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5/17/2023

Mastering in the Moment Assessments

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Promising practices for assessing and adjusting your instruction to meet students' needs. 
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development
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Data is often thought of as comprehensive spreadsheets consisting of numbers, graphs, and charts, representing scores from end of unit tests or standardized exams. It’s often analyzed to determine whether or not students have mastered content and skills, rather than inform instruction or translate into timely teacher moves in the classroom.

Quantitative data has its place; however, it alone does not suffice. In addition to charts and graphs, teachers need qualitative data to inform and adjust their instruction along the way — throughout the unit, and within particular lessons. So, what are some of the ways teachers can gather this kind of data and make use of it? What can it look like? 

A portrait of practice 

In a recent visit to a school in Georgia, a colleague and I had the opportunity to perform walkthroughs of select classrooms. One teacher I witnessed — a seasoned math teacher facilitating a lesson on solving equations with decimals — was doing a fantastic job of taking the pulse of her classroom and assessing the needs of her students throughout her lesson. I want to share what I observed as I think it can be a useful case study to help us answer the above questions. 

She posed a question for the do now, and after circulating to assess how her students were doing, she addressed the class: “Okay y’all, I want us to stop for a minute. I’m noticing that what is tripping us up with this problem is rounding, and I would hate for this small detail to result in us getting these types of problems wrong!”

From there, she asked students to look back at their problem, particularly to see if they rounded correctly, while she prepared the next step of the lesson on her computer. After a few more minutes, she asked the students to go back to their seats, and informed them that they were going to engage in a Kahoot, to provide more practice with rounding. (Kahoot is a wonderful tool for not only offering practice, but also for gathering data quickly and accessibly. After each question, Kahoot offers a chart indicating how many students selected which answer and whether or not it was the right answer.)

This was a simple and effective way to gather and use data in the moment, in order to shift the plan for the day’s instruction. Rather than push forward, she took stock of what was needed, and responded intentionally.

And it didn’t stop there. As the lesson progressed, she continued to gather data while students were working, and made shifts based on what she observed. I watched her create a few different groups based on the information she had: one for students that needed more rounding practice; another group that focused on the original practice problems for the day; and another group that was pushed with some more challenging questions based on their strengths. 

This case study offers some promising practices for gathering and analyzing data, and making in the moment adjustments to instruction. In addition to the practices I described, I want to offer a few more that I utilized while I was leading my own classroom. 

Turn and talks

Turn and talks are an effective means of assessment that I leaned on heavily during my time as a classroom teacher. Given my large class size, turn and talks allowed me to check for understanding with more students than I could if they were working independently. I often used turn and talks as part of a do now, where I would pose a question and then have students talk to a shoulder partner while I circulated and listened in on their conversations.

Additionally, I liked to use turn and talks as part of a guided practice where I would model a strategy and then have students try it out with a partner while I listened and observed. I sometimes used a checklist to make note of which students seemed to be getting it and which students might need some more support, to inform how I might group my students for the lesson and inform who I might need to conference with individually.  

Conferencing

Conferencing is another powerful formative assessment that can be very instructive for both teachers and students. Conferences, when executed effectively, involve looking at student work, asking some clarifying and/or probing questions to determine what a student needs, in the moment, as they practice a new skill. Based on this investigation, the teacher identifies a high-leverage strategy that can advance student learning, often models it, and then observes while students give it a try. 

Collecting and sorting student work

Lastly, collecting and sorting student work is an effective means of assessment that can be particularly informative for sequencing instruction. As an elementary teacher, I would make it a point to collect student work once a week, whether it was students’ writing notebooks, their reading post-its, their drafts of writing, etc. I would look closely at the work to try and determine strengths and struggles, and then identify any common trends that could inform my grouping as well as the goals I should set for these groups.

For example, if we were working on a writing unit focused on non-fiction essays, I might review student work and notice common challenges related to students supporting their thinking with evidence, using proper citations, analyzing the evidence to make connections to their claims, etc. I would sort the challenges, and attempt to narrow them down to three or four that would form my groups, and then identify a teaching point for each that I would implement the following week.

It often felt like a lot of work, but when I did it, I always found it enlightening and I appreciated how it pushed me to ensure I was catering my instruction to what my students truly needed. (A twist of this for middle and high school teachers could be to collect and sort exit tickets, as they are likely more manageable than collecting drafts.)

​As teachers, we need to understand and address our students' needs as they arise, as they engage in the learning process and acquire new skills. In doing so, we can reflect on and improve our instruction before it’s too late. What I hope I have provided are meaningful and manageable ways to gather qualitative data and make use of it in the moment and beyond. 
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CONFERENCES AS CONVERSATIONS
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EXIT TICKETS AS ASSESSMENTS
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GETTING INTO GROUPS
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4/17/2023

What Do Emerging Readers Need?

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Breaking down the science of reading to identify specific skills & supports for emerging readers. 
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development
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Many people are talking about the science of reading — a term that is certainly not new,  but has been gaining some serious traction recently, and prompting some heated debate. This debate largely stems from how this term is being interpreted and what this means for the students in our classrooms. What is truly meant by the science of reading? 

After doing some of my own research, I’ve come to understand the science of reading as a comprehensive body of cross-disciplinary research conducted over the last 20 years that deepens our understanding of how the brain learns to read, including what skills are involved, how these skills are connected, and which parts of the brain are responsible for our reading development. The research seems clear, but because the term has become so loaded, I believe we are losing sight of what our young learners really need to become strong, capable readers.

What makes a skilled reader? 

One of the leading researchers of early language development and its connection to later literacy, Dr. Hollis Scarborough, developed in 2001 what he termed the Reading Rope, which helps us articulate the specific skills readers need to have in order to be proficient. The rope consists of lower and upper strands, with the upper strand focusing on language comprehension, and the lower strand emphasizing word recognition.

All these micro skills start to work together through practice and repetition, so that these skills can become instinctive. Ideally, over time, language comprehension becomes more strategic and weaves together with word recognition to produce a skilled reader. 
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​I have greatly appreciated Dr. Scarborough’s work, and recognize connections to how I have and continue to talk about the reading development in my coaching work. Despite using a few different terms, we have similar meanings. What he describes as literacy knowledge, I have described as concepts about print. Similarly, we talk about comprehension as consisting of micro skills including vocabulary and background knowledge — the skills needed to make sense and meaning of a text. 

However, I have gone a bit further in my explanation of what emerging readers need and have developed the Reading Wheel, which is based on my understanding of research and my experience as a childhood educator, teaching students how to read.
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You’ll see that, in addition to phonological awareness, I include alphabetic awareness, which is defined as “knowledge of letters of the alphabet coupled with the understanding that the alphabet represents the sounds of spoken language and the correspondence of spoken sounds to written language.”

I also discuss the importance of good reading habits, which include what Dr. Scarborough describes as verbal reasoning and a few others. Good reading habits are those often taken for granted skills that proficient readers use when reading — predicting, evaluating, questioning, clarifying, and monitoring for meaning, for example. In my work with teachers, I try to have them engage in the reading of a text, and then reflect on some of the moves they made while reading, to help reveal the habits they utilize most, and how these might be incorporated into their teaching. I also include a specific focus on stamina, which I define as the skill of being able to read for longer and longer periods of time, and the willingness to keep reading, even when it feels hard. 

What support do readers need?

To me, all these skills are equally important. The problem arises when we place more value or importance on certain skills over others — e.g., word recognition over language comprehension, which has often resulted in phonics instruction, all the time! Phonics instruction has its place when it comes to helping children learn the relationships between the letters of written language, the sounds of spoken language and supports their phonemic awareness and decoding skills; however, phonics instruction alone would not suffice. Emerging readers need opportunities to recognize the word patterns and letter blends in context, as they show up in books. 

If we look closely at both Dr. Scarborough’s Reading Rope and the Reading Wheel, we’ll see that they underscore the importance of being able to read words AND make meaning, evident by the weaving of the individual threads of the rope and the circular nature of the wheel. 

Students need explicit instruction when it comes to developing comprehension skills, in order to support them in thinking critically, making connections, and developing their identity as readers. Young readers need differentiated instruction and in the moment feedback as they work to progressively read more complex texts. This often happens during readers' workshops, or small group instruction, such as guided reading. 

Lastly, children need opportunities to engage in independent reading and participate in read alouds, to gain exposure to a wide range of texts aligned to their needs and interests, to grapple with different topics and content, to help foster a love for reading, promote stamina, and learn meaningful habits from a skilled reader — their teacher. My students loved read alouds, and often begged me to read more, so they could find out if Clover and Annie end up as friends in The Other Side, or find out if and how the teacher will respond to the class making fun of Chrysanthemum, or find out the connection between Kissin’ Kate Barlow and the Warden in Holes. 

As Diana Townsend states, “If we really care about teaching kids how to read, we need to focus on creating space and time for teachers to enhance their professional knowledge." They need time to explore the research around reading development for themselves and engage in conversation with colleagues about how it should inform their instructional strategies and approaches, rather than relying on a packaged curriculum or reading programs to do it for them.

​Furthermore, there needs to be meaningful and ongoing inquiry, where teachers can try things out, and then reflect on what’s working, when, for which readers, and why, as we know it takes time and patience to get things “right.” At the end of the day, Townsend reminds us that, “no one is going to ‘win’ the reading wars and children will always be the losers.”
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READING LIKE A DETECTIVE
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21st CENTURY BOOK CLUBS
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TEACHING TIERED VOCABULARY
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2/14/2023

Making the Case for Project-Based Learning

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Strengthen the connection between the why and how of student learning, cultivating essential 21st century skills along the way. 
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development
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​In a recent conversation with leadership at a school district in Westchester, NY, I posed the question: What do we recognize as the purpose of education, and what is it we want and hope for our students when they graduate? My intention in asking this was to encourage leadership to explore whether the goals and values they have for their students are reflected in their current efforts, including their curriculum, instruction, and initiatives. Put frankly, I was asking leadership for their thoughts around what they were doing, and if they thought it was best preparing students for the 21st century.

After some lengthy discussion and a deep dive into their curricular maps, it was revealed they had work to do. Despite their good intentions, they were still operating from old-fashioned and insufficient pedagogies. 

Unfortunately, through our research and experiences, we’ve found this is the case with most schools today. A look back through history can help underscore this point. 

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Education for what?
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In the 19th century, the purpose of education and schooling was to prepare students for work. There was one schoolhouse, and one teacher for many students, all of whom sat in rows. Instruction was focused on repeating, reciting, and reproducing — all skills necessary for work, which was predominantly in factories. 

In the 20th century, things evolved, thanks to the introduction of basic technology like the typewriter. Schooling focused on teaching students to apply information provided by a teacher or by a resource, like textbooks. Like the 19th century, there was a strong connection between school and work, though the necessary skills shifted to accommodate work in an office, and revolved around application and analysis.

