Norming On-Demand Writing Assessments

Our monthly staff meeting around Lucy Calkins started with a celebration.  One of our third grade teachers was very excited about the work her students had done on leads.  They revised leads thinking about setting, dialogue and actions.  This was much improved over the writing we saw from the beginning of the year.

Next, we decided to spend our time norming their narrative on-demand assessments they gave the first month of school.  The reading team copied off the rubrics and then asked the teachers for 2 pieces of writing each for below, on, and above grade level. We took off the names and made copies for all involved.

We began the meeting by talking about the importance of norming.  I used the information in the Writing Pathways book from Units of Study for Writing to guide our discussion.

• Why we norm: The purpose of a norming meeting is to establish consistent and shared expectations across the school for student writing.  We align our group as we engage ourselves in close, evidence-based reading.
• What is the process: Four steps below
• What happens when we disagree: Expect and embrace conflict.  Conflict is evidence that there is disconnect in the way your view student work, and digging into that disconnect will help you to align your vision.
• If some consensus is not possible, a half-point is an acceptable difference of opinion.  Generally if 10 minutes of discussion doesn’t yield something close to consensus, the piece is set aside as a “fence sitter.”  Don’t let that one piece derail the whole activity.

Questions to consider:

Work as a group to score 1 student’s piece of writing to reach consensus – where does the student fall?

Where does the student fall on the learning progression and in relation to grade level?

Steps in a Norming Meeting:

Step 1.Work as a group to score 1 students piece of writing to reach consensus – where does the student fall?

• Read through the piece one time
• Then inch through the rubric to assess each item, be careful to note which traits have double the points

Step 2:Score a few other students, then everyone score individually, and come together: What score did we give them?

• If after doing this work with 5 papers of different levels, the group finds that it can come to a consensus, the group can consider itself normed and people can now score papers individually

Step 3: Assess your own students’ writing individually

Step 4: Devise a plan for analyzing on-demand writing across each grade

• will you just look at a few above, at and below
• maybe you will decide just to focus on a few traits that are especially important in the upcoming unit
• maybe you will decide that this scoring process is so valuable that you will continue this work with every on-demand assessment

When making assessment decisions, we need to ask: What are you actually trying to get out of this?

The Payoff:  A school culture in which learning progressions, benchmark pieces, and rubrics help teachers work with each other and with their students to accelerate progress.

We definitely needed more than the 40 minute staff meeting to complete the norming process, as we really only got through step 1.  However, this is the first time our staff has been asked to complete this type of work and it was great to hear the conversations around writing occuring.

Literacy Leader Networking

I have had the pleasure to attend a few literacy leader networking sessions over the past two weeks and I am really excited to share what I have learned.

The first session I went to was a literacy and math leader networking day put on by CESA #9, and led  by Casey Gretzinger and Linda Myers.  We began the day by grounding ourselves in our beliefs about what coaches/leaders do.  This began by using a survey to individually assess our beliefs, then discussed in our group, determined our individual top 5, then wrote on chart paper our common table beliefs about coaching.  This was a great discussion to ground our district coaching beliefs, which we found were very similar.  We continued to network about best practices and engage in some individualized learning during the afternoon.

Friday, I attended DPI’s Literacy Coaches Network  hosted by Barb Novak, Laura Adams and Marci Glaus. It is one of my favorite days of the year, as these ladies never disappoint in their presentation or in their enthusiasm.  We began the day with a coaching session presented by Laura Gleisner.  Laura is a coach certified by the International Coaching Federation.  She guided us through assessing our Emotional Resilience. The categories we assessed ourselves were: sleep, optimism/positive thinking, renewal experiences, support network, nutrition, exercise, communication, internal locus of control.We then used the coaching wheel to see how smooth or bumpy our road is.  

From there Laura shared with us the Dreaded Drama Triangle that we all may get drawn into during our coaching conversations as we become the rescuer.

Victim Mentality

·        It’s not my fault

·        Things are being done to me

·        I am powerless

·        There is nothing I can do

*We have to be careful so that we do not get sucked into the dreaded drama triangle (Dr. Stephan Karpman)-victim, persecutor, rescuer

The antidote to the Dreaded Drama Triangle is the Creator Orientation developed by The Power of Ted by David Emerald.

The third piece of the triangle is the Coach.  We must believe that EVERY person is creative, resourceful and whole.  We can coach someone through the Creator Orientation.  Our steps include:

·         Empathize

·         Ask what the client wants instead

·         Build awareness around their own behaviors

·         Help client work within their lotus of control

·         Capitalize on strengths

·         Help see persecutor as a learning opportunity

·         Commit to taking action

After lunch, we moved into reflecting on and discussing our culturally responsive practices.  Here is what the Wisconsin's RtI Center has developed.

Elements of Culture

Using the above chart (link), we had to reflect on what our values were growing up, what they are now, how are schools operate, how my students/families might be different, and how this difference creates conflict.  This was a great activity to bring cultural differences to the forefront of our minds.

