How's It Going? (Chapters 1, 2, and 3)

When I initially found out we were using this book for our Book Blogs this semester, I was extremely exciting. Writing has always been something so very important and personal to me that I even use it as an outlet now as an adult whenever I need to express how I am feeling. Becoming an educator, I became particularly interested in the writing continuum, especially since I teach beginning writers. My first thought was "How can I teach someone how to write?" The thought was a scary thought for me. Joining my team at the school that I teach in now, I volunteered to plan writing for our grade level. Everyone warned me not to as a first-year teacher because of how difficult it is to plan writing and how they felt as if the curriculum used for writing wasn't as structured for Kindergarten. That's when I was introduced to Lucy. Lucy Calkins, that is. Upon looking through her texts giving teachers direction as to how to launch Writer's Workshop, I am became thrilled yet anxious. Although I agreed with the format and the way in which to introduce the mini lessons to students, I began to wonder how my particular group of students would adapt and respond to it. I think it started off great and I loved how my students got the chance to really show their skills as writers. However, I noticed that I really didn't know how to help my students or where exactly they were in the writing process. It was then I realized that I was lacking the most important part of Writer's Workshop, initiating writing conferences with my students. Now that I have read the first few chapters of Carl Anderson's How's It Going, I have a more solidified understanding of the importance of the writing conference.

One of the biggest takeaways that I got from the first chapter is understanding the purpose of the writing conference. Anderson focuses on two main points for the structure of the conference:

Conversation about the work the child is doing as a writer and Conversation about how the child can become a better writer (Anderson, 17, 2000). 

The author then dives deep into the three steps of conferencing where we focus directly on the work that students are doing as writers, making an assessment of what they are doing as writers, and putting together a detailed picture of the work that the child is doing as a writer.

From Chapter 2, the biggest takeaway that I got was the examples of the kinds of work that writers do when they compose pieces and the strategies that they might use to compose them. I thought that this was extremely helpful when thinking about ways to help students figure out what tools they can use when they are working on a certain piece of writing.

Also, the questions suggested on page 29 of Chapter 2 were really helpful in thinking abut how to start conversations in conferences because one of the main things I was pondering about was how to initiate conversations with students during their writing so things such as "How's it going? or What are you doing as a writer today?" seem to be really great lead in questions to initiate conversation and get students to begin talking through their writing process. I particularly liked the rationale that Anderson uses behind starting conversations this way. He states, "By using a predictable opening, I'm simply taking advantage of students' implicit knowledge of the nature of conversation, and that some conversations begin in predictable ways" (Anderson, 29, 2000). This then creates routine for students and they know what to expect during writing conferences.

In chapter 3, I was particularly interested in teaching students about their role in the conference. The chart on page 83 breaks down what is expected of the student in the first and second part of the conversation. In the first part, the student sets an agenda for the conversation by describing their work and then responding to the teacher's questions. In the second part, the students listen carefully to the teacher's feedback. I particularly like the way Anderson breaks down each role respectively so that everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing. I think the most important part of all this would be to explicitly teach and model for students what and how this conversation might look so that they understand when they begin their conversations.

All in all, I am really excited to continue reading the next few chapters and understanding how to make all of these great ideas practical in the classroom. I look forward to exploring ways to monitor which conversations to have with certain students and how to keep track. This book has given so much insight thus far and I'm sure it will become a very helpful tool for me in the near future.

New Year, New Beginnings

Commonalities Across the Board

What a month January has been! I can't believe so much time has gone by with my girls and that the year is almost done. There has been so much that I have learned from my girls thus far and we still have so much more work to do. Reflecting on my TiPs chart, I've been focusing a lot on my actual instruction and the lessons that went great and why they went great and they lessons that failed horribly. The main commonality that I noticed among last month was the fact that the lessons where I really prevailed consisted of students interests and choices being a main factor around the successes. In areas where I wasn't so successful consisted of times when my understanding of what I wanted students to gain wasn't clear or students lacked clarity of the objective or if it was just plain out boring to my students. Looking at all of these reflections give me better insight on how to plan for next month.

Venting and Frustration

I felt as if January was such a transformational month for me because not only did I have a better understanding for my class and what resources were available to me to meet their needs, but I had also enlightened myself about the parallel I had been facing at my school. I had been torn between the struggle of following suit with what the rest of my grade level team had decided to conform to because it is "easier" or stepping outside of the box and challenging myself to dive deep with my students and stimulating their inquiry. The issue that I have been constantly battling with is playing it safe or actually finding and making the time to do what I know works best for kids. I have become extremely frustrated with the ever-so-cumbersome testing that is "mandatory" for all grade levels.

I became a part of our school's Assessment Team in an effort to better inform myself about how grade level assessments are created and how the data is used to better plan for instruction. Although I believe assessments give us very valuable and usable data, I found the Kindergarten assessments particularly to be extremely problematic. Some of the questions I think were biased and did not cater to students' specific and unique experiences. Also, I felt as if the assessments were way too long for the attention span of Kindergarteners and that it was not thoughtful at all to only give them a multiple choice test. I could go on and on about the problematic factors of these tests and how much time from instruction was taken away because I had to complete them. I feel as if I was doing a disservice to my students and missed out on critical instruction time. Now I am grappling with how to meaningfully assess my students without it requiring them to miss so much valuable instructional time.

Celebrations
Besides some of the frustration that I have felt this past month and some of the criticism among peers, I have learned that my students are uniquely themselves and they enjoy coming into a classroom environment that they are welcomed to bring in all facets of their lives.

Using writing to teach others has been particularly exciting as students explore the meaning of American symbols

 

I also noticed that students lacked the opportunity to read books of their interest and engage in them just for fun

Lastly, I know my classroom may look very different from "traditional" classrooms but if there's one thing we know how to do well.....it's how to get down! :-) 

I'm excited to see where February takes us!