Launching!!

 Welcome Back!

I hope you all had a wonderful first week of school. It was great seeing all the eager faces around school and it was so nice getting to see those same eager faces get even more excited as they launched into their reading and writing year with their new teachers!! I am sure your week was filled with tons of routines and getting to know you activities and I hope it went well. I thought I would send out a post on some predictable structures and routines that you will want to make sure you cover in both reading and writing if you haven’t done so already! I also wanted to talk a little bit about starting your conferring off with a BANG in both reading and writing and introduce you to a tool that I was reminded of at my district’s homegrown institute this past August. It might be a tool you will want to get started with in reading and writing at the beginning of your year!

Predictable Routines and Structures

1. How Workshop Will Go Each and Every Day (including the teacher’s job and the student’s job during each part of workshop but for sure focusing on what are the roles during a mini-lesson…see below for a sticky note I wrote during our district’s homegrown institute that might help with this)

2. Turning and Talking (who do I talk to, what do we talk about, what do I do when I think I am done talking…)

3. Getting Ready for Workshop (getting out supplies, getting desk or table spot ready, coming to the meeting area quickly and quietly and ready to learn!)

4. Volume of Reading and Writing (ways to build our stamina, what to do when I lose steam, strategies to keep myself focused)

5. Partner Work

Conferring With a BANG!

Compliment Conferences: Some teachers like to spend the first couple of weeks holding compliment conferences as a way to get to know their readers and writers. Compliments conferences involve the teacher in observing their students during workshop time and noticing what their readers and writers are already doing (or leaning towards doing) well as workshop students. The teacher can then sit down next to a reader or writer and spend just a few minutes giving student a specific compliment in a effort to keep those behaviors going, spark a positive reading and writing attitude, and perhaps use the behaviors as a model to the other students. A compliment could sound like: “Harry, I noticed today that when I said off you go you got your reading bin, found your just right reading spot, filled out your reading log and started reading right away. This is such an important part of taking charge of your reading life and making the most of your reading workshop time. Keep it up!” Notice Harry not only knows what reading behavior he should keep doing but he also knows why it is important for him as a reader.  Similarly in writing, a compliment could sound like: “Susie, I am noticing in your notebook that you have made a list of some people and some places that are important to you AND you have listed out some small moments stories to go along with those people and places. These are such important strategies for generating ideas for your writing. You will now be able to choose a story to write that is focused on one time and one that has a lot of meaning for you. Way to go!”

Keeping Track of our Goals

At my district’s homegrown institute this past summer I was reminded of a wonderful tool that can be used to help students and teachers keep track of and be accountable for goals in the reading and writing workshop. You can call it an Accomplishment Board or an I Did It! chart or whatever you would like! The important part is the use of it and what it can offer teachers and students in regards to goal setting and goal accomplishments. A lot of times during a reading or writing conference, I like to leave the student with an artifact that represents what we worked on and can be used to remind the reader and writer of what they are working usually as a result of our conference or small group. The artifact may be a sticky note, a smaller version of an anchor chart, a to-do checklist…any type of reminder. Here are a few artifact examples:

WRITING ARTIFACT

READING ARTIFACT

In a subsequent conference or small-group, once the student works on the goal and that becomes a habit and a part of their reading and writing repertoire of strategies, they can take the artifact or write down on a sticky note or notecard what they can now do as a reader or writer and then can place this in their pocket on the Accomplishment Board or the I Did It! chart. Here is an example of a possible chart…each student has a pocket (coin envelope with top cut off) and there is a notecard in each envelope waiting for their accomplishments! You can then label the pockets with student names or numbers or have the students do a label for themselves!

At the end of a unit kids can take their accomplishments out of their pocket and celebrate all their hard work. It is also a great tool that can be shared at parent conferences or used when reporting out on student growth. Or if a student needs a reminder of all they have learned how to do as a reader or writer to get them motivated again, they can visit their accomplishments and remind themselves of all they already know! There are so many ways this goal-setting tool can be used in your reading and writing workshop to keep student goals at the forefront!

I hope you continue to have a wonderful reading and writing launch! Until next time happy workshop teaching!!

