It also raises some important questions, which many of the teachers that I am working with raised throughout our unit design sessions this fall.

The teachers that I am working with are eager to know what the six instructional shifts will look like in their classrooms with their students. Some are a bit uncertain about how all of this might play out. They know that their first attempts to shift in any of these ways might be less than successful. They know that they need time to research and test new strategies, watch how they influence kids and learning, and then plan next steps. For these teachers, it’s not just about getting the shifts done. It’s about knowing what it means to do this work well, reflecting on practice, and continually improving based on what is learned.

It’s very difficult to do this kind of work alone and do it well.

Teachers need colleagues to collaborate with. They are asking for varied perspectives, insight, and a lot of feedback.

For this reason, many of the people that I began working with this fall will be spending the winter and spring testing the units they designed in their classrooms and inviting others to observe, provide feedback, and coach them.

There are a variety of a collegial learning protocols and processes that could support this work, and it will look a bit different in each school I am working in, I know.

Right now, I’m considering some form of lesson study, though.

I’ll share the details and specifics as I go here, but if you have resources to recommend or know anyone who might be willing to share their experiences with lesson study with me, please let me know.

• To learn more about this project’s purpose and outcomes, you might want to read the first post.
• If you are interested in understanding how this project enabled the teachers and coaches involved to position themselves as learners, you can click through to the second post.
• The third post demonstrates the beginning of instruction, where researchers applied strategies that helped them gather facts.
• The fourth post reveals how learners were taught to make connections, determine importance, and revise their work.
• The fifth post demonstrates how children used Skype to connect with others and seek additional facts as researchers.

And this post will outline the writing process that unfolded as this unit continued.

After these researchers completed their initial fact-finding and used the iPad to design visual notes for each fact found, they began to plan their writing. Earlier in the unit, Heather exposed her students to the concept of planning by modeling the way she planned to design an egg before asking them to do the same:

When I revisited the concept of planning with the class, all of them had a context for what it meant as egg designers, and this made the walk to creating a writing plan an easier one.

Next, we introduced writers to one of my favorite planning tools: the story board. Whether I’m wearing my writer hat, my teacher hat, or my instructional coach hat, I find that there are a handful of power tools that enable the construction of great writing. What makes a tool a power tool in my opinion? Its capacity to support writers of varied abilities and experience levels in their pursuit of varied forms. The story board is a great example of a power tool: often used to organize narrative text, I’ve also watched writers use story boards to develop games, plan projects, construct essays and research papers, design skits and even plan poetry. Heather modeled how she used the story board to begin organizing the facts she found from her own research:

As students began practicing on their own, this provided us a great assessment opportunity. Peeking over each child’s shoulder enabled us to determine whether or not writers had refined their topics and aligned appropriate facts to them. There were some who needed to do more research and capture additional facts by taking more visual notes. There were others who needed to do a different kind of research. Nearly every writer’s work  work revealed something unexpected though: the need for additional specific, refined detail. Heather used this data to determine how and when she would differentiate instruction the next day. She used their boards to determine the design of several  invitational groups. Instruction within each would target a specific student need:

The next day, some writers worked together to research additional facts and design visual notes. Others began making some difficult decisions about the facts that they found and which ones were most important. One writer, Brianna, challenged us in a completely different way, though. Grappling with the questions she raised inspired some important considerations.

As writers continued completing or revising their story boards, Sheri Barsottelli and I noticed that Brianna scrapping nearly all of her visual notes and clearing her entire story board. As I wandered by, she was working up a new plan in pencil:

“I don’t want to write this way,” she told us. “I know a lot about chicks. I have a lot of facts. But I want to write a STORY. I want to write a story about finding eggs in my yard and watching them hatch.”

We intended for the writers to produce expository text, though.

“Can I write a story if I put all of my facts from my research in it? I think it would be more interesting. Don’t you want my writing to be interesting?” she grinned.

Sure we did, but our intention was to have each child produce expository text, even if it wasn’t an outcome for this unit.

“Can you make it interesting without turning it into a story?” I asked.

“I don’t want to,” she told me in a respectful but quite authoritative way. “I’m definitely writing my story instead.”