Now, about a quarter into the 21st century, we are faced with a problem we’ve yet to experience. It’s the first time in history we are presented with a disconnect between what and how we are teaching, and the realities of a 21st century world, where technology continues to change and shape our experiences. Organizations today are seeking innovative and imaginative individuals, yet students are still looking to the teacher to provide the answers, and there is little to no opportunity for students to engage in critical and creative thinking, or individual and collaborative problem-solving.

Our needs and goals as a society are evolving but sadly, most of our schooling is not. 
As my colleague Dr. Roberta Lenger Kang says: We can’t use a 20th century pedagogy in a 21st century world.


How can we adapt to 21st century work and support students in acquiring skills that we know will serve them in the 21st century and beyond? 

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​The promise of project-based learning
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One of the most powerful ways to advance the skills and capacities necessary for students to thrive in today’s society is through project-based learning (PBL). PBL supports the development of fundamental skills such as reading and writing, as well as 21st century skills like research, collaboration and communication, problem-solving, time management, and the use of technology. In short, PBL sparks curiosity and curiosity leads to innovation. 

What is PBL? As the Buck Institute states, project-based learning is “A teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working together for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an authentic, engaging, and complex question, problem or challenge.” They also offer a distinction between “dessert” projects and “main course” projects that is particularly helpful — a dessert project is “a short, intellectually-light project served up after the teacher covers the content of a unit in the usual way” whereby a “main course project is when the project is the unit.” 

When it comes to CPET’s approach to project-based learning, we very much lean on the expertise of the Buck Institute. We believe projects: 
  • begin with a driving question or challenge reflective of the real world
  • revolve around inquiry into an essential topic
  • incorporate student voice and choice
  • approach skills from multiple perspectives
  • integrate teacher and peer feedback and revision
  • result in public performance or publication

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Imagining project possibilities
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How might teachers and students begin this work? 

Start with a real-world problem far away
Projects that are focused on a global issue help students demonstrate understanding of a problem that occurs in the world, even if it isn’t directly about them. Students can explore the features of this problem, how it impacts the people, as well as the far-reaching implications and solutions! 
  • Example: In much of the developing world, it is often necessary to walk 4-6 km or more every day to fetch water. In the dry season, it is not uncommon to walk twice this distance. The traditional method of carrying water for women involves carrying a 20-liter pot on the head, but this can severely damage their spines, causing severe pain and even leading to complications during childbirth. Research shows that household chores and water collection are primary reasons why girls have lower school attendance rates than boys. 

Start with a real-world problem close to home
This type of project can help students demonstrate understanding of a problem that occurs in their specific context. Identifying a problem locally engages people intimately and can inspire calls to action that are more likely to be carried out. The goals would be to understand a situation, issue, or a series of events that happen in multiple contexts around the world and ideally consider the global connections across diverse communities. 
  • Example: There are an estimated 553,742 people in the United States experiencing homelessness on any given night. This represents a rate of approximately 17 people experiencing homelessness per every 10,000 people in the general population.

Meditate on a word, concept or theme
Words are powerful, and making use of “academic” vocabulary or transferring knowledge from one domain to another are two areas where schools struggle to build students’ capacity. A project on a general word, concept, or theme is engaging and develops these important skills across content areas. 
  • Examples: Health, Migration, Social Justice, Empathy, Seeds

Our students have the potential to do amazing things. They just need the right conditions to survive and thrive. Project-based learning promotes the acquisition of real and relevant skills of the 21st century by asking questions, exploring issues that matter, and imagining possibilities for positive change. PBL is now the focus of my work with the district in Westchester, and I’m really excited by the progress they’ve made. I invite you to use any of these practices to support the creation of your own project, and if you need more help, we are here!
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Upcoming PD: The Power of PBL
Demystify project-based learning and design authentic, student-driven projects for your students that will allow them to develop essential 21st century skills. 
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2/2/2023

Journaling to Reflect and Connect

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Give yourself the space to think beyond the day-to-day grind of teaching and establish larger instructional goals. 
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development
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​The act of journaling elicits a wide variety of reactions. Some see it as a self-absorbed, touchy-feely practice only meant for women, whereas others see it as a practice central to their mental health. 

Whatever your perception, more and more research underscores the importance of personal writing as a means to increase resilience, decrease stress, as well as improve sleep and performance. 

We recognize that teachers today are under a tremendous amount of stress. They are grappling with how to best address the learning gaps and complex social-emotional needs of their students as a result of Covid, and in turn, they often neglect themselves. This has implications not only for their well-being, but also their teaching. When we are not feeling our best, we often can’t do our best. 

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Capture powerful and positive moments
In my first few years of teaching, my goal was to survive. I had little idea of what I was doing, and I often found myself feeling overwhelmed and like a failure. In discussing this with one of my fellow teachers, she offered a practice that had proven particularly helpful for her. She kept a journal of her experiences. She shared that she would make time — as much as she could over the week — to write out her thoughts, standout moments or challenges, or even reflections about a particular student. Although I didn’t see how I could possibly make time for journaling on top of everything else, I made it a point to write in my journal at the end of every week, even if only for 10 minutes. 

Over time, I found myself writing about the positives, to remind myself of the things I was doing right and to celebrate them. I would write about a lesson from the week that went particularly well, and why. I would write about breakthrough moments with students — like Elvis, an emerging ENL student who was finally confident enough in his English to read out loud, or the moment Anthony figured out how to use a number grid to recognize number patterns. I would write about moments of progress and growth, both for me and my students. I didn’t put any expectations or requirements on when I wrote or what I wrote, and it was truly cathartic for me. It helped rekindle my confidence and my sense of optimism. 

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Set goals
As my journaling practice evolved, I found myself using it for different purposes. One such way was to set goals, which ranged from personal, to instructional, to academic/professional, and beyond. I would write about ways in which I wanted to strengthen my abilities to differentiate my instruction or find ways to incorporate more math games into our lessons. I would write about wanting to create more boundaries for myself, or a book I wanted to read to help inform and inspire how I was creating community in my classrooms. I wouldn’t just write down the goal — I would break it down into manageable steps, attempting to create micro ideas and possibilities to support the larger purpose. For example, specifics related to my goal around differentiation might look like: 
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  • Looking at the latest performance assessment
  • Reflecting on my groups to see if they are still working/thriving 
  • Identifying a low, medium and high group
  • Thinking a level down and level up 

I found this practice to be particularly helpful to me, as it allowed me a space to think about more than just the day-to-day grind of teaching, and identify and explore things that would help keep me grounded in and connected to my larger goals and values as an educator. 

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Create connections
One final way that I used journaling in my teaching journey was to create a culture and community that honored reflective writing, prioritizing connections with my students. I wanted to learn about them in ways that typical day-to-day instruction and interactions didn’t always allow.

At least once a week, we’d have journaling time where students could write about anything and everything that was on their mind. If they needed help, I would pose some prompts, but I really attempted to protect this time to give them the opportunity to write unstructured, ungraded, and free of any judgment. And when they wrote, I wrote, in efforts of doing the same.

Our journaling then became a way to make and strengthen connections with one another. Once or twice a month, I would make time to have a conversation with my students, where we’d share what we had been writing about (whatever we were comfortable with), identify any connections between us, and make note of anything new we learned about each other. It was truly a fun and meaningful way to deepen my understanding of my students and our relationships. 

Whether you are new to reflective writing and looking to get started, or are looking for ways to freshen up your experiences, I offer you these practices, which I’ve found to be truly helpful. I encourage you to experiment with them and identify some of your own processes and practices around writing that serve to support and preserve your well-being. 

The act of journaling can be a powerful means of self-care. Reflecting regularly can give us a sense of agency and control while we work through difficult challenges in the classroom. It can take on many different shapes and sizes depending on what it is you’re trying to achieve and what feels manageable to you. 
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MAKING TIME FOR WHAT MATTERS
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ADVANCING WRITING INSTRUCTION
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WRITE TO LEARN
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11/21/2022

Conferences as Conversations: Meeting Students Where They Are

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​Engage meaningfully and gain insight that will support both your instruction and students' growth. 
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development
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​Throughout my work as a teacher and a coach, I’ve come across many different interpretations and definitions of what it means to conference with students. At a minimum, conferences are 1-1 interactions between a teacher and a student. At best, they are highly meaningful and informative conversations. They are opportunities to get to know a student, to assess where they are and where they are going, and to provide highly customized instruction aimed at advancing their learning. As Don Murray explains in his book A Writer Teaches Writing:
 
“Conferences are not mini-lectures, but the working talk of fellow writers sharing their experience with the writing process. At times, of course, they will be teacher and student, master and apprentice, if you want, but most of the time, they will be remarkably close to peers, because each writer, no matter how experienced, begins with each draft.”

How can we maximize our conferences with our students? 

​Defining roles

When it comes to conferencing, I have always leaned on Carl Anderson’s book, How's It Going? He explains that conferencing has a two-part structure: it’s first a conversation about the work the student is doing, and then a conversation about how the student can get better. As part of these conversations, the teacher and the student have distinct roles that help ensure they are meaningful and productive. Anderson explains: 
  • The student is responsible for setting the agenda, by describing the work they are doing.
  • As the student shares, the teacher listens carefully, asking questions to clarify and deepen understanding. 
  • The teacher then pursues a line of thinking about the students’ work by asking questions and examining the actual work. 
  • The teacher is also tasked with sharing their assessment of what the student is doing well and offers suggestions to help them learn to improve. 
  • It’s up to the student to respond to the teachers’ questions, listen carefully to the assessment, and ask questions to clarify and deepen understanding and try to figure out how to improve their work.
 
When the teacher and student enact these roles, the conference becomes a true conversation, whereby the teacher and the student become equal contributors, dedicated to the larger goal of improving the learning. 

​Facilitating the conversation

In addition to establishing roles, Anderson offers what I think is a helpful structure to facilitate a conference. The structure, which consists of six parts, can also benefit from the use of meaningful facilitation questions that will help guide your conversation. 
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Launch the conversation
The goal of the launch is to ask: how’s it going? What are you working on today? What do you need help with? This allows the student to take the lead.

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Look at/assess student work
It is so important to look at the work of our students in efforts of being able to analyze what they have shared, what is showing up in the work, and how the two compare. This kind of analysis is necessary if we are going to be able to accurately assess where students are and where they need to go. 

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Decide what to teach
This part of the conference is definitely the most challenging intellectual work. We need to decide what and how to teach during this particular conference. What helps me is to identify what I think is the most high-leverage area, the most urgent need, and not rely on a fix-it-all approach. To help with the decision we can consider things like:

 
  • What we know about good reading, writing or mathematical processes
  • What we know about students in general and their growth and development within our discipline. How do their skills progress and advance? 
  • What we’ve learned about the student so far in the conference as well as previous conversations. We want to consider our larger understanding of this student. 
 
