Hey Friends!! It’s been a minute!
Let me just start by saying that I’ve had such a great summer. I had intended to do a lot of work, but I just couldn’t. I needed a little break. I needed to recharge.
So, instead of working on blog posts and products and stuff for the upcoming school year, I sat by the pool, went to the beach, read a bunch of books, ate ice cream, and drank wine. IT.WAS.GLORIOUS!
I’d mentioned before that the last school year was a tough one. Aside from having many lovable, but complicated students, it was our first year of having a combined ELA period. If you remember, for years I’d had a 45-minute reading period AND a 45-minute writing period each day. And then last year, we switched to a 50-minute ELA period (so reading and writing combined), along with a daily 30-minute reader’s workshop period.
About this time last year, I posted my plan for this new schedule. I thought I had a pretty good idea for how to make this work. But, as I’d mentioned on Facebook a few times, things were just not going as I’d hoped. All year long, I felt behind, rushed, flustered, and anxious. I was not at all happy with how things were going. When June finally arrived, I was exhausted and full of guilt that I hadn’t prepared my kids nearly enough for 8th grade.
This year, I’ve got a new plan. I’m still working it out in my brain, but I wanted to sketch out my thinking for you in the hopes of getting some feedback.
About two weeks ago, I sat down with my plans from last year, my grade book, our PARCC scores, and a notebook and pencil. I spent some time thinking about what is most essential for my kids to have experienced by the end of the year.
After lots of thought, I finally admitted this: Until I can be sure that my kids are all proficient readers and writers, meaning they can read and write the way a 7th grader is expected to, it is nearly impossible to determine if students are weak in a specified skill. I’ve always KNOWN this, but I will admit that it can be easy to get lost in the standards and data. One can easily fall into the “they just need more work on understanding plot or character” or, “let me just teach them this formula for answering those open-ended questions” way of thinking. Admittedly, it’s easy to fall into the trap because teaching plot and character and formulas is a lot easier than teaching kids to become proficient readers and writers. But, when we are honest with ourselves, I think it’s clear that most of our time needs to be spent practicing reading and writing.
So, my plan for this year…
In a nutshell, I plan to make my ELA period a WRITING class. Our goal at the end of every day is to be better WRITERS than we were the day before. We will write, and write, and write some more! Yes, we will read. And we will discuss and analyze what we read, but we will do this as writers. For example, we look at how authors create character in texts like, “Seventh Grade” (Soto), “Rikki Tikki Tavi” (Kipling), and “Casey at the Bat” (Thayer), but we do it so we can emulate it in our writing – not so that we can take a test on those stories to prove we know it. The proof that we understand will be reflected in our writing. Another example, we will study the organizational patterns of nonfiction, but rather than take a test where students are required to read a few different examples and identify their organization, kids will show me they understand by how they choose to organize their own writing.
Does that make sense?
Here are my plans at-a-glance. I plan to spend the first month prepping students for the routines that we will use all year, namely Reader’s Workshop, Article of the Week, and Greek and Latin Roots. The next several weeks will be spent “working like a writer,” meaning we will generate ideas for our future writing pieces, as well as study and explore mentor pieces and then use what we learn from them in our own writing. It will look something like this:
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| Daily Class Period Schedule |
You’ll notice that I’ve got “themes” for each month of Reader’s Workshop (which, remember for me, is a separate, 30-minute period that happens each day). I got this idea for creating book displays from Pernille Ripp’s Passionate Readers: The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child. I’ll be writing more on this later, so stay tuned!!
Okay… so let me hear your thoughts? Think this will work? I’m a bit concerned about grades. I’ll have the weekly AoW and Greek and Latin Roots stuff. But, I see myself having way less daily seat work and quizzes that go along with the stories in our anthology. My goal is to have kids submit a published piece every marking period, but maybe I’ll need to incorporate a timed-writing each marking period, as well?
I’d love to hear your thoughts!!
I taught elementary before middle and it is so refreshing to see a MS teacher who works through Gradual Release, Workshop, and Metacognition strategies! I agree with you…reading and writing are SO interconnected, and I always teach writing through mentor texts and mini lessons, but hadn't thought of it as evidence of their comprehension skills…I have to give that more thought! I always question what we are really assessing through comprehension quizzes of text. Interpretations of events are not static, and how a text hits one person has all kinds of nuanced differences in how it hits another…the idea that these things have static answers is pretty antiquated.
