Conceptual Understandings For Kindergarten Writers

The video that I am sharing in this post was filmed about two months into the school year. I wasn’t even in the classroom at the time but I am so glad that our assistant teacher sensed that the moment was one to document. It has been my inspiration as I work to facilitate the development of Kindergarten writers ever since.

Background:

Jude worked on this story over the course of at least six writer’s workshop sessions. At the time, my overall goal for the class was to move from static pictures (this is my family) to pictures that tell a story (this is the time my family was picnicking at the river and a bunch of birds got into our food). The conceptual understanding that stories move through characters and events was one that this group was ready for. As they developed their understanding, we worked on drawing skills, such as focusing on the shapes and colors of the characters, to help them effectively communicate their ideas to their readers.

Jude came to Kindergarten already understanding that stories include characters and a series of events. Research has told us time and again that literacy is best supported at home by reading aloud to our children and enjoying and consuming a variety of texts together. I never felt the need to ask because I’m pretty sure that Jude’s home life is infused with rich experiences delving into stories with his family. The story in the video exhibited way more than he could have picked up in his short school career. Not only did he demonstrate an understanding of the role of characters and events, but Jude also demonstrated an understanding of problem/solution, one of the most common story structures. He knew that he had to create an appropriate setting. He knew that his story needed a satisfying ending. He had an idea of how he wanted his story to affect his reader. He was committed to the task with absolutely no mandates from the adults in the room.

Researching the writer:

I came in on this story in the planning stages. Jude was drawing pictures of the wolf, which could have easily been mistaken for static pictures. However, on this day, I sat down beside Jude for a conference and learned that there was so much more to the wolf. Jude told me that the wolf was in the forest and that he, the main character, was scared when he saw the wolf. I could sense that Jude was still considering how far he would take this drawing and I thought carefully about how to move this writer further. I asked, “so what did the character do?” Jude told me he wasn’t sure yet. I stayed silent. A few breaths later and as he continued to work on his drawing, “no, wait, he’s gonna trap the wolf.”

“Ohhh!” I asked Jude to tell me how the story went again, checking if he would hold on to the series of events. In a way that only a writer who truly owns his idea can do, Jude told me his story, in the third person, as if he was reading it straight out of a book. I don’t need to type it here as it was not much different from the story you hear him reading in the video.

Deciding on a teaching point:

I considered my options for leveraging Jude’s enthusiasm and momentum. I could introduce code, suggesting that he label some of the pictures, “Jude” and “the wolf”, perhaps. But I hadn’t seen Jude make a move towards print yet and knew that it would come when he was ready. Instead, I opted to go a different route, one which I hoped would support his efforts to tell stories which included a series of events. One which I hoped would equip him to continue telling stories just like this one, whenever he wanted. I chose to help him explicitly recognize his events by telling his story back to him over the fingers of my hand, tapping one finger for each event. He caught on right away so I kept going. I introduced him to the idea of making a booklet when he noticed that his stories had more than one event. We talked about how each finger meant that we needed to turn the page. The result can be seen in the video, alongside all of the amazing thinking Jude did all on his own. He continues to turn the pages with events in his stories and is also experimenting with turning the page when writing information.

Where is this writer now?

Jude continues to love reading and writing stories. He also engages in the creating and sharing of stories in other ways. Our class is at least three puppet shows richer due to his imagination and his play often results in a story unfolding, be it in the building area or role-play center, the art corner or at recess.

Jude’s ability to encode his ideas has developed steadily as well. He knows where to find the words he needs if they are familiar to our class and he has an age-appropriate understanding and use of letter-sound relationships. However, I have noticed that these are most evident when he has an idea that he is passionate about sharing. An idea that came from him. When asked, he will dutifully produce words on the page but at this point, asking him to do so often brings an obvious and unnecessary frustration which impedes his creativity and stifles his enthusiasm. In a field where it has become clear that literacy is so much more than encoding and decoding, where it has been proven that jumping to code and valuing the use of code as an indicator of literacy development is inappropriate and often even detrimental to our youngest learners, Jude is a powerful reminder that there is so much more.

