Literacy Builders

For the Love of Learning

Writing

Writing the Standards in Haiku

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Let’s face it, reading the standards isn’t like reading The Hunger Games.  The Common Core is dense and saddles educators with the same requirement the standards demand of students: close, careful reading.  As a teacher educator, I feel the full weight of this responsibility.  If I don’t fully understand what the standards are saying, I will never be able to help others implement them with fidelity. So this charge has launched my mission to develop my own deep understanding of the standards, setting me on a course of finding ways to interact with the Common Core and expand my ways of knowing. This quest has led to many ahas but none of them compare to what happened this week as Jan and I explored the Common Core through the lens of poetry.

Poets relentlessly pursue words that convey just the right image or tone or emotion.  As I considered this, I realized that as educators we are all working to understand the standards with the insight of a poet and when I mentioned this to Jan, she wondered out loud what would happen if we tried to write the standards in haiku.

The standards in haiku?  That was a novel thought. I certainly hadn’t experimented with that lens for close reading so I decided to give a try.  I turned to the reading standards and randomly chose number four:

Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning and tone. (Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, p.10)

I read it.  I read it again.  I asked myself, “What is that really saying?”  And then it occurred to me: If I wanted to translate those words into a seventeen syllable verse, I needed to do more than read and reread the anchor standard: I also needed to consider what the standard meant at every grade level in both literary and informative text. I set to work, and after revising several times, I arrived at this poetic interpretation:

Take note: words matter.
Careful choice shapes tone, meaning.
Is a rock a rock?

I continue to revise the poem, looking back and forth between my words and the words of the standards. I still wonder if I have captured the essence of this achievement goal, making me realize yet again the focused lens haiku provides for closely reading the standards. In fact, it worked so well, I would recommend it to any educator wrestling with understanding the standards. We invite you to try your hand at writing the standards in verse and to share your poems with us.  Tomorrow we will post the latest versions of our haiku for the other nine reading standards.

Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf

New Adventures

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As many of you know, I have been journeying to learn everything I can about the Common Core.  I have been driven by curiosity to look closely at the new standards to help me understand how best to refine my own instructional practices and consider how these changes will influence the future of literacy instruction.  As it turns out, I haven’t been on this journey alone and am very excited to share with you that I am now collaborating Jan Miller Burkins, author of Preventing Misguided Reading to scrutinize and understand the Common Core State Standards.  We have set up a new website where we are blogging and reporting daily about many important issues surrounding implementation, interpretation, policy, and understanding each of the six shifts.  If you share my concerns and curiosity about literacy and the Common Core, I invite you to visit www.burkinsandyaris.com. As I mentioned before, we are committed to daily posts and reports so be sure to subscribe for email updates or add this new site to your RSS feed.  In addition, Burkins & Yaris has a Facebook page and Twitter account where we will be posting important links to valuable information about the Common Core, so be sure to follow us there, too!  We plan to be very busy and we hope that you’ll join us on our journey.  The more you interact and share your concerns with us, the better we will be able to utilize this outlet to address the issues that are paramount to teaching reading and writing in the Common Core era!
I hope to see you at Burkins and Yaris! (But don’t worry, I’ll still be blogging here too!) 

Need It to Make Sense? WRITE!!!

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One of the things that I preach to teachers when talking to them about deepening student understanding is the importance of writing in response to reading.  I tell them about the research that correlates higher reading scores with frequent writing.  Everybody nods in polite agreement but there is that small piece that remains skeptical.  After all, how often do we, as sophisticated adult readers, stop to write something after we’ve read?  Surely deep understanding is possible without picking up a pen???
So, in spite of the lingering doubt, we resolve to make sure to have students write more in response to reading.  Why?  Because it’s important.  Why is it important?  Well, because the research says so. 
And then it happens.  Sweet epiphany.
As I went about my daily life as a literacy coach helping teachers improve the practice of having conferences, I wrote vigorously as the teachers talked to the students. As I wrote word-for-word what they were saying, I couldn’t help but start to analyze what was happening.   Oooh, I thought to myself, she’s doing what I do when I get nervous that students aren’t saying anything.  I bombard them with a string of questions that might prompt SOME sort of response.  And that was but one of MANY of the thoughts that occurred to me as I wrote.  And as I wrote, I thought…and then, I thought some more and that’s when I realized why it’s so important that we have students write in response to reading—a pen becomes an extension of the brain and when we have it in hand, we can’t help but begin to think things that we would not have had we not touched the pen.  The literal extension morphs into a figurative one and that is what we want to happen to our students: we want them to S-T-R-E-T-C-H themselves.  We want them to reach deep and extend their thinking.    
Writing is a reflective practice.  It forces us to slow down and carefully consider all of the noise that resides inside of our heads.  It’s the reason that I blog.  It helps me to make sense of my professional life and as for students, writing can help them make sense of many things, books just being one of many.  

