Theory in Practice - Looking Ahead

Interesting how my last TIP seems to circle back to the things I was reflecting on when I wrote my first TIP (all the way back in September 2013, sigh). On my mind and in the success department I have reflections about effective planning. I've also got a lot of the same angst weighing on my heart as I did when assessing myself on my first curve around this grad school track. With each success I experience, my mind assaults me with reminders of shortcomings and doubts about the future. It's saying, "yeah you did that, but it's not enough." "Sure you're excelling in that but look at all these things you are not excelling at." "Yes, you planned, but there are still plans you let fizzle out." "That project was a success but you need to do more of them, faster, and better. Also you need to spend less time on them and more time on EdTPA!"

HUSH, I try to say to these voices when I have the presence of mind to do so. Yet I can't help but remember the "Year Two's" I looked up to last year and how accomplished and professional and empowered and successful they seemed. I compare myself now and find myself wanting. Those women last year seemed clear headed and driven and full of conviction and confidence. I feel murky-headed, confused, without energy and without confidence. I have felt so spread thin in a million directions; I told my friend today that I feel like a spider web with everything in my head being stretched so wide and so delicately thin. In this state, thoughts begin to lose their substance and become fragile and difficult to hold on to. I feel like I'm in a tunneling mineshaft along with everything I am reading, have read, am working on, am responsible for, should be thinking about, etc, and my voice is getting lost and drowned out amongst it all. I suppose this is all a fancy way to say I've been feeling lost in my theory and practice and the elusive praxis I should be honing in on. I feel like I'm in another adolescence, extremely awkward, angsty, and wanting to be like the "grown ups" I perceive to be around me.

At moments like this in my personal life, a reflective practice I sometimes do is to read back over my oldest journal entries and leave comments on sticky notes or in margins. When I did this virtually by re-reading my original TIP, I found some of my thoughts jarring and poignant and so unmistakably familiar to my current state of mind as I search for the words to synthesize my experiences over the past month. One passage that hits home: "I feel like a fraud, and my greatest fear is that my learning shortcomings will result in massive failure as a grad student and as a teacher, and I will be "found out" as a phony and be laughed out of town." Wow, self-fulfilling prophecy much? It's almost as if fresh-faced little me from 2 years ago wrote these words in full knowledge of where future me would be reading them, so close to the finish line yet so out of gas. 

The next part is practically absurd to me now in its earnestness: "I want to protect my students from developing these negative feelings about themselves, I want them to feel as capable and full of potential as I see them. But I know that first I have to come to terms with my own self-actualizing in this department. And self-actualizing can be painful, especially when you've been making do for so many years of adulthood." and with pure conviction I add, "I truly believe the major link that is missing that will make me feel in control and capable is organization. I have to find a way to put myself through a kind of organizer's boot camp, perhaps using resources like pinterest for tools that will assist me in my goal to improve in this area." There's a bully in me who scoffs at reading those last words and says "HA! You?? Get better at organization??? From PINTEREST?! You're dreamin." Again, I know I need to say "Shut up weird Punky Bruester bully of my imagination! I really am doing better!" I'm at a pivotal moment where it's time to seriously figure out how to look at myself from a strength-based model, as I wrote about 2 years ago but didn't have a name for at the time. 

So here are some things I have been completely rocking:

Democratic classroom, class meetings, and taking and using data to support students in these areas. Going back to one of our earlier readings that most resonated with me, I remember Mary Cowhey's thoughts on noticing voices in class meetings:  “It is one thing to have your most privileged, articulate, and entitled children speak up in a dialog… For me, the real test is to have the least-empowered children, the least articulate, take a leading role in that dialog while the more articulate children thoughtfully listen and consider things from their classmates’ perspectives before they comment or question” (Cowhey, 2006, p.91). Okay, so perhaps we still have a lot of growth we can do in the latter part (listening carefully and reflecting before responding and commenting), but my meetings have been seriously intentional about that first part with my language modeling and co-constructed meeting agreements and community problem solving philosophy. Now students themselves will say "Hold on, let _____ speak, his voice hasn't been heard much this meeting." You don't know how my heart explodes when they join together to solve a problem like moving the big platform out of the corner so we can clean under it and hopefully get rid of some ants (can it get more Cowhey than that??). In these instances, I give them whatever tools they request or need and get out of their way with pride. 