 

Ways to Use Anchor Charts as Teaching Tools…

It has been way too long since my last post! I have been knee-deep in some wonderful workshop teaching, I cherish every minute I get to spend with kids and teachers whether it is teaching workshop, observing workshop, or talking about workshop. Every day I feel pushed to learn more and do better. Our kids deserve it!

While I have been missing in action, I have been doing a lot of reading on assessments, goal-setting, learning progressions, and ways to encourage independence in students. Some of the reading I have been doing around these topics in from a blog that I HIGHLY suggest you follow if workshop teaching and making anchor charts are part of your world. The blog (I may have already mentioned it in a past post) is: chartchums.wordpress.com So….below I have started, what I hope to be a series of posts on charting, as I have been inspired by Marjorie Martinelli and Kristine Mraz to rethink all the possibilities charts have for our teaching and learning!

Charts and Shared Reading

• One tip suggested in this blog was to reread charts as a part of your shared reading time (especially when it is new learning). They gave the example of teachers making the bigger charts into smaller versions and including them in shared reading folders along with poems for kids to be rereading right when they come in in the morning. Of course you wouldn’t do this with all your charts but some of the routine charts might be nice to have in there so that the rereading the charts help the process become automatic for your kids. Also this way, when you retire an anchor chart at the end of a unit or when your students don’t need it posted front and center anymore, if it is one they really will use throughout the year, they still have access to it if they need it!

This is a smaller version of a bigger classroom chart that I made to put into student’s shared reading folders. I also made it into a bookmark for students to have in their book bins so they could have it out during partner time.

 

Charts and Shared Writing

• Another tip I gleaned from this fabulous blog is to take a piece of shared writing (perhaps a narrative written together after a class filed trip, or an information piece about something you are studying in science, or a review of some cookies you try out as a class) and then going back in to annotate it to show students how to revise their piece through specific lenses or to show examples of craft, revision, and editing found in the text or show where writing moves could be added into the text. It is important to keep the number of “points” you highlight to a manageable amount…this makes it doable for kids and also keeps the shared writing piece from getting so busy and filled that kids can’t use it as a tool anymore.

This was a shared writing piece to launch a unit on writing reviews. The pink sticky notes are labeling what we did as writers, what writing moves we did, to make our review strong and convincing. We had studied a mentor text of a strong review before writing this together so we could get an idea of what makes a review strong and convincing!

 

Happy Teaching!!

 

The On-Demand Writing Assessment…

Gathering data is an important part of the reading and writing workshop. In reading, part of the data we collect is through our benchmark assessments. We give these benchmark assessments, analyze them, look for what each student is doing in decoding words and reading with fluency and comprehending what they are reading. We make notes of what they are doing and we make notes of what they are struggling with so that we have an entry point into conferring and goal-setting with students. We want this goal-setting to be purposeful, transferable and long-lasting so it helps us as teachers to have a “profile” of sorts to start our work with. As the year progresses and our readers progress, we repeat this process many times over in different formats so that our students can continue to push themselves and make reading growth.

In writing, we can use a similar process by using on-demand assessments to help us create student writing “profiles” that can serve a similar purpose. In her book Writing Pathways Lucy Calkins includes an important section on the on-demand performance assessment. She includes some important tips and purposes for using this method that I thought might be helpful as we continue to navigate writer’s workshop using the units of study. Below I have included a few bullet points to emphasize each of the important areas covered by Calkins.

The Rationale

• using on-demand pieces as a way to assess writers emphasizes the fact that we are not aiming to produce great pieces of writing BUT are aiming to produce great writers
• there is great significance is assessing your students and your teaching on the basis of pieces students produce on their own, on the spot
• by knowing that your writers will be assessed on what they can do independently, you and your colleagues will work even harder to get your students to transfer and apply the learning they are doing with your support during the writing workshop to new writing work that you aren’t supporting them on
• on-demand assessments give students a chance to show off what they know how to do as writers and it offers teachers the chance to evaluate the “stickiness” of their teaching (p.20) 

