Literacy Now

The Common Core State Standards are on everyone’s mind these days. For me, the positive impact of the standards so far has been a renewed interest in how we improve writing instruction in every classroom, at every grade, and in every content area. It’s hard work, and I welcome the energetic, enthusiastic national dialogue about writing.

To begin with, there is a harsh reality to address: What we’re doing in writing instruction now isn’t working. CCSS or not, changes need to be made. According to The Nation’s Report Card (NAEP, 2012), only 27 percent of eighth graders are proficient in writing and, of those students, only 3 percent are advanced. Consider the bigger number: 73 percent of eighth grades are not proficient. And the results for grade 12 are starkly similar: 24 percent proficient and 3 percent advanced. No improvement in four years? I’m sure you will agree that these statistics are dismal and simply not okay by anyone’s measure.

The implications are huge: Everything we do in writing must be examined for its effectiveness. All of our writing cards need to go on the table, and those that are not producing desired results should be discarded in favor of those that are. Five-paragraph essays, Friday spelling tests, out-of-context word practice, excessive prompted writing¾these are the types of practices that need to be rethought. In their place we should use methods that support many different learning styles, teach spelling skills in a variety of ways (using student writing for practice instead of worksheets), balance prompted writing with self-chosen topics, and so on. In other words, we should use best practices—or what I like to call, the 4Ws.

• Writing process: the recursive steps writers go through to generate text
• Writing traits: the language used to assess and teach writing
• Writing modes: the purposes for writing
• Writing workshop: the structure of the writing classroom

These are quick, thumbnail definitions, of course. But my point is that the effective teacher of writing embraces all four of the Ws, not just one or two—and there is a world of studies and reports that supports this claim: Writing Next, Because Writing Matters, Writing Now, Informing Writing, The Neglected R, among others. Years of well-documented research reveal why certain methods work better than others, but sadly, for many of today’s students, their writing education looks similar to students’ of past generations, with few if any Ws.

Writing instruction has been slow to change, in some measure due to its inherent complexity. It is, after all, thinking aloud on paper, and there is nothing easy about that. But it is possible to embrace that complexity and teach writing well, if we choose to. I believe students need diverse and multi-faceted teaching that focuses on how each of the 4Ws can help them improve. They need opportunities to apply the writing process (draft, edit, revise) extended pieces of writing over time. This work takes place in the writing workshop structure in which teachers conduct focus lessons (or mini-lessons), and students choose topics and work uninterrupted on their pieces, conferring with the teacher as needs arise. Trait-specific focus lessons develop specific, targeted skills, one at a time, so students learn how to revise and edit their work and take it to the next level. And, students’ longer, more extended pieces should rotate between the three modes of writing¾narrative, expository, and persuasive¾so they explore full range of purposes for writing. Each of the 4Ws adds substance to the writing classroom—and when we unite them, the whole becomes much greater than the parts.

So where do the CCSS fit into this long view of writing reform? The standards spell out what students should know and be able to do, grade by grade. The 4Ws are how we move students toward meeting them. As we explore the standards and their implications on teaching, see if you don’t agree that they clearly establish the need for the 4Ws to be fully operational in classrooms at every level and in every subject. The four categories of standards for writing are:

Text Types and Purposes
These standards focus on the modes of writing: expository, narrative, and persuasive (argumentative). They also address the different formats (structures) and genres (categories) of writing so students become knowledgeable of and adept at many aspects of writing.

Production and Distribution of Writing
These standards focus on the writing process. Revising (traits: Ideas, Organization, Word Choice, Voice, Sentence Fluency), editing (trait: Conventions), and publishing work using technology (trait: presentation) are key to improving writing over time.

Research to Build and Present Knowledge
These standards focus on writing to learn. Gathering information from multiple sources to express ideas, provide evidence, and support positions in the modes of writing: narrative, expository, and persuasive (argumentative) make this standard critical to the writing students do throughout their lives.