“Okay,” I told her, eager to respect her choices as a writer and reinforce her willingness to advocate for herself.  I hoped that allowing her to deviate from my intended plan would keep her engaged and nurture her willingness to take risks as a learner in the future. The story that she produced was completely informed by her research. She identified more than three facts, organized them in a coherent fashion, and used her story board to plan her draft. She was performing well around all of our established learning targets. She chose to pursue a different form for her final product, that’s all. I had to remind myself that the outcomes did not require  students to produce expository text. I just assumed they would. Brianna taught me otherwise, and this  experience, more than any other during the unit, has given me a lot to ponder, particularly in relation to the Common Core Learning Standards and the expectations regarding the text types that writers are expected to consume and create. I’ll elaborate on all of that tomorrow.

Heather shared her completed story board with the class. Then, she began a revision mini-lesson intended to model a concrete strategy that would enable writers to revise with the purpose of adding detail, in response to what she noticed as a result of her earlier formative assessment. Adapted from Steve Peha’s Draw, Label, Caption method (located within The Writing Teacher’s Strategy Guide, which you may download for free on his fabulous site), Heather taught students to label each of the elements in their visual notes:

Then, she modeled how to revise each label in order to include greater detail:

As students practiced this strategy, I identified writers who demonstrated the ability to revise and add detail well and distributed them throughout the room, so they could write beside others. I also used their models to reinforce what quality revision could look like. Some writers struggled to determine potential points for revision, and when they did, I directed them to their classmates, who positioned themselves as readers and pointed to the facts that they were interested in receiving greater detail about:

Then, as writers continued working on their revisions, we distributed the iPads. Heather worked with small groups to demonstrate the way she turned her story board into a multi-media presentation using Story Kit:

I think it’s worth mentioning that she only needed to do this once. Every writer in the room was perfectly capable of accessing the app, importing their pictures from the album onto individual pages, and using their story boards and revisions to add appropriate text to each page. Our support was minimal and largely relevant to troubleshooting the few technology glitches that some kids experienced. Those who needed greater help were invited to meet together for short, targeted lessons while the rest continued writing independently.

The next day, Heather and I previewed their completed drafts, provided criteria-specific feedback to those whose work required additional revision, and coached kids to read aloud and record each page of their stories. As they did so, I learned a lot about each writer’s reading fluency.

I’m saving our final reflections on this unit for tomorrow’s post, but in the mean time, I’ve bookmarked the first drafts of these wonderful research-based writing tasks right here. Give them a read and while you do, consider what they reveal about:

• Each researcher’s strengths and needs
• Each writer’s strengths and needs
• Each artist’s strengths and needs

What are these learners demonstrating a readiness to do next?

• To learn more about this project’s purpose and outcomes, you might want to read the first post.
• If you are interested in understanding how this project enabled the teachers and coaches involved to position themselves as learners, you can click through to the second post.
• This post demonstrates the beginning of instruction, where researchers applied strategies that helped them gather facts.
• The fourth post reveals how learners were taught to make connections, determine importance, and revise their work.

While Heather’s students began their formal research using varied texts, books were not their only resources. The learners that I interviewed shared detailed stories of the facts that were gathered as a result of different connections and conversations that they had with others. For instance, shortly after we began our work together, something very exciting began to happen:

The kindergarteners announced the arrival of the chicks by Skyping into first grade teacher Molly Koelle’s classroom. Her students were thrilled to celebrate with their younger friends, and more importantly, several of them shared specific facts about  caring for the chicks, culled from the memories of their own kindergarten experience.

This provided Heather, Molly, and all of the students a chance to take Skype for a test drive, in anticipation of their session with Joanne Kaminski, the Skyping Reading Tutor. Joanne introduced herself by accessing Google Maps and demonstrating her location in relation to ours. She shared a variety of facts about chicks with her captivated audience and led us through a very informative read-aloud using Pam Zollman’s book, A Chick Grows Up.

Each of these experiences expanded the background knowledge of these young researchers and writers, and as I redirected them to our guiding questions, it was clear that their thinking had changed considerably.

“Which tools can help us research best?” I asked each of them individually. The most common responses?

“Books!”

“The computer!”

