Last week, I had the opportunity to facilitate the first session of WNYLIT, a new forum for literacy leaders in our area, hosted at the Carrier Center in Angola, New York by the fine folks at Erie 2 BOCES (thanks Theresa)! Twenty literacy coaches, administrators, and teachers came together to explore the benefits and challenges of building relationships with those aim to serve. We used a protocol for rich text discussion to explore several pieces…
Last week, I invited a fellow of the WNY Young Writers’ Studio and literacy-coach-in-training to accompany me on a visit to Long Island, New York, where we met with junior and senior high school writing teachers. A portion of this visit was spent exploring the Studio model and some of the more powerful practices that guide our work with teachers and young people. On the last day, we had the opportunity to co-teach inside of…
So……now what? Seriously. Scores have improved in many of our local schools over the last several years. What does that even mean anyway? If all of the professional development initiatives teachers have been a part of, all of the learning community work they’ve participated in, and every formative assessment they’ve “given” students inside of classrooms was heavily motivated by a thirst for improved student performance on tests of any kind…..what will happen now that this…
This fall, I had the opportunity to talk with over 100 writing teachers about the instructional practices that made the most difference for their students. All of these teachers identified and articulated clear learning targets for their students, based upon their previous assessment of student needs. All of them documented what they did as teachers to support their students as they worked together to meet these objectives as well, and during our conversations together, they…
I don’t think it has stopped snowing here for at least a week. When I left the house this morning, I had no idea what awaited me, and by the time I hit the thruway, I realized that any time I had set aside for blogging here would be devoted to expanding my drive time in an effort to ensure that my car didn’t careen off the road. But I made promise in this new…
Multiple Choice: If you were a parent approaching a conversation with your child’s teacher, which discussion would be most informative to you? A. A discussion prompted by the results of an assessment recently given by your district or your state OR B. A discussion prompted by the teacher’s assessment of your child’s gifts and needs as a learner, shaped by evidence captured during instruction and practice Constructed Response: Please share your vision of what powerful,…
I began shifting away from light coaching about three months into my first coaching experience. Doing so was frightening. I was afraid that insisting on evidence-based goals, using formative assessment to inform our work, and saying no to requests that were not aligned to students’ needs (which was our purpose) would increase levels of resistance and decrease teachers’ willingness to engage as equal members in a collaborative relationship. None of this happened as we transitioned…
A comment from Steve Shann on my last post: I strongly agree with what you say about the link between real learning and standards. And scores too? Would that depend on whether the scores were really linked to the standards? Is there any research about this that you know about? (I’ve just come from a teacher meeting that was all about scores and not at all about learning and standards. Ugh.) Can you say some…
Planning to launch a literature circles experience requires teachers to begin with the end in mind. Considering what we want kids to know and be able to do at the end of the journey is a good place to begin, and rather than focusing on teaching specific books or titles, attending to identified skills and essential questions lends meaning and purpose to the work that will be done. Students should be reading books that are appropriate…
Nurturing a passion for reading begins with providing choice, but making space within the school day for kids to read the books that they choose can be a challenge as well. Many schools build DEAR time into the daily or weekly schedule by using time during homeroom or lunch or revamping the schedule to make space for reading. As an English teacher, I was a huge proponent of reading workshop. These days, I get to…