The Time Quote Mash-Up

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Wherever I go, I listen as teachers share their frustrations about time.
“I know I have to teach reading AND writing, but I don’t have TIME for both.”
“I know I have to teach small groups, but I have so many pull-outs, I don’t have TIME.”
“I know kids need to do more independent reading, but I only have a forty minute period, I don’t have TIME to do everything!”
In Star Trek Generations. Jean-Luc Picard says “Someone once told me that time is a predator that stalks us all our lives.” And as a busy teacher-educator, I can’t help but think, “he’s got that right.”
However, bear this in mind: Time pressures and constraints are not a condition unique to teaching.  My husband works in social media and he races the clock to complete projects and meet deadlines. My mom stays at home and cooks and cares for the house and she complains there isn’t enough time to water her flowers or walk along the trail after the first snowfall.  Jean-Luc was the captain of the Starship Enterprise in approximately 2371 and what was he lamenting? Time.  While it seems like education is wrought with an unfair share of time pressures and constraints, not having enough time is not unique to any one job or profession, it is simply a part of being human.
Each and every day is comprised of twenty-four hours and as Randy Bomer once said at a workshop I attended long ago,  “There’s only time, no more or less, and we have to decide how to use what time there is.”   When he says it like that, it seems simple but it is true. As people and educators, we have important decisions to make about how we will spend our time because like Katie Wood Ray once shared,   “If we fail to set aside time for getting the work of [writing] done, we send the message that we don’t value the work.”
As we sit amid the holiday frenzy and listen to more bad press about teaching and learning, we need to be asking ourselves what is it that we value?  We need to prioritize and think hard about what we aim to achieve because after Jean-Luc Picard personified time as a predator, he went on to say “but I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because they’ll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we’ve lived.”

And on that note, I ask you, how do you choose to live?  What part of your journey will you cherish?

Teachers: What Kind of Cook are You?

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When the weather begins to cool and the leaves begin to change, I find I become a different kind of cook. I bring my big pots and pans out of storage and carefully select ingredients that will make a delicious soup or stew and fill my house with the aroma of warmth and comfort.   I pluck the last of the basil from the garden and instead of mixing it with oil and vinegar to marinade chicken breast that I will cook on the grill, I stir it into a pot of ripe red tomatoes and mix in oregano and garlic and watch carefully as bubbles begin to erupt on the surface. As I stir and watch my creations simmer on the stovetop, I begin to think: cooking and teaching have a lot in common.

As a cook, I have choices about the way in which I will deliver my food.  Will I mass produce it and slop it onto a paper plate? If I do this, people may accept this meal and politely push their food around to make it look like they ate but they will leave the table dissatisfied. And I can’t be surprised when I meet the eater who rejects this food altogether.  Who wants something prepared with so little care?  If I can’t be bothered, why should they?
That’s why I try not to cook like this.  I want each meal to be an unforgettable experience so I begin by considering my diners.  Who will I be cooking for tonight?  What ingredients will tantalize and awaken their palates?  How will I prepare this meal so that each bite is delectable and savored like a culinary masterpiece that keeps them thinking about this food long after the last morsel has been eaten?  What special ingredient can I add to not only make them want to eat, but crave this food with insatiable desire?
Cooking is rooted in eating. It is about nurturing a basic human need.  It is about feeding people and like teaching, it can be done in a way that merely gets the job done or it can be done in a way that is unforgettable.  The only question left to consider is this: What kind of cook are you? 

In the Face of Fear

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Today, I’ve been working on organizing and outlining some of the ideas that I have for what I dream will one day become a book for teachers about teaching literacy.  Broad topic, I know.  But right now, I’m in the gathering and envisioning stage of my writing process.  I’m relishing going back through the volumes that I have been collecting over the years and reacquainting with my old thoughts and experiences as a teacher.  I find myself making notes in the margins and asking myself questions.  My questions prompt me to want to write more and when I do, I find myself thinking about things that surprise me.  Writing more leads me to new a-has and I get excited…and then worried because I wonder, where does this process end?  How could I possibly write an entire book if my thinking keeps changing and growing as I springboard from one idea to the next?  In some ways, the process is exhilarating and liberating but in other ways, it’s absolutely paralyzing.    I’m so scared, I want to put away my notebook and binder and pen and start scrubbing toilets.  Anything has got to be better than this, I think as I turn my head toward the bulletin board next to my desk and read the quote from Eleanor Roosevelt glaring at me from the center:

                                                     
Do something every day that scares you.
                                                           
As those words wash over me, I recognize the feeling in the pit of my stomach: fear.  I’m trying all sorts of new things this year webinars, videos, writing a book.  All of these things cause my body to surge with anxiety because they’re new and quite frankly, I don’t know if I’ll be good at any of them.  But when I hear the echoing voice of negativity, the trite old saying, “nothing ventured, nothing gained” pops into my head and I soldier on.  I am dedicating this year to dissonance and discomfort.  I am going to try these things that scare me.  My question for you is this: Will you join me? What will you do this year that scares you? 

