking at our markings, we decided that we could take the strategy one step further by making some summarizing annotations in the margins of the text. Together we summarized the passage in our words by saying that Buehl is claiming that:

• Science is always changing which can be a problem for students and teachers
• Teachers need to keep developing their own understanding as well as provide opportunities for students to work with evidence to expand their conceptions (or misconceptions) as well.

After examining our values, looking at our requirements, and using a resource to help us identify a strategy, the science teachers left the inservice feeling empowered by their identified values, invigorated by collaborative approach, and a new strategy, with a model, ready to implement.

Rocky Start

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."

After the late August department head retreat, the start of the school year was here in a flash. The understanding was that two weeks into the year, at the first building-focused collaboration (September 10th), the principals, literacy coaches, and department heads would be sharing the district writing goal, and the vision I shared with them at the summer department head retreat. This would give people time to think about the plan, ask questions, and consider using the district goal as their SLO up until SLOs were due, at the end of October.

One thing I appreciated about the professional development plan for the year was the way the two high school principals and I allowed time for many of the new initiatives to be the focus of the professional development times through September and October. With the exception of September 10th, every Wednesday morning was devoted to new initiatives: Framework for Teaching, Infinite Campus, Smart Boards, and ACT Aspire and WKCE teacher preparation. We thought it would be wise to devote time to the initiatives that would be on teachers’ minds early in the year, so that teachers would be ready to think about instruction and literacy by the time we kicked off on November 5th. In retrospect, that was a great idea, one that I hope we will hang onto next year, but what made the road a rocky one was that the teachers were on initiative overload. We were not all in a place where we could focus on literacy by the time November 5th rolled around.

I pulled the department heads together on October 22nd for two purposes:

• To get specific about SLOs, and how your department can engage kids in writing
• To prepare for November 5th’s disciplinary literacy kickoff

We spent most of our time talking about SLOs and looking at examples from each content area, of how we could begin to purposefully and consistently build in writing. We talked about the questions department heads brought forward from their colleagues, we talked about the data coming from English and Social Studies, we talked about teachers from each department creating their own baseline assessments, we talked and talked and talked, until every last question was discussed, and department heads had the ability to back to their colleagues and share the discussion points. It was time well-spent, but truthfully, a concern of mine was how those messages would be shared with teachers.

We also  revisited the disciplinary literacy activity I engaged them in in August, and I clarified questions, and offered troubleshooting as I modeled the roles the department heads would have facilitating on November 5th. The week of November 3rd, I went to each building, to address any last minute November 5th kickoff preparation concerns, questions, and/or anxiety of department heads. At the middle schools, the literacy coaches were facilitating this professional learning, so I felt confident that they were ready, and, therefore, did not go to each middle school for a check-in.

The kickoff went well, perhaps better than I could have imagined! The literacy coaches were excited, the teachers were seeing how they use literacy, but more importantly, recognizing that assigning it is different from engaging our students in the six literacy processes; principals were pleased with the discussions that came as a result of this activity/kickoff. One of the middle school literacy coaches wrote to me, “You made me look like brilliant today!”

Although the road along the first two months of the year were bumpy, the disciplinary literacy kickoff went well, and I was even more excited about what was to come in December: Modeling writing, using the gradual release of responsibility, by content teachers who really model writing!

Comprehension Focus Groups: Deeper Thinking

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

Donalyn Miller and Chris Lehman.   These are the two people I saw at Wisconsin State Reading Association's (WSRA) annual convention that got my mind rolling in a million different directions thinking about their ideas and how I was going to implement them.  Are you ever listening to a speaker and hear things that are so obvious, but yet you question if you do them or wonder why you never thought of that?  I had some of those moments.  And, I also had those moments where I was thinking, “Wow, that is brilliant!”

I could go on and on about my learning from the two of them, but in this blog, I am going to focus on some key take-aways from Chris Lehman’s session titled, “Making Reading Visible: Writing about Reading that Promotes Deep Thinking and Student Growth”.  The take-aways I am going to share, I plan on using in my Comprehension Focus Groups (CFGs).

Lehman focused on deepening thinking and pushing learned.  He talked about deepening conversations and also ways to deepen students' thinking in writing.  One idea he shared to help with this process is to think about leveled books and the characteristics of books at a certain level.  He encouraged teachers to think about this and also to see how this lines up with standards.  To show his thinking on this process, he asked, “What do different bands have kids do?”  Here is an example that he shared:

• N, O, P, Q (P= Magic School Bus)
• Main character (lots of times one, sometimes a few)
• Characters don’t change (sometimes their feelings do, but not them)
• Lots of support with setting

• R, S, T (T= Diary of a Wimpy Kid)
• Complex important setting
• Secondary characters are important

• U, V, W (U= Wonder V= Harry Potter)
• Complex characters
• Changing setting

(I included the title examples, so if you are not familiar with Fountas and Pinnell’s leveling system, you could still get a general idea with the titles.  Most levels I looked up on Scholastic’s website.)

