Every year my nemesis rears its ugly head: the epic paragraph. Epic paragraphs are those essays comprised entirely of one mega-paragraph with no indentations to indicate transition from thought thought.

I bet you thought your kids were the only ones doing it, eh? But the fact is that tons of students are recruited into its child army. It’s like the swine flu of writing: tons of kids catch it, and authorities freak out when they see it. And it’s our job as educators to battle this plague on our educational houses.

At the beginning of every year, there is a percentage of kids who have had severe cases of knowledge leakage, and we rail at their prior teachers as if they hadn’t noticed the problem, or had chosen not to tackle it. (Don’t pretend you don’t blame the last teacher sometimes. It’s our default reaction when we see silly errors. But fight this urge, because we know this isn’t true).

What is true is that the students sometimes loose the lessons. Sometimes this happens over the summer, sometimes over a mere weekend. And this phenomenon results in the loss of every rule of writing, even something we consider as simple as paragraphing. Which begs the question: maybe paragraphing isn’t so simple.

To us, the divination of ideas seems logical. To writers, the breaking down of thoughts serves to help our readers. To readers, the sight of paragraphs saves our eye from monotony.

But to students, who are novices to reading and writing, even the act of breaking down thought is complex. In fact, when I think about it, they speak in a stream of consciousness sometimes, so why wouldn’t they write in one?

Reading and Writing go hand in hand. We may not all write the next great novel, but I am always floored when I hear about a state not putting writing at the top of their priority list (see Mary Tedrow’s recent article in Teacher Magazine on the subject). I am assuming, of course, that these districts, in an effort to save money, eliminated writing as part of their testing, and because it just isn’t a priority anymore, the curriculum also gets downgraded. Growl.

Frankly, I don’t think the act of writing the “epic paragraph” is a new flaw. I think it’s been around since the years of chalk and slate (of course a student who wrote in epic paragraphs then had to create a stack of slates to accomplish the task). Some colleagues and I at the Teacher Leaders Network were discussing this very subject. And one posed the question as to whether online texting could be contributing to the disintegration of the formal paragraph.

But I also don’t think it is one associated with texting, etc…In fact, reading and writing online encourages breaking readings down into thought chunks far more than other forms of textual literacy.

To solve this problem, I agree with my fellow TLN’er Renee Moore who said rather than focus on the formal 5 paragraph essay, we should be focusing more on teaching ideas. Content over format. After all, if we’re talking 6 Traits here, and we’re really focusing our content on Ideas, then students would understand more about how to break things down AND we wouldn’t be trapped into the 5-paragraph scaffolding year-long.

For, indeed, the 5-paragraph essay (and the 5 sentence paragraph for that matter) are just that: scaffolds. If, by the end of the year, a teacher is still insisting that the scaffolds need to be in place, then the structure is not stable without them and should be held with suspicion.

This year, I’ve spent the year really stressing 6 Traits in a way that I haven’t before. And while I start out using the scaffolding of 5 paragraphs for Persuasive and Lit. Analysis, I pump up the students for the time when we can bust that scaffolding away like the exploding the braces on a shuttle take-off. Then it becomes a reward of sorts to show me and their peers how their organization best realizes their thoughts.

But how to bust?

Remember, it is a common problem, especially in ELL students, and needs specific ammunition in order to solve it:

1. Remember that you are the best writer in the room, so model, model, model. I think it’s important to use any touchstone texts that you can: authors, teacher work, student work, etc…The power of modeling is in the act of writing in front of them, not just in showing them a completed piece. That way you are modeling not only the concentration and effort of writing, but in using Think Aloud, you are modeling the process of writing and the decisions a writer makes. In fact, Renee Moore says she shares “my writings with my students as both models of what to and not to do.” Mary Tedrow says that she uses her own writing, “especially when helping students understand good/not so good feedback, how to respond like a reader, ask questions.” She continues by saying, “I let them review me first. I show all the messy stages, explaining in a think-aloud my rather recursive writing process.” Powerful stuff.

2. Use real-life examples and have students come to the conclusion themselves of why paragraphs are where they are. Then have the students mimic the writing. Both Kelly Gallagher and Jeff Anderson (Everyday Editing, in particular) talk about using mimicking as a means to learn. Have students mimic from the best.

