In the Classroom: Responding to Writing

Last week, in writing workshop, we started a short cycle on response groups in writing.  This is the beginning of our work with responding in peer groups so a few lessons are helping us get started.

I began the lessons by sharing my own experiences as a writer.  I shared this photo with my students. It was taken at the Choice Literacy Writing Retreat this summer. It is a photo of the group of us who got together to write and share and respond. I talked to them about the experience and about how twice a day we would share our writing and get feedback on it to help us make our writing better. I explained that sometimes I was the writer and sometimes I was the responder and I shared a few specific examples of pieces I worked on while I was there and the ways in which the other helped me to make my writing better.

Then we revisited a video we watched earlier in the year as part of a minilesson cycle on community.  The video shows the power of peer response and we talked about how the responses from Austin's classmates were what helped him create a better drawing. The same was true for writing.  Response matters.

We started a chart early in the week that we will build together over the course of the minilessons.  Then we'll clean it up a bit to synthesize our learning about response groups.

The first experience with response was whole group and it was a piece of writing that I shared with the students. I wrote a piece that I was hoping to put on Kidblogs about my younger brother. Sibling stories are popular in the classroom right now, and I wanted my kids to see that I got ideas from their writing.  I also wanted to practice together. So I told my students that as a writer, I had to prepare for the response group.  I had chosen a piece of writing that I wanted help with, made copies for everyone, and thought of a few specific things I wanted help with.  I read the piece aloud.  Their job was to read the piece and write thoughts that came to them as they read--things that might help make my writing better. They each marked a piece up.

The next day I fishbowled with 3 students about my writing.  I asked them specifics ( a few questions about word choice and some advice on the lead.).  They shared confidently and kindly and I got some great advice. We processed the things that made the response group positive.

Then kids went off and chose a piece of writing from their writers' notebooks that they wanted feedback on.  They were very excited about doing this once we got to this point in the cycle. Getting feedback on their writing was something they were excited about!  They marked the piece, jotted down specific feedback they were looking for and we copied those pieces so that everyone in the response group would have his/her own copy.

Then we started to get ready. Students were put in groups of 4 with one writer and 3 responders each day.  The WRITER of the day met with me about things they were hoping to learn from the responders while responders read and marked up the writers' texts.

Then response groups met, focusing on one writer each day.

Writers took notes on the things they needed to remember when they went back to revise.

By the end of the cycle, we will have a chart that reminds us how we get ready for a response group (writers and responders) and the kinds of things we might say/hear in a response group (as a writer or responder).

As we continue to build, our feedback will get more detailed and specific but my goal with this first cycle was for kids to see the power of response groups--for both the writer and the responder. 

Poetry Friday -- Unharvested

Unharvested
by Robert Frost

A scent of ripeness from over a wall.
And come to leave the routine road
And look for what had made me stall,
There sure enough was an apple tree
That had eased itself of its summer load,
And of all but its trivial foliage free,
Now breathed as light as a lady's fan.
For there had been an apple fall
As complete as the apple had given man.
The ground was one circle of solid red.

May something go always unharvested!
May much stay out of our stated plan,
Apples or something forgotten and left,
So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.

Sometimes it seems like The Writer's Almanac can read my mind. The day after my frustrated PF post last week, when I was feeling like no matter how much I do, I am never doing enough and/or my best, Garrison Keillor sent this Frost poem, reminding me to breathe, to celebrate in leaving a little bit undone.

We accidentally let the one broccoli plant in the community garden that the rabbits didn't eat go unharvested. I think it's a rather beautiful late bloomer. And that cold early morning bee certainly isn't complaining about our mistake!

Laura has the Poetry Friday roundup today at Writing the World for Kids.

Stand Up for Girls on October 11!

Join LitWorld on October 11 and STAND UP FOR GIRLS!  If you don't know the work that LitWorld does, spend some time today visiting their website and celebrating all that they do for literacy!  And to learn more about STAND UP FOR GIRLS, read the post below by by Megan Karges, LitWorld Dot Connector.  And follow the tweets today with hashtag #standup4girls.

Tomorrow is International Day of the Girl, sanctioned by the United Nations to recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world. Around the world, the number of girls who are not in school hovers around 66 million. LitWorld’s Stand Up for Girls campaign mobilizes girls and boys, men and women to advocate for every girl's right to tell her story to change the world.