“Our friends!”

“All kinds of teachers–not just the ones in our classroom!”

“Skype!”

As I’m reflecting on this part of the experience, I’m reminded of how important it is for connected learners to be critical consumers of the information they access from all of these abundant sources. After all, just because a person or a text or a website suggests something is fact doesn’t necessarily mean that it is. How do we help kindergarteners begin to understand that reality and engage in a bit of their own fact-checking? What would that lesson look like?

To be continued….

• To learn more about this project’s purpose and outcomes, you might want to read the first post.
• If you are interested in understanding how this project enabled the teachers and coaches involved to position themselves as learners, you can click through to the second post.
• This post demonstrates the beginning of instruction, where researchers applied strategies that helped them gather facts.

When students were finished taking visual notes from their research on the iPad, Heather printed each researcher’s visual notes. We used this work to assess each researcher’s needs.

We weren’t surprised by what we saw. As we predicted, three striking trends emerged:

• Some researchers gathered far too many facts about one specific topic
• Other researchers gathered very few facts about far too many topics
• A small number of researchers needed more time to gather more facts

We planned to differentiate the support that they were provided moving forward, but we began with a full group mini-lesson intended to help writers

• Develop a strategy for determining which topics were most important and which facts and details connected to them
• Understand and engage in revision

I began by sharing my own visual notes about all of the facts that I gathered relevant to several different topics. These were intentionally drawn on pieces of tag board, because I wanted to students to be able to lift these facts up and physically reposition them. I had a hunch that doing so would help them develop a physical sense of what it meant to determine importance, connect related facts together, and revise.

“Yesterday, I found a whole bunch of facts about a whole bunch of different topics. I need you to help me determine which ones I should use.”

“How many different animals have I found facts for? Which one should I focus on?”

Brianna said, “You have facts for two different animals: ducks and spiders. If it were MY choice though, I would focus on the duck. There are more facts for the duck than there are for the spider. Plus, I don’t like spiders.”

“If your TOPIC is the duck, which of my notes connect to them, Brianna?”

Brianna physically connected the appropriate notes together, and as as she did so, another child intuitively created a cue for this activity: he held his hands apart and then drew them together to demonstrate the act of connecting. This became a cue that all of us practiced.

“Whenever someone shares this cue with you, remember this lesson and use the strategy we just demonstrated to help you,” I suggested. “It will help you revise your thinking and your work. Revision happens when we think again and change our work as a result.”

Each writer was invited to continue the research and writing processes by thinking again and changing their work.  They used the strategies taught to determine important topics and connect the appropriate facts to each:

At this point, some researchers discovered that they would need to gather additional facts in order to write something meaningful. Others learned that they would have to abandon one or more topics in order to investigate a single animal with greater depth. This work was enabled by a variety of experiences, including opportunities to connect and learn with their friends via Skype.

Reflections:

• One of the pre-planned objectives of this unit was to ensure that all researchers could identify three facts about a single animal. Rather than setting them up to investigate only ONE topic by providing them specific prompts, directions, or the rigid frame of a graphic organizer, we intentionally invited them to dive into their work and begin gathering facts about animals they were most interested in. This enabled us to study these learners and their unique processes.
• Some of them did research one animal with depth. Others were really excited to study a whole bunch of different animals at first, and they found doing so engaging and informative. This didn’t derail the process or allow learners to deviate from our objective in any way. In fact, it expanded our opportunities to learn tremendously.
• For instance, we were able to study how researchers and writers use different processes. As teachers, we were also able to provide targeted instruction that was truly aligned with what we noticed about these specific learners as they worked. Had we  provided a rigid process and set of directions or prompts from the outset, these discoveries may not have been made. Each student’s process would have remained hidden as they obediently adopted our own.
• This left me with the realization that in as much as choice attends to interest, there are times when it can enable a more genuine assessment of students. When we let these kids go and took a step back to simply capture what we were seeing, it allowed their varied strengths and needs to emerge. We couldn’t have planned ahead for this. We needed to pay attention during instruction, capture what we were noticing, and respond to that data.
• Those responses weren’t merely about intervening in order to address areas of need, surprisingly. We also found ourselves responding by leveraging the strategies and realizations students shared with US. Much more on that to come, but one quick example: when one of the students in the room used his hands to physically demonstrate what a connection looked like, it became a powerful cue that seemed to resonate with the rest of the class. We continued to use it throughout the writing process whenever writers struggled to connect facts and align them to appropriate topics.