3. As for comma usage, narrative the punctuation. That is, when you read aloud, make sure you read the punctuation too. Osmosis works for a good percentage of teaching punctuation. Not everything, but it might help bridge some of the gap.

4. For some texture, try showing them some youtube footage of Victor Borges.

5. Use other modalities. Well, I find that in reading aloud, and thinking aloud, we can focus on the problem of epic paragraphing. With voice inflection and stress on those transition words, phrases, and main topic sentences, many students hear the differentiations between thoughts more than if they just read quietly to themselves. Storyboarding thoughts, or comic booking, are effective too. Sometimes it can’t be solved merely linguistically.

6. Lastly, get thyself to a branch of the Writing Project. Find a teacher to recommend you. Interview. Spend your summer improving your own ability to write and to teach writing. It’ll be life changing. I kid you not.

So don your battle armor, grease up your teaching abs, and go forth and battle the epic paragraph.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Curriculum, grammar, k12, middle school, six traits, writing paragraphs, writing project

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

In a nutshell, I’ve been given leave to teach whatever I want as an enrichment, tuition-based class this summer for middle schoolers. So I’ve chosen Film Appreciation. We’ve been studying cinematic terms, reading selections from books that have become movies, and studying the similarities between the narratives we write in school and the narratives that are produced for the screen. We’ll then use these films as a basis for reviewing literary analysis as a writing form.

Here are some examples from the class curriculum:

* So we’ve studied Danny Elfman’s contributions to music scores and watched clips from Beetlejuice, tracking how the music propels the narrative.

* We’ve talked about creative license between books and movies by reading the first paragraph of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe which only mentions in one sentence that the children were sent to the country during the war, and then looked at the first few minutes of the recent movie to see the incredible amount of story and character which were described in only the opening credits set during the Blitz in London.

* We’ve discussed the differences between directors and cinematographers, reading the opening selection of Shoeless Joe and having them draw their idea of Iowa at “dusk on a spring evening, when the sky was a robin’s-egg blue and the wind as soft as a day-old chick,” setting them up for Field of Dreams later on.

* We’ll be looking at Art Direction: the differences between Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (click to see images) and the Prisoner of Azkaban (click for images), the worlds depicted in Dune, and moments from Big Fish.

* We’re reading The Outsiders (I have a class set) and doing a comparison with the movie.

*We’re going to be reading scenes from Shakespeare, the most often used screenwriter of all time, and looking at different versions of scenes from some of the greatest performances. We’ll be looking at the crane shot from the end of Branagh’s Henry V and looking at Romeo and Juliet.

So I received an email this morning from a parent whose student is in my class. She claimed that the kid loved the course, and how he now wants me as his Language Arts teacher next year. But she was concerned how the high school would react if they knew I was talking about Romeo and Juliet, and whether middle schoolers really understand the adult themes that Shakespeare wrote about.

And I recalled a time a couple of years ago when my then department chair said that I couldn’t do scenes from certain Shakespeare plays with my ELA class because the high school tends to get testy about it.

So that got me thinking about our purpose as teachers. And as I thought, I found myself getting more and more indignant about curriculum turfiness. Does it really benefit the learner?

Here was my response to the parent:

Thank you so much for your concern, and I’ll be happy to explain my confidence in middle schoolers and their ability to understand the concepts in Shakespeare’s works.

Yes, I am reading excerpts and comparing them to a movie. In the case of Romeo and Juliet, we will also be acting out a number of the scenes from the play as well (Mercutio’s death scene – great swordfight! and one other most likely.) We will then be watching the final scene of Shakespeare in Love . This is not a movie for middle schoolers so I’m just showing the end where they perform R & J in a reconstructed Old Globe set. I think it’s important for kids to learn about the first and still-most-often used screenwriter, Shakespeare, and compare the loud, interactive quality of what live theater was like then to the static quality of the theater-going experience now. And we will then most likely watch a version of the play.

Let me backup about Shakespeare. The Bard is my passion. I am a Renaissance Lit major who also directed Shakespeare with folks, ages 5-60 at the Youth Academy of Dramatic Arts for many years. I don’t know how [our high school] would feel, but I know that I deeply believe that waiting until high school to discover this writer does a disservice to our students. Considering Romeo and Juliet are middle schoolers and Shakespeare is a part of the 7th grade history curriculum, it seems very appropriate to me to be studying it. I only wish we could be doing it during the school year. As it is, we probably will only spend 2 days on it. Nevertheless, we will not be studying the whole book. I will leave that to the high school.

