Creating Lifelong Learners

Green is good.  Red is bad.

Here’s what they taught me in “coaching college” about how to read data.

Reading vertically indicates the teacher’s problem.  Reading horizontally indicates a student’s problem.

So, Harpo needs some additional help in all language arts areas.  However, in the vocabulary category, it appears that the teacher needs to examine his/her own instruction as its not succeeding for most of the students.  There’s all kinds of reasons why the teacher could say the students aren’t succeeding and there is validity to all of them…no help at home, trouble learning the language, poorly designed tests, a bad day in class.  This class in particular I hear is a bunch of class clowns.  However, the fact remains that the teacher’s vocabulary instruction with this group of students is not working and if he/she wants better results he/she must try something different.

My blogging output has certainly suffered as I’ve been finishing up my last semester of graduate school. I’ll be all done December 5th when I take the comprehensive exam to receive a masters degree in Education Policy and a California Administrative Credential.

I thought I might combine my blogging and my graduate work by sharing one of my final research papers, an article on blogging’s role in the school community. I make the case for blogging on three fronts:

• Home-school communication

Schools are increasingly aware that they need to have a web site to have a public presence on the web. However, the majority of school web sites in a district like Los Angeles Unified are static pages set up by volunteers, experts, and other school outsiders. Often these sites sit without updates for years when teachers and administrators find themselves too busy or too intimidated to update the pages that they did not create themselves. Posting to a blog, however, is as simple as sending an e-mail.

Even in low income schools where many students do not have computers at home, many parents do have access to e-mail via cell phones. If parents subscribe to a blog by e-mail they can easily receive reliable updates and teachers can easily send valuable information as they find it.

• Student achievement

Blogs in the classroom can replace paper and pencil journal writing, showcase student work, collect student research on a particular topic, or be the format for creative writing. Aside from the novelty of working on a computer, the main advantage of blogging as a writing activity is that online writing has an audience whereas most classroom assignments normally begin and end with the classroom walls and the teacher as the only reader.

• Professional Development

Professional development often consists of one hour scattershot presentations with little follow-through and even less teacher input. By providing time for teachers to participate in blog reading or writing as professional development, administrators can support self-reflective practice and differentiated instruction tailored to teacher’s needs.

I also address practical concerns like pedagogy, lack of equipment and financing, and student safety.
You can download the entire paper here which includes my references.

Kevin Hodgson lays out what he considers to be an ideal language arts curriculum.  Please read the entire post.  However, the tenets he puts forth are:

Writing to Learn

Including listening and speaking (as well as reading and writing)

A “Stakes Approach” (Moving from low-stakes like journal writing to high stakes like publishing and performance)

Writing Across the Curriculum

And including technology and multi-media

When teaching writing it’s important to show students how to do it and show them good examples of that genre of writing.

Our fifth graders recently had to write a multi-paragraph essay on whether or not to support the Revolutionary War from the point of view of the colonists.

To write this prompt well one needs:

• content knowlege of the American Revolution
• knowledge of the genre of persuasion
• writing vocabulary (e.g. drafting, revising, and conventions)

As this writing comes at the culmination of a unit on the revolution, the content knowledge can be built through the story selections.  However, even if students learn everything you want them to about the War and its causes, they will not learn how to write persuasively by osmosis.

Rather than focus on everything at once, we chose to focus on teaching students to write persuasively.

Here’s a list of examples of persuasive writing to examine with students (found via Twitter):

• Ahlberg, Janet, and Allan Ahlberg. 1999. The Jolly Pocket Postman
• Caseley, Judith. Dear Annie
• Cronin, Doreen. Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type
• James, Simon. Dear Mr. Blueberry
• Orloff, Karen Kaufman. I Wanna Iguana
• Pak, Soyung. Dear Juno
• Rylant, Cynthia. Gooseberry Park
• Stewart, Sarah. The Gardener

Update:  Here are a few others…I Wanna Iguana, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, The Great Kapok Tree, My Brother Dave Is Delicious.

Background

L.A. Youth is a teen newspaper that goes out for free to all the high schools and middle schools in the Los Angeles area.  It was founded to counteract censorship in high school newspapers and includes articles from teens all across L.A. including students in foster care and others who find a positive outlet for their creativity by writing for the paper.  With a circulation of approximately 500,000, it is the largest newspaper by and for teens.