To be continued……

“Things that hatch!” They sang.

“And how have we been doing that?” Heather asked.

A jumble of ideas poured out of them at once, and fingers were pointing to different corners of the room, where a bunch of creatures were in the process of hatching:

“Today, we’re going to take the next step in our learning. We’re going to become researchers. I wonder what that word means,” Heather prompted them, and everyone started thinking aloud.

“I think it means I need to search for something,” Zion told her.

“I already did some research!” Brianna said. ” I know a lot of facts about things that hatch from eggs from watching our chicks and butterflies. But I want to find out more.”

“When we research, we use different tools to uncover facts and learn things we didn’t learn before,” Heather explained. “What kind of tools can we use?”

“We can ask our friends!”

“We can ask our parents!”

“We can look on the computer!”

“We can look in books!”

“We can use the iPad! You are going to let us use the iPads today, right Mrs. Bitka?”

“Sure I am. First, let me show you a strategy that can help you make notes as you find facts during your research today,” she said, grabbing Norma Gentner’s book, What Hatches from an Egg? “I know we read this last week, but we’re going to reread it together today as researchers on the hunt for what?”

“FACTS!”

Heather used the first story in Gentner’s text to demonstrate what facts were and explained that researchers often collect facts by making notes. Then, she modeled visual note-making for her very eager audience:

“Next, I’d like YOU to show me that you know what a fact is by making a note of your own about a fact that you found in the story,” Heather challenged them. They fired up their iPads and opened the Draw 4 Free app without prompting. As they worked, we were able to:

• Check in with each of them in order to assess their understandings of what facts were
• Assess their abilities to locate a fact within the mentor text that was studied
• Provide feedback to these researchers on their note-making skills

“I like your use of color here,” I suggested to one writer. “It helps me understand what color the chick’s wings are. I’m wondering what they would feel like if I touched them though? Do you know?”

“If the chick just hatched, they would feel wet,” Austin told me. “Then, they might get fluffy.”

“Those are important details. How can you add them to your notes?”

He leaned into his iPad and began drawing again.

Our formative assessment revealed that each student was able to identify and make notes about at least one fact from the reading.

Next, they were invited to research other creatures that hatched from eggs.  This began with a bit of enthusiastic book-browsing:

Some decided to roam the room a bit and skim the wide variety of books available to them before selecting a topic. Others seemed to know which creature they were interested in learning more about and went in search of the texts that would help them.

Once they settled in, they began reading independently and flagging the facts that they found:

Then, they began making notes for each of the facts that they gathered:

As they worked, Heather, Sheri, Kay, and I chatted with each of them once again, asking them to share their notes with us and to describe what their visuals revealed.

We learned a great deal from them, and as the morning block drew to a close, we began reflecting on the spot about what we were noticing, what we were wondering, and what we would do next as a result.Most of the kids flagged every single fact that they stumbled upon in their reading. This generated an abundance of facts, some of which were relevant to multiple topics. Other facts didn’t seem important at all. This provided us an entry point into the next lesson that we would teach: how to choose ONE topic and connect the most important facts from our reading to it.

We wondered how their process might have been altered had we provided them guiding questions from the outset. In the end, we were glad that we decided not to do this for several reasons, though. First, we knew that doing so would limit their exploration of the books that they were reading. These questions might have narrowed their paths and the amount of information they took in. We also thought it was important to see what would happen if these researchers were left to their own devices. Our job involved paying close attention to what they were teaching us about their actual needs as they worked and to respond in ways that were aligned. In order to enrich our perspective about this a bit more, Heather decided to print each researcher’s visual notes that evening, and we met the following morning to discuss what they revealed.

To be continued……

This post is the third in a series about Heather Bitka and her kindergarten researchers.

• To learn more about this project’s purpose and outcomes, you might want to read the first post.
• If you are interested in understanding how this project enabled the teachers and coaches involved to position themselves as learners, you can click through to the second post.