As I already said, I am so grateful that this writer was captured on video but he is not alone. He represents the countless young learners who are investigating their world through and with language. It is a powerful reminder of how much there really is to language and literacy development and how, in the early years, it is vital that we don’t let the rush to learn letter names and sounds impede the rich experiences that will serve to support and motivate a move towards print as and when students are ready.

 

Writing Development In Kindergarten: Case Study HG

Just as I am now, every year, I take some time to look back on the development of my Kindergarten writers over the course of the year. While the instructional decisions I make are based on weekly formative assessments and reflection on individual and group needs, it has been really interesting to go back and look at how far they’ve come and how they got there. I find that there is nothing more powerful than looking at student work as a way to develop even more as a writing teacher so I thought I would start to share some of these on my blog. Here are some samples from the writing life of one of my Kindergarteners last year, in chronological order.

HG’s development as a writer from September to April

At the start of the year, as was the case with most of my Kindergarteners, HG used pictures to put his ideas on paper. We looked back at the first writing samples together and he noticed immediately how much he has grown in his ability to add details to his drawings.

"It makes sense that this was from the beginning of the year because I used hardly any details."
“It makes sense that this was from the beginning of the year because I used hardly any details.”
"This is my tooth fairy. She is a maple fairy. I used more detail."
“This is my tooth fairy. She is a maple fairy. I used more detail.”

By mid-year, HG had started choosing his character or subject before putting marks on the page. He was able to discuss his color choices and point out details like parts of the body and shapes that he had purposefully added. He was beginning to experiment with strings of letters to represent words.

"I used lots more details like colors and shapes."
“I used lots more details like colors and shapes.”

It wasn’t long before HG was using words that he knew, such as proper names of family, friends and familiar toys, and starting to use letters to represent initial and dominant sounds.

My Beanie Boo
My Beanie Boo

During our unit on all-about books, HG demonstrated an understanding that there are spaces between words and started crafting sentences to match his pictures.

I like hamsters.
I like hamsters.

HG recognizes that he sometimes forgets to do some of the things he already knows to do to make sure his reader understands what he’s written.

"I need to add more details, like hair, color and feet."
“I need to add more details, like hair, color and feet.”





Looking At Student Writing: Tips and a Case Study

Looking at student work is one of the most powerful sources of professional development available. Collaboratively looking at student work increases that value beyond measure. Whether on our own or with colleagues, the time we take to look deeply at student’s writing helps us to develop a plan for how to support individual writers in their stage of development at a given moment. It also helps us develop our own understanding and recognition of the stages of development, as well as the many bends in the road for a developing writer.

It is so important to consider all aspects of the developing writer in the early years. Teachers can quickly become distracted by the amount of print that may or may not be on the page, or by the control the writer might exhibit over his or her drawings.

Here are two tips for looking at student writing samples:

  1. Know the background: if it is your student, you probably already do. If it is a student you don’t work with, it is crucial to know more about the process the student has gone through, what he or she has said during conferences or at other times regarding the writing. So much of the “work” our youngest writers do is not detectable on the page alone. That which is detectable often needs the curation of an adult who was along for the journey.  If collaboratively looking at work samples, I recommend using a modified version of a protocol such as LAST or ATLAS. Protocols such as these provide the opportunity to get a more inclusive picture of the “work” that has been done.
  2. Resist the urge to compare writers: Unless you are looking to better understand what different stages of writing look like in the context of a group of students, I see very little value in comparing different writers. More often, the comparison of writers leads to a “ranking.” Such ranking often neglects the many facets of a writer’s development which are not immediately apparent when comparing one student’s writing to that of another writer. Alternatively, looking at several samples of the same writer’s work over time, brings his or her individual development to the surface and can be very powerful in helping us to make decisions about how best to support that writer. For me, this is also a very encouraging practice as I often see so much more growth when I see a collection of a student’s writing over time. The samples below are a collection of one Kindergartener’s writing over time.

What do you notice about the development of this writer over the course of eight months?

