Wow, what an amazing book. This book has revolutionized the way that I am currently thinking about my reading, writing, and ELA instruction. As I was reading the chapters about Common Core's writing standards and expectations, I was thinking about my students and their experience as writers. The third graders at my school have recently finished their writing assessments, and all of the teachers had to grade the informational, persuasive, and narrative writing. I was struck by the poor the quality of most students' writing, especially when I consider the expectations of Common Core. One of our school goals is to improve writing because of the extremely low scores on the fifth grade writing assessment, but we have received no training or information about how to improve our writing instruction. I wish that everyone would read this book at my school and realize that we need to spend some serious time in collaboration with one another, in order for teachers to adopt best practices. One pattern that I noticed in every chapter was the call for teachers to come together to collaborate, look at student work, and determine learning progressions together. Although this suggestion seems very simple, this is simply not happening at most schools. One of the studies that the authors cited stated that "encouraging teachers within a school to observe each other, to plan together, and to adopt shared teaching methods can dramatically improve teaching and learning in a school. Good practices in one classroom can become schoolwide shared practices" (p. 183-184). I cannot say enough about how collaboration has been the main factor in my improvement as a teacher over the past 2 years. Although my team is more cohesive than most, I still wish that we could plan more collaboratively so that we could more easily share best practices.
It was intriguing to learn more about the speaking and listening standards in chapter 10, because I have honestly never "devoured" these standards. I tend to plan lessons and activities around speaking and listening a lot naturally, so I have never felt the need to take a deep look at these standards. However, this section opened up my eyes to all of the diverse ways that our students should be practicing speaking and listening. I have realized that I have not utilized technology in all of the ways that I could have, and when I do, I am certain that the technology detracts from the focus on reading, writing, speaking, and listening. It was important to be reminded that "all of this is not technology for technology's sake" (p. 167). That sounds obvious but I wonder how many times I have utilized technology for a meaningful purpose.
Lastly, I was challenged and inspired by the section about the language standards. I have always struggled teaching ELA, and I have not yet figured out a way to do it that is contextualized, meaningful, and not painful. Because I have an ESOL teacher in my classroom during this time that needs to be explicitly be teaching ELA standards, my ELA block has mirrored more of a traditional grammar approach (ugh). I love how the authors gave me confidence that the criticisms that I have (about the way in which my school organizes ELA) are backed up by research. "The CCSS use verbs such as use, form, and produce rather than explain or define when describing what students should know and be able to do with language" (p. 172-173). I have been trying to emphasize this whenever planning with my ESOL or other third grade teachers. However, we are still emphasizing that students know the difference between nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, etc. It is pretty miserable and the kids hate it. One of the main reasons that my school organizes their ELA block like that is because the CRCT is not aligned to the CC and does expect students to be able to identify, sort, and categorize the different parts of speech. Lately I have noticed that my students don't have many "word attack" (that's what I call it) strategies, and that it would be much more helpful to teach those strategies rather than teaching the difference between abstract and concrete nouns. "This emphasis on skills over memorization is also clear through the CCSS authors' direction toward 'flexible use' of strategies...students should be able to determine the meaning of unknown or multiple-meaning words and phrases by 'choosing flexibly from a range of strategies'" (p. 173). I think that THIS is what my ELA instruction should be all about.
Overall, this book challenged, convicted, and inspired me in so many ways. I am thinking about the ways in which I can present what I have learned to my team and possibly my principal. I feel so passionate about teachers implementing good practice (that has research supporting it), and I think that the ideas from this book can benefit the students in my school. This book helped me reflect on all of the ways in which my school (including myself) is approaching literacy in the wrong way. It has been discouraging to be teaching at a school that has some of the lowest scores in our county despite all of the dedicated, passionate teachers in my school. The teachers are doing everything they know how to do in the best way possible, but the problem is that we have not been trained or equipped to implement good practices (that actually help students) in our classroom. This book is a step in the right direction, and I will continue to think about what the next steps should be for me and for the rest of the teachers at my school.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
The power of doubts
March was a month full of a lot of doubts, fears, reflections, and revelations. This month I was very introspective about my teaching practices, which was caused by a few things. There has been a lot of conflict in my classroom this month, and I realized that I didn't know how to handle a lot of it. I didn't know how to respond when I had tried everything I knew how to do, and it still didn't work. For whatever reason, I didn't open up to many people about it until recently. I guess I was a little ashamed that I didn't know what to do, when the problems weren't huge or unmanageable. When I compare them to the problems that my students had last year, they feel insignificant. But these small problems have grown and have become bigger. My classroom culture has definitely been impacted and all of my students are feeling it. I did some major reflection about this personally and also with my students. Just yesterday we had a class meeting where we all talked about our concerns. Each student was given an opportunity to talk about what was troubling them, and then I challenged them to think about the person that they wanted to be and then from there, make a goal for yourself. I told them that my main goal as a teacher is not to get them to pass the CRCT -- it is to help them develop relational and communication skills. My students are so amazing this year, and I want them to live up to their full potential.
