The Baker's Post Christmas Advent 6

 

Sometimes I get busy doing things that I really shouldn’t be fussing with. I can fuss with all that sticky stuff and get it all over my sponges and scrub brushes. Or I can let that stuff soak and just pour it out easily. Same thing with drying the dishes. I can let God do that while I do things that are more important. Like taking Joy for a walk or taking out the trash. Matthew 10:29 - “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your father’s care.”

PS. Jesus is my spiritual Steramine. Lol.

The Baker's Post Christmas Advent 5

 

The spoon was wet when I scooped the yeast. All those magical organisms. I scooped every last one into the batter for a lovely, aromatic award. Luke 6:38 - Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, and running into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

The Baker's Post Christmas Advent 4

 

It looks beautiful. But it was gross. I was so caught up in the idea and getting it finished that I violated a key rule: Taste as you go. I should have been enjoying and monitoring the flavors as I was baking. I am reminded of a favorite verse: “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.” (Psalm 34:8) I slowed down, tasted and tested, enjoying the process of baking. The results were worth it.

The Baker's Post Christmas Advent 3

 

There’s this big jug of oil. It’s too big to fit in the shelf. And really wonky when measuring out a

tablespoon at a time. I poured some into a smaller jug to make it easier to handle and store. 

I am reminded of 1 Corinthians 10:13. “No temptation [regardless of its source] has overtaken or enticed you that is not common to human experience [nor is any temptation unusual or beyond human

resistance]; but God is faithful [to His word—He is compassionate and trustworthy], and He will not let

you be tempted beyond your ability [to resist], but along with the temptation He [has in the past and is

now and] will [always] provide the way out as well, so that you will be able to endure it [without yielding,

and will overcome temptation with joy].” (AMP, 1 Corinthians 10:13). 

Seek the way out

Endure without yielding

Resist in faithful trust

Revel in His compassion

Overcome with joy

The Baker's Post Christmas Advent 2

 

Two batches of honey wheat sat on the counter while I made two batches of white sourdough. Each batch makes two loaves. It’s so satisfying how a little flour and simple ingredients grow and expand to make something bigger than they are alone. As I bake, I pray for God’s goodness to rise in us all - to make us more than we could be without the leavening of His love.

The Baker's Post Christmas Advent: 1:

 Because, you know...I was baking. 

You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil.

My cup overflows with blessings. Psalm 23:5. 

In the picture is the magic sauce we use to make the sourdough bread.

Today, the kitchen is warm while the jalapeno loaves are baking.

I looked over at the start and saw the foam bubbling up and over the lid.

Immediately, I thought of the verse about my cup runneth over.

But I had forgotten that it was part of Psalm 23 - The Lord is my Shepherd.

We bake with joy to prepare a feast for you.

But all of the porch presents are part of God’s providence to be the Shepherd for the people of Ukraine

who indeed are walking through the valley of the shadow of death. My cup runneth over with the joy of

serving The Lord. 

Lucy Calkins isn't the Devil: And Neither are Fountas and Pinnell

     Texas didn't send me through "the" science of reading course so I could bash people OR programs. Nothing in the world is "the" answer. Texas sent me through a science of reading course so I could be the Reading Scientist that knows how to select instructional approaches, texts, and lessons that best meet the needs of my students. Texas wants to empower me to be an expert that can rally and adapt materials and resources that help me empower my students with their reading practices. (More could be said about "the" science of reading, but Dr. Paul Thomas does a much better job at that than I can.) And, as a side note - Texas really can't tell us what programs to use. That's a district decision. 

Here's a perfect example that Lucy Calkins isn't the devil. Emma has written her Valedictory graduation speech after completing the Introductory Unit in Texas Home Learning for English IV. (The unit was FABULOUS, by the way. And Emma is my niece. My 81 year old mother home-schools her.) Now I need her to practice delivering the speech with passion and power. 

Well Lookie Here: 

Right there is Grade 8, Section 7 of Calkin's Units of Study "Unleashing the Inner 

Dramatist to Give Speeches More Impact." Now I have a beautiful resource complete with "Tips for Rehearsing and Giving Confident and Stirring Speeches" along with a model of a teacher's think aloud 

that I can adapt for my own writing to share with Emma. I also have a model student level exemplar 

that is just perfect for her to see and hear what her work should look like and sound like. I also have 

movie clip examples that she can watch to learn other techniques. And guess what? The unit concludes with an authentic graduation speech that is just the perfect way to help Emma practice the direct address that she imitated from a mentor text. 

Here's a snippet of her introduction. 

     During my senior year, I was told that I would be Valedictorian at my school.

Which makes sense, since I’m the only one in my class. Then I was told I had to make a speech and

I wondered how someone who is still growing (that would be me) could advise older more experienced

people  (that would be you). 

Now, the devil might be in the details, but Calkins turned out to be the angel I needed to move Emma to the next level of sophistication.  

Ethical Test Prep: Critical Mind Frames for Teaching and Comprehension

Test prep. Yep. It's a thing. You can rail against teaching to the test, but should you? Imagine going to your driver's test, never knowing about the parallel parking exercise. Better yet, imagine going downtown for a concert, and the only places left to park require that backwards geometry and spatial reasoning. You'd better bet that teaching to that test is good for passing the exam and navigating real driving life. In the same way, preparing students for the type of thinking and item types they will encounter is the right thing to do. 

