Literacy’s Yin & Yang

I have lived many lives in my profession – primary teacher, literacy coach, literacy coach developer, instructional & systems coach. Through it all I have worked alongside teachers puzzling over the complexities of literacy. We’ve struggled with the literacy challenges of students and the “right” approach. We’ve struggled to find the time to teach all that’s required and to do it in ways that serve students well. And we’ve watched students struggle to be fluent and flexible in all they’re asked to learn. There is no doubt that ensuring each student’s ability to read skillfully and with comprehension is foundational to achievement and that it is a complex undertaking. What I’ve come to learn and continue to discover, though, is how the complexity can be naturally simple and less of a struggle.

The Economy of Literacy

I once had the privilege of working alongside Margaret Mooney, one of my mentors in literacy acquisition and development. She often spoke about economies – the economy of language, the economy of teaching, and the economy of learning. I approach the interconnectedness of reading and writing as the economy of literacy. Literacy is like math. In math there is a basic concept of reciprocity – adding and subtracting, or multiplying and dividing. In the case of reading and its inverse, writing, the reciprocity is demonstrated through decoding and encoding. Once students discover this, they are able to unlock the codes of literacy. The relationship of the parts, the yin and yang as reading and writing, builds, an understanding of the whole – literacy. 

I’ve just started to explore the idea of being a writer. I am learning that while writing I more often than not use my skills as a reader – not just to reread what I’ve written but as a reference for the structure of language, the words I choose, the format I select. As a writer, I understand more deeply that my models of writing come from my reading. How often when writing do I quickly reference, either literally or mentally, what I’ve previously read to help me craft what I’m trying to say? On the flipside, I now find myself thinking about my writing and who I am as a writer while reading. The relationship of the two has become clearer in my mind and I’m coming to know them intimately: the yin and the yang.

Learning through Example

Approaching literacy holistically economizes the teaching of reading and writing. It makes their acquisition and application more manageable and logical. In contrast, separating and isolating them in classroom practice does students a disservice. It fragments their understanding of literacy’s purpose and robs them of the power of reciprocity as an avenue to build the essential capacities of literacy, in particular, reading. Reading skillfully and with comprehension requires students to think about their reading, to not just be able to read text, but to also consider its construction, to wit:

-As readers, students need to think about the features of text and how those features help them predict what they may encounter in the text. How do the features work together to add or clarify the text’s meaning? As writers, how might students use features to help the reader gain greater meaning from what they’re trying to communicate? What features add the right amount and type of detail to enhance the text? 

-As readers, students need to examine writers’ perspectives. They need to compare a variety of viewpoints on the same topic and the evidence that supports a claim. How does the writer’s choice of evidence help the student understand the writer’s perspective? How might they use what they’re learning from their reading to write a strong statement about their own perspectives?

-When students struggle in their own writing – developing an introductory paragraph for example – how can the writing of others serve as models? As a reader, deconstructing an author’s successes can help students push through their own challenges. How do various authors begin their paragraph? How do they conclude it? What do they have in common? 

The Synergy of the Yin and Yang

Reading and writing are synergistic and together comprise literacy. Approaching them as two parts of a whole enables students to strategically use one skill to deepen another in true interdisciplinary fashion. The yin and yang of literacy develops the power of literacy for students through conceptual redundancy in the context of meaning. It also reduces the complexity of literacy acquisition to a reinforcing equation that promotes the simplicity of the whole. While I would never underestimate the complexity of literacy acquisition for any student, teaching those skills through the confluence of reading and writing leverage their synergy and, in turn, make literacy less of a struggle for everyone. It is then that the whole truly becomes a sum greater than its parts. 

 Chris Hoyos is a coach and partner with Abeo School Change.

Use Wordle to Unpack Standards

Sometimes standards can be a little cumbersome to look through. Complex in language and phrasing, standards take a lot of time to unpack. It is crucial that teachers take the time to unpack these standards, so that they understand what students really need to be able to do to meet standard and pass not only standardized assessments, but district and class assessments. Unpacking standards allow teachers to create aligned, rigorous assessments that show this learning.

Teachers need scaffolding in their professional learning just as much as students do in their learning. In our growing world of technology, Wordle is a great tool to create word clouds. I can help summarize articles, showing the most frequently used words, and more. I have seen many teachers use Worldle in their classrooms to help scaffold learning and create engagement, so why do the same for teachers?