• I introduced Heather in this post.
• The prologue to this learning experience, which explains our work as co-learners with greater depth, can be found here.
• This post speaks to the common questions that began provoking us right from the start and what the adults involved hoped the kindergarteners would know and be able to do when we were finished.

Today, I’ll share a bit about how each of us pursued those guiding questions, despite the fact that our roles and purposes within this experience were different.

When I say that these questions began provoking all of us, I mean that literally. We didn’t generate these questions prior to our work together. We aligned purposes and outcomes to the distinct roles and needs of different learners involved in this process, but these questions emerged on their own, revealing themselves early on in the unit and winding a common thread through our work together, regardless of what we were studying individually.

For example, it is easy to see how these questions are relevant to kindergarteners engaged in research about creatures who hatch from eggs.

But they also worked for Heather as she put a critical eye on her curriculum design and instructional practices.

And Kay Shanley, the classroom aide who supports Heather and her students, kicked questions like these around as she considered the role of technology in helping learners seek, record, and share their learning with increasing independence.

They also worked for Sheri and I  as we invested ourselves in a deeper study of  instructional coaching practices.

Some discoveries and things I’m still reflecting on:

• Questions like these transcended the content of the unit, which opened up new possibilities for learning and also created some unexpected challenges. I’m rethinking which content and skills were really at the “center” of this unit, and I know that Heather and I will have time to talk about this more later this week.
• Attending to these questions purposefully also seemed to create greater opportunities for children and adults to shift between the roles of teacher and learner. I was blown away by how interested these kindergarteners were in sharing their unique expertise, walking me through their processes, and revealing the details of their thinking and how it was changing. I truly learned a ton from them, and will be devoting the posts that follow this one to a bit of elaboration around all of that.
• Finally, it seemed that revisiting the questions, reflecting on them in different ways, and opening dialogue around what we were learning as a result amplified their power and inspired the creation of new ideas and the consideration of different possibilities.
• Again, these were not pre-planned essential or guiding questions. They were questions that seemed to be relevant to each learner’s work, and we discovered them by paying careful attention to what was happening while we were learning. Could they evolve into those other forms? I think so, and just as I have been intrigued by the idea of designing rubrics with students, I’m now very interested in studying what would happen if students actually worked with teachers to fleece out the essential or guiding questions from a unit as they were experiencing it.

Last week, I introduced you to Heather Bitka, a Lockport Elementary Teacher that I have been co-planning an integrated writing unit with this spring. This experience enabled Heather, myself, visiting instructional coach Sheri Barsottelli, and classroom aide Kay Shanley to pursue a variety of questions as learners.

Who were our teachers?

A classroom full of very curious and energetic kindergarteners, who were pursuing very similar questions themselves.

Here are the prompts that guided every learner in this experience, regardless of their age, title, or role:

• Why are facts important to our work?
• For this work, which facts are most important?
• Which tools can help us research facts?
• How do we record the facts we find best?
• When does it make sense to revise our thinking and work?
• What did we learn that we didn’t expect?

This unit was rooted in the scientific study of the life cycle and specifically, creatures that hatch from eggs. What did we want students to know and be able to do as a result of this experience?

• Describe what it means to be a researcher.
• Define what facts are and how they are important to the work of a researcher.
• Discover different tools and resources that researchers might use to find facts.
• Understand their purposes as researchers.
• Locate 3-5 facts about a creature of their own choice that hatches from an egg.
• Define what it means to organize their writing.
• Make and organize effective visual notes.
• Revise their thinking and their work.
• Create a multi-media presentation of the facts located through research.
• Learn something they didn’t expect.
• Teach us something we didn’t expect.
• Connect with other learners using social networking tools
• Use the content they have created to teach others.

Tomorrow, I’ll share more about how the questions above connected our varied experiences and purposes as learners. Throughout the rest of this week, I’ll share greater detail about how this unit unfolded and what we’ve been learning along the way.

I’ve taken a lot of pictures as well, and I’ll include as many as I can here. Media releases for all of the children included in these photos have been collected by the Lockport City School District, and we have permission to publish them here. If you would like to use any of these images elsewhere, please contact me in order to secure the same permissions first.