 

First story in Kindergarten.
First story in Kindergarten.
Me, My Mommy and My Sister-November 2018
Me, My Mommy and My Sister-November 2018
When My Mommy Took Me Out Of My Crib-January 2019
When My Mommy Took Me Out Of My Crib-January 2019
When the teacher wore pj's to school-March 2019
When the teacher wore pj’s to school-March 2019

 

Work in progress-April 2019
Work in progress-April 2019

Parent-Led Lesson Surfaces Conceptual Transfer

Last week I was having one of those days where I was doubting a lot of what I believe that Kindergarten students can do. In hindsight, I realize that there were probably three things creating that doubt. It probably started with my own state, which was exhausted. Then, I was impatient. We were in week four of our #ibpyp unit of inquiry and I wanted to see more evidence of conceptual transfer. Finally, when I voiced my doubts, the response from some people was that I was probably aiming too high. I was ready to go hide in the book corner and surround myself Mo Willems’ pigeon when our guest artist, a parent of one of our students, arrived for her big lesson.

Conceptual Understanding Is Transferable

If you’ve read my recent posts, you know that our students are inquiring into how artists use their art to express emotions and ideas. You’ll also know that our key concepts are form and perspective. In hindsight, the unit has been going pretty well. Students have been exploring and discussing different forms within and outside of the discipline of art.  They have been talking about the emotions and moods that they feel are represented in a piece of art. They have been acknowledging and appreciating each other’s differing perspectives. I realize now that I was looking for an opportunity for them to transfer all of this to a new and novel situation. The opportunity was still to come.

Bring In the Parent-Led Lesson

Our guest artist/Mom had been planning to share her expertise with us for a few weeks. She is a passionate artist who specializes in calligraphy. We were excited that our students would have the opportunity to be exposed to another art form, as well as to interact with an artist from our learning community. Our guest mom was understandably a bit nervous to share with a group of five-year-olds but felt confident that she had an idea that would keep our Kindergarteners engaged. From the perspective of a concept-based, PYP teacher, she had so much more than that.

The Perfect Provocations

Our guest artist set up the room with Kindergarten-friendly calligraphy tools. She had clearly put a lot of thought into providing authentic tools which were still developmentally appropriate for five-year-olds. There was a watercolor station with special “calligraphy” paint markers and there were stations set up with sets of color pencils, taped together to make multicolor calligraphy pens that had a wide grip. All stations had large sheets of plain paper, waiting for our students to transform them.

When the students entered the room, they saw their “atelier” set up and ready for them. They also saw that there would be a meeting on the carpet first. Our guest was waiting next to our screen, where she had a short slideshow to share with them.

The slideshow was powerful. The students were shown some images of calligraphy being used in environmental print around the neighborhood. They saw restaurant boards and signs on stores. Our guest asked our students to share their thoughts about the different signs. Students noticed that some of them looked happy or sad. They connected these feelings to the colors of the signs at first. One student pointed out that if you use red (see the photo below), it will make people angry. Our guest artist acknowledged this and then invited them to look deeper. “Have a look at the actual letters and how they seem to feel. Do they play a role?”

My teacher heart was bubbling over. Our guest was inviting our students to do precisely the type of slow and purposeful looking that we had been practicing for weeks. Sure enough, the students began focusing their attention on the form of the letters, the fonts if you will. A conversation ensued about how letters can feel happy or sad, silly or serious.

Screen Shot 2019-02-18 at 10.44.56

Our guest artist built on this by asking students which colors and styles they thought might express different emotions when creating art with letters. She demonstrated their ideas as they shared-silly would be yellow and swirly, for example.

Once a few examples were shared, the students were invited to visit the stations where they could express emotions by creating art with letters. One last thing before they went off as my teaching partner, with her lightening-quick instincts interjected. She asked the students to help us all remember which letters we had been learning and led them through a lightning-quick review, where they wrote some of those letters in the air or on the carpet.

