When I moved to Denver from Portland and started working at Lake International School, I thought I had a good sense of how to do this teaching job right. I had 8 years under my belt in rural, suburban, and urban schools, though most in rural. I was appreciated by colleagues and administrators at these schools, at least partially due to my skills as a teacher. I had finished my master's degree, had a reading specialist endorsement, and taught a successful model lesson at Lake, an inner city school with over 95% of their students on free or reduced lunch. I had two job offers on the same day and jumped at Lake because I hadn't done it, the model lesson went so well, the school was beautiful, and it was a middle school, which I've wanted to teach in since I was in middle school.
The principal asked me a question after I did my model lesson: "You used a number of cues to get students' attention or to get them to do what you wanted them to do. How do you set that up at the beginning of the year?" I didn't have a good answer for her, but she said she was willing to take a "leap of faith" for me. The right answer now (I think, or a part of the answer), almost two years later, is to expect 100% compliance every time. When I taught at St. Helens, I could get 70% on day one. At Lake, I got 80% during that first month. And it steadily decreased from then on. I am certain my principal regretting taking that leap of faith.
I spend a lot of time in my classroom building community. At Health and Science School, the public magnet school I worked at, I spent the first month on nearly nothing but that, and reaped the benefits. But I think doing that at Lake gave the students the idea that it would be all touchy-feely all the time. I should have done a little bit of that each day, but I should have shown them how hard we could work, because by the time I was ready to do work, I'd already lost their respect (or, rather, hadn't earned it to begin with).
The biggest thing, though, the number one cause of my failure as an inner-city teacher, is going into the job with guilt. I reasoned, both consciously and unconsciously, that I lived a childhood of privilege. There was always food on the table. My parents only had to work one job. I lived in a safe neighborhood. My brother didn't deal drugs. So what right did I have to tell someone without all those supports what to do?
My right came from two college degrees and a teaching license. But instead of exercising that right, I gave them the idea that I didn't care.
Both my coach and my principal tried to tell me that. But it took 10 weeks of summer to get it through my thick skull.
I didn't get the chance to continue at Lake, which is probably good. I'm not ready for the big leagues. But I did learn a lot that has improved my practice this year:
No nonsense nurturing
The skillful use of sentence frames
Focused Rove
Extremely useful lesson planning that doesn't create an overwhelming workload
Planning ahead be creating exemplars
Brain breaks
And I imagine I'll add more to this list as I think of it. And link to posts about each one from here.
I can feel a divide developing in my career between pre-Lake and post-Lake. Pre-Lake, in Oregon, I presented lessons, provided feedback, retaught what I needed to, graded summative assessments; I did everything to make me good teacher, and enough to score "effective" on my districts' evaluation rubrics.
Post-Lake, I make students learn1. And I've seen sometimes this year, I can make them like it.
And that's why this is my anthem this year:
1. Not that the students aren't due the credit. They've worked for it. (I just made them. Bwahahaha!) Go back.
As winter break approached, I noticed that I had become complacent with some areas of my practice. I don't think that this is the complacency that comes with too many years of experience1. I think this is the complacency that comes with figuring out how to be both a good parent and a good teacher simultaneously.
At the same time, I came across this post by Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris via my undergrad education professor, @CindyOA. I walked away thinking about this:
If you were to draw your inner teacher, what would he/she look like? How does he/she feel? Excited? Nervous? Overwhelmed? In reading the work of Martha Beck–which encourages us to pay close attention to our emotions because they are our inner compass–we’ve discovered that our inner teacher’s emotions can serve as our teaching compass. After teaching, thinking, feeling, writing, reflecting–lather, rinse, repeat–we’ve learned to trust our inner teacher, and to understand that, when she is lethargic or angry we need to adjust something in our practice or our thinking, or even both. As we have explored the connection between our energy, our effectiveness, and our teaching, we have arrived at a four big principles that help our teaching compass stay on true north. We call these four guiding tenets “The Four Intentions” and, if we are mindful of them, our inner teacher feels like this:
We use these intentions to plan lessons, purposefully considering each tenet as we design instruction. We also use them to reflect on lessons we teach. These intentions have become the framework for all our thinking about instruction, even about education in general. Here is an explanation for each intention, and questions you can ask yourself to reflect on how well a particular lesson or some other work addresses “The Four Intentions.”
Intention 1: Alignment (with our inner teacher)
In these days of aligning curricula, instruction, and language with performance standards, we offer, instead, as our primary teaching intention alignment with our highest purpose for teaching–that is, a focus on lifelong learning. This includes a reconnection with our original visions for our teaching selves and a reawakening of our loftiest visions for students as learners [emphasis added]. Staying true to the alignment intention means keeping our sights set on our long-term outcomes and the ways in which our instructional decisions can affect who children will grow up to become. The alignment intention is all about recognizing and action on our agency as teachers, and using this agency to empower students. To evaluate your work against the alignment intention, ask yourself the following questions:
Does my inner teacher, my highest teaching self, feel safe (even happy) with this instructional choice? How do I know?
How does this work/decision/lesson show students their power as learners?
Am I excited about this work/lesson? Why?
While flying through all parts of life by the seat of my pants for the last two years, I've lost some of the practices that make my inner teacher happy. He isn't "lethargic or angry," but he is . . . uncomfortable. Unsatisfied with his current performance. I've let some things slide, and he doesn't like watching them slide.
