Better ~ #DigiLitSunday

Today I am participating in Digital Literacy Sunday with Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche, where we are thinking about the word "better."

Two events happened this week that are a perfect reflection for this word.

My teaching partner retired this year, and my last days of teaching with her were last week.  I have been sitting in on interviews for her replacement.  This is not an easy thing to do when you need to replace a perfect partnership.

During each interview, we hope the questions we ask become conversational, depending on the answers from each interviewee.  Although no two interviews are the same, there are two or three questions that I make a point to ask each person.  

One of those is what are some things you do to improve your teaching?  

I am one of those teachers who continuously reflect and search for ways to improve my teaching practices, and I want to work with a teacher who does the same.  I read blog posts and professional books and articles.  I attend conferences and participate on online professional development.  Settling for the status quo or relying on the phrase "we have always done it that way" does not work for me.

I just finished my tenth year of teaching, and there are still so many things I want to learn and to make better in my classroom.  And I want my teaching partner to share in this learning.

The second event was a blog post from We Are Teachers.  I, along with several of my blogging friends, were listed as Twitter accounts teachers should follow.  I am very humbled to be included on this list along with these amazing teachers.  But what I liked most was what the author of the post, Kimberly Moran, said about me:  "...obsessed with improving literacy in her classroom."

By using those words to describe me, Kimberly could not have given me a higher compliment.  She captured my drive, my passion, and my need to get better, just from my online presence.  

My summer has begun and with that come many hours and days of trying to become better.  

My students, my colleagues, and my new teaching partner deserve that.

Digital Poetry ~ #DigiLitSunday

Today I am participating in Digital Literacy Sunday with Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche, where we are talking about digital poetry.

Summer is almost upon us.  Time for summer activities.  Time for summer camps, with many of those being sports camps.  We have camps for football, basketball, soccer, tennis, baseball, and golf.  If a child plays a sport, then we can connect him or her with a sports camp.

For the past several years, my school district has thought outside the box and has offered an academic camp, SPARK (Super Powered Activities to Recharge Kids) for our high ability students.  Students have the opportunity to feed their curiosity, their creativity, and their innovativeness with the use of technology.  

I always teach sessions on writing poetry, and yes, sometimes it is hard to compete with drones, spheros, ollies, 3D printers, and 3Doodlers.  But I need to provide an outlet for creative writing because we live in a world of writing-for-the-test.  

I have used Google slides in the past to incorporate technology into my sessions.  Students write their poems and collaborate on Google slides, but I am looking for new ideas.  

I work with 2nd and 3rd graders in one session, and 4th and 5th graders in the other.  Do you have any apps or ideas on digital poetry to share that I could try this summer?  I have many students who come every year and we need something new.  I welcome your suggestions. 

Also, if any of you are still in school the week after Memorial Day and would like to collaborate, Skype, and share poetry across the miles, please leave a note in the comments.  

In the meantime, please enjoy our work from summer's collections.  

Is It Enough? #sol17 #digilitSunday

I believe being a writer is one of the biggest gifts you can give to your students. ~ Stacey Shubitz

This month I am participating in the Slice of Life Story Challenge.  Thanks to Two Writing Teachers for creating a space for me to share my corner of the world.

Today I am participating in Digital Literacy Sunday with Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche.  

I sit here today thinking about final plans for this week.  We have three more weeks before our second round of testing which lasts two weeks, and then we have our last three weeks of school.  For me, this school year is almost over.  It becomes a time of reflecting, questioning, and doubting.

This is my tenth year of teaching.  I have taught grades 4-6, and I have taught language arts and math.  Teaching sure has changed dramatically in these short ten years.

My first year we used a basal reader and all of the accompanying worksheets.  I hated it, and the kids hated it.  (That was the one and only year I did that!)  

We went to a computer lab once a week where we typically worked on keyboarding skills or a math facts program and occasionally completed research and created a Powerpoint presentation.  Presentation options were limited.