The Logistics

• give an on-demand at the beginning of the year to get a baseline on your students (it is wise to do one in all three genres required by the Common Core at the beginning and end of the year so you can compare a year’s growth in each genre)
• give an on-demand assessment at the end of each narrative unit, at the end of each information unit, at the end of each opinion unit
• use one writing workshop period to give the assessment
• once you collect the assessments, read through them and take notes that will allow you to set goals for whole-class instruction, small-group instruction, and one-on-one conferring instruction…these are meant to show just where each of your students is at in a particular genre of writing and then allow the results to inform your instruction accordingly
• all these assessments can provide comparative data so you can track student growth across the units, across the year, and from one year to the next

The Prompt

• the prompts suggested in the book are set up to be consistent at the K-8 level with specific reminders for the K-2 level and then more advanced reminders for the 3-8 level
• there are three different prompts…one for each of the genres required in the common core
• as students are writing, the teacher should be observing and taking note of things like…who is having trouble coming up with an idea, who stays engaged the entire time, who spends a lot of time planning, who does a lot of starting and stopping…this data can then be a basis for whole-class, small-group, or individual teaching
• by leaving the prompt open-ended, you are emphasizing the important belief, and workshop tenet, that coming up with a topic, then narrowing its scope, and expressing it clearly, are skills that are crucial to the writing process…as Lucy states “Topic choice and development, therefore, are in the hands of students for deliberate reasons” (p. 22)

The Payoff

• the assessment is simple and is not time-consuming…no need to come up with a different prompt per grade level, per genre
• this one assessment provides you with baseline data for each of your students
• you can use these assessments to help students learn to self-assess and set goals for themselves
• once baseline data are collected, teachers can begin to study where students are and where they need to go

Of course this is not the only writing you will be assessing, but it is a critical part of your assessment process in the writing workshop. For your next unit of study, try giving an on-demand assessment the day before the start of the unit (if you have the Writing Pathways book you can find the language for these prompts within each genre section) and then give the same exact prompt the day after your celebration for the unit. Then look across the two pieces and not only look to see what each student has learned to do during the unit but also use the pieces as your own self-reflection tools. You can read these pieces with the questioning lens of What might I do differently next time? How should I adjust my teaching moving forward? What teaching did I do that was “sticky” enough and what needs more attention?  

Until next time…Happy Teaching!

Kinds of Reading Conferences

Conferring in the reading workshop is no easy task. No matter how many conferences I sit down to have with students, I never seem to feel as if I have accomplished it all in the art of a reading conference nor do I think I ever will, and that’s ok.  I get that feeling because like all educators I am always looking for ways to improve my workshop teaching and my workshop conferring. I am looking for ways to make my teaching more “sticky”. Fellow workshop teachers, as you continue to make your reading workshop more “sticky” for your students, I thought I would post something about different kinds of reading conferences you may want to try. Sometimes I find trying something new can be energizing to my conferring. A new approach can also help you find new ways to address the ever-pressing question of “How do I possibly meet all my readers’ needs with only an hour of reading workshop time!” So here are a few to consider…try a couple out…talk to colleagues about how it goes…make some tweaks…try them again!Find what “sticks” for you!

Research-Compliment-Decide-Teach Conference: In this type of conference the teacher researches what the student is doing as a reader, stops the student and then teaches them a new strategy, or reinforces or tunes-up a strategy that the student has already been introduced to, that will not only influence their reading today but across their reading lives. This type of conference might sound like this: “Ava, I love the way you are using the pictures in your book to infer what this character is feeling. Today I want to teach you that another way readers infer what a character is feeling is by (present strategy). Watch me as I try this in my book…Did you see how I…? Now you try…”

Coaching Conference: This kind of a conference is meant to help the student in the midst of their reading rather than stopping them to teach them a specific strategy. This type of conference is especially helpful for beginning readers who need that extra support in order to internalize strategies they have learned. This type of conference may sound like this: (while the student is reading teacher could say…) “Run your finger under the word… Check the picture… Does that make sense? Go back and check… OR the teacher may also use gestures to remind students of strategies such as pointing to the picture or pointing under the beginning of the word.