So. Here's what I'm going to do about it.
Build Better Relationships
Back when I was a second year teacher and struggling with classroom management, I began using conversation calendars (Tovani, 2004, p. 106-110) with my students - exit slips that allow me 15 to 30 second one-on-one conversations with each of my students.
In 2009, when I was only working half-time, it was no problem to go through 90 of these each afternoon. With six classes, however, I need to set up a rotation through my classes, hitting two per week. Logistically, this has been a little bit more than my toddler-fried brain could handle. But I'm recommitting myself, setting reminder alarms on my phone if I need to, because the written conversations I have with students make a huge difference in my student-teacher relationships.
When I was a fourth-year teacher, I wrote and responded to student letters quarterly, asking students how the units of study went for them and what I could do as a teacher to help their learning. Every year, I try to respond to letters my students write at the beginning of the school year where they tell me a little bit about themselves. Lately, I've been getting through five in one class, maybe 20 in another, but in a majority of classes, zero.
I'm going to end first semester (February here in the Pacific Northwest) with teacher evaluations for my students to provide me feedback on how I can improve, and start second semester with letters from my students that I'll write one group letter back in response that explain my rationale for any disliked activities and address student suggestions.
Emphasize Proceedures
When I was a younger teacher, I was much more of a control freak. Things had to be done a certain way. If one student spoke out of turn, it felt chaotic to me.
Thankfully, I've mellowed2, but I'm a little too far in the other direction. It takes my juniors five minutes of reminders at the beginning of class to start their sustained silent reading. Often, I have to threaten lunch detention in order to get everyone quietly reading. That's silly.
I listed proceedures in my syllabus - the same ones I've had since my second year of teaching. I just need to refresh my students on them, and start enforcing them. (I haven't been. At all.)
When entering the classroom:
Get your materials
from the filing cabinet in the room.
Be in your seat with
all your materials when the bell rings.
When the bell
rings, immediately and quietly begin the warm-up exercise.
When reading:
Reading is
thinking. It is easier to think
when it is silent and there are few distractions. Do not talk when reading.
When you do need to
talk to the teacher or a partner, whisper.
Fully focus on
reading during silent reading time.
When writing:
Writing is
thinking. It is easier to think
when it is silent and there are few distractions. Do not talk when writing.
When you do need to
talk to the teacher or a partner, whisper.
Use the
entire writing time working on writing.
When leaving the
classroom:
The teacher
dismisses, not the bell.
Leave your workspace
cleaner than you found it and return all materials to the right place.
When your workspace
is clean, sit in your chair and wait to be dismissed.
When dismissed, push
your chair in if necessary.
Turn in
calendars and any other assignments on your way out the door.
Grade During Block Prep
This is my seventh year teaching, and I'm back at the school where I started my teaching career. I work with a fantastic department and have a great administrator. So this year I felt comfortable playing a role as a small, unnoticeable agent of change. Most of them have to do with reading - posting student book reviews on a Twitter account other students can follow, creating and distributing book review index cards that sit in the back pocket of library books.
These small crusades3 are fun. And often take place during my prep time. And then I have a toddler at home. Which means I've gotten behind on grading. I even got a holiday card from a great student that encouraged me to have a nice break and enjoy the time off but also to grade her writing.
Thus my 88 minutes of Thursday prep4 shall find me at my desk, grading the papers that are so much less fun than crusades for changing school culture. But feedback is important too, so I'll do it. (And during my Monday prep, I'll make stickers with qr codes that lead to book trailers for the library TAs to put on books. Bwahahaha!)
Footnotes
1. If it is, then I need to find a new job. Go back.
2. It's all about the yoga. Go back.
3. That only I am noticing and pretending is worthwhile, I'm sure. Go back.
4. And weekend naps. And evenings. Go back.
My copy of Classroom Assessment & Grading that Work just arrived. This evening or tomorrow, I'll start the reading due Saturday, this year tweeting responses as I read with the hashtag #PIPreading. If you're reading or have read Classroom Assessment, hopefully you'll help make this more than a one sided conversation. I'll be searching Twitter for that hashtag, but if you'd like to leave your Twitter ID in the comments, I'll just follow you. Mine is bleckley.
I've blogged about this before, but recently I made some essential tweaks and stumbled upon the scientific basis for it from . . . wait for it . . . Marzano. Bam! That's right! Oh yes, I most certainly did! Get ready, as Tom Fuller would say, to pick up what I'm about to throw down1:
First, credit to Tonya for showing me this originally for use on OAKS, Oregon's state test.
Your students take a test. In this case, it's a multiple choice test on identifying figurative language in Romeo & Juliet. You spent a day or two going over the many different types of figurative language Shakespeare employs, using 2.2.1-30, where we first meet Friar Laurence (O'Brien, 1993, p. 156). Then, you give them a short test on identifying some examples of simile, metaphor, personification, classical allusion, and soliloquy from Romeo & Juliet.
Now, if you're like me, you give your answer key to your student TA and ask her to mark wrong ones and put the total out of 13 at the top. You just happen to check out Marzano's Classroom Assessment and Grading that Work from the professional development library on the same day. You get home and sit down with a cup of tea for some easy reading, and get this:
(2006, p. 5)
And you're like "woah, -3% gain in student achievement! That's not good!"
