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

This year, I began seating students in pods so we could better implement turn-and-talk opportunities during our mini-lessons (rather than asking questions and having students raise hands and answer individually). A couple years ago, I tried having students choose the classroom arrangement . We have had a few exercises where we had students work in their “pods”: reading and responding to short articles, locating examples of literary elements in a text, and working through a sample standardized test. My classroom set-up with pods at the start of the 2019-2020 school year. However, while the turn-and-talk is generally working (as I find best how to facilitate and teach that procedure), the short group work activities have been met with less success. THE CHALLENGES I have found a handful of challenges with pod seating: 1.      Off-Topic Chatter During Mini-Lessons . There tends to be more chatter among groups during our 15 to 20 minutes of mini-less...

During the Spring 2019 semester, I began implementing “community circles” to build classroom culture. Inspired by the work of Monte Syrie (@MonteSyrie ) and his Smiles and Frowns and some readings I had some in sociocultural learning theory, I went for it. This blog will review—first—how my students responded, and then explain my process before concluding with adjustments for this coming year. STUDENT RESPONSE At the end of last semester, I provided a course survey to gauge student responses to our work. My co-teacher and I talk with our students often (as they enter the room, between classes, as we confer during workshop , their bi-weekly-or-so e-mail reflections , etc.), but this was a way for us to get some typed responses to look at. Below is our prompt and some responses The community circle gatherings were new to us this year. What were your thoughts? Should we continue them in the future? What could they be used for? i feel they are good to get to know each ot...

Being in the thick of transitioning to a workshop model can be overwhelming and tiring. My students have been working hard (often quietly and independently) and I have been working to conference with at least two students a day (who was I kidding to think I could reach upwards of five in one block?). We were settling into a routine and that terrible Specter of Perceived Rigor started looming again. So I decided to change things up. Twitter has been a great forum to gain ideas from other educators, and so many have been championing and sharing their stories of student voice and choice (such as @CRCarter313 at the elementary level). I acknowledge that I have been hanging onto control for a while (including desks in rows and silent workshop time), which is why I began the move to workshop to begin with: it’s about my students, not me. THE SHAKE-UP Last Friday, I tasked each of my classes to rearrange the room in a way that worked best for them. I have two section...

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...