In terms of how to teach a specific strategy or skill, Anderson offers some helpful tips: 
  • Give students a concise explanation of how good (readers / writers / mathematicians) do the work we are talking about.
  • Connect them to a mentor text or exemplar. This is particularly helpful for writing. This can help them study the work of seasoned authors and note independently how the writer did what the student is trying to do.
  • Remind them of the mini-lesson and suggest the student try something that we talked about in class. This is where an anchor chart can be particularly helpful.
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Nudge students to have a go
After our teaching, Anderson recommends that we nudge our students to try it out! I appreciate this terminology because it supports the idea that we encourage them to put forth an initial attempt to talk through what they are going to do during the conference, while they have our support. This helps us assess their understanding of the conference, and what they will go do on their own. 

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Link the conference and stamp the learning
To promote the transfer of skills and strategies, we want to link the conference to students’ ongoing work and encourage them to do the work we’ve discussed right away. As Anderson states, we can ask things like: “What are you going to do now?” or “Tell me your plans for your work…” I like to think of this as stamping the learning.

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Post-conference work
The last part of the conference, while it can often feel tedious, is crucial. As educators of high numbers of students, we can’t possibly remember every conversation we’ve had with each individual. Each student is unique and has different strengths and struggles depending on the content, the topic, the genre, etc. I highly encourage the teachers I coach to identify a method of keeping conference notes that works for them, and something they can maintain throughout the semester (and ideally the larger school year). In my own work, I used folders and index cards and titled them by the unit of study. Other teachers I know use voice notes/memos, while others have used Google Drive where they created one Drive for the overall unit, and created a folder for each student. Keeping notes and records helps us cater our instruction, monitor progress, and celebrate growth. 
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​Whereas any 1-1 interactions with students are valuable, finding ways to maximize our conferencing techniques such as those mentioned above can be transformative for us as educators. It can be challenging to find the time to conference amidst all that we do, but these highly essential and enlightening conversations can help us get to know our students on a deeper level. When we really know our students, we can most effectively cater our instruction and meet them where they are, which gives us the best chance at truly advancing their learning. 

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CREATE A CULTURE OF WRITING
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PROGRESSIVE SCAFFOLDING
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IDENTIFY LEVERAGE AREAS
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10/25/2022

Maximizing Math Talk in the Classroom

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Low-stakes, high-reward discussion practices you can bring to your math classroom.  
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development
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Most teachers I know recognize the importance of discussion in their classrooms, but often struggle with how to best facilitate student-to-student discussions, particularly in a content area classroom like math.

As a former elementary educator, I was responsible for teaching all subject areas — Reading, Writing, Math, Science and Social Studies. Math was always my most reluctant subject. When it came time to teach math, I was guilty of sitting in front of the whiteboard, doing practice problem after practice problem with my students, asking if they had any questions, and then sending them off to their desks to do more practice problems in their workbooks. I could tell they were bored (heck, I was bored), but I was unsure how to shift my teaching to make it more engaging and student-centered.

I was compelled by the idea that practice makes perfect, right? So the more problems they practice, the more likely they’d be to get it. But the drill and kill approach is not adequate, especially in classrooms today, and as we think about the necessary skills of students in the 21st century. We know they need much more to acquire skills and knowledge that will serve them in real life. They need to be able to talk about math, reflect on their processes, and collaboratively problem-solve.    

What is Math Talk? 

​One of my recent areas of focus and interest is helping math teachers incorporate more discussion in their classrooms and move away from the often well-intentioned chalk and talk approach.  

“Math Talk,” while a rather new term, is gaining in popularity, as research suggests that when students talk more about their math thinking, they are more motivated to learn and they learn more. It is one of the mathematical practices of the NGS that supports students in clarifying their thinking and understanding, constructing mathematical arguments, developing language to express math ideas, and increasing opportunities to see things from different perspectives.

How can teachers promote this challenging yet crucial mathematical practice in their classrooms? What I share below are three simple, yet effective strategies that can promote math talk in meaningful and manageable ways.

Turn and Talks

Turn and talks are a well-known and commonly used strategy. They support oral language, speaking, and listening skills in a low-stakes way. Math can often promote a lot of fear, and fear of getting it wrong. But because students are talking to a partner, there is often less hesitation than if they had to speak to a larger group. Turn and talks can be a great entry point to promoting discussion. 
​Let’s consider an example:
Turn and talks can take place as part of a Do Now. In many of the math classrooms I’ve visited, the Do Now consists of 2-3 problems, most often review problems intended to be prior knowledge assessments that students are asked to solve. After a set period of time, the teacher then solves the problem, asking for input from students who volunteer, and then encourages the rest of the students to check their answers to ensure they match with what’s on the board. Using a turn and talk can be a powerful alternative to the teacher doing the work. Partners can discuss and compare their answers, share their processes, and address any mistakes. Furthermore, one of these partnerships can volunteer to come to the board to solve the problem.

A twist:
Turn and talks can also build up to “making four.” After one partnership has had a chance to connect and engage in conversation, they can join with another partnership to make a group of four and expand the discussion to include more voices and perspectives.

Gallery Walks

Gallery walks are another simple yet meaningful technique to support discussion. These support students in being actively engaged as they walk throughout the classroom, and they can be highly effective in problem-solving within a math classroom. 

Similar to a turn and talk, a gallery walk could be the focus of the Do Now, as part of guided practice in preparation for independent work, or it can serve as the independent work after some explicit instruction. 
Let’s look at how it can be done:
Identify 5-6 spaces around the room where students will work (the number of stations can vary based upon the total number of students). Many of the math classrooms I’ve visited more recently have had whiteboards on all the walls of the room. This would be ideal! But if you don’t have whiteboards, you can certainly use chart paper, or even a notebook placed in the center of a table. 

Group the students in teams of 3-5. You don’t want the groups to be bigger than that, because the idea is to maximize discussion within a small group. 

Pose a problem to the students — this could be a word problem, equation, or mathematical expression you want them to solve. The group can identify a recorder to capture the group's work. 

After each group has finished, have the groups rotate around the room (usually in a clockwise or counter-clockwise fashion to make it easier) to another group's poster/whiteboard. This group should now read and discuss the work of their peers as well as add any thoughts, comments, or questions. They might even compare their problem-solving to see what’s similar and/or different. 

When each station has been visited, the students go back to their poster, read, and then reflect on the comments left by their peers. You can then facilitate a whole group discussion to share what was learned, and what the process was like. 

A twist:
Another iteration of this can involve completing a gallery walk silently. Silent discussions are also powerful. Instead of moving around the room in a group, students can move around independently, leaving individual comments on each poster with a particular color marker, and then coming back together to share their noticings.  

Think - Pair - Share

Think-Pair-Share can support students in working together to increase understanding and explore multiple perspectives. Like turn and talks, it is a partner strategy that can be a nice entry point to promoting discussion as its low-stakes and a bit easier for the teacher to manage participation of students. It can be done as part of a Do Now, to review a particular skill, to assess work that is already completed, or as part of independent practice as students apply what they’ve learned. 
Let’s look at an example:
Let’s say you are working on dividing fractions. A way to implement Think-Pair-Share could involve posing a similar division problem to each pair of students. Each student will solve the problem independently and then exchange their papers with their peers. Together, the pair reviews and discusses the various strategies used and identifies any missteps or misunderstandings. In doing so, they are learning how to explain their thinking, as well as critique the work of others, and engage in meaningful math talk about the larger skill of dividing fractions. After the pairs have come to a consensus, the teacher can facilitate a whole class discussion, where pairs will be asked to share their experiences, and how, if at all, they solved the problem differently and what they learned.  


A twist:
You can turn the pairs into small groups to incorporate more voices and expand the conversation. 


By no means do I consider myself a math expert; however, I do have extensive experience in promoting discussion in all disciplines. While these strategies are not new or revolutionary, I have witnessed how even small moves can shift instruction to allow for more student interaction and application. I hope you find them helpful as you consider how you can maximize discussion in your classroom, and remember that any of these can be a starting place — as you boost your confidence and experience success, I encourage you to consider your own twists and share them with others. 

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ENCOURAGING ENGAGEMENT
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STRATEGIC GROUPING
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INCREASING IN-CLASS INTERACTIONS
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9/20/2022

Creating a Culture of Writing

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Promising practices that can help nurture confident, capable student writers.  
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development
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The beginning of the school year is a powerful time for setting intentions and establishing expectations. As a former classroom teacher and professional development coach, I understand the importance of making sure students feel safe in their writing environment, so that they feel empowered to put pen to paper. Using the beginning of the year to create a culture of writing can help cultivate a sense of community, boost students’ confidence, dispel some of the myths that exist about writing, and strengthen students’ skills and strategies. 

How then, can we create this culture and community? 

Creating the environment

As Dan Kirby writes in Inside Out: Strategies for Teaching Writing, “…there should be some obvious indications that you believe that the physical environment is important, and these touches need to be present even in a rather sterile classroom setting…the fact that you’ve done something to your room is a signal to students that you care about the writing environment.” 

Teachers should create a space where they want to be, as chances are that the students will feel comfortable, too.

Teachers can use questions such as: 
  • Where do I typically write? 
  • Where do I do my best writing? 
  • What do I have with me or near me? 
  • What distracts me? 

By asking and answering these questions, it can inform and inspire the ways in which you design your classroom, as well as what materials or resources you might need or want. Perhaps you want to have a writing corner, or a gallery space for finished pieces. Think about all the spaces in the room — whether it’s a specific bulletin board, the walls, the ceiling, outside the classroom — where and how will writing be honored and celebrated? 

When it came to my environment, I recognized the importance of a quiet, comfortable space for students to write. I wanted to have inviting spaces around the room where students could choose to sit, whether it was on the carpet, with a pillow, a large bean bag, or in a comfortable chair near a window. In addition, I would turn off the lights when we wrote and play soft, classical music. This routine, over time, helped signal to students that it was time to write. It set the expectations that when we write, it's quiet and calm. You might be thinking that this can or should only happen in an elementary classroom; however, I have seen it used in middle and high school classrooms, and it was very well received by the students. 

I also had a writing center in my room, where students could go to gather paper, pencils, highlighters, and post-its to use for their writing. There was a basket for them to drop writing that they wanted or needed me to read. This empowered students to take ownership of their writing and build their independence as writers by providing them with common resources and tools they could access on their own, as needed. 

Establishing rituals & routines

The second promising practice for creating a writing culture is to consider meaningful rituals and routines that value and encourage writing. Rituals and routines involve necessary actions that create purpose and organization, and when done frequently, they become innate. Below are some of my favorite rituals and routines. 
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Writer reflections

These reflections prompt students to reflect on questions such as:
  • Who are you as a writer? 
  • What kind of writing do you enjoy most? 
  • When/where do you do your best writing? 
  • What are your fears and frustrations around writing? What holds you back? 
  • What makes you feel empowered and confident when you write? 

