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I've just spent the last three days at the Rutherford County Literacy Academy in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. On Monday, Carmen Agra Deedy regaled the group of K-12 public school teachers with both personal stories and traditional folk tales. On Tuesday, Dr. Keith Polette shared literacy strategies with wit and cleverness. I can't think of a more enjoyable and intelligent way to spend a portion of my summer holiday.
We began the academy in the usual way~those good old tried and true ice-breakers. Now, if you're not familiar with ice-breakers then you have never attended a teacher in-service. After getting to know a few of the other teachers attending the Literacy Academy (other than the other teachers from my own school), we settled in groups to participate in some cooperative learning strategies. The first activity involved matching Newberry titles to their first lines. The next activity was called "Dinner Plate" where the group members had to first list all that they already knew about a subject and then list the commonalities within the "plate" in the center~brainstorm idea: how about have group members actually write their ideas in the middle of a paper plate?
As part of our learning for this academy, we spent some time "unwrapping" a standard. By that I mean that we chose a Common Core standard and analyzed it~looking at nouns and specific action verbs. We took the time to reword the verbiage and identify what we felt was the targeted learning for this specific standard. Another teacher jokingly said that he knew what we would be doing at our first PLC. We continued on to develop our own essential question for this standard. After completing this cooperative activity, I realized that I need to go back and revisit the entire notion of essential questions. I'm definitely relieved that our new textbooks begin each reading selection with an essential question.
Just being in Carmen Agra Deedy's presence for the afternoon made my day so infinitely brighter. The author and storyteller is witty, clever, and entertaining. She plied our senses with little bits of story all afternoon. Just listening to her accent and pronunciation of words makes me taste warm caramel icing~you know the kind that makes you feel all gooey inside. The woman's stories of growing up Cuban in Georgia so mirror my own family's stories that I think she may be mistaken about where she was raised~or perhaps I'm channeling the Cuban refugee that I was in a previous life.
Carmen mesmerized us with her storytelling~she encouraged us to push our own envelope on creative writing and to encourage our own students to do the same. She warned us that most people go through their lives with their stories untold. She revealed to each of us that everyone has a "core" story and that story will release our truth. Carmen reaffirmed the idea that good writing is a craft and that we all need to read or hear good stories in order to be a good writer. She gave us some great ideas on where to find folktales and stories of yesteryear to read for ourselves and to share with others~especially our students. The brave woman ended our session by giving us her email address~I'm toying with the idea of sending her the link to this blog.
Of course the day could not be complete unbridled joy and excitement~we had to end the day on a slightly sour note. We spent the last hour of our day hearing information on how the new writing standards and writing assessment will be administered next year~the word administered always makes me think of a hypodermic needle. We learned that students will be required to read at least two passages and to write some sort of response to these texts. Of course, most of us were already in panic mode when we heard that students will take the assessment on the computer in February. I had to keep reminding myself that I can only control what happens in my classroom. I believe that will be my mantra for the upcoming school year.
On Tuesday morning, Dr. Keith Polette~former teacher, college professor, and educational consultant~spoke to us for two hours on using various types of reading strategies in the classroom. One of the first things~and the one that makes you go "duh"~that he instructed us to do was to give the students the questions first, then give them the text. I'm not sure if it was Dr. Polette or someone else who wrote that a teacher should show the students the test before you teach the material or have them read the selected text. Dr. Polette went on to share with us some of his picture books and how to use them to teach inference~if you've ever taught students how to infer then you know how difficult it can be.
One of the strategies that Dr. Polette shared with us taught us how to scaffold or front load the text for our students. He stressed the importance of building prior knowledge and creating interest in the selection that you're about to have the students read. The activity began with each participant choosing a role and discussing a seemingly random list of numbers. As more information is revealed by the teacher, the pair of students continues to discuss the apparent meaning of each new bit of information and its importance. This activity helps the students to make sense of difficult information and to process this information in order to learn it. This strategy would be especially helpful in the content areas.
Dr. Polette dropped some other pearls of wisdom for us to retrieve. An activity or information must be shared with a student at least seventeen times before they actually learn it. Context is only helpful if the student has the prior knowledge to help him comprehend the context. Relaxed brains use the cerebral cortex while tense brains can't learn. The agent is the force that drives the energy; it moves the action forward. When students say that they have no questions, the teacher can reply back to them "If you did have a question, what would it be?". One question he kept asking us about certain pieces of text was "What surprises you?" Our assertions must be general to specific in persuasive or argumentative types of writing. When we infer, however, we can analyze the information from specific to general. One of the last activities that we did was to rank headlines from interesting to least interesting. I can see how I would use this in my classroom on a fairly regular basis.
I often say that I'm fortunate that I teach in a system where multiple quality in-service and learning opportunities are regularly offered. In addition to hearing the interesting speakers, there was supportive fellowship and delicious food and snacks. We were supplied with resources in the form of professional books, picture books, a young adult novel, and numerous handouts. I can't imagine working at any other job~I truly enjoyed the experience. I'm excited about the new common core journey (of mutual discovery) and using the new literature textbook.