Will you no longer start your classes with independent reading? We have 50 minute classes as well and I struggle with this, and making it "homework" doesn't work well with my population of students.
I think I am working much toward your model as well, but then it is more for mastery, which complicates grading…round peg, square hole. I have been chewing on the feedback/grading issues alllll summer.
So yeah, not a lot of feedback :)…just another teacher mulling through it with you! Lol.
I loved reading this. We are on a modified split block schedule, which is 90 minutes one day/45 minutes the next day with each class. The class is a combined ELA class, and I've struggled with how to prioritize my time. We do a timed writing and a finished/published, longer piece of writing each 9 weeks (along with LOTS of other "task specific" writing. The grade thing is so tricky, but you could do a Common Lit assignment once a week that goes along with your theme? Just an idea. I think as long as you know what your goals/outcomes are, the grades are more for "other people" if that makes sense. I wish every middle school principal and parent had read Rick Wormelli, but they haven't, which makes the grades a kind of necessary evil.
The more minds that mull, the better!! I so appreciate it! Yes, with our 30-minutes a day of RW, I won't have kids silently reading their self-selected books during ELA time. I've never been a big fan of the quizzes that go with our stories, either. But, they are an expected part of the program that we use. And, they are easy to grade. (Gulp! I hate admitting that!!!) The ones that we have are not THAT bad, but I have to do a lot of teaching around a story in order for them to pass. I just don't think that teaching like that is as valuable as writing!!
Yes!! Grades are absolutely for "other people." I've come to hate them! I wish I could do a narrative for each kid instead 🙂
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Hi! I teach grammar through writing. I use mentor sentences from our mentor text and do it that way. No formal program or assessment for it 🙂
We don't have a separate RW time, so it's ALL done in 50 minutes, and I struggle every year with prioritizing and triaging. Sigh. 🙂 Easy to grade is a gift sometimes when we are working so hard to create engaging and effective lessons and plus, I feel like I have to balance authentic assessment with "preparing them for HS style" assessments:). Plus, let's be real, at this point I feel like some of my "grades" are just to jump through a hoop so it doesn't look like I'm going weeks without "grading" them when really, they are getting really good narrative feedback! I struggle with assigning homework because so many of my students are so heavily impacted, it becomes an equity issue. I would rather have them really love the time they are with me, and then let it go. That said, again, there is that whole "preparedness" issue. Anyway, I digress :).
Do you struggle with your "mini-lesson" turning into a "maxi-lesson?" 🙂 Also my problem – lol – especially when they are engaged and discussing and happy!
Hi,
I have a 99 minute block daily for 3 different classes. My key focus is to routinely write daily as well. I too use mentor texts, exemplars etc. Writing is key in building comprehension. It is your first hand account if they understand what they've read. Please read this link on SSR. Many researchers including the National Reading Panel concludes that little evidence is seen for growth in using SSR. They offer some suggestions if you do use it. http://www.readingrockets.org/article/reconsidering-silent-reading
I LOVE the idea of SSR in Middle School. My colleagues and I often have the discussion around whether it helps build reading skills or not. I think for most students it does, however, I really do think that some sort of guided questions or ongoing feedback in the form of discussion with teacher or peers is necessary to help develop critical-thinking application to individual readings. We have a couple of times during the year where teachers provide something called "speed-dating dating with books". We set aside stations in our library where we have put out piles of books that we think students may be interested in. During that period, students can move from station to station until they find their perfect book "match". Students are expected tp spend some time outside of classtime with their "date". 😄 (time at each station is timed keeping the excitement going.)
Hi Jenna! I LOVE your ideas. I am a new ESL teacher. I'm looking for stories to include with your interactive notebook bundle. Are there any short stories, websites, or easy texts that you recommend? Thanks, any advice would be appreciated.
Could you explain how you use/run the book talks under your readers workshop? Are you actually reading these books in their entirety with the students or having them read them? Or are you more or less just getting the students interested in those books? Help! 🙂
I'm not reading them at all… well, maybe I'll read a page or two. I'm mostly just talking them up… like a little commercial to generate interest.