I established this ritual at the beginning of the year to get to know my students as writers, and then repeated an iteration of it at the end of every writing unit to monitor progress and assess any changes in students’ attitudes or experiences as they engaged in different writing tasks. It was meaningful and informative both for me and for my students, and helped inspire methods of support that were responsive to individual needs. 
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Write with your students

In my early experiences as a writing teacher, the process of teaching writing was presented as rather smooth and linear. However, we know that writing is often messy and complicated. There are times when ideas are free flowing, other times when we feel incredibly stuck, and everything in between. By sharing your writing experiences and your writing processes with your students, you can help dispel some of the myths about what writing should look like and how it should be done.

Furthermore, by writing with your students, you can help create a sense of community and understanding. I enjoyed sitting down with my own notebook and writing alongside my students, whether it was journaling or drafting something I could use as a model. Students often wanted to sit next to or near me, and I could tell, based on their behaviors and the volume of writing, that it was having a positive influence. 
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Flash drafting

This is a term I came across in Ralph Fletcher’s book, What a Writer Needs. The idea is to provide students with extended time for writing that is uncensored and on their own terms. It is intended to be a generative exercise, where students can jot anything and everything that comes to their mind about a topic, without worrying about structure or organization — aspects that can often be stifling to students. Furthermore, it helps build their stamina for writing.

In my classroom, I would set a timer with my students, and tell them: I’ve started the timer, and we are going to write for 10 minutes! Ready…GO! Little by little, we would extend the time as we built our stamina. By the end of the year, students were able to write for the full period, or 30 minutes. 
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All voices in

This is something I adapted from Erick Gordon, founder of the Student Press Initiative, CPET’s project-based writing initiative. Whereas celebrating writing is often done at the end of a unit, when students have finalized and published their pieces, All Voices In is about celebrating the writing along the way, helping students recognize all the ways in which they are growing and progressing as writers, and boosting their confidence. This supports students in engaging in the process of prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing as part of every writing experience, so that ideally, it becomes intrinsic. 

A typical example of this in my classroom involved teaching students a strategy or a skill around writing, i.e. using prompts to elaborate our writing. My students would then practice this on their own, with their own writing. Before the end of the lesson, students were prompted to read over their writing (silently or aloud), use a checklist, or even read it with a partner to support revision and editing. Then we’d gather together to hear from several voices as students shared a favorite line or a specific revision they made. Sometimes we had time for all voices to share, and other times, I created a schedule that identified when specific voices would share. 


I encourage you to start the process of creating a culture or writing by identifying what you are most passionate about, what you are most excited about, and use that information to inspire the ways in which you create your space and establish your rituals and routines. If you have a passion for writing, like me, and/or you are a writing/ELA teacher, then I invite you to use the promising practices shared above, as they were very helpful for me and for the advancement of my students as writers! 

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REFLECTIVE WRITING
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CELEBRATING STUDENT VOICE
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RITUALS & ROUTINES: NEW TEACHERS
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6/17/2022

Reading Like a Detective

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Help students independently investigate and interpret unfamiliar words using context clues. 
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development
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​When it comes to reading, one of the most significant challenges students face is vocabulary. If students come across a word they don’t know while reading, it can have a substantial impact on their comprehension and their confidence. I witnessed this as a classroom teacher, and I’ve heard it from many of the teachers I now coach. 

​Searching for clues

One of my most tried and true strategies, which I used in my own classroom as an elementary teacher, and one I continue to offer to teachers, involves encouraging students to read texts like a detective who is searching for clues. Asking them to engage in this way encourages students to look for clues that can help unlock meaning, offer insights, and assist them in interpreting unknown words.

But these clues — often referred to as context clues — go beyond the language immediately surrounding unknown words. Clues might be found in the paragraph before or after an unknown word or phrase. Sometimes there are clues in the text features, including pictures, visuals, captions, or word boxes. We need to support students in treating the whole text as a series of clues that can help them become familiar with specific vocabulary words as they read independently. 

Monitoring for meaning

Our Monitoring for Meaning resource can support students with this process, particularly when it comes to identifying and investigating difficult words. It offers a helpful template that prompts students to: 
  • Write down unknown words as they come across them
  • Consider the larger context in which the words appear, and
  • Identify specific context clues they may find close to the words

This resource asks them to use their best guess and then either confirm or revise their thinking after using a dictionary. Furthermore, it prompts students to lean on their prior knowledge to help decipher new words.
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DOWNLOAD: MONITORING FOR MEANING

Literacy teachers have the demanding and important task of teaching reading, and while there is no single strategy that can guarantee success, encouraging curiosity and investigation while reading is a high leverage way to support students in becoming competent, confident readers. 

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INFORMATION OVERLOAD
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MULTIMODAL READING
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LEVERAGING LITERACY AT HOME
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6/17/2022

Adapting Packaged Curricula: Promising Practices for Making It Your Own

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Connect the dots between larger goals and the specific needs of your students. 
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development
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As an instructional coach and elementary specialist for CPET, much of my work with elementary schools has involved helping teachers unpack and make sense of the chosen, school-wide pre-packaged curricula they’re asked to work with — a curricula that is designed by professionals to meet grade level and subject requirements, and includes most, if not all of the materials needed to teach. I often facilitate workshops and professional development sessions, introduce teachers to the curricula and its components, as well as engage in classroom visits and critical reflection conversations with individual teachers to support the implementation of the curricula.

While the curricula is packaged, there’s often a surprising amount of tweaking and adapting involved to make sure the curricula fits the school calendar, the style of the teacher, and most importantly, that it meets the needs and interests of all students. This can be a daunting and challenging task for educators. 

How can you make sense of and revise curricula to meet the needs, goals, and interests of your students? 

Identifying your goals

​One of the biggest challenges I see when it comes to the adoption and adaptation of packaged curricula is just the magnitude and density of it all. There are often many components, books, inserts, handouts, and templates, and this can make it difficult for teachers to even know where to begin. They often express feelings of overwhelm or lack of time or opportunity to make sense of and collaboratively plan with the curricula.

Because packaged curricula often includes all of the individual lessons, with varying levels of detail and information, teachers often fall into the trap of teaching lesson to lesson and relying on the teacher manuals to drive their day-to-day instruction. But this can result in losing sight of the larger goals and what these lessons are in service of. Essentially, teachers can start to become the mouthpiece of a script. 

I recently began to work with a school that had just adopted a new curricula for reading. After using a program for a number of years, many teachers were unsure and rather uneasy about this transition. After meeting with leadership and discussing their needs, my goals as the instructional coach were to: 
  • Introduce teachers to the curricula and all of its components
  • Support them in familiarizing themselves with the units of study and how they are organized
  • Delve deeply into Unit 1 in efforts of crafting a solid plan for implementing this unit at the start of the subsequent school year

In support of these goals, it was my intention to facilitate a number of workshops with the teachers to first and foremost ease their anxieties, answer questions, and cater to their varying levels of familiarity and comfort with the curricula. From there, we worked together to unpack the curricula in a meaningful and productive way, the specifics of which I will share with you, as I believe they can be helpful when it comes to adopting and adapting any new curricula. 

Starting with the end in mind

In order to know where you’re going and how you are going to get there, you need to understand the larger goals and objectives of a curriculum, the driving questions, and the final tasks or assessments. To do this, I would suggest starting with the end in mind. Most curricula I’ve seen offer a unit overview or summaries that are often found at the front. Taking the time to read or skim these overviews can be a helpful starting place. With the teachers I worked with, each grade level engaged in jigsaw readings, where one teacher took on a portion of text from the overviews and underlined and annotated, made comments in the margins, and then shared their thinking, questions and interpretations. 

From there, we examined the culminating assessment, asking questions such as:
  • What is the task?
  • What do we recognize as the demands for students in terms of what they would need to know, be able to do?
  • Where we think they might struggle, where might they do well, and what implications does this have on our instruction?
  • Are there opportunities for student choice?

This exercise was intended to not only understand the assessment as it’s suggested, but more importantly, to provide a lens through which to recognize opportunities for revision, including scaffolding or extending the task, and then consider the implications for instruction. No curricula can take into account the needs and interests of all students, so it is up to teachers to revise and adapt the curricula with their students in mind.

Lastly, we considered the necessary materials, resources, rituals, and routines that would be needed in order to implement the units successfully: 
  • What texts will be needed? 
  • What types of grouping might we consider?
  • Do we have access to classroom libraries, writing centers, student notebooks, etc.?
  • What will the students need in order to be successful?

With this larger, more robust understanding of the curricula, teachers can more effectively navigate their curricula and instruction and move away from feeling bound to a script.

Pushing into the pacing calendar

Most often, pre-packaged curriculum includes a pacing calendar, sometimes called a scope and sequence. This calendar offers a snapshot for instruction, including when particular units, (also known as modules or bends) should be implemented, and for how long. These calendars can be helpful when thinking about a school year at large — where you’re going, and how long it’s going to take you to get there. In my experience, the suggested pacing calendars often need to be changed or revised to take into account breaks, testing, and school events. Perhaps more importantly, the pacing calendars need to be adjusted based on teachers’ understanding of the larger goals, objectives, and assessments. 

With my teachers, we compared the suggested pacing calendar to their school calendar and grade-specific calendars,  asking questions such as:
  • Given the larger goals as we understand them, are there units that we feel should be combined?
  • Are there units that need to be shortened, extended, or even eliminated?
  • Is anything missing?

Asking these questions supported teachers in taking action to make adjustments. Having a larger calendar for instruction can make things feel more manageable. 

Identifying the structure of instruction

In my experience, most packaged curricula have a consistent structure and organization, and even specific rituals and routines that define the units and individual lessons. Looking across the lessons and identifying these structures can be very helpful for teachers. Examples include rituals and routines like turn and talks, reflective writing, stop and jots, or structures such as progressive scaffolding. The adopted curricula of this particular school was organized around the workshop model, starting with a connection which led to a mini-lesson, an opportunity for student practice, and then culminated with a share out and reflection of the learning. 

I supported teachers in understanding and unpacking these various components and their purpose and then modeled a few of the lessons for them. To facilitate this, we used a template to plan one or two of the lessons, adopting what we liked, and taking out what we felt wasn’t necessary. We revised anything necessary, based on our larger understanding of the goals of the lesson and what teachers thought would be most relevant and important to students. Lastly, we worked to revise the lesson to ensure it reflected their voice and their style, fostering a sense of authenticity and ingenuity that supports relationship-building with students. 
 
By identifying and understanding the key structures, rituals, and routines of a curriculum, teachers can move through the lessons with more clarity and confidence. 

Implementing packaged curricula takes a great deal of patience, persistence, and flexibility. We know that no curriculum can be implemented as it’s written if it is going to meet the needs and goals of a particular school community. We have to work strategically, creatively, and collaboratively with our peers to examine the curricula, consider aspects we can and should implement, and what needs to be revised, replaced, or even eliminated.

Are you adapting curricula in your classroom or community? Get in touch with me to receive support throughout the daunting — but doable! — process. 