I taught with transparencies on an overhead projector which sat in the middle of the room and projected on a pull-down screen.

Learning was contained within the four walls of our classroom and was mostly teacher-driven and teacher-led.

Reflecting on that first year, my teaching seems archaic.  It is hard to believe it was just ten years ago.  

Technology has allowed learning to become personalized, global, and more engaging. Learning is student-led and student-driven.  Our world has become larger because of connections, and learning no longer has walls.

For me, teaching has become more rewarding, yet more challenging.  It was much easier to open the teachers manual and read from a script and say that we were "teaching."  

Now, I spend hours, days, and summers learning new ways to improve my teaching through the use of technology and to make learning more engaging.  I read books and blog posts, go to conferences, and collaborate with teachers from far away places.  I build that passion that crafts my teaching.  But after spending this time becoming a better teacher, a burning question raises its ugly head.

Is it enough?

We, as teachers, are our biggest critic.  We are first in line to question, Have I done enough?  Is this engaging?  How can I make this better?

I need this burning question to drive my passion and my desire to improve, but without beating myself up.  Without the question, Is it enough? would I still be teaching like I did ten years ago?  I owe this burning question to my profession, to myself, and to my students.

Finding Relationships in the Middle of Conferring

Today I am participating in Digital Learning Sunday with Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche.  This week Margaret has encouraged us to share our thoughts on relationships.

I write many posts about my relationships with my students because I know they are key to student learning.  Research overwhelmingly supports this, but many of us do not need research to affirm our beliefs.  

We live and breathe it every...single...day.  That is all the research we need.

I have been taking an online miniCourse from Ruth Ayres called Conferring Notes 101 Lite which is strengthening my beliefs about relationships.  She believes that "conferring is the heart of teaching writers."  But sitting right smack dab in the middle of conferring are relationships.

When we confer with students, we build relationships with them.  Pulling up a chair, sitting alongside a student, and giving them our attention let's them know that we care not only about their writing, but about them.

Effective conferring is a weakness for me, which is why I am taking advantage of Ruth's free course.  Regardless of how ineffective my conferring is, my students still need and want that one-on-one time with me.  That short period of time that I spend with a student in a conference gives me a glimpse into their writing, but also helps me to build those relationships. 

Ruth's key points in her first session are:

• Conferring connects us to students.
• Conferring builds confidence in student writers.
• Conferring tailors teaching to the point of need of every student.

Each one of these is the foundation of building those relationships, which is the key to learning.

Infographic by Sylvia Duckworth

Vocabulary Instruction

Today I am participating in Digital Learning Sunday with Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche.  This week Margaret has encouraged us to share our thoughts on vocabulary, beyond definitions.  I am not sure this post is "beyond definitions" and it certainly isn't digital, but it does go beyond "look up, write, and memorize the definition in the glossary" as a teaching method.

Click on the image to take you to
Dr. Archer's website

Just this week, my daughter Megan said, "I love the way I teach vocabulary."

I asked her, "Are you still using the Anita Archer method?"  

She said, "Yep!"

I showed her the Anita Archer method last year, her first year of teaching.  Dr. Anita Archer is a consultant on explicit instruction, total participation, and active engagement.  I have had several opportunities to see her presentations and have implemented many of her strategies in my own classroom.  

Dr. Archer's book, Explicit Instruction Effective and Efficient Teaching, explains the research behind direct instruction and includes methods for applying it to skills and strategies, vocabulary and concepts, as well as rules and procedures.  This is content we all teach and many students struggle to grasp independently. 

Her vocabulary instruction was one of the many important changes I made when I taught 4th grade.  

I am embarrassed to say that in my early teaching years, yes, I was the "look up, write and memorize the definition" type of teacher.  Until I met Dr. Archer.  

This method is steeped in quick, direct interactive instruction.

