Getting Our Students To Read and Write More -
Why time and choice are so important

Brian Lundstrom
English teacher
Stuarts Draft High School
November 6, 2018

Today's objective: you are successful when you brainstorm ideas about new ways to reach your kids and ways to feel uncomfortable.

TODAY'S FORMAT

• Reading -around an hour with several activities
• BREAK
• Writing - around an hour with several activities

Write a 6-word memoir about being a teacher

Letter to myself

• HOPES / DREAMS
• GOALS
• FEARS
• QUESTIONS
• GRAPHIC ORGANIZER!!!!
• I was seeking validation.

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Kylene, linda, penny, & Bob1

When will we have the courage to say that COMPLIANCE is not a high enough standard?

"My kids can't" is often about what I am asking them to do.

Kids are not acting disengaged - they are disengaged.

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Kelly Gallagher - to make sure our students have ample opportunity to read good books, and to ensure this happens, I strongly suggest beginning with these three steps:

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• Build an extensive classroom library.
• Build an extensive classroom library.
• Build an extensive classroom library.

Tom Newkirk - 5% teacher

• If you improve or change 5% of what you are doing a year, you'll be an exponentially better teacher by the end of your career.

giving up control

Do something that makes you feel uncomfortable.

35 books - 4.5 weeks

96 books - 1st 9 weeks

We must spend time analyzing the Curriculum Framework

9.4 e. Explain the relationships between and among elements of literature: characters, plot, setting, tone, point of view, and theme.

To be successful with this standard, students are expected to explain the relationships among the elements of literature, such as: ° tone

• understand and analyze elements of an author’s style, including:
° ° tone, including
- serious
- solemn
- sarcastic
- objective
- enthusiastic
- humorous
- hostile
- disapproving
- personal
- impersonal

In paragraph 6, which word best describes the author's attitude (TONE) about Super Stadium projects?

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• A Cynical
• B Aggressive
• C Resentful
• D Cautionary

I watched her play with the top button of her coat and thought about the man I was about to meet, my father, whose face I knew only from a small black-and-white photograph.

This sentence conveys su-jen's feelings of-

• A uncertainty
• B despair
• C irritation
• D disapproval

Using Statewide SOL Results to Guide Instruction

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#1 best way to improve comprehension is to REREAD.

#2 best way to improve comprehension is to TALK - but must be open-ended , dialogic talk.

The smartest person in the room is the room!!!!!

Book activities

tone affects mood

Word scramble prediction

Title the chapter

The word game

One Question - One Comment

___- word main idea

graph of the week
https://www.turnersgraphoftheweek.com/

Penny Kittle video

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Teach from a mentor text- Winter's Bone example.

Have students then go into their own book and look for the topic(s) you have been teaching in mentor text.

Padlet 

Our passion has to be contagious: for books, for students, and in our belief that there is a book for every dormant reader we meet.

Metaphor making to deepen comprehension

• intangibles tangibles

Jealousy is a backpack because it can get heavy carrying it around.

Jealousy is a backpack because it can get heavy carrying it around, it’s hard to zip up, and everyone can see you wearing it.

Joseph’s love for Jupiter is a ______________ because it ____________________________
_____________,it’s___________________________________________________, and _________________
_____________________________

METAPHORICAL THINKING HELPS STUDENTS TO GRASP BIG IDEAS AND KEY POINTS AT A DEEPER LEVEL. THEY SEE AND FEEL WHAT THE AUTHOR INTENDED.

MOST VALUABLE IDEA
Students then connect what they are reading back into today’s real world.

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conversation logs

daily status-of-the-class

running record - stickers

tweet template

reading ladders

INDEX CARDS

inform instruction
peek at skills

other reading handouts

• Tracking your thinking as you read
• Plot analysis chart
• Reading check - ONE WORD
• Thought Log- Track Your Thinking
• Book Club format

Spend more than three weeks in a whole class novel, ATTITUDE towards reading goes down.
Comprehension not impacted.
Studies since the 1920s back this up.
3 weeks vs 6 weeks - comprehension scores the same

Spend more than 3 weeks on a novel:
that’s a worksheet, not a book.

A normal (haha) day’s schedule:

• Book talk
• The Reading Zone (20 minutes)
• Quick Write (I aim for at least 2 a week)
• Mini-lesson
• Put lesson into action
• Beautiful Words

What makes you hate reading?

work that comes after:

• reading logs
• essays
• Post-it notes
• other to-dos

Reading Myth 5: Teachers need to assess independent reading by having students summarize in their journal nightly or require students to do a project for each completed book.

MYTH BUSTER: First, doing a project for each completed book punishes students who read widely and voluminously, and it also punishes teachers who feel they must grade each project.

I invite teachers to reflect on their independent reading lives. They don't write summaries, they don't complete projects...

they do discuss books in book clubs, share favorites with friends, and read book reviews. It is important to give students similar options:

Invite students to do a book talk a month. Model what a short, effective book talk looks like or show examples you find online.

Organize book club discussions where students share a beloved book with a group of peers, and focus their talks on a literary element or what they learned.

Have students read book reviews from various sources. Once you and your students have developed guidelines, invite them to write a review of a beloved book a couple times a year.

Talking With Text booklet

• To get teacher out of the middle of the conversation.
• To gradually transfer responsibility for sustaining the talk to the students.

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• To support the talk, from a distance, without tightly directing, or controlling it.
• I walk around and eavesdrop so they feel my presence.

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• To give students the experience of coherent conversation.
• To encourage exploration of a text or an idea of various responses and the personal experiences that come to mind.

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• To give the teacher unburdened time during which to observe students in conversation and assess their performance.
• YOU DON’T EXTRACT FROM A TEXT - YOU TRANSACT WITH A TEXT.

“Teaching does not create mastery, practice does. The teacher’s job is to facilitate practice while also protecting the feelings and the integrity of students while they practice.”
-Cornelius Minor

We need an abundance of writing!

Quickwrites

• "Doing a quickwrite is like riding the wave of someone else's words until you find your own." - Ralph Fletcher

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• Write as quickly as you can for 3 minutes.
• Borrow a line or part of a line as a jumping off point.
• IGNORE anything I ask you to do if what you see and hear already has you writing.

The whole point is to get students writing - which gets them thinking, which gets them writing, which gets them reading and writing.

Quickwrite activity

"Hands"

"Gate a-4"

So...what can we do with students' Quickwrites?

Activity to determine:
What are the most important characteristics of good writing?

analyze writing in groups

• 8TH GRADERS - "FINISHED" WRITING

analyze writing in groups

• 4 - strong
• 3 - effective
• 2 - something to hold onto
• 1 - weak - ineffective

Make one suggestion phrased as a WHAT IF?
What if you added dialogue of you and your buddy talking?

WHAT IF? This shifts it back to the writer - gives them ownership - it’s not a command.

What if...you change the point of view?
What if...you changed this to a poem?
What if...you jump right into the action?

I am teaching the writer and not the writing.

You have to show them when you conference - start by giving them a line or two.
What if you start like this? Give them a little something to hold on to.

"Best draft" vs final draft

lift up every kid in that room

Linda video

LINDA RIEF - "WTF" IN NOTEBOOKS

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Allowing students to choose text - giving kids voice

taking the POWER out of the teacher - saying to every single kid:

We believe that courage is more important than caution.

YOU are EMPOWERED to make the choice.

Teachers are uncomfortable - the power we have withheld from some has now been given to all.

We believe teachers must be agents of change.

LOVE is the highest standard. If they fall in love, they will read and write forever.

3 things you knew walking in
1 new mindset you want to try in the next few weeks

Do something that makes you feel uncomfortable.

"The cure for boredom is curiosity.
There is no cure for curiosity."
-Dorothy Parker

"If we teach a child to read but fail to develop a desire to read, we have created a skilled nonreader, a literate illiterate. No high test score will ever undo that damage."
-Kylene Beers