Apart from reflecting about the social/emotional/behavioral issues in my classroom, I have also reflected deeply upon my reading instruction. I came to the scary revelation that I actually don't explicitly teach much of anything during reading. I have been so focused on book clubs that I haven't done as many read alouds or reading mini-lessons. In some ways, it's good that I've made reading more student-centered, but at the same time, it's absolutely unacceptable that I have failed to truly teach some important reading skills. I started off the year pretty strong in reading, but I have been doubting myself more and more over the month. I wanted to do something productive with these doubts, because I believe that inherently doubts aren't a bad thing. I realized that I was not spending enough time reading WITH my students in small groups. So, I decided to implement something new where I am working in small groups with students to do close reading with them (if you haven't heard of this strategy, you should definitely look it up!). We are reading short texts that are interesting and relevant, and my students have enjoyed them so far. I have found many of the reading passages on Readworks.org, so if you haven't heard of this site, definitely check it out! There are so many kid-friendly articles about important controversial topics such as the following articles: "Are Video Games Bad for You?" or "Junk Food Ad Attack." In these small groups, we have focused on determining the meaning of new/unfamiliar words using decoding strategies and context clues, and we have also had an opportunity to discuss the issues that are addressed in the articles. I am starting to understand what it means to strike a balance between equipping my students with technical reading skills (decoding, fluency, accuracy, etc.) while also making sure that I give them opportunities to engage in meaningful discourse about their reading. This is exciting and scary at the same time, because I'm not sure if I'm truly doing it right. I'm excited to reflect more about this so I can be a stronger reading teacher next year.
And of course, I can't reflect upon March without mentioning the CRCT. Ugh. That's how I feel about it. I'm so done with and it hasn't even started. But the pressure has definitely started. I'm trying to make sure that I don't put the pressure that I am feeling onto my students, because I know that is not going to help in any way. My major concern is that my students will start to believe that everything we are doing is to prepare for the CRCT. This is the time when students unfortunately start to believe that the purpose for learning is to do well on a test. I want my students to believe something different, but it's tough because we do need to talk about the CRCT in order for my students to be prepared for it. I'm trying to make sure that I'm not talking about it at every second, but at the same time, I know that my students need to become familiar with it so that they don't get completely traumatized on the first day of testing. I'm trying to think of creative ways to encourage my students and to help them feel motivated and inspired, despite the depressing climate of testing. If anyone has any ideas, let me know! :)
Apart from reflecting about the social/emotional/behavioral issues in my classroom, I have also reflected deeply upon my reading instruction. I came to the scary revelation that I actually don't explicitly teach much of anything during reading. I have been so focused on book clubs that I haven't done as many read alouds or reading mini-lessons. In some ways, it's good that I've made reading more student-centered, but at the same time, it's absolutely unacceptable that I have failed to truly teach some important reading skills. I started off the year pretty strong in reading, but I have been doubting myself more and more over the month. I wanted to do something productive with these doubts, because I believe that inherently doubts aren't a bad thing. I realized that I was not spending enough time reading WITH my students in small groups. So, I decided to implement something new where I am working in small groups with students to do close reading with them (if you haven't heard of this strategy, you should definitely look it up!). We are reading short texts that are interesting and relevant, and my students have enjoyed them so far. I have found many of the reading passages on Readworks.org, so if you haven't heard of this site, definitely check it out! There are so many kid-friendly articles about important controversial topics such as the following articles: "Are Video Games Bad for You?" or "Junk Food Ad Attack." In these small groups, we have focused on determining the meaning of new/unfamiliar words using decoding strategies and context clues, and we have also had an opportunity to discuss the issues that are addressed in the articles. I am starting to understand what it means to strike a balance between equipping my students with technical reading skills (decoding, fluency, accuracy, etc.) while also making sure that I give them opportunities to engage in meaningful discourse about their reading. This is exciting and scary at the same time, because I'm not sure if I'm truly doing it right. I'm excited to reflect more about this so I can be a stronger reading teacher next year.
