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Posts tagged ‘writing’

Jan 20

WCWP Book Review by Lynne R. Dorfman

Teaching in Uncertain Times: Strategies for Reclaiming Agency and Impact on Students’ Learning by Laura Robb is refreshing, practical, and hopeful! Robb’s book, available this July from Routledge Publishers, is filled with doable suggestions to support students’ academic learning and social wellbeing and varied needs. Throughout the book, she encourages collaboration and interaction with colleagues to build a strong learning community built on trust. Robb talks about the importance of finding time to reteach and plan interventions by utilizing flexible grouping designs and providing additional practice for those students who need it. She urges educators to become learners alongside their students and tasks us with developing an ongoing habit of time allotted to reading professional books and articles – a critical aspect of being the best teacher you can be and helping all students to thrive!

Robb asks us to take risks and try new teaching strategies or routines or refining something we already are using. I absolutely love her remarks about students’ self-evaluations. How simple yet brilliant to ask students to provide feedback on two questions: What worked? and What can be improved? She discusses ideas for K-1 and beyond in formats that make good sense! Cross-curricular projects are addressed for middle grades to boost engagement, critical thinking, and retention while developing the work force skills students will need later – collaboration, communication, adaptability. Her suggestion for professional study with other schools in the district or in the state can do much to deepen our knowledge of teaching practices and support our striving students in new and varied ways.

Independent reading in the content areas is addressed through rich suggestions for recommendations of magazines and award-winning Orbis Pictus and Scott O’Dell books. Robb also includes a description of key websites to support student learning and interests. A bibliography of sources, before-you-move-on reflection, chapter abstracts, and Robb’s own personal classroom stories are a few ways Robb hooks her readers. Robb also addresses ways educators can focus on self-care and ways they can cultivate their students’ wellbeing. Interest surveys, getting-to-know-you conferences, letters of introduction, kidwatching, reteaching lessons, and how to address cognitive overload are discussed in practical ways from kindergarten through middle school grades.

Chapter 4 takes a closer look at formative assessments and mentoring new teachers. Robb includes a great set of questions to gather important information about our students, providing a student information form so that all teachers who interact with a student and are part of a student’s day can provide feedback to help find alternative interventions and teaching/learning ideas. Her mentoring tips in Part II of chapter 4 encourage ongoing collaboration among new teachers and ways to build trust and positive memories.

Chapter 5 addresses lesson planning with six sensible suggestions and then moves into an in-depth look at three strategies to boost students’ reading skills in all subject areas. Examples of planning charts are included as well as effective collaboration strategies to impact active learning. Robb provides tips to support student comprehension of informational texts, including how to construct meaning during and after reading, deepening comprehension and critical analysis of text.

Her final chapter talks about family partnerships that can help to provide funds for supplies, materials, and snacks while also helping teachers to build trust through their communication with family members. Her appendices are ready to use – everything from practical tips on developing successful learning centers to informational text features and structures.

Laura Robb is a teacher-of-teachers. Her voice is encouraging, kind, and reassuring. She offers classroom snapshots to bring her words to life and provides practical examples, useful forms, and doable advice to cheer us on and help us help all our students to thrive and be the best they can be. Thank you, Laura!

Nov 19

The Color Conversation: A Classroom Strategy That Actually Gets Teens Talking

How do you get high schoolers to open up and share something real? If your students are anything like mine, they tend to deflect, joke, or suddenly become very interested in the ceiling when it’s time to make personal connections to literature.

So earlier this week, I tricked them—gently—into opening up with a “color conversation.”

The setup was simple: a pile of sticky notes and a handful of colored Sharpies. Before showing the prompts, I told students to grab one marker. Then I revealed the color-coded questions:

Green = Goodbyes: Who is someone you’ve had to say goodbye to?

Red = Bravery: When have you had to be brave?

Purple = Fear: When have you felt afraid?

Orange = Hope: What are some of your hopes for the future?

These emotions connect to the memoir we’re reading together, and because my students are English language learners, I also provided sentence stems to support fluency. I set a 7-minute timer and told them to create and post as many sticky notes as they could. For a bit of motivation, the table with the most notes earned a trip to the class snack bucket.

When the timer dinged, we took a silent gallery walk. Of course, silence didn’t last long. A few whispers broke through: “Wait—whose house caught on fire?” or “Hey, who’s from Ciudad?” While I reminded them there was no pressure to identify their notes, most students did. They wanted to.

The best part? This activity works for any pre- or post-reading moment where students might hesitate to go deeper. And I’m saving the sticky notes. When it’s time for them to write their own memoirs and someone inevitably says, “I don’t have anything to write about,” I’ll point to their own words on the wall—a whole collage of lived experiences waiting to become stories.

Kelly Virgin is a WCWP teacher leader who teaches high school English for the Kennett Consolidated School District.

Jul 22

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From the Classroom: What Does Real-World Writing Look Like?

By Tricia Ebarvia

Speaking on a panel at the NCTE Annual Convention last fall, author Cris Crutcher commented, “Reading Shakespeare is an academic exercise. It’s not one that’s going to get me to love reading.” Though I disagree with him about Shakespeare―I think studying Shakespeare can give us tremendous insight into who we are as human beings and speak to us in profound ways―his remark did give me pause. How many of the things we assign―books, writing assignments―are no more than academic exercises? Read more

Oct 20

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Grammar Matters: Lessons, Tips, & Conversations Using Mentor Texts, K-6

If you or your students find grammar a dull or tedious subject, then Grammar Matters is a must have for your professional bookshelf.

At the Philadelphia Reading Council’s Fall Event at St. Joseph’s University, Lynne Dorfman and Diane Dougherty engaged educators in a “let’s talk, let’s practice, let’s learn” style workshop to model ways of delivering grammar instruction using mentor texts. From prepositions and participles to pronouns and punctuation, Lynne and Diane led participants through activities, conversations, and Your Turn Lessons that highlighted the importance of teaching grammar and conventions of writing in ways that empower students, enable them to become more confident and proficient in their writing and communication skills, and embark on a lifelong journey of loving the sound, the power and the importance of words.

Read more

Sep 8

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Celebrating International Literacy Day

By Lynne R. Dorfman

International Literacy Day, celebrated this year on Monday, September 8th, helps us revitalize our commitment to the nurturing of literacy lives – both children and adults – by focusing attention on literacy successes in our classroom, school, community, and networks on twitter, facebook, and other social media forms. This year’s theme, “Lift Off to Literacy,” inspires students to shoot for the stars. We ask you to share the message that building a literacy habit takes just a little time each day.   Read more

Sep 7

It’s our Blogiversary! Highlights from Our First Year

We are  celebrating the one year anniversary of the PAWLP blog, and what a year it’s been!  To celebrate our one year “blogiversary,” we’ve collected some posts from this past year that may be particularly useful to teachers as a new school year begins.

So in case you missed them, here are a “baker’s dozen” – thirteen blog posts with some practical tips and inspiration. We hope that you enjoy reading our blog and encourage you to comment, ask questions, and share your own experiences. We would love to hear from you! Read more

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