There’s another way to think about this. Books that kids discover early on in a positive way are books they will be eager to explore again and again in a deeper way each time. Even while reading our favorite books, we do not comprehend every theme and chewy piece of dialogue on the first reading. It takes loving it the first time and diving in again and again to pull back the layers of true passion for a book or an author. If anything, I believe that tackling it now, 3 years prior to when the student will see it again, will only serve to help his enthusiasm later.

This is a powerful play and film about tweens. It is about relationships. And while I know some themes will get lost on these kids, they also could end up seeing it through other eyes than they will as their high school selves. This book sits in my classroom library and every year multiple kids discover it. We can’t segregate the classics based on a district’s curriculum choices; it would never allow us to differentiate for each child’s interests and levels.

I really appreciate your thoughtful questions and concerns. I hope I’ve helped in some way here. Think of my class as an introduction to these classics, and then he gets to excitedly await to dive into them deeper years from now.

I know I took a stand here. I know I might take some heat. But there is such a shortsightedness that we can’t be talking about certain pieces of literature multiple times. We loop our history curriculum over and over, our math and science curriculum over and over. So why do ELA teachers get so territorial?

Reading and writing can’t be taught in isolation. We must all be building on the skills, looping as well, introducing AND re-reading. Every teacher brings something new to the conversation, just as every student brings a new dimension of understanding with every year of experience lived. So the eye rolls from a high school teacher are off base.

We are supporting one another in our teachings, for just one teacher does not a successful student make. Each student has a team of teachers behind him.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Curriculum, education, film appreciation, high school, k12, middle school, reading

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Called “ronin mawashi” in Japan, where it is popular among the pre-collegiate community, pen twirling has its stars, as does any other performance or skill. Accomplished masters of the art form that are well-known — at least among those who follow the sport — have developed a reputation for creation of certain signature ‘moves’. David Weis is credited with creating numerous ‘back’ style moves, such as the “BackAround”. Hideaki Kondoh is generally credited with giving the pen trick “Sonic” its name, because of the way the pen would blur in his fingers.

Pen spinning only recently saw a rapid increase in recognition due to the emergence of internet media websites such as YouTube. From 2006 onwards, the art of Pen spinning has developed subcultures in many countries of the world including the Asiatic-regions and Europe (France, Germany and Poland).

And as the year closes up, I’ve noticed as of late an increase in modified pen spinning, haven’t you? So naturally if there’s an obsession in my class that has little to do with our content, I look to my own practice and what the addition may say about my level of engagement (or lack thereof.)

I wonder if I feel the same way that teachers must have felt about rubics cubes or hackysacks when they came on the scene. This feeling of, “what’s going on around me? When did this start? And Why didn’t I get the memo?” In the past, when something like this occurs, I normally become somewhat efficient in the activity so I can join in the conversation. I’ve gotten a lot of play out of my own World of Warcraft obsession, after all.

But in this case, my fingers just can’t do the darn tricks. My dad has always said he can’t press the little buttons on the iPhone because of his Eastern European immigrant fingers. I’ll chalk it up to that with my inability to do the pen spinning thing too. But even though I can’t do it, at least I can learn about it. And I can touch base with those kids who I may not have reached yet, and when I ask them to put it away (“If you’re spinning your mods, you clearly don’t have pen to paper”) I get more smiles and buy-in because the kids know I’m not after them personally.

I hear of teachers practically having conniption fits when the propelling blurs begin. But I’m pretty calm about it, I mean, I have to ask the bigger questions when the whirring begins: The students claim that they are merely thinking, but really are they bored? Are more of them kinesthetic learners than I thought and this is a true visual indication of just how many students are antsy in their seats each day? Are they desirous of a shop class back on the schedule, something that is about creating, supping up, in this case, pimping their pen? Or are they just struggling to find individuality in a standardized prison, actually showing their own desire for differentiation by modifying anything that they can get their hands on?