And of course, I can't reflect upon March without mentioning the CRCT. Ugh. That's how I feel about it. I'm so done with and it hasn't even started. But the pressure has definitely started. I'm trying to make sure that I don't put the pressure that I am feeling onto my students, because I know that is not going to help in any way. My major concern is that my students will start to believe that everything we are doing is to prepare for the CRCT. This is the time when students unfortunately start to believe that the purpose for learning is to do well on a test. I want my students to believe something different, but it's tough because we do need to talk about the CRCT in order for my students to be prepared for it. I'm trying to make sure that I'm not talking about it at every second, but at the same time, I know that my students need to become familiar with it so that they don't get completely traumatized on the first day of testing. I'm trying to think of creative ways to encourage my students and to help them feel motivated and inspired, despite the depressing climate of testing. If anyone has any ideas, let me know! :)
Monday, March 17, 2014
Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Chap. 3-4)
These last two chapters of Pedagogy of the Oppressed have been particularly relevant for the things that I have been reflecting upon as a teacher. I constantly ponder ways in which I am or am not providing my students with authentic dialogical opportunities, and I try to critically reflect on the role I'm playing as a potential oppressor.
Chapter 3 brought out different emotions in me as I was reading, like inspiration, guilt, agreement, shame, passion, etc. I began to truly think about my students' position as an oppressed population and whether or not I have been providing them with opportunities to be liberated and transformed. This year I have focused a lot on my students being able to name the oppression and the injustices that they and others face every day. Freire (1970) says that "to exist, humanly, is to name the world, to change it" (p. 87). I deeply agree with this statement, and I believe that in order for my students to change their world, they need to understand what's going on in their world. I have realized that this is easier said than done, which has become evident while working alongside my students in their service-learning projects. Some of my students have struggled to understand the complexities of the injustices that are going on around them. For example, my students this year have been particularly interested in homelessness, and while we have had many discussions about it, it still remains a mystery to many of my students.
When engaging in meaningful dialogue about oppression and social justice issues, I must remember that "nor yet can dialogue exist without hope" (Freire, 1970, p. 91). Sometimes what tends to happen is that we get so deep in discussion about these real issues that I forget to encourage my students to reflect upon hope and possibility. This is perhaps why some of my students are having a hard time taking responsibility for their service-learning projects -- maybe because they believe that change is not entirely possible. I have been surveying my students to collect data for my TICC/Action Research project, and I have realized that there are several students who do not believe that kids can change their communities. Some of my students are perhaps viewing their service-learning projects as merely a fun, engaging project that they get to do, but I'm afraid that it's not registering that they are doing this to be agents of change in their community. I know that a huge part of my project is about the attitudes of my students in regards to community, democracy, and expressing one's voice. I'm trying to not get frustrated when my students' attitudes, thoughts, or actions aren't totally aligned with where I want them to be. This brings me to when Freire (1970) discusses the oppressor's role in the liberation of the oppressors: "It is not our role to speak to the people about our own view of the world, nor to attempt to impose that view on them, but rather to dialogue with the people about their view and ours" (p. 96). This quote really hits me hard, as I am guilty of trying to impose my view of the world on my students (and probably to the rest of the world, too). It's so tough to trust the process of truth discovery, because so often I think about the ways that I want my kids to think. This is something that I grapple with every day, because it is connected to my desire for control.