Ultimately, I think we all want to be of service to teachers in ways that enable them to serve learners well.

For many of us though, this has looked like serving teachers–quite literally—in the beginning. I’ve said before that I’ve often felt like a waitress in the past, delivering people the “stuff” they want so they can plug it into a unit or a lesson or another hole they are trying to fill. I’ve given them strategies, resources,  and tools. I’ve provided them lesson plans, templates, graphic organizers, and flow charts. I’ve shared my perspective, offered advice, and even stood in front of a few classes leading demo lessons while teachers have turned their backs to check their email or take phone calls. A few times, people have actually left the room to grab a cup of coffee while I’m in the middle of demonstrating the instructional approach they asked to see. Once, during the holidays, someone actually began shopping online.

I know that I’m not alone in that reality, and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it when other coaches reach out and remind me of how much company I really do have there. Sad, but true.

Here’s what I’ve learned along the way though: .it doesn’t seem to matter how often or how fervently I tell people what the vision is that we need to embrace or which particular strategies we must use for whatever absolutely important purposes we’ve defined. If  the teachers I’m working with have not contributed to that vision, identified their own needs, or engaged in any kind of research to better understand their students and the interventions that might help them best, it’s almost certain that whatever I do isn’t going to change what they do.

It’s that simple.

So, I’ve made some pretty powerful shifts in how I approach strategic planning for sustainability inside of the school districts I serve:

• First, I began advocating for the identification of internal literacy coaches, and I created a strategic plan that would enable me to scaffold my way out of the position of lead coach as others were supported to assume and maintain that role indefinitely.
• Then, I began connecting these newly vetted coaches to others within and beyond the region, in order to create networked support systems.
• And together, we began implementing collegial learning models within the system that not only celebrated the varied expertise of all teachers, but positioned them to engage in inquiry with one another and to assume greater roles of leadership themselves.

None of this attends to scenarios like those I’ve described above though, I know. Ironically, addressing those issues inspired changes that were far simpler but just as powerful:

• Aligning the interests, curiosities and needs of teachers and students to the vision of the district and the work of the greater initiative has been essential.
• Adopting a gradual release coaching model helped as well.
• Changing my stance within the coaching relationship has also made a significant difference. Rather than positioning myself as an expert who will demonstrate strategies or tools of any kind, I make it clear that I am a co-learner in the process. I ask teachers to share their needs with me and the evidence used to define them. I ask them to share their thoughts about what they’d like to learn and accomplish as a result of our work together. I ask them to produce a unit or a lesson plan that they would like me to observe or co-teach with them. Then, I do the same. I share my needs as an instructional coach and the evidence that informs them. I reveal my professional curiosities and the essential questions that are driving my own learning and work. I tell them how I am hoping to improve my practice and how the opportunity we are about to embark on might enable me to accomplish this. We engage in a bit of informal peer review. Then, we approach the teacher’s plan together and determine who will be responsible for which parts of the instruction.
• When it is my turn to demonstrate something within the classroom, I hand teachers my camera and ask them to take pictures of what they find most compelling. These photos guide our debrief later, and the practice engages them fully.
• Most recently, I’ve begun sharing models like those below with everyone who plans to participate in coaching experiences with me. It helps them understand that we are ALL learners within the coaching experience: the coach, the teacher, the classroom aide, the children, and any other visitors. Most importantly, making our work transparent isn’t about showing off. Quite the opposite, in fact. It’s our responsibility to enrich and expand our tiny spheres of influence so that others within and beyond the systems we serve can put a critical eye on what we are doing, offer us meaningful feedback, and build upon what’s working.

Two weeks ago, I began a long-term coaching placement inside of Heather Bitka’s kindergarten classroom in Lockport, New York. Over the next week, I’ll be sharing evidence our work together and what all of us have learned along the way. Sheri Barsottelli, a school-based coach from Depew, New York joined us for a portion of this work. Sheri is assuming the role of lead coach in her school district as I say my farewells. Having her beside me for a part of this experience was very beneficial, and I’ll be explaining more about that in future posts as well.