It’s also kinda a boy thing, right? And we’re all looking to reach out to those tween boys. Girls have been showing their individuality for a while now: stickers on binders when they are younger, magazine collages inserted into the binder plastic by middle school. But this pen craze seems more like a boy-centric version of the same thing, the need for attention, the need to create their own machine, the need to show off the variables that they changed to accomplish something better than the other guys sitting next to them.

So when I see a tween obsession, my most important question is How can I harness it? Do I have them do a step-by-step assignment on How to modify your pen for ultimate spinning possibilities? So I have them write a guide with links to pages for further resources?

Students will find ways to differentiate themselves. While we all know that tweens desire to be part of a group, they also desire individuality, and the knowledge that they are being evaluated as individuals. So whether it’s whole group or small group work, I need to make sure there are outlets and evaluations for the individuals as well. And even when I have the students working alone, I ask myself how I can allow them the opportunities to tweak their own learning to make it applicable for themselves.

So many teachers are intimidated at the thought of individualizing the curriculum for each student, but maybe the students need to take ownership of that job; let’s call it curriculum modification rather than differentiation, and then it is really up to us, the teachers, to give students the opportunities to modify for themselves.

Back to pen spinning: what do you think, dear reader? I don’t want to fight something that should be exploited. How do we tap into a current obsession and make it something applicable in the classroom?

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Curriculum, differentiation, education, k12, pen spinning, pen tricks, tweens

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

In my book for EyeOnEducation Publishing, due out in early 2011, called Tips for Tween teachers by Tweenteacher, I include advice about the importance of building community in a middle school classroom. In fact, it isn’t something you do once and then check it off your list. The fact is that building community is an ongoing process. Heck, even towards the end of the year I am working to fine tune and tweak their respect of each other, the classroom, of education, and ultimately, of themselves.

And that’s the key. If you can find ways for students to be leaders, to surprise themselves in their own abilities, and to respect themselves, then your impact as a teacher will extend beyond your classroom and the year you’ve had with them.

The Courtesy Contract is a very special activity I save for the end of the year. I have contracts from every kid for the last 9 years (when I came up with the idea), from Honors to At-Risk, from those aspiring to be surgeons, to those merely hoping to graduate high school, from those who want to be rock stars, to those who want to study rocks.

But let me back up. In my classroom library sit two tomes, huge books of contracts that students, over 2000 students ranging in age from 11 years old to 18 years old, have contributed to. These pages represent contracts, promises that my students have made to try to be decent in their lives beyond my classroom. They vow to take the feeling they’ve had here, and remember what it felt like when they are tested in life.

Of course, I model my own courtesy contract before asking them to write their own. And by modeling my own, and by showing them the buy-in from all of the other students over the years, they always write the best damn pledge of their tween lives.

Does every student end up changing their lives in my classroom? Of course not. But you want to build Camelot, a place where, “for one brief shining moment,” they thought they could be the best they could be wherever they go. And if they fall short of that goal? Who cares. Falling short at least meant that they reached higher then that had before they tried. I’ve included excerpts from some Courtesy Contracts through the years, ending with the example of my own which, of course, I share with my students before asking them to write their own:

I, Heather Wolpert-Gawron, do hereby vow to be the best teacher, wife, and mother I can be. I pledge to continue my own education so that I can always teach my students in ways that help them, challenge them, and prepare them for their futures. I promise to TRY to be a wife that chooses her battles so that my husband and I don’t fight over silly things like who gets to choose the next Wii game. I promise to be my son’s first teacher. I pledge to challenge myself in life, for “a life lived in fear is a life half-lived.” But I also promise to never jump out of a plane again. I know I did it to challenge myself, but What was I thinking?! I can’t promise that every classroom lesson with be yippie-yahoo-fun, but I do vow to sharpen my teaching practice like a knight with a sword, year after year; and when the time comes that I don’t enjoy teaching, I will gracefully leave the classroom, waving my hand like a Homecoming Queen. I promise to push through the difficulties of life, reminding myself that everything’s temporary. But I also vow to try to linger in the good chapters of life, cherishing them so that I can remember them when times get rough. I pledge this on this day, May 30, 2010.

Signed

H. Wolpert-Gawron

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Character Education, community building, courtesy contract, Curriculum, k12, middle school

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

In this last installment, I cover the following topics:

The Curriculum

The Student Teacher Apprenticeship Program

Relationships between Districts and Teacher Prep Programs

Graduation Requirements

…And Beyond

They aren’t fully flushed out. There are holes. Perhaps they cause problems even while solving others. But as I’ve said before, just as the future of science sometimes begins in science-fiction, so does the future of education begin in education-fiction.