Chapter 4 helped me reflect upon what is required for a revolution that liberates the oppressed. The unity of the oppressor and the oppressed gets trick because of the difference in power and privilege. Freire (1970) has some really important things to say about how the oppressors should position themselves when working alongside the people: "The revolutionary effort to transform these structures radically cannot designate its leaders as its thinkers and the oppressed as mere doers" (p. 126). This makes me think about how my students see their own role in the classroom -- do they merely see themselves as people who do what I say? I'm afraid that many of my students would express that their job isn't to lead or think for themselves, but to follow the directions of the authority figures in the building. How do I empower my students to think and act for themselves while also preparing them to respect authority? This is a tough balance and I'm not sure that there is an easy answer for it. When I think about my role as a revolutionary leader, I am guided by Freire's (1970) claim that "Revolutionary leaders cannot think without the people, nor for the people, but only with the people" (p. 131). This is very relevant for where we are all at in our TICC/Action Research projects right now -- I know that for me, it's coming to the point where I'm feeling the pressure to help my students complete their service-learning projects. It's important for me to take my role as a facilitator very seriously, but I must be careful to not manipulate and dominate my students' projects, based on what I think is best. This is the ultimate struggle for me, but I know that my students' independence and attitudes about self-efficacy is more important than the logistics of their project.
Sunday, March 2, 2014
The ups and downs of February
Although February flew by, it has been an interesting month, full of ups and downs. As I search my theory-to-practice connections, there are few overarching themes but instead, a bunch of different little successes and failures.
Let's start with the positive -- I have come to the point where I feel very comfortable in my classroom and in my role as a teacher. I feel like "Joy" most of the time, not just Ms. Harrison (which is a big deal for me). I can see that many of my relationships with my students have deepened, especially with one of my boys who I have struggled to support all year long. I am still figuring out how to work with the dynamics of a severely imbalanced classroom when it comes to gender (I have 6 boys and 16 girls), but overall, my relationships have improved.
I have become better at focusing on what truly matters, although I will admit that it is still tough teaching 5 different subjects and so many different standards. The biggest challenge is not getting bogged down by the sheer volume of things I must teach. Even though I've been doing this for more than a year and a half, it still is something that overwhelms me on a daily basis. However, now that I feel more comfortable in the content, I have a clearer vision of what truly matters, across all subjects. I am so glad for all of the books that we have been able to read and the classes that we have been able to take, because they have played a big role in determining the big ideas in literacy, Social Studies, and STEM.
My students engaging in my TICC/Action Research project has been exciting and daunting at the same time. At this point, my students are definitely excited about their service-learning projects, but they are frightened by the responsibility that they require. I constantly have to remind them that "this is for real," and that they're not just theoretically planning a project. The biggest obstacle is the lack of time that they have to work on them during school. I can only dedicate one period a week for them to work on them, and most of them will not be able to meet outside of school to work on them either. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to help our students get these projects done? I wish that my students could come before or after school or during specials to work on them, but that is also not logistically possible. I would love to hear how all of you are managing the timing of your project.
One of my biggest struggles this past month has been my personal thoughts and reflections on my practice. I have realized that I am not providing rigorous reading instruction to my students. I feel confident in my students being challenged through my writing and math instruction, but not in my reading instruction. Of course my students are regularly participating in book clubs, which has been one of my successes this year. However, I have realized that they are almost never working independently during reading time. I have prided myself in all of the collaborative work that my students have been engaging in this year, but I have come to a scary realization that my students are not building reading skills that they are able to use independently. I am not focusing on my students as individual readers, with unique strengths and needs, and instead am seeing my students as collective readers within a particular reading level or book club. I came to this frightening realization while reading the first 5 chapters of Pathways to the Common Core. I am embarrassed to admit that I have not held my students accountable for being able to independently use reading strategies. I am afraid that many of them have hid behind my teaching and the reading abilities of other members of their book club. I almost feel paralyzed by this reality, and I want to change it immediately. With the stresses of the CRCT already creeping in, that adds more pressure to the situation. I am already thinking of how I can implement rigorous reading instruction in March that challenges (but at the same time excites) my students to hone their independent reading skills. I hope that I can figure out a way to keep reading fun, though, because that is something that is special about my reading instruction this year -- that it is engaging and enjoyable. I know that it will be tricky to maintain this positive climate while also challenging my students to bring their reading skills to the next level.