I'd like to leave you with a quotation of Dr. Polette's: The process of comprehending involves not just understanding what one reads but anticipating what they will read.
Melissa
We began the academy in the usual way~those good old tried and true ice-breakers. Now, if you're not familiar with ice-breakers then you have never attended a teacher in-service. After getting to know a few of the other teachers attending the Literacy Academy (other than the other teachers from my own school), we settled in groups to participate in some cooperative learning strategies. The first activity involved matching Newberry titles to their first lines. The next activity was called "Dinner Plate" where the group members had to first list all that they already knew about a subject and then list the commonalities within the "plate" in the center~brainstorm idea: how about have group members actually write their ideas in the middle of a paper plate?
As part of our learning for this academy, we spent some time "unwrapping" a standard. By that I mean that we chose a Common Core standard and analyzed it~looking at nouns and specific action verbs. We took the time to reword the verbiage and identify what we felt was the targeted learning for this specific standard. Another teacher jokingly said that he knew what we would be doing at our first PLC. We continued on to develop our own essential question for this standard. After completing this cooperative activity, I realized that I need to go back and revisit the entire notion of essential questions. I'm definitely relieved that our new textbooks begin each reading selection with an essential question.
Just being in Carmen Agra Deedy's presence for the afternoon made my day so infinitely brighter. The author and storyteller is witty, clever, and entertaining. She plied our senses with little bits of story all afternoon. Just listening to her accent and pronunciation of words makes me taste warm caramel icing~you know the kind that makes you feel all gooey inside. The woman's stories of growing up Cuban in Georgia so mirror my own family's stories that I think she may be mistaken about where she was raised~or perhaps I'm channeling the Cuban refugee that I was in a previous life.
Carmen mesmerized us with her storytelling~she encouraged us to push our own envelope on creative writing and to encourage our own students to do the same. She warned us that most people go through their lives with their stories untold. She revealed to each of us that everyone has a "core" story and that story will release our truth. Carmen reaffirmed the idea that good writing is a craft and that we all need to read or hear good stories in order to be a good writer. She gave us some great ideas on where to find folktales and stories of yesteryear to read for ourselves and to share with others~especially our students. The brave woman ended our session by giving us her email address~I'm toying with the idea of sending her the link to this blog.
Of course the day could not be complete unbridled joy and excitement~we had to end the day on a slightly sour note. We spent the last hour of our day hearing information on how the new writing standards and writing assessment will be administered next year~the word administered always makes me think of a hypodermic needle. We learned that students will be required to read at least two passages and to write some sort of response to these texts. Of course, most of us were already in panic mode when we heard that students will take the assessment on the computer in February. I had to keep reminding myself that I can only control what happens in my classroom. I believe that will be my mantra for the upcoming school year.
On Tuesday morning, Dr. Keith Polette~former teacher, college professor, and educational consultant~spoke to us for two hours on using various types of reading strategies in the classroom. One of the first things~and the one that makes you go "duh"~that he instructed us to do was to give the students the questions first, then give them the text. I'm not sure if it was Dr. Polette or someone else who wrote that a teacher should show the students the test before you teach the material or have them read the selected text. Dr. Polette went on to share with us some of his picture books and how to use them to teach inference~if you've ever taught students how to infer then you know how difficult it can be.
One of the strategies that Dr. Polette shared with us taught us how to scaffold or front load the text for our students. He stressed the importance of building prior knowledge and creating interest in the selection that you're about to have the students read. The activity began with each participant choosing a role and discussing a seemingly random list of numbers. As more information is revealed by the teacher, the pair of students continues to discuss the apparent meaning of each new bit of information and its importance. This activity helps the students to make sense of difficult information and to process this information in order to learn it. This strategy would be especially helpful in the content areas.
Dr. Polette dropped some other pearls of wisdom for us to retrieve. An activity or information must be shared with a student at least seventeen times before they actually learn it. Context is only helpful if the student has the prior knowledge to help him comprehend the context. Relaxed brains use the cerebral cortex while tense brains can't learn. The agent is the force that drives the energy; it moves the action forward. When students say that they have no questions, the teacher can reply back to them "If you did have a question, what would it be?". One question he kept asking us about certain pieces of text was "What surprises you?" Our assertions must be general to specific in persuasive or argumentative types of writing. When we infer, however, we can analyze the information from specific to general. One of the last activities that we did was to rank headlines from interesting to least interesting. I can see how I would use this in my classroom on a fairly regular basis.
I often say that I'm fortunate that I teach in a system where multiple quality in-service and learning opportunities are regularly offered. In addition to hearing the interesting speakers, there was supportive fellowship and delicious food and snacks. We were supplied with resources in the form of professional books, picture books, a young adult novel, and numerous handouts. I can't imagine working at any other job~I truly enjoyed the experience. I'm excited about the new common core journey (of mutual discovery) and using the new literature textbook.
I'd like to leave you with a quotation of Dr. Polette's: The process of comprehending involves not just understanding what one reads but anticipating what they will read.
Melissa
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