Slice of Life March 8
Today, a line to honour and celebrate each of the women I love and who have inspired me to be the person I am today.
Infinite love, unwavering champion, unshaken foundation.
Wisdom, strength and longevity.
Independent, courageous, united.
Laughter, adolescence and motherhood.
Fierce disrupter, teacher, listener.
Advisor, critical thinker and challenger.
Creative spirit, full of joy, confident.
Slice of Life March 5
Today it feels like I live in a snow globe. Looking down on the city from our fifth floor condo, I see a winter world shaken, white swirling and churning, up, down, all around. There is a softness from up here, removed from the disgruntled complaints of motorists and pedestrians impossibly trudging through mountains of snow. In my living snow globe, I take pleasure in the beauty of a late winter snow storm.
Slice of Life #3
Sometimes being bored can be beneficial. Last night my son ran out of things to do so he invented a game. He gave nonsense words to food and utensils and then made a menu that we had to order from. We had no idea what we were were going to get. I ordered a “cwikneetree” with a “windyflile” and my husband ordered a “flingflung” with a “thermafloop”. We were served with a bowl of cereal to be eaten with a spatula and a tray of pickles that had to be eaten with a whisk. What fun a little boredom can bring!
Slice of Life Day 2.
As a child of the 80’s all I wanted was a pencil with my name on it. There were pencils galore with names like Lisa, Janet, Amber and Amanda but none with my name, Kira. At supper one night, my mom made the mistake of telling me that they just about named me Jennifer. Big mistake, HUGE. There were pencils, pens, bracelets and even scratch and sniff stickers with the name Jennifer boldly emblazoned on these products. So that night, in protest, I decided that the only name I would answer to was Jennifer. This went on for some time and I either tired of the game or perhaps the name fad started to be less important to me. I grew to love my name and I also learned that it means twinkle in Japanese which suits my personality.
Here is a little slice of who I am.
Love it…
The warmth of the sun after a long, frigid winter.
The smile on my son’s face when I pick him up from school at the end of the day.
The smell and feel of a new book.
The twinkle in a student’s eye when they master something new.
Loathe it…
The dreaded decision of what to make for supper.
The taste of coconut.
The empty void when you finish a Netflix series.
The pressure of writing in greeting cards.
As the sun finally starts to gain power in this frigid northern land, I have decided to resurrect my long neglected blog. Ironically, my last post in 2013 was about dormant readers so I guess this is a good time to admit that I myself am a dormant writer. As a graduate student, writing was a regular part of my daily routine. I completed my thesis in 2015 and as I prominently shelved my burgundy leather bound book in my home library, I also shelved my identity as a writer. The act of writing become solely for the purpose of completing my job and I was no longer writing for learning or for pleasure. This has made me reflect that as an intermittent, dormant writer how can I expect differently of my students?
I came across Stacey Shubitz’s Feb. 15, 2017 blog post Empower Your Teaching by Being a Teacher-Writer that encourages teachers to become effective writing teachers by becoming writers themselves. Something that stuck out to me was her story of taking her daughter to an aerial arts class. She was reassured that the class was taught by a highly trained and well qualified instructor. She writes, “Just as teachers of aerials need to be proficient aerial artists, teachers who lead writing workshops should be writers themselves. I never would have enrolled my daughter in the aerials class if the instructor wasn’t a proficient aerial artist herself. Similarly, I believe writing regularly plays a role in becoming an exemplary writing teacher.”
In Lori Rog’s most recent book Marvelous Minilessons for Teaching Intermediate Writing Grades 3 – 8 (2018), she writes, “Not every student of writing will become a published author, just as not every pianist will perform at Carnegie Hall, and not every junior hockey player will win the Stanley Cup”. (p. 10)
And so that brings me to today, March 1, the first day of the Slice of Life Challenge. I am going to challenge myself to begin a writing journey, not to become an award winning author but to become a more confident, consistent writer and a better writing teacher. If I ask my students to take risks, I’d better be willing to take a few myself.
So with a heavy beating heart, here I go…
It has been the longest, most difficult winter that I can remember in a long time. All I want to do is stay curled up in my flannel pajamas and hibernate in my basement under a cuddly quilt. I feel dormant. I am told spring is coming but when I look out my windows, I’m finding it hard to believe.
Donalynn Miller (The Book Whisperer, 2009) uses the word “dormant” to describe students who are reluctant readers. These are the lost readers in our classrooms that need support, encouragement and guidance to be rejuvenated as readers. Miller writes, “I believe that all dormant readers have a reader inside themselves, somewhere. They simply need the right conditions in order to let that reader loose…” (p. 28).
When I think about my reading history, I now understand that I was a dormant reader for many of my high school years. I didn’t have anyone talking to me about books and sharing new and exciting literature with me. I lived on a steady diet of Archie comics and Sweet Valley High books. Enjoyable , yes, but not the most enriching experiences.
This long winter makes me think of the dormant readers we have in our classrooms and what we need to do as teachers to get them out of book hibernation and awaken their senses. We need to create supportive reading environments to coax these readers out of their dormant states. Here are a few simple ideas:
1. Do book talks frequently
2. Share your own reading history
3. Let kids recommend books to each other
4. Show book trailers and get kids to make their own
5. Let kids abandon a book
6. Encourage kids to stick with a book
7. Give them time to read
8. Use student interest surveys
The thesaurus list these words and phrases as antonyms to dormant; lively, vigorous, energetic, dynamic, full of life, on the go, full of zip. Students won’t stay dormant for long if this is how we approach the teaching of reading in our classroom. Happy Spring!
