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

I have been working with the concept of our daily work log for a while now, but I was not implementing it in a way that was truly beneficial. My first iteration asked students to list what they planned to accomplish in a given class period (based on my mini-lesson and assignments). Too often, there wasn’t enough to warrant a list, or teaching how to break down a task into smaller parts was more time-consuming than I had planned (such as breaking down the parts of planning and drafting an analysis paragraph). Also, I was more concerned with working one-on-one during workshop rather than critiquing the work log. Now, I have fine-tuned that process a bit more. I create a Google Doc that I share with all students, and on it, I include the chart above (with as many dates as I estimate a unit of study will take. Then, I create a column for daily reading reflection, another for our daily learning targets, another for a quick check on if students are “on-target,” and a final ...

I have finally begun a video lecture series that my students can reference as they write, work, and study. I attended Andrew Easton’s ( @EastonA1 ) 2017 NCTE session on “Genre Exploration through Immersive Game Units.” At the time, I was gamifying my classroom and his presentation was inspiring. However, the piece I most connected with was short video-recorded lessons to help in personalized learning. I knew I at least needed to have video lessons for students to refer back to. Also in the past two years, I read Catlin Tucker’s (@Catlin_Tucker ) blog posts on station rotation models. This post explores the “in-class flip.” It was only earlier this school year that I began recording mini video lectures. Andrew suggested keeping videos to five minutes or less. To capitalize on the rhyme, I decided on “Mr. E in 3” (minutes) as my video series name. I did not do any editing or any real tech work. I pulled up the notes and organizers I utilize in class and delivered my mini-l...

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...

I have been focusing on implementing a readers-writers workshop in my secondary ELA classroom, utilizing (mostly) independent reading of self-selected novels. Last year, as I taught ninth grade, all of my classes read Romeo and Juliet together, and my Honors class and I also read Antigone together. We read each of these plays over the course of four to eight block periods. This year, my Special Education co-teacher and I “looped” with our students to tenth grade. We decided to review the elements of fiction utilizing Of Mice and Men rather than modeling with excerpts or short stories. Our workshop approach is normally divided as follows: ·        15 minutes of independent reading ·        20 minutes of lecture on a mini-lesson ·        45 minutes of workshop where we can confer with students THE PROBLEM Our students selected novels on the second day of school. We implemented ind...

As I’ve implemented a readers-writers workshop approach over the past 18 months, I have noticed a challenge between different sections of my freshmen and sophomore English courses. In my Honors courses, workshop time generally entails brief coaching sessions on the big picture of writing tasks or brief chats on fine-tuning style. Conversely, my standard and inclusive (“Academic,” “college-prep” level) English classes often require more re-teaching or intensive scaffolding. This differentiation between the two types of courses has become more evident the more I get in-tune with my students’ needs and the workings of a workshop. Coaching in Workshop For my Honors-level students, workshop provides time for students to delve into their learning, and my Gifted Support co-teacher and I can ask a few clarifying questions, answer a few inquiries, or model sentence construction. For the most part, the students in our Honors courses pick up quickly on new ideas, so I can model combinin...

I was able to co-present at the Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of English ( @PCTELANews ) Conference last weekend (October 19-20) with my good friend, Dr. Jen Toney (@JENTONEY ). We presented on Writing Workshops in K-12. Jen is a third grade teacher, and as I teach ninth and tenth grade, we divided the session into elementary and secondary sections after an overview. As I explained my journey to my group—including my daily class schedule (15 minutes of independent reading, 20 minutes of instruction, 45 minutes of workshop)—I got many questions on the independent reading I allow my students. In considering how the session went, I had to inquire more with Jen on her elementary reading workshop approach because I realized that my class has independent reading as a central component (especially when students are asked to write about their writing in writing workshop), but that I do not have a true reading workshop approach. Most of my instruction leads my students to writing ...

As I have shifted to a readers-writers workshop approach and focused more on standards-based learning, I have had to change not just how I teach but what I teach. If students are working more in class (rather than on homework or writing outside of class), I cannot fill an 80-minute block with lecture or group reading. Comprehension questions are no longer necessary as students are working on a lot of independent reading or as they are writing paragraph-length analyses. This has caused me to “lose” some stories and lessons I have enjoyed in the past. But that’s the catch. I enjoyed them. We all know we each appreciate different stories and different concepts. When I opened my class up to choice reading and having students analyze their own texts, I had to provide more class time for this. As others have said more eloquently than me, we must make time for what we value. I want my students to love what they are reading (and, by extension, I want them to love reading), and I want my ...

My Instruction and Assessment Philosophy Over the past couple years, I have been reading into standards-based grading and “healthy” grading practices. Along with a variety of blog posts, @TG2Chat/#tg2chat and the #sblchat community, the following resources have assisted me in developing my standards-based assessment (and, in turn, instruction) philosophy: ·          Grading from the Inside Out by Tom Schimmer ( @TomSchimmer ) ·          On Your Mark by Thomas R. Guskey ( @tguskey ) ·          Assessment 3.0 by Mark Barnes ( @markbarnes19 ) ·          Standards-Based Learning in Action by Tom Schimmer ( @TomSchimmer ), Garnet Hillman ( @garnet_hillman ), and Mandy Stalets ( @MandyStalets ) I believe that students must seek learning, not points, and that their grade in my course should be a reflection on tha...