It is a matter of life and death when girls are denied the right to read and write and to learn all that they need and want to know. In developing countries, 1 in 7 girls marries before the age of 15, and pregnancy and childbirth are the number one killer of 15-19-year-old girls. The right to literacy is a form of protection. People who can read to understand their choices, and write to define them and to share them are powerful in a civil society.

Why is girls’ literacy so urgently important? As stated by Gordon Brown, literacy is the goal of goals, a foundational human right from which all other freedoms can be attained. The right to literacy is a form of protection, allowing girls to understand their choices, and write to define them and to share them. The benefits of educating girls reap better health and economic outcomes for family, community and society as a whole.

LitWorld was launched in 2007 to empower the most isolated, at-risk and impoverished communities with a new vision of what literacy could mean to each and every person. At the heart of literacy is this: that stories and words are a mirror and a window. The girls in LitWorld’s LitClubs read and write to find out who they are, to see that stories can inspire them, and make them feel less alone. They can read and write to look out at the world, to imagine it as one of possibility for themselves and for their families. Through these programs, the world becomes a hopeful place.

Everyone can get involved in building the “safety net” for girls worldwide. Individuals hold tremendous power, and if we all stand up together for the human right of literacy the potential for rapid change is amplified exponentially.

So stand up for your mother, your mentor, your friend or your daughter. Stand up and raise your voice for educational rights. Use social media to tell friends and about the global education crisis and the Stand Up for Girls movement. All of the resources that you need to lead the Stand Up for Girls movement in your community are available at litworld.org. Together we will carry forward the stories of girls who could be and should be able to live out all of their dreams.

Book Clubs

Wednesday is Book Club Day in Room 228.

Before we get deep into Book Clubs that address specific skill needs, we are getting used to thinking with partners, and digging deeper than the surface.

We started with fractured fairy tales last week.

This week, we will read wordless picture books.

I have Chalk on Kindle on all of my personal devices in the classroom, so one lucky group will read digitally.

The two newest wordless picture books in my collection are

Journey
by Aaron Becker
Candlewick, 2013

and

Zoom (Picture Puffins)
by Istvan Banyai
Puffin Books, 1998

I'm not sure how Zoom fits with the narrative work I want my students to continue with...perhaps I can find several more in my collection that are simply visually stunning and we can do some compare/contrast work with books that tell a narrative story and books that simply help us to see the world with new eyes...

The Perfect Antidote for BYOD

Dot.
by Randi Zuckerberg
illustrated by Joe Berger
HarperCollins, on shelves November 5, 2013
F&Gs provided by the publisher (almost as if they could read my mind)

"This is Dot.
Dot knows a lot.
She knows how to tap...
to touch...
to tweet...
and to tag."

Luckily, Dot's mom sends her outside to "REBOOT! RECHARGE! RESTART!" and Dot remembers about tapping with her toes, touching sunflowers with her fingertips, tweeting with the birds, and tagging her friends as they run past.

Yes, let's not let our children get so caught up in their devices that they forget the real world around them!

(Sorry to review this so far ahead of the publication date, but it was the right book at the right time, and I can't wait to share it with my students!)

BYOD

Two weeks ago I launched "Bring Your Own Device" in my classroom. Not because I don't already have enough to complicate my life, but because the theme of this year has unfolded to be "meet them where they are."

Before I ever mentioned the initiative to my students, I proposed it to parents at Curriculum Night. All five who showed up (which I'll take as a vote of confidence rather than a demonstration of apathy) were enthusiastic about the opportunity for their children to learn to use a device for more than just gaming and texting.

On that first Monday, five students brought devices. The number of devices has more than doubled since then. Somehow, there was a misconception that it was a one-week deal. Jaws dropped when I cleared that up and told them that this is a YEAR LONG deal. We started BYOD with a district Technology Support Teacher on hand to help out. We began with a lesson on digital citizenship, then scanned QR codes as one way to get to an Internet site. Next, the students learned to access the Student Dashboard, where I can upload links for them in all subject areas. We ended the morning with everyone on a school laptop for what started as a quick lesson in saving to the district cloud, but ended up being Fun With Shapes and Colors in Pages.

My ability to integrate technology every day has had its ups and downs. I am learning to be more flexible than ever and to defer to the students with, "What do YOU think?" which of course is empowering to them and why on earth did I ever have to be one who does all the thinking in the first place?

Here are some examples of how we've used our devices so far:

In reading, I gave groups the challenge of representing their thinking about the characters, setting, and most important events in the plot of our read aloud ESCAPE FROM MR. LEMONCELLO'S LIBRARY using their devices as they saw fit. They used Notes, Voice Memo, Skitch, a whiteboard app, iPods and iPads. They shared their thinking and creations using the document camera. (Air Share is aggravatingly not working for us.)

