A Year in Review
This
obligatory year-in-review blog serves a couple purposes. It serves as a table
of contents from the past year, but it also provides some updates on where I
currently am with my practice. My blog is meant to record my journey of
transforming my teaching practices, so compiling and crafting this current post
was helpful to me as I was able to contextualize my journey: it was a lot in
one year!
A
note of clarification as you read on: I teach on an 80-minute, intensified
block schedule, so I see my high school students 80 minutes every day for half
a school year (and then we switch semesters).
Enjoy,
and please reach out (@NAEmmanuele)!
1-7-18: Writing
a Workshop Curriculum.
1-14-18: (Re)Writing
Assessments for Secondary Writing Workshop. I have maintained the workshop
and mini-lesson structure elaborated upon here. I no longer utilize GrammarFlip
(budgetary constraints) and we have shifted from Wordly Wise (for Vocabulary)
to Membean.com. I am still working on having students keep a daily work log,
but I need to do a better job at following through on making sure everyone is
keeping at it.
1-27-18: Getting
into a Secondary ELA Workshop Routine. My concern at the close of this blog
post was one of timing. My scheduling has become more flexible, which means
that I have “lost” some days of certain units. I am current rushing through Romeo and Juliet with my freshmen, but
the work we did earlier was worth the adjustment. This is perhaps one of my
largest lessons: Flexibility as a teacher means that we cannot do everything, but we must prioritize what
is most helpful to our students.
1-28-18: Weekly
Student-Authored E-mails Home on Progress. This has been one of my most-read
blog posts. See this
post for my current approach. Recently, I have asked them to set reading
and writing goals, and then follow up on them in subsequent e-mails. This is a
worthwhile endeavor but teaching students how to reflect is a progress—some jump
right in, and others need more scaffolding and explanation of what reflection looks
like. And, for the record, these e-mails are ungraded.
2-4-18: The
Specter of Perceived Rigor that Looms Over Learning. I love this personification
and metaphor. My students are doing fewer assignments, but the involvement and
level of their work has increased. Giving students space and time to learn will
result in deeper learning.
2-11-18: Developing
Conferences in a Secondary ELA Workshop. Successfully conferring with all
students is always a challenge, and I have not yet used audio or video
recording as a means of evidence.
2-19-18: Co-Teaching
in Secondary Readers-Writers Workshop. I co-teach daily in my Academic
English classes, and two to three times a week in my Honors English class. I
know that this arrangement allows me some affordances in reaching every student
that others do not have.
2-25-18:
Scoring,
Assessing, and Providing Feedback in Secondary Writers Workshop. My assessment
practices are changing at a very fast pace. This post has become antiquated and
is updated and more thoroughly explored in this
post, with my current approach here.
3-12-18:
Student
Choice in Classroom Organization. While I allowed students last year to
rearrange the room, I did not do so this school year. I do have a chaise
lounge, a futon, three camp chairs, and smaller seating area in the back of my
room. I ask that students remain in their assigned seats (three rows with an
aisle between) during the mini-lesson. However, during independent reading and
workshop time, they can move around. I ask students to share the “fun” seating,
and they have gotten pretty good at rotating who gets to sit where.
3-25-18:
The
State of My Readers-Writers Workshop. This gives a rather comprehensive
view of my current practices, with the exception that my student e-mails home
are no longer done every week, I do not leave typed conference notes, and my
scoring rubrics are standards-based now.
4-15-18:
Students
E-mailing Home. This post establishes my current student e-mail reflection process
(and thus is a follow-up to this previous
blog post).
8-26-18: Preparing
Standards and Learning Targets for Standards-Based Grading in HS ELA. Once
my workshop structure was in place, I felt more confidence shifting to a
stronger focus on standards-based learning; I lay out my procedure here. This
process has worked well for me.
9-2-18: Constructing
Standards-Based Rubrics in the Secondary ELA Classroom. This post nicely
summarizes my assessment journey in using rubrics (specifically for writing
assessments). The final adjustment can be read here.
10-16-18: Letting
Go of Stories I Love So Students Can Find Stories They Love. I love
teaching certain stories. However, supporting novice readers is not about
inculcating them with the stories I love: I must give them options to find the
stories they love.
11-13-18: Finding
a Reading Workshop within my Writing Workshop. I have a decent writing
workshop in place, I provide time and options for student self-selected reading,
and I am comfortable in the direction I am headed for standards-based grading.
However, I am still working to more fully implement reading workshop methods
into my classes.
12-2-18: Qualifying
Proficiency Levels with Look-Fors. This post encapsulates my current scoring
rubric approach. I do not completely love the format, but it is working nicely.
I think a middle column with the look-fors and a column on each side to check
off whether a student has met or not met that expectation may help (since
highlighting an “I can” statement may suggest a student has achieved that
rather than my original intent that a highlight suggests a student must still
work on that concept). This continues my other
two
posts on rubric creation.
12-9-18: Deadlines:
Assigned, Extended, or Flexible?. The focus on a workshop and standards-based
learning approach demands flexibility in deadlines. However, on an intensified
block schedule, I also must ensure my students are not “falling behind” and
having to work on too many assessments at one time. this final blog of 2018
explores my thoughts on deadlines.
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