The Times They Are A-Changin’

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Over the course of the last week, I began to notice the days have been getting shorter.  The mornings are cooler.  And the shelves of Target are stocked with boxes of Crayola crayons on sale for forty cents.  I don’t know when all of this happened but I realized with summer fading into the horizon, I better get out there and enjoy its final days before it completely disappears.  So, yesterday, I rallied my family, packed towels and sunscreen into an oversized beach bag, and headed to a local water park.
During the thirty minute car ride to the park, I unconsciously placed my hand on my stomach and began to rub.  I had this feeling…not like I was sick…no, nothing like that, this feeling was…that uncomfortable feeling that you get when something doesn’t seem quite right…this was…anxiety.  A bright, sunny, summer day, my boys in the back seat, my husband at the helm of the car, the promise of a day of fun in the sun—why should I be nervous?
As I gazed out the window, my mind wandered to the day before as I sat around a table catching up with my study group colleagues.  People shared stories of weddings and new homes and babies.  The conversation then turned to new principals, new technology, and the new standards in education.  We pondered and postulated what this year would bring with the Common Core and APPR and then we spoke but one word:
Daunting.
It was overwhelming to consider all of these possibilities and all of these unknowns.  There was speculation and worry…and some optimistic, eager anticipation. And then it occurred to me.  That was exactly what I was feeling at that very moment. The root of this feeling in the pit of my stomach was change.  Taking a day off from work in the middle of the week is not something I do often.  I had phone calls to make and email to respond to and I still hadn’t written this week’s blog post.  But I thought: eager anticipation.  Carpe diem.  Enjoy the day with your family.
And so I did.  I splashed down things called the Dragon Den and Mammoth Mountain.  I shivered in line and cheered as my husband dropped eight stories in three seconds down something called Cliff Diver and at the end of the day, I felt happy.  My agitation was long gone and my phone calls and email had waited for me.  I returned to my desk this morning to write my blog and what wouldn’t flow in the brief thirty minutes I had yesterday before we loaded into the car, just poured out onto the page today.  In spite of all of my gut wrenching and worry, it all turned out okay.  As it always does. 
Deb Hannaberry, a new study group colleague said, “Change isn’t bad. Change is just change and we need to embrace it.” As we begin this school year, I pass this wisdom along to you and ask, what’s giving you that anxious feeling in the pit of your stomach?  And what will you do to embrace it?

Lego Block

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In my basement, we have an old dresser.  If you were to open any one of the six drawers of this dresser you would have to tug a little because each drawer is filled to the brim and overflowing with Lego.  But that’s not the only place you’ll find Lego in my house.  Bins of Lego can be found tucked behind chairs and stacked neatly (and not-so-neatly) on bookshelves in every room.  And of course, if you look in the heaters and other small crevices of my home, you will find errant pieces and casualties of epic battles that occurred at one point or another. Why so much Lego?  Because I am the mother of a ten year old son who is an absolute fanatic.  He plays with them all the time. 

Except lately. 
Lately he has been digging about in other bins in search of other toys to entertain him. One day, as he busily worked at creating a Smurf village complete with construction paper gardens and domino fences, he glanced up from his play and said, “In case you’re wondering why I’m not playing Lego like I usually do, it’s because I have Lego block. I can’t really think of what I want to build right now so I’m hoping that by playing other things, it will give me a new idea of something to build.”
Lego block. Pardon the pun, but my son has Lego block. Like writing, the act of building a rocket ship or army tank or fighter jet is a creative process which encounters an occasional bout of gridlock.  And like writers who cook or clean or read or recite a poem or take a walk to help clear away the congestion interfering with the creative process, my son recognized that he, too, needed to do something to release him from the claw of “Lego block.” He knew that playing with other toys and trying out different games would help stimulate his creativity and help him find the inspiration he needs to create a new masterpiece.  But what’s more, like a tortured artist committed to his craft, he was so guilt ridden about turning his attention away from his work that he felt the need to justify his behavior. 
The gratification of creating a masterpiece can be exhilarating, but it can also be frustrating and that frustration can be paralyzing.  The feeling caused by not knowing what to create next or how to move a piece forward is the source of great angst.  And that angst is a feeling shared by all artists.  Anybody who has ever created anything knows it.  The trick is knowing what to do when it happens.  Do you sit there until the beads of sweat turn to blood or do you take a break and do something productive until the mental rotary in your brain releases you onto an open highway of creativity?  If you have writer’s block or painter’s block or Lego block, take a break and remember, short departures from our work require no justification.