Marzano, Dodson, Simms, and Wipf just released a book of their research studies on assessment items from ACT, SAT, NAEP, PARCC, and SBAC. (They studied all content areas, but I'm just reporting on ELA findings.) In their text, Ethical Test Preparation in the Classroom, the authors reveal distinctions worth noting about how an additional layer of teaching beyond best ELAR practices is necessary for student success on large scale assessments. 

I was working with a group of students the other day when one of them slammed down his pencil and scowled. I asked why he was so angry. "Miss. Why didn't anyone tell me about this before?" Oh, honey, I'm not sure they haven't. Or perhaps we just didn't know. And now that you understand, you have a clearer path to success. 

Perhaps the following is an uncomfortable truth: Experience with the item types frames student thinking. 

Marzano, et al. (2021) give us some insight. In their study, 80 percent of items used selected response items. Why wouldn't we show kids how to be successful on 80 percent of the test? 20 percent of items in their study addressed short constructed-responses on reading, selected-response items on language, and extended-response items on writing. 

Furthermore, the researchers identified six basic structures, or thinking frames, necessary for successful completion of selected-response items. Big Idea, Detail, Meaning, Function, Purpose, Evidence. In this blog post, I'll focus on the insights I've garnered from reading about the Big Idea Frame. 

Big Idea Frame: 

23.36 percent of items in the study related to central idea, main idea and theme. Comprehension of the text as a whole forms a critical foundation to student success. Many of our test results come down to a critical factor: poverty. Yet, success with understanding  critical texts remains true regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or SES (ACT, 2006, pp. 16-17). If we could nail this big idea frame with our students, this type of test prep is certainly a worthy endeavor. 

Marzano, et al., (2021) share important distinctions that lead us to solutions for teaching the big idea frame. 

Rich, Complex Texts: First, our texts must be rich enough to qualify as complex texts. Here are the criteria: 

• "subtle, involved, or deeply embedded relationships among ideas or characters 
• richness in the amount and sophistication of information conveyed
• elaborate or unconventional structure
• intricate style
• demanding and highly context-dependent vocabulary
• implicit or ambiguous purpose" (Marzano, et al.,  2021, p. 26)
• embody a "relatively clear structure"
• include "formatting and linguistic clues regarding the structure of the text" (Marzano, et al., 2021, p. 29

Indeed, the ability to discern this type of nuanced meaning was critical to success on ELA as well as all other areas of the curriculum (Marzano, et al., 2021). Sounds like another reason to focus on the big idea frame for test prep. 

Close Reading: While the authors report that close reading wasn't much of a "thing" in research or instructional practice before the standards and assessment regime, it has clear support in the research for impacting the following: 

• comprehension and vocabulary (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012)
• syntax (Goff, Pratt, & Ong, 2005)
• fluency (National Reading Panel, 2000; Paige, 2011)
• deliberate practice (Ericsson, Krampe, &Tecsch-Romer, 1993)
• high standard for coherence (Pearson & Liben, 2013)

(Marzano, et. al., 2021, p. 26). 

In a way, Marzano, et al., (2021) explain that our "Big Idea" items are the outcome, the children of close reading. Wouldn't it make sense to use close reading as a strategy for test prep? Close reading goes beyond "gist" and "summarizing" to help students "analyze sections of text" for "important details" that allow students to "parse those sections into granular detail" (Marzano, et al., 2021, p. 26). So our approach to these texts must go beyond a general understanding to more of a synthesis and use of text features and authorial purposes. I don't think anyone would argue that going beyond a surface understanding is a bad idea. 

Understanding the Subskills of the Big Idea Frame: As we will see with our new item types in Texas, our students will be reading texts and then answering two part items that require them to use evidence to support their deep understanding of a complex and nuanced text. Students will need to know how to do the following: And teachers will need to teach lessons about them - not only WHAT we are looking for, but HOW we accomplish that thinking:  

• select evidence that supports comprehension of the big idea frame
• explain the function of text or language elements that leads the reader to the big idea
• identify context that supports word and phrase meaning connected to the big idea 
• use details to support ideas (The Reporter Questions) that are salient in understanding and using the big idea
• clarify salient components that belong in an effective summary or theme statement to encapsulate the big idea
• explain the purpose and craft of textual elements (Marzano, et al., 2021: summary of Table 2.5 on page 28) that effectively lead to and support the nuances of the big idea.

This description of the subcomponents in the big idea reminds me much of the difference between predictive/elaborative inference and grounded inference discussed by Oakhill, Cain, & Elbro in Understanding and Teaching Reading Comprehension; A Handbook.  I wrote about that here. 

The Importance of Daily Practice: The section on big idea concludes by laying out a model for designing and crafting these types of experiences for daily reading practice. Frankly, simply reading text for comprehension is not enough. The rigor associated with these assessment items happens when readers synthesize and make decisions about the comprehension of the text as they  parse the multiple choice items and the associated text evidence. Reading and discussing the passage is simply not enough to replicate the type of cognitive activity students are expected to use on the assessment. NOT preparing to this level of text (test) prep would be unethical. 