The basic instructional steps are:

1. Introduce the word.  This first step involves pronouncing the word for students or helping them with the decoding.  If students cannot pronounce the word, it will be more difficult for them to attach meaning to the word, storing the word into their memory, and retrieving the word when needed.
2. Introduce the meaning of the word.  Dr. Archer explains five methods of introduction.
• present a student-friendly explanation of the word.  She suggests Collins COBUILD Student's Dictionary Plus Grammar or The Longman Dictionary of American English
• guide students to break down the attributes or parts of the definition
• explore the base words, prefixes, suffixes, and roots
• compare the cognates found in other languages
• use a combination of the above methods
3. Illustrate with examples.  This step gives students examples to firmly establish what the word is or is not and includes all critical attributes of the words.  She suggests using concrete, visual and verbal examples.
4. Check students' understanding.  Check students' understanding of the word by having them interact with the word.  Use examples and non-examples, have students generate their own example, or ask students questions to process the deeper meaning of the word instead of just regurgitatiing the definition. 

The key in using her strategy is to make all of the steps interactive.  Students participate through the entire process from repeating the word multiple times, turning and talking with their partner to illustrate and check for understanding, and eliciting whole class responses.  

I have just touched the basics of the way she teaches vocabulary, so I have included a video for you to watch.  Many resources about Dr. Archer are available online.  You could spend hours sifting through videos and notes from her presentations.

I asked Megan why she liked this method of teaching vocabulary, and she replied that it was quick, intense, and it kept her students' attention.  So, if you are looking to add something new to your vocabulary instructional routine, besides looking the words up in the dictionary, you might want to look into these resources.

Balancing Goals and Needs

Today I am participating in Digital Learning Sunday with Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche.  This week Margaret has encouraged us to share our thoughts on balancing goals and needs.

When I first saw this topic, I began thinking about my own personal goals and needs. Trying to balance these can be quite tricky.  

As I was grading this weekend, my thoughts turned to my students' goals and needs, which many times are more out of balance than my own.

I began thinking about the goals which are set for students - those "standardized" goals.  Reach this benchmark, pass this test, achieve this score.  These are goals set by others who do not consider their individual needs - only passing a test.

Many of us have students whose achievement levels are well below grade level. Some of my students walked through the door of my classroom at the beginning of the year and could not write a complete a sentence or read grade level texts.  This is no fault of their previous teachers because I know how hard they work to move these students forward.  But the gap still exists.

Teaching at the middle school level, I began to understand just how wide this gap is. When I think how I could balance goals with the needs of these students, three big ideas have emerged for me this year.

Meet them where they are. This is a difficult thing to do.  Because of the pressure of "the test", many teachers teach to the middle students, leaving behind those students at the top and at the bottom.  Through assessments, we must find what students can do and what they can almost do, and use this data to set goals for them and move them forward.

Focus on growth.  I know I have students who will never pass a standardized test, no matter how many interventions, programs, or master teachers we put into place.  This isn't being negative, it is being realistic.  Because of this reality, I have learned to focus on growth. They may not be a standardized student, but I will do everything I can to help them become a growing student.  Thankfully, my administration understands and encourages the growth mindset.

Different students, different goals.  My students come to me with different levels, different needs, and different experiences.  I must tailor their goals to fit their needs, not fit into a box.

We recently finished up a unit on writing argument.  Looking at the three ideas I stated above, I can see how I have tried to balance their goals with their needs.  I cannot expect them to write at grade level standards...yet.

Reading their writing, I see the growth from the beginning of the year.  I can see how they have now created paragraphs when they could barely write a sentence. I can see the structure of an argument with a stated claim and reasons.  I can see more complex sentence structures.  

I can see growth.  I can see the balancing of their goals with their needs.  

No, it is not easy.  But it is something we must all strive to do. 

Fake vs. Real News

Today I am participating in Digital Learning Sunday with Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche.  This week Margaret has encouraged us to share our thoughts on fake vs. real news.