Lehman points out that this thinking can tie back to the feedback teachers give students.  He shared that teachers can read student writing and think what level are the students writing towards. Sometimes their thinking shown through their writing might be lower than their text reading.  If this occurs, Lehman suggests saying, “Can I teach you something?  I know something about this book that…”

This was one of those moments when I was thinking how obvious this is, but how brilliant.  I have a general idea of what happens at different levels of texts, but never thought about it in this specific way.  I feel if I think about texts in regards to the leveled bands and then focus (when needed) on character and setting that will really help me push my students writing and thinking about the texts they are reading and writing about.

Teaching Teachers About Close Reading

Andrea Reichenberger contributed today's post. More of Andrea's thinking can be found here.

After reading fellow blogger, Carrie Sand’s post  Rethinking Professional Development Options  in January, I thought seriously about the professional development we have been designing for staff members in our district. Recently,we hired a new technology coach, my new office mate, whom I fondly refer to as “The Greg.”  In other words, I have been blessed with another great opportunity to learn. With his help, I decided to take a risk with a new approach.

One of our school wide goals is to work on close reading.  Close reading--not to be confused with reading closely-- is the teaching strategy that involves reading a complex text, annotating, having collaborative conversation, and re-reading based on increasing levels of text dependent questions created by the teachers.

Our first session was in January. We broke the PD down by first explaining why we were taking this approach.  The teachers had some time to dig into our school data as well as the standards and skills required of our students. We learned that we are not asking our students the right questions in our assessments nor are we creating the appropriate level of tasks. On this same day, we also spent some time reviewing the primary features of close reading as well as introducing its 4 phases using Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey’s Book Text Dependent Questions Grades 6-12.  

For February, our focus during our half day session was to dig into literal level (What does the text say?) and structural level (How does the text work?) questions. Our plan was to model activities and instruction we’d like to see implemented within our classrooms.  Teachers were arranged into small groups and then assigned readings from the text to investigate and discuss with their peers. They were then directed to apply what they learned about how to create these levels of questions to a complex text they planned on using as part of their instruction. All of the activities, texts, samples and instructions were placed on Google classroom and allowed the groups to work together at their own pace.   We also introduced Read & Write Google as a method for teachers to annotate a digital text.  

After some reflection on the day, this is what we noticed:

What Are You Reading: March 2015

1. Lisa is reading Well Spoken: Teaching Speaking to All Students by Erik Palmer. She shares this quote: "Speaking well really is an art, though most of us have been speaking since we were young children. Carefully choosing our words, organizing our ideas so they are easy to follow, captivating an audience by employing effective gestures, or pacing our speech for emphasis--these are the building blocks of good public speaking. Every student can learn them, practice them, and perform them. But first, they need conscientious teachers who will show them how."
2. Andrea is reading Best Practices in Literacy Instruction, 5th Edition. It is the required text for a course she is teaching.
3. Jaimie says, "I am reading Jan Richardson's The Next Step in Guided Reading AGAIN (for like the third or fourth time) along with her new Next Step: Guided Reading in Action videos. We have several teachers that wanted to do a book study on this book. It offers some useful guidelines for planning small group lessons for children at different stages of reading. It also has many concrete strategies that students can use when retelling/summarizing text (one of the most complicated things for kids to do)."
4. Julie is reading No More Independent Reading Without Support by Debbie Miller and Barbara Moss.
5. Heather is reading Five Levers to Improve Learning by (Wisconsin's own!) Tony Frontier and James Rickabaugh. Heather says the book, ". . . discusses different initiatives through a discussion of different levels focusing on potentials and limitations."
6. Carrie is reading Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel. Carrie says, "After reading an article published in the October edition of Educational Leadership, I was interested enough in the topic to pick up a book. A great resource for intervention ideas, especially the strategies for teaching students how to tackle information for long-term learning. One of the two most interesting ideas: frequent low-stakes assessment of material and getting rid of rereading to prep for tests!"
7. Bobbi says, "I am reading  the blog post Two Writing Teachers recommended to me by Diane Sweeney.  This blog site has many useful articles and resources. Some examples of topics include the following:Curating Mentor Text Collections, Transitional Words and Phrases, and Developing Information Writing Muscles: Writing About Science."
8. Barb is reading along with Read On Wisconsin and just finished Coldest Girl in Cold Town by Holly Black. She says, "Coldest Girl in Cold Town is a vampire story that would definitely appeal to readers of Twilight. Although the book wasn't really my style, it did raise some interesting questions about the influence of social media on teenagers."

Join the conversation by using the comments to tell us what you're reading.