ESSER: Solving the Right Problem in ELAR

 Texas has gathered an army of support for our kids. To have such funding and resources to serve our communities presents a gift we have coveted and needed. Yet it also provided challenges. Region Service Centers offer training in High Impact tutoring through TEA. You can find the High Impact Tutoring Toolkit here. The guide offers key research principles and program design. In addition, the guide explains how to assemble the team and develop workable schedules and curriculum resources. 

Over the last few weeks, I've had several calls from tutors, asking for one thing or another. We've all needed a sounding board for how we can best serve those in our charge, often with limited resources and serving students with wide ranges of needs. 

When I taught American History, we simulated the Battle of Gettysburg with bottles of Catsup. Each child had an identity card as an orderly, doctor, or casualty. First, they had to perform triage and separate the wounded into categories of likely survival before calling the doctors. Triage. It reminds me of medical practices even now. Doctors use the data of course, but decisions are primarily made by ruling out other things through conferencing with the patient after reviewing the data. And the best medical care looks for the root cause. 

In ELAR, our data will show that our kids struggle with Inference and Summary.  But why? What causes that? As we begin to work with our students, our code red imperative is to triage through student conferences after a deep dive into the data. Only then can we identify the underlying causes. If we are working on reteaching inference or summary, we might be treating the wrong problem. 

My friends and I came up with these categories to drill down far enough to find the right problems. Only then can we match the students to solutions that will cause growth.

Phase One: Can the students decode and read with prosody out loud and in their minds? Listen to them read. Model reading for them. Ask them to hear that kind of reading in their minds when they read silently. If students are having problems with decoding, teach ways to break down words and connect to meaning with context or dictionaries. When they struggle with a word, they should reread from the beginning to reconnect to meaning. Ask students to emphasize one word at least per sentence that helps emphasize the distinctive main points. (That's just beginning guidance, right?)

Phase Two: What strategy are students using to set their purpose for reading and monitor their comprehension? Often, students will use a narrative strategy to read an informational text. Problematic. 

Phase Three: Can students recall the information and find where it is in the text to reread and consider the text evidence? When students struggle to read, they can't remember everything and they struggle to find what they need. Marking the text with logographic cues that follow text characteristics and elements can ease the "finding" process so they don't have to reread the passage a thousand times. Using a story board or fact tracker on a piece of paper for note taking can also help students offload some of the cognitive demand for memory. This also provides a concrete, simplified text that helps with online testing. (As we know, the more complex the text and task are, the more concrete the text should be. We can't fix the everyone-online-syndrome, but we can provide strategies to manage online text.)

Step Four: Do students know how to process the questions with logical reasoning that matches the ways answers are wrong as well as the ways answers are right? For instance, do students realize that in summary, some answer choices will contain wrong information, misrepresent the main purpose/focus? Do they realize that some answers will only be details? Do they know that picking something from the Beginning, Middle, and End might not fully represent the author's purpose and message? 

Students Exhibiting problems with Steps One, Two, and Three need reading instruction for the foundational strategies that will lead to skillful reading. We do not see TEK focused teaching until we see students struggling with step four. Yet, most of our interventions begin with a TEK focus. In returning to the medical example, that's like treating Eczema with lotion. The cause is internal. By doing instructional triage, we can find what is below the data and solve the internal problems students experience with ELAR and cause growth.

I've written more about steps three and four here. If there's interest, I can develop more for you in steps one and two. 

Accelerating Growth in Summary

 During yesterday's PLC, we tried to figure out what was going on with the item analysis for critical items on last year's English I STAAR. Summary and Inference are always problems. Always. We're tired of it. How can we fix this and accelerate the growth for kids on these item types? 

Data Analysis: 

We started with the item analysis. Question 49, Reporting Category 3: The student will demonstrate an ability to understand and analyze informational texts. 5D: paraphrase and summarize texts in ways that maintain meaning and logical order. 

Question 49	State	District	A/F	B/G	C/H	D/J
	51%	47%	19%	21%	47%	14%

"Why are less than half of us getting this question right?" we asked. And why such large distractors? We did NOT ask the following: Did they read  the passage? Did they read all the answer choices? Did they read all of each answer choice? We already know those are problems. That kind of problem requires a response that has nothing to do with reading instruction. 

(I use a benchmark of 18% or above to identify distractors that indicate a problem with instruction or student reasoning. We were almost there with three distractors. To me, that means that a large percentage of that 47% that picked the right answer probably weren't thinking right about it either. We have a huge problem here. If kids can't summarize correctly to demonstrate their understanding, then how were they going to be able to make good decisions about harder questions?)

Using Tools from TEA:

Next, we went to the parent/student portal for the learning leader's kid who took the test last year. This was the question: 

49. Which sentence best summarizes this article?

A Automobile companies Oldsmobile, Winton, and Packard sponsored road trips like the one that Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson made across the United States in order to help promote sales during the early years of car manufacturing. 

B. When Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson accepted a bet that he could travel across the United states in three months or less, he did not realize the trip would cost him what was considered a huge amount of money in that time period. 

C. Dr. Horatio Nelson decided to take a road trip in a car across the United States, and he did not let the many problems he encountered during the long journey prevent him from reading his goal in less than three months. 