Above, you will see a wordle, for a 5th grade common core standard. As per the normal setup of standards, the “main” or “power” standard is listed and then many sub standards are located beneath to help show all components of the power standard. From this wordle, we can see the variety of concepts that students need to understand, from being able to “interpret” to understanding “fractions.” This can help teachers not only see connections in the concepts needed, but also unpack into specific targets. Just this simple tool can help teachers unpack standards, providing them with scafolding analyze the standard. Try using it with your staff!

From Andrew Miller, for Abeo School Change

College Prepared Project

Want to learn more about the College Prepared Project and Abeo? Enjoy this Prezi!

The College Prepared Project on Prezi

From Chris Hoyos, Abeo School Change Partner

The Alignment of AIW and PBL

Last week’s blog from Chris and Harriette reminded me of the work I have done as a teacher as a both a practitioner of PBL and of AIW. Both AIW and PBL aim for the same goals and can align quite well. The four components of AIW were explained in the previous blog, although elaborated communication is explained a little more explicitly here. So how do the elements of AIW explained in the previous blog align to PBL?

Construction of Knowledge – When students create products for a PBL projects, they should not simply be regurgitation of knowledge in a new genre. PBL products are not low level performance assessments. Instead, PBL products demand that students innovate with the content being assessed. Instead of a podcast on World Religions, students would create a podcast to debunks myths and stereotypes of a specific world religion. They must grapple with the content to create something new with it.

Disciplined Inquiry – PBL is inquiry. Students are given the project up front, as well as a driving question to help focus and engage students in the inquiry. An entry event is utilized to spark the inquiry and get students excited. Students research, ask questions, interpret the information found for their project and critique. This in turn demands this process of inquiry continue until the project is completed. Students delve deep in the content by being a complex and engaging project to address.

Elaborated Communication – In PBL, both presentation and written communication on demanded as part of the assessments. Related to the last component of “Value Beyond School,” PBL also demands presentation to an authentic audience. This might be in the form of pitch or defense, or could even be expository in nature. PBL leverages communication as critical whether it is verbal or written.

Value Beyond School – This component is the crux to any good PBL project. The work that students do must have value. It must mean something beyond the classroom. When I visited High Tech High, a PBL school, one of the teachers told me that they never ask students to make something or do something that they would great rid of. They demand that their PBL projects have students created products that will be valued now and into the future.

If you do want to learn more about AIW, contact Director, Holli Hanson @ 253.686.0671. AIW remains one of Abeo’s areas of expertise and is utilized in our school coaching frequently. 

From Andrew Miller, for Abeo School Change

Fun is Not a Four-Letter Word

A friend and colleague of mine, Hannah Williams, told me of her experience conversing with classmates at an esteemed and unnamed east coast university. They were listing attributes of dream schools and Hannah said, “fun!” Her classmates all got slightly smirky looks on their faces, as one said (attitude intended here, folks): “Fun doesn’t sound ‘academic’ enough. We are worried people won’t take your school seriously.” Properly chagrinned, Hannah shifted her language to the now ever-present (and often nebulous) term, “engagement. 

“Hmmm,” I thought. Are the terms fun and academics mutually exclusive? Isn’t fun an important aspect of engagement? A little research please…. 

I began by investigating the academic outcomes needed today – beyond the obvious Common Core skills – and jumped immediately onto creativity and the ability to innovate. Are they the same? “Kind of,” says Tony Wagner, Harvard innovation fellow and author of Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People who Will Change the World. He substitutes innovation for creativity in a recipe Harvard Professor Theresa Amabile says will produce that trait: a mix of expertise, creative thinking skills (flexibility, perseverance, imagination), and motivation. But not just any kind of motivation, she claims. Creativity requires intrinsic motivation. And that, she says, comes from a sense of purpose, passion, and….play. 

It’s not the “f-as-in-fun” word, but play sounds suspiciously like fun to me. I try to imagine anyone involved in play who is not having fun. I think of my child who gets himself up at the crack of dawn to collaborate with his online gaming community, brow furrowed as he perseveres to reach the next level of I-can’t-ever-figure-out-quite-what. I think of my mother who at 83 is so passionate about tennis that she went through the trauma of getting a new knee because she wanted to play more tennis. Don’t tell me she doesn’t think tennis is fun. Think of anyone you know who’s down for the count, body or brain sweating, and pushing for a breakthrough because they’re almost there…just about… And they keep going! Time stands still and when they finally look up from what they’ve been doing, they have no idea how much time has passed. Don’t tell me they’re not having their own kind of fun, although to me it sounds like they’re working hard. 