So the next day, you give your TA the tests again and ask her nicely to write the correct answer next to the ones she crossed off, explaining that it's not her fault, while she rolls her eyes. Then you pop open Excel, because you want that .70 effect size.
So yeah, a class wide graph of their results. That's cool. You know what's cooler? When every student gets a personalized copy of one of these2:
You know you need to hit simile through classical allusion on your reteach. This student knows they need to study up on personification first, with a little bit of simile and classical allusion2. You reteach, grade, graph. The student gets a new chart that looks like this:
You get a new graph that looks like this:
A 24% improvement on similes, 30% on classical allusion, and 13% on soliloquies. It feels awesome to know that your students can identify a simile or classical allusion written by the Bard over 80% of the time. Not bad, but for the third test you know to prepare them by hitting metaphors and personification over the head since you're grading by proficiency, and your student is just a couple points below your required 10 out of 13.
One could use this on more than just multiple choice tests. Rubrics that were used multiple times throughout the year, like 6-traits, could be charted to show student's growth in writing and areas to improve.
To give you a jump start, here's the blank Excel file - I've left the formulas in so you can see how they work. I'm also including all the materials I used for this lesson, just in case you want to use it for Romeo & Juliet.
1. My here intention is unbridled enthusiasm rather than any sort of pretentious arrogance. Hopefully that's what's coming across. Go back.
2. The first time you make this in Excel, it does take some time - up to an hour depending on how savvy you are. But once you have that chart created, you can just adapt it for every test afterwards. Maybe 30 minutes for data entry, depending on how many sections you have. I know time is precious, but try it once and go over the results in class with the graphs, and I think you'll see that it's worth it. Go back.
As I did last summer, I'll be doing some summer reading and blogging about three professional development books. This year, if you care to read along, I'll be posting a reading schedule here in one week's time, and tweeting reading responses as bleckley on Twitter with the tag #PIPreading - I'll probably be more reliable with 140 characters than with a full post per chapter.
Consider this your notice to track down the titles - links go to librarything.com, where you'll find a number of sources for finding these titles on the upper right side of the screen including Amazon, Abe's, and WorldCat.
Another meta-analysis of best practice for the classroom. Marzano compiles hundreds of studies on assessment and calculates the effect size of various strategies, helping readers determine what will best help their students grow. I got a chance to peruse the first chapter this spring and have a great post scheduled to publish this coming Monday. This is the science of teaching at its best.
A suggestion from my partner Jennie from the place where social work and education meet. Narrative counseling is talk therapy that places problems outside the individual - rather than the student has behavior problems, behavior problems affect the student. "If we are located in a school story line as dumb, mischievous, or a bad egg, there is a tendency to live our lives according to the contours of the problem story laid out before us by such a description" (p. 3). The objective of narrative therapy is to help the student rewrite that story line. I would argue that teachers are the ones most responsible for writing the original story line to begin with, so who better to help the students rewrite it (besides Jill Griffin or other incredibly amazing school counselors)?
Winslade and Monk describe how to do a narrative therapy step-by-step, and how to apply it to different situations. They also discuss bringing narrative therapy into schools and the resistance one might face.
I'm pretty gung-ho about this one, so if you find yourself skeptical, I'd appreciate having you read along and help keep me reading critically.
This is the book on classroom management I should have read in college. In January 2010, I read Marzano's Classroom Managment that Works, and while it gave me some quick, go-to strategies, it barely brushed the surface. Comprehensive Classroom Management is certainly comprehensive. It tackles the issue from a solutions-based, prevention viewpoint. I only got a chance to read one chapter this year, but that alone made a huge difference in the tone of my classroom.
This one is $90 new and the cheapest I found used was $50, so you may want to do an inter library loan on this one. I'll be reading it last, as I'll be waiting for a copy to come in from some distant college library as well.
This is a bonus book if there's time before school starts back up. More Marzano for the coffers. Quite a title for such a thin book . . . we'll see if it lives up to it.
I often find when I need to work out what I'm going to teach in the next week1, a hike in Portland's Forest Park typically puts some grease on the cogs and get my wheels turning.
Today's is going to be a doosey. I just posted the paper I wrote this week on teaching reading from a constructivist method for my Theory of Instruction class at PSU. I'm a pretty sick2 individual to post a graduate paper on my blog, but you are sicker if you take the time to read it. Basically, here's the problem: at secondary schools, students are often forced into a one-size-fits-all remedial reading class if they don't meet benchmark. They lose an elective and are not happy about it. They take their anger out on the class and teacher by totally blowing both off. The teacher notices they have little control of the classroom and plan their lessons around a direct instruction model because it gives them more control over the class.
Constructivist lessons would be more fun for teacher and student and might do a better job of teaching the skills. Constructivist lessons increase motivation, but require a certain critical mass of motivation to get off the ground; otherwise, students take the time to "socially create meaning" about the top ten list on Z100 rather than the reading strategies the teacher is asking them to practice.
How do I get my students to that critical mass?
On top of that, I have a colleague who gets her students to work by making their lives uncomfortable and unpleasant if they deviate from the assigned activity. I used to be of the same mind until an administrator asked me to only punish students who disrupted class; student who choose not to learn have that right. But my colleagues students all have "As" and know their reading strategies. My students are receiving zeros.