______________________________________________________________________________________

The Curriculum: Approximately 1 year, with waiver opportunities possibly shortening this portion of the program.

Each class is structured to address how it applies to any or all of the 3 Cs (Content, Communication, and Character). By the end, each staff member is asked to evaluate the candidate on a rubric based on all of these categories to determine if he or she will move ahead to the apprenticeship portion of the program. The Intro to Collaboration and Nuts and Bolts classes can be waived based on the specifics of a Professional Evidence Portfolio (see Part I on the Professional Evidence Portfolio).

Class #1: History of Teaching. This class is about modeling practice through the study of past great teachers. It is also about keeping the ideal of the greatest teachers pinned to the bedroom mirror frame, reminding candidates of the teacher they are striving to be. This class studies the practice of some of the greatest teachers in history, both from the United States and abroad. These classes could also include the great teachers from literature to serve as a model or as an inspiration for the candidate’s own practice. Studying “superteachers” will help more of them to be super teachers. Was that too gimmicky? But it holds true. This class examines the professional lives of those who history or literature has deemed great in their influence of Content, Communication, and Character.

Class #2: Scenario Management – This class includes actual scenarios submitted by teachers to aid in quick problem-solving and discussion prompts. This allows students to brainstorm together to solve the problems while also giving candidates a real glimpse into the window of classrooms at every grade level and subject matter. They will mimic the possible reactions of the teachers studied in the prerequisite: History of Teaching, developing their own solutions with the qualities of those teachers in mind.

Class #3: Nuts and Bolts – This class covers the basic logistics of daily teaching life. It will deconstruct a teacher’s day, week, month, and year. This class talks about pacing lessons, pacing units, and pacing the year. What is the rhythm of a classroom? How does a teacher take attendance, respond to emails by parents or administrators? How many decisions does a teacher make in a 5-minute period? How does a teacher read a contract or a pay stub? How does a new teacher design a student-engaging classroom? How does one prep for a sub?

Class #4: Intro to Collaboration – This class will not only discuss the importance of collaboration in education, but will model it through participation. It will group candidates by grade level or subject level, allowing them to work in cohorts during this class to brainstorm lessons and tweak lessons in popular textbooks. The candidate will, thereby, by able to leave with a binder or portfolio of lessons already designed with the help and creativity of others. This class can’t be ABOUT collaboration; it must use collaboration to help each candidate.

Class #5: Intro to Creating Assessments - This class will cover the fundamentals of assessments. What makes a good assessment? What makes a fair assessment? What is the purpose of assessment?

Class #6: Grading Practices – This class demystifies what it is to grade papers, essays, multiple choice, etc…What kinds of rubrics exist and how can they be used better and more formatively? What is the purpose of grading, and how can a candidate create a system that can help students. How can a teacher work with or develop a grading system that does not become the focus of their practice and time? Popular variations of practices will be studied. Different grading programs will be discussed.

Class #7: Intro to Reflection – This class is meant to be conducted simultaneously with the student teaching apprenticeship 2-year program. The candidates must reflect on each lesson they conduct, its pros and cons. They must also analyze and evaluate lessons that they observe from many Mentor Teachers on campus. They can choose the method of their reflection, whether it is by blog, index card, journal, voice memo, etc…thus, differentiating their own reflection in the hopes that they will allow options to their future students one day. These pieces are then compiled and looked back on at different stages of the apprenticeship program.

Class #8: Teaching Metacognition – Many teachers don’t realize that the IQ can change. This is a powerful concept. How can teachers teach how to think? What are the methods of teaching the brain to embed information more effectively? This class will use brain research to help candidates understand how the brain works and learns at different stages in life and what lessons we can develop to address the brain’s abilities in its specific stages.

Class #9: Project Based Learning – How do the lessons of today apply in life outside of school? Teaching with project-based learning is one way for teachers and students to work together to problem solve real life problems. This class will walk a teacher through the methods of PBL and will give them specific methods of integrating their subject matter content. It will also cover the importance of applying each lesson to “real life” and making it clear to the students that what we learn in school is not just to prepare for a test, but to prepare for that life.