When Margaret gave her plan for this month, and I read the topic, fake vs. real news, I didn't think I would have much to contribute. This is such an important topic in today's classrooms, but I have yet to really tackle it with my students.  

I always begin our research unit with lessons on how to evaluate websites.  It is a lesson plan from Common Sense Education and Teaching Channel where students evaluate websites using an extensive set of criteria.  I know these lessons open their eyes as to what sources they can trust and what makes a website reliable, but there is so much more to teach.  With the recent overwhelming amount of fake news in the media, teachers are scrambling to not only educate themselves, but to also find lessons, resources and ideas to teach media literacy, especially the discernment of fake and real news.  

After researching, reading, and learning, I have curated a list of links and sources that will hopefully encourage teachers to begin tackling this issue.  

I suggest you begin with a recent study by Standford researchers on "civic online reasoning" by middle, high school and college students.  They state that "Overall, young people's ability to reason about the information on the Internet can be summed up in one word:  bleak."  You can read their findings and see samples of their assessments here. The students' responses are interesting, yet disturbing, but I think they also would reflect the thoughts and reasoning skills of my students.

Website Dedicated to News Literacy

The News Literacy Project is a nonprofit organization that "works with educators and journalists to teach middle and high school students how to sort fact from fiction in the digital age."  I am still sifting through their website, but I have enjoyed reading their teachable moments section on their blog which takes news stories and shows how you can use turn them into "teachable moments."  Below is a video from their website.

Article for Students

Real news reports on fake news people try to figure out the difference by Newsela

Articles to get the thinking started.

How to Spot Fake News (and Teach Kids to Be Media-Savvy) and Teaching Kids Media Smarts During Breaking News by Comon Sense Media

Battling Fake News in the Classroom by Edutopia

Who Stands Between Fake News and Students?  Educators by NEA Today

10 Ways to Spot Fake News by EasyBib

Lesson plans and teaching ideas for middle to high school students.

Hoax or No Hoax?  Strategies fro Online Comprehension and Evaluations by ReadWriteThink

How to teach your students about fake news by PBS Newshour Extra

News Literacy:  Critical-Thinking Skills for the 21st Century by Edutopia

Teachers no longer teach just reading, writing, and arithmetic.  Fake news is in our world and in our classrooms.  We must teach media literacy and give our students the skills needed to navigate this media-driven society in which they live.

How are you helping your students to develop media literacy skills?  I would love to hear your ideas and for you to share them in the comments section below.

Students as Writing Decision Makers

Today I am participating in Digital Learning Sunday with Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche.  This week Margaret has encouraged us to celebrate.

I stated on a previous post how I am a "BBC" workshop teacher, meaning I have never been officially trained.  I have trained myself through blogs, books, and conferences.  So when I experience success, it is a celebration.

Before Thanksgiving we finished up a unit on historical fiction, and I taught this unit almost entirely through workshop.  I taught mini-lessons, students wrote and we conferred together both face-to-face and through comments on Google docs.

My students grew as writers during these three weeks because they were set free from prompt writing and writing rules.  They learned writers make decisions, not the rules.

I have included some my students' writing that demonstrate what was taught in the lessons, but also demonstrates their new found freedom as writers.


"At this point I was on the couch hugging one of the pillows like a ribbon holding tightly to its box."


"My heart shattered into a million pieces, my soul ripped in half."


"My mother has bright blue eyes that twinkle like the nighttime stars.  But then I noticed that there was a single tear coming from one of those eyes; it ran down her face until it met the floor."


Later that night as I was still picking weeds from the garden, I watched the bright sun fall in the sky like a pad of butter melting on a warm stack of pancakes.


When I walk into the back room, I see a couch. A long couch with three cushions and two small pillow at each end. It is covered in soft red velvet. The legs are wooden with swirls at the end and little carvings all down the side. Then to my surprise Franklin sits on the couch and motions me to come sit down. I sit down on the couch and I feel the couch cushions squish over the side of my legs.