D. The road trip that Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson made across the United States created a tremendous amount of media attention, and the interest from the public caused him significant problems during the journey. 

Aha Number One: Narrative vs Informational Strategies and Purposes for Reading

After talking to the kids, we realized they were using a summary strategy for Narrative to make their decisions (Somebody Wanted But So). The passage was an ARTICLE from Cobblestone called 64 Days and $8000 Dollars. Students had selected a strategy unfit for the informational genre or to guide their purposes for reading. In addition, answer choices for informational genres will never follow a plot structure: informational summaries will reflect informational text structures. 

Solution: We updated the SWBST strategy anchor chart to include the Something Happened And So Then strategy. We also added a call out that said: "Use your genre bookmarks determine the genre and set your purpose for reading."

Aha Number Two: Looking for Misconceptions

When we looked at the rationale for each item that TEA provided on the portal, we realized that we were missing a critical component. We were teaching how to summarize. We were NOT teaching how to tell if you are correctly summarizing. As Fisher, Frey, and Hattie explain, students must be capable of self-regulation and assessment to know where they are in meeting the success criteria. When I first started teaching, we learned something similar: providing non-examples so you can prevent misconceptions and pseudo-concepts. Samantha Johnson summed up what we discovered: She compared it to a store. You have the front end of a store with the merchandise. But you have the stock area and business end in the back. "Teaching the misconception allows a strategy for the back end. With only the front-end strategies (like SWBST), we are only teaching half of it." We realized we weren't teaching how to reason and discern what common errors look like. After all, on a multiple choice test, there are all kinds of ways to be wrong and only one way to be right. 

    Here's what we realized about answer choice A: 

19% of us didn't realize that there was wrong information that was never stated in the passage. The passage NEVER states that auto companies sponsored road trips like the one Dr. Jackson makes. The passage NEVER states that the reason was to promote car sales. In fact, paragraph 9 states that the Winton Motor company only found out about such a trip until the media got involved. While they did offer to sponsor the trip, Jackson wouldn't take the money. We asked ourselves: Did students realize that they needed to be looking for false information? Did we teach them to do that? Nope. 

    Here's what we realized about answer choice B: 

21A% of us didn't realize that a detail in the passage was incorrectly represented as the main focus of the article. This article does reference the cost of the trip. And it is reasonable that $8000 was a lot of money in 1903. And it is strange that they paid $500 dollars more for that car than it cost new. Yet, there is no evidence that Dr. Jackson didn't realize how much the trip was going to cost. In fact, there is evidence that he didn't even care about the cost. In paragraph 4, the text reports that he spends all that money just for a $50 dollar bet. He didn't really seem to care about how much it cost at all. Did we teach kids that they should be looking for details that misrepresent the gist and focus of the article as a whole? Were we teaching them that no evidence is evidence? Were we teaching them to look for contradictory evidence? Nope. We were teaching them SWBST. Even if we taught them SHAST, we'd still be missing what students needed to run the "summary store" that Samantha explained with her metaphor.

    Here's what we realized about answer choice C: 

Only 47% of us got this right. Why were less than half of us not getting this? We realized that some students were using the wrong summary strategy. And we realized that if they were using the correct roping and branding strategy, they'd be able to pair each "brand" with a section of the summary. 

Sample Rope and Brand	Portion of answer choice that matches
Paragraphs 1-2: Dr. Jackson makes a bet. Cars are reliable.	Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson decided to take a road trip...
Paragraphs 3-4: Dr. Jackson and a partner prepare for the trip.	In a car across the United States,
Paragraphs 5-7: Problems along the way	...and he did not let the many problems he encountered along the way...
Paragraphs 8-9: Media Hype	(While this part isn’t in the summary, the media hype and other companies could be seen as problem competition, especially since one of them finished before Jackson.)
Paragraph 10: Outcome/Ending: Success	...did not prevent him from reaching his goal in less than three months.

Uh, ya'll. The rope and brand strategy worked and also reflected the organizational structure of the article that would also help with question #50. (See Jennifer Martin's Original Lesson for Rope and Brand here. See the instructional resources for test taking processes based on her model here. 

     Here's what we learned about answer choice D: 

14% of us didn't realize this was a fake summary that only focused on one part of the text or a detail. Answer choice D is partially correct, but only is represented in paragraphs 8-9. And like answer A, there is also false information. None of the evidence in those paragraphs indicate that the media attention was a problem for Jackson or Crocker. Did we teach kids to look for an answer choice that only summarized one portion of the text? Nope. We were teaching the components of a summary and not what it wasn't. (Almost all of the summary questions for a passage that I have examined have an answer choice like this, regardless of the grade.) 

Solution: We started an anchor chart called "Misconceptions about Summary Answer Choices." We felt that this provided success criteria for HOW students were to apply their knowledge of summary in assessment situations. (And one of us may or may not have remarked that this is the kind of stuff that we wondered why no one ever told us about before.)

Important Insights: 

As the meeting ended, we decided that we understood some important distinctions about how to accelerate growth in summary:  

1. Match the summarization strategy to the genre. 

2. Use genre to set the correct purpose and focus for reading. 

3. We must do more than teach what a summary is. We must teach the common ways it is wrong. 

4. Be explicit in noticing and naming how to reason through evaluating a summary so that students can evaluate their own summarization processes as well as discern when a summary is not well crafted or incorrect. 

