Make Every Minute Count

I am so glad she touched on this! All too often, teachers get caught up in staying late and working toward the assessment that we lose sight of the fun in teaching. I think it is vital in building a classroom community, for our students to see us as people, doing things outside of school. Giving them insight into our lives outside of school, lets the kids see that we are people with interests that we can write about. Finally, someone acknowledges that our entire lives are not just tests and meetings!

Build on Best Practices and Research

This chapter was packed full of useful information. I actually wrote in my book (which I never do). My obsession with underlining, circling, and margin writing began on page 261 with the following excerpt:

Teachers can't be expected to be accountable if they are told specifically what to do. Accountability requires professional autonomy to do what's right. The best teachers are "not followers" and have an "independent spirit." Based on their professional and moral knowledge and judgment, they override directives when something else will work more effectively.

I thought this spoke volumes of what we do in the classroom as a whole. The problem lies in the amount of slack we get for doing what we know to be best for our students. She touched on this later in the chapter when discussing the importance of having data as back-up. Not only do you need the data, but you also need "to be knowledgeable, courageous, and willing to speak up." This takes guts and the willingness to be shot down in front of a room full of your colleagues. For me, this has never been an issue, but I wonder if these words struck a chord with anyone else.

Another point that I thought was extremely important is to have professional dialogue about what we are doing at the building and district level. She focused on the building level throughout most of the chapter, so that is where I will start. We, as a building, need to set a common standard for what writing looks like in all our classrooms. Yes, different approaches can be taken, but our end result should be clarified so we are all aiming at the same target. Her example of weekly discussions across grade levels was very meaningful to me. In order to move forward, we have to take the time to scrutinize and improve upon our current practices as a community. Only after we all sit down together and come to a consensus, can our school-wide writing improve. As she stated on p274:

As a school, you will want to make decisions about such issues as quality versus quantity of writing, genres to include, ... , editing, spelling, publishing, and special education students. And once those decisions have been made, the beliefs and practices behind them need to be communicated to parents and caregivers effectively.

There were some points that she made that I do not agree with, but as she stated: "Trust your professional common sense and your own successful teaching experiences."

Make Assessments Count

Confusion

After reading this chapter, I'm not sure if I am supposed to be using rubrics or not. I am also not sure when I am supposed to assess and not assess. Earlier in the book, I was sure she said do not assess everything your students write, and I know she repeated it in this chapter, yet she also talks about informal assessments as on-going. Are we supposed to let the kids write without pressure, or are we looking over our student's shoulders?

What I am taking away from this chapter is that I do not need to grade everything on a rubric. Sometimes it is okay to grade on a student's improvement and growth that is seen through on-going observation. I also liked the idea of not always teaching the format of the test. Taking two weeks before the test to learn the format 'should' be enough for students to be prepared if they are used to writing longer pieces on a regular basis. I'm not sure about only writing to a prompt once every nine weeks. I have really liked what the sixth grade has been doing with writing prompts in their journal writing. I think it gives kids a start who normally can't get started.

9. Conference with Students

To tell the truth, when I started this chapter I thought she would say to conference with every student formally every week. I was very pleasantly surprised and took a lot away from this chapter. One quote that really spoke to me on page 216 was that "there is no one best way or best type of conference... Be flexible, and above all remember you want your students to go on writing. The conference is secondary; the student as writer and confident learner is primary." This quote squashed all my fears of having to do drawn out conferences every week.

I also have never really known what to focus on during conferences. The idea of focusing on content first, editing later (p226) will make conferencing much quicker and meaningful for the kids. Not focusing on the editing that needs to be done until the writing is complete, in theory, will eliminate nitpicking and make writing more enjoyable for my students. I also really liked her expectations when students did schedule an intensive conference with her. She didn't allow them to come to her with just anything. The prerequisites made the kids do as much editing and improving as possible before they came to her. Those requirements along with the daily whole group conferencing and peer conferences should help aid students in their revision process.

After reading this chapter, I feel like I can make conferencing with students more manageable.

8. Organize for Daily Writing

This chapter was so full of information that I will be returning to it over the summer to help plan for next year.

