"...and Not to Yield": Explorations in English Education

Inspired by a blog by Catlin Tucker (@catlin_tucker), I decided to have my students e-mail home every week. Catlin explained how she has students e-mail parents when they fall behind. Since I was shifting to a workshop model, I thought this activity would help include families more as well as keep students engaged with our learning activities. Also, the use of daily work logs ensures we have a record of what we have been doing in class so we have something specific to report on each week. I have done one of these e-mails home so far, but I thought I’d share my early process here. Daily Work Logs As part of our workshop model, I began including a Daily Work Log via Google, where each student lists the assignments and work he or she must complete each day. These work logs become a great resource for the weekly e-mails. This is a process to teach students goal-setting and subdividing larger tasks into smaller pieces (even if they can accomplish multiple pieces in one day dur...

Bonus blog post for the week! After establishing my first-day procedures in my previous blogpost , I wanted to share my first full week of workshop (since Day 1 occurred on the last day of the previous week). Below are my daily agendas (our “Gotta-Do Lists”) for my Honors English 9 and co-taught Academic English 10 courses. Some notes: ·         On Day 1 and Day 2, I provided short articles or stories for students to read as they entered so that I could establish, right from the start, that we sit and read once we enter the room. ·         Adapted from Berit Gordon’s (@beritgordon) No More Fake Reading , I created a bookmark for students to track reading that they will fill out with each book to give a reading schedule. Twenty days is a lot of time, but since this is my first time through, I thought I’d go with it. The upside is that most students are “ahead of schedule” and are feeling accomplished and exc...

Last semester, I began a workshop model (see previous blogposts [NE1]   [NE2]   ) after Thanksgiving Break. Now that last Thursday marked the first day of the second semester (on an intensified block schedule), I knew I needed to begin the workshop model from Day 1. How I Prepped ·          I had reviewed my standards and assessments (see my previous blogpost ) and recreated my unit packets. (Aside: My “packets” include notes for student reference and planning guides, not drill-and-kill handouts; the word “packet” has so many negative connotations, but I use them as organization for my students). I was able to maintain my class notes and many assessments (with some additions and adjustments ). ·          I organized a Google Classroom with a daily work log and an initial reading/writing reflection (What stories do you like? What do you use writing for? An a diagnostic assignment on a wri...

Where I am with Workshops Kelly Gallagher (@KellyGToGo) and Penny Kittle (@pennykittle) have plenty to say on engaging students with writing, and many others have much more to say on secondary workshops than I can (see @AmyRass and threeteacherstalk.wordpress.com). However, my focus here is the journey: a transition from a more traditional English classroom to one that engages with a reading-writing workshop. As my new semester (on an intensified block schedule) approaches this Thursday, I have hurriedly been working to rework my procedures and syllabus. This past December, I jumped into workshopping my sophomore English class. To do this, I took two or three larger writing tasks, assigned them up front, and settled into what would become a new schedule: ·          15 minutes of independent reading, ·          20 minutes of direct instruction, and ·       ...

On January 18 th , we begin a new semester at school, and since we are on an intensified block schedule, I gain three new groups of students. That means I need to implement reading-writing workshop from Day 1. I have two different courses: a co-taught Academic (college-prep) English 10 inclusion class (with students I had last year in English 9), and two sections of Honors English 9 (where a Gifted Support teacher will join me about two days each week for the first time in my career). Below are the steps I will take to plan my classroom to best support a workshop model where students are given time to read books of their choice and write in class so I can serve as a learning coach. The following weeks of my blog will detail one of these aspects: 1.       Prioritize standards/objective/targets for each Unit on what skills must be demonstrated to proficiency (as opposed to just explored/introduced). We just revised our curriculum, so these are already ni...