It’s Personal

When I was in the ninth grade (17 years ago) I went to a free three day workshop at L.A. Youth to train you to write for their newspaper.  I got to visit the L.A. Times and experience what it was like to be a reporter.

I remember scoring an interview with a retired teacher who had been involved in the creation of an innovative high school newspaper that had been censored by the administration at the school and become the subject of lawsuits.  It was quite a coup when I called the school and they just gave me the retired guy’s home phone number.  It was a rare rainy night in L.A. when I my mom dropped me off to meet this old hippie at Canter’s Deli on Fairfax and record his thoughts on what had happened many years prior.  If you remember Hal Holbrook standing in shadows as Deep Throat in All the President’s Men, this guy looked just like that.  I remember that he bought me my hot chocolate, that I was really nervous and soaking wet.

Even though that was just a practice article that never got published, I remember that experience vividly, fondly, and with a sense of adventure.

I went on to write two articles for the newspaper…one about how I was annoying my family by turning off lights and shutting off the water while they were washing their hands in the name of being an environmentalist called “I Was A Teenage Mutant Earth Nut” (long before An Inconvenient Truth) and another about how to apply for financial aid.  The first article got picked up for their ten year retrospective and was reprinted in a book that L.A. Youth published of some of their interesting articles from the first ten years of the paper.

My article was mildly amusing (at least I think so) but other articles dealt with serious issues like teen sexuality, violence, coming to grips with your own culture, and the general malaise that goes along with being a teenager.  From the letters written to the paper you can tell that it’s made a difference in the lives of both readers and newspaper writers.

My time with the teen newspaper was brief but important in my personal and professional development.  I went on to become the editor of my high school yearbook and then revived our high school newspaper from the dead.  I wouldn’t have had the courage without L.A. Youth.  But my favorite moment of involvement with L.A. Youth came over a decade after I had left when a current student at my former high school was told to contact me to ask for my advice on how I had made our high school paper more relevant.  The girl had heard about me from one of the adult editors at L.A. Youth.

I forwarded the teen copies of the school paper I had created which included articles on the most reliable condoms to use and marijuana use (subjects I knew nothing about but figured were of interest to the rest of the student body) and pictures of Beavis and Butthead debating our school mascot.  I had become the Canter’s Deli hippie.

And now I write this blog.

My friend who drew the picture of me as an earth nut for the newspaper went on to design movie posters.  Working at the paper was a memorable and important part of my growth and development.  I can’t say it changed my life but I can say that my involvement was one of those experiences that played an important part in shaping who I am today.

Now the bad news

Surprise!  Newspapers are in trouble.  L.A. Youth which has been heavily subsidized by the L.A. Times for the past twenty years is being cut off by the larger paper and needs help to continue.  This part of the story has been written about more thoroughly in the LA Observed blog.

While all newspapers are figuring out how to keep themselves relevant and stay alive, L.A. Youth in particular needs support.  I was thinking that the paper could perhaps transition from a print copy to a blog but that would put the many disadvantage teenagers who read the paper and the majority of Americans who still don’t know what a blog is at a disadvantage.  That day isn’t here yet and it’s important that the print copy stays alive. L.A. Youth reaches out to those teens who need help and it gets teens those teens in the habit of reading the newspaper.

I’m going to make a small donation.  If you are able, please do the same and feel free to pass this along on your own blog.

Here are all the myths with visuals from my presentation at Western Avenue Elementary…

Myth #7: Where’s the beef?

I’ve written about this before as well. Focusing on structure before starting to write can lead to bland, generic paragraphs and reduce writing to formula instead of communication. Instead, I recommend just writing and then molding that writing into a structure through revising. By frontloading too much information in the beginning, some students will be overwhelmed and shut down. Let them get their ideas out first.

Myth #8: Revising and Proofreading are the same thing…and students can’t do either.

Many teachers are students are still confused about this. Revising is about ideas and not about mistakes. If there’s an error that impedes meaning then by all means take care of it in the revising but proofreading is the stage that is about conventions and making the writing correct. Students can do both independently with your guidance as long as you are modeling how to do it and not just lecturing about it (see Myth #1).

Myth #9: Students can’t follow prompts.

Students don’t need prompts but sometimes they will have to write to them. They can learn to follow directions if you teach them how to read them and figure out what’s being asked. However, following a prompt is almost a separate skill from writing. The good news is that if you teach students how to write well then learning to write to a prompt is easy. If you do too much at one time then it’s harder for students to learn anything.

Myth #10 We write because the teacher tells us to.