Loved

• student choice in writing topics
• conversing with students about their daily writing
• keeping a log of mini-lessons and conferences
• students keeping log of mini-lessons
• not focusing on the outline process
• allowing students to experience authentic writing
• choices are based on what you have learned about in class
• writing to authentic audience

Not so sure about:

• the sample daily schedules seemed very unrealistic (I understand the concept of integration, but to schedule your whole day writing first... I can't get my mind around it)
• over-usage of practicing with a student in front of the whole class (can you say "laughter"?)

Ideas

• daily writing time at the end of the day
• team planning choice writing topics - offer choice from each content area - rotate weekly
• writing 3-ring for each student - organize genre writing, mini-lessons, daily writing

In the second portion of this chapter, my favorite part was writing short pieces instead of long drawn out ones. Publishing monthly gives the students various pieces to put in their portfolio. I felt good that I could finally see things I am already doing in my classroom (though I don't move into the labeling stage). We create brochures, presentations, podcasts, and journals in social studies and science. Now I need to step up these writing projects to reflect more writing 'learning.'
(notice my list making - thought I would just bypass the final written product stage - you get the idea)

7. Be Efficient and Integrate Basic Skills

I realize that teaching grammar in isolation does not transfer to our students writing, but from the point of view of someone who has learned a second language, which all of our students will need to do to be affluent in our growing society, they are skills that need to be taught. When learning the structure of a second language, it is so important to know the difference between past and present participles, adjectives and adverbs, conjunctions and prepositions. These are all terms that students need to be able to identify and label. Just as we need to learn social studies vocabulary or science terms, the vocabulary of the written language also needs to be learned.

O.K. I'm done ranting.

I was struck by how much this woman knows! She sounds like she can fix anything! (I have a shower she could probably teach to stop leaking)

Now I am really done ranting.

"Minilessons... can be presented to the whole class, a small group, or one-on-one."
(p154)

Everything I have heard this year has revolved around our desire to use mini-lessons in our instruction. It was nice to finally have something that we all believe is doable show up in this chapter. I think mini-lessons are the perfect fit for teaching the nuts-and-bolts of the English language within the context of writing. I am still a little fuzzy on how mini-lessons are different than traditional grammar books except for the skill practice involved in the books.

Revision seems to be the one point where, once again, she has a magical touch with students. She states that students need to develop a "Revision Consciousness." She further indicates that through good modeling, kids will learn and apply this consciousness. Am I unconscious? I need that magic pixie dust because even when I model these things over and over again and point them out, they still do not revise their work!

Which of course leads to 'editing only after students can produce quality work.' When is that? At what point do I edit Johnny Q's paper if all he'll give me is three incomplete sentences. I know... if I expect it, he will give it to me.

I'm sorry. I promise the next portion WILL be positive. I'm having a rough day, and is this chapter hacking anyone else off, or is it just me?

Spelling

I have finally calmed down and read the spelling portion of this chapter with an open mind and a positive consonance. I love the idea of flexible word walls and highlighting portions of words. At first, I thought "How am I going to use a word wall in fifth grade?" But of course, she answered that question very shortly. I think that word walls for our prefixes and suffixes would be great. Especially if it was interactive. You could assess students on their ability to sort the word wall or match with definitions on the wall. Most of the ideas she had were very primary, but I am sure there is a way to use it in cross-curricular activities.

6. Capitalize on the Reading-Writing Connection

We've heard it over and over again.... and now... one more time...

You have to read to write and you have to write to read.

Not a direct quote of course, but the gist of the chapter. As teachers, we all spend time in the classroom either reading to our students or giving our students time to read. This time spent with a book of either the teacher's or student's choosing, exposes our students to what good, and sometimes bad, writing looks and sounds like. It is what we choose to do as an extension of that time that can move our students to the next level of writing and comprehension.

The idea of creating shared writing over previously covered content is great. This can be implemented in so many aspects of the classroom. It is never too late to go back, review important content, and produce a written piece that the students will be proud of. In Social Studies in particular, I feel I could be doing much more writing. Writing in response to what we have read or learned can be a very powerful learning tool.

Writing just in 'writing class' is limiting the potential of our students.

Another detail from this chapter that hit home to me is writing for deeper understanding. It is not the same to write about what you have learned and to write for a deeper level of understanding. This challenges me to ask higher order questions for written response instead of accepting rough outlines of what was learned. By asking them to connect it to themselves and analyze what we have learned, we challenge them to articulate their thoughts on a much higher level.