The graphic below demonstrates where we began together as learners. Our roles were very different, but upon reflection, it seems we were all guided by very similar questions:

Finally, as we began and continued our co-learning together, all of us began considering how we might expand our smaller spheres of influence. I intend to make our learning transparent for others within and beyond the district right here on my blog. We’ve also connected to others via Skype, and sought diverse perspectives by inviting various teachers, building leaders, parents, coaches, and friends into the process. Heather, Sheri, Kay, and I will continue reflecting on the questions above and the evidence we’ve captured over the next several days. I plan to interview the kindergarteners tomorrow. All will be condensed and shared here over the next week.

Are you an instructional coach or a teacher or aide involved in coaching experiences? I’d love to know what of all of this resonates with you, what kind of challenges you face in your work, and what you are learning through your own coaching relationships.

I

He asked that I position myself as the leader of this coaching experience. This is what I planned to demonstrate:

• Lesson design for student-centered learning
• Alignment to a relevant and measurable objective
• Engagement with appropriately complex text
• Acting on what has been learned about the needs of these writers through formative assessment

In recent years, we’ve begun asking teachers to share what they are learning about their students as writers and to use different kinds of evidence to inform their hunches. We’ve learned that we need to do a better job of helping students:

• Compose expository text
• Gain clarity about what quality looks like
• Realize that learning involves collaboration and the revision of thought and work

So, that is what I had on my mind when I went about planning this demo lesson:

I wanted these writers to be able to define what quality idea development looks like in expository writing. Knowing that this is the work of months and years rather than minutes and class periods, I planned to use this opportunity to begin their learning and determine what could be done to continue it.

I began by asking them what the difference was between a good idea and a great idea, and we anchored that comparison in a study common ideas that they perceived to be either good or great.

A telephone is a good idea. A cell phone is a great idea.

A stereo is a good idea. An iPod is a great idea.

What’s being said about the quality of these ideas? I wondered aloud. Are they good or are they great? What, specifically, is guiding your decisions?

“That’s a hard question,” I was told.

I hoped that it was.

And if you would like to use that video in class, be sure to cut it short because there’s an unfortunate bit of profanity at the end. ; )

Next, I changed the context, asking them if the criteria they generated could also inform how they approach writing with a critical lens. Inspired by David Coleman’s recommendations, I didn’t stop to deliver a definition of idea development to them here, though. I didn’t model it for them either. Instead, I shared several pieces of complex text with them and asked them to use what they learned from their conversation and what the pieces revealed to create a unique definition of their own. Then, I challenged them to independently fleece out specific criteria as well:

This can demonstrate to Lou what these beginning writers know about quality idea development and inform next steps. What does the first column of the sample below suggest about that? How would this guide what you do next as a teacher?

I chose to ask writers to talk with one another. They were asked to pool their thoughts and ideas and allow the work of their peers to inform their own learning further.

Then, they began to draft a collaborative rubric, which required them to evaluate the contributions made by the group as a whole.

“We have to think AGAIN?” a few of them asked me.

Yes, you do. Post-its were moved, removed, and revised.

“I’m interested in your process,” I asked them. “How did you decide which criteria would make it on to your group rubric?”

“Those criteria were better.” I was told.

How?

“That’s a really hard question!”

It is.

“Um…I know! The words were better.”

In what way?

“They were more intelligent,” one writer suggested.

“No, they weren’t more intelligent,” another member of her group challenged.

“Yeah they were–or maybe they were just more specific,” the first speaker added.

“This rubric has to be helpful to ME,” said the writer whose sample is posted above. “I need it to be really specific. That’s what makes ours good.”

As writers left class, I provided each a Post-It note and asked them to define some specific criteria for quality idea development, based on all that they had learned. The Post-Its were attached to the individual rubrics and left with Lou, so that he could study how each writer’s thinking changed and consider where he would need to head next.

A collaboratively designed rubric for idea development has begun to emerge from work of these writers. You’ll notice it isn’t perfect. It isn’t intended to be. This rubric is a genuine reflection of what Lou’s students think idea development looks like. It was designed by them, and it can inform our next steps as we learn more. It should also change, evolve, and grow with them as they consume and analyze various texts and learn more over time.

