Each new year in the writing workshop begins with relationship building. We establish routines and rituals that establish predictability and trust. We sink into conversations and writing experiences that help us come to know one another better. We invite writers to share their interests and needs. We let them see us, too. These are essential conversations. But I have to ask: What are the unintended consequences of inviting our students to reveal themselves at the…
Here’s what I’ve learned so far: Emergent curriculum design isn’t a free-for-all. It’s not about evading standards–our own, or those that our state mandates. Emergent curriculum may be co-designed with students, but it’s still very carefully planned. In fact, it’s been my experience that emergent curriculum is far more data informed than many other kinds of curriculum we often purchase or create. A quick aside: I make no apologies for using the word data. Data are…
If you read my earlier post on establishing a shared vision ahead of emergent curriculum design work, then you’ll be better prepared to consider today’s post. Shared targets help learners (including teachers) understand what they learn during a lesson, how deeply they might learn it, and what they might do to demonstrate their learning. Drop by Ed Leadership to read more about learning targets, if you aren’t yet familiar with them. Connie Moss, Susan Brookhart,…
“We imagine a school in which students and teachers joyfully stretch themselves to their limits in search of projects built on their own visions, not one that merely succeeds in making apathetic students satisfy minimal standards. We imagine a school from which every student will come with vision.” -Seymour Papert and Gaston Caperton It was Piaget who first suggested that children think differently than adults, and while skeptics continue to treat his observations and the…