Literacy Ideas For All!

Audience: Literacy Teachers

This blog post is all about the sharing of ideas. John Maynard Keynes said, "Ideas shape the course of history." By sharing our ideas, we can shape our schools and the learner experience. This post will highlight curriculum updates, as well as a variety of awesome literacy ideas that I've seen in action since we've been back this year. Thank you in advance to those who were brave enough to share their ideas through this blog post. I'm hoping there's a little something in this post for everyone to take away and try!

CURRICULUM UPDATES

A few weeks ago Emily Reddy blogged about curriculum updates in the Connect. Here is the presentation she included. Take a look at it to learn about some of the fantastic work teachers and coaches did around literacy curriculum this past summer: Curriculum Updates. There are two other things to note about curriculum updates. The first is that there are updated language workshop planners on BB9. The standards on these planners have been updated to better reflect the standards at each grade level and their correlation with each phase. The second thing is that you will notice the resources at the bottom of the unit frameworks for writing and reading look different. The old Lucy Calkins units have been removed and they are now replaced by links to "Unit Resources." These unit resources are based on the new Lucy Calkins units for reading and writing. These are the same unit resources that are included in the "Curriculum Updates" presentation above.

LITERACY IDEAS FROM STEM WAUKESHA TEACHERS

Conferring:
Conferring is one of my favorite parts of the reading and writing workshop because it's a time where we get to give individual (or small groups) of learners our undivided attention. We get to listen to them and study them to collaborate around next steps that will help them to grow. Having said that, one of my least favorite parts was figuring out a manageable system to document these conferences. If you're anything like me, you've changed your conferring system multiple times in hopes of finding the perfect form. Here's my advice... pick a conferring system that helps you document the necessary parts of a conference and stick with it for a while... maybe even for the whole year! The point of these notes is to track our interactions and teaching during conferences with learners and when we constantly abandon conferring systems for new ones, we lose track of the notes that hold so much rich information about our learners. So, if you're still someone that's looking for a conferring system that fits your needs, look no further... some of our STEM Waukesha teachers may have an answer to your problem:

Kristin & McKenzie's Conferring Google Sheet

• Ashley Manthey and Erin Gokey use this document to keep track of their conferring notes. Their ed. assistants also use this. [Gokey/Manthey's Conferring Form]
• Becky Anderson keeps track of her conferring notes via a Google Form. This form outlines the architecture of a conference as a reminder. [Becky's Conferring Form]
• Kristin Kobriger and McKenzie Rabenn use a Google Sheet to keep track of their conferring notes. They include notes around a star (something the learner is doing well), a teaching point (what they work on during that conference) and a step (something to work on in the future with that learner). The continuums for each individual learner are also linked within their conferring sheet.
• Wendy Hamilton created a conferring notes form for her team of interventionists to use when they push into learning communities to confer with learners. This form also follows the architecture of a conference. [Wendy's Conferring Form]

Language Workshop Notes:

Shelly, Amber and Lynn's Language Workshop Notes

Many of us have experienced the power of language workshop throughout the last year or two. This is a time of the day when learners continue to shock us with the depth of thinking they're able to display in conversations around the analysis of text. This week I had the opportunity to facilitating language workshop in a Level 2 classroom at Hawthorne STEM. We were reading the book Boxes for Katje by Candace Fleming. This is the story of a little girl, Katje, who lives in Holland at the time of World War II. The town she lives in must go without many necessities, like socks, soap and milk. Rosie, who lives in America begins to send packages to Katje. Soon Rosie's whole community begins to send packages of necessities to Holland for the town of Olst, where Katje lives. At the end of the book Katje and her community send a package of tulip bulbs to America to brighten Rosie's town. During one of our conversations a learner in Level 2 explained, "In this book there is an entire community empathizing with another community. They realized times were tough for Katje's community and so they did something to help." Another student added on, "I think the message is that when you get you should try to give back. Rosie sent all kinds of things to Katje and so Katje gave back. Even though she didn't give back as much stuff because she doesn't have a lot, it still meant just as much." These are the conversations that give me chills... these are the pieces of evidence that are awesome to share with families. So, how can we begin to keep track of some of this thinking so that we can notice patterns? Shelly Troedel, Lynn Pascavis and Amber Kraus are using a Google Sheet to track thinking in language workshop across the different mentor texts they use. They jot thinking down on sticky notes (not everything, just thoughts they want to keep track of) and after language workshop they enter these notes into their spreadsheet (usually 2-3 per phase). This spreadsheet already holds a wealth of evidence to inform our instruction and to celebrate with individual students and their families.

Book Talks:
In literacy PLCs at both schools we're focusing on studying our learners (who they are, what they're interested in, and what they can do) in order to get them independently engaged in READING! In working with level 3 teachers to amp up engagement during independent reading and encourage the reading of picture books, Duy and I visited a classroom to do book talks on picture books... yes, that's what I said... picture books in Level 3! Last week I did a book talk on Emmanuel's Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu of Yeboah by Laurie Ann Thompson. Duy did a book talk on Little Roja Riding Hood by Susan Middleton Elya. I can honestly say that we had Level 3 learners rushing to grab the books to read after the book talks were finished. Consider borrowing this idea and try some book talks with your readers! I think you'll be pleased with the response.

Mary Kuhnert's Book Banners

Book Banners:
When you walk into Mary Kuhnert's Level 1 classroom you will immediately see banners with the covers of books hanging from wall to wall. These are books she has read and discussed with her learners this year and in years past. This is a fun way to celebrate the books you're reading in any classroom!

I would encourage you to borrow any of these ideas that pique your interest and seem like they will have a positive impact on your learners. Change them to fit the needs of your learners and then reflect on how it's going. And finally... take a risk and share your ideas with others! This is how we grow.

Enjoy the week with your learners!