Range of Writing
This standard focuses on short- and long-term writing projects. Quick writes, short essays, journal entries, and responses to literature are but a few examples of short pieces. Longer, extended projects that last over several weeks in a writing workshop setting are equally important. They allow students to apply all steps in the writing process, confer with the teacher, and create multiple drafts before publishing a final copy.

p: ghm575 via photopin cc

Once again, this may be a simplistic interpretation of the standards, but you can see where I’m going with how the standards and 4Ws are inextricably linked. I believe the standards will be met in classrooms that apply the 4Ws. As educators everywhere tee up to meet the CCSS, let’s remember, “The Standards define what all students are expected to know and be able to do, not how teachers should teach” (CCSS 2010, p. 7). My advice: Work backwards from the big picture of what students should know and be able to do in writing, and each day zero in on best practices based on the 4Ws. Then and only then will students meet the CCSS—and as students succeed, we may discover the joy of teaching writing, too.

See Ruth Culham at IRA’s 58th Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas, where she will be part of the Invited Symposium, “Readin', Writin', and 'Rithmetic: Revisited Through the Common Core State Standards and Texas STAAR.” Her co-presenters include Greg Tang, Steven Layne, and Danny Brassell. Learn more at www.iraconvention.org.

Ruth Culham is the recognized expert in the traits of writing field and author of over 40 teaching resources published by Scholastic, including 6+1 TRAITS OF WRITING: THE COMPLETE GUIDE, GRADES 3 AND UP; 6+1 TRAITS OF WRITING: THE COMPLETE GUIDE FOR THE PRIMARY GRADES; and TRAITS OF WRITING: THE COMPLETE GUIDE FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL, winner of the 2011 Teacher's Choice award. As the author of TRAITS WRITING: THE COMPLETE WRITING PROGRAM FOR GRADES K-8 (2012), she has launched a writing revolution. TRAITS WRITING is the culmination of 40 years of educational experience, research, practice, and passion.



Top Literacy Experts to Discuss New Standards at IRA Convention

Teaching Tips: The Reading Makeover

by Judith Hayn

Little Rock Central High Memory Project (2012). Mapping the Road to Change: Insights on Perceptions, Prejudice, & Acceptance. Oral History Collected by Students of Little Rock Central High. www.lrchmemory.org

Since February as Black History Month, I'm reviewing the text Mapping the Road to Change, a collection of oral histories written by ninth grade Civics students at Central High School in Little Rock, AR, site of one of the more infamous struggles of the Civil Rights Era. Senior editors reviewed over 300 essays and selected those they wanted to share with readers. They organized the essays into chapters, chose appropriate artwork, and wrote chapter commentaries under the guidance of three social studies teachers. Teachers also created a list of lesson ideas for civics classes, English classes, and to align with the Common Core State Standards. Mapping the Road is the second volume created through the Memory Project (Beyond Central High, Toward Acceptance, 2010).

Once started, the collection is difficult to put down. The selection process was thorough and would have created uncomfortable discussions as choices were made dealing with all aspects of bigotry as it has emerged beyond the racism of 1957. Issues of ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, and physical disabilities are explored by these teen researchers. Chelsi Page interviewed Linda Crawford who helped integrate the high school in Wichita Falls, TX, in the 1960s when she was 16. Abbas Naqvi talked with his Pakistani dad who came to Syracuse University in 1996 to get a master’s degree and reminisced about the changes that occurred in attitudes toward Muslims after 9/11. Rachel Schaffhauser met with Richard Yada from Rohwer, AR, and discusses his birth and early life in a Japanese internment camp in the 1940s.  Cameron Matson interviewed his grandfather Jerome Liebman on Sanibel Island about his life growing up Jewish in Cleveland, OH. Gloria Atkins related to Ebony Stevenson about her youth as a biracial child in Little Rock during the 50s and 60s.

These stories are moving and poignant, and the conclusions by the young journalists are heart-felt; thus, teens will be drawn into the lives of others who have weathered prejudice and turned it into acceptance. The teachers and students involved in the project provide a blueprint for creating a similar undertaking. Interested educators can purchase the book and ask for assistance at the Memory Project website.

Dr. Judith A. Hayn is an associate professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

This article is part of a series from the Special Interest Group Network on Adolescent Literature (SIGNAL).

by Thomas DeVere Wolsey and Scott Bissell

In our garages we have many different tools that serve a variety of purposes. Some we use in the garden, some in woodworking, and some when we work on our cars. Just like the garage in our houses, teachers have a digital garage full of tools they can use to improve teaching and learning. The question we explore in this TILE-SIG feature is how do teachers (and their students) choose the best tool in the digital garage for the task at hand.

