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We're Going on a Field Trip!!

1/31/2016

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." Henry David Thoreau.

Thoreau spoke so eloquently of the need to see the world deliberately. As writers, we are reminded to walk purposefully in the world, being mindful of what we see so that we can bring truth to the stories of our lives. That's some serious stuff!! How do we ask kindergartners to do this serious work in a fun way??

We go on a field trip! :) And we make a picture book about what we see on our walk! :)

We are going to head out the classroom door early next week and do some field research for our kindergarten pattern books. Here's what we've done so far in this unit of study:

   * Learned about sentences, words, capital letters, and end punctuation.

   * Introduced our mentor text, I Went Walking, by Sue Williams.

   * Used our journals to do prewriting work - brainstormed things we might
   see if we went walking.

   * Learned about descriptive words (adjectives) and read Brown Bear, Brown
   Bear, by Bill Martin, Jr.

So, next up we are going to take a walk. We will bring our little notebooks and a pencil and jot down the words or draw a picture of some things that we see as we walk.

I made these little "writer's notebooks" for the kindergarten writers last fall. You may make something similar or just bring any kind of paper on which the writers can record what they see as they walk.

What I love about this idea is how it makes the same process used by more experienced and older writers accessible to these young writers. As I have mentioned before, I taught upper elementary students for more than 10 years, and for writing I used the Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grades 3-5 authored by Lucy Calkins et al, out of Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Columbia University. One of the hallmarks of that instructional model is the use of writers' notebooks, wherein students record seed ideas, stories from their lives. The writer's notebook becomes an entire garden of ideas, and the students choose the ones that they will fully develop into writing pieces outside of the notebooks.

In our small way, we are going to do that with our kindergarten writers. I found a great book, The Front Hall Carpet, by Nicholas Heller (1990, Greenwillow Books) about a young girl who walks through her home, turning what she sees on the floors into opportunities for adventures. I want the students to think about paying close attention to the things they see on their walk, so we will use the illustrations in this book to practice noticing and sketching what the main character sees as she moves through her house.

After some practice, we will take our notebooks and head out the door. As I am writing this lesson, I'm beginning to think it may take two days to complete. Perhaps we will read the book and practice noticing and sketching on day one, and then actually take our walk and do our notebook sketching on day two.

Here is the lesson I will use:

Kindergarten Pattern Book
Lesson 5 - Collecting Ideas
(This may be a two day lesson)

Unit Objective   To begin encouraging students to write sentences to go along with their illustrations, using capital letters, phonetic spelling for words not on the word wall, and end punctuation.

Lesson Objective   To show students that writers collect ideas for their stories and record those ideas so that they don’t forget them.

Materials   The Front Hall Carpet, Nicholas Heller
Writer’s Notebooks
Pencils

Connect   Bring out one of your own writer’s notebooks, preferably a very small one
just like the students will be using. Remind them of the walk around the building that they took last fall. Show them the pictures you drew from that day in your notebook (a leaf, a bird because we saw hawks flying above the trees, and a tree with all yellow leaves). Tell them that this notebook is a place you could go to write a story about that day because you’ve put notes in there to remind you of what happened on your walk.

Teach       Tell the students that today they are going to take another walk to get ideas for their pattern book. But first, you want to read them a story about a girl who takes a walk through her home and lets her imagination turn all that she sees on her walk into exciting adventures. Read The Front Hall Carpet, by Nicholas Heller.

Active Engagement   Ask the students what the girl in the story saw on her walk through her home. Hold the pages of the book open, turning them so the students can pick out things that the girl saw on her walk. Pick one and ask them to think about what she could have drawn in her writer’s notebook to remind her later of what she saw. Model how to draw their suggestions in your writer’s notebook. Have the students practice this several times, using partners for support, until they seem comfortable with the idea of quicksketching the things they see on their walk. Tell them they may, of course, also write words for what they see to go along with their sketches.

Take a walk!! You may choose to stay indoors, travel outdoors, or do both. Remember, the idea is for the students to capture as many reminders of what they see on their walk as possible in their notebooks. In the next lesson, they will use the notebook sketches to choose two or more ideas for their pattern book.

Share       After the walk, come back together and ask students to share some of what they saw on their walks.

Link       Celebrate the sketches students made in their writer’s notebooks and remind them that these notebooks now hold ideas for future stories the students may one day write.

Assessment       Make anecdotal observations on a spreadsheet of students’ progress in their writer’s notebooks. Be prepared to support students who struggled to capture images or words in their notebooks so that they have ideas to work with when they begin to make their picture book.

Resources

Heller, N. (1990). The Front Hall Carpet. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books.