We sometimes do a good job of teaching students that we read for pleasure but we rarely teach students that writing is about authentic communication and that it is sometimes done because someone wants to do it. This is why some students (some of whom eventually become teachers) hate writing. Students need real reasons to write. Let them write a presentation, a letter, a blog and write something that they care to write about.

Myth #4: Drawing is for babies.

I wrote about this already. Drawing is a valid form of prewriting and writing (see cave paintings). By allowing students to transition from drawings to labels and then sentences, you make writing relevant. Bringing visuals into the writing process also sparks imagination and allows non-writers and English Language Learners to participate in the process

Myth #5 Good writers don’t change their minds.

I have several blog entries that have never seen the light of day. I have a box of unfinished scripts. And most of my finished pieces have gone through tons of different iterations before being published. However, in many classrooms, whatever students start writing on Monday, they must take through the entire writing process. By having a publishing deadlines and not requiring students to move at the same pace within that structure, changing your mind is part of the process. Students can go back to their brainstorming list at any time and choose another idea (again, as long as they publish by the deadline).

Myth #6 Stories need a (traditional) beginning, middle, and end.

We were all taught that stories need a beginning, middle, and end but teaching that students often leads to a laundry list type of writing. Take for example, a story about visiting Raging Waters.

I went to Raging Waters with my mom. We parked the car. We bought tickets. We ate a hot dog. We rode many rides. We had fun. We were tired. We went home. I played video games with my cousin. He slept over. The next day he went home.

What is this story about? There are several possible stories in this piece of writing and few details. How about focusing on a small moment instead. How about focusing on just one ride and really noticing sensory details of the experience.

I could smell sunscreen all around me and heard the sound of ladies screaming as they rode down the slide. There were butterflies in my stomach as I climbed the steps of The Terror waiting my turn to slide down the one thousand foot drop…

Sometimes you have to just start writing and find the structure within what you’re writing. As per Lucy Calkins, it’s easier to revise a smaller, focused piece of writing then a long string of ideas.

Before teaching a writing lesson, I introduce myself to students as a writer. I tell students that I like to write. I tell them I write outside of school just because I want to. (Insert audible gasps here).

Since I have a sense of myself as a writer in the “real world” it bothers me that the way we teach writing is often artificial and bares little resemblance to real writing. Here are my problems with writing instruction, spelled out with ten myths. This is a three part series.

Myth #1: Students can write without modeling.

Without showing students how you write, they have no guidance as to how it can be done. In order to do this, teachers must be writers themselves. You don’t have to be Shakespeare but you do have to allow yourself to be vulnerable and actually participate in the writing process in front of or along with your students. If students don’t see you writing, it’s hard to believe that real people write.

Myth #2: Writers write at the same pace.

Instead of everyone revising on the same day, my students and I set deadlines for pieces to be published. Within XX amount of weeks, students may spend multiple days on the same stage of the writing process as long as everyone meets a deadline set by the class. In other words, a student might spend three days on drafting and half a day on revising but not everyone has to be working on the same stage at the same time. As we get closer to the publishing deadline, students need to commit to one of their drafts and publish.

Myth #3: Students can’t come up with their own writing ideas. They need prompts.

I used to be afraid that my students couldn’t come up with their own ideas. They can. And they do. It’s teachers who often can’t come up with their own ideas. If you model how to come up with ideas, students can do the same. A lot of times their ideas are more interesting than what they did last summer. Give them a chance.

A blank page is intimidating.  Don’t believe me?  Take a piece of paper and write three paragraphs about what you did last weekend.  I don’t know about you but I’m lucky if I remember what I ate for breakfast.  Yet, we often give students a prompt like this and then bemoan the fact that students don’t descriptive include details or show an interest in revising what they wrote.

Lesson for the Classroom

Pictures unlock details from the brain.  You can have students bring in a photograph of something they’re going to write about or you can have students draw detailed and labelled pictures as a way of prewriting.  By appealing to students visual intelligence you will unlock all kinds of rich details and increase student engagement in writing.  Students with a picture of their dog, will think of all kinds of things to write about Spot that wouldn’t come to mind when staring at a blank page and the walls of the classroom.

Students at all grade levels can draw pictures, like storyboards, as a way of prewriting.  As an adult, I use pictures as well as a way of planning out what I’m going to write.  Don’t think that it’s a waste of time or not age level appropriate.  The time invested pays dividends later in the writing process and students at all grade levels can benefit.