At times, it is easy to simply use the tools we know, but are these tools the best fit for the purpose? In our work with faculty, PK-12 teachers, and students, we have learned that learning what tools are available and how best to use them increases the information and communication possibilities. We devised a framework of thinking about the particular strengths, limitations, and perceptual modalities tools emphasize. We also wanted to consider the level of difficulty used in using the tool for the creator and for the audience who might need to access the tool. 

The range of tool possibilities is ever-growing, so these are only examples, of course. Podcasts, for example, are relatively easy to create (a strength) but they don’t feature visuals (a possible limitation). The modality emphasized is auditory. This type of media works well when the primary mode of learning is auditory (or presents an auditory version of a print-based work). On the other hand, Voicethread has a free version educators can use, and an educator version with additional features. It is easy to upload and integrate pictures, PowerPoint® slides, video, and to promote discussion via the comment feature. The free version limits the number of projects.  Voicethread integrates linguistic, visual, and auditory channels if the creator chooses to use all three.  For classrooms filtering software may block access to interactive sites, another limitation.

Teachers can also consider the level of difficulty for themselves, for student-authors, and for audiences. Students’ knowledge of the tools also must be considered. A screencast, for example, is a tool for creating a presentation by capturing what is on the author’s screen with some audio narration and sometimes webcam video of the author, as well. The author needs a microphone and the software necessary for capturing the screen (e.g. Jing, Snagit, Screencast-o-Matic). For the creator or author, the level of difficulty is a bit higher than it would be for the audience who needs only click on a link.

Though our PK-12 students are technologically quite savvy in many ways, they also need the guidance of instructional natives (those who know how best to teach other humans) in choosing tools. We offer five guidelines for choosing digital tools:

1. What are the strengths, limitations, and emphasized modalities of the tools we are considering?
2. How do those strengths, limitations, and modalities fit the nature of the learning task?
3. What other knowledge and tools are needed (do media creators—students or teachers-need to use a particular browser, do they need a microphone or webcam, etc.)?
4. To what degree does the technology enhance the learning that is to occur?
5. How might teachers help students make decisions about the tools they use?

Download a tools decision matrix here (Word file).

Dr. Thomas DeVere Wolsey is a literacy specialization coordinator in the Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership at Walden University. Scott Bissell is a lead instructional designer at the Center for Faculty Excellence at Walden University.

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

Two fellow Nerdy Book Club members encouraged me to use this forum to share some thoughts about how to incorporate historical fiction in the classroom. I resisted the suggestion—what could I possibly tell the readers of this blog about teaching? Then it hit me: maybe simply sharing what I know about researching historical fiction would help you create new classroom connections. Shall we give it a go?

True confession: I haven’t always loved historical fiction. In fact, I avoided it. Until my then-preteen daughter got me hooked by bringing home Jennifer Armstrong’s THE DREAMS OF MAIRHE MEHAN and MARY MEHAN AWAKE. These stunning Civil War-era novels opened my eyes to how deeply compelling this genre can be.

Shortly afterward, I discovered Karen Cushman’s CATHERINE, CALLED BIRDY, with its delicious opening lines: “I am commanded to write an account of my days. I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say.” I was gobsmacked, as Birdy might say. If that’s historical fiction, I’m in! I became a voracious reader of the genre and then, thanks to a snippet of a family story about my great-grandmother, I became a passionate writer of the genre, as well.

In addition to my Nerdy Book Club friends, I also sought advice from writing colleagues Barb Kerley and Mary Nethery. Mary’s a former educator and Barb’s done extensive work to tie her author presentations to the Common Core State Standards. Their input led me to one CCS standard that can readily be supported by donning the historical fiction writer’s hat: “Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using . . . relevant descriptive details . . .” (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.3).

A writer of historical fiction lives for relevant descriptive details. The trick is, of course, finding them. How do I do it? By relying on primary resources. I scour second hand stores and eBay and etsy and everywhere else I can think of for old diaries, letters and postcards, maps and atlases. I am the woman who buys all of those self-published memoirs at library sales, national park gift shops and roadside attractions. I dig through box after box in musty museum archives, as if searching for the big prize in a Cracker Jack box. I NEED the first-hand stories of ordinary people. Without them, I’m nowhere as a writer of historical fiction.

