Patriotic (M.A. Reilly, Newark, NJ. 2014)

Ground Swell

Mark Jarman, 1952

Is nothing real but when I was fifteen,
Going on sixteen, like a corny song?
I see myself so clearly then, and painfully--
Knees bleeding through my usher’s uniform
Behind the candy counter in the theater
After a morning’s surfing; paddling frantically
To top the brisk outsiders coming to wreck me,
Trundle me clumsily along the beach floor’s
Gravel and sand; my knees aching with salt.
Is that all I have to write about?
You write about the life that’s vividest.
And if that is your own, that is your subject.
And if the years before and after sixteen
Are colorless as salt and taste like sand--
Return to those remembered chilly mornings,
The light spreading like a great skin on the water,
And the blue water scalloped with wind-ridges,
And--what was it exactly?--that slow waiting
When, to invigorate yourself, you peed
Inside your bathing suit and felt the warmth
Crawl all around your hips and thighs,
And the first set rolled in and the water level
Rose in expectancy, and the sun struck
The water surface like a brassy palm,
Flat and gonglike, and the wave face formed.
Yes. But that was a summer so removed
In time, so specially peculiar to my life,
Why would I want to write about it again?
There was a day or two when, paddling out,
An older boy who had just graduated
And grown a great blonde moustache, like a walrus,
Skimmed past me like a smooth machine on the water,
And said my name. I was so much younger,
To be identified by one like him--
The easy deference of a kind of god
Who also went to church where I did--made me
Reconsider my worth. I had been noticed.
He soon was a small figure crossing waves,
The shawling crest surrounding him with spray,
Whiter than gull feathers. He had said my name
Without scorn, just with a bit of surprise
To notice me among those trying the big waves
Of the morning break. His name is carved now
On the black wall in Washington, the frozen wave
That grievers cross to find a name or names.
I knew him as I say I knew him, then,
Which wasn’t very well. My father preached
His funeral. He came home in a bag
That may have mixed in pieces of his squad.
Yes, I can write about a lot of things
Besides the summer that I turned sixteen.
But that’s my ground swell. I must start
Where things began to happen and I knew it.

A 10th Grader's Digital Composing: Isn't it Time to Talk Back to CCSS?

Scott McLeod  (@mcleod) tweeted this:

I watched Sarah Almeda, a tenth grade high school student's presentation about creativity and learning. She animates her talk by drawing, using a graphics tablet, bamboo pad (by Waycom),  and  iMovie. I really appreciated her discussion, how she combines talk with the visuals, and how the visuals emerge as pages in her notebook are turned.  

Form extends content.


Two quick observations: 

1. Sarah's work helps us to reimagine what composing can be.  Our school-based marriage to the written word (usually stuck on paper & shared with THE TEACER) needs to give way to multimodal expressions that can be shared outside known audiences.  Multimodal composing should not be relegated solely to the tech or media departments, but rather needs to be embraced school-wide across elementary, middle and secondary levels of school. 
2. Sarah's composing also should help us nudge the rather Puritanical interpretation of composing that the CCSS insists upon.  We need to be vocal about our disapproval with the linear rendering of composing that CCSS advocates. Perhaps, it could be considered adequate if it was 1950.  It's not and Sarah helps to remind us of that important fact.  Here's NCTE's position statement on multimodal composing.

Sarah's closing comments about schools (no to ranking and grades) made me hopeful. 

I invite you to watch and thanks Scott for the link:)

Professional Texts about Reading, Reading Workshop, Conferring, Assessment, and Reading 2.0

Print Resources for K-6

Teachers engaging (Reilly, Newark, NJ 2014)

I.               Texts About Comprehension & Literacy

Allington, Richard L. (Ed.). (2010). Essential Readings on Struggling  Learners.  Newark, DE: IRA.

