Thursday, March 15, 2012
Reading Reflections
Take some time to reread what you have read in our text through chapter 8. Choose a line and write to that line to reflect on your thinking as a teacher of writing. What shifts are you starting to see in terms of your teaching? They can be very small or very large. What facilitated this change in your thinking?
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"...the teacher may be the only adult the student has ever seen reading." (pg. 71) Since January, I have required students to complete 10 minutes of Silent Reading at the start of each class, and I have held to that mandate pretty strongly for most classes. I, too, have taken to reading with them and find that when I sit to read, the students, especially the reticent ones, see the value and take it more seriously. I book talk or "magazine article talk" regularly also, and I am pleased to see that each book that I have shared with my classes is no longer sitting on my bookshelf or marker tray. The kids are taking my recommendations to heart and ARE READING! I love to hear them talk about finishing a book, ask for recommendations from a peer, or compare notes as to how many pages have been read. It really has become infectious, and even my non-readers are starting to buy in. It's pretty cool.
ReplyDelete“I tell my students to be kleptomaniacs and steal any good ideas they hear other writers share that remind them of their own stories.” (pg. 108) I found Penny’s choice of words here interesting, as I’ve told students similar things, but never used those exact words. Many of the students I work with have one consistent complaint, “I don’t know what to write to write about.” Using the ideas of others as a creative springboard, keeps my students from sitting and doing nothing during our writing time. It allows them the freedom from relying solely on their own ideas, and gives them the license to base the foundation of their idea on an idea someone else may have initially had. I try to tell them that everyone encounters difficulty in coming up with topics to write about... even just remembering past experiences can be challenging sometimes. But when one person shares an idea, many memories, experiences, and ideas can be sparked!
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that I love about this book is seeing all of the examples of charts, posters, unit plans, storyboards, etc. that Penny does with her students. For example, I loved the “Rick Reilly: Study the Moves of One Writer” poster/white board display that she created for her classes (pg 84). I have used the mentor texts model strategy, but I had never thought of picking one writer and studying his/her style through a number of texts and creating a display of that writer’s “moves.” But we know that students learn writing, in part, by imitating what they see other writers do, so this makes perfect sense—and is a good way to recap class discussions for those who are absent.
ReplyDeleteI have used the storyboarding technique after going to the Penny Kittle conference at UNH, but it is one that I sometimes forget that I have in my arsenal, and I have never used this strategy to help kids plan a Journalism article, which I will be doing for the first time in class tomorrow. However, since my students will be coming to class with all of their interviews done, ready to begin writing an in depth article, I am hoping that it will be a good way to help them flesh out scenes with detail (something this group struggles with), group particular scenes together, and organize the structure of their article. The one problem I have is in the modeling, because I have not gone through the “writing beside them stage” in that I have done no interviewing for an in depth article that I might write. However, I picked a topic—the improved culture in our school—and can use lots of scene/story-based evidence to model the storyboarding technique, so that they can at least see what I could use and do if I were to write a story. I am also going to use the storyboard technique to kick start the definition/argument essays that the AP kids will be doing post-Outliers. Given the nature of this assignment, I think they will have an easier time fleshing out ideas this way. I also love her rationale for storyboarding: “With pages of drafting, students can be reluctant to cut lines. With a storyboard, changes are easy” (117). I think it might relieve some of that “perfectionist” pressure that some kids had—or the tendency to get locked in on one way to approach something.
Given my preference for glimpsing Penny Kittle’s lessons, I loved the two week unit on argument on pages 138-139. It is detailed enough to give me an idea of what she is doing during those two weeks, without being an onerous, cumbersome lesson planning tool. In part, I feel like I am – as Jen commented already – in her words, being a “kleptomaniac” and am stealing her ideas. I really, really, really want to get a look at all of her unit plans—mostly to see what she uses for mentor texts. This is one area where I struggle. In trying to make this shift in my teaching—using smaller mentor texts to study what writers do, and to book talk plenty of literature that I think my students will love—it puts a tremendous amount of stress on me as a teacher/reader. Not only am I expected to plan lessons, assign writing, grade, communicate with parents, serve on countless committees, and then go home, be a parent, try to exercise and sleep—but I also must find time (more than I ever have before) to be reading voraciously. On a typical week, I go through a book (depending on its size). However, sometimes what I am interested in reading and what piques my students’ interest is very different. And because there is so much new teen fiction out there, and because I want my kids reading it, I feel like I should be reading two or three times as fast as I am—and that’s just not possible. I also feel the pressure of trying to discover appropriate mentor texts for the writing units that we do. I would love to peek at Penny’s plan book for that information alone, particularly for help with Journalism. There are many wonderful editorial writers out there, but when it comes to other types of writing, this is where it becomes difficult for me to find those mentor texts. I actually went on to www.pennykittle.net to see what information she had posted there, and I did find a number of mentor texts, but I would love to see still more.
ReplyDeleteThe line I chose to focus on is from Chapter 7: The secret is to be willing to flail around together through the murky mystery of how to get to the heart of story.