Let's start with the positive -- I have come to the point where I feel very comfortable in my classroom and in my role as a teacher. I feel like "Joy" most of the time, not just Ms. Harrison (which is a big deal for me). I can see that many of my relationships with my students have deepened, especially with one of my boys who I have struggled to support all year long. I am still figuring out how to work with the dynamics of a severely imbalanced classroom when it comes to gender (I have 6 boys and 16 girls), but overall, my relationships have improved.
I have become better at focusing on what truly matters, although I will admit that it is still tough teaching 5 different subjects and so many different standards. The biggest challenge is not getting bogged down by the sheer volume of things I must teach. Even though I've been doing this for more than a year and a half, it still is something that overwhelms me on a daily basis. However, now that I feel more comfortable in the content, I have a clearer vision of what truly matters, across all subjects. I am so glad for all of the books that we have been able to read and the classes that we have been able to take, because they have played a big role in determining the big ideas in literacy, Social Studies, and STEM.
My students engaging in my TICC/Action Research project has been exciting and daunting at the same time. At this point, my students are definitely excited about their service-learning projects, but they are frightened by the responsibility that they require. I constantly have to remind them that "this is for real," and that they're not just theoretically planning a project. The biggest obstacle is the lack of time that they have to work on them during school. I can only dedicate one period a week for them to work on them, and most of them will not be able to meet outside of school to work on them either. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to help our students get these projects done? I wish that my students could come before or after school or during specials to work on them, but that is also not logistically possible. I would love to hear how all of you are managing the timing of your project.
One of my biggest struggles this past month has been my personal thoughts and reflections on my practice. I have realized that I am not providing rigorous reading instruction to my students. I feel confident in my students being challenged through my writing and math instruction, but not in my reading instruction. Of course my students are regularly participating in book clubs, which has been one of my successes this year. However, I have realized that they are almost never working independently during reading time. I have prided myself in all of the collaborative work that my students have been engaging in this year, but I have come to a scary realization that my students are not building reading skills that they are able to use independently. I am not focusing on my students as individual readers, with unique strengths and needs, and instead am seeing my students as collective readers within a particular reading level or book club. I came to this frightening realization while reading the first 5 chapters of Pathways to the Common Core. I am embarrassed to admit that I have not held my students accountable for being able to independently use reading strategies. I am afraid that many of them have hid behind my teaching and the reading abilities of other members of their book club. I almost feel paralyzed by this reality, and I want to change it immediately. With the stresses of the CRCT already creeping in, that adds more pressure to the situation. I am already thinking of how I can implement rigorous reading instruction in March that challenges (but at the same time excites) my students to hone their independent reading skills. I hope that I can figure out a way to keep reading fun, though, because that is something that is special about my reading instruction this year -- that it is engaging and enjoyable. I know that it will be tricky to maintain this positive climate while also challenging my students to bring their reading skills to the next level.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Pathways to the Common Core, Chaps. 1-5
Wow. These first five chapters have inspired a lot of different emotions in me. Someone call TFA, because this book is #TRANSFORMATIONAL!
These first five chapters have challenged me to reflect deeply upon my literacy instruction, specifically my reading instruction. I can't help but think that according to the standards, I am not teaching reading in a rigorous way. The first thing that I picked up on was the authors' mention of the fact that "the Common Core deemphasizes reading as a personal act" and "puts aside theories of reader response" and the "text-to-self connections" (Calkins, Ehrenworth, & Lehman, 2002, p. 26, 39). This hit me hard. I had honestly never considered how the standards do not prioritize reading as "transactional," as a personal act of engaging with characters and information. I definitely feel uncomfortable about this, and somewhat defensive. Although I completely understand the importance of preparing students for critical and analytic reading, I do not think that this requires us to completely depersonalize the act of reading. Is the analysis that reading requires really what motivates and interests students to start reading? Do avid readers just love the analysis that some reading requires? Isn't developing a love for reading "just for fun" important? It is a false dichotomy to discuss the teaching of reading as either a "personal act" or as an analytic act. I think that we can achieve both with our students. I know that it is easier (in my opinion) to teach reading as a personal act, so I personally must push myself to be a reading teacher that prioritizes the development of my students' textual analysis skills. My reaction also might be a defense mechanism in order to protect myself from feeling like I have failed my students this year. While that sounds dramatic, I have definitely not prioritized my students' encountering and comprehending of grade-level complex text. When I was reading about the importance of exposing our students to complex texts, I immediately thought about how this would be possible with my students who are on a first grade reading level, for example. Although these questions have not been completely answered, I was struck by the truth of this statement: "'All students, including those who are behind, [must] have extensive opportunities to encounter and comprehend grade-level complex text as required by the standards. Far too often, students who have fallen behind are given only less complex texts rather than the support they need to read texts at the appropriate level of complexity'" (p. 48). This is a great point, and something that definitely helps me start thinking about ways in which I can provide appropriate scaffolding to my struggling readers.