Proficient Partner Conferences: During this type of a conference the teacher researches what the student or partnership is doing and then assumes the role of a “proficient partner” to lift the level of the student’s work.  At the end of the conference the teacher may name the strategies or qualities of good reading and good book talks that were demonstrated so the student or students can work to continue this work on their own. This type of a conference is helpful in supporting student to have thoughts about their texts and support those thoughts with strong evidence, or to have stronger talks about their books. This type of conference may sound like this: (teacher says)”I was also thinking….an example of that from the book is… OR We are talking about…but I am also wondering…”

Inquiry Conference: This type of conference is more apt to be used with older students and involves them in studying something (like a post-it note, watching a partnership talk, a notebook entry…) and then working with the teacher to identify what was done and then work to apply that same principle to their own work in order to lift the level of it. This type of conference ends with the reader making a plan for what they will do next in their reading work. This type of conference may sound like this: “Lets’ study a few of your prediction post-its and compare them to our mentor post-its. What are you noticing? OR “Let’s watch these reading partners and see what we can learn from the way they discuss their book.”

Happy Conferring!!

(All these types of conferences are described more in depth in many different resources….most of what I have posted above comes from The Art of Teaching Reading by Lucy Calkins)

Welcome Back!

Hello Fellow Workshop Teachers!

As I tucked my kiddos into bed tonight, and tried my hardest not to fall asleep with them, I began going through the checklist of things I had meant to do over winter break, things I had actually accomplished, the work I had ahead of me tonight, and the never ending list of to-do’s that was already accumulating in my head for my return to work tomorrow. I kind of wanted to crawl under my covers and not come out for another week. But then I got to thinking about the books my two kids got as gifts and the looks on their faces as they discovered new characters, figured out tricky words and downloaded the next book in a newly discovered series on their new tablets…..and then I began to feel more energized to re-enter the world of teaching and experiencing reading and writing adventures with kids. So as you re-enter your classroom tomorrow take the time to celebrate the New Year and the new discoveries your students will be making as readers and writers over the next couple of months. Have them set some reading and writing resolutions…maybe make one for your self too! Here are a couple of tips as you are greeted by excited students early tomorrow morning.

• Give yourself and your students some time to review with their reading and writing partners the routines of workshop time. This could be a quick active engagement to start each of your mini-lessons for the day.
• When you send your students off to read and write after the mini-lesson, take a few minutes to walk around the classroom giving compliments and helpful reminders of the procedures, behaviors and habits powerful readers and writers do during workshop time.
• Take a tour with your students of your posted anchor charts to remind them of the tools they have at their fingertips.
• Make sure to take advantage of the mid-workshop teaching opportunities to recall prior learning, give a helpful reminder or another aspect of the day’s teaching point, clarify or reinforce what the students are doing as readers and writers, have students share what they are doing as readers and writers specifically with their workshop partner
• Take some time to observe your students as they get back into the swing of things…possibly asking yourself: Do I need to pull some quick strategy groups to reinforce any habits or behaviors that I should be seeing during workshop but I’m not seeing today? Do I need to stop and reorient my students to the classroom library? Are my students in a just-right book? Do they know where they left off in their piece of writing or do we need to stop and reread our pieces to our writing partners for clarification? Should we set a class stamina goal to get us off to a great start in the New Year?
• During your share at the end of workshop, talk about what went well, what they struggled with, what their goals will be for the next day…maybe write those goals down and celebrate when they quickly accomplish them!

Happy Teaching!

 

Architecture of a Conference

Hello Workshop Teachers!

Hopefully you have found yourself getting into a powerful workshop routine with your readers and writers. In thinking about your time with your readers and writers, perhaps the most powerful part of that is the time you can spend conferring with your students. This is a time for you to check in with your readers and writers to monitor their growth and meet them at their instructional level in both academic areas. It is also a time for you to be able to set meaningful goals with your students that are unique to them! Below I have outlined what a reading and writing conference might look like. You will probably notice that the format is very similar to that of the mini-lesson. Just like with the mini-lesson, you will want to make sure you pay attention to how much time you are spending with each child so that you can get to all of your students in a reasonable amount of time. That is easier said than done for sure! You will find that the more you confer, the better your timing and efficiency will be each time you sit down with your students. So as you continue to work on this process, here are just a few tips that you may consider for each of the parts of your conferences. 