In many ways, my democratic work alongside children across subjects (like working on our TICC project) has made me a better science teacher. I apply the idea “literary themes must be understood as turns in an ongoing cultural conversation” (Wilhelm, Douglas, and Fry, 2014, p.32) to science by teaching my students that part of their work as scientists is engaging in an ongoing scientific conversation asking and offering thoughts about questions that human beings have been wandering about for centuries. I also had a significant science curriculum success in my planning and executing of an elaborate lab on physical and chemical changes. I look back at my first lab of the year, which was completely stressful and chaotic with me scrambling for materials at the last second, and see how I've used my reflection process to grow. I've taken what I learned from that terrible lab to make my subsequent labs better and better, and isn't that the same thinking scientists and engineers and problem solvers need to be able to demonstrate? 

Beautiful child scientists engaged in a carefully planned and executed lab. Did they grow more mature, did I plan the activity better, or is it something in between?

My heart and imagination have been truly captured this month by my planning and integrating of the graphic novel March and Cesar Chavez with my social studies curriculum. What started as a mere curiosity on my part, turned into an Action Research question, and from there snowballed into an integrated unit combining TICC questions, reading and discussing skills, and critical thinking and questioning. I've been extremely energized by interacting with people via Social Media who are interested in my work with the graphic novel March, and through discussing with me, help me come to deeper and better understandings of my own work with these themes. I'm combining the values from my curriculum design with the students' voices and interests and intentionally planning a meaningful culminating project that honors multiple learning styles. I'm talking about our "Civil Rights Meet and Greet" on April 16th, where students will be playing the parts of civil rights figures they have researched, reporters interviewing the civil rights leaders, or behind the scenes helpers. This project engages students to think critically and apply high level thinking skills as they all must research and respond to prompts the way their particular person would have. 

Over Spring Break I have also been pondering how we will bring our other discussions about the Rights of Children into the Meet and Greet. It's very exciting and all consuming and I find the work I am doing for these projects is sustaining me creatively and intellectually. I came up with the three options for the actual Meet and Greet because I listened to their opinions and considered their individual strengths and interests. Reader's Theater is a big hit around here, and we have plenty of personalities with a dramatic flair who also crave a challenge. Others are most comfortable and perform best with more structure, hence the "reporter" who can still perform but be more prepared with questions thought of in advance. Then there are our quiet planners, who can help out in meaningful and essential ways on the sidelines without having to 'perform' if that is not his or her thing. Knowing how to put this idea into action and provide the appropriate amount of support to engage and empower each student only comes from past flops that made me wiser, and better application of specific teaching strategies. That's why I know how to use appropriate graphic organizers, provide multiple ways for students to demonstrate understanding and interact with concepts, and provide a balance of structure and freedom for learners at different stages of mastery. 

Super smart critical thinker expressing herself on a paper message board. I used student-generated word clouds based on the themes they found in the books to spark an ongoing conversation between readers (and a great assessment tool for me!)

Katie the 2013 teacher marveled in the depth and importance of the student teacher relationship, and 2015 Katie feels the same way, but now with the theory to back it up. Most recently a praxis has emerged between my philosophies of democracy, agency, and student voice and I noted the following quote in our reading from The Activist Learner; “Relationship building is the heart of democracy, as people strive to be empathetic, listen and dialogue across difference, ethically solve problems, and act with the greatest good in mind” (Wilhelm, Douglas, and Fry, 2014, p.78). Keeping a strengths-based attitude in mind when I look at my own trajectory from then to now, my next step is to remember these growing pains and that writing and reflecting has the power to clear cobwebs and even heal. I need to think of ways to carry my responsive practices learned in Grad School into my career moving forward (like to ISRAEL THIS SUMMER for some serious multi-cultural professional development!!). Latest idea: Start a series of 2 minute Vlogs and invite other super smart teachers I know to do the same, perhaps responding to prompts and thought questions. Anything to keep the power of the dialogue going. 