Is my job to make them do the work3? In the long run, what will be the greater benefit to the student?
1. Read "day." [Go back.] 2. I mean sick in the conventional rather than the contemporary meaning. [Go back.] 3. Can I really make them do anything? It would seem my colleague does by making the alternative less desirable. [Go back.]
While there hasn't been enough research on setting the tone for Marzano to do a meta analysis, the chapter did confirm the direction I was already leaning towards: thaw slowly. Hit them hard at the beginning of class and lighten up towards the end as warranted.
Turns out that's totally the way to go, at least compared to what I've done in the past1. Overall, I've had the best week of my career, including classroom management. I think it's partially this slowly thawing attitude I've adopted and partially the techniques I've taken from my summer reading of Teach Like a Champion2.
The rules I outlined in my previous post are posted prominently, but the procedures are posted in this PBIS matrix suggested at an in-service last spring.
Calendars are still a big part of classroom management, building report, and utilizing exit slips. My students are now getting 10 points a day and it's 50% of their grade.
I've been most surprised by the willingness students have to adopt some more prescriptive, acronymic, draconian, measures3. I have a poster that shows students how their desk should look (Lemov, 2010, p 159). I frequently use SLAT, which stands for sit up straight, listen, ask and answer questions, and track the speaker (Lemov, 2010, p 158). I'm am surprised by how quickly 7th graders are willing to sit up straight when I ask them to; I was expecting a lot more push back. My 8th graders make fun of it, but do it all the same. My students seem more alert and, with tracking the speaker, more attentive of each other. If I call on a student to answer a question, they can't refuse to try, because the expectation is established that they ask and answer questions.
I more energetic and more dedicated to selling my content (Lemov, 2010, p 51), and it rubs off on the students. My calendars have a daily rating for whether students felt they learned something new and if they were bored. I haven't put the data together in a spreadsheet4, but by eyeballing it students feel they're learning more and are less bored than last year. This is partially my energy and confidence, but I think also the amount of content we hit on in a day. To paraphrase Lemov, just like it seems you're moving faster when flying in a plane close to the ground, in class there are numerous reference points students see in a day and it creates the illusion that we are moving faster (Lemov, 2010, p 226).
Works Cited
Lemov, D. (2010). Teach Like a Champion. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Marzano. (2003). Classroom Management that Works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
1. Oooh, big surprise. Go back
2. Great New York Times magazine article on this book. Some might complain that it boils teaching down to 49 techniques, but I do think great teachers are made not born. There is some value here. Go back
3. I'm not sure what word describes SLAT and the desk poster. It feels weird to me. Go back
4. I tried this for one week last year. It takes long enough to grade the calendars each day alone - when am I going to analyze data? If I ever figure it out, it's a post in it's own with some awesome citations of K. Anders Ericsson. Go back
My 9th grade students just finished taking the 10th grade Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills1 (OAKS) test. There are a few students still finishing up, but these young scholars kicked the test's posterior clear to the moon. On average, students increased their score by 3 points, but what is really impressive is that 13 of these 54 students passed the 10th grade test and now have one less hurdle to jump before they can graduate high school. I am so proud of them and their hard work.
But tonight I'm wondering how much of a role enthusiasm/motivation/confidence played a part. Is there a sort of placebo effect that helped out my students?
I have this thing that I do before I take students to the computer lab to take the test each day. I don't think it's something I do that affects their performance, necessarily, though the intent is to get them pumped up. But it is definitely a gauge for their level of this-class/test-is-such-a-joke-and-I-don't-care-what-I-get-on-it factor.
"I say 'fired up,' you say 'ready to go!' FIRED UP?" "READY TO GO!" "FIRED UP?" "READY TO GO!" "FIRED UP?" "READY TO GO!"2
So we yell that, disrupt the classes on either side of us as much as possible (sorry, Dusty), and then we go kill some tests. With a vengeance. Just like John McClain.
But I have three periods. And second period doesn't get so fired up. They don't seem so ready to go. I yell; they mumble. I yell louder; they tell me how "gay" this is. I ask them if they really used "gay" as synonymous with stupid; they say "sorry, sorry, we mean 'dumb.'" Fantastic.
But second period has the lowest average test score for all three periods. Only three students passed in that class, while first period, which most definitely gets fired up and ready to go, boasts eight students who passed the test and an average test score 5 points higher.
Both classes have their negative Nellys, but in first period they aren't negative about getting fired up. Second period has more students who just guessed and blew off the test, but that could be a result of failing to get fired up. I'm just trying to figure out why there's such a big difference when both classes received the same instruction. And if it's something as simple as confidence, how do I give it to all my students, who happen to be sarcastic teenagers (and just so we're clear, I teach them because of it, just so you read my intonation there correctly that it is a term of endearment).
1. As if a test can assess something as broad as knowledge . . . (back) 2. Yes, I did steal that from the 2008 Obama campaign. Not because Obama's awesome, just because it's a really great cheer. I am being completely politically neutral. (back)
Yesterday my partner Jennie and I were walking home from the thrift store. We'd been looking for a pizza slicer. We've been cutting pizza with a knife for almost two years now. They didn't have one. Or a cutting board or a rolling pin - we've been using old wine bottles. But that's not the point of the story.