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HOW TO ADAPT, ADOPT, APPLY
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PBL & PACKAGED CURRICULA
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PROGRESSIVE SCAFFOLDING
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6/6/2022

Core Considerations for Simplifying Project-Based Learning

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​Three entry points for designing project-based, student-centered instruction. 
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development
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With the amount of interruptions and disruptions to learning over the last few years, many schools and teachers are faced with the reality that their curricula and instruction may no longer be relevant or appropriate, given all of the learning that’s been missed. As a result, teachers are wondering how to best revive their curricula to make it more reflective and responsive to their students’ needs. Furthermore, they are concerned with how to best promote and maintain engagement of their students, and incorporate fun into their learning. 

Project-based learning can be a powerful solution. Projects promote high levels of student engagement while also supporting the acquisition of academic skills and content knowledge, and also real-world, 21st century capacities and characteristics, including: critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and caring. Project-based learning puts students at the center, and are often inspired by real-world, community-based issues that matter to students, providing safe spaces for them to engage in meaningful reflection, and share their unique perspectives with the world. 

How can we make our instruction more project-based? Where do we start? Many teachers I work with are eager and excited to transition to project-based learning, but struggle with knowing how to begin. Their excitement is often met with fear and apprehension as they feel bound to a certain curricula or scope and sequence. Use the three considerations below to imagine the first steps you might take in creating more student-centered, project-based instruction. 

Consider: Student voice and choice

One of the core principles of project-based learning is student choice. As teachers, we want to be thinking about where and how students can make decisions about their own learning. But this doesn’t have to be overwhelming — we can offer students choice within manageable parameters.

A simple starting point can be to think about choice when it comes to topics, texts, or tasks. For example, if we know that students need to write a persuasive essay as one of our grade level or content area requirements, allow them choice in the topic they write about, or the texts they read as part of the process. Or, if we know that students need to read a certain text as part of a course, then allow them choice when it comes to the task of how they will share their learning (e.g. presentation, podcast, etc.).

Consider: An authentic audience

Another core principle of project-based learning is an authentic audience. Traditionally, the audience for student learning is the teacher, or maybe their peers. But how can we challenge this tradition and provide students with opportunities to write for a more real-world audience?

The ability to communicate with specific audiences is an incredibly important skill, and something that will serve them beyond the classroom. When it comes to identifying an audience, we can use questions such as: “Who would benefit most from learning about this topic or reading this work?”

Identifying an audience from the start, prior to launching into a unit, can support students in writing with this audience in mind, which should inform their tone, their language, and their vocabulary. But it doesn’t stop there — think about how your students can authentically connect with their audience, whether it’s through inviting them to a reading or celebration, posting their writing online, or even sending representations of their work in the mail.

Consider: A larger purpose

In line with thinking about an authentic audience, is connecting student efforts to a larger purpose. Most often, the purpose of student work is for a grade, or to pass a class. Projects, in contrast, have a deeper purpose that connects to the world outside the classroom, which can make them more meaningful and enjoyable for students.

Whereas we might talk about the traditional purposes of student work as being to persuade, entertain or teach, identifying a more specific purpose can strengthen students' skills as writers and communicators. For example, a purpose could be to call someone to action to resolve a community issue, to share advice, or to challenge perspectives. Being more specific and deliberate with the purpose can help inform and inspire how students understand their efforts.

These three considerations reflect just some of the essential principles of project-based learning, and are a great place to start if you’re looking for manageable entry points to this type of work. These project elements can serve to inform extensions and/or revisions that you make to existing curricula, without it feeling overwhelming or impossible, and most importantly, help revive your curricula to make it more student-centered and student-driven. 

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DESIGN INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECTS
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AUTHENTIC LEARNING THAT LASTS
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PAIR PBL & PACKAGED CURRICULA
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1/25/2022

Mastering the Art of Pacing

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Seamlessly navigate the pacing of your lessons. 
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development
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When I was in college, I waitressed at a French bistro on the Upper West side of Manhattan. During my first couple of shifts, I made all of the quintessential mistakes — forgetting to put in orders, getting orders wrong, not being able to greet all of my tables, not knowing if and when to ask for their order or when to drop the check. I found myself overwhelmed! Over time, however, I learned that to be a really good waitress is a skill, an art, something that you can improve. As one of my favorite managers once told me: you’ll know you’re a good waitress when your patrons don’t even know you’re there, when you seamlessly navigate the pacing of their food and drinks. 

It’s all about the pacing!

Foundations of timing

In my time as an educator, I have leaned on many of my waitressing experiences. Like waitressing, teaching is an art, and so much depends on successful pacing! How you pace your lessons, the order and flow of your instruction, how much time you dedicate to each task, and how you transition to each segment of a lesson are challenging yet crucial pieces of being a teacher. These actions have such important implications for student learning. 


How can you tighten up your lessons?

Get started with our
Foundations of Timing Instruction resource, which highlights helpful considerations and rules of thumb for timing and transitioning your instruction, including: 


  • Pacing: Students will take as much time as they are given — more time doesn’t usually translate to a better product.
  • Timing: Lessons that end early open the door for student misbehavior and teacher frustration.
  • Transitions: Undefined transitions allow for teachers to become distracted by disruptive students. 
  • Closings: Closings help students identify the most important information and give a sense of
    completion to the class period.
Whether you are just starting out, or are a seasoned teacher, your pacing can always be improved so that you are better able to serve your students. 
DOWNLOAD: FOUNDATIONS OF TIMING INSTRUCTION

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HELP STUDENTS STAY ON TASK
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DESIGN COHERENT INSTRUCTION
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RITUALS & ROUTINES
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6/11/2021

Creating Space for Race: Conversations in Elementary Classrooms

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Encourage curiosity and caring in young learners, and support an understanding and appreciation of differences.
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development

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Conversations about race are not easy. They can bring about feelings of fear, anger, and frustration, and as a result, these conversations are often avoided. However, grappling with topics of race and diversity are truly important, especially with young children who are cultivating their understanding and their perceptions of the world. Experts argue that children are never too young to learn about kindness, fairness, and human rights. Research states that children “as young as three months old...may look differently at people who look like or don’t look like their primary caregivers.” 

As a parent of a soon to be two-year-old and a professional development consultant who works closely with educators of young children, I am committed to seeking ways to engage in and facilitate my own conversations about race, especially in today’s world, as well as share strategies with educators that they can use in their own classrooms. What follows are a few strategies I’ve curated and adapted from my own musings and readings, as well as some concrete strategies inspired by one of our reimagining education initiatives: Literacy Unbound. These strategies can be particularly helpful when it comes to facilitating conversations about race with young students and cultivating skills, mindsets, and capacities that will serve us well today, and in the future. 

The importance of asking questions

One of the most effective ways to grapple with topics of race and diversity is to ask questions. This is particularly effective with elementary students, as they commonly ask many questions of their own. By encouraging their curiosity and caring, and creating a safe space for them to be inquisitive, you can help pacify concerns, address confusions, and support an understanding and appreciation of differences. Additionally, you can raise your own questions focused on topics of race, diversity, and exploring differences to get students thinking and recognizing how they can be advocates of positive change. Here are some examples of questions that I turn to, curated and adapted from websites like PBS.com:
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  • What do you notice makes people different? What makes people the same? 
  • Why do you think people look different from one another?
  • Think about your family. What are three things that are the same or different about you and them? (Think of physical features or likes and dislikes!)
  • Think of a time you took a stand for yourself or for someone else. If someone was being mean to your friend, how would you stand up for them?
  • When we see something we believe is unfair, what are ways we can stand up for others?

These questions can be a part of morning circle time, a weekly reflection or journal writing prompt, or even as a theme for a bulletin board, where students can share their responses using post-its or index cards (or, while online, students can add their thoughts online to Padlets and Jamboards).  

Introducing & exposing students to diverse books

As Dr. Aisha White,  Director of the P.R.I.D.E. Program at the University of Pittsburgh, explains, books — especially picture books — are a safe place to start when talking to children about race and racism. She suggests selecting picture books that offer multiple perspectives and explore various entry points for addressing complex topics. Some popular texts she suggests include: 

  • Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for Desegregation, which explores fairness and discrimination 
  • Shades of People, which explore diversity 
  • Chocolate Me, which explores racial bullying

These texts can be read as part of designated read aloud time, as part of a school-wide, character building initiative where the books are read in every classroom, or as a central text that guides and inspires a larger unit of study.

But as Dr. White explains, it’s not enough to just read the book. “If a parent (or educator) just reads the book and doesn’t have a conversation — doesn’t start to talk about racial disparities and racial discrimination and racism in America — then it won’t really affect a child’s attitudes toward race…it comes back to…having a background knowledge before speaking with their children, and being brave enough to have the tough conversations.”

What does it look like to support students in reading complex texts more closely, more carefully, more creatively, and more critically?  

Sparking conversations around texts

​Literacy Unbound, one of our signature initiatives, aims to unbind traditional approaches to the teaching of reading and writing using drama and play-based strategies to spark conversations that are inspired by questions raised in a specific, shared text. Teachers and students are brought together in this process as critical and creative thinkers, which helps foster a space for collective inquiry and exploration. 

Using drama and play can be particularly effective with young students, especially when looking to support engagement and participation, while also providing a safe entry point for complex and challenging conversations. 

Let’s look at a few strategies from Literacy Unbound to see how they can be effective and what they can look like when applied to one of my favorite texts, The Other Side, by Jacqueline Woodson. The Other Side follows the story of a little Black girl named Clover who sees a little white girl across a fence, but is told by her mom that she can’t cross to the other side of the fence because it isn’t safe. 
Taking it to Text
This is a strategy that asks students what they know and what they wonder about in the text, in an effort to tap into prior knowledge and have students reflect on their experiences and curiosities. It can be a really generative activity as students ask and answer questions about the setting, the main topic or themes in the text, as well as the characters. For The Other Side (which includes a cover with a picture of two girls — one white and one Black — one on each side of the fence),  we could ask students: What do you see on the cover? What do you know about fences? Where have you seen an example of fences? What do you wonder about this fence? You can also participate in this conversation by sharing your own ideas and wonderings. 


Thought Tracking
Inspired by Neelands and Goode (1990), this is a strategy that can support students as they travel inside the head of the narrator or one of the characters in a story to think about what they might be going through in that moment. Students will likely have different interpretations and understandings of the characters, how they are feeling, and why they are acting in a specific way. By creating a space for students to share their perspectives and interpretations, it can assist with building empathy, understanding, and the appreciation of differences. Continuing with the cover from The Other Side, we might ask students something like: 


What do we wonder as we look at this picture? I wonder what each girl is thinking.  Let’s travel inside the head of the girl in the pink sweater first. If you have an idea of what might be going through that girl’s head at this moment, raise your hand. What might she say?  It might start with “I wish…” or “I wonder…”

Students can share their responses aloud with the class, as part of a turn and talk with a partner, or even jot down their ideas on a post-it and add to a class chart paper so that the larger group can look across student responses and examine any similarities or differences. 

