Co-Teaching in Secondary Readers-Writers Workshop

Last week, I blogged about furthering developing my conferencing routine in workshop while combatting the “spectre of perceived rigor.” This week I wanted to reflect a bit on the role of co-teaching in readers-writers workshop. I have recently shifted to “readers-writers” from “reading-writing” after seeing a post by Amy Rasmussen (@AmyRass), as I think the former now better focuses on my students (who are developing readers and writers) rather than their actions (reading and writing).

This week’s post provides some background on my specific context with co-teaching and how it has assisted me in transitioning to a workshop model.

MY LIFE AS A CO-TEACHER

Before jumping into how my co-teachers and I work in workshop, I wanted to touch base on my experiences as a co-teacher, since I know we have all had varying levels of success in collaboration. I began my career as a Special Education teacher and was paired with a wonder Regular Education English co-teacher. Luckily, we got along, our methodologies were similar, and we were open to working together. Four years later, I shifted to a Regular Education English position in the same building, and my Special Education replacement was someone who I went to college with and whom I knew when I was his Resident Assistant. He and I have now been teaching together for seven years. I have had a few other pairings in there as well, but I have had positive experiences, where both of us are working toward the same goals and have a relationship where we reflect daily (and ask hard questions when necessary).

My current Special Education co-teacher and I after our 2016 “Under the Sea” Homecoming Assembly lip-sync to Aqua’s “Barbie Girl.”

I currently gained a Gifted Support Teacher as a co-teacher three days a week to work with me in my Honors English classes. She has taught as a Regular Education English teacher in the past, and so brings those skill sets with her.

While various models of co-teaching exist (with the goal of full co-planning, co-teaching, and co-assessing as seen as the gold standard), I’ve learned to find the appropriate balance each semester with each co-teacher. Sometimes Special Education meetings and paperwork take precedence over instruction or assessment and I must take lead. Perhaps a more detailed blog on co-teaching should be topic for a future post.

CO-PLANNING IN WORKSHOP

Since I have taught both ninth and tenth grade English before (and since I led the most recent curriculum revisions), I am comfortable and familiar with the content (this may also be a blog post in the future—what teachers may need before beginning the shift). My Special Education co-teacher and I have heavily planned both courses before. My Gifted Support co-teacher is new to the building and curriculum, but has taught English for many years.

However, co-planning has become a bit easier. When we plan, we look at the learning targets, what assessments are most appropriate, and now develop mini-lessons. Rather than planning what we will do for 80 minutes each day, we are planning for a concentrated 20 minutes. In situations where Special Education and Gifted Support teachers have their legal paperwork to complete and caseload to touch base with and other teaches to collaborate with and their own classes to plan and assess for, fewer minutes teaching means co-planning can be streamlined. We all know there is not enough time in the day, but having a workshop model that works has allowed us to better manage our own time.

The beginning of a unit has been challenging to plan (as we need to establish the assessments—some of which we’re using from before—and the learning targets and any references/handouts), but once the up-front work is planned, the rest has gone rather smoothly. In transitioning to workshop, we’re keeping many notes and handouts and some assessments the same. Sometimes we’ll include too much in our planning up front and drop it as we go through the weeks.

Workshop truly embraces the idea of flexibility in teaching to address needs (adding a review lesson, for example)—we can add or drop mini-lessons as necessary so long as we generally follow our plan.

CO-TEACHING IN WORKSHOP

First, in full transparency, I will admit workshop is easier with two of us. Having two teachers to conference with students or work one-on-one or in small groups has been wonderful, especially as we figure out what works and what doesn’t.

For the mini-lesson portion of each day, we either tag team or take turns leading the lesson (whether it be reading, annotating a text, or drafting a written response). As always, student heads tend to bounce from one side of the room to the next as we interact with each other, which helps maintain focus in our short mini-lesson.

During workshop, we can both make our way around the room to conference with students and leave comment in their daily work log or next to their learning targets (see more details of that here). Now that students have completed a handful of assessments which I have scored, my co-teacher has been staying in the room working one-on-one as I pull students individually into the hallway to conference. However, on the days my Gifted Support co-teacher is not present, or when my Special Education co-teacher has a meeting, I set myself up at the table in the back of the room and call individual students back for conferences. As we hold the conferences in the back, I ask students to come see me between conferences if they have other questions I can help them with. In this system, I am able to see between four and six students a day (during a standards 45-minute workshop).

REFLECTION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Self-reflection has been so much more helpful with two of us, as we each see different students each day or actually view the room from different angles on any given day. While I am confident in my abilities of self-reflection, two professionals reflecting on the same experience help the process. I’ve also had two other colleagues observe, and hearing their input on our processes has been helpful (and very reassuring).

For those working to implement readers-writers workshop, I would recommend finding a co-teacher or support teacher to assist if possible (a Reading Specialist, a Curriculum Coach, a Gifted Support teacher, an available Special Education teacher), even if it is only once a week. Alternately, invite colleagues into your class to offer observations on your process—what seems to work, how the students seem to be responding, and so on. Just as workshops encourage greater communication between students and teacher, we should aim to build connections among colleagues in our daily work.

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