Barnhouse, Dorothy & Vicki Vinton. (2012). What Readers Really Do: Teaching the Process of Meaning Making. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Campano, Gerald. (2007).  Immigrant Students and Literacy: Reading, Writing, and Remembering . New York: Teachers College Press.

Dorn, Linda & Carla Soffos. (2005). Teaching for Deep Comprehension. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Fountas, Irene  & Gay Su Pinnell (2006). Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency: Thinking, Talking, and Writing About Reading, K-8. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Miller, Debbie. (2013). Reading with Meaning: Teaching Comprehension in the Primary Grades. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Serafini, Frank (2004). Lessons in Comprehension: Explicit Instruction in the Reading Workshop. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Strickland, Dorothy, (Ed.). (2010). Essential Readings in Early Literacy. Newark, DE: IRA.

Taberski, Sharon. (2010). Comprehension from the Ground Up: Simplified, Sensible Instruction for the K-3 Reading Workshop. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

II.              Texts about Reading Workshop

Akhavan, Nancy. (2008).The Content-Rich Reading & Writ​ing Workshop: A Time-Saving Approach for Making the Most of Your Literacy Block. New York: Scholastic.

Barnhouse, Dorothy. (2014). Readers Front and Center. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Bennett, Samantha. (2007). That Workshop Book: New Systems and Structures for Classrooms That Read, Write, and Think. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Collins, Kathy. (2008). Reading for Real: Teach Students to Read with Power, Intention, and Joy in K-3 Classrooms. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Collins, Kathy. (2004). Growing Readers: Units of Study in the Primary Classroom. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Hahn, Mary Lee. (2002). Reconsidering Read-Aloud. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Heard, Georgia & Jennifer McDonough. (2009). A Place for Wonder: Reading and Writing Nonfiction in the Primary Grades. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Orehovec, Barbara & Marybeth Alley. (2003). Revisiting The Reading Workshop: A Complete Guide to Organizing and Managing an Effective Reading Workshop That Builds Independent, Strategic Readers (Scholastic Teaching Strategies). New York: Scholastic.

Parsons, Stephanie. (2010). First Grade Readers: Units of Study to Help Children See Themselves as Meaning Makers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Reif, Linda. (2014). Read Write Teach: Choice and Challenge in the Reading-Writin​g Workshop. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Serafini, Frank (2001). The Reading Workshop: Creating Space for Readers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Serafini, Frank & Suzette Serafini-Youngs. (2006). Around the Reading Workshop in 180 Days: A Month-by-Month Guide to Effective Instruction. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Sibberson, Franki. (2012). The Joy of Planning: Designing Minilesson Cycles in Grades 3-6. Holden, ME: Choice Literacy.

Sibberson, Franki & Karen Szymusiak. (2003). Still Learning to Read: Teaching Students in Grades 3-6. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

III. Texts about Teacher Language & Student Talk & Conferring

Allen, Patrick A. (2009). Conferring: The Keystone of Reader's Workshop. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Genishi, Ceila & Anne Haas Dyson. (2009). Children Language & Literacy. New York: Teachers College Press.

Johnston, Peter H. (2012). Opening Minds: Using Language to Change Lives. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Johnston, Peter H.  (2004). Choice Words. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Lindsfor, Judith Wells. (2008). Children's Language: Connecting Reading, Writing, and Talk. New York: Teachers College Press.

Nichols, Maria. (2008). Talking About Text: Guiding Students to Increase Comprehension Through Purposeful Talk . Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Education.

Nichols, Maria. (2006). Comprehension Through Conversation: The Power of Purposeful Talk in the Reading Workshop. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Serravallo, Jennifer  & Gravity Goldberg (2007). Conferring with Readers: Supporting Each Student's Growth and Independence. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Zwiers, Jeff & Marie Crawford. (2012). Academic Conversations: Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

III. Texts About Assessment

Sibberson, Franki & Karen Szymusiak. (2008). Day-to-Day Assessment in the Reading Workshop: Making Informed Instructional Decisions in Grades 3-6. New York: Scholastic.

