This week's readings deal with teaching to standards and an article about mandating teaching practices. The National Council of Teachers of English has developed their own set of standards linked here. Review the Alaska content standards for writing for your level.
In Chapter Five, the text states that "State curriculum documents and assessments are now carrying a new message: writing should no longer be "the silent R" of learning...Improving writing is now seen as important for learning subjects other than English." Here are a few ideas to discuss in regard to the reading:
- Do you feel both these statements are true at your site?
- How important are state standards to your daily teaching?
- How "mandated" is what you do?
- Have you ever been forced to teach in a way you did not feel was a good fit for your philosophy or style?
- What are some of your own "standards" or goals as a teacher of writing?
- If you could change or revise some of the state standards, what changes would you make?
Let's save discussion about assessment and qualifying exams for next week.
In response to question #1, I think our school is now recognizing the importance of writing across the curriculum, but I don’t think we have implemented much or made many changes in the content areas. We are still in the discussion/planning phase. That’s not to say that there aren’t many teachers outside of the English department who assign writing in their classes. We do not, however, have a common vision throughout the school that everyone is implementing.
ReplyDeleteAs far as question #2 goes, the standards are the bedrock upon which my lessons are built. Our curriculum is based on the standards and I also personally refer to them when planning any unit.
Questions #3 and 4 are interesting. I don’t really feel like I am being mandated to do anything, nor have I ever felt forced to teach in a way I wasn’t comfortable with. I feel like the standards, at least in the way they are being used in my district, provide a lot of flexibility. There are certain concepts I need to teach (per the standards), but how I teach them is entirely up to me.
For question #5, I think my main goal as a writing teacher is to empower my students. I want them to have the tools they need to write a resume or a scholarship letter, to apply for a bank loan, to get a job, etc. Having basic writing proficiency is key to being able to do all of those things. I also want them to develop as critical thinkers and writing is also key to the development of those skills. As Tracy Kidder was quoted in our text, “I write because I don’t know what I really think about anything until I get it down on paper.” I strongly believe that it takes a higher level of cognition to craft written responses to concepts, and it should be a goal of every teacher to develop those skills in his or her students.
I don’t really have a response to question 6 other than to say that I’m pretty happy with the writing standards. I think they are simple, to the point and cover the basics that need to be covered. It is a manageable list.
I wouldn't say that writing is seen as being AS important in teaching other subjects, but I do think that our non LA teachers do a good job of incorporating writing into their curriculum when