Reading Conference

Research: Spend a couple of minutes researching what the student is doing, or not doing, as a reader. This might be “on the spot” research or you may be going into the conference with an idea from a previous assessment or observation of the student’s reading. Here are some research questions you could ask to open-up your conference:

• What are you working on as a reader today?
• What is your plan for reading today?
• Can you take me on a tour of your post-its?
• Last time we met we worked on…How’s that going? Can you show me where you tried that in your book?

Compliment: Give the student an authentic compliment on something you notice they are doing or almost doing. Some things you can compliment include a skill, strategy, or a reading behavior you are noticing. Here are some ways you could frame your compliment:

• One strategy you are trying is…This strategy is helping you get better at…
• One thing you are doing as a reader that is fantastic is…
• I’m noticing that you’re the kind of reader who…

Teaching Point: Now choose and state what it is you are going to show them to do as a reader today. It is important that you are NOT connecting the compliment and the teaching point with the connector word “but”. This sometimes gives kids the impression that what you just observed them doing or what you just complimented them on is not good enough. Instead you could connect these parts by using one of the following statements:

• Another thing I want to teach you that readers do is…
• Another way readers…is to…
• Today I want to teach you that readers…when they read. One way we do this is by….

Teach: Demonstrate what it is you want your reader to be able to do. You can be demonstrating this in a separate text that you bring to the conference or when appropriate in the student’s text. Some language you might use to set you and your student up for some learning might include:

• Be like a detective and study what I’m doing as a reader…
• Do you remember in our read aloud when I…Let’s see if we can try that by…
• Let’s try a bit of this strategy together. First we…Then we…Next we…and finally we…

Coach/Active Engagement: Get your reader to try what it is you just taught them. You can then coach them so that they can be successful. You may want them to try it once in front of you and then you could tell them to continue working and you can then come back to them after you confer with a couple other students to make sure they are still being successful.

Link: As you end this conference make sure you restate what it was that you worked on today as readers. You may want to leave them with a tangible record of their goal. This may be a sticky note with their goal written on it, a sticky note with a process you want the reader to follow, a goal written in their reader’s notebook, etc. You may also want your student to repeat back to you what their plan is or what they learned as a reader today. Then make sure you document what you taught them so when you come back to confer with them again you remember what to check in on! 

Writing Conference

Research: Spend a couple of minutes researching what the student is doing, or not doing, as a writer. This might be “on the spot” research or you may be going into the conference with an idea from a previous assessment or observation of the student’s writing. Take some time to look at the student’s writing to gain a deeper understanding. As you talk with the student try to understand what the student is trying to do as a writer and what they have done as a writer to help figure out where to go next. Here are some research questions you could ask to open-up your conference:

• What are you working on as a writer today?
• What is your plan for writing today?
• Ask the student a question about their writing and then ask them to show you that part in their writing.

Compliment: Give the student an authentic compliment on something you notice they are doing or almost doing. Some things you can compliment include a skill, strategy, or a writing behavior you are noticing. Make sure you are complimenting what they did as a writer, not just their piece of writing. Here are some ways you could frame your compliment:

• One strategy you are trying is…This strategy is helping you get better at…
• One thing you are doing as a writer that is fantastic is…
• I’m noticing that you’re the kind of writer who…
• I’m noticing that you started to try to….here, let’s continue that work together.

Teaching Point: Now choose and state what it is you are going to show them to do as a writer today. It is important that you are not connecting the compliment and the teaching with the connector word “but”. This sometimes gives kids the impression that what you just observed them doing or what you just complimented is not good enough. Instead you can connect these past by using one of the following statements:

• Another thing I want to teach you that writers do is…
• Another way writers…is to…
• Today I want to teach you that writers…when they write. One way we do this is by….