ReplyDeleteTeaching students to write can be a messy and inexact science. In this respect it is less of a science than an art. Penny Kittle emphasizes the need to be flexible and to be able to make decisions in class about what is working and what needs to be changed. Sometimes even the best plans don’t work and a teacher has to figure things out on the fly.
I’m used to books about teaching in which the author has all the answers – “Do this, then do this, and, ‘Voila!’ miracles happen.” To me, such books and their authors lack credibility as teaching is never that simple.
I like the way she used different approaches to different students; however I question how well that would work if she had several classes of 25 students. The logistics of it and the energy necessary might be overwhelming.
The chapter is also about the challenge of “getting to the heart of story.” I take this to mean recognizing and developing theme. Theme is a difficult concept for my students; most can’t get beyond a brief and superficial “moral of the story” when identifying theme in literature. I struggle with teaching theme and would like to learn how to do it better.
I have been doing journaling with the students all year and I’ve been impressed by the extent that they have been participating. A month ago I introduced SSR. The students have a choice for the first ten to fifteen minutes of class – SSR, journal writing, or both. They really like having the choice. Most choose to do one or the other; few choose to split their time.
I think that the use of story boards is a great idea for our students. Have used them in the past, and am looking forward to revisiting them this semester.
ReplyDelete3/19/12
ReplyDeleteI loved the storybook video! The way Penny used questioning to get the student author to think about his storybook board; i.e., at what age he was while doing the activities. The class themselves gave him a myriad of directions he could turn to with his writing. I was very impressed by the student participation. They gave him numerous ideas of what to write and their own takes on how to go about the writing piece. I can respect the work that Penny has put into her class. It really looked like these students put the same amount of time into their work as well. However, we know, as Penny honestly stated that there are days when work just does not get completed. My co-teacher and I have discussed using the storyboard method to get our students writing more.
PS I liked the idea Sara had with her use of the storyboard.
3/19/12
ReplyDeletePenny stated, “Adolescent resistance is more powerful than I am.” (Kittle, p.87) Boy, when I read that, I had to stop and reflect even before I realized what the blog assignment would be. She admitted despite how well a teacher knows her pedagogy, there still will be students who are resistant to writing. Technologies today are so much more interesting: X-box, Kinect, Wii, etc. Why use a pencil and paper or even a computer to write down your thoughts? How exciting is it to do that, instead of simulated bowling or killing enemy snipers? I meet with resistance way too much these days. Back in my high school days would we ever think about saying no to a teacher? We might as well not go home because the punishment for being disrespectful would be far worse than just doing what you were asked. We cannot give up on our students because we have promised to do a job and where will these adolescents be in years to come? We need to listen, give them time, structure, nurturing, caring, and a sense of direction and even with that there is still resistance.
When discussing the benefits SSR, one of Penny's students said, "...Until Mrs. Kittle's class I honestly think I had not read a whole book on my own since junior high" (73).
ReplyDeleteI was such an avid reader as a child (even more than I am now, if that's even possible), that it had not occurred to me that students didn't read the books assigned in school until I got to college. I appreciate the frankness of Kittle's students...and it got me truly thinking about reading in general, bringing me back to the workshop we attended with her nearly two years ago. It all comes back to the video clip of students holding signs: on one side was the number of books they had read before, and on the other was the number of books they read in just one semester of her class. At the time, it was amazing to me to see that shift; before then I could never guess those numbers. Now that I have (as many others in the department) required outside reading and offered so much time for it in class, I can see the students gravitating toward books and being excited to read them! Recently, we began to receive the grant-funded classroom library titles. Every single student wanted to go through every book, drinking in every back cover description, flipping through the fresh pages. Already they want to borrow them - to take them beyond the quick time for reading every class. It's exciting. Yet, not surprising, considering what we had learned.
The benefits of the choice have also already affected their required reading. This year students read The Great Gatsby and for the first time, almost every single kid read it cover to cover. I was reminded of their faithfulness to the reading when I showed them the new preview to the film; all of them exclaimed in joy at the beautiful interpretation and were upset at having to wait until Christmas to see it. They recognized tiny references and lamented the lack of the bigger ones. It was an exciting moment - to feel their energy over a book about which they felt so passionately...
I liked this quote because it inspired me to inspire my students.
"When Class begins, I want every minute to matter" (Kittle, 29). I have been thinking that for years, but it is different when Penny writes it because she does such a wonderful job finding time for everything that matters. I will draw an allusion to theatre. When people first rehearse a play, it may take them 8 hours to run through the whole show. A few weeks before the curtain goes up, the running time is still probably too long. The tendency for new actors when the director complains about time is to speak faster which actually makes the show longer because people miss their cues. What needs to happen is everyone in the production needs to pay more attention to their lines and cues so everything comes together smoothly.
ReplyDeleteI have refined my style a lot over the year discovering ways to bring the student's background into our novels, and the novels to the students. I am shifting my focus in my units from what do I need to teach to what have they learned and how do I get them to the next step. This quote from way back in chapter 5 shows how penny does it with her quick writes. I have done that too, and will continue. The quickwrites give me a unique opportunity to make our material relevant to the students on an individualized level. Because of this, they help me keep things running smooth.