Ellis and I raced up the screeching stairs. It wasn't until we heard mothers faint screams at the end of the stairway, we broke into a sprint. If we'd known that would be the last time we heard her, we would’ve ran back.

We made it to the edge of the fire escape. I grabbed Ellis´ hand, and we chased down the fire escape. We´d met the old, icy alleyway, not turning back. As we ran, Ellis tripped over a slim, snowy brick, crashing on the hard iced rock. I dragged her behind a bushel of tall weeds. A man in a jet black soldier uniform heard her wails of pain. He switched his head toward us, my heart fell from my chest. There was a vibrant red patch wrapped around one black sleeve. It was marked with black symbol, a Swastika. I pulled Ellis by the arm, forcing her to move. But she wouldn’t budge. She was as still as a statue. Her snow coat was drenched in the beautiful white frosting. As the Nazi grew nearer, Ellis’ eyes broke tearful. She was mortified. I hadn’t heard the dreaded sorrows, until Ellis looked straight ahead. Bloodshed. Bodies covered the snowy streets, there were few unrecognizable, but we knew one. We loved one.

Thank you for taking the time to read my students' writing.

Agency - It's Not Just for Students

Digilit Sunday

Today I am participating in Digital Learning Sunday with Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche.  This week Margaret has encouraged us to write about agency.

It is funny how when a topic is chosen, it seems to turn up in my teaching life.  Or maybe it is because I am more open to looking for the topic of discussion.

Yesterday I had the privilege of watching two live sessions of The Edcollab Gathering. The first was Katherine Bomer's session about writing essays, the topic of her new book, The Journey is Everything.  She talked about giving students space to think about what matters to them.  

The second session was Kim Yaris and Jan Burkins, the authors of "Who's Doing the Work?"  One part of the discussion was about how work such as confirming and crosschecking while reading, needs to be the work of the reader, not the teacher.  

Both of these sessions were about student agency or when students become their own teachers.  Research shows that students learn better when they take charge in their own learning.  Agency empowers students to believe they have the capacity to learn.  During Kim and Jan's presentation, they showed how easy it is for teachers to "do the work" for students.  I am guilty of this. Sometimes it is much easier and quicker to step in.

These two sessions led me to reflect about agency in my classroom.

How am I creating space, time and opportunities for my students to be agents in their own learning?   

How am I lessening my role in the classroom so I am not promoting learned helplessness?

I am also reading Visible Learning for Teachers by John Hattie for a book study.  This book has me thinking about teacher agency.  

The big idea throughout Hattie's book is that we, as teachers, need to see our primary role as the evaluator of our effect on learning, not the evaluator of our teaching.  

As teachers, we often dwell on why students can't learn.  Is it because of their backgrounds, their lack of motivation, their learning styles, their inattentiveness, their refusal to take medication, or the lack of supportive parents?  

Hattie implies that focusing on these explanations is the root of deficit thinking, and we cannot change them.  Could this be learned helplessness?  

Instead, we must think of ourselves as positive change agents.  Hattie stresses that "teachers' beliefs and commitments are the greatest influences on student achievement over which we have some control" (25).

If I am to believe that these changes are within my power as a teacher, I need to ask myself these questions from Hattie's book:

How am I creating an optimal classroom climate for learning?

How am I monitoring learning and providing feedback?

How am I organizing content so students have a deep understanding of the content?

How am I setting expectations for all students to reach success?

How am I setting challenging student goals instead of "do your best" goals?

If student agency is a way of empowering students, then isn't teacher agency just as important?  The more students become teachers and teachers become learners, then the more successful are our classrooms.

Revision - The Misunderstood Step

Digilit Sunday

Today I am participating in Digital Learning Sunday with Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche.  This week Margaret has encouraged us to write about revision.

For many of my students, revision is the most misunderstood step in the writing process.  Many students confuse editing with revising.  And many students just rewrite exactly what they already have written and turn it in.  