Teach: Demonstrate, offer guided practice, explicitly tell them, or inquire with them about something you want your writer to be able to do. You can be demonstrating this in your own piece of writing that you bring to the conference or when appropriate in the student’s piece of writing. Some language you might use to set you and your student up for some learning might include:

• Be like a detective and study what I’m going to do as a writer to make my piece more powerful…
• Do you remember in our mini-lesson when I did…? Let’s see if we can try that in your writing by…
• Let’s try a bit of this strategy together. First we…Then we…Next we…and finally we…

Coach/Active Engagement: Get your writer to try what it is you just taught them. You can then coach them in this skill/strategy so that they can be successful. You may want them to try it once in front of you and then you could tell them to continue working and you can then come back to them after you confer with a couple other students to make sure they are still being successful.

Link: As you end this conference make sure you restate what it was that you worked on today as a writer. You may want to leave them with a tangible record of their goal. This may be a sticky note with their goal written on it, a sticky note with a process you want the writer to follow, a goal written in their writer’s notebook, an example of what it is you want them to try out in their own writing, etc. You may also want your student to repeat back to you what their plan is or what they learned as a writer today. Then make sure you document what you taught them so when you come back to confer with them again you remember what to check in on! 

Note: There are many different types of conferences and reasons to have a conference with a child. The above format is just one of those ways. There will be times when you will use only parts of a conference. You may want to spend one day circling around your readers and writers for a little while to give compliments or touch base with kids and their goals for a short amount of time before you get into your conferring. You can also spend some time researching your readers and writers and jot a list of possible next steps in mini-lesson, small-group instruction and conferencing. 

Phew! That was a lot…thanks for sticking with me! Most of the information above comes from my experiences at the summer institutes at the Reading and Writing Project. I have had the privilege of attending their training during several summers at Columbia University. Some other resources that I have gained a lot of information from about conferring include:

• How’s it Going? by Carl Anderson
• Assessing Writers by Carl Anderson
• One to One: The Art of Conferring with Young Writers by Lucy Calkins
• Teaching Reading in Small Groups by Jennifer Seravallo
• Conferring With Readers Supporting Each Student’s Growth & Independence by Jennifer Seravallo and Gravity Goldberg

Happy conferring!

Writing About Reading

Hello Busy Workshop Teachers!

Most grade levels are into their character unit in reader’s workshop and are working on a complimentary unit in writers workshop (literary essay, realistic fiction, fiction writing). Both of these units require readers and writers to think deeply about characters as a way to enhance a piece of writing or to enhance their comprehension of a book. It is such critical work that will carry readers and writers through the next units they will embrace this year so it is important to make sure students learn to internalize the skills they are learning each day during workshop time. I thought including some tips on ways to think about characters and tips on ways to push our thinking about characters (in partner talk and in readers notebooks) might be useful in making this learning meaningful.  Most of the information below was compiled from the Teacher’s College character units of study for reading and the above listed Teacher’s College writing units. 

Thinking About Characters (these can be prompts for sticky note work, partner talk, and/or reading notebook responses)

• What kind of person is this character?
• What does the character want?
• What obstacles/problems/struggles does the character face in working to get what they want?
• How does the main character treat other characters?
• How do other characters treat the main character?
• How is the character feeling? Do their feelings change across the book? Why?
• How is the character acting? What do they think, say and do? What does this tell you about the character?
• What motivates the character?
• How does the character react to trouble?

Prompts for Pushing our Thinking About Reading (these can be prompts for sticky note work, partner talk, and/or reading notebook responses)

• I’m noticing…
• For example…
• The reason for this is…
• Maybe the reason for this is…
• I think this is important because…
• This makes me realize…
• There is one thing in the story that doesn’t “fit” to me, and it’s…
• In the beginning…then later…finally…
• Many people think…but I think….because…
• I used to think…but after I read…I now think…

Readers (and Writers) Make Timelines: The picture below is a timeline that was used in a first grade classroom to start to track the different behaviors of a character (Trixie) across a book (Knuffle Bunny Too!). The information gathered can then be used to talk about and retell the story from each lens. With older readers, this same concept can be used to track a character except they may be doing the work in their reading notebooks, although you could also be keeping a timeline for your read aloud as well. Timelines are also a useful planning and rehearsing tool in writer’s workshop especially when the story a student is writing (for example a realistic fiction story) has a main character that has things happen to them in the story.

 

There are so many different ways you can teach your readers and writers to be “wide awake” in their character work. These are just a few options that I hope are helpful!

Happy Workshop Teaching!!

Celebrate!

Hello Workshop Teachers!

As you are ending your first units of study in reading and writing I thought I would do a short post on some ways you can celebrate the closing of one unit of study and the opening of another! Think about how far you and your students have come in such a short amount of time!! Make sure you celebrate your efforts along with sharing your excitement with your students.

TIP #1: It is always a good idea to “retire” your beloved anchor charts and here are some tips on how to make that meaningful for you and your students:

• as you retire the anchor charts from the unit, use your sharing time as a stage for students to review and celebrate all they have learned over the course of the unit
• take pictures of the anchor charts and print off copies to put into protective sleeves and then into a binder so the anchor charts are still available to the students well into the next units
• hang up smaller versions of the same charts in targeted areas around the room where students may need to access them (how to choose a just right book…maybe make a smaller version to hang right by your classroom library)
• have copies or make smaller versions of charts to have in your conferring tool-kits to pull out and use should the need arise (if you have a couple of copies you can always leave one with a student after your conference as a tool for them to have right at their fingertips!)

TIP #2: Celebrate their reading work!

• give students time to take an anchor chart walk before taking them down and give them a few minutes to do a short reflection on which were the most useful or powerful or give them time to jot down some thinking about the reading and writing work they did during the unit (a great self-assessment tool!)…how did they grow? what new learning did they do? what new skills will they take with them into the next unit? 
• have kids set a goal about one reading behavior/skill they will continue for the next unit and one reading behavior/skill they want to work to get better at over the course of the next unit
• have kids share their most powerful sticky-note or notebook entry with their reading partner…what made it so powerful?
• put all their unit-specific thinking to work on the last day of the unit and do a read-aloud with some pre-planned stop-and-jots to then collect for an assessment tool (not only assessing the unit you just finished but you can also use it as a formative assessment tool for the next unit as well…who still needs work in what areas?)

TIP #3: Celebrate their writing work!

• invite a buddy class to hear your students read their published pieces
• have a publishing party where everyone leaves their story at their desk, or on a table, and kids walk around, read each other’s pieces, and leave comments on sticky notes for the author to enjoy later
• put a bar code on the stories and have them available for check-out in the library
• send the story home with a reflection page for adults at home to listen to their child read their story and then they can comment on it for them and send it back to school
• have a common grade-level time where you all get together and share kids and stories with each other
• host an author’s chair…have a couple kids read their stories to the class each day as you launch into the next unit

There are so many ways you can celebrate the learning you and your students have done. Make sure you take the time to do so…it helps keep you and your students motivated and grounded in the work you are doing on a daily basis to build their literacy lives to the fullest!

 

Units of Study

Hello Again!

I hope your launching units in reading and writing have been a success and that you are feeling like you are in a groove with your workshop routines! I do also know, however, that this is a busy time of year with many many assessments and I know it becomes hard to keep those routines going when deadlines are quickly approaching! However, I urge you to do your very best to try to keep the workshop routines as consistent as possible during this busy time so you don’t lose any of the momentum you have worked so hard to build during the month of September. To help do this you, as you are administering your assessments, it is always a great idea to think about how you can apply the knowledge you gain from them towards your workshop teaching. Maybe keep a sticky note nearby when you are testing kids, or carry a clipboard or small notebook as you are walking around while your kids are testing on the computer. Jot down some information on what you are seeing your kids do or not do to later use to form small groups, or to help guide a one-on-one conference. Let the assessments, and your observations during them, serve as a type of conference. Glean as much information as possible so that the assessments can become a diagnostic teaching tool. This always helped me feel like all the time I spent assessing my students, was really helping to inform my instruction and give me an insight into the lives of my readers and writers. With all that being said, as you are finishing up your assessments, most of you are probably starting to think about and prepare for your next unit. I thought it might be helpful to post some tips on ways you can approach deconstructing a unit of study in reading and writing with your current readers and writers in the forefront of your mind.

Reading and Writing

Some of the different parts of the units of study will include:

• Background/Overview/Getting Ready for the Unit: By reading this, you can get a BIG picture of unit as a whole. I like to think of it as the “Yellow-Brick Road” of the unit. You are able to identify where to start and what you will encounter on your journey to the “Emerald City” or the end of the unit! This part will also help you prepare your classroom to support your readers/writers during the unit. 
• Reading Through Each BEND: Each bend is part of the “Yellow-Brick Road” you and your students will be traveling. When you are reading through each bend it might be helpful to jot down or highlight anything that seems critical to you. You might read through it looking for the specifics on what you are going to be asking your students to do. What will they need to be doing as readers/writers to successfully get to the end of each bend prepared for the next one? I usually make a bulleted list that I can then use to create my teaching points.

Some “Lenses” you might use to read through the units…

• Anchor Charts and Teaching Points: If you made a bulleted list from reading through the bends, look back over that list to see if you can group together any of the reading/writing goals or behaviors you just pulled out from the narrative. Next think about the ones you grouped together and think about how they might fit on an anchor chart…what would you call the anchor chart…can you use the title of the bend to help you? Next, think about the sequence in which you would want to teach them, and sketch out a possible “finished” anchor chart knowing you would in reality build it in steps with your students.
• Partner Talk/Conversation Stems: Within each bend, there often times will be helpful language you can teach your students in order to support their conversations and their responding to their reading or about their pieces of writing. These talking prompts can be used during your read-aloud time and they can become part of your active engagement to help students learn how to talk purposefully to their workshop partners.  
  

Happy workshop teaching! 

Anchor Charts

Hello Happy Workshop Teachers!

I thought I would send out a post (this will be a topic I will revisit) talking about the many wonderful aspects and uses of the reading and writing workshop Anchor Chart. It has always been a staple in my teaching and it can also be a great independence builder for students during that independent portion of your workshop. It can also serve as an assessment tool if you set it up with student expectations or if you set it up like a continuum, where students can check their work against what you have created (most likely together) and posted as a reference. Here are just a couple of tips to making your anchor charts kid friendly, user friendly, and a meaningful workshop teaching tool!

• Charts should be visual evidence of the current reading and writing work being done by the teacher and students in the classroom (this means that anyone should be able to walk into your classroom and know what students are learning in reading and in writing…it also gives you a visual reminder during conferencing with students)
• Charts should be co-created within the context of one lesson or over a series of lessons 
• Adding a photo or picture or graphic can offer extra support for students (like…a picture of what a student’s writing paper will look like through each of the steps on the chart or an actual photograph of two children doing each of the steps on your “Partner Reading Process” chart or if you want to post an example of the kind of sticky note response you are looking for students to do…a student having some trouble can bring their sticky note to the chart to check to see if they are on track to reach that goal and if they are not they have a mentor text in front of them to help them get there)
• Your anchor charts should be accessible to students throughout the day and especially during workshop time (therefore sometimes it is nice to take a small picture or make a smaller version of the chart for students to have at their tables, in their book boxes or baggies, or in their writing folders for them to be able to reference up close and personal)
• At the end of a unit of study…”retire” your anchor charts to make room for the new ones…however if you find it is a chart that some of your students still need take a picture of it and give it to them or you could keep a binder with pictures of all of your “retired” anchor charts in plastic sleeves divided out by units. You can leave the binder out for students to reference or you could even take the binder along with you as you sit down to confer with students during reader’s and writer’s workshop.  
• RESOURCES: Of course Pinterest has MILLIONS of examples of reading and writing anchor charts (I too have spent hours lost in Pinterest land!!) but make sure, as I like to call it, you are going to “Pinterest with a Purpose”…what I mean by this is that you know what you want skills and strategies you want to teach students before going and looking…this way you won’t just find a cute chart that you want to remake even if it doesn’t exactly match what you are teaching, you will instead find a chart (or part of a chart) that can support what it is you want to teach because you have already identified that…you are navigating through Pinterest with a different lens
• RESOURCES: The book Smarter Charts by Marjorie Martinelli and Kristine Mraz (two staff developers from Teacher’s College) is a great book to reference for anchor chart uses and ideas and helpful tips…it was written for K-2 however I think a lot of the information in the book can be helpful for all grades!

Hope this gives you some anchor chart inspiration!