Class #10: Diversity in Learning and Teaching – What are multiple-intelligences? What are learning styles? What is a candidate’s learning style, and how can they teach to other styles? Moving beyond the brain research, how can a teacher address the different learners in his or her classroom? Does differentiation really mean we lose all standardization? If our purpose is to teach ALL students, then this class intends to introduce candidates to many of the thinkers he or she may encounter.

Student Teaching Apprenticeship Program 2 years of a paid, on-site apprenticeship program

OK, assuming a candidate has progressed to the next round in their preparation program (remember, the staff assesses each candidate in the 3 Cs before allowing that candidate to enter the apprenticeship program), then what follows is one possible student teaching scenario:

It’s a given. Candidates must have more time in the classroom with Mentor Teachers, co-teaching, as a means to learn what it is to have their own classroom. These Mentor Teachers should be given an appropriate salary to take on the apprentices of our profession. In turn, the candidates work closely with certain selected students in the class, giving additional support to targeted kids. Candidates are given the responsibility to keep track of those few students’ data. They can work on using assessments formatively with that student, reflecting with them, and can monitor their progress. Schools are in desperate need for smaller class sizes and more individualized attention for remedial students. Don’t pull those kids out, but rather, give them some additional support from these apprentice teachers. This is not in lieu of the Mentor Teacher’s attention; but it works in addition to that attention and expertise.

The 2-years of co-teaching is a paid position with a salary commensurate of apprentice-appropriate pay. It is not the district that pays the candidate. The candidate is paid out of monies supplied by both the teacher prep program and the government. It is not, therefore, in the best interest of the teacher prep program to pass everyone onto the student teaching round as it is now. In fact, as the process continues, there should be gates to go through to ensure that only the highest quality of educators are those who ultimately receive the credential.

During the apprenticeship, the candidate works closely with multiple Mentor Teachers (including an ELD teacher, RSP teacher, and content appropriate teacher), observing and learning.

Meanwhile, in addition to attending the Intro to Reflection class, the candidate must also attend simultaneous classes provided by the district on the demographic, cultures, and challenges that are specific to that district. Originally, the teacher prep programs taught these classes in the form of watered down, overall, nonspecific classes on multiculturalism. Pass the funds used to teach these out-of-context courses to the districts themselves. The districts, therefore, take on the role of educating their new candidates and teachers about the groups that are directly reflected in the new hires’ classrooms. These classes will have more impact when applied to the current experience of the teacher, and it is more important for the district to be providing their knowledge and support based on the demographics of their own community.

Relationships between Districts and Teacher Prep Programs
Teacher preparation programs should work in close affiliation with a particular school or district. The program knows the Mentor teachers and the Mentor teachers are involved with the teacher preparation program. It behooves both parties to make the relationship work.

Like many “teaching hospitals,” there will be more schools known as “teaching schools.” These schools are sought after by families because it means smaller student-to-educator ratios and because presumably, those in the classroom are the best quality, eager to be there and learn the best teaching practices from the Mentor Teachers who represent the best of their profession.

Graduation Requirements
The candidate’s ultimate graduation from the teacher prep program is comprised of the following:

1. a lesson portfolio

2. a digital resume including taped lessons to show potential employers

3. content specific testing

4. recommendations from the Master Teachers from the classroom program

5. recommendations from the Mentor teachers from the apprenticeship program (an ELL teacher, RSP teacher, and content specific teacher)

6. satisfactory observation evaluations from a supervisor from the prep program and well as a district observer.

If a candidate passes with ¾ of those at the table satisfied with his or her performance (assessed over a period of time), then they can be awarded a credential. A candidate with the unanimous vote of approval receives special recognition that can be used like an additional badge of accomplishment, ranking them higher than other graduating candidates.

…And beyond

And just as there is differentiation in our own classes, maybe there should be tiers of allowance for new teachers, like keys to different access of autonomy. Some new teachers will be able to take things on quickly, others will need more scaffolding and time. Some new teachers will climb quickly up the salary scale towards the golden chalice: tenure by showing facility in the three Cs, while others will be given more guidance and mentorship for as long as growth is seen. And with experience and expertise comes more responsibilities. After all, it makes no sense to give the new teacher a harder job when he or she is just learning the job. No, there is a trade off for tenure and more pay: more effort and more contribution to the school community.