While researching HATTIE BIG SKY, I discovered the diary of young homesteader Vanity L. Stout Irving. She had written about her beau giving her a ruby ring for a wedding present “…which I made him take back. I said I would rather have a cow and three pigs.” Vanity knew what it would take to survive on the Montana prairie, way back when: Forget the bling; bring on the bacon! As a life-long city girl, I couldn’t make up a detail like that. Another diary I read included a ledger listing the diarist’s purchases during the year. From her records, I learned the price of a new pair of leather gloves in 1918 (85 cents).

A sensible wedding present. The price of a pair of gloves. These are relevant descriptive details. And it is just such specifics that bring past times and places to life.

Great news: many such details are to be had at the click of a mouse. Old newspapers provide insights into attitudes, daily life, and entertainments, fashions, costs, place names, etc. and are increasingly easy to access. Our county library system allows me to read historical newspapers from the comfort of my home office. I’m guessing you would have similar access, too, through your local library.

It was while reading through issues of the Seattle DAILY TIMES, circa 1920, that I learned about opera great, Luisa Tetrazzini, and her plans to take an aerial tour of Seattle. Shortly before take-off, her manager deemed the chilly air too risky for the diva’s voice, and an enterprising young woman reporter jumped at the chance to take Tetrazzini’s place. I borrowed these details (switching out San Francisco for Seattle) to give Hattie her first big chance at a byline in HATTIE EVER AFTER.

The Internet is a gateway to other resources. I’ve used the Densho Project, dedicated to preserving the stories of the Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII; USGenWeb.com, a free, volunteer-run historical site; the Library of Congress American Memory Project; the Montana Memory Project, where I found an accounting of a 1916 road trip from Seattle to Boston; the Ames, Iowa Historical Society, which has scanned fabulous WWII resources, including ration books; the National Parks Service; the This Day in History feature at History.org; and, of course, the Oxford English Dictionary (via the Seattle Public Library—where would we be without libraries?!), which helps me ensure that the words I’m putting in my characters’ mouths fit with their time period. This is a small sampling of sites that can put primary sources at your students’ fingertips.

After you’ve introduced your students to these stores of relevant descriptive details, give them the opportunity to put their new research knowledge to work. Collect a handful of old postcards and then ask your students to write a narrative based on/inspired by one of them. In order to create historically accurate narratives, students would need to do some sleuthing about manners of speaking, food, dress, names and places during the time period of their postcard. There’s a wonderful collection of short stories for adults by Robert Olen Butler, HAD A GOOD TIME: STORIES IN AMERICAN POSTCARDS, that might give you additional ideas.

This school year, I have made a commitment to interview teachers and librarians each Tuesday on my blog; in October, I interviewed Brian Wilhorn about how he provides context for the books his students read through a classroom blog. For instance, for THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM—1963, Brian posted historical photos of the 16th Street Baptist Church after the bombing, links to articles about that tragic event, and a current photo of the church. Through this blog, he’s doing two things I admire: giving his students a richer grasp of the literature they’re reading, and modeling curiosity. His digging to find more information can’t help but lead his students to do the same.

I would love to hear about a particularly powerful strategy you’ve used in your classroom to help incorporate historical fiction and would be honored to include such ideas in future Teacher Tuesday postings. Drop me a line—Kirby@kirbylarson.com.

Come see Kirby at IRA’s 58th Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas! Kirby will be speaking at IRA’s Teachers' Choices Committee session, “Making a Difference for Readers, Writers, and Artists by Connecting them with Authors and Illustrators who Create Books that Inspire, Motivate, and Delight” on Monday, April 22, 2013.

After Kirby Larson heard a snippet of a story about her great-grandmother homesteading in eastern Montana, she went on to write HATTIE BIG SKY, winner of a 2007 Newbery Honor Award. This sequel was written in part to answer many questions readers posed about the irrepressible Hattie. Connect with the author on her blog (www.kirbyslane.blogspot.com) or via Twitter (@kirbylarson).