I am so fortunate to have been invited and allowed by my district to attend these two wonderful networking opportunities.  

Guided Reading in Grades 3-5

This week's common planning meetings centered around the topic of guided reading.  I met with grades three, four and five. Our discussion focused on transitional guided reading, fluent guided reading and literature discussion groups.

Two books that have helped me tremendously in the area of guided reading and literature discussion are the following:

                   

I have seen all of the author's speak as well, and have crafted my small group instruction based on their philosophies.

One big misconception that needed to get out in the open was the idea of using round robin reading.  When students are involved in this type of reading, only one student is doing the work-the one reading aloud.  We have such precious little time to work in small groups with students that we have to have them working the whole time.  Students all need to be reading the text silently to themselves as the teacher listens in to each one individually at whichever point they are in the text.  Another reason this is important is the students should be hearing only the very best reader in the room read aloud...and that person is the teacher.  

Transitional Guided Reading

Levels J-P

Instructional Needs: self-monitoring, decoding, fluency, vocabulary and retell

Framework for Guided Reading

·         Selecting the Text

·         Introducing the Text

·         Reading the Text

·         Discussing and Revisiting the Text

·         Teaching for Processing Strategies

·         Extending the Meaning of the Text (optional)

·         Word Work (optional)

Fluent Guided Reading

Read Fluently above a level N, with no decoding, fluency or retell issues.

Select a focus strategy.

Materials: any relatively short text can be used-poetry, short stories, newspaper articles, magazine articles, short chapter books and informational books.

 (it is recommended not to use a novel for guided reading-these are better for literature discussion groups or self-selected reading)

From our discussions we discovered the following:

3rd grade: 2-3 guided reading groups

4th grade: 2 guided reading groups

5th grade: 1 guided reading group

The majority of students in 5th grade were able to read fluently and benefit more from rich discussions with their peers around similar texts as occurs during literature discussion groups.

Literature Discussion Groups

Small-group conversations about books.

7 predictable, yet flexible components:

1. Introduction and Selection of book
2. Silent Reading
3. Teacher Conference
4. Group Discussion w/teacher present
5. Peer Discussion, extension of the group with only students
6. Text Mapping and Focus groups
7. Literature Extensions, variety of activities

This week I am modeling how to introduce literature discussion groups with our 4th grade team. Our principal graciously offered to instruct the students who are not quite ready for this, so that our whole team can watch the teaching.  I began yesterday and look forward to model the future lessons all this week.

Staff Meeting with a Twist

Our principal has requested two staff meetings a month.  The first staff meeting usually revolves around housekeeping and general information.  The second staff meeting revolves around our implementation of Lucy Calkins Units of Study in Writing.

This is the first time in a long time that our staff has been involved in this type of professional development.  The reading team built this session around our first session that we held during common planning time.  It was a bit tricky, as we had all 4K-5 staff involved.

The session began by asking the teachers to reflect and discuss with their teams things they had tried in their classroom based on our last meeting.  It is important for teachers to understand that there is going to be follow-through with the learning and that there are literacy coaches there to support them. When professional development merely describes a skill to teachers, only 10 percent can transfer it to their practice; however, when teachers are coached through the awkward phase of implementation, 95 percent can transfer the skill (Bush, 1984; Truesdale, 2003) - See more at: http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/teachingtheteachers#sthash.lOcmsqXT.dpuf.  The literacy coaches circled around the groups and listened in.  I took notes on key points that the grade levels I work with brought forth.

Then we watched a mini-lesson.  It is crucial for the staff to continue to see what best practices in the area of literacy looks and sounds like.  The video was chosen due to it's wide range of ages it could correspond to and also due to it's area of focus on personal narratives, which every grade level has been immersed in since the beginning of the year.

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8nf1OHUIe0


After the video, teams were again encouraged to discuss what they noticed, what they further need, and what they are going to try.  Exit slips were also turned in.  These were given to each table to synthesize their learning.

The Workshop Model

The literacy team held our first coaching meetings with our grade level teams today.  We were all a little nervous about how it would go.  I had to remind myself that I looked forward to my literacy coach meeting with my team when I was a classroom teacher, as I always walked away with some new insight.  I also had to remind myself that in-house professional development is meaningful to teachers.  The following link has some great research to support this: http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/teachingtheteachers.  Some main points were that teachers can learn, but struggle with the implementation; professional development should occur over time and be ongoing; and professional development is best when it is offered in the context of the teacher's content.

Our team decided that the workshop model would be our first topic for the meetings, and from there the topics would be driven by the teams.

I started by using an Affinity Diagram with  my teachers.  I needed to know their background knowledge on the workshop model and I thought it was important for them to also hear from each other.  I had them write a word or a phrase on post-its that came to mind when they heard the phrase "Workshop Model."   From here, they put their post-its up on chart paper and started to look for patterns.  They discussed how certain post-its went together and why and then determined a word to categorize the post-its.  Here is what one of my teams came up with...