"So what do you still have to work on?" Jennie asked me. We were trying to figure out when to go to Target to liberate (as in buy) our pizza slicer.
"Well, I need to decide if I'm going to record my students' writing this weekend or not," I said. This solicited a slight internal groan from my partner. We live in a 436 sq ft apartment, and I can either record a reading in the living room or the bedroom. Both locations are audible at different levels throughout the apartment. While my students are producing some great stuff this semester, there's only so many persuasive essays a spouse is willing to listen to in a weekend when she has her own work to complete for grad school. Jennie is always completely supportive and totally tolerate of this process - she gave me the idea of responding to students writing this way after all - but I can imagine it would get old. Still, I persisted.
"I can't decide if I should do it for their rough drafts or later on. I want them to complete some meaningful revision, and I want them to do a peer revision, but they just tell each other that everything in their writing is great."
Jennie nodded sympathetically. I continued.
"It's like I need to teach them to peer revise . . . oh."
Needless to say, I didn't record their writing this weekend.
One of the better lessons I've taught was the first in my middle school practicum.
It was a summer course, and so we were assigned to the district's summer school program. It was a group of about 30 students repeating 8th grade. Another student and I were assigned to the two teachers who co-taught the class. Although some of the students were going into 8th grade and wanted a head-start, the majority were not interested in listening to me teach grammar, or anything else. Nonetheless, I was asked to teach my first lesson on sentence fragments and run-ons.
It was the summer. I had some free-time, and I was eager to please. So I spent a lot of time planning. I made a pretty decent graphic organizer. I asked my fellow undergrad if she could play a small part in the lesson. I prepared a formal assessment. For my first lesson, I was doing alright. Then I created a superhero alter ego to keep the students' attention.
The day for my lesson came around and we listened to Skee-Lo's version of "The Tale of Mr. Morton" before I presented a few sentences and we identified their subjects and predicates. It was then that my colleague, AKA the Preposition Punk, wearing a clever construction paper mask (she was in drama, if I remember right) snuck up to the board and added "When" to the beginning of a sentence:
When Mr. Morton walked to the store.
I read the complete sentence now transformed into a dependent clause to the class and proclaimed, "this looks like a job for CAPTAIN COMMA!" while simultaneously ripping open my button-up shirt (which was no longer button-up; I'd replaced the buttons with velcro) to reveal a t-shirt emblazoned with this shield:
The students were dumbfounded, but I definitely had their attention. I heroically slammed a comma after the dependent clause and added an indepent clause to complete the sentence and save the day.
When Mr. Morton walked to the store., he bought a gallon of milk.
I handed out the graphic organizer and had them take a crack at it.
Fast-forward 5 years. I still teach that lesson maybe once a year. But it's the only lesson I teach that has that injection of edutainment right to the jugular. The only one? What's up with that? Not that every lesson needs to have that element of theater to it. It needs all the pedagogy my other lessons have, including things I missed that first time like a preassessment and differentiation. But one lesson a year that keeps students' attention like that one, that creates murmurs throughout the hallways inbetween periods, that get students anticipating my class, is no where near enough.
In January, I wrote a post on rules and procedures from my reading of Classroom Management that Works. This week I'll summarize Marzano's third chapter on disciplinary interventions and discuss how I adapted the practices in my classroom.
Marzano acknowledges that some feel that disciplinary actions are ineffective and counterproductive. But, he writes, "the research and theory strongly support a balanced approach that employs a variety of techniques." I think this variety is exactly what I was lacking earlier this year. Last school year, I would keep my last period class after school when they chose to disrupt the classroom. For them, the peer pressure and need to get home was usually enough to quell any major uprisings. For individuals, I gave referrals.
When I tried the same thing this year, it hardly did the job. In some classes the "Time After" method worked for a few weeks, in others it was completely ineffective. Just like instruction, there is no silver bullet for classroom management.
My redesigned system involves both rewards and punishments. Students start the day coming in and are required to be in their seats with all their materials on their desk when the bell rings. They are then either to start reading their novels or begin the writing prompt. Before, students would lose points from their conversation calendars at the end of the day if they did not pull this off flawlessly. But the way I would inform them if they were off task would be by adding time after class (if I informed them at all). Students had no immediate, individual indication that their actions were below expectations or above par.
The old . . .
. . . and the new
Now, when students either aren't in their desk or don't have all their materials when the bell rings, they lose five points, indicated by a check I mark on their calendar as I move around the room. Those who have their books out and are reading get a Jolly Rancher or occasionally five extra points. Once students who weren't ready at the beginning of class get on task (and stay on task) I may elect to give them back the five points. This same rule applies to delivery of minilessons or when I'm working with small groups at the back table. Sometimes, I might just say a student name and "deduct/add five points" if I'm not moving in their direction. Students now have a clearer understanding of what specific behaviors they are losing points for, and it keeps me more honest. Since they can earn points back, they have invested interest in improving their behavior, rather then blowing the rest of the day off after losing five or 10 points out of their 25 for the day.