In math this week, we had a "whiteboard quiz" over geometry terms. If they had a drawing app on their device, they could use that for their whiteboard. Others used old-school whiteboards and dry erase pens.

In writing, the devices have opened up a whole new world of "containers" or formats in which students can go public with their writing. I'm anxious to see how this unfolds as they learn to use the apps they have and we find and try out new apps.

If all goes well, we'll have four new iPads soon to further complicate and enrich our classroom lives!

Poetry Friday -- Best

BEST

What does that mean,
"Do your best?"
Push myself
without any rest?

No time for play?
Never have fun?
Don't take a break
'til it's done, done, DONE?

Here's what I've learned
(disagree if you will)
sometimes...
occasionally...
it's a good idea
just to
chill.

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2013


It's been a crazy school year so far.
I'm struggling with what it means to do my best.
"My best" is a moving target.
Sometimes it means "A lot."
Sometimes my best is complicated,
and sometimes it is simple.
Sometimes it takes skill and long hard work,
but other times it takes luck, timing and inspiration.
My best at this sometimes depends on all of that.

I am not one thing.
I have many things that need me
to do my best.
So what is my best
changes.

"My best" has a floor,
but not a ceiling.

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2013



Dori has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at Dori Reads.

September Mosaic

Ah, September! You lasted a lifetime, yet you were gone in a blink.
Gardening
Teaching
Volunteering
Meeting/Eating
Celebrating
Silliness
Broccoli Blooms and Bees
Photo app play (Poetics, Finger Focus)


You can view the set on Flickr here.

Change of Plans

What I thought I'd be working on this year:

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
by John Medina

How the Brain Learns
by David A. Sousa



What I'm actually working on this year:

Teaching Student-Centered Mathematics: Developmentally Appropriate Instruction for Grades 3-5 (Volume II) (2nd Edition) (New 2013 Curriculum & Instruction Titles)
by John A. Van de Walle (and others)

About Teaching Mathematics: A K-8 Resource, 3rd Edition
by Marilyn Burns

Good Questions: Great Ways to Differentiate Mathematics Instruction, Second Edition (0)
by Marian Small

Good Questions for Math Teaching: Why Ask Them and What to Ask, K-6
by Peter Sullivan and Pat Lilburn

Slice of Life

When my doctor  told me I'd have to take 6 weeks off school due to my never-ending concussion, I was not happy.  (understatement) But once I'd been home for a few days, I decided I should use my time well.  There was little I could do as much of my life is consumed by "brainwork", so I decided to spend some time doing spring cleaning and finding some new hobbies--planting some things, learning some crafts, etc. I decided that regardless of how unpleasant it was to stay home, at least I'd have a clean house and I'd have learned some new crafts! I was determined to do all of those things I always meant to do if only I had the time. 

Fast forward a few months. I went into our guest bedroom and I noticed a pile of odds and ends in the corner.  Things I was meaning to donate or put away or toss.  I looked around the house and noticed other little piles waiting to be dealt with.  I realized that these were all remnants of my concussion days.  Those first weeks of time off work. Those weeks of figuring out who I could be without doing the things I love most.

Well, it is now October, 3 months from when the concussion restrictions were lifted.  And, guess what? I still haven't taken care of that pile and my guest room closet is a little bit of a mess again.  The minute I had restrictions lifted, I went back to my "regular" life.

And, the tomatoes I planted?  Well, you can see in the photo above how those turned out...I pretty much forgot about them the minute I was able to get back to my life of reading, writing, exercise, work, thinking.

I'm always looking for the big lessons in life and it seems that there is something to learn from all of this.  My thinking is that the lesson is about accepting the fact that I am who I am. I had some time to live my life without those "brainwork" things that I love most.  I tried some new things, most of which I haven't held onto.  Because really, when given the choice between cleaning and reading, I choose reading. When given the choice between watering tomatoes and almost anything else, I choose almost anything else.  At some point, I imagine the piles will get to me enough that I choose to take care of them before I choose to sit down and read a book.  But, not today.  

 If there are a few extra piles around the house, chances are I found something to do that was more worthwhile than dealing with them.  Rather than looking at the dead tomato plants or the pile on the floor and beating myself up about not doing all that I have decided "I should", my concussion weeks taught me  that I am the one who gets to choose how to spend my time.  And that alone is a gift, something to celebrate.  I realized that I have taken that for granted all of my life.