Yetta Goodman, Yetta  Gretchen Owocki. (2002). Kidwatching: Documenting Children's Literacy Development. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

IV. Texts about Reading & Technology

Hyler, Jeremy & Troy Hicks. (2014). Create, Compose, Connect!: Reading, Writing, and Learning with Digital Tools. New York: Routledge. 

Johnson, Denise. (2014). Reading, Writing, and Literacy 2.0: Teaching with Online Texts, Tools, and Resources, K–8. New York: Teachers College Press.

Miller, Suzanne M. & Mary B. McVee (Eds.) (2012). Multimodal Composing in Classrooms: Learning and Teaching for the Digital World. New York: Routledge. 

Serafini, Frank (2015). Reading Workshop 2.0. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. (To be published. Info here).

Vasquez, Vivian Maria  & Carol Branigan Felderman. (2012). Technology and Critical Literacy in Early Childhood. New York: Routledge.

"When here and now cease to matter"

At the Tappan Zee  (M.A. Reilly, 2010)

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered. 

Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter

...I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god —sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges. 

Excerpt from  Four Quartets, by T. S. Eliot

Building Community Knowledge about Reader's Workshop - Video Inquiry

(These are engagement notes and video that I will be using with teachers in an initial inquiry into reader's workshop).

2 first graders creating. (Newark, NJ)

Engagement #1

Our initial goal is to gather some tentative impressions about the instructional practice, Reading Workshop. We'll begin this process by:

1. Viewing video clips that depict some aspect of reading workshop 
2. Responding to a set of questions at each station
3. Responding to what our peers have written.

Task 1

1. Visit two stations (your choice). 
2. At each of these station view the video that is cued with your group. 
3. Respond on the large sheet of paper that covers the table to these 3 questions:

• As you view the video, what role or roles does the teacher adopt?
• What are the task(s) students are doing? Are these tasks ones that the students can manage well?
• How does the video confirm or challenge your understanding of what constitutes effective reading instruction?

      4. Take a few minutes to reread what your peers have written on the large sheet of paper. Take a moment to respond to one or more comments that interest you.




Videos


Station 1. Grade 1: Reader's Workshop, Rena Norwood Students contemplate why they reread a text.




Station 2: Grade 2: The teacher models asking, 'What do I already know?' as a strategy to use while reading nonfiction.

Station 3: Grade 5: Fifth grade teacher's (Rick) reading workshop with a focus on the mini-lesson.

  

Debrief: Take a few minutes to record in your notebook what you most want to remember about teaching reading and reading workshop based on your interactions with the videos and your peers.
Record on the group sheet any questions you want to pose for us to consider and think about.

Engagement 2: 

Task 1:

1. Study the reading data I have displayed. This data is taken from the class of children we will be seeing in the next video.  
2. Turn and talk with a partner about what you notice and what you are wondering with regard to this data. 
3. Look at the data a year later. What do you notice now? 

1. 1st part of video (Teacher model) 
Please notice the language the teacher uses to model how to infer unknown words.

2.  2nd part of video (Students try the strategies)
Please notice how the students problem solve and how the teacher scaffolds their understanding. If you were a student in this classroom and you did everything you were expected to do, what would you know and be able to do?

3. Discuss the similarities and differences you note among the videos you have watched and discussed. What seems important to you?

Misc.

Building a Reading History

Electronic Resources

Summer Song

At the Sea (M.A. Reilly, 2010, Long Beach Island, NJ)

Summer Song

William Carlos Williams

Wanderer moon
smiling a
faintly ironical smile
at this
brilliant, dew-moistened
summer morning,—
a detached
sleepily indifferent
smile, a
wanderer’s smile,—
if I should
buy a shirt
your color and
put on a necktie
sky-blue
where would they carry me?

