I’m hearing great things from teachers and kids who are piloting the English Language Arts modules that were released earlier this year in Albany. In fact, several of the elementary writers in the WNY Young Writers’ Studio asked if we would consider implementing different modules during our summer fellowship sessions this year. Seriously. All of this has given me great pause. As a teacher, I’ve worked hard to give my students a real voice…
There is no data to suggest that practicing standardized assessments over and over again positively influences performance. Ever. So we need to stop doing that. There is a great deal of talk happening right now about the harm that standardized testing may or may not be doing to children. I find it ironic that very little of it acknowledges what isn’t required but seems to be doing far more pervasive damage to learning and learners across…
Last month, a number of teachers and consultant friends of mine began kicking around the idea of creating an archive of paired passages and texts that educators could pull on for a variety of purposes. I liked this idea very much, but not for the reasons people might suspect. To be honest, I’m not sure how many people will find resources like this valuable in the long run. It’s not about the resource for me, though. It’s about…
I agree: too much is going wrong. We do need to speak up. We do need to act in ways that will restore sanity. Something worth reflecting on though: what power do we, as New York State educators, have to design quality curricula, protect quality instruction, and assess in ways that engage, inspire, and nurture children? I think we have a lot of power here. I think we need to quit giving it away. I…
By day, I’m a consultant in school districts throughout Western New York. Summers, weekends, and evenings often find me writing and learning beside kids and teachers at the WNY Young Writer’s Studio though. I founded Studio five years ago, and we’re expanding our fellowship program, workshops for kids, and professional development offerings. Take a peek at what we’re up to this summer and join us!
Catherine Leach is a former Western New Yorker and a long-time friend of the WNY Young Writers’ Studio. She teaches and coaches at Sam Rayburn High School in Pasadena, Texas. I’m delighted to share this space with her today. It began with a lament. A few teachers were sitting around the lunch table, telling stories about catching plagiarists. I shared one of my best strategies: if the paper had a properly used semi-colon, it was…
During lesson study debriefs over the last several years, the teachers that I support shared their observations relevant to a variety of focal points. Often, they lingered over what they noticed about active participation, questioning, and the facilitation of large group discussion. As a pre-service teacher, I was fortunate enough to learn a great deal about active participation from my cooperating teacher, Janell Lindstrom. She coached me to question in ways that engaged learners and…
1. Frame it positively. I notice that all too often, readers assume that unless they are reading fast, reading accurately, and making perfect meaning from text, they are failing. Several weeks ago, as I was guiding high school readers through an incredibly complex passage, we began by unpacking this fallacy. “So, reading hard stuff is kind of like seeing a live performance of Shakespeare,” someone in the room suggested. “The language might kind of wash…
I spent Saturday with teachers and writers at the WNY Young Writers’ Studio. Our season is winding down, and everyone is swimming in the depths of the projects they’ve been working on for some time. We’ve built a lot of background knowledge together over the last nine months, and yet, it’s never enough to satisfy our needs. This is a good thing. Great writers are researchers, after all. They may dream big dreams, take some…
Students’ ability to read complex text does not always develop in a linear fashion. Although the progression of Reading standard 10 (see below) defines required grade-by-grade growth in students’ ability to read complex text, the development of this ability in individual students is unlikely to occur at an unbroken pace. Students need opportunities to stretch their reading abilities but also to experience the satisfaction and pleasure of easy, fluent reading within them, both of which…