Opportunity For Transfer

After our guest mom had packed up and gone in search of coffee, I realized how much our students had transferred. By sharing the environmental print with the students, our guest had given them the opportunity to transfer what they understood about the role of color, line, shape, and movementRelated Concepts in fine art, to the role they play in advertising and other forms of print. Students were able to deepen their understanding of form and how the choices an artist makes creates what their art expresses. They also had yet another opportunity to explore their different perspectives on how they viewed a piece of art.

How lucky our students are to be a part of such a caring and sharing learning community. How lucky I was to have this opportunity to witness a fantastic example of how authentic parent involvement can enhance the learning in our classrooms. Even more, I am grateful for the reminder that even our youngest learners are capable of so much and how important it is that we continue to aim high for them. #yestheycan

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exploring Concepts In Our Kindergarten Unit

Over the past few weeks, our Kindergarten students have been exploring the key concepts, form and perspective during our “How We Express Ourselves” unit, “Communicating Through Art.” Related concepts, including emotions, communication, self-expression, line, shape, movement and color, have driven the inquiries within, and often across the disciplines.Screen Shot 2019-01-15 at 15.34.17Screen Shot 2019-02-08 at 11.41.50

Using Related Understandings

The #ibpyp has reaffirmed the related concepts as integral to the teaching and learning in a PYP classroom.  I find that an increased focus on the related concepts makes the learning much clearer and more accessible to students.  Taking them further and creating additional, “related understandings,” provides learners with an opportunity to work towards learning goals that are directly linked to Scope and Sequence requirements. While doing so, they are building an understanding of conceptual relationships that support understanding of the key concepts and central idea. Here are some of the related understandings I have been using to drive the learning in our current unit:

  • We can express our ideas and emotions through art.
  • Artists make choices when creating their art, which may make their audience feel or think a certain way.
  • People can have different ideas about a piece of art.
  • Having, sharing and respecting different ideas, helps us to see things in new ways and increase our understanding.
  • We must be listeners as well as speakers in order to have effective communication.
Understanding Concepts

A few weeks ago I introduced the Visible Thinking routine, Looking 10 x 2 to my students. We have since used the routine several times as the students develop their understanding of form and how we can describe what we see. This was described in my post on transdisciplinary learning. As students became more adept at the routine, we started sorting their responses into two groups: attributes that we could point out for everyone to see, and ideas that they had about the art. This brought us to the key concept, perspective, which became a conceptual focus for the ensuing learning.

Above Media: Three students worked together to share what they saw and what they thought of this van Gogh painting. They attempted to sort the recordings by putting the things they saw that they wanted to point out right on the painting and by putting their ideas to the side of the painting.

After a discussion to establish a common definition of perspective, “when people have different ideas about something,” we continued our inquiries with that concept in mind. As we explored and discussed art, stories, and even recess preferences, the concept of perspective kept coming up. Here are some of the ideas that the kindergarten students were overheard expressing last week: #yestheycan

  • It’s ok if we don’t agree.
  • I have a different idea about the painting than my group!
  • Just because I have a different idea, doesn’t mean I don’t like you.
  • I’m glad that you shared your thinking because now I am changing mine.
  • It’s good to be different.
  • I like it when you say you agree or disagree with me. (this was in the context of “it shows you were thinking about what I said and not just your own ideas)
  • We can’t just say it, we should have reasons for our ideas!
Looking Ahead

The last idea mentioned is where we will pick up. During our next morning meeting, we will go back to this student’s idea about needing to have reasons for our ideas. From there, we will plan together to see how we might explore that idea further in the context of our unit, “Communication Through Art.”

 

 

 

 

Transdisciplinary Learning in Kindergarten

I’ve been thoroughly immersed in exploring the #IBPYP enhancements since the first previews have been available. I have studied and discussed them to the point of geek-like status, excited about the implications they bring for teaching and learning. There is a cushion for teachers and schools to transition gradually as they learn the new version of the program. However, the idea is that the IB has made improvements based on current research. Why not be proactive and start learning and implementing where I can? I’m grateful to my regional colleagues, who have participated in the #pypchat IBAEM recently. This chat has recently served as a forum to collaboratively unpack the enhancements and discuss implementation. I was particularly inspired by a discussion on transdisciplinary learning. This blog post, and the day in my Kindergarten class which it describes, is inspired by that discussion.