Rubrics can be a reflection of what students are discovering rather than a tool used to judge or assign grades. As teachers, we can even use what we learn about quality rubric design to provide feedback to student designers on drafts like these as well.

My Reflections:

• I was surprised by how readily most of the students attacked the text provided and worked to generate a definition and supporting criteria for idea development. This was rigorous work, and I did not invest much time in pre-teaching or modeling. I expected that they might struggle and then quit. They struggled and persevered though, although a handful of them required more support and prompting than others.
• I’m wondering how students who are unable to define the elements of writer’s craft or the specific criteria that speak to their quality can compose or improve upon pieces of their own. If we can help writers define and notice specific elements of writer’s craft, will this enrich their own work as well?
• This type of instruction demands a great deal of restraint, particularly when writers are struggling. I felt compelled to answer questions for them, provide them definitions and examples, and generally enable them to escape their discomfort. I think that I’m beginning to embrace the notion that deep learning is uncomfortable, imperfect, and much slower than I feel I have time for. How can I help teachers feel comfortable doing the same, especially those who feel that they will be negatively judged for creating such discomfort?
• I’m wondering when it is appropriate to provide writers a rubric that has been designed by an expert and what the purposes would be for doing so. Does this ever make sense? If so, when? If not, what further shifts in practice will need to follow?
• This process could and should be enabled by the use of collaborative writing tools like Google Docs. Kids could also access and explore varied texts online. They could also research idea development and locate their favorite examples to share with their peers.
• In order to inspire a rich and complex understanding of idea development, it’s critical for writers to consume varied texts and study this element of craft through a variety of lenses over the course of many years.

There is so much more that I could share about this experience and what I’m wondering as a result of it, but I’ve thrown enough text onto the screen for one day, and I can imagine that many people weren’t able to make it this far. Tell me what you’d like me to speak to more, though. What are you wondering?

Fellow literacy coach Sheri Barsottelli and I visited with Heather Bitka and her kindergarten students at Roy B. Kelley Elementary School today, and when we got there, we learned that THEIR CHICKS WERE BEGINNING TO HATCH! As you might imagine, this made for quite an exciting start to the morning. What was even more fun was watching the kids’ reactions when they learned that they could Skype into Molly Koelle’s first grade classrooms to announce the arrival of these new friends.

Some of the first graders recalled their memories of last year’s chick-hatching experience before sharing some good advice with their younger peers and signing off to start the school day. Ours was devoted to the continuation of a writing unit, and I’ll be sharing more about that next week. Let me say this though: there are SO MANY things to write about in kindergarten, and SO MANY things for literacy coaches and teachers to learn there too.

In the mean time, I know a whole bunch of 5 and 6 year olds who would like to Skype with kids from other places, and so I thought I’d extend an invitation on behalf of them here. Recently, Heather Bitka’s students used their iPads to design their very own I Spy pages, which were posted around the classroom to provide writers practice in letter and word formation. Take a peek:

Next, they would like to invite other classes to participate in a few “Where in the World Are We Skyping?” sessions. What will this involve? We’re still working on that, but here are the basics:

• You could work with your own class to design an I Spy page that includes artifacts relevant to where you are from.
• Then, your class would share this I Spy page with Heather or Molly’s class a week or two prior to an actual Skype call without revealing where you are located.
• Heather or Molly will work with their students to design a similar I Spy page, and it will be shared with your class.
• In the days preceding the call, students can research and make predictions about the artifacts on the page and what they suggest about where in the world they might be Skyping.
• When the call is placed, the kids can share their predictions and support them with some of the facts that were found. Then, each group can reveal a bit more about their location, what the artifacts represent, and their experiences living where they do.

Interested in joining us? Feel free to leave me a message here or email me at stockmanangela@gmail.com. We’d love to learn with you! I know that time differences may cause a conflict, and if this is the case, we could always connect using different tools and even video-taping instead of conferencing live if necessary.

We’ve been learning a lot about RESEARCH this week and what it means to gather FACTS. The most important thing I have learned from my time there so far? Facts can be found in many different places. Our reading skills are important here, but our friends are great resources too. We’re hoping that this new experience can help us learn even more about this important process.