Digital literacy, through the use of Google docs, has made revision moves easier to point out to my students.  They can scan back through the revision history and easily see the changes they have made.  However, students seem to avoid the needed steps to revision when writing is done with paper and pencil.  

But this step in the process still needs to be taught.  Because many teachers do not write themselves, they are not strong revisers, therefore lack a deep understanding of the skill and craft of revision.

Because of this lack of knowledge, revision is sometimes the step in the writing process that receives the most neglect.  I am guilty.  We are great at brainstorming topics, drafting, editing with a checklist, and publishing, but for me as a teacher of writing, revising is the one I hurry through.  Although as I write in my own life, revising is the one step in the process in which I take the most time.  

I have caught myself quickly saying to students, "You need to add more details."  

But what does that exactly mean to a young writer?

Last spring I watched The Educator Collaborative Gathering, and Roz Linder had a segment about her new book, The Big Book of Details:  46 Moves for Teaching Writers to Elaborate.

I was hesitant about buying it because I was afraid it would be geared more toward younger writers and narrative writing, which we don't do as much of in middle school. 

But I was so wrong, and I am so glad I purchased this book.

The Big Book of Details is great resource for teaching revision in all areas of writing: narrative, opinion and argumentative, and also informational.  

Each section contains an if/then chart with "If you see this in student's writing...try this..." which will help guide teachers to move their students forward.

Each lesson contains:

"What does this move look like in writing"
"When writers make this move" 
"How I introduce this move"
"Guided writing practice ideas"

I know revision is an area of teaching which I need to "revise", and I think this book just may be the answer.

Reflection

Digilit Sunday

Today I am participating in Digital Learning Sunday with Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche.  This week Margaret has encouraged us to write about reflection.

Today, September 11th, seems to be the perfect day for reflection.  I, as I am sure all of you, remember exactly what I was doing the day of the terrorist attack.  I was a stay-at-home mom at the time.  Megan was a 3rd grader, and Ethan was in pre-school. My sister-in-law was staying at my in-laws who lived next door.  She came running over, telling me to turn on the television.  And I was glued to it the rest of the day and into the night.

Our world has been forever changed.  During those next few days, months, and even years, many people reflected on our country's patriotism and our faith in each other, our country and our God.  Reflection came to the forefront through this tragedy.

As a teacher, reflection is as routine as planning lessons.  It is a part of the daily process.  As a writer, reflection is a common thread woven throughout my writing.  It's what I do.

These beginning weeks of school, I have come to realize that many of my students do not know what true reflection is.  Many of them can write opinions, can summarize text and answer text based questions, but writing how they are affected or what they learned through an experience or by reading a text, escapes some of them.  

I have to ask myself, is this a product of the testing culture?  Are we stifling students' ability to connect with a text? Are we giving them a chance to express emotions when reading a text or to write how this reading has affected them?  Are we asking them to think beyond the evidence?  Is prompt writing so ingrained in them, that reflection is foreign to them?

Or have we, as teachers, not taught them how to reflect and given them the opportunity to try it out.

These are questions I am reflecting on as I learn more about my students as writers.  But I don't want to wait for a tragedy to create reflective writers.

I assign an article of the week each week.  Part of the assignment is some type of writing, mostly standard-based. This week after reading and studying examples, they are to write a reflection paragraph (we are starting slow).  This will be their first one, so I have to keep in mind this piece is a benchmark and my goal is to see them grow as writers.

I plan to move into digital reflection through blogging, Padlet, and Google Slides.  Finding an outlet for reflection that meets their needs will be a key part in motivating them. 

I know I have lots of teaching and modeling to do, and I know they need lots of practice.  

I hope to use my own reflections from reading Katherine Bomer's new book, The Journey is Everything to help them become writers who better understand themselves, each other, and the world in which we live.  

To me, that is the essence of reflection.
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