Transdisciplinary or Disciplinary?

I have been thinking about transdisciplinary learning for a long time. What should it look like? How can we support it? Do individual disciplines even have a place? I’ve heard many arguments for that one, by the way, and I am still not ready to take a stance. However, I am ready to explore making my program more transdisciplinary and I am willing to take some risks and see where they take my students.

Key Concept Drives the Day

Screen Shot 2019-01-15 at 15.34.17

Form is one of the key concepts for our current Kindergarten unit, “Communicating Through Art.” I decided to weave our focus on that key concept much more explicitly throughout our time together in homeroom and linked it to each part of our day. We started by discussing form in our morning meeting. Students then spent the day exploring form, and the idea that we can describe things by looking closely and that we can also make decisions to determine what our own creations are like. This is how the day focusing on form unfolded:

Art Exploration to Get Us Started

Our mornings always start out with open or guided play. For this morning, we set out a variety of art materials to serve as provocations for our Kindergarten students as they entered the room. They had access to fingerpaints, oil pastels, color pencils and markers, playdough and a variety of paper. They were not disappointed. Almost an hour of art exploration ensued, sparking ideas, generating vocabulary and inspiring creativity. Several students collaborated on a piece of art with fingerpaints, discovering how their technique could change the way their project looked and felt with each change they made.

IMG_9333
Collaborative creating with fingerpaints

Those artists were quite excited about their creation and were keen to share. We took a photo and posted it on the big screen in our meeting area. Then the whole class had a go at describing what they saw, using the Visible Thinking Routine, “Looking 2 x 10.” Of course, we discussed how their descriptions connected to the key concept of form.

Notepad 1_2

A Little Math

Later in the day, students investigated their names. Again, we revisited the idea that we were focusing on form. They noticed and described how many letters they had, which letters were first, which happened more often or which didn’t happen at all. Next, they compared their names to other names in our community, noticing which names were longer or shorter. Some students started counting the differences as well. One Kindergartener pointed out that some names could be made long or short, using mine as an example. “You could be short (Jen) or long (Jennifer)! An investigation into which names could be shortened or lengthened ensued.

IMG_3778
Graphing some of our friends’ names to help us compare.

Form in Writer’s Workshop

Later in the day, we worked on this piece together at the start of our writer’s workshop. We selected the topic (when they buried a friend in the sand at recess) and shared the pen to create the text. As we continued writing, one excited writer exclaimed, “Wait! I noticed something! There’s a pattern, just like in Tabby Cat ” (the pattern book they had read the day before).  I love those moments. You know, the ones where you feel sure that someone must have paid the kid to say what they did? In any case, this exclamation led to a discussion reviewing patterns, a concept that has been explored in maths and reading earlier this month and now was extended by connecting it to the key concept of the day. When it was time for the students to go off to their independent writing, many worked on using details in pictures, letters and words to make their stories follow a pattern, just like the ones they are noticing in their reading books and in our shared story from the minilesson.

Notepad 1_4

Reflecting on the Day

Probably the best evidence for how explicitly weaving the key concept through the day and the disciplines worked, is in what the students said and did after. The next day, during the same morning play time, most students chose to continue to play through art. The effects were already showing. Our young artists were clearly playing around with form, manipulating and combining materials in new ways. The casual discussions with fellow artists were rich with newly acquired vocabulary as the students commented on each other’s use of color, the “scraping” technique and different materials to make their art look a certain way. Comparisons were being made between common elements in each others’ creations.

I will definitely keep finding ways to focus our learning through the key and related concepts as I can already see transfer across days, ideas and disciplines. Most importantly, I can see evidence of transfer beyond the context of our art unit! Next week I have a mini-case study of Mondrian planned, linked first to form and then to perspective. The inquiry is planned to integrate maths, visual arts, and literacy to start but let’s see where the students take it!