************************************************************************************

Our outside air temperatures here are supposed to be in the 50's and 60's through midweek. That sounds perfect for an outdoors field trip! We will be like Thoreau and not only look at the world, but see it!! We will record what we see and then we will write about it!

Woohoo! It's going to be a great writing week!!

#allkidscanwrite

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Seeing the Forest from the Trees...

1/28/2016

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Sometimes it pays to just take a step back and use a wide lens to reflect on what you are doing or where you are going in life. We get so caught up in the moment, so involved in figuring out the steps we take to move through our days, that we forget to plan those steps in the context of the whole journey.

You can get lost that way.

I have been using these snow days to work on my first grade Graphic Narrative Unit of Study and, well, you might be able to discern my mindset as I sit amidst the planning. It has gradually occurred to me that I may be making something that goes far beyond what 6 and 7 year olds can (or should?) be doing with writing.

But, you know me....then I hear my writing teacher's inner voice remind me that our youngest writers are capable of so much, and that it is our job to place opportunities to create with words and pictures in front of them. The writers themselves will determine how far they can go with those opportunities.

It's the word "should" in the above sentence that has me sitting back and using a wider lens as I plan this unit. My original plan called for students to sketch and write 4 stories about times in their lives where they changed something using positive actions. Those stories have been written over a 4 month period - one lesson per month. Three are done. We will be writing the last one next week. Later next month, the big unit of study, the plan on which I am working right now, is to take all 4 of those stories and combine them into one graphic narrative chapter book.

...graphic narrative chapter book...

...first grade...

The thing is, I am doing the work I will expect of the first graders as I write the lessons. I have my four stories sketched out in my sketchbook. I have created a scope and sequence for the unit of study, 8 lessons over a 3 -4 week period. After two days of immersion to familiarize them in the genre as both readers and writers, the students will begin working on Chapter One.

I got started.

It was not so easy. Of course, I am a perfectionist in terms of decision-making. I had to really think hard and plan out my ideas as I translated my written story into primarily pictures with speech bubbles. Below is my chapter one draft.

But it was also lots of fun! And creative! And it was drawing! And it will soon be coloring!!

Drawing characters and showing movement in pencil is clearly not my forte. But my hope is that when students see that my sketches are simple, they will see that "just do your best" is an access point to making this work. We can all do this!

I guess my real dilemma right now is seeing beyond the trees to the forest. I firmly believe that our first grade writers can, will, and should create a graphic narrative from stories they have already collected. But should it be all 4 chapters? How much is too much? Should I let them choose their favorite story of the four and create one beautiful graphic narrative picture book?

I want this unit of study to be a creative and exciting expression of our writers' experiences. I want it to be fun. I want first grade writers to holler with enthusiasm when I walk in the room because they just can't wait to get started.

How much is too much?

I think my writing teacher's heart is beginning to see the answer. I will continue to write the lessons of this unit (which, by the way, could easily be modified to be used in any elementary classroom) and talk to my colleagues.

I know that #allkidscanwrite.

But, just as important, I want to be sure that #allkidslovetowrite.

Have a great writing week!

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Kindergarten Writers Are Like Snowstorms!

1/24/2016

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We don't usually get really big snowstorms where I live. I grew up in the north, New Jersey and Massachusetts, where we got lots of snow nearly every year. But down here in the south...well, big snow totals are a rarity!

Um, not so much this weekend!!

I'm pretty sure all of you who are reading this probably lived through the same storm. Wasn't it spectacular? Much of the day yesterday, I felt like the storm was out of control. Heavy-handed with bursts of snow. Random gusts of wind that made no sense and were inconsistent. Strong on one day, then kind of voiceless for a while overnight, before charging forward again with even more energy the next day.

It was easy to feel powerless under the weight of those millions of flakes. They were falling so fast, it was difficult to manage. But, if you went out every hour or so and kept a small path clear so your dog could go out or you could get to your car, you felt a little better. The storm could be managed, in small pieces. And that was enough.

(You know where I'm going with this, right?)

Last week in kindergarten, we spent some time completing our quarterly writing assessment prior to the end of this semester. After that, we went back to our pattern book unit of study. Remember that the week before, we introduced our mentor text, I Went Walking, by Sue Williams. We had asked the students to do some pre-writing work in their journals before beginning the picture book. On Thursday, we gave the students a piece of paper with large handwriting lines on the bottom and drawing space at the top. We asked them to draft a page using the pattern, "I went walking.", and then write what they saw and draw the accompanying illustration.