Electronic Resources for Reader's Workshop K-5: Just a Click Away

I'll be working with a school system next week and decided to post the resources that are electronic.

Kindergarteners involved in a concept sort. (Newark, NJ)

Reading Workshop

Favorite Videos

My Favorite Videos that Show Teaching and Student Learning during workshop:

1. Michelle Damiano: Grade 1, urban public school in NJ. This video captures the integrity and learning of first graders.  Great example of how the teacher scaffolds learning. Taped in spring of first grade (early April).

2. Illustrating thinking partners (Knee-to-knee, turn and talk) with Linda Hoyt

3. Rick's Reading Workshop (Overview) (Upper grades)

4. Rick's Reading Workshop: One to One

5. Jennifer Serravallo's Goal Setting Conference with student

6. Rick's Reading Workshop Amori's Reading Goal (Grade 5)

A few others...

Lucy Calkin's explanation of reader's workshop: General Overview

Andrea Smith's video with her 4th graders using notebook for content learning.

Aimee Buckner's video conferring with 4th grader about comprehension and vocab

Aimee Buckner's video conferring about how to track characters

Rick's Mini Lesson video

2nd grader flashlight reading  (Newark, NJ)

Some General Information and Resources

1. Website with a collection of links to info about reader's workshop.
2. Choice Literacy: A really fabulous website with lots of information about teaching reading and writing. I'd recommend joining if you can afford to do so ($99 annual fee).
3. Maggie Moon's handout from NESA conference (2012)
4. Lee Summit  School District Website of links 
5. Frank Serafini's Reading Workshop & Web 2.0  and his blog
6. Claudia Ann Katz's Scaffolded Independent Reading handout.
7. Reading Rocket's Reconsidering Silent Reading
8. Freddy Hiebert's The Forgotten Reading Project Stamina in Silent Reading
9. Launching the first 2 days of RW
10. First 20 days from revisiting Reading Workshop
11. Jennifer Myers: Living the Life of a Reader and Writer (Video of her classroom. Conferring examples are interesting)
12. Watch Know Learn website (Video)
13. From Kleinispirations: Mini-Lessons, mentor texts
14. My e-reading books by grade level. Downloadable from iTunes. Kindergarten, Grade 1, Grade 1.2, Grade 2, Grade 3, Grade 4, K-3, Reading, Centers & Technology
15. Maureen Devlin's Launching Plan (Post)

Recommended Professional Readings

1. Article: How Knowledge Helps It Speeds and Strengthens Reading Comprehension, Learning—and Thinking (Willingham)
2. Chapter: Effective Practices for Developing Reading Comprehension (Duke & Pearson)
3. Article: Oral Comprehension Sets the Ceiling on Reading Comprehension (Biemiller)
4. Article: Clarifying Differences Between Reading Skills and Reading Strategies (Afflerbach, Pearson, Paris)

Goal Setting

Cathy Mere's Goal setting in Reading and Writing Workshop (Blog post)

2nd grader responding to a book about climbing Mt. Everest. (Newark, NJ)

Reader's Notebooks

Reading notebook samples from TC.
Reader's Notebook (handouts) from workshop/institute via the work of Aimee Buckner.
Reader's Notebook sample pages (Pdf)


Blogs

A Literate Life (Julie Ballew): A PreK-5 literacy Coach from Texas.  Her blog is loaded with wonderful examples of student work including pages from K-5 students' reading notebooks, writer's notebooks, samples of anchor charts, sample minilessons.  she is quote generous as she allows downloads from her blog.

Cafe 1123 (Mrs. Hamilton): Good example of how she established her own reader's notebook, writer's notebook, and some uses of tech.

Beth Newingham: Grade 3 teacher. She has a blog and it is cross-referenced on Scholastic. Link to Reading workshop. Link to video of reading workshop in Beth's classroom.

Leach Teach (Melissa Leach):  Post about how she established a reader's notebook including timeline.