In the meantime, I would love to hear your feedback! I would also love to hear how other teachers are supporting transdisciplinary learning in their classrooms.

Back To Work and…Yes They Can!

Change, change, and more change

My blog has been suspiciously dormant for over a year. Since my last post, there have been many changes. My husband and I welcomed a daughter almost exactly a year ago. I was fortunate enough to be able to stay home with her full-time for the first six months and then worked part-time up until our summer holiday.

This school year, I am also working part-time so that I can be with our daughter as much as possible. I am incredibly grateful to be living and working in a country that recognizes and supports the importance of family life. Naively, staying home part-time, I thought that I would be able to spend tons of time reading and researching, honing my craft and blogging tons. I’m sure every parent out there is laughing their heads off as they read this. Lesson learned. A year later, I am trying to get back in the swing of things.

Working part-time meant a grade-level change for me. This year I am teaching Kindergarten for the first time in almost two decades! When I found out last Spring, I must admit I was intimidated. What does Kindergarten even look like in 2018? What are five-year-olds into these days? Would I even remember how to talk to five-year-olds? How will I figure all of this out in three months, with a miniature dictator at home? How will it feel to go from the confident feeling that years of consecutive experience in upper elementary provided to the novice feeling of starting all over again? One thing was clear. If I was going to thrive, or even survive, I had to get to work.

Research!

I spent my summer reaching out to early childhood educators that I admire and reading tons of books, largely recommended by those people.

Screen Shot 2018-11-22 at 16.01.24 Screen Shot 2018-11-22 at 16.01.11

Screen Shot 2018-11-22 at 16.04.26

As I read and discussed, I realized that much of what I knew twenty years ago still stands. I also learned that I have much to learn. My questions include but are not limited to:

  • How best can we support Kindergarteners so that they can drive their own inquiries? We know that the littlest learners are the best inquirers but how will I get them to focus on the units in our curriculum?
  • What are the best strategies with play-based learning?
  • How do Kindergarteners respond to a three-dimensional curriculum?
  • How can I support conceptual development with students who are just learning to read and write?

Sadly, I’ve run into quite a few nay-sayers who think I’m crazy. Of course five-year olds need to acquire skills before they can start to engage in the understanding of concepts, I was told by one. Silly, Jen, it’s not like your fourth-graders, Kindergarteners can’t do that kind of thinking have said some others. While it may no longer be my area of expertise, I’ve known in my heart of hearts that this isn’t the case. Since the moment I knew I was headed back to Kindergarten I knew that my hashtag moving forward would be #yestheycan. Yes, Kindergarteners can drive their own inquiries. Yes, they can develop reading and writing lives. Yes, they are capable of conceptual thought and respectful communication. My job is to figure out how best to support them to do this.

If you’re interested in these questions to, then come back and visit, comment and contribute often. I’ll post quick snapshots and longer reflections as much as I can as the year progresses. I’d love to hear what you have to say as well. As always, you can also follow me on twitter @jrisolo.

 

Classroom Libraries: What’s in there and why?

 

img_2099
Some of our nonfiction collection.

How Do We Decide What Goes In Our Classroom Libraries?

My classroom library is a vital part of the classroom culture.  I spend as much time and thought curating my library as I do setting up my room and planning units. I know that a classroom library can inspire imagination and ignite reading lives but it can also deter readers and dampen enthusiasm. Making sure that our classroom library is a place kids want to spend time is crucial. Here are some of the ways I inform the selection of books on hand for my fourth graders:

  • I focus heavily on series and authors. Experience has taught me that if a reader, especially a reluctant reader, can get into one book in one series, they’ll continue reading and actually benefit from the support of the structure and familiarity of the series. Automatic scaffolding. Win-Win!

    img_2100
    Stand of series and author collections
  • I consider genre, making sure I have a balance of fiction and nonfiction and a good variety of each.
  • I keep track of what’s hot. Right now fantasy and sci-fi are in with both boys and girls. Fairies used to be a female favorite but now they are so three years ago. I hadn’t seen much interest in straight-up adventure (no magic or post-apocalyptic civilizations) in the past few years but see that it is starting to make a comeback.
  • I consider hot topics for nonfiction. Cars, soccer (European), jewelry-making and ancient civilizations are big right now. The usual animals also have a strong showing.
  • I consider my curriculum and am always on the
    img_2098
    Unit-related collections. Some stay out all year, some are introduced later in the year and some are put away after a period of time.

     lookout for titles that support my units AND are appropriate for my readers. That last bit can be tricky.