With the snow storm predicted and school already closed for Friday before we even left school on Thursday, I dashed to the kindergarten room and grabbed journals and the drafts the writers had worked on that day. I knew I would have plenty of opportunity to spend time with this work over the weekend.

I decided to start with the journals. I'll be honest, as I opened journal after journal and saw the students' attempts...I was a little broken. Even our stronger writers seemed to struggle. There were many journals that had no legible words or sentences. No hints of our pattern sentence, either in pictures or words. My heart dropped and I felt a little panicky. Was I expecting too much from kindergarten writers? Had I done them a disservice by setting them loose in their journals to complete an assignment with limited teacher oversight? Was I losing precious instructional time with young writers who needed more structure to make progress with standards and curriculum??

And then I pulled out their draft pages.

And I couldn't believe my eyes.

They were beautiful! Most of the pieces were neat, legible, with spaces between words, and capital letters, and illustrations that matched text!!! Many had correct punctuation. These were the skills we taught! These were the mechanics of writing that we wanted our writers to concentrate on so that their readers could understand their stories!

What!?!

I could even see where many of the students had used an idea from their journals in the page they drafted for their books. See a few examples below. I am including examples from students who have struggled mightily to get any message on the page so far this year as well as work from stronger students who you can see were not as clear in their journals.

You can see that in his draft, this student has written in complete sentences and used capital letters and punctuation correctly! Yippee!!

When I looked in this writer's journal, I couldn't find any evidence of this assignment. But look at his draft!!! He writes neatly and in complete sentences with spaces between words!

You can see how much work this student did in his journal; however, it is hard to read and does not make sense. He is one of our strongest writers, which is evident in his draft!

This final example shows how this writer took his idea straight from the pre-writing he did in his journal to make his draft. That's what writers do!

My takeaway from this week's work is the reassurance that giving kindergarten students time to work independently in their journals has value. I believe journal writing at this stage needs to be guided if you are moving towards a writing assignment. But this experience has taught me that using the journals like writers' notebooks, in which students record seed ideas and jot down their prewriting thinking, works even with our youngest writers!

And, just like that snowstorm, much of the journal writing will be out of our control! That is as it should be. If the writers are writing, just a little bit of management will be enough. We had to be patient in the storm; we were content to keep a little path clear. We knew that the energy from the storm was not directed by us.

I think working with kindergarten writers feels a lot like that!

Be patient. Sit side by side and notice what they're doing. But understand that the writer is in control. Not the teacher. When their invented spelling seems heavy handed, and their bursts of ideas seem random and inconsistent, and even when they are voiceless, be small in your attempts to fix or direct. It will be enough.

Have a great writing week!

#allkidscanwrite

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Believing is Seeing...

1/17/2016

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"Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right." - Henry Ford

With these words, Mr. Henry Ford captured the importance of attitude and it's impact on our successes, and, unfortunately, our failures. You know me well enough by now to know that I teach from the absolute certain belief that "they", our student writers, can do anything and everything we ask of them. So, every time I plan a lesson or a unit, I believe "they can do this"! I believe that if you can adopt this mindset in your own practice, you will see immediate changes in the attitudes of your students. Believing in is contagious and self-fulfilling. :)

So, this week we started a new unit in kindergarten. The classroom teacher and I met and talked about what her kindergarten writers needed to be working on as we approach the end of the first semester. So far, we have completed three units of study - Launching the Writing Workshop, Author Study (Eric Carle), and Kindergarten ABC Book. After the intense attention we paid to letter and word writing in the ABC Book unit, she decided that the students needed to move on to writing sentences.

I researched our required standards and began looking for a mentor text. My search focused on finding a text that was accessible, a story line that the students could emulate because the context of the story exists in their world. I found I Went Walking, by Sue Williams, illustrated by Julie Vivas (1989, New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin). It is a very simple pattern book in the same easy was as Bill Martin, Jr.'s Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (1996, Henry Holt and Co. (BYR); Brdbk edition). In fact, we will be using that book as a companion exemplar text in this unit.

I am so thankful for my collaborating kindergarten teacher and her expertise as we move through this year. She intuitively knows what skills her students need and at what point in our curriculum we should target them. If I haven't said it lately, teaching kindergarten writers is an instructional experience like no other!! Writing instruction is spiral in nature. Just as the writing process is recursive, so is the instructional scope of lesson planning. But in kindergarten, there is another layer. It is like the part of building a home where you just stare at the land and imagine what you can create there. It requires vision because, initially, it is a blank landscape. Full of potential, but as yet unmarked. Thank goodness I have the benefit of a seasoned colleague. She understands what these young writers need to master, she can already see the "house on the land". Together, we are laying down the foundation.