Hannah confirms this. “Fun doesn’t mean there won’t be hard work involved with the learning process. Some people think it’s one or the other. But I believe that fun is an essential part of engagement. If we can create a positive experience with the content students need to learn [think f-u-n], the learning will have something to stick to. You can have fun and work hard at the same time…and you’ll probably work harder if you’re having fun.” 

My neighbor works for Google. She has a Ph.D. in computer science and spends her days figuring out how Google services can be made available to people who cannot see or hear. She told me that she hates missing work. Her work, she says, is fun. We might also infer that her work is hard and, pertinent to the question at hand, involves learning. Maybe those east coast esteemed unnamed university students should visit some dream workplaces before designing some dream schools. 

Hannah and I also speculated on how fun impacts the climate in a classroom and the difference between a stern “serious” classroom and one that is filled with laughter and joy (or animated curiosity, or quiet respectful thinking, or intense concentration). We talked about how laughing together builds another notch in the relationships that make purposeful collaborative learning possible. “Laughter makes people feel safe,” Hannah told me. I get that. I know how different it is when I get a group laughing, usually by poking fun at myself. The climate in the room just opens up and people relax and seem ready to learn. They act like they want to be there. Seems like something we would wish for students – to want to be at school. 

Well Hannah is now back from her esteemed and unnamed east coast university, (OK, it’s Harvard), making her dream school a reality and a place that students want to be. She told me that the word “fun” is now back in her vocabulary and a driving force of Out of the Box Learning Studio>, where learning is personal to spark passion, connected to ensure purpose, and active in ways that help students play with ideas as they learn essential skills, knowledge, and habits of mind. Have fun, Hannah! We know your students will. 

PS And if you’re still convinced that fun is not a four letter word, listen to the fun ideas of others at Why Fun is Important to Learning”> 

 Harriette Thurber Rasmussen is a coach and partner with Abeo School Change.

Do the Huddle!

How many of us have been in groups that struggled to complete a task that seemed more suited to individual work? How often have we tried to get students to collaborate around a task only to find that for every group that worked well together there was another that fell apart? There is no doubt that groups are challenging to manage, from the inside or the outside, but it does look like group work is here to stay. The Common Core suggests a renewed emphasis on group work as students are asked to consider multiple solutions to problems and as educators are held accountable for engaging every student. And we are seeing a resurgence of group work in classrooms as a key engagement strategy and forum for increasingly complex academic tasks. 

Group work doesn’t have to be complicated. It can be as simple as a “turn and talk” where students are asked to share their thinking with an “elbow partner” during a class discussion. Paired discussions like these give every student a chance to engage with the material being covered, even in large classes where only a few students may get the opportunity to speak to the entire class. Teachers tell us that even the shyest or most introverted students are able to speak comfortably with a neighbor, especially if students are given time to think reflectively first before sharing. Most important, this strategy respects each child as having something valuable to contribute to the discussion. 

More complex is productive small group work, where academic tasks are assigned to small groups of students to complete collaboratively. This is where group work often falls apart as more dominant students may take over the task and less confident students may defer to the loudest voice. So the challenge becomes one of fostering the richness of true collaboration and its potential to integrate diverse thinking into work products. Real collaboration is a far cry from the dreaded “group think” and it’s a challenging instructional strategy. 

This is also where group roles are handy. There are many iterations being used in classrooms across the country but most often they include a facilitator or team captain, a resource manager, a recorder, and a reporter. The facilitator keeps the conversation on track and determines a structure to approach the task. The resource manager is responsible for making sure that all the necessary materials are collected and ready to use, such as assignment sheets, chart paper, math manipulatives…. The recorder makes sure that all pertinent information is written up in whatever way the assignment specifies so that none of the brilliance of the group is lost, and the reporter is the one who will report out or present their work to the class. Having assigned roles reduces the chance that one student will take over the work and if group roles are rotated on a regular basis, every student has the opportunity (and responsibility) to pick up different skills. Although it requires organization, rotating these roles is essential to an equitable classroom and full engagement. 

One of these roles, obviously, is far more complex than the others. Facilitation is hard and requires processes that many adults struggle to implement. So how can we help students facilitate without standing behind them – an impossible task for a teacher who may have 6 or more groups going simultaneously. We have two thoughts on this – and yes, this is where the huddle comes in. 

First, consider facilitation a skill like any other learning target, with a gradual release toward independence as your students learn the tricks of the trade. We’ve seen teachers be very transparent around modeling particular facilitation strategies, assisting, and then finding themselves on the sidelines as students gain confidence and skill in this area. 