  • I troll teacher blogs and book lists more than I troll facebook. Donalynn Miller  is one of my biggest influences when it comes to how I organize my reader’s workshop and of course, my library. (I highly recommend that teachers who are interested in selecting books and organizing for engaging and effective reading instruction check out what Donnalynn has to say.)
  • I find out what other teacher’s kids are into.
  • I ask my students. This is likely the most powerful method I have for selecting engaging, relevant books that my readers will want to actually read. Being in touch with what the kids will actually read is the most important thing. No matter how many awards a book has received, no matter what the education field or curriculum documents say is quality reading for my fourth graders, a book that sits on a shelf doesn’t help any reader. A book that a child is dragged through can do more harm than good.
    • At the start of the year, I ask them what books they think their classmates must read. I use google forms and compile lists of recommendations. This autumn, kids asked for: Warrior Cats, Dork Diaries, Land of Stories, Pegasus, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Norm, Tom Gates, Horrible Histories and books by David Walliams, to name a few.
    • When we have book fairs, I ask kids to make a list of recommendations from the displays for our classroom library. When I worked in schools that didn’t have book fairs, I gave kids scholastic catalogs and asked them to make wish lists. Even in inner city NY, money could be found to purchase a selection of those lists and honor the student’s selections.
    • At the end of the year, I ask again, this time for them to tell me what I must have on hand for the incoming class that August. The graduating fourth graders are more than happy to keep me hip to the trends.
    • I pay attention during reader’s workshop, noticing which titles are being fought over and which topics are being discussed.
    • I watch how my students organize the library. They are welcome to change the organization and their choices often let me know what’s important and interesting to them.
    • I’ve found the local bookstore that also has an impressive English language kids’ section. It’s not Barnes and Nobles but it’s a close second.
    • I wander into other classrooms and see what they have that we don’t.

One thing I don’t have to worry about too much is funding. We have a very generous budget that allows not only for updating our libraries regularly but also for doing so in a timely manner. In other words, when three of my reluctant readers got into the Alfie the Werewolf series last year and they were fighting over the few copies in the lower school library, I could go to Amazon and stock them in our class library while the demand was still hot. Three boys who spent two-thirds of the year bored by books were engrossed for the final three months of school in all things Alfie.

How Do You Decide?

I’d love to know how other teachers find books and make decisions on what to put in their libraries. What series, genre and topics are hot with your kids? What websites are great for finding lists and updates?

Happy reading!

 

 

Extending PLC’s As International Educators

In the international school community, there are many opportunities for professional development. Big international schools like mine generally hire experienced and highly trained faculty, giving educators a powerful PLC (professional learning community) to begin with. They also tend to have generous professional development budgets which enable their teachers to learn from a variety of courses and conferences. A teacher in such an organization has many options if they want to continue to develop.

Of course, with these opportunities come challenges in any educator’s development, which could vary depending on the individual circumstances as well as the school. Ken Blanchard describes four stages that a professional might be in at any given time of their career, depending on the situation, as shown in the graphic below.

Screen Shot 2016-08-28 at 6.59.33 PM

Blanchard holds that personal and professional circumstances/experiences affect the level of competence and commitment one might have in any given situation in their career. For educators, PLC’s are a great way to inspire and support strong commitment as well as increasing competence.

Reflecting on my own development, I realize that experienced educators who spend an extended time in one organization may move from D4 to D3 if they don’t reach out beyond the bubble of their own organization. It could be that things are going really well, and it would be easy to leave a well-oiled machine alone. Except that even well-oiled machines can be outperformed by newer models and upgrades. If things are going really well with the status quo, then this is an indication to branch out and take things to the next level; not to mention the fact that international educators should strive to be globally informed! There is a powerful argument for educators to reach out to find the PLC or PLC’s that will help them best develop!

