Celebrating the First Two Weeks of School: Wild Reading and Writing Genius

Time to celebrate the week with Ruth Ayres! Link up and celebrate your week here.

The second week of school is done and i have to admit my mind is a little scrambled by the process of sorting out my two classrooms. Getting to know them is a crazy process. Honoring each person for who they are, and then understanding how they all fit together with you is a challenge, but at the same time quite wonderful. So first I must celebrate that process. With all of it’s messiness, the stories I’m learning and the stories we are creating.

We started Genius Hour work on Thursday. First we defined genius as the act of solving a problem in a way that no one has done before. That a genius looks at something that others are stuck on, and gets the world unstuck. How we all have an obligation to share our gifts and genius with the world. To “mine” our genius we listed what we love, something we could do forever never get bored. Then we listed what bothered us, things that we saw around us that just weren’t right in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Such an interesting way to find out what matters and what troubles them. It’s also a fantastic way to activate the idea that they can and they need to take charge of their lives; that they can do something and create their lives.  Today I celebrate my 59 geniuses and Joy Kirr’s amazing resources that helped me introduce this thinking. Find the link here.

This week we started setting up reading partnerships. When I say we, I really should say “they.” I started conversations with individuals asking about their reading lives that included their partnership history. Most have a keen knowledge of who was a good partner for them, so I let them lead me to the beginnings of this work in our classroom. It takes time. More time than some were willing to tolerate. Wednesday morning, in between reading conferences, I looked around the classroom and noticed students (who haven’t been officially partnered up) sitting beside each other with same books.  Tired of waiting for their turn with me they just did it.  I celebrate these wild readers taking charge of their reading lives.

I want to celebrate 15 minutes of just writing. Every day, at the beginning of our day,  we just write. There are no rules except to write. It’s now a practice.  After writing we share our strategies and our growth we found while writing. Here are a few ways we find our writing:

Reflect on yesterday

Notice what is around us

Find ideas in our writing to write more about

Wonder why

Be inspired by other’s writing

Draw, doodle

Finally, I celebrate Saturday mornings that allow the time to collect the pieces of the week that are truly wonderful.

 

Learning is Like a Puzzle

“Learning is like a puzzle you just have to figure it out.”

That was the last sentence of my student’s 5th grade culmination speech.  Her thinking is brilliant but she wasn’t the academic star. No, quite the opposite. She is a student with significant learning disabilities.

Alyssa had struggled all of her school years and entered my classroom apologetic about her failure to succeed. She felt she was pretty dumb and wrote how it hurt
so much to watch the other kids pass her, while she struggled with lower level books and spelling. Every word was a struggle — getting her thoughts out on the page, reading the page —  was so hard for her. In spite of that struggle, or maybe because of it, Alyssa was able to piece together ideas that other more proficient students were blind to. Decoding was difficult but she was brilliant at synthesis. In read aloud she was the star — all of the physical work of reading was done and she was free to think and piece the puzzle together.

More PD, Please…

Alyssa and the many students like her are the reason we teach. The reason we go to professional development on our own time and dime. In fact we are desperately looking for these opportunities.

This past week, I had the privilege to be with 60 educators from my district who had the drive to learn. They all came looking for something to help them teach students like Alyssa to read closely. We sat and learned about Know and Wonder thinking  based on What Readers Really Do. We worked with some of the Sign Posts from Kylene Beers and Robert Probst’s Notice and Note. We read aloud.  We charted.  We read slowly, carefully.  We talked. We wondered. We planned book groups to have with colleagues. At the end we hung around wanting more.

Strength in Weakness and the Beauty of Partnership

Teachers’ conversations were really thought provoking and inspirational. One
teacher confessed to being just like Alyssa. She said she still has to read slowly and re read to understand. This confession brought out something from her colleague and book club partner: while the “struggling” partner may be slower, the depth of her understanding was often greater and thereby enriched the thinking of the partner who read with greater ease.  In fact with the call to read closely, perhaps those with the practice of reading slowly will be doing more of the leading. Ah, the beauty of a partnership that finds strength in weakness.  Win, win. Made me think about reading partnerships in my classroom. Would it be possible
to pair students like these two teachers? Could be a wonderful thing.

Seeing each other for what we bring to our community, weaknesses and all give
us strength. I saw that in our community of teachers looking to piece the puzzle together, willingly in fact joyfully. All of these educators had  Carol Dweck‘s growth mindset: no one with the answer, no excuses, no one had to be the star. We were in it to figure it out. We have to for all of the Alyssas in our rooms.

Learning and Growth — The Struggle is the Same

As I look at my students and create  learning groups and partnerships, I will remember those conversations with my colleagues.  We all are like Alyssa struggling to figure out the puzzle. Piece by piece, little by little we will get there.

Things I plan to keep uppermost in my mind this year:

1. Growth includes failure — don’t fear it, figure it out

2. Celebrate success — acknowledge what it took to get there

3. Look for  brilliance — hold it out for all to admire

4. Know that some things take time — foster patience