5. We've been teaching how to summarize because that's what the TEK says. But that's not what is assessed. We should focus on how to evaluate a summary for the common ways it misses the mark. 

When we can identify and communicate the processes of how students think and reason to evaluate a summary, the students can succeed. 

Your Lesson Ain't Goin to Heaven or Hollywood: Overcoming Create and Delete

For a while, I was not able to write about what I was learning in education. There were rumors and fears that I was writing about teachers I served. When I did write about teachers I served, I used their names. Yet, perception is a beast y'all. While I never, ever wrote ugly things about people and their mistakes, the censorship happened. For a while, I played around with a pseudonym. Ela R. Goodnight good speak for me in anonymity. I even bought a fake wig and some funky glasses to compliment her 1980's wardrobe that for some reason is still in my closet from when I started teaching. Yet, it never seemed right to put the words out there. 

Until today. 

Heather, Bria, Zack, Sam, and I were talking about how we help teachers with their lessons in a way that would free up some time and provide mentorship models of effective instruction. It reminded me of what ole Ela had to say back in the early days of the pandemic. 

A friend (Bettye) stopped by for lunch. On the way to The Burrow in Claude  (I was craving one of their pulled pork omelettes) she berated herself for the difficulty she is having in completing her online blended learning course. "Claire, my teaching partner,  just busted through all the assignments, but I want mine to be really good. And they just aren't. And it's taking me forever." 

"Honey," I replied over the top of my dollar store shades. "Don't you know your lessons aren't goin' to heaven? Heck, they aren't even going to town." She looked at me funny, but I am funny lookin'. 

Consume, Critique, Produce

My friend was missing a very important point here related to Dr. John O'Flavahaven's work at the University of Maryland. O'Flavahaven's Consume, Critique, Produce model is very effective when we look at how we design lessons that give mentor texts and examples of the products we wish for kids to produce or processes they can emulate. But the way my friend was thinking about it was kinda like putting a saddle on a cow. Or lipstick on a pig. You can, but why?

True. We consume a lot of media. Professionally produced, curated, airbrushed stuff of virtual confection and perfection. Yet: Why would we ever expect that perfection from ourselves and our lessons? Why, that's not even the purpose of our lessons. Just like nobody actually looks like those cover models, nobody's lessons look like Dead Poets Society. (Nor Bad Teacher either, just sayin'.) 

Creating virtual opportunities and lessons for kids really isn't about creating perfect, curated videos that could win Emmy Awards. Teachers don't need to be worried about delivering their 30 second acceptance speeches before the music swells and they are escorted offstage. Face to face, online, or blended mixes of all of it aren't about the fake, yet polished nature of media. Teaching is about your moment with a child that moves their thinking and knowing to a new place of participation and contribution. 

Overcoming Create and Delete

Here's some thoughts to reframe what you are doing with virtual learning and stop yourself from perseverating over the create and delete cycle.  

1. If you were teaching a lesson face to face, you'd have to reread, rephrase, and repeat words when they don't come out right. You'd walk over to where you thought you left that stack of papers and forget that you laid them on a kid's desk. Someone would inevitably interrupt the class with an announcement about who needed to come check out in the office. You'd make a mistake or some kid would do something you didn't expect or want. (Like the time Johnny picked his nose and wiped it on the inside of his turtleneck sweater.) There is no way to press delete and start the whole class over. Nor would you. You'd just monitor, adjust, and move on. You are a human in the live, sometimes unscripted (although carefully planned) impromptu of arena of classroom instruction. 

When you are making a recording, monitor, adjust, and move on. Click save and upload that sucker. Ain't  nobody got time for 15 retakes before yearbook, cheer practice, and bus duty. 

2. For some reason, people seem to think that video is going to be useful next year. I have horrifying memories of playing videos recorded in the late 60's and early 70's for my 90's babies. They couldn't get past the polyester prints and beehives to focus on the content. They were making fun of the setting and context rather than learning. 

Furthermore, our pedagogy and content need updating and refining as much as our wardrobe. When you teach the lesson next year - even if you are recording it - hopefully you have learned a thing or two since then. Hopefully, you've realized some stuff you need to address because of who your kids are this year. Put that old video in an archive for posterity and move on with what this class needs this year. Besides, you probably have a new haircut, glasses, and a few more wrinkles since then. Move on and re-record.

3. Point two connects me to another idea. My poor other made the mistake of asking me whether or not after 30 years I was gonna get this teaching stuff figured out and stop staying late at school lugging that canvas bag home. Like, when was I going to stop re-creating the wheel. Incredibly, he was still breathing and able to remark: "You'd think by now that someone  would have made a program where the kids could just go online and do the work." 

There will NEVER be a script or video or a program that is good enough to cover the complexities and nuances of teaching humans year after year. Teaching is a reactive and interactive science that requires the decision making art of a well-prepared, sophisticated, and compassionate teacher. Especially when the teaching goes virtual.

Heaven Bound

Bettye, none of your lessons belong in Hollywood. But the effort, heart, and messy humanity behind it is the only school thing headed for heaven.

