Two weeks ago, Laurie Schultz invited me to coach in her kindergarten writing workshop at John T. Waugh Elementary School in Lake Shore. I’m always grateful to work with Laurie. Her energy is incredible, and she sustains her compassion for even the most challenging kids in her care. She also maintains a high bar for her students, regardless of any label that’s been imposed on them. My Rationale: When we met to discuss the mini-unit…
Last week, I had the great fortune to coach research and information writing in Melanie Jones’s kindergarten class at John T. Waugh Elementary School in Lake Shore, New York. We were most interested in taking the Next Generation English Language Arts Standards for a drive by diving into play-based learning and exploring the effect that it had on rigor. First things came first, though: we needed an audience for students’ work! Thanks to my vibrant…
This month, I’ll be celebrating the second birthday of Make Writing, the little book that could. When I wrote it, I never imagined that I would get to meet and learn from so many of you who I’ve come to call my colleagues and friends over the last two years. This has been a rewarding journey, and each bend in the road has surfaced new and important questions about making and writing and the relationship…
Schools have become increasingly skilled at gathering data about learners–particularly quantitative data in the form of standardized and local test scores. But these data often fail to communicate the most essential information that teachers need in order to serve students well. These data help us develop hunches about what students struggle with. They don’t really help us understand why, though. This is why story matters. More than tools to engage listeners, story teaches all of us…
Jackie James Creedon shares a map of future soil testing sites in western New York State. Jackie James Creedon is the founder of Citizens Science Community Resources, an organization that is committed to promoting science-based activism and empowering grass-roots environmental justice and health campaigns. In 2014, Jackie received an award from the Environmental Protection Agency for her courageous efforts to lead an investigation in our community that took down Tonawanda Coke, a local factory…
More and more often, I’m invited to work not only with school districts, but with other organizations that are interested in telling their stories. Stories matter. They center us. They propel us forward. They change the trajectories of our work and our lives and the lives of the people we serve. They’re bigger than branding, and they’re far more than marketing tools. That’s why it’s important to value the story writing process as much as…
Nearly ten years into my career as an independent education consultant, I can say with confidence that a large portion of my time has been devoted to supporting teachers with assessment design. If you’ve walked a similar path, then you know how hard and humbling this work is. Perhaps, like me, you stand on the shoulders of assessment giants like Douglas Reeves, Rick Stiggins, Dylan Wiliam, Susan Brookhart, or James Popham. Perhaps you still define yourself as…
This spring, I had the opportunity to work with teachers from southern Erie and Cattaraugus Counties. Our initial sessions challenged teachers to define writers’ craft, the process, and the values and habits of masterful writers. Then, we considered how the progression of these skills and dispositions builds and evolves as experience is gained. Teachers returned to their classrooms with new ideas to consider and test. As I prepared to see them again last week, I hoped that…
This morning, I had the pleasure of speaking with local friends and teachers at the Niagara Frontier Reading Council’s Spring Brunch. Theresa Andrews invited me to chat about the importance of creating a culture of readers inside of our schools and how we might resolve some of the data dilemmas that seem to be preventing this. This two hour session was interactive, but I’ve captured the abbreviated version in this podcast. This is my first…
On Friday, I’ll be working with students in the D’Youville School of Pharmacy, who are just beginning to develop habits of documentation, reflection, and qualitative data analysis. The document below will guide our initial conversations. I thought I would share it here, as it provides a quick introduction for those who are doing similar work in a variety of contexts, including K-12 classrooms. The questions and tools below will support our initial conversations. You can grab…