The point system is a form of what Marzano calls tangible recognition and "involves the use of some concrete symbol of appropriate behavior." He notes that many of these classrooms have some sort of token that's received for good behavior, which can then be traded in for prizes or activities or something like that. I'm adding this element to my class as well, as some students with less of a sweet tooth are getting tired of Jolly Ranchers every single day. They'll be able to trade in Jolly Ranchers for Bleck Bucks, which they can accumulate for extra bathroom passes, or reading outside/in the library, or going to the school's coffee cart, or maybe save up 50 or 100 for a McDonald's gift certificate. Since they'll have to trade in the Jolly Ranchers to receive Bleck Bucks, I won't have to buy as many Jolly Ranchers and can put that money to other prizes with a cost. (One 3.75 pound bag of the candies costs me about seven dollars at Walmart and lasts about 2 weeks with my 90 students. It's a small price to pay for their improved behavior.)
A group contingency is also noted by Marzano to have a high effect size. My time after policy was an example of this, and I sometimes still use it when many people in the class are talking at once and I don't have time to make three different hits on calendars in three different corners of the room. Teacher reaction is also discussed; these are the basics - the look, proximity, and an auditory and visual cue.
I found tangible recognition to be the most helpful to me, though group contingency and teacher reaction also have a high effect size. Calling home or providing a direct cost with punishment like detention or cleaning the classroom are also discussed, but have a significantly lower effect size (about .5 compared to .9).
The next post in this series will discuss teacher-student relationships. You can also read the previous post on rules and procedures. You can also download my conversation calendar file and try it out in class yourself in either Microsoft Word or PDF.
Last year, for the second time I attempted an assignment asking students to create their own individualized education plan (IEP). My first attempt as a student teacher was poorly designed and even more poorly modeled. Last year, the design was much more in depth (perhaps too much) and the product was modeled extensively. But the process was not. The concept of multiple intelligence theory got a 5 to 10 minute overview in class before I threw them into the computer lab to complete their self assessment. I asked my students to create goals for the semester, but offered no guidance on how to define short-term goals that lead to their long-term ones. I asked them to consider accommodations that would help them learn, but I never explained fully enough what an accommodation was.
This year was different.
First, I'm broke up the design more. The first assignment sheet could put anyone in cardiac arrest, particularly a freshmen who just started high school and isn't very pleased that they get to take reading workshop again. So a toned down some of the reflection questions and broke the thing into parts instead of the menu1. Turned out this assignment sheet was also confusing, so next year maybe I'll just scrap it, or give students a checklist of all the items they need to turn in when all is done.
Day One - What's an IEP?
I had some terrific help from my special education department where a special education assistant came to the room and gave a little introduction to the federal IEP and some examples of the accommodations students receive. This was generally well received, though I had a few students this year who thought I was saying they were stupid because they can't read. Could be because I'm teaching reading workshop this year, or could be because of the longer presentation from special education and the lack of respect some students have for their classmates served by sped.
Days Two through Four - Multiple Intelligence Theory
Multiple intelligences were taught over three days, the first giving an overview of each intelligence and then students experienced a lesson teaching a language arts skill exclusively using one of the intelligences. This packet was supposed to be their guide as they rotated in groups to the different areas. In the end though, we went through each exercise together as a class. Putting together the packet turned out to be easier than I expected, as I was able to pull pieces from lessons I've used previously.
Musical Intelligence
For this section I used a lesson on avoiding sentence fragments using the Schoolhouse Rock song "The Tale of Mr. Morton." I prefer the Skee-Lo version found on the album Schoolhouse Rock Rocks!2 Students listen to the song and then are asked to identify the subjects and predicates of some sample sentences. In the original lesson some subordinate conjunctions are thrown in and students eventually are asked to fix a couple sentence fragments as well. For the purposes of the packet, however, I just wanted to give them a taste.
Naturalistic Intelligence
Here I asked students to group like words together, same as you would with the natural world - kingdoms and phylums and everything else. I'm not satisfied that this is the closest language arts can get to naturalistic intelligence; it seems like Thoreau or Emerson should be involved somehow.
Interpersonal/Intrapersonal Intelligence
Sometimes I ask students to do what I call a multiple intelligence explication on some text that they've read. They can choose to come up with a soundtrack, a mind map, or write a letter to the character, which is what this activity consists of. For many of the exercises, we read "Waiting," a piece of microfiction by Peggy McNally from the anthology Micro Fiction edited by Jerome Stern.3 Students were then to write a letter either to the speaker in the story or to the speaker's boyfriend who she wants to see but can't.
Visual/Spatial Intelligence
This mind map activity I stole from Carrie McCallum, another language arts teacher at my school. Students respond to a text by drawing some of the things that might be going through a character's mind. We did the same for "Waiting."
Logical/Mathematical Intelligence
For the person who reads this who has discovered how to bring logical/mathematical intelligence into the language arts classroom, you need to comment on this post or e-mail me. My failed attempt involves translating a formulaic transition statement for essays into some sort of algebraic equation.
Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence
I have a bunch of pieces of green construction paper with random words on them like "hope," "rain," "love," "clouds," and "bagel." They're cut out in the shape of lily pads, and students hop across the pads writing a poem.
After trying out each of the multiple intelligences, students wrote a short reflection on the activities and which intelligences they thought were strong in them. Then they took a questionnaire, just as they did last year, to determine which were strong or weak.
Day Five & Six - Reflection Questions
In an effort to prompt more thoughtfulness when deciding on goals and accommodations, I remodeled the reflection questions from last year and came up with these five.