Their initial categories were: mini-lesson, work time, differentiation, summary/closure.

From here we watched the fabulous Mr. Minor demonstrate a mini-lesson on creating setting for fantasy writing (https://vimeo.com/55966103).  The teachers wrote down what they noticed about the lesson and then we shared out.  There are some misconceptions that I will need to clear up in one-on-one situations, but overall I was pleased with how the discussion went.

Lastly, we discussed the critical elements of the workshop model, and I stressed that this can happen in any content.  

• tight focused mini-lesson, with direct modeling, "This is my turn to show you"
• guided practice
• independent work time (Daily 5, guided reading, conferencing, strategy focus groups, literature discussion groups, etc)
• Share time (purposes: share what you did during independent practice, how did we manage, teaching/pushing them even further)

We finished the meeting by sharing what each teacher planned to do with the knowledge gained and what our plan would be for next time.
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A Year of Practicum Work

As the year comes to a close, as does my work for my reading practicum.  I am in the process of finishing up my work to complete courses to achieve a Reading Specialist 317 license.  The work was very demanding, but well worth it.  In the state of Wisconsin, a reading specialist license is required for any person who directs early childhood through adolescence reading programs or works with reading teacher, classroom teacher, administrators and others as a resource teacher in reading or literacy coach.

Per s.118.015(3), Wis. Stats., a reading specialist shall: develop and implement a reading curriculum in grades kindergarten to 12, act as a resource person to classroom teachers to implement the reading curriculum, work with administrators to support and implement the reading curriculum, conduct an annual evaluation of the reading curriculum, and coordinate the reading curriculum with other reading programs and other support services within the school district.

It started by looking for a mentor and I was very fortunate to have my former Reading Coordinator from a different district accept our elementary principal position.  She graciously agreed to be my mentor, even though her first year as an elementary principal was likely to be demanding.  I also worked very closely with our District Reading Specialist, School Psychologist and Director of Pupil Services, as my work centered around Response to Intervention.

The year began by meeting as a team and confirming where we were at with Rti and where we were going.  It was decided to focus on Reading Tier II and Tier III first, as we had the reading staff to do this.  I networked with my PLN on Twitter and on Google + to find out what other districts were using.  From here the team decided we needed to use Educlimber to track our intervention progress monitoring and to develop intervention fidelity protocols and checklists.  We focused on the areas of basic reading skills, reading comprehension and reading fluency.  We were pleased to discover we had multiple interventions in place that would fit these areas.  After designing the protocols and checklists, I was tasked with creating a google site that would house the information.  This took some planning with our District Library Media Specialist, because I was far from fluent in using the site.  I then created a audio/visual presention that future interventionists could use when becoming familiar with the site.

In March, we hired a Math Coach/GT teacher, who is going to continue to work with our team to develop math intervention protocols and checklists.

I look forward to digging into Tier I interventions to improve our core instruction, and I also look forward to improving the google site.  It was a long process, but I believe the team is happy with how far we came in just one year.  I learned that it does take a team of people to accomplish something this in depth, and I appreciate all the people I was able to work with and gather information from.

The Coaching Conversation

I recently attended a day long "gathering" of literacy coaches from across Wisconsin, put on by our DPI.  This was the second of two meetings we had this year and it was again as equally valuable.

The first part of our day was spent in round table discussions where we used the "rule of two feet", to satisfy our learning.  If a conversation was not moving you forward, we were highly encouraged to move to a different group.  The point was for us to get the most out of this time as possible.

After lunch, we were treated to a coaching presentation by Cathy Toll (@cathytoll).  She modeled a true coaching session for us and we discussed our findings after.  She encouraged us to spend 50 % of our coaching time in conversations.  These conversations start with this all important question:

 

"When you think of the work you are doing and the difference you want to make for your students, what is getting in the way?"

 

 

Many times the teacher's answers may be shallow at first, which shows us that the teacher has healthy boundaries.  From here your questions continue.  These might include: "What else is getting in the way?"  or "What are some ways we could meet these goals?"  Many times our teachers want us to just tell them the answer.  Cathy's response to that was this...If the solution were that clear and obvious, you wouldn't have brought it to the coaching conversation. 

 

The coach's responsibility is to take the teacher from there they are to where they want to be.  We can do this by:

• using data appropriately
• asking open, honest questions
• paraphrasing to show you are listening

 

Cathy also cautioned us to avoid observing in the classroom first.  We should begin by having the conversation.  This allows for a platform to work it out aloud.   Sometimes when we run out of ideas is when we need to push ourselves, because the best may yet to come. Keep asking, "Anything else?"  until the teacher runs out of things to say.  Then ask them, "What would it be like if the problem is solved?" 

 

I look forward to using what I learned from Cathy Toll in my future coaching conversations.