Does this sound subjective? You bet. But equity isn’t fair to our clients (students) if every teacher is granted the same access to autonomy and reward at the same time regardless of readiness. And yes, you also read right: that there is a salary scale to climb. After all, if a teacher busts her butt then she should be paid as a butt-buster, but if a teacher does just fine (no more or no less) it doesn’t need to be job-threatening, it just can’t be automatic reward.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Whew! I took on a lot. Is this the future? Who the hell knows. But I do know this. Things must change at many levels. The credential process must change. Credential program quality must improve. Funding sources must shift. Antiquated philosophies about teaching must evolve. Our salary scale must reflect our effort. Different paths must exist to reach a credential. And teachers must once again believe that they are each worthy of their own Chiron Award and all it represents. Only then will the quality of teachers improve. Only then with our students improve.

What classes would you like to see offered in your fantasy future teacher prep program?

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Curriculum, teacher credential, teacher prep

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Some teachers complain about the effort that differentiation entails, that need to offer rigorous curriculum for a wide range of learners. But just you wait: individualization is coming just around the corner, where students will be able to order up their own education, their own schedule of classes to go. And those schedules won’t be limited to what’s only offered on their school site.(...)
Read the rest of I’ll Take that Education to Go: Individualization vs. Standardization (890 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Curriculum, differentiation, individualization, k12, middle schoool, standardization, standardized testing

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Today’s post is about the nomadic ebb and flow of school administrators. The media talks a lot about the importance of good teachers, and I make no qualms about that necessity. But I don’t think civilians know that we are, at times, like our student populations, in parental flux with no real, consistent guidance. And that can’t be ignored.

With each new superintendent comes a new district agenda. What was important might no longer be.

With each new principal comes a new curriculum vision for the site, a different personnel preference, and varying levels of abilities to deal with teachers, parents, and students.

With each new vice-principal comes varying degrees of ability to enforce discipline or enforce academic policies.

As simplistic as this seems, the fact is that each member of a school administration has a lot to do with the learning environment and the academic habitat of a school.

I love my current district, and I love my current school, but man, it could use some consistency. My current school has had two superintendents since my hire. I had a VP who left a year after I arrived. Then the principal who hired me left in the middle of the school year two years later. An interim principal was put in place, a new principal hired. Another VP was hired, then made interim principal at an elementary school. A new one was brought in. He left. The original one came back. But now she’s just been told she’s leaving again for elementary. Now there’s a new VP coming from the district office.

Granted, sometimes an administrator wants to keep moving on and up, leaving the school and it’s children behind. But many times these school leaders are shuffled around by their own districts. And without their own tenure to help stand behind, they can’t stand up to the powers that be.

The fact is that it’s not just the students who need consistency in their life; it’s the teachers too. We need stability to get our craft together without feeling that we have to re-campaign every two to three years for support from a new administration.

We need to know the rules, and we need the rules to stay put for awhile so we can actually all make a difference together.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: administration, Curriculum, k12, middle school, principal, superintendent, teaching

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: collaboration, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, Teach For America, TFA

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I’m the new English Department Chair for my middle school, and I’ve been set to lead a group of teachers who are very gifted, very diverse in their teaching styles, and very outspoken. (...)
Read the rest of Advice for a Future Department Head (992 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: budget, Curriculum, department head, ELA, funding, middle school, Title I

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I think the public believes that education should also be like that.  Every person in the classroom should be able to order his or her own specialized education.  And it should come delivered with a smile and the certainty that your journey is more important than anyone else’s. (...)
Read the rest of Standards Conversation #1: Should Education Take a Tip from Starbucks? (497 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Curriculum, differentiation, ELA, middle school, national standards, standards

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies combines two very different genres from the farthest poles of the bookshelf.  It smooshes together Empire waists with half-eaten brains.  And, gosh darn it.  It works.(...)
Read the rest of Book Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (576 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: book review, Curriculum, ELA, genre, k12, middle school, teaching, tween, Writers Project, writing project

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I don’t know what mythical job this guy thinks I have, but I have never had a summer off.  

I don’t know who these teachers are who are supposedly laying around all summer sippin’ sangrias without a thought of prepping for the year before them.  But I’m not one of them.  