When was the last time you struggled in school or received a grade lower than usual? What do you think made it difficult? Consider all the players: you, teacher, parents, classmates, class subject, outside factors (illness, death in family, divorce). Of the things you or the other players could control, what would you do differently if you could do it all over again?
Describe your favorite lesson you've ever been taught in school and what you learned from it. What about it or the teacher do you think made it so memorable and/or effective?
Who was / is your favorite teacher / role model / mentor? Describe them. What are some of the things they did that made you appreciate them? What did you learn from them and how? If you were going to be a teacher / role model / mentor to someone, what lesson would you take from them on how to do it well?
What specific things help you to study or stay focused in class? Are there techniques you use when learning like mnemonics (like Never Eat Soggy Waffles for remembering the points on a compass), jingles, or rhymes (“i” before “e” except after “c”)? Give a few examples.
Now that you've taken the multiple intelligences and modality strengths self-tests, what are some specific examples of lessons that have helped you in the past that relate to your strong intelligence areas and your modality strengths?
Judging from the responses I received, questions 1 and 2 are the most essential. Question 3 is definitely out and while some students have good answers for 4 and 5, others haven't done the kind of meta-thinking required to answer those questions.
Last, the students received this sheet, which I modeled filling out using my own answers to the questions. This was an improvement over last year's cover sheet which didn't include the ladders for small steps leading to the ultimate goal.
That first day, students had a lot of difficulty filling out the sheet. For a brief period of about a day, I was almost convinced that this unit was awash, that I was trying to teach months of material from an IB theory of knowledge course in a couple of weeks and that I was asking too much. Of course, my students rose to the occasion and expectations and proved me wrong.
After modeling the cover sheet a second time the next day (I didn't change how I modeled it, so I don't know what the difference was; maybe it was that the assignment was worth 100 points pass/fail and one had to turn in all the pieces for credit; maybe they just needed to see it twice), my fears proved to be mostly unfounded. Last year, out of my 75 students, I received two really good IEPs. This year, I got almost 30 initially, and I'm hoping the number will grow now that we've had conferences and I've been able to give the assignment to parents as well. Over the next few weeks I can start to set up my students with the accommodations they've asked for:
Spelling instruction
Longer time on tests
Reminder when work is due
Short breaks
Preferential seating (away from others)
Extra warnings
Listen to iPod (to avoid other distractions)
Read in the hall
Reminder when work is due
Organization
Additional bathroom passes
Preferential seating (Right to Read Anywhere)
Read in the hall
Don't call when hand isn't raised
Grade reports every 2 weeks
Time to study before a test
Read in library twice/week
Extra time to complete assignments
Patience and some slack on reflection sheets (the negative end of our positive behavior managment program)
Allowed to eat food in class
1. The menu just confused students. Probably because it was a dumb way to set up an assignment that wasn't really differentiated; I was just trying to make it look that way. (back)
2. If you haven't heard Pavement's version of "No More Kings," you have not truly lived. (back)
3. Stern, J. (Ed.). (1996) Micro Fiction. New York, W.W. Norton & Co. "Waiting" is about a substitute teacher, a story better suited for a room full of teachers. But there's a lack of young adult microfiction, so I figured that was a pretty relatable piece; we've all had substitute teachers. (back)
4. I should point out that for my reading and literature workshop classes, we also took the Scholastic Reading Inventory to get a lexile score and a diagnostic assessment from the 9th grade Holt Literature teacher's suppliment. (back)
While planning with the district literacy coach this summer, I was introduced to a method of recording participation points and building rapport with students proposed by Cris Tovani in her book Do I Really Have to Teach Reading(106-110). I can honestly say, without risking hyperbole, that it has completely changed the relationship I have with my students.
At the beginning of each week, students receive a weekly calendar with a space for them to write comments and give themselves a score, and a space for me to write comments and record a score. Sometimes students are asked to write something specific in the space, like "ask one good question or make one good comment about the short story we read today." More frequently though, they write whatever they want. Sometimes it's comments about the class or what they did that period, other times it's about the volleyball game they have after school, or about the book they're reading and how's it going. Sometimes it's pictures or doodles or random graffiti. Sometimes they don't write anything. After class, I respond in the space below. Sometimes a response isn't necessary. Sometimes a few quick words are enough. Sometimes the student and I get to carry on a one-on-one conversation throughout the week that we wouldn't have had otherwise.
For one, this increases my contact time with students, something I'm all about. Students can ask questions they may not have time for or feel comfortable asking in front of the class. Secondly, I see a different, sometimes truer, side of my students other teachers may not get the chance to see. I have two particular students who like to start power struggles and make loud outbursts. One had all sorts of disciplinary interventions last year. I wasn't sure I could handle it. Then I introduced the calendars. Total posers. They do it to look all bad, but they were honest and almost apologetic in their self assessment the first week and since then they've been slowly working more and more in class - while maintaining their bad image as much as possible.
Another student was having a rough day (I wouldn't let her talk in class even though it was her birthday) and called me an a**hole. I told her my birthday present to her was not giving her a referral. After class, I flipped through the calendars and saw that she had written "I'm sorry I called you an a**hole." I thought that was pretty cool, because you don't always get apologies for that sort of thing.
At first, grading 75 calendars a day took about 75 minutes. Once it became routine, however, my speed increased and I can now get through all three period in 30 minutes. And those extra 30 minutes a day are definitely worth it for me.