And then, we suggest you Do the Huddle before every group assignment. This is where you pull your facilitators together (often while your resource managers are gathering their materials) to make sure the task is understood and offer concrete process strategies for approaching the task to make sure every mind is heard. This is most successful if the process strategies replicate what is already familiar with the class. For example, in a recent 3rd grade huddle we heard: 

Teacher: “You know how when we’re in circle I ask you to first think to yourselves and then share with an elbow partner before we talk as a whole class?” 

Facilitators nod their recognition. 

Teacher: “So let’s practice that in your groups today. Give everyone think time. Then have them share with a partner. Then you can open it up for everyone in the group. Sound good?” 

Facilitators nod and everyone high 5’s before disbursing. 

Can you imagine how differently the facilitators approached their task, with a clear structure that is known to them and to the members of their group? Imagine how confident even the most introverted facilitator might be with a set of distinct moves, with language that will be understood and provoke familiar behaviors. And imagine how much more productive group time could be with a “think, pair, share” strategy to ensure all voices and brains are heard. 

So the next time you plan your group work, try it.  Do the huddle!  (And then maybe throw in a little wiggle at the end.) 

 Harriette Thurber Rasmussen is a coach and partner with Abeo School Change.

Be Quick but Don’t Hurry

It’s March Madness, with kids of all sizes playing their hearts out on the basketball court, passing, dribbling, and taking their best shots. Have you ever seen this passion in motion, with players dribbling down the court at breakneck speed toward the basket? Have you ever said to yourself, “slow down!” worried that the ball will get away from them? And then inevitably see just that happen? 

It does happen, of course, so much so that the late and legendary basketball coach John Wooden framed one of his famed pearls of wisdom around the notion, “be quick but don’t hurry” knowing that by losing control, players – and leaders – have great difficulty getting the results they want. Wooden claims that when we hurry, we are unable to be deliberate about our actions and are prone to error. Being quick, he says, is understanding what’s necessary and getting it done. Quick can be fast, but there’s a calmness to quick that’s missing when we hurry. 

We’re seeing a lot of hurry in education today and it is, frankly, worrisome. Every role seems impacted exponentially by the number and urgency of today’s mandates, perhaps with the greatest impact on the classroom. Most disheartening is what we hear from students,many of whom report untenable stress from the pressure to perform on demand. We also see outstanding educators leaving the profession in record numbers . We see, frankly, exhaustion everywhere and wonder how any of us can do our best work in this environment of relentless stress. Our hurry to make things better may have backfired. 

But how do we restore calm to an environment that admittedly is urgent? The mandates aren’t going away and the need to improve outcomes for students is very real. We think, though, that there are ways in which leaders can make the impact of these initiatives more manageable. One place to start is with the wisdom of adaptive leadership gurus Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky, both faculty members at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. They suggest that those in positions of authority can (and should) “turn down the heat” when people reach the limit of their tolerance. To quote, “Any community can take only so much pressure before it becomes either immobilized or spins out of control” (2002, p.108). 

One of their suggestions is to break the work into smaller chunks, so that the volume feels more manageable. This might require pacing and some prioritizing about what must be done now, what can be deferred, and what could even come off the list. Keeping in mind that prioritizing means making choices, this is often one of the most challenging tasks in an environment that demands increasing accountability. At the same time, we rarely see the removal of any long-standing initiatives when new ones are added. Nor do we often see a decision to leave potential grant funds on the table, even when they take a school or district in an entirely new direction. Saying “no” can equate to being deliberate and strategic…and calm. 

And for the initiatives that cannot be removed or put off, they suggest starting small, starting easy with technical shifts that don’t require as much upheaval, or as much learning. Adapt, adapt, adapt. Take it slowly. Let the temperature be your guide and avoid a melt-down. 

Remember that all improvement efforts – strategies, goals, outcomes – are in addition to what is already a full plate for every educator. Sometimes we read school improvement plans and marvel at their breadth while wondering who will teach the kids while everybody learns how to do the new stuff. The kids still come every day and it’s not as if teachers and principals and central office staff don’t already work horrendous hours. Until what’s in your school improvement plan becomes second nature, it will be more work, not different work. 

So break it up. Pace it. Start with the easy(er) stuff. Get rid of all the absolutely non-essentials, especially when new learning is required – at least until we’re through this rough patch as the perfect storm threatens to descend. 

And please. Don’t hurry. Yes there is great urgency to our work. There are achievement gaps to close, graduation rates to increase, and futures at stake. But we’ll never get there if we let the ball get away from us. March Madness belongs on the courts, not in our classrooms. 

 Harriette Thurber Rasmussen is a coach and partner with Abeo School Change.