The content in these five chapters squared with some of my thinking about the overall view of the Common Core literacy standards. "So the first notable achievement of the Common Core reading standards is that they distill reading to a single set of nine reading skills that readers can carry across texts and up grade levels. The second notable aspect of the Common Core reading standards is that these nine skills all require deep comprehension and high-level thinking" (p. 24). As teachers, we often feel burdened and governed by the number of the standards that we have to teach. However, the reading standards are meant to be focused on nine reading skills. This encourages me as I know that I have benefited very much from the 6 main reading strategies that are laid out in Strategies that Work. Although these strategies are not perfectly aligned to the Common Core standards (a fact that I'm still grappling with), I know that I feel more relaxed and reassured when I think about my role as a reading teacher -- not to teach a thousand different standards that the students need to memorize, but rather flexible strategies and skills that readers can apply to many different situations.
The authors' breaking down of the reading anchor standards has brought my attention to a few practices that are lacking in my instruction -- the constant re-assessing and coaching that students need from me in order to progress in their fluency, comprehension, and analysis. In this day and age, American teachers are constantly being told about the importance of assessing. However, the assessing that has been emphasized is obviously the standardized, multiple choice testing that everyone hates. I think that is the reason why I have never prioritized assessing in my classroom, because I am already required to assess in so many unnecessary ways (in my opinion). This is extremely problematic, though. Calkins, et al., directly state that "it is important to reassess often" (p. 45). They explicitly mentioned the importance of assessing by keeping up with running records or other reading assessments often, and not just once or twice a year. This is definitely not the first time that I have heard this, but to be honest, I have not prioritized this type of assessment in my room. I'm realizing that I don't know my students as readers as well as I would like to admit -- I do not know the specific skills and needs of every one of my students. Even though I pride myself on giving my students multiple opportunities to work together and to engage in discussions about books, I do not give enough attention to the independent growth of each rider. The rich discussions that we do have about the books that we are reading are either whole-group or in book clubs, and although these are good practices, they do not provide the kind of information that one-on-one conversations with individual readers do. I'm starting to wonder if my students actually can indeed independently visualize, predict, infer, or summarize, or if they can only do it in a group setting. This quote was very convicting for me: "We caution that it is not enough to simply do this work in shared experiences such as through read-aloud or whole-class novel discussions -- to many kids hide during that work, and you don't know if they can really do the high-level work on their own, in their independent reading...teachers demonstrating or orchestrating high-level work do not necessarily achieve transference. You'll want to make sure, therefore, that instruction moves immediately from demonstrating reading skills to coaching students to do this work on their own and giving them feedback as they try it, whether it is in book clubs or independent texts" (p. 68). I cringe when I think about how sometimes I assume that the work that we do in groups is not being transferred to students' independent reading habits. I definitely need to start thinking more about how I can facilitate my students' individual ownership of these reading skills, and I need to act more as a coach so that they can feel supported in this process. To be honest, I'm not sure how to do this, so I hope that I gain more insight as I continue reading this book.