Hotseat
Another strategy inspired by Neelands & Goode, hotseat can support students in stepping into the shoes of one of the characters in the story, to think and speak as this character, and ultimately build capacities for critical reflection, empathy, and relating to others. Furthermore, it can help students examine what we know about a character in the story and what we think about their actions and responses to various events in the text, as well as highlight what we want to know more about. Using The Other Side, students might do a hotseat with Sandra, one of the secondary characters. Consider this passage: 


“Once, when we were jumping rope, she asked if she could play. And my friend Sandra said no without even asking the rest of us. I don’t know what I would have said. Maybe yes. Maybe no.” 

After reading, you can invite a student to come to the hotseat and speak as Sandra, while the other students think about what they want to know about Sandra’s response in this particular moment. You might ask: Why do you think Sandra said no?  Should we ask her?  Can we have someone come up into our hotseat here and speak as Sandra?  To the rest of the class you might ask: What do we want to know from Sandra about her response at this moment?

Facilitating conversations about race with young students is no easy task. It takes courage, patience, and a lot of thoughtful planning and reflection on the part of educators, parents, and caretakers. Moreover, it takes a lot of persistence. Being open-minded and developing understanding, kindness, and an appreciation of others who are different from us is not something that happens after reading one text or engaging in one conversation.

As Glenn Singleton and Curtis Linton note in their book Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schools, courageous conversations about race require that we stay engaged and anticipate feelings of discomfort, as well as expect and accept non-closure.

We encourage you to create space for these conversations with your students and reimagine the ways in which you can spark curiosity and critical thinking around race and equity in a safe and supportive classroom. 
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DEVELOP INCLUSIVE CURRICULUM​
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LITERACY UNBOUND
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ENGAGE STUDENTS IN COMPLEX TEXTS
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4/23/2021

Using Data to Promote Productive Struggle

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Observing student behavior and communication to inform our instruction and create meaningful learning opportunities.
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development

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Productive struggle, a term that has gained popularity over the last decade, is found in instruction that “stretches students’ thinking and performance just beyond the level they can do on their own — the zone of proximal development.” 

Finding and teaching to each of our students’ sweet spots is no easy feat. As teachers, we are often guilty of over-scaffolding, or rescuing our students out of fear or our desire to avoid student discomfort. Alternatively, we sometimes push students too far by introducing a task that is well beyond their level, without also providing the necessary tools or assistance they need to meet the challenge. In order to support students in productive struggle, we need to be patient, persistent, and committed in gathering and using data in our instruction. This can include quantitative data such as reading levels and test scores, or perhaps more importantly, student actions and behaviors — what we know as qualitative data.

How can we gather qualitative data about our students in order to support them in finding a meaningful, productive level of struggle in their learning?  

Identifying zones of struggle
 
Before we can locate promising practices for our instruction, we first need to identify look fors and listen fors that can help us determine if and when students are being pushed too far, or are not being pushed enough.

When students are not being challenged enough or instruction is below their level, we consider this a level of no struggle. At the other end of the spectrum is destructive struggle, in which tasks are too challenging for particular students, or are significantly above their level. A zone of productive struggle lies between the two. 
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Let’s identify the look fors and listen fors for each of these zones:

When students are in a no struggle zone, it might look like and sound like:
  • Finishing quickly and having nothing to do
  • Statements like, “This is kid stuff,” or “This is super easy.” 
 
When it comes to the destructive struggle zone, we might observe students who: 
  • Don’t get started on a task
  • Chat, stare off into space, or other exhibit other off-task behaviors
  • Communicate things like: “This is boring,” or “I don’t know what to do,” or even “I’m not doing this!”
 
In contrast, when students are in a zone of productive struggle, we are likely to see them:
  • Work for a bit, maybe ask a question or two, and then ask for help
  • Share statements like: “I think I get it, but can you help me with…”

Observing student behavior online

​Given that so much instruction is happening remotely, and we may not be able to observe the same behaviors from our students in a remote setting, we can also identify look fors and listen fors when online teaching and learning is taking place. 

 
In a no struggle zone, we might observe online students who are: 
  • Clearly engaged in another window, program, or activity
  • Finished quickly and starting to engage in another task at home
  • Talking and unmuting themselves before others are finished, causing distractions
 
When students are in a place of destructive struggle online, they might: 
  • Turn off their cameras
  • Leave the call
  • Never unmute themselves or share their voice
  • Yell, get frustrated, or even cry, depending on the age of the student
 
In contrast, productive struggle might look and sound like:
  • Students who are able to get started on their work on their own — whether that means they are typing into a Google slide, a Padlet, or a Jamboard. You are able to see evidence of their work. 
  • Students who have their camera on, and use the chat feature and/or unmute themselves to engage in conversation, ask questions, or clarify the task
 
Determining students’ current zones of struggle is a helpful starting point for potential shifts in your instruction. Different students at different times might exhibit these behaviors, and this can inform your responses and course of action. By leaning on these look fors and listen fors, we can more effectively and confidently determine if, when, and how many scaffolds need to be introduced so that students are advancing their skills.

Preemptive planning
 
In addition to locating student behaviors and communication that can surface as they’re working on tasks, we can also lean on preemptive planning, which will support us in predicting and creating opportunities for productive struggle in our classrooms. Preemptive planning encourages thoughtful consideration and analysis of each task we’re offering students — whether it’s a culminating task of a unit or a task for a particular lesson. This process involves asking questions such as:

  • What will students need to know and be able to do when it comes to this task?
  • What are the prior knowledge demands that this task requires?
  • Where and how do I think my students might struggle?
  • Where and how do I think they might do well?
  • Based on this analysis, what are some instructional strategies I should teach?
 
These questions can inform your instructional design as you work to meet the individual needs of students. Your assessment of students’ areas of struggle can inform where and how you’ll need to scaffold your instruction, and the areas of strength can inform where and how you introduce extensions or opportunities for deeper learning.

Similar to identifying and responding to look fors and listen fors, preemptive planning is a meaningful form of data collection that can help you predict or anticipate student performance and ultimately use these predictions to inspire, inform, and cater your planning and instruction to your students. 

​There is no denying the challenges involved in meeting students where they are, especially when teaching large numbers of students — many of whom are on vastly different levels — or teaching at a distance. But by engaging in strategic planning based on data and evidence, we can create opportunities for our students to challenge themselves, recognize that they can do hard things, and make progress in their learning.  
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DESIGNING BLENDED INSTRUCTION
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STUDENT BEHAVIOR AS DATA
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DATA OBSERVATION & INTERPRETATION
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3/29/2021

Pairing Project-Based Learning & Packaged Curricula

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Incorporate PBL into existing tasks and create engaging, meaningful opportunities for your students.
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development

Project-based learning is a widely used term in education. Although many educators have a general understanding of what it means, it’s often met with uncertainty and apprehension. 

A simple Google Search of “project-based learning” results in 10 pages of articles or blogs, written by various organizations, institutions, and individuals. For instance, cultofpedagogy describes project-based learning as a combination of standards, best practices of UBD (understanding by design), and formative assessments. ASCD describes a project as meaningful if it fulfills two criteria: that students "feel the work is personally meaningful, as a task that matters" and that the project fulfills a “meaningful purpose.” Edutopia describes project-based learning as learning that tells a story. 

Throughout my 15 years of teaching and coaching, I’ve seen varying interpretations and implementations of project-based learning myself, which have been further complicated by the move to remote and blended learning environments. For educators who are working with packaged curricula, it can be especially difficult to see the opportunities available for introducing PBL in classrooms. But focusing on the core components of this work can support us in establishing engaging, meaningful, and doable project-based learning experiences for our students. 

Components of project-based learning

​One of the most well-known and admired institutions when it comes to project-based learning is the Buck Institute. They offer what I think are very helpful criteria to inform what project-based learning can look like: 
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​In line with much of the graphic, our K-12 coaching team believes that projects are a wonderful way to help students cultivate 21st century skills, focus on a pressing topic or issue, develop their identity as readers and writers, and engage in a writing process that involves extensive feedback, revision, and reflection on their learning. We believe the pedagogy of project-based learning is about: 

  • Beginning with a driving question or challenge: What is a pressing topic, issue, or problem that we are thinking about? 
  • Revolving instruction around inquiry into an essential topic: How can the driving questions serve as a lens to read, write, research, gather, and explore? 
  • Incorporating student voice and choice: What are the ways in which students are a part of the design, the driving questions, the topics and themes? 
  • Approaching essential skills from multiple perspectives: What interdisciplinary connections could (or should) we be making? 
  • Integrating teacher and peer feedback and revision: How and when are we creating a community of learners that supports one another? 
  • Concluding the project with a celebration, ideally public: How are we going to celebrate the learning and share it with a wider audience? 

Now that we’ve laid out some of the basics, we can investigate what project-based learning might look like in action. The questions above can help inspire task revision and allow you to incorporate project-based learning into pre-packaged curricula, without starting from scratch.

Creating relevant, meaningful tasks

Recently, I partnered with a school in Brooklyn to support them as they designed and reimagined assessments for online learning. As an elementary school, they had adopted a packaged curricula for English Language Arts instruction. My goal was to help them make existing tasks and assessments more engaging and relevant for students, and support them in redesigning the tasks as they were written in order to infuse elements of project-based learning — without compromising rigor. 

We began with a first grade writing task that focused on persuasive reviews based on favorite places, foods, etc. To begin revising this task, we started by examining three important questions, informed and inspired by the Buck Institute: 

  • Is it engaging?: Will my students enjoy it? Does it allow them choice? Does it consider modifications of the task for my students? 
  • Is it meaningful?: Does it have a real audience and purpose? Is it relevant? Does it reflect real world goals and skills? 
  • Is it doable?: Do I have all the resources I need, the time, the considerations? What might I have to teach online that I didn’t consider when teaching in person? This last question was particularly important at the time, given the swift transition to online learning, and the fact that teachers and students had limited access to materials, resources, and technology. 

We used these questions to guide our analysis and revision, referring back to the original task:

  • Is it engaging?: Ideally, it is offering students choice, by allowing them to choose what they’d like to review.
  • It is meaningful?: As it’s written, the purpose and audience for this task is unclear. 
  • Is it doable?: Due to some limitations with remote learning during a global health crisis (students would be unable to participate in field trips, conduct observational research at various locations, etc.), we concluded that we might need to scale down the list of possible topics to help focus what students could reasonably review. 

Turning the task into a project

Now that we have been able to identify the basic possibilities and challenges with this task, we can continue on to revision, and begin to shift our original task into a project. When it comes to developing authentic and meaningful projects, we like to turn to a promising practice called GRASPS. This stands for:

G: What is the goal of the project? 
R : What is the role of the student? 
A: Who is the audience? 
S: What is the structure of the writing? 
P: What is the purpose? 

In conjunction with our earlier questions, the GRASPS framework is a helpful tool in redesigning tasks and ensures that our revisions are clear. In our example, the responses look something like this: 

  • Project goal: Craft persuasive reviews focused on the following topics/ideas: 1) best at-home foods/recipes, 2) best games to be played with family members, and 3) best spaces/places to see in your neighborhood. 
  • Student role: Expert reviewer 
  • Audience: Reviews will be read by peers 
  • Structure: Students will submit reviews in the form of essays 
  • Purpose: To share ideas for how to have fun and stay safe during the pandemic

Equipped with these revisions, we can now more easily shift the original writing task to one that is project-based, and understand how we can introduce these ideas to students. This not only generates excitement for students, but teachers as well — our partners in Brooklyn were eager to plan and implement this project within their classrooms, and were excited about the additional possibilities for creativity. 

​What I hope is evident throughout this process is that project-based learning can have a variety of entry points — whether you’re teaching remotely or in-person, creating your own projects, or reimagining pre-packaged curricula. Regardless of your situation, recognizing how instruction can be meaningful, relevant, and doable — even with the current parameters of teaching and learning — is possible. 
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DESIGN LEARNING THAT LASTS
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UNPACKING PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
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PROJECT-BASED WRITING INSTRUCTION
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11/30/2020

Monitoring Reading Progress at Home: Tips for Parents

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Promising & practical strategies to help track the growth of children's literacy skills.
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development

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When you’re caring for children who are participating in remote learning, it can be challenging to identify and understand their progress and growth as readers. You’re likely wondering: Am I doing this right? Are we making progress? How will I know? When children are in the classroom and engaged in in-person learning, the responsibility for these questions largely lies with their teachers. However, the new normal for teaching and learning requires equal — if not more — participation from parents, in order to support and ensure the advancement of students’ reading skills. 

Given how busy we are trying to balance our own work responsibilities along with the needs of our children, it can often feel easiest to default to tools like reading comprehension quizzes, multiple choice tests, or even worksheets to help recognize and assess reading progress at home. While these measures can be helpful, they certainly don’t tell the whole story. We could be missing out on identifying areas of growth and celebration, as well as a robust understanding of our children’s areas of struggle.

But there are promising — and practical — strategies that parents can utilize to help monitor and track the growth of their children's literacy skills. Don't feel as though you need to create your own assessments, rubrics, or projects to achieve this — that is, unless you have the time, capacity, and energy! Instead, consider some quick, informal strategies to monitor students’ growth. These strategies can tell you a lot about a child’s reading behaviors, habits, and progress. 

Habits & behaviors of good readers

In her book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective Readers, Joanne Kaminski explains, “Kids who are highly effective readers and score high on their state exams seem to have similar habits.” She goes on to explain that she has seen these habits in her own children as well as children she’s taught and tutored. The seven habits she describes are: 
   
  1. They love listening to books
  2. They have books everywhere 
  3. They know how to pick out “just right” books
  4. They read often 
  5. They read for meaning 
  6. They like to read aloud 
  7. They use the most frequently taught comprehension strategies 

This list can be helpful to parents as they look for evidence of their children's reading behaviors. When these behaviors are present, you can feel good that your young learners are on the right track! 

As we level up our understanding of a child's reading progress, we can turn to Mosaic of Thought: The Power of Comprehension Strategies, in which the authors Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann outline a list of habits that are more reflective of the kind of work students are doing while reading, including: 
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  • Determining what is important
  • Drawing inferences
  • Using prior knowledge 
  • Asking questions 
  • Monitoring comprehension and meaning
  • Creating mental images

For parents, a list like this can feel daunting. You may not know how to look for these specific skills, and are likely asking yourself questions, such as: How do I know they are inferring? How can I prompt them to determine what’s important? Identifying skills that children are exhibiting during reading is often left to teachers. 

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Knowing what to look for

There are ways to simplify the identification of reading habits and skills so that you can determine what children are doing before, during, and after their reading. We can break down more complex reading habits into observable actions, behaviors, or concrete examples that signify the deeper learning that is taking place. When it comes to reading, we can look for the following: 

Stamina
If your child is reading for long(er) periods of time, this is great! Interest and stamina are very important, especially as books increase in demands and complexity. 

Fluency
Have your child read to you! This can be a great way to monitor fluency, decoding, and self-correction strategies on the part of students. 

Comprehension and thinking skills:
A simple set of questions can be very telling when it comes to a child’s predicting, inferring, and comprehension skills. You can use these same questions each time they read, and students can either answer for you, or as part of writing and drawing exercise. Here are some suggestions for what you can ask a child before, during, and after they read: 
  • Before reading, you can ask what questions: “What do you think the story/book will be about?” 
  • During reading, you can ask what and why questions: “What’s happening in this picture?” “What did you learn?” “Why do you think?” “Why did ____ do that?” and “How do you know?” This last question is a particularly good option for supporting children in explaining their thinking! 
  • After reading, you can ask how questions: “How did the character(s) solve their problem(s)?” “How did the story connect with your predictions?” 

Thoughts about reading
Talk to your child about what they are reading. Ask them about the kinds of books they are reading, what they're enjoying (or not enjoying), and why. This can help you gain insight into your child’s general attitude toward reading, the kinds of books they gravitate toward, and the types of books that they find easiest to read.

When you've got young learners in your home, you deserve a lot of credit for balancing work, at-home learning, childcare, and household tasks. What you’ve been able to do during this unique time has been nothing short of remarkable. Remember that when it comes to supporting learning at home, we can monitor a child's reading progress with simple strategies that make the process feel useful and manageable for everyone involved. Start with a strategy that feels feasible and accessible, and build from there. Happy reading!

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TACKLING COMPLEX TEXTS
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THE ABCs OF LITERACY
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LEVERAGING LITERACY AT HOME
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11/9/2020

Celebrating Student Voice With the Student Press Initiative

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Writing for publication can create awareness, raise social consciousness, and provide students with essential life skills.
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development
with JEN DECERFF & DR. SHERRISH HOLLOMAN


When a student writes for publication, there is a shift in the dynamic between the student and their work. Picture yourself asking a student whether or not they spent a significant amount of time on their writing, only to have them respond, “Why would I spend time on it? It’s just for you.” In contrast, consider a student, who previously considered himself anonymous, telling his teacher, “Mr. Nick, I’m famous now!” after the book he co-authored with his classmates was published. Two very different reactions to a writing experience. How do we understand these two contrasting responses from young writers?

Founded in 2002, the Student Press Initiative (SPI) was designed to develop, foster, and promote writing across the curriculum through student publication, and revolutionize education by advancing teacher leadership in reading and writing instruction. Students transition from “writing for their teacher” to writing for an audience of their choice. To date, SPI has published over 850 books representing the original writing of over 12,000 students. SPI’s core values — project-based instruction, real-world authorship, community of learners, and celebrating student voice — resonate throughout these books. The grounding of these values raise the bar for what, how, and why students write. 

Project-based instruction

We believe in using publishing for a real-world audience as a means to design and shape curriculum and expectations, as well as promote student engagement.

We employ a backwards-planning model, where a final product is used to form an infrastructure for classroom instruction and activities. Through inquiry of the specific requirements and expectations of each project, teachers and students can better articulate the behaviors, artifacts, and customs necessary for the successful completion of the project — and being that publishing a book is a shared experience, students work together to support and encourage one another in new and powerful ways. 
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Publication projects help to shape the culture, rituals, and routines that take place in the classroom. At the start of a project, a large calendar often overtakes the walls of a classroom, and teachers and students work together to identify the genre, audience, and purpose of their project, as well as establish details and deadlines. This helps establish a strong sense of community and collaboration. This is project-based learning at its best! 
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PURCHASE THIS BOOK
Who We Were, Who We Are
Morris Academy for Collaborative Studies
​Bronx, NY

ENL students at the Morris Academy of Collaborative Studies (MACS) in the South Bronx created this collection of narratives and opinion essays showcasing snippets of their complex lives and ideologies, as well as their struggles in this ever-changing world. Who We Were, Who We Are is the fifth anthology from MACS, demonstrating the school's passion and commitment to project-based learning, and providing a platform for students to go public with their learning each year. These projects have become a signature part of their ENL curricula, and each publication serves as the major assessment of student learning throughout the year. 

Real-world authorship

Real-world authorship shapes our approach to teaching and learning. Whether the audience is a class of incoming freshmen or first-year teachers in training, we work to connect young writers with actual readers. In the SPI model, classrooms become publishing houses in which teachers and students collectively shape an editorial vision. By exploring questions, issues, or concerns that exist in the world, their community, or within a specific content area, teachers and students collaborate to define a meaningful genre, theme, and audience. Writers then work to understand the expectations of their audience as they craft pieces with real readers in mind.
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No matter the content, there is always a real-world model that can demonstrate student learning with panache and voice that will engage readers. Through participation in a publication project, students develop skills and processes similar to those of professional authors. Students are supported through pre-writing and a gathering of ideas, drafting while consistently revising and editing, and finally, publishing, where they format and polish their writing to prepare for publication. Students experience “real” expectations and deadlines for publishing their book. Through these experiences, a strong sense of excitement, energy and urgency emerges. 
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PURCHASE THIS BOOK
A Time for Change: NYC Teens Speaking Up Against Human Rights Violations
Global Learning Collaborative (GLC)
New York, NY

In the midst of a global pandemic, Social Studies students at GLC explored the 30 Articles of Human Rights, many of which have been heightened and exposed as a result of COVID. Students read the articles, chose one they personally connected with, and wrote about why it resonated with them in their short, autobiographical accounts. They researched the ways in which these articles have been violated in the past, and continue to be violated today. Their published pieces are particularly relevant to current events surrounding COVID-19 and the many protests around inequitable treatment of citizens in the US. In this collection, the authors provided examples of how human rights abuse is both national and international, and reflect on how basic human rights affect them, their families, and their community at large. Through this publication, students elevated their voices and connected to the world around them.

Teaching Today · Students As Authors: Student Press Initiative

Community of learners
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SPI challenges traditional notions of “experts” in the classroom. Inspired by the work of Lave and Wenger (1996) and what they call “communities of practice,” we aim to cultivate students’ sense of expertise as writers by engaging in processes such as thoughtful inquiry of mentor texts, peer review, and peer editing. Through such processes, teachers and students work to establish a community of writers, consisting of many experts and many resources for learning and growing as authors. 