So, back to our unit. After we introduced our mentor text and talked about telling a story using words and sentences, we spent some time looking at both grammatical pieces. The teacher led the students in identifying sentences by capital letters and end punctuation. She had them count words; they noticed the spaces between words; they talked about the difference between letters and words. It was very thorough and methodical. And exactly what the students needed before even beginning to compose their ideas.

Kindergarten Pattern Book
Lesson 1 - Introducing the Mentor Text

Objective   The objective of this unit is to begin encouraging students to write sentences to go along with their illustrations, using capital letters, phonetic spelling for words not on the word wall, and end punctuation.

Materials   I Went Walking, Sue Williams, illus. Julie Vivas
        Chart paper
        Markers

Connect   Tell students that writers who want to tell a story put their ideas into sentences so that readers can understand what the writer is trying to say. And, unlike their last book, the Kindergarten ABC book, this new writing work will be about putting words together to make those sentences.

Teach       Introduce the mentor text for this unit. I am using I Went Walking, written by Sue Williams and illustrated by Julie Vivas as our touchstone text. Choose a book that is simple enough for the kindergarten writers to be able to use as a model. Read the book and highlight the sentences the author uses.

Write the first sentence on the board. Tell the students that there are three words in the sentence. (or however many are in the text you choose to use)
Point out that the first word has an uppercase letter.
Point out that there is a period at the end of the sentence.
Point out the spaces between the words.

To review, ask the students how many words are in the sentence. (3) Ask them how many letters are in the sentence. Choose a student to count along with you. (12)

Write the second sentence on the board. Ask the students how many words are in the sentence. (4) Count them together as you point to each word.
Ask the students what kind of letter begins the first word. (uppercase W)
Ask the students what is at the very end of the sentence. (question mark - end mark)
Point out the spaces between the words.

Repeat with the last sentence.

That is the pattern of this book. It is repeated until the end of the story, when the pattern changes.

Active Engagement   Go over the sentences on the board a few more times, each time asking students to tell you the number of words, letters, sentences, end marks, etc. Talk about how each sentence is a complete idea - there is a subject (who) and something happens or a question is asked or an answer is told (what).

Link   Tell students that the author, Sue Williams, was so careful to tell her story in complete sentences so that they, the readers, would understand what she was trying to tell them. Remind them that all writers do that work - telling things in complete sentences that include three or more words, have uppercase letters at the beginning, and have punctuation marks at the end.

Share       There was no share portion of this lesson as it was mainly instructional to make sure that the students understood the mechanics of sentence-writing.

Assessment       There was no formal or informal assessment of this lesson.

Resources
Williams, S. (1989). I Went Walking. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin

Each day we reviewed letters, words, spaces, and sentences with the students. And by the second day, we asked them to begin to think about their own stories in their journals. We ended the week with a lesson on describing words using the text, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? I hope next time to share more of those lessons with you and to have some pictures of our student writers' work!

Until then, remember that writing instruction and writing itself are like anything else in life. Attitude counts for so much. And believing - in yourself, in your students, in your teaching - will transform your classroom.

Have a great writing week!

#allkidscanwrite

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Running a little late...

1/11/2016

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...Sorry. I've been running a little late! Well, actually, I've been running! At Disney. Took a little time to check an item off of my bucket list. Running a half marathon at Disney World.

If you've read any of my posts on the main page, you know that I find running to be such an analogy for writing and teaching writing. Let me explain.

Running distances is hard. For me, very hard. I am not fast, nor does running come easily. But, for some crazy reason, I absolutely love to run. Even my most challenging, least successful runs provide me with the physical and mental satisfaction of a job well done. And, even more importantly, I consider myself a runner. I have the mental image of myself as someone who runs. Not walks. Not even jogs. But runs.

Let me say it again. I am not fast. Many of my runs are difficult. I sometimes feel like giving up.

But I don't give up.

I lace up my shoes 3-4 times a week and go out there. I send my thoughts out ahead of me and chase them down the trail. And every once in a while, magic happens. The run is easy. I feel fast and free. My breath comes naturally. And I feel like I'm flying. That is why I keep trying. Runners don't give up.

In my opinion, it is all about the effort. The steps forward. Literally. They may be small and seem insignificant in the moment. But at the end of the road, say 13.1 miles of road, all of those difficult small steps add up to something big. Something accomplished. Something significant.

I have this analogy in my heart every single day that I work with students in writing. From the youngest kindergartners to the fifth graders getting close to middle school, my teaching focuses on building their ability to think like writers, even when the work is so hard and seems so insignificant. Writing is so layered, there are so many parts to the process. Student authors may struggle with some or all of the pieces of writing. But despite the struggle, I want every student to consider himself or herself a writer.