Hugs, Pitti-Pats, and Arpeggios of Laughter, 

Ela R. Goodnight

Writing Like an Insider: Identifying as a Scholar

This morning, Dr. Lesley addressed the Llano Estacado Writing Alliance about Joining a Discourse Community as a Scholarly Writer. While that floats my boat personally, her ideas made me think about the writers I will encounter in the fall. Here are some ideas that I want to preserve and communicate. 

• Teachers of writing should write. I will be finding my voice as a writer. This will feed my instruction and support for students and teachers. 
• Writing Fluency is more complex than reading fluency. (Lesley, 2021 presentation)

 Hmmm. Here's the definition that Dr. Lesley shared with us:

Writing Fluency: The ability to produce written language rapidly, appropriately, cognitively, and coherently (Latif, 2013)

Students need to become aware of the components of their writing fluency. Our instructional activities should be explicit about the goals and the ways in which we achieve writing fluency. We want our students to begin writing after diffusing the prompt or assignment, not from a disjointed stream of consciousness, but from a capacity that considers deep meaning and the genre characteristics and conventions that will accurately and effectively deliver the message to their audience. They need to know how to get that kind of writing fluency going automatically. 

• Each writing even it a unique rhetorical event (Lesley, 2021 presentation).  

That's why it feels like you are starting over each time. That's why there is no formula. The rhetorical situation will always be different. Do we let kids know that this is true for everyone and every writing task? Do they know the struggle is normal and they are not alone? 

• Writing is inquiry (Lesley, 2021 presentation).  

YAAAAS. It is always new. We are always rethinking and rewriting - learning all the while. Writing is thinking made visible in ink, graphite, or binary code. 

• We learn to write and investigate our thinking through writing (Lesley, 2021 presentation).

How do you learn to do something? You get in there and do it. You learn about the something and a lot more about yourself. 

•  Scholarly Voice: scholarly voice is about contextualizing the research, situating the study and the researcher personally (Lesley, 2021 presentation). 

We write so they can see our face and hear our voice and know our personality. The way we write exposes our thinking and our personality. Do the kids know it doesn't have to be stilted or boring? 

• Introspective writing helps students move into a creative space where they are free to play with language, capture descriptive details, elaborate on the seemingly insignificant and juxtapose disparate ideas against each other. Introspection allows the writer's self to be present in all facets of the writing act (Lesley, in press). 

Wow. That's writing like an insider. So here's my questions to guide instruction in the fall. 

1. How do we help kids write like an insider for particular genres if we don't teach them how to read a text for how it is structured and the techniques the writer is using? How do we teach them to dissect a text not just for comprehension, but for CREATION for their own purposes? I need to create lessons and opportunities for this work...to go beyond comprehension to CRAFT. Our Texas ELAR standards have two Knowledge and Skills statements for craft. One is to analyze craft. The other is to USE craft for their own meaningful products and performances. 

2. How do we help kids write like an insider if they never read the kind of stuff we are asking them to write? We need more mentor texts that kids have written. 

New Spin on Blueprinting: Plotting the Future at Walkon's

 Three Teachers Talk recently wrote about the architectural approach to prewriting at a tried and "still" true method. Honestly, since I first experienced it in the Abydos Writing Institute, it is the best method to collect and store memories that can be used for writing of all genres, not just the introspective. 

Then I went to Walkon's Sports Bistreaux. Being a food snob, I had shunned the place, shuddering at the thought of poorly prepared bar food. But the Boudin Balls were a welcome surprise. But... as we were seated, the waitress set down these napkins: 

And she told us the story of how Brandon and Jack sketched out their dream as their team flew home after playing at the University of Tennessee. They blueprinted their dream, y'all. And the other side of the napkin was an invitation to prewrite...to plan something new...to dream and sketch the plan. 

Cheers to you and your dreams. I'm headed back to Walkons for another serving of those fried rice and pork balls. You think they will give me a package of those napkins to use with the kids? 

Cheers to you and your dreams. 

Deliberate, Effortful Strategies under Conscious Control become Skills under Automatic Control

Judy Wallis: And what we hope is these deliberate, effortful strategies under conscious control become skills under automatic control. 

 I'm always honored when Judy Wallis reads and considers my efforts. She always seems to dive into the basis and research underneath what I'm experiencing. And when she references an article, I know that it is something worth serious consideration. 

My friend Bama Coward used to say: A strategy is not something you do with a pencil. As usual, Judy has the research at her fingertips. Clarifying Differences Between Reading Skills and Reading Strategies is a must read for practitioners of critical and transformative ELAR pedagogy. Afflerback, Pearson, and Paris nail important considerations about how we initially teach and what our goals are for helping kids internalize and use those strategies in ways that become automatic skills in their comprehension and composing processes. Where are my kids on the continuum of strategies and skilled reading? 

A Convo about Getting Results: How we Get to the Answer Matters Most

Cheryl texted me her STAAR results. We’d been talking about the previous post. 

Cheryl: English I - 66% Approaches, 50% Meets, 12% Masters

English II - 70% Approaches, 57% Meets, 11% Masters

Our. Kids. KILLED. It!!!! I believe for English I students (before retests and including retested students in

the spring it was 79% Approaches, 62% Meets, 12% Masters. Only my kids, no re-testers:

82% Approaches, 64% Meets, 14% Masters. And I don’t know the final tally with re-testers that may

have passed. 2021 was my first administration at this campus since we didn’t admin in 2020.