To be fair though, I am only half-time, so maybe for the full-time teacher this exercise could become too time consuming. Tovani suggests rotating calendars through classes daily or weekly in the team teaching model. One could also have students do a end of the week self assessment and respond over the weekend.
For those interested, here's a blank calendar. You'll want to download it, Google Drive can't handle all the table-ness involved in the document.
Works Cited
Tovani, Cris. Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers, 2004.
Out of everything I did last semester, the piece that I'm happiest with and the area with the greatest potential for improvement is my strategy for differentiating reading instruction.
At the beginning of the semester, I used Kylene Beers' book When Kids Can't Read to create a checklist to preassess reading skills. She breaks her book into three basic sections: for students who have poor comprehension skills, students with poor word fluency and decoding skills, and students who have trouble finding books that are interesting. Adapting the checklist she provided on page 28, I met with each of my students individually to determine whether they were dependent (the term Beers uses for struggling readers) or independent (able to read on their own), and if they are dependent, which single or combination of the three categories they fall into. In my meeting with each student, I asked them to read a short, 300-word story from the anthology Micro Fiction aloud. This allowed me to check for fluency and word recognition. After they had read the selection, I gave them basic, open-ended questions like "what do you think the story is about," "who are the main characters," "what's the moral of the story." These questions address reading comprehension. Finally, I asked them some questions about what reading they do, like "what's your favorite book/author," "what genre(s) do you like to read the most." to determine if they have resources to find books that they enjoy.
After I figured out the needs of each student, I divided them into groups depending on their greatest weakness. While this could be beneficial in instances where the teacher is modeling or given direct instruction, there were many times when a mixed group would have been better. For example, when these same groups met in more self directed literature circles, the students who struggled with comprehension talked about how the text made no sense, and the group of students who had trouble finding literature they enjoyed talked about the relative "suckiness" of each piece.
When I was able to meet with these groups, it was most often with the comprehension group, where I modeled and guided practice of specific comprehension techniques, most often using a think aloud. I broke down the internalized process of reading and stated what I was thinking and reading aloud. There were seven specific processes I focused on with students: visualizing, questioning, clarifying, connecting, agreeing or disagreeing with a character, and predicting. Each time I met with students, I tried to cover a different set of two or three.
I also met with students during class time in either small groups or individually to practice the think aloud strategy and give them some tips, like reminding them to reread or cue them to make a prediction. When I couldn't meet with them in class, I asked them to complete double entry journals, creating a written record of their thinking. In the left column, the student writes the quote and page number that gave them pause, and then on the right they write their response (either a question, clarification, prediction, etc.). When my students read novels, we did the same thing, but students wrote their responses on sticky notes and stuck them to the page next to the quote.
The strategy was largely unsuccessful, not because of the pedagogy, but because I didn't follow through. One of the hardest things for me was finding time to work with students and meaningful work for the other students to complete while I met with students. Because of this, I was only able to do the initial preassessment in two of my classes, and meet only rarely in my third. I only intermittently examined the half ream of written evidence I had from students. I didn't fully address the needs of students who had decoding issues or trouble finding texts they could enjoy. And I didn't find the time to do a post assessment at the end of the year.
My general thought is that I can set aside either the first half of class or every other class period for sustained silent reading. While many classes try to fit this in for 10 or 15 minutes, I think if I can keep it going for 30 or 45 minutes, I'd be able to meet with each student about once a week. After I meet with individuals or groups, I can either send them back to silent reading, or direct them to another individual activity. For each of my classes, I'll have a binder with a tab for each student. There I'll keep notes from each of our meetings and I can insert work samples like the double entry journal, or sticky notes stuck to a sheet of notebook paper. I'll work with the school librarians early in the year to teach students where to find specific genres of books, and create a "good books box" that will contain a rotating collection of good young adult literature pulled from the shelves in multiple genres for students to check out (Beers 293-5). And I think quarterly I'll reassess students' with the checklist using a different text.
On days I'm not meeting with students and we aren't doing sustained silent reading, I'll read aloud and when we're doing units where each student is reading the same book or books on one topic, we can have large class discussion.
Then, at some point, I'll address writing, grammar, and all the other language arts.
Okay, so maybe the plan isn't fully refined yet.
What encourages me though is last year I had one student who was clearing affected by our two or three individual meetings and the modeling and guided practice we did as a class. At the beginning of the semester, he struggled with reading comprehension and was a reluctant and often confused reader. At the end of the semester, he wrote in his self assessment:
[I] really improved myself this semester i actually tired. your class was fun as many thought otherwise, i had to push myself to go hard. only reason why i didnt get an A was because of the fact i didnt do book club i was gone i got zeros and then i fell behind on sticky notes. then i read the whole book [Of Mice and Men] which is honestly a majr accomplishment for you not going to lie i have never actually read a whole book. i always never like them. but you made me realize reading is actually fun. the truth is i actually read now at my house :).
He could have been lying. I don't think so though. It would explain why on the second to last day of the semester, to the surprise of his classmates and me, he asked me to model visualizing a poem we were reading. If he wasn't lying, then I think one out of 70 isn't bad for my first year. Maybe next year I can break 10% or better.
Beers, Kylene. (2003). When kids can't read. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