Our job as writing instructors is to coach them through the struggles. To celebrate the baby steps they make on a daily basis and remind them that there is a finish line up ahead. And on those days when the writing is easy for them, when the writing is fast and free, when the thoughts come naturally, and they feel like they're flying...CELEBRATE!! Give them a fist bump! Share their pride!

Remind those writers, there will be good writing days and hard writing days.

But, writers don't give up. #allkidscanwrite

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One Word...

1/3/2016

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Happy New Year!! Some of the words that I would cheerfully use to describe the new year are clean, fresh, unwritten, renew, promising... I could go on. My choice of those words would tell you something about me. If I were to use them in sentences, you would be able to "hear" my voice, my personality, my attitude - just by reading the words I decided to place on the page.

Here's an interesting story. My two colleagues who attended the Joan Oates Institute with me last summer and I had the idea to ask each faculty and staff member at our school to think of one word that expressed whatever inspired, motivated, or moved them - either professionally or personally. We wanted to turn our collective attention away from test scores and toward the arts and creative expression of self. We gathered all of the words our colleagues submitted and had a team shirt made using Wordle to include everyone's inspiration.

Um...

Have you seen any of the press surrounding the "One Word" movement? Unbeknownst to us, it's already a "thing", and has been for awhile. Where have I been? Under a rock??

Come to find out that there is a whole movement surrounding one word. I saw something about it on the Today Show. There is an artist who makes bracelets with people's words, including for some pretty famous personalities! Just google that phrase and you will see what I mean. I have also been asked on Facebook to provide the one word that will define 2016 for me.

Not surprisingly, I chose the word Voice, for both our team shirt and as a response to my Facebook friend's request.

Voice.

When we are writing, our readers hear our voice through the layers of decisions we make as we write - the words, sentence structures, punctuation choices, and our purposeful placement of ideas on the page. Really, not one of those things by itself completely captures a writer's voice. Rather, it is the way that the writer arranges all of those things on the page that expresses his or her self to the reader. I believe it is the single most important aspect of communication between writer and reader.

So, as I am trying to assess our first grade writers' seasons books, I am getting somewhat frustrated. Using a standards-based grading system is as new for me as 2016! This is the first time I am scoring student work using only the state standards as targeted skill scoring points. And, in some ways, that's fine. I mean, for example, we do need to know through assessment of written work whether a student can move a project through the writing process (generate ideas, brainstorm pre-write, draft, organize, revise, edit, publish), which is a large part of this first grade state standard. But, as I am using those standards to figure out how our writers are developing as communicators, something is missing. Something BIG.

Voice. Or rather, a place on the rubric that celebrates strong voice, or reports a need to go back and help that student find, define, and use his or her writer's voice. Or anything in between.

Let me give you an example. Below is one of our writers' books. While I can give her credit for her outstanding word choice on standard 1.13c, "Revise their written pieces by adding descriptive words (adjectives) when writing about people, places, things, and events", how do I score her significantly overall strong voice using the standards language targets -use previous experience, participate in teacher-directed brainstorming, write informative texts, provide facts, state an opinion, add descriptive words, focus on the topic, use complete sentences?

Christmas is my favorite holiday. It's because Santa brings toys, plushies, everything! Santa is a jolly man.

Hi, I'm Winter. I'm one of the coldest seasons. I'm a cold cloud and I cry little ice tears. When I come in the sun moves away from me. I am Winter.

You can build a snowman. You can have hot chocolate. Make sure you wear heavy clothes.

Snow is 1,000,000 little ice crystals. Winter is the coldest season. Animals hibernate in the winter. Winter is fun.

Voice.

This writer is so expressive, and she is clearly artistically driven to communicate to her reader all that she knows to be true about winter. How does our standards based scoring system capture her magnificent voice?

It doesn't. And herein lies the truth for us writing teachers. There is a place and a need for scoring students using standards. But, we must remember that the thinking piece of being a writer - all the decisions I mentioned above - those inherent habits of mind that define the act of communication that happens between the writer and reader - they exist beyond the language of state standards. And that thinking and deciding and presenting of ideas is what makes a writer a writer.

Look for it. Dig for it. Do a happy dance when you find it. A writer's voice is the heartbeat of any writing.

Read our young writer's story again. I hear it. You hear it.

Voice. She owns it!!!

We better believe it.

#allkidscanwrite

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We're Going on a Field Trip!!

Seeing the Forest from the Trees...

Kindergarten Writers Are Like Snowstorms!

Believing is Seeing...

Running a little late...

One Word...

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