 

Shona - So this means…

Before Cheryl’s Strategies	Cheryl’s Class	Change
2019 Approaches State        68% District     65% Campus   65% 2019 Meets State        50% District     53% Campus   53% 2019 Masters State       11% District    11% Campus  11%	2021 Approaches State               66% District             Cheryl’s Class 82% 2021 Meets State               50% District              Cheryl’s Class 64% 2021 Masters State                12% District               Cheryl’s Class  14%	20% gain 14% gain 2% gain

Shona: Holy cow, Cheryl! What did you do during COVID to get such results?

I know that I always rely on you to further the prototypes that we design based on the needs

we are seeing. But I didn’t expect such a gain the first year. 

Cheryl: That’s a great question. This year was really the culmination of things I’ve learned over the last

5 years (mostly from you!) that I was finally able to put into practice all at once.

Some foundational things I think are a starting point for this conversation: 

• Understanding the new TEKS helped me understand the depth at which our students needed to understand texts. And the types of texts they needed to read--and how they should be constantly making connections within and across texts of various genres. Even though we changed topics many times in the class, students often commented that our class seemed like one giant thematic yarn ball--and I think any good reader/ writer probably feels the same way about everything they read and write. That was a sign I was on the right path. 

• Reading/ Writing/ Speaking/ Listening/ Thinking as a constant cycle in our class. We were always doing all 5 around a text, around our own writing, around sharing, around talking as a starting place for all of the above. 

These two pieces became the foundation for everything else. I think some people reading this probably

want to know what textbook we used or what workshop I went to that made me successful in 6 hours

or less, but this is a culture we have to create in our classes, and it’s not easy. We (usually) have to

fight trends in instruction that may not have encouraged real thinking and fight the idea that there is

some sort of “formula” to the right answer or the best essay. It’s an organic process.

And if a teacher isn’t committed to that type of paradigm shift (s)he won’t be successful. 

Shona: Wow. That’s a lot to unpack. I have always felt that you absorb things over time and then put

them back together in a way that works for your teaching style and the kids in front of you that year.

I see that the two major things you mention are about your understanding of the TEKS and your use of

the domains of literacy. A third might be missed - the paradigm shift you experienced to a more

constructivist approach to instruction in cognitive literacy processes as opposed to a text based

approach that is in our instructional historical dna. LOL. 

Cheryl: Yes, I think what you mention is a huge key. It took me a long while to realize this,

but it doesn’t matter WHAT we read, it matters what we do with what we read.

Please know that of course it matters what we read, but too many people are focused on teaching texts

and not focused at all on how to connect them or what to do with them. Of course I had a plan,

I had things I wanted my students to read for certain reasons or to connect in certain ways,

but some of my plans happened, and some of them didn’t. Sometimes I would scrap something

so we could spend more time on another thing or so we could add in something related to what

they wanted to know more about. We can talk about “student centered classrooms” all day long,

but unless we are ready to follow their lead in interests, pacing, and unpacking, we aren’t going to

see them engage to the level of depth required in these new standards. AGAIN: Of course I had texts

and tasks planned, and NO, they didn’t always like it (at first), but as we built a culture and classroom

together, we could move some things more into their lane. 

Shona: So, really, I’m curious about what you taught about diffusing the passages that matched this

organic view of instruction and still caused gains for the students. I know you were using the fact tracker...but how did you roll it out, adapt it. What sense of it did the kids take on? How did their take change the process as you taught it? 

Cheryl: I start the year with a philosophy that has really helped me understand texts more deeply and we roll

out baby steps. I don’t get to the full fact tracker until the 2nd semester because in the first semester,

our focus is on developing the new paradigm. 

In the first two weeks of the semester, I introduce 2 concepts: 

• Everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING) is an argument. 

• & Some things are Story 

• (and all the genres can flow from here). 

As we look at everything being an argument, I introduce the main elements of argument and we look for those in various genres. We quickly boil this down to “what’s the point?” or “what are they getting at?” --in genres like poetry, drama, fiction, etc. this often presents as one or more themes. Although it takes them a while to get good at it, I’ve taught them probably the most difficult skill we’ll work on all year and a process to identify it from Day 1. 

Shona: This makes a lot of sense to me. Some of the questions I use with this part are: What’s it about? Why does it matter? Or when I’m feeling snarky, I ask: who cares? 

Cheryl: When we get to Story, we look at the elements of a story: Characters, setting, conflict, plot, resolution.

We start with basically a 5th-8th grade review of things they should have learned along the way

(this builds confidence) (and it only takes about 1 class period), then I give them a text set that

includes various genres. (Song, poetry, drama, news, short story, etc.) and have them work with a

partner or group to tell whether each is a story and why/ or why not. (They are all stories.)

Shona: Aw, I see what you are doing here. Nice.

Cheryl:  (Not every poem is a story, but the ones I include, are). As a class, we go through the works

and identify the elements of story in each one and at the end  of each piece we ask ourselves two

questions that we will carry through the entire year: 

1. What happened? (plot, or your quick clue this isn’t a story) 

2. What’s the point? (theme, claim, main idea THERE IS ALWAYS AT LEAST ONE POINT). 

This hits on our TEKS in a million ways, but one of the best ways is that this is a self-monitoring tool.