Mentor Texts and Mini-lessons; a Reader's Response to Carl Anderson's "How's it Goin"

We all need mentors. Many parts of Carl Anderson's chapter on mentor texts in his book, How's it Goin' fit in nicely with my current thinking on literacy instruction in my classroom. I can't agree more with Anderson's criteria for text sets as mentor texts for writers. He states, “First, our collections of mentor texts should reflect the voices and experiences of the children in our classrooms...A collection of mentor texts should also include a variety of genres… Finally, [they] should be crafted in different ways” (Anderson, 2000, p.133). This already jives with the way I select text sets for integrating social studies and to use as read-alouds. Using them as mentors, however, takes it to a new level for me. I love the idea that knowing how to use a mentor text is like having a mentor you can carry around with you always. If you can read as a writer, then every text is your potential mentor, and you can carry the greats with you wherever you go. If we as teachers can model this behavior, all the better. As Anderson puts it, “We hope our students will become the kind of writers who also have such writing mentors. They read their favorite authors’ books and essays and poems with a ‘writer’s eye’ and notice how these authors craft their writing” (Anderson, 2000, p.109).

I enjoy the anecdotes in the book that offer us a chance to eavesdrop on a conference with Anderson breaking down the choices he made and his rationale for them. It pointed me in a new direction to consider how he uses assuming questions as a form of modeling by asking students "Who is your writing mentor?" Anderson says that “Even when I’m certain a student doesn’t have a writing mentor, I may still ask if he does” (Anderson, 2000, p.112). Amazing the power a simple question can have for conveying expectations and raising the bar for student writers. It seems the goal of much of the writing conference is to help students build metacognition about the writing process. It takes a lot of cognitive effort to process the content of a story while simultaneously picking apart the craft and structure that the story is built upon. That's why Anderson says “I try to match students up to texts their class has already read and studied in mini-lessons” (Anderson, 2000, p.122). This is one way Anderson tries to purposefully focus the cognitive load, because as he points out, “It’s unreasonable, after all, to expect students to come to brilliant insights into how an author uses a craft technique a few seconds after we’ve read a text aloud, or right after they’ve read it for the first time” (Anderson, 2000, p.128). I am still wondering what Anderson would do, though, if a student struggles to see the difference between their own writing sample and the mentor sample they are using for inspiration.

The chapter on Mini-Lessons also squared with my thinking and offered plenty of "ah-ha" moments. Often times I theoretically know something but am unsure how to put it into practice. Anderson takes care of that for me by clearly structuring the art of the mini-lesson and providing rationale for each chunk. I find myself nodding "yes yes yes, this makes so much sense" when Anderson explains how “Mini-lessons give us opportunities not only to give students information about different kinds of writing work, but to persuade students to adopt our agendas for them as writers as their own, and equip them to try out what we teach in their independent writing” (Anderson, 2000, p.139).

So many of my growing edges throughout Grad School have been focused on finding structure and intention within my creativity, and I find this chapter to be immensely helpful in that work. I feel like I can breathe a sigh of relief when I imagine myself using Anderson's mini-lesson technique in a consistent way that also provides some freedom. When discussing the effective mini-lessons he's observed teachers use, he says “while the content of their mini-lessons changes from day to day, the way that they structure the lessons remains constant. Within this predictable architecture, we noticed that teachers have parts of their min-lessons in which they teach students, encourage students to try what they’ve taught in their writing, and equip them to do so” (Anderson, 2000, p.140).

I appreciate how Anderson doesn't just tell me what I should be doing and then leaving me alone to figure out the details: he actually provides several examples of HOW to accomplish my mini-lesson goals. He points me in some new directions with his suggestions, such as the "Fishbowl" method. Anderson describes the Fishbowl, saying “When we want to give students information about how they can have effective peer conferences (or response groups), we can have students ‘fishbowl’ a conference in front of the rest of the class. As the students confer, we might caption what they do-- that is, give names to the moves they make in their conversation” (Anderson, 2000, p.146). I also think I could make use of the “Say something” method he describes on page 148 for multiple content areas. I also love the intention and purpose that undergrids the sharing phase of mini-lessons. Often in my class I cry silently within when kids want to "share" their writing, and the slowness and time sucking of these moments is almost painful for me to endure. Considering anchoring "share" into the specific strategies of the mini-lesson is a "EUREKA" moment for me that might help me solve this problem in my class. I can really take to heart Anderson's wise words concerning sharing when he reminds us, “The point of the share session is for students to discuss work they did as writers that period, not to read their pieces aloud from beginning to end” (Anderson, 2000, p.152).