We encourage teachers and students to engage with a variety of texts as they begin to define qualities and attributes of powerful writing. As students learn the skills needed to write successfully, they also become experts in the project’s central theme as they read mentor texts, break genres down into smaller components, and ultimately, craft pieces that represent their learning and culminate in a final publication. A project designed around an in-depth genre study and inquiry invites students into a shared experience, and allows teachers to craft a thoughtful curriculum that addresses specific content and skills.
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PURCHASE THIS BOOK
Origin Stories
Hisar School
Istanbul, Turkey

Origin Stories — the first publication from students at the Hisar School — showcases a multi-genre anthology consisting of fiction stories, personal essays, non-fiction essays, and graphic artwork. One of the central structures of this project was to match each writer to a peer editor who would read their work and offer feedback to support the writing process, as well as inform specific revision strategies. Students also played a major role in the production of the project, making decisions on the design, layout, and formatting of the publication, as well as creating the cover and interior art. This strong sense of collaboration and creativity is reflective of a true community of learners. ​

Celebrating student voice
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Every student has a unique voice. Rather than celebrate the work of select students, we aim to celebrate the work of all students, using publication and celebration as a way to leverage and encourage participation.

We believe every project should culminate in celebration — whether teachers and students decide to host a large-scale public reading at a local bookstore, smaller readings at locations such as their own school auditorium or classroom, or virtually with classmates, families, and friends. Celebrations — no matter their size or format — are powerful and rewarding experiences, and allow students to proudly share their writing with their community.
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PURCHASE THIS BOOK
Moods of New York
International High School at Lafayette
New York, NY

A powerful publication that showcases the voices of ENL students — many of whom recently immigrated to the US — as they share places in New York that help them feel at home. In this anthology, the authors explore the meaning of “home”, celebrate their unique perspectives, and make connections to a new city. Beyond creating powerful pieces of writing, these students also formed committees consisting of editors and cover designers, and engaged in peer-to-peer feedback, leveraging their strengths to publish a one-of-a-kind collection. Earlier this year, the authors gathered in their school library alongside parents, school leaders, and community members to celebrate their writing. As we witnessed them read excerpts from their publication and autograph copies of their work, we were reminded of how powerful it can be to memorialize and amplify the voices of young writers. 

Writing can serve as a tool for creating awareness, raising social consciousness, and providing students with essential life skills. Our core values change the perspective and perception of writing for students around the world. These values, deeply embedded in our publications, reflect best practices for teaching writing in the 21st century, and help prepare students to succeed in lifelong learning. 

​To learn how you can partner with the Student Press Initiative and bring your students' writing to life, please reach out to us here. 
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REFLECTIVE WRITING EXPERIENCES
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STUDENTS AS AUTHORS
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RAISE THE BAR FOR STUDENT WRITING
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6/8/2020

Leveraging Literacy: Simple Practices to Support Reading at Home

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Distance learning can be challenging, especially for our young, emerging readers. What can we do to support them?
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development

Distance learning can be challenging, especially for our young, emerging readers. In the classroom, young students are exposed to print-rich environments, and are supported and guided through a multitude of literacy activities such as phonics, guided reading, shared reading, and direct reading instruction. Now that learning is taking place in the home, there are growing concerns about the deficits young students will experience, particularly when it comes to reading. What can we do? How and when should we do it? And how can parents prioritize reading practices at home? 

As a Master’s student, the focus of my thesis included understanding and improving the reading habits and attitudes of my third grade students. I launched my study by administering a survey, and provided them with a number of statements including, I like to read, I prefer reading to watching TV, and I read more than I watch TV. I had students read each statement, and then circle an emoji that best matched their feelings about the statement (ranging from positive to negative).

My students’ responses, along with my observations, were pretty discouraging. I noticed many of my students didn’t want to read, or would read for a few minutes before putting their book down and saying, “I’m done.” I was determined to do something. In the next phase of my work, I reached out to parents of those students with particularly negative responses to the survey, and asked if they would be willing to participate in my study. Their participation included signing a contract in which they agreed to engage in three specific literacy practices at home: reading aloud, shared reading, and independent reading. 

It is these three literacy practices that I think parents should prioritize, as I believe they are simple, effective, and particularly helpful when it comes to supporting reading development outside of the classroom. 

Reading aloud

Reading aloud promotes fluency and exposure. Exposure plays a significant role in reading development and cultivating a positive attitude towards reading. The parents who participated in my study agreed to read to their children for 20 minutes a day, at least three times a week. I would encourage all parents to do the same. If you can do nothing else, read aloud to your child! Expose your children to as many books as possible, and regularly engage in read alouds. This can be incorporated into a lunch break, added to a bedtime routine, or even occur first thing in the morning — whatever works best for you. If this feels too difficult, there are many read aloud resources available online that can support you, such as Epic, which offers a massive digital library for children aged 12 and under, and YouTube, which offers free access to a variety of voices and titles to choose from.

If you’re ready, interested, and able to step up your read aloud game, you can engage your children further by asking simple questions: What do you notice? What does this make you think? What are you learning about ____? This kind of work promotes comprehension and inferencing skills.

The tried and true think-aloud protocol — in which you share what you’re thinking and what you’re predicting — can also be a powerful model for children. I even do this with my 8-month-old. As her mother I know she’s brilliant (of course!), but can accept she is clearly too young to do deep thinking work on her own, so I point to the pictures and the words in each book, narrating what they are, for as long as she lets me. It’s never too young to cultivate a love for books! 

Shared reading

Fountas and Pinnell define shared reading as a reading experience in which children and their teacher engage in multiple read alouds of an “enlarged version of a text that provides opportunities for students to expand their reading competencies. The goals of the first reading are to ensure that students enjoy the text and think about the meaning. After the first reading, students take part in multiple, subsequent readings to notice more about the text.” From there, students discuss the text, and parents or educators determine next steps for support.

Ideally, parents would be able to put on their teacher hat while reading with their children, tracking and pointing to the words together, sounding words out along the way. Shared reading like this can help improve the rate at which children read, increase their fluency, and add to their enjoyment for reading.

Don’t be discouraged if this feels outside of your reach. Shared reading can also mean simply engaging in shared reading time, without any additional components. Each family member can select a text of their choosing, and read near each other. Whether this happens first thing in the morning, as you read the newspaper or your favorite magazine and enjoy a cup of coffee, or before bed, as you are winding down the day and in search of some quiet time. Being exposed to others who are reading can have a positive effect on a child’s attitudes and habits around reading, as it did for my young readers. 
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​Independent reading

The final activity in my study involved an agreement from parents to provide quiet and uninterrupted time and space to engage in independent reading for at least 20 minutes a day. One of the biggest challenges to reading at home, according to my third graders, is the lack of space and opportunity to read alone. Children are often sharing rooms, household tasks and chores need to be done, and child care responsibilities need to be managed. This, I’m sure, has only been exacerbated during the COVID-19 crisis, as everyone is now living and working from home. Home can feel even more chaotic than before, and quiet time can be a challenge. However, if you can find a calm space where children can engage in independent reading even for even small periods of time each day, it can have a positive impact on reading abilities. This space might be the corner of a room, on a bed, or even in the bathroom. We have to get creative! 

If you’re ready to level up your independent reading game, task your child with practicing one simple strategy while they read. This might include asking them to jot down questions as they read, notice and note (What do you notice? What does this make you think?), or it could involve a challenge to find words that start with certain letters or that contain certain blends, such as Bl or Cr. It doesn’t have to be complicated, just one strategy that will allow children to practice on their own, and then share with you. 

The last tip I’ll leave you with is: if it feels like these strategies aren’t working for your readers, be prepared to throw all these strategies to the wind. Put the book down, and try again later. This is a challenging time — stress and emotions are running high — and we all know that the dynamic between parents and children, when it comes to learning, can be difficult and unpredictable. Some days our children want our help, and sometimes they don’t want anything to do with us! Give yourself some grace and flexibility. Trust that what you’re doing is enough, and remember that one day will not create lasting, negative implications for your child’s reading abilities. Be kind to yourself and to your children, and remember that tomorrow is another day.

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MONITOR READING PROGRESS AT HOME
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THE ABCs OF LITERACY
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TACKLE COMPLEX TEXTS
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7/25/2019

Students as Published Authors: Reimagining the Writing Process

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Support students in establishing their voices as writers while advancing teacher leadership in reading and writing instruction.
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DR. CRISTINA COMPTON
Director of Program Development

Student writing is often read by one person (a teacher), and for one reason (a grade). But what if it could be different? 

Through our Student Press Initiative, we seek to engage students in writing projects that culminate in print-based publications. These publications are designed for specific audiences, shaped around specific genres, and become widely accessible to their school community and the general public. This process not only helps students to establish their voices as writers, but helps revolutionize education by advancing teacher leadership in reading and writing instruction. 

Raising the bar for student writing

Though each publication is a unique reflection of its student authors, the five phases of our publication process remain constant:

  • Laying the groundwork: Crucial for identifying the genre, audience, and purpose for a publication. The decision around audience is an important one, as it informs the style, tone, and language of a publication, as well as the level of detail students will need to use to best communicate with their readers. Equipping students with the tools they need to write for an authentic audience allows students to gain skills and perspectives that will serve them beyond the classroom. As James Moffet states, “…One of the indications of maturity is the ability of a speaker to predict what different receivers will need to have made explicit for them and what they will understand without elaboration.” (Moffett, Detecting Growth in Language, 1992, p 21). 
 
  • Project planning: Focused on scaffolding, planning, and studying mentor texts that will inform the trajectory of your project, and getting acquainted with a critical component of publication projects: the production calendar.
 
  • Supporting the writing process: An exploration of the importance of backwards planning, and how it can inform your curriculum and instruction. Together, we examine promising practices for supporting your students with the main phases of the writing process, including: pre-writing, drafting, and revision.
 
  • Production: Once students have created a piece of writing, it’s important to help them begin the production process, both individually and collaboratively. In this phase, we support students and teachers in preparing polished writing for a larger audience, and explore best practices for providing feedback to students.
 
  • Going public: How can students prepare to share their work? In this final phase, we explore options for participating in public readings and hosting book release celebrations.

Publication in action: personal narratives from the Bronx

This spring, we supported 9th and 10th grade Special Education students at the Bronx High School for Business (BHSB) through this process. Their teacher was eager to introduce a project that would provide her students the opportunity to share a meaningful experience through the writing of a personal narrative or poem.

With this in mind, our coaches worked alongside the teacher and her students to facilitate a conversation about the audience for their project. We asked questions such as:

  • Who would enjoy reading these narratives and poems?
  • What do we want the readers to gain?
  • What do we want the readers to know or learn?

After careful consideration and deliberation, these young authors felt strongly that they wanted to write to younger members of the Bronx Business community — primarily incoming students and siblings — in an effort to offer meaningful advice. Over the course of the project, students at BHSB were able to hone and refine their writing, particularly as it relates to communicating with their chosen audience. They were able to revise their writing to include more colloquial language and tone, which they recognized would be most effective for communicating with their young and familiar audience. 

As a result, they published The Barriers We Faced, The Bridges We Built. This collection highlights the obstacles many BHSB students have encountered — moving to a new country, struggling in school, and disagreeing with family and friends. Though many of these obstacles seemed insurmountable, these young authors were able to meet them head-on with persistence and resilience, building the bridges necessary to overcome their personal barriers. 
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