If a student can’t answer these two questions, they need to re-read and try again. 

Shona: YES. We use summarization and theme finding as a tool to monitor our comprehension

instead of a product to be evaluated. Changes how they use the strategy to become assessment

capable and aware of their own cognition/comprehension. That’s why Learning on Display focuses on

reasoning THROUGH reading and writing. Reading and Writing are the tools for our thoughts and

response to ideas. 

Cheryl: Note here, that their answers don’t have to be correct here. In fact, at first, they are usually wildly wrong.

After we read a text and answer these questions, I ALWAYS have them stop and pair/ share.

This allows them to correct or confirm their ideas (OMG, LOOK→ another TEKS!) 

Shona: I’m impressed with this allowance to be wrong. Too often we are the ones that identify that for kids.

Let’s let them marinate in error and wade out of it through their reading and writing reasoning processes.

Until we are comfortable with allowing them to identify their own errors, we are doing the thinking work for

them when we tell them that they are wrong. And we steal the joy of discovering what is correct. 

Cheryl: You are absolutely right. But this, too, can be a huge struggle to build into the course, culturally.

My students have often been conditioned to believe they MUST have the right answer and at first find

themselves too paralyzed to provide any response at all or completely obsessed with being right--

which prevents them from learning at all. Believe it or not, at least initially, I generally have the best

progress and growth with my lowest level students. They are usually so fed up with school at all that

they are the most willing to throw anything out there. My honors students are usually most frustrated

with this process. 

Shona: YAAAAS. It was HARD to sit by Micah and agree with all his incorrect reasoning.

But it was a critical moment for HIM. I took a stance as a collaborator and thought-partner

with him instead of the corrector. This allowed me to ask...wait a minute...

I thought we proved all those wrong! Why isn’t D correct? This stance preserved his dignity,

but also didn’t stop his thinking. He was the one that ultimately decided how to revise his thinking

and reject what he initially thought was right. 

Cheryl: Yes. My students have to learn early on not to mark any answer I agree with! Haha!

I’ll agree with whatever they say, no matter what! They have to be bold enough to think it out and

question each other’s thoughts. 

Shona: I found that in my research as well. They have to be willing to reject the teacher’s ideas and go

forward with their own ideas and reasoning processes. It’s our job to allow it. 

Cheryl: And model it. I do a lot of modeling and thinking aloud. I also sometimes have to have a

conversation with my classes (for the benefit of my students who are quick to answer everything).

This is about the process. Yes, the answer matters, but how we get to the answer matters most. 

Shona: I had to go back and bold that statement. 

Cheryl: And while some people have these internal conversations and debates in their heads in a

matter of seconds-- many, if not most, of my students need to hear these conversations so they can

develop these models for themselves. And, truly, this takes time. It’s a repetitive process that we

build into EVERY text we read. As the process becomes quicker and I can see my students are getting it,

I’ll layer in the next steps to build depth. 

Shona: Agreed. That’s why I felt like I needed to model the convo in the previous blog post.

I don’t think the TEKS really are specific in how we reject answers we originally thought were right.

That stuff still needs to be taught - the thinking of how to make an inference and self-monitor to make

sure it’s right. The questions on STAAR really are aligned to TEKS, but I’m not sure we are really

teaching the implied THINKING TEKS that allow us to show mastery of the individual TEKS.

It’s like a hidden curriculum that really exposes the rigor more than anything I have seen out there.

We need to do more thinking about HOW we THINK. 

Cheryl: That leads into how I layer depth\ into our reading and writing. We have to teach our students how

to think about the texts. From here we rebuild their ideas of annotation. Most of my freshmen come

to be thinking they have to summarize every paragraph… but annotation is a lot more than that.

And we don’t always annotate everything. It’s a tool to help our thinking.

We use the summarization annotation to paraphrase or summarize difficult (usually non-fiction) texts.

Sometimes our annotations are questions (because good readers ask questions!)

Sometimes we write or label what we notice, we write our understanding, make predictions,

make notes of our confusion to bring to the discussion later. 

Shona: Once that annotation and internal talk become automatic, I let my kids let go of the annotations and

trackers until they need them for a point of struggle. 

Cheryl: Answering our two questions (WH, WTP?) and using annotations as a tool are the first ways

I build writing into the course. We read, and as we read, we cycle through these small writings about

our texts. 

Bonus Lesson Plans Cheryl and Shona Suggest: Using tools like the C3WP from the National Writing Project, we also learn to effectively identify and use

text evidence. https://sites.google.com/nwp.org/c3wp/home

Cheryl: I also love to teach Gretchen Bernabei’s kernel essays and tie some of the “Text Structures From the Masters” into our units. This really helps the students see text structure

and tie it to purpose. (Not PIE--haha, another soapbox I’ve picked up from you!) 

Shona: Yeah - don’t get me started on PIE. I think we’ve given folks enough to think about today.

And you need to go fold the laundry and I need to go cook supper. :) 

Cheryl: Thank you for this. I absolutely enjoyed it. If you are reading this and don’t already know,

Shona is THE BEST. <3 

Shona: We are the best when we are thinking together. Love ya.