“If you think reading is boring, you’re doing it wrong!”
In my role as Literacy Coordinator, I am part of many professional development sessions with the teachers in our division. For the last few sessions we have been using TodaysMeet (www.todaysmeet.com) to live stream comments and questions while the session is running. The participants are able to connect to each other in real time and share their thoughts and reflections while the session is running. At the end of the session there is a record of the running commentary of the day’s work that can be used for further reflection.
I have made a few observations of using Today’s Meet with teachers. First of all, it takes a little bit to get teachers going. They seem to be tentative putting their thoughts out there for everyone to see. Secondly, not everyone likes to be “connected” during the session. Some teachers have commented that they find it distracting. Teachers need differentiation too! In order to meet everyone’s learning needs, I don’t expect everyone to use the back channel throughout the day but I make sure to build in opportunities in the session where everyone has to add something to TodaysMeet. The teachers who like this kind of learning will continue to use the back channel throughout the session and it is amazing to see the conversation grow. It is exciting to see the evolution from simple connections to deep reflective questions that take the professional learning to a whole new level.
I personally like back channelling because I need time to reflect and talk to process new information. With a tool like TodaysMeet I can meet my learning needs without bugging the person beside me with my random thoughts.
Some of the teachers have even taken back channelling to their classrooms and have set up meeting rooms with their students. It’s just another way to encourage reflection and collaboration with students. I was fortunate enough to be invited into a meeting room with a Grade 7/8 class one afternoon. I was able to be part of the classroom learning while I was working in my office and it expanded the audience for the students. Knowing there was someone else outside their classroom joining in with them made the learning more relevant and even helped with some of the management. The teacher commented that having me join in made the learning very real for them (and it pretty much eliminated their off-topic comments).
TodaysMeet is easy to set up, no login information is required and best of all it’s FREE. You can set up a room for a couple of hours, days, weeks, or a month. At the end of the conversation, you can print out a transcript to keep as a record of the learning that happened.
One of my favourite things about this time of year are the “best of” lists that come out. I love reviewing the year’s most interesting people, biggest news stories, biggest scandals, and the best of pop culture. 2012 was a year of joy, laughter, worry, challenges, tears, tragedy and loss.
Educators also like to wrap up the year with the best from the world of education and I would like to share some of these lists with you. Over the holidays, you might want to take a look at some of these lists to get some fresh new ideas and resources for the new year.
Chicken Spaghetti (what a great title for a blog) has created a list of lists of the best children’s books of 2012. This is a great place to start your reading list for 2013.
Nerdy Book Club (another great title) will announce the winners of their Nerdy Book Club Awards starting on December 26th. Click on the link to check out the list of this year’s nominees.
Connect to this year’s best educational blogs. Winners were chosen in categories such as best individual blog, best classroom blog, best student blog, etc. This is a great place to begin to build up a list of blogs you follow.
The American Library Association (ASA) always creates excellent list of literature for children and young adults. Take a look at their list of the best Young Adult Literature of 2012.
Here is a list of 100 Best Video Sites for Educators from Edudemic (Runner up for the Best Group Blog from EduBlogs. See link above).
What’s on your “best of” list from the year in the world of education?
I just spent a great afternoon with an elementary school staff in our school division talking about inquiry in the classroom. Part of the afternoon was participating in the RAN strategy. (See Reality Checks by Tony Stead). The RAN strategy stands for Reading and Analyzing Non-Fiction and the power of this approach is the connection that it makes to non-fiction texts and research skills. I have used KWL charts with my students and always found that we lost momentum or didn’t ever get to the meat of the process which is the reflection on what we learned. I would find that my students were hesitant to share their prior knowledge of a topic and didn’t really know what they wanted to learn. So, my KWL chart would start out with great intentions but would be quickly forgotten as we moved through our unit.
The RAN strategy provides a structure that is safe and motivating for students. It naturally takes students through a process of inquiry that requires research and encourages wondering. The steps for the RAN are as follows:
This process could go throughout an entire unit or only take a couple of days at the beginning of an inquiry project. The teacher will be able to determine how much prior knowledge students have about a topic and can help to scaffold and adapt the support individual students may need as they begin the research process.
I have had the opportunity to do the RAN strategy with Grade 1 students all the way up to adults and it has been successful each time. But it has also looked a little different with each group. The biggest difference that I have noticed is that the younger groups have more misconceptions and adults have almost none. I don’t think this is because adults have more knowledge, I think it is because adults have more fear. They don’t want to be wrong so when they are asked to brainstorm what they think they know, they still only write down things they are sure of and they don’t include the facts that they might not have all the answers to. Younger grades just dump their brains out on the page and let it all out! It’s so interesting to see what kinds of things they keep in their little brains. When does the fear of being wrong start? How can teachers help students question and wonder without worrying about being right or wrong?
I encourage you to check out the RAN strategy and give it a try and I would love for you to write a comment about your own experiences with RAN in your classroom.
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