Over the past two years, one of my goals was to extend my PLC in the hopes of learning as much as possible about how teachers in PYP schools are approaching literacy instruction. In this endeavor, I’ve had the opportunity to engage in a multitude of  face to face as well as virtual conversations, and I’ve been exposed to a  plethora of resources. I have learned so much, not only about literacy and the PYP, but about education in general, and I am filled with tons of questions to move forward with.

Many of my current and future blogs have been and will be informed by, inspired by, and a product of my collaboration with my PLC’s old and new. Here are some of the communities and resources that have, and continue to inspire me and help me grow as a professional:

When the Workshop Method and Inquiry Meet

Conceptual Understandings Meet The Work of A Reader/Writer:

I’ve been asked how my persuasive language study fits in with the PYP. The answer to that is not necessarily a quick one, as I believe that the PYP and workshop have so many parallels. The philosophies match, and the preferred methods compliment each other. For my persuasive language study, as with any language study, the conceptual understandings lie in what it actually means to communicate via a certain medium for a given purpose.

There are two things all readers and writers must keep in mind if they want to communicate successfully: purpose, and effectiveness in achieving that purpose. When looking at the craft of writing through a conceptual lens, the big question really is about purpose. Why do writers write? Any time we write, we have a reason for doing so. Most likely, we also have an intended audience. Understanding purpose is the key to developing an ability to use written language effectively. Not to mention an understanding of why we use it in the first place. Once a given purpose is understood, a writer can explore how they can most effectively achieve their purpose.

Similarly, for a reader, the first thing that must be understood is purpose. Why are we reading? What do we hope to get out of it? From there, how are we going to most effectively achieve that goal? As a reader becomes able to recognize the specific purpose for which he or she is reading at any given time, then they will be able to explore and employ strategies to help them most effectively suit that purpose.

This leads us to central ideas for understanding and the lines of inquiry that can help support a reader or writer as they develop.

In a workshop unit of study, we assess what our students need to know around a given genre or purpose and develop the scope and sequence of our lessons accordingly. As the workshop unfolds, we name the teaching and learning goals explicitly for the students as a part of our mini-lessons and conferences. In a PYP unit of study, we do this as well, by sharing and discussing the central ideas and lines of inquiry (as bullet points) for each unit. Below is a version of how I planned out my persuasive language unit through a PYP lens. In this case, I used the central ideas and lines of inquiry to anchor my units and wove the language of the statements throughout the lessons.

Central Idea For Overall Language: People use persuasive language in order to convince others or persuade them to do something.

Central idea for readers/listeners: Readers (and listeners) know that persuasive writing is written from a specific point of view, and they use strategies to help them best understand what that is.

  • Reading or listening closely helps us to get to the heart of what the writer/speaker is saying.
  • Readers/listeners consider their own experiences and points of view when thinking about a persuasive text.
  • Readers/listeners react to an argument by considering all points of view.

Central idea for writers/speakers: Writers (and speakers) use persuasive language when they want to convince their audience. There are strategies that a writer or speaker can use to make strong arguments.

  • People write or speak persuasively when they feel strongly about something.
  • Having specific reasons to back up an idea makes an argument strong.
  • Reasoning with evidence makes an argument more powerful.

We focused on perspective and reflection, which, in this case, lined up with the key concepts being targeted in our unit of inquiry. This gave the students some nice opportunities to make connections across disciplines.

As we navigated these ideas together during the reading and writing workshops, students were able to build their understanding of why people use persuasive language, and how they could be most effective in doing so. The mini-lessons, group work and conferences reinforced these concepts as needed, and focused on strategies and skills that readers and writers use when working with persuasive language. These mini-lessons were taught using the workshop approach and students were able to inquire into how they could use these strategies in their own reading and writing lives as the opportunities to do so unfolded.