While I agree completely that mini-lessons should remain "mini" in order to maximize their effectiveness, some questions are still circling in my mind about the best ways to accomplish this. I felt like he was talking directly to me when he listed the different possible reasons why mini-lessons drag on for longer than they should. I thought "that's SO my class" when he brought up the issue of too much student discussion. As usual, the solution to this lies within the planning phase. Anderson says, “we have to decide in advance in which parts of our mini-lessons we’re going to do the talking, and in which parts the students will-- and then stick to our plan” (Anderson, 2000, p.150). That is SO HARD for my class which includes a cognitively diverse community of students, some of whom struggle to control impulses or need to be constantly verbalizing in order to maintain focus and comprehension. He also cites too many teacher examples as a time-sucker, claiming that “After the second or third example...students have gotten the point we’re making. As we show them more, we lose their attention and they lose writing time. We can give students informaton by showing them one or two carefully chosen examples” (Anderson, 2000, p.151). On the one hand, yes, I think many of my students will be chomping at the bit and ready to try techniques out after one or two examples. But just as many other students are going to require more time and guided practice to process and be equipped to try things out. This is also related to his next factor, which is that we repeat ourselves too much. This may be true for some students, but others might need to hear and see things a few more times before they have processed it. When I saw the suggested time frame for the "Have a Go" phase was 2-4 minutes (p.147) I almost had to laugh out loud. Maybe in some classrooms but never in a million years would this work in mine. This indicates to me that the strategies shared in this book aren't really geared towards an inclusion setting, and it makes me wonder how to appropriately adapt them for classroom communities with cognitive differences.

If I had to take away one major theme linking these passages (and also running more largely throughout the book) it would be the word "intention." This is something I keep coming back to in my own developing practice. Armed with effective planning and a clear purpose, it seems teachers can select mentor texts and design effective mini-lessons with ease. I can't wait to "have a go" at the strategies I've learned with my own young writers!

Theory in Practice - Data Driven

A fascinating and unexpected turn for me these past few weeks has been my sudden love affair with data. I have a student teacher in my classroom once a week (it boggles my mind and slightly frightens me that I would be trusted with a student teacher) and she said something offhand about "I just love data." That really got me thinking about data and all the nifty things it can show you. This was in exact timing of me beginning to take data for my Action Research project. I am attempting to track critical thinking comments about two graphic biographies of civil rights leaders through student book club conversations. As I began to take my data during the initial conversations, I realized right away that the method I had set up for tracking student critical thinking comments was extremely flawed. I realized I was trying to force something qualitative to be quantitative, and that the data I was taking simply wasn't a perfect reflection of what I am observing in my book clubs. Luckily, the goal of the Action Research class is to learn the basics of Action Research, and this experience has taught me the value of not forcing data to be something it's not.

I learned data has a democratic power in our classroom settings as well. I observed a trend in our morning meeting "share" portions with a rise in elaborate toys and a decline in meaningful student commenting. I began to track this almost instinctively one week, noting who is sharing and what, who is commenting and the type of comment and frequency, and obviously, who is declining to insert their voice into the conversations. At the end of the week, I suggested a "verbal share" without toys, and the way the conversation kicked into gear after a few moments made it hard to keep up with my data-tracking sheet. This proved to me what I had suspected, but even more powerfully than that, gave me something to share with the students. They understood what it meant right away when I shared my findings with them, and it led to an insightful conversation about what makes for good shares and comments so that we can practice speaking and listening the way we need to in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade.

So much of our growth has been in the space of democratic class meetings, but choosing to include them in the data and the interpreting of that data really brought home the theme of student ownership of their communities. In The Activist Learner, the authors claim “Learning should open the gateway that enriches every student’s sense of agency; their dynamic mindsets as people, readers, and writers; their sense of estimable personhood; to reflection and the capacity to know what one knows and how one knows it, and where one will go next; to more enlightened and wide-awake living” (Wilhelm, Douglas, and Fry, 2014, p.43). I had never before thought about data being connected with this meta-cognition we are seeking to help students develop within themselves, but having seen it first hand, the  connections are clear. I hope to use data to empower students to ask and answer the questions that matter to understand and then transform their world around them into the place they want to live in.