These first five chapters have challenged me to reflect deeply upon my literacy instruction, specifically my reading instruction. I can't help but think that according to the standards, I am not teaching reading in a rigorous way. The first thing that I picked up on was the authors' mention of the fact that "the Common Core deemphasizes reading as a personal act" and "puts aside theories of reader response" and the "text-to-self connections" (Calkins, Ehrenworth, & Lehman, 2002, p. 26, 39). This hit me hard. I had honestly never considered how the standards do not prioritize reading as "transactional," as a personal act of engaging with characters and information. I definitely feel uncomfortable about this, and somewhat defensive. Although I completely understand the importance of preparing students for critical and analytic reading, I do not think that this requires us to completely depersonalize the act of reading. Is the analysis that reading requires really what motivates and interests students to start reading? Do avid readers just love the analysis that some reading requires? Isn't developing a love for reading "just for fun" important? It is a false dichotomy to discuss the teaching of reading as either a "personal act" or as an analytic act. I think that we can achieve both with our students. I know that it is easier (in my opinion) to teach reading as a personal act, so I personally must push myself to be a reading teacher that prioritizes the development of my students' textual analysis skills. My reaction also might be a defense mechanism in order to protect myself from feeling like I have failed my students this year. While that sounds dramatic, I have definitely not prioritized my students' encountering and comprehending of grade-level complex text. When I was reading about the importance of exposing our students to complex texts, I immediately thought about how this would be possible with my students who are on a first grade reading level, for example. Although these questions have not been completely answered, I was struck by the truth of this statement: "'All students, including those who are behind, [must] have extensive opportunities to encounter and comprehend grade-level complex text as required by the standards. Far too often, students who have fallen behind are given only less complex texts rather than the support they need to read texts at the appropriate level of complexity'" (p. 48). This is a great point, and something that definitely helps me start thinking about ways in which I can provide appropriate scaffolding to my struggling readers.
The content in these five chapters squared with some of my thinking about the overall view of the Common Core literacy standards. "So the first notable achievement of the Common Core reading standards is that they distill reading to a single set of nine reading skills that readers can carry across texts and up grade levels. The second notable aspect of the Common Core reading standards is that these nine skills all require deep comprehension and high-level thinking" (p. 24). As teachers, we often feel burdened and governed by the number of the standards that we have to teach. However, the reading standards are meant to be focused on nine reading skills. This encourages me as I know that I have benefited very much from the 6 main reading strategies that are laid out in Strategies that Work. Although these strategies are not perfectly aligned to the Common Core standards (a fact that I'm still grappling with), I know that I feel more relaxed and reassured when I think about my role as a reading teacher -- not to teach a thousand different standards that the students need to memorize, but rather flexible strategies and skills that readers can apply to many different situations.
The authors' breaking down of the reading anchor standards has brought my attention to a few practices that are lacking in my instruction -- the constant re-assessing and coaching that students need from me in order to progress in their fluency, comprehension, and analysis. In this day and age, American teachers are constantly being told about the importance of assessing. However, the assessing that has been emphasized is obviously the standardized, multiple choice testing that everyone hates. I think that is the reason why I have never prioritized assessing in my classroom, because I am already required to assess in so many unnecessary ways (in my opinion). This is extremely problematic, though. Calkins, et al., directly state that "it is important to reassess often" (p. 45). They explicitly mentioned the importance of assessing by keeping up with running records or other reading assessments often, and not just once or twice a year. This is definitely not the first time that I have heard this, but to be honest, I have not prioritized this type of assessment in my room. I'm realizing that I don't know my students as readers as well as I would like to admit -- I do not know the specific skills and needs of every one of my students. Even though I pride myself on giving my students multiple opportunities to work together and to engage in discussions about books, I do not give enough attention to the independent growth of each rider. The rich discussions that we do have about the books that we are reading are either whole-group or in book clubs, and although these are good practices, they do not provide the kind of information that one-on-one conversations with individual readers do. I'm starting to wonder if my students actually can indeed independently visualize, predict, infer, or summarize, or if they can only do it in a group setting. This quote was very convicting for me: "We caution that it is not enough to simply do this work in shared experiences such as through read-aloud or whole-class novel discussions -- to many kids hide during that work, and you don't know if they can really do the high-level work on their own, in their independent reading...teachers demonstrating or orchestrating high-level work do not necessarily achieve transference. You'll want to make sure, therefore, that instruction moves immediately from demonstrating reading skills to coaching students to do this work on their own and giving them feedback as they try it, whether it is in book clubs or independent texts" (p. 68). I cringe when I think about how sometimes I assume that the work that we do in groups is not being transferred to students' independent reading habits. I definitely need to start thinking more about how I can facilitate my students' individual ownership of these reading skills, and I need to act more as a coach so that they can feel supported in this process. To be honest, I'm not sure how to do this, so I hope that I gain more insight as I continue reading this book.
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