The Common Core: Showing Nonfiction the Love

Bringing the 'Story' Back into 'History'

Being a teacher means embracing constant change. Yet all too often, teachers are told when, how and why to change. In this monthly column, Mrs. Mimi takes on creating change for herself by rethinking old practices and redefining teaching on her own terms.

A little birdie told me that February 6, 2013 is Digital Learning Day. Okay, it wasn’t a bird exactly; it was more like Twitter. I learned about Digital Learning Day while reading through my Twitter feed. (How savvy am I? Truth? Not super savvy for someone with a blog and an online column.)

Digital learning is hot. The education world is abuzz with talk of how iPads, virtual field trips, and connecting with schools on other continents via the Internet are going to change the face of classroom instruction as we know it. Watch out! Here comes technology!

Everywhere you look on the street, it seems like younger and younger children have smartphones and are plugged in in ways I could never have imagined. Just watching my two and a half year old navigate her way around an iPhone is alarming. (And thrilling. But mostly just alarming.)

And then I go into a typical classroom. In the corner of the room are three outdated desktops, two of which no longer work, and while the third works it isn’t hooked up to the printer (but the printer’s actually out of toner, so what difference does it make?).

Hi disconnect, nice to meet you.

As a result, I find myself intrigued by the idea of digital learning, but never consider seriously how it might impact my instruction. Sometimes, I’m intimidated by it—when am I going to find the time to learn how to use all of this cool new stuff? When will all of this cool new stuff be made available to me? What if I’m never as comfortable with all of this new technology as I am with a book and my Post-it notes? What’s wrong with a marker and chart paper anyway?

Sound familiar?

And then last week happened.

I went into a school piloting the use of iPads in the classroom. Every second grader had an iPad. Seriously, it was like a sea of iPads—I had to hold my hand up to my eyes to shade them from the glare of all those shiny, shiny screens. Once I stopped squealing, I got a little nervous. After all, without any warning about this major technological shift, I had to demonstrate a reading lesson in front of a bunch of kids reading on iPads and teachers who were ready to learn something new.

photo: Johan Larsson via photopin cc

Granted, I have an iPad and am comfortable with it for my own personal use (read: Words With Friends and checking my blog) but in front of these eager faces, I was afraid that I would screw up the lesson, that I would stumble too much and lose their attention, that I would come off as less knowledgeable. Needless to say, I was also sweating at this point, so there was that too.

But, as you well know, in the world of the elementary school, there isn’t a second to spare, so I had to put on my big girl panties, take my place on the rug and get started. The lesson flowed along nicely because fortunately I was focusing on an objective that transcended how students read. But, as I began to work one-on-one with children, modeling reading conferences with a gang of teachers behind me taking notes, my pulse quickened again.

In my first conference, a student and I discussed his thoughts and reactions to the text as he read. He was feeling frustrated by a character in his reading. He shared that he was frustrated with Junie B. Jones (which he was reading on iBooks) because she never seemed to learn her lesson and kept getting into trouble. After reading several books about Junie, this smart cookie was noticing a pattern in the behavior of the character. My instinct was to help this smarty to record his reactions by highlighting specific moments in the text and jotting his thinking. But how do you highlight again? And jotting? Could he handle jotting on the iPad? Could I?

I went for it and explained my idea and why I thought it would help him as a reader. And then I (gasp) admitted that I wasn’t completely sure how he would mark the text in the ways I had described. Unfazed, my friend said, “Oh, let me show you.” Then he modeled highlighting and note taking within the iBooks application. For me. He modeled for me. After shooting his teacher an impressed look, I quickly modeled right back, showing this young reader how to apply this bit of technological savvy in ways that would record and push his thinking as a reader.

You guys, we both learned something.

Later, his teacher reported back that this young man had then gone on to model for everyone not only how to highlight and record notes in iBooks, but how to use this strategy to record a reader’s reactions to specific lines of text.

And I die.

Bottom line? The technological capacity may not be in your classroom today, but it’s coming. And it means change, which is always a little scary. But if this moment was my glimpse into the power of digital learning, then I say game on.

Mrs. Mimi is a pseudonymous teacher who taught both first and second grades at a public elementary school in New York City. She's the author of IT'S NOT ALL FLOWERS AND SAUSAGES: MY ADVENTURES IN SECOND GRADE, which sprung from her popular blog of the same name. Mimi also has her doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.