In fact, is there really a “them?”(...)
Read the rest of The Myth of Summers Off (787 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Curriculum, summer, summer school, teaching, vacation

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: carnival of education, Curriculum, leadership

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

We all know there are many problems in education and not one bullet to solve any one of them.  We as teachers can’t do a lot about many of the factors that have huge influence on student success: parental involvement, health care, funding.  But there are a few steps we as educators can make in protecting our professional reputation, advancing student achievement, and making our day-to-day lives a little less challenging.(...)
Read the rest of 5 Things Teachers can do to Improve Teaching (996 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: collaborate, Curriculum, Ed Tech, merit pay, middle school, performance pay, Title I, TLN, tween, writing project

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I was reading through my Digg headlines this weekend, and I happened on this article of the top 10 most extraordinary Twitter updates.  I also did some digging (no pun intended) and found articles that range in claiming that there are anywhere from 4 million to over 14 million current Twitter users.  If true, then Twitter has a greater population that Greece.  Or, if you would rather think in cities, twice as large as London.

So today, my class is going to start Twittering.  I’ve been thinking about using Twitter as a tool for Thinking Aloud for some time now.  I always pictured it on the LCD projector as I taught, entering thoughts as I simultaneously taught, so as to model my own reasoning and processes for my classes.  

I also think it will be a powerful 21st Century (hate that term) tool for them to use to give me a snapshot of what they are thinking.  So I’ve been tackling the issue of how to Twitter online and offline with students.

Here’s what I’m just now deciding on.  You know how you sometimes get your best ideas in the shower or in the rear-view mirror?  Well, I got mine brushing my teeth.  Just a little share for all you readers out there.

Here’s how I’m setting up the unit and how I’m helping to control their safety while creating a transparent and open-door environment in my classroom.(...)
Read the rest of Twitter as Think Aloud (368 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Curriculum, curriculum design, Ed Tech, education, ELA, Think Aloud, tween, twitter, UCI, Writers Project, writing

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I can’t wait to show my 8th Grade Honors class this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq6b9bMBXpg.

It’s a great display of the act of spreading the arts publicly and on a huge scale.  

My students have been working all year on their “Spontaneous Shakespeare” scenes. (Cue “Mission Impossible” music) Their goal: to spontaneously appear in a public place and perform a scene from Shakespeare, spreading the works of The Bard as they go.

It all started with a shadow puppet Shakespeare show that I presented to them as a project-based learning opportunity.  The kids took it and ran.  With their enthusiasm leading the way, it soon morphed into this public explosion of learning.(...)
Read the rest of Spontaneous Public Displays of Art (280 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, Ed Tech, life long learners, metacognition, technology, TLN, UCI, Writers Project

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

So I want to share some of the awesome questions my 7th graders developed to help them fill in the story gaps:

1.     If the mother pig didn’t have the “means” to have so many kids, why did she have three?             

2.     Why did the three pigs go their separate ways?  How was their relationship if they wouldn’t stay together?

(...)
Read the rest of Where the Wild Things Are: Part II (154 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Curriculum, curriculum design, Ed Tech, education, interactive whiteboards, k-12, k12, middle school, tween, UCI, Writers Project

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Yes, it’s true.  I’m reviewing a movie review.  But when you watch it, you’ll understand why.

Spike Jonze of “Being John Malkovich” fame (amongst other image-rich movies and videos) is directing a movie version of the Maurice Sendak classic, Where the Wild Things Are.

(...)
Read the rest of Movie Trailer Review: Where the Wild Things Are (296 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: blog, book review, critical thinking, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

It’s Step 1 of my Top Secret New Teacher Handbook.  Hope it creates some shortcuts, a machete even, through the education jungle.

-Tweenteacher

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: achievement gap, blog, classroom library, classroom management, collaboration, common language, critical thinking, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, differentiation, Ed Tech, education, ELA, employment, free, fundraising, internet literacy, jobs, k-12, k12, Language Arts, learning, life long learners, merit pay, metacognition, middle school, NCLB, new teachers, peer teaching, performance pay, professional development, technology, test prep, Think Aloud, Title I, TLN, top 10, tween, UCI, Writers Project

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: classroom library, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, k-12, k12, middle school, theme, TLN, Writers Project, writing

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh