Slice of Life Day 9: Report Cards Meets the Power of Yet

“When do we get our report cards?” B asks.

“At the end of the day,” I tell him.

“Yes!”

“If I get more 4s than 3s I get to go to a movie,” A says to B.

They are so excited, you’d think it was Christmas. They can’t wait.

I can.

I agonize over report cards. And I don’t mean just the tremendously long time it takes to input them. I mean giving a student a number (4 being the highest) that measures them as a reader and most upsettingly as a writer, is painful.

In the Before Common Core period we were to assign grades based on what we thought the student would score on the state standards test. In other words, if their report card said “3” the prediction was that the student would score as “proficient” on the test.  Over years of collecting state testing and reading assessment data, we had a fairly predicable correlation. Now with the new and improved testing, all bets are off. .We know itis a lot harder. We know our students have had no real experience in this kind of testing environment. We know, based on other state’s experiences (think New York), the scores will be lower. Add this into my grading angst.

Back to my classroom.

At the end of the day, I pass out the report cards. Every year I tell them to wait to open it till they get home with their parent. And every year they open them as soon as they get them, like Christmas presents, count the 2s, 3s, and 4s, and share with their neighbors.

One student has totaled the numbers up. She’s smiling. She likes the ratio.

“I love reading the comments one student says, look what I got, ‘Shows growth in reading.’ ”

These are the students I don’t worry about too much. They are the ones that love school. Generally they are pretty good at it.

My worry is for the student who got 2s in reading and writing. They are readers and writers, they just haven’t met the level of expectation yet. This is the nature of learning. Do they know that? Is the power of yet present in a student’s mind? Or is another “2” another confirmation that says- I’m not good enough, or I’m not a good reader, or worst of all I don’t like reading.

The facts are this: report cards aren’t going away and we teachers value assessment in the light of next steps. So here is my pie-in-the-sky wish: a report card that shows a progression of growth and expectation.. When a student opens up their report card, their conversation becomes:

 Here I am.
Here is my goal.
I’m getting there (or) I’m not there yet,
so
Where do I need to work?

This could be done. It has been done with the writing checklists from Teachers College Reading and Writing Project’s Units of Study. Why couldn’t we do this same thing for the Common Core Standards, at least in elementary school. Maybe I’m crazy, and I know it wouldn’t be easy, but it might make report cards something to get excited about.

• .

Assessment: Letting the Students Drive the Data

After reading Jennifer Brittin’s great post on the NCTE’s position paper on formative assessment and her struggles with data, I thought I’d throw my hat into the ring and fess up: I am drowning in data. Post its trail me. I find them in bags and books. Notebooks are filled with data creation, collection and interpretation that leads hopefully to next steps for nearly 60 students. Frankly even when I analyze and categorize the data, then group students, feedback seems no where near what John Hattie calls “timely.”  Superhuman powers seem necessary. An all-knowing great and powerful Oz of a teacher…or is that just that man behind the curtain?

Due to my lack of super powers, I am looking to students to learn what they need to do and then approximate their success along the way. Their approximations of success may be slightly off, but their misinterpretations of the expectation is easier for me to lean into than me  letting them know “where they stand.” It is a work in progress, but so far this is how reading is looking. I have based these “ladders” on Jennifer Serravallo’s work with an eye toward growing student thinking and writing about reading in the areas of setting, plot and character.

Setting: Writing about Reading Using Ladder to Grow Thinking

Plot – Writing About Reading Addressing Character’s Problems

Character: Writing About Reading Using a Post it Ladder

I have students use their self-selected club books and write about their reading (click here for sheet)  weekly using the ladders to assess their thinking. They work independently, then go to their groups to revise and hopefully refine/upgrade their thinking during club talk. Each week I look at their assessment of their work. and then group for instruction the following week. Needs fluctuate based on the type and level book.

A group of readers who tested out as “T/U” did exceptional work in Tale of Desperaux a “Q” level book that had been read aloud to them in third grade. It was some of the best work I’d seen. They got it!  And more importantly, they know how it feels to get it. As they move on, they should have a model of success to work from.  

I’ve also seen the opposite. Students not being able to do the work, and more importantly they are starting to see where they are. I’m hearing more, “Ohhh that’s what that means,” versus, me saying this is what it means. Shockingly some are still discovering that setting refers to a place and or time not a character’s clothing. Shocking that I thought they knew what setting was, after all, hadn’t I told them many times.

I’m so thankful for the voices such as those in the NCTE twitter chat on Sunday night (read the Storify here) that are solidly behind the work of goal-oriented, student-driven assessment or as Kristi Mraz (@mrazkristine)  termed “successment!”  Here’s to a lot more of doing that work together.

Celebrating Randomness

Every Saturday Ruth Ayers hosts bloggers who look back on their week with an eye for moments to celebrate. It is a wonderful way to honor, to notice and celebrate all the good things that happen. Click here and find out how you can start this practice. 

This week’s list seems random. No real theme here. Just life. Kinda nice.

1. Parent Conferences are almost over and, in my opinion, overwhelmingly successful. Students led their conference by talking about their progress and their work to date. Students worked in front of their parents, evaluating their work right there on the spot. Goals were stated relative to Common Core expectations and in most cases the next steps involved in meeting the goal was discussed in a “how do you think you could achieve this goal” and “what can we do on Monday to start reaching this goal”  manner.

This was a one-on-one conference my students with parents listening intently. Data was gathered for teaching, parents attentiveness was clear and if nothing else this spotlight on their child was appreciated by both parents and students. The level of anxiety was apparent with some of the students, but most parents felt it was important for them to be able to talk about their work.

Only a few parents asked what grade their child would be receiving.  The focus was on the work and the process of learning. What could be a better thing to celebrate in education.

So much of this work was aided by a questionnaire the student’s filled out prior to the conference. It got them thinking and was used by some to talk from during the conference. I developed my conference  forms from the forms provided by Pernille Ripp in her post on how to do parent conferences. Thanks again Pernille and Leigh Ann for pointing me in the right direction.

2. Teachers College Reading and Writing Project released their Summer Institute Brochure  and videos of their work aligned with the Charlotte Danielson framework for teaching. Wow on both counts. Here’s to celebrating the continuing work of TCRWP and Lucy Calkins. Always challenging themselves and reaching for more. Now the tough work of choosing which institute.

3. My colleague Cathy started a blog. I’m so proud of her for jumping in and doing something for herself and the education community. I celebrate Cathy who is now a creator not just a consumer of media. Check out her blog here. Hopefully she’ll join us at #celebratelu soon.

4. Rain came to Southern California. I heard it the other night. It sounded strange, foreign. I thought, rain… but no, couldn’t be. I looked out and sure enough the ground is wet. Yeah! Our record low rainfall has those who keep track of these things all in a tizzy. While this short burst won’t fix the drought, it was nice to have a little winter-like weather.

5. My daughter’s brace is off and she’s in the pool. Thankfully she’s healing nicely. The surgeon is pleased. While she’s still in physical therapy and has limitations, the first part of this recovery is over. Her  return to the pool was exhausting. I came home to find her in bed at 6:30. She says she’s slow and it’s hard. Hopefully her desire to return to her former swimming self will be rekindled. No matter what she pursues, I’m grateful she is becoming whole again.

6. Next week will be normal, at least in terms of school hours. While conferences were good, teaching time was limited. I celebrate our return to normal school hours and predictability for our students.

Here’s to random celebrations, a wonderful weekend and more for the week ahead.

SOL Reflection: Making the Writing Box Bigger

Slice of Life hosted by Two Writing Teachers makes Tuesdays wonderful. If you’d like to join in the slicing, check out this link.

The very nature of goal setting is to challenge ourselves, to reach for more, to measure our progress, to prove or affirm our place, to keep up, to be acknowledged or some combination of all of the above.  Certain people are goal-oriented; they are driven by the need to succeed. Certain types of activities are based on achieving goals: think sales or sports.

This is all fine and dandy, but it makes me wonder about those times when we don’t succeed and label it failure. It seems so final.

Nerdlution, part 1 had many people saying they had failed.  This tweet from Franki Sibberson made me think:  “I wonder what our #nerdlutions failures mean in terms of our expectations of students and their goals?”  Hmmm… I wonder too.

There are some students in my class that succeed in traditional school ways. But there are some that don’t. For various reasons they don’t fit into the box we call school. They are bright kids and can succeed, but not in the school way. In organization, writing, reading, math — certain students hit walls. Success based on standard measures doesn’t happen for them, yet. They know it and feel bad about it. They feel bad about themselves because they fail to succeed. It isn’t a life sentence, just school. So how can we make the box that means success a little bigger?

Last week we drafted our memoirs.

Forty minutes had passed. One student hunkers over his paper. I walk over. He has written four lines. His piece is all about how he hates writing.

“How are you doing?” I ask.

“This is so hard.” His writing tells me more. Writing was easy in first grade, but now it is so hard because there is so much more to pay attention to. Really something worth pursuing with him, but not now. Poor kid’s in a panic.

While he has only written a few lines, what he has done is beautiful. Ironic, I think. This child who hates to write has a gift for it. He knows how to put words together. But at the same time, he feels he has failed. In mis mind he hasn’t written enough.

He says, “I can’t do this, I don’t know what else to say.”

I tell him I know the feeling. I tell him his style reminds me of so many memoir texts that start out, “When I was…” and then continue with a string of “when I was…” moving toward the present.

I ask him if he remembers writing in second grade, or third or fourth? How was it then?

His eyes perk up, “I remember second grade. It was ok then. Things got much more difficult in fourth grade.”

“Ok,” I say, “Start in second grade, then work your way forward, grade by grade. See if that can get you a little more and perhaps you could figure out something along the way.”

He sits back down, leans over his work, and writes. Ten minutes pass. Four more lines written. He seems better with this product, and better with himself.

As we walk to recess, I tell him that he has grit.

“What’s that?”

“That’s when you keep working, even when it’s hard. Extremely hard.  When you do this you have grit. You don’t give up.”

“Oh, sort of like perseverance?”

“But doesn’t it sound cooler – grit?”

“Yeah, kind of like getting messy in the dirt,” he says.

“Exactly,” I say. “You have a way with words.”

And then he runs off to recess.

While I want him to love to write, this year might just be about making writing a little less painful. The real question in in my mind is how he feels about himself and his abilities.

He is being asked to do a school thing defined by a unit of study.  There are other opportunities to write. But this is how he defines writing. Let’s face it, this is how we have defined it. After all, it’s called Writer’s Workshop. The process of writing overwhelms him. There is just too much to remember, to organize and then a deadline on top of it makes it even more disturbing. Bottom line, this type of work makes him feel like a failure.

He doesn’t fit into this particular writing box, and because of this he hates writing. Regardless of what the Common Core says, for the sake of our students, writing needs to be seen as something we do everywhere. Our definition of writing and what we present as writing opportunities needs to expand dramatically.  The box needs to get bigger, making room for students to find a writing space that fits and equals success.

Celebrating New Goals, New Structures, Renewed Landscapes and Trust

Here’s to celebrating literacy and trust. Thank you Ruth for creating a space  and ritual. Join us at ruthayerswrites.com to celebrate your week!

#1. My #mustreadin2014 book list.  Ideas are always floating around in my head. My intentions are good. I mean to do it, but I get distracted. I forget, and all of a sudden, time has passed and I missed it. The act of writing it down a list is powerful. I celebrate the Nerdy Book Club posts, the incredible blogging and community that keep me up to date on those must reads, and as a result now I can’t stop finding books to add to my list. Supportive reading buddies Catherine Flynn, Allison Jackson and Erin Varley have already checked in with their progress. I celebrate my books, my new focus on book recommendations, and my book buddies.

#2. A second first day of school. I love coming back from winter break. We miss each other. After three weeks apart, we’re rested and ready to start fresh. While I have big plans for the rest of the year, I take a breath and make a space for them to come in, share, absorb, and celebrate their revitalized selves and classmates.

#3. My Reading Door.

     Inspired by my must read list and Donalyn Miller’s Reading in the Wild, I created my reading door.  I can’t wait to see how the kids (and teachers) react to it.  At this point, most of my students don’t think beyond the book they are currently holding in their hands. They don’t plan their future reading, yet.  And who could blame them. I haven’t  shown them the possibility. I’m imagining students developing to be read lists that will reflect a few books at first. With time, hopefully the books will start to accumulate and build till it reaches into the summer months. I celebrate book plans and my lovely book door.

#4. New schedule. Like lists, I need structure. I have great ideas but they just float off if I don’t have a structure to put them in. It keeps me in line, and accountable to my beliefs.  The first half of the year our routine included daily read aloud, vocabulary, reading, writing, Thursday Genius Hour, and Non Fiction Fridays. The new schedule will include two extras — Debate Mondays and poetry Tuesday through Friday.

Debate is a much loved and needed activity. Unfortunately, I haven’t allowed a space for it, so it happens occasionally at best. Now it owns a spot: Mondays after Read Aloud. Can’t wait.

Over the break, I realized that we need poetry. Students love learning vocabulary, so the focus on words and how they go together will be a huge treat — vocab on steroids.  It should also breathe life into writing. and a heightened awareness of language in their independent reading. Poetry now lives before writing workshop. I celebrate this space made for the sound and the joy of words coming together. I wonder whether it will inspire poetry entries on the blog.

#5. My re-landscaped library. The beginning of a new year requires a library face lift.   Whenever I reorganize my library I pull out my boxes and find old friends. I set up with a eye for product placement. I want clean new covers to show. Dog eared, much loved books go on a list to be recycled and replaced. Brand new titles are set aside for book talks.

New sections of the library include poetry, biography, magazines, various non fiction baskets, club books covering not only realistic fiction, but a bit of mystery, a taste of fantasy, and a shelf of historical fiction. Hidden away in a box are… drum roll..… graphic novels. I hide these much sought after books the first day back otherwise students wouldn’t be able to focus on much else. They love these books. Everyone wants them. No monitoring on my part is necessary. Every student knows who has each book. They self police, because they all want those books. What a natural for their to be read list! I look out at my new library and smile. I celebrate our renewed space for books.

And last but not least…

#6. My daughter’s first physical therapy appointment post knee surgery. She’s nine days post op and feeling better. Our wonderful physical therapist, Mike, the same guy who rehabilitated my ACL tear nearly 20 years ago, tells her what she need to do. She listens attentively, and with renewed focus and goals she works hard. She trusts him. Trust allows us to give everything we have, knowing someone is there for you. With support, you push to unknown territories.

I enter next week and our new year, with the idea of trust alongside my one little word, wonder. When students trust, they can wonder, asking why and how, and then grow.

Mixed Emotions — The Last Teaching Day of 2013

It’s the last night before a three week break, and I have mixed emotions.

I’m excited to have a change of pace and a refocus on home. I’m looking forward to lounging around reading a bit more.

I’m excited to have time to recharge and rethink. Sometimes I get so caught up in the moment I forget exactly where I was going when I started. The time to piece together ideas that are coming at me all at once in a slower, more methodical way is a luxury of time off.

I’m excited to be with my family, all together. Both sons should be home tomorrow night. That will make us five again. I value these times above all else. The time with just us five is limited.  As time goes by, their worlds get bigger and our role as parents gets smaller. So when they do direct their attention towards home, I sit up and pay attention.

But, at the same time…

I’m sad about the loss of routine; the disconnection to the day to day. While I love the less hectic pace, I can get lost without a looming deadline. Pressure makes me perform. The lack of it can lead to lots of disappearing time, and the feeling of, “what did I do today?”

I’m sad about loosing contact with my students. They are a part of my life and when they aren’t there, things are just a little off. I have purposely not started a new read aloud because I don’t want to leave something as important as a book up in the air for three weeks. It would feel like we deserted the characters.

I know that every year students come back from break a little more mature than when they left and are able to take on more difficult work. Time off from training the body or the mind allows for recovery and growth.

But (there is always a but), I worry that their reading and writing lives suffer. Thanks to the amazing teaching that precedes me and our school culture, my students know that reading is a must.

The writing part of their lives is a little less developed. For some, the opportunity to blog is there. They will do it because it’s fun and they love it. But many do not have access at home. I can send home books, notebooks, and pens, but I can’t send the internet or a device that allows them to connect to it. I can’t send them daily reminders to write.

What I can do is ask students to come up with their own personalized “game plan” for reading and writing. Perhaps a sort of nerdlution challenge will develop. Something that they define around reading and writing.

Here’s looking at the last teaching day of 2013, with hope for 2014.

Go #nerdlution.

Inquiry Work: Read Aloud vs. Independent Reading

My students came in today so excited you’d think it was the day before Winter Break. I couldn’t figure out why they were so amped. So I asked.

“What is our new read aloud?!” they shouted.

We have read two wonderful books this year: Wonder and Out of My Mind. With the end of one, they can’t wait for the next one. I love this, but they don’t come in that way after they finish their own books. This behavior coupled with some seeds planted in my head by Steve Peterson, pushed me to do a little inquiry.

Exactly how different is the read aloud experience compared to the experience students have when they read independently? How far a part are they? How different? Is it like apples and oranges or more like tangerines and oranges?

There is a difference, even for me. When I prepare for a read aloud, I have probably read the text at least five times, with many lenses. The multiple reads help as does the multiple ideas I get from student input during read aloud. In the end, my understanding is far deeper than what it was the first time I read the text.

I know students are not doing the deep processing in their independent reading like they do during read aloud — there is no way they could. My wondering is: How can the gap between the two become smaller?

I wondered what students thought the difference was and how they thought they could make their independent reading experience more like read aloud. So in small groups, I asked:  How is read aloud different than reading independently?

Each student identified about two issues. Top mentions included…

• I jot more.
• I know when to jot.
• Hearing and seeing the words help me.
• I have someone near me to ask when I don’t understand.
• Group discussions help me understand.
• You are reading, so it’s easier to think.

Then I asked a follow up …

• How could you know when to jot?
• How could you hear the story?
• How could you get group input about your book?
• How could you make the reading easier?

Here are some of their responses…

• I could put post its on pages I’m have problems/wonderings about and bring it to my group for discussion.
• I could use a whisperphone to hear my story.
• I could use the signposts (Notice and Note) to tell me when to jot.
• I could jot when I have a wondering.
• I could jot when I notice a pattern.

Mind you these are all suggestions and teaching points I have given them in the past, but I acted like it was a huge aha for me.

The most interesting and most difficult comment to address was this:You are reading, so it’s easier to think.

Ideally reading is thinking, but for a struggling reader or the reader who is trying to dig deeper, the thinking work is a second step (or maybe even a third step). So we talked about how we could make the reading work easier so it would be easier to think.

Our discussion went like this:

Me: How could you make the reading easier, so you could think?
Student: Read an easier book.
Me: Yes, that’s an option. What else could you do?
Student: Read a book I read before.
Me: Ok. What else could you do?
Student: I could reread.
Me: Do you have to reread everything?
Student: No, only the important parts and when I’m confused.
Me: So how do you know when it’s important?
Student: (He pointed to the charts with Notice and Note signposts), or when I see a pattern.
Me: Ok. So what could be your goal? How are you gonna make your independent reading more like read aloud?
Student: Re read important parts so I can think about it.

Cool I think. Organic close reading.

I know that they won’t necessarily do this every time they pick up a book, but the goals are written. That’s step one.

It is up to both of us now.

They try. I check. We adjust and try again.

It’s not perfect, but perhaps the gap got a little smaller today and the expectation a little clearer.

Power of Tangible, Visible Goals: So Much More Than a Grade

Writing shows who we are, what we know, how we think, and what we want. Writing is learning about ourselves and putting it out for the world to see. Writing is a brave act.

I have the privilege to teach my students writing. I get to see into their hearts and minds. Their writing shows their passions and their worries, their triumphs and failures.

Now think grades, specifically evaluating writing for a grade. As I celebrate what my students do and look to what they need to do next, the concept of a grade makes me — uncomfortable. What does that do for a writer? How does this grow a writer, a learner, a thinker?  On the other hand, we crave feedback. Parents want to know how their child is doing and students want to know how they did. And yes, we need assessment and standards to form this feedback fairly and consistently. The challenge is doing this in a way that develops writers, celebrating their brave act of putting themselves out there for all to see. This requires so much more than a grade.

Assessment should be a living document that student  and teacher can take and grow from.  Thanks to the work of Lucy Calkins and Teachers College Reading Writing Project’s Units of Study, we now have common core standards-based checklists by grade level.  This kid- and teacher- friendly tool sets forth a continuum with clear expectations and next steps, one that can be embraced by an entire school community providing a clear “pathway” to develop writers.

What follows is work of a student who is a passionate writer, writes on her own all the time. She is an English language learner and has learning disabilities that show up in her writing.

One day my mom told me lets go to the mall okay so I told my mom can I bring phone  she said no but mom I thought you said I could use it well I change my mind mom said I don’t  want to listen to her so I hide it in my sister bag I told her to not tell mom why she said because mom doesn’t  want me to bring it  well she said fine I was so happy so I could show off my phone so  we went to the mall  when we went to Hollister it was so.Dark  so I told my sister  to give me  it please so she give it to me I was so happy everyone told me I like your phone I said.Thanks  a lot of strangers said I love it I said …thanks   so I was using it my mom looked at me she was like what was that nothing she told me  give me your hands I left  it right  there   I was looking to find my phone  but it was all dark so I felt like crying  I said to my mind stop why did I I had to bring it just to show off  UGGG  I stomp my I feet NO NO well I learned so much to never show off and always say the truth to your mom even the worst ones.

Knowing this writer and her passion for writing, it is so important to approach her acknowledging all she has done well. Using the TCRWP narrative checklist we can name her strengths. She’s told a story that had tension and a lesson learned. She elaborated with her thoughts, feelings, dialogue and action. She  provided some craft elements, specifically sensory details — Hollister so Dark — that were a crucial to her story. The criteria of craft, elaboration, and story are all elements this student wrote toward using the checklist. But it is also so important not to stop there.  A crucial part of writing is writing so others can understand your thoughts. Using the checklist,  we look to aspects she has not met such as structure and language conventions. Now, she has concrete feedback and clear next steps for her work. She knows where she sits on the continuum. She knows where she needs to work.  We  have clear goals to work toward. It is tangible, visible — so much more than a grade.

Treadmills are Like Reading Logs

I realized some things as I ran today. Running is solitary. I’m all alone, in my head.  As I run I’m composing, revising, rethinking. Sometimes by the end of a run, I’ve got a great idea. Sometimes I follow through on that idea. But mostly I don’t.

Writing pushes me think an idea through and to next steps. During my run I was thinking of the recent post on Teaching to the Core : “One of the biggest bang-for-your-buck Common Core standards is W.CCR.10, which basically says, ‘Write frequently for many reasons.’ “ So true for me personally. Writing has provided the biggest bang for my learning as a teacher.  I’ve revised, edited and most importantly published them, for someone to read. This process makes it so much bigger than just those musings I had in my head. Through the process of writing, my ideas are better and the process of making them public pushes me to live up to those words.   

Running today I thought about goal setting. I injured my ankle in May and couldn’t run for a month. I slowly and carefully started running again. It was a struggle because of the injury. I carefully managed and measured my running by time and distance on a treadmill. That way I  gradually got stronger as I set goals for myself. I started running again in June at 5 minutes/10 minute pace. Today I ran 4.6 miles in 39 minutes. I was a fragile, injured runner, but by setting goals and gradually increasing, I’m much stronger.

This leads me to my struggle with reading logs. I know on many levels logs do not speak the truth about a reader, they drive parents crazy, and many students have a very difficult time keeping track of them. I want to abandon the paper lunacy of logging in logging out, tracking, and incentivizing. So I’ve been leaning strongly toward no logs. Requiring one book a week, 40 books during the school year, and public responses to reading as measures of student accountability. But, there is one thing missing from this scenario:  goal setting.

I asked my students about the possibility of giving up logs for a different way of measuring our reading. They  were uncomfortable with letting logs go. Many saw it as a way of showing the teacher they are reading. Most said they have been unsuccessful keeping up with them in the past, but promised that this year would be better!  I had them write about it and one-third felt that reading logs helped them by keeping them on track “so I could see if I read or not.” Another said it was “like a teacher that pushed me.” These responses came from fragile readers. The strong were willing to give it up. Makes me think of myself as a fragile runner. I needed that treadmill because it helped me set goals and tracked my progress. When I was strong, I hated the treadmill because it constrained me.

My students spoke.  I need to create a system that accommodates these readers: those who need to measure their reading, visually. Something that builds them up to become stronger readers. Perhaps another thing for those who are constrained by logs. I’m thinking of a lined post it, that moves through the book as a book mark and allows students to measure or track their reading. When finished with the book the post it becomes a part of their reading portfolio.   I’ll run this idea by them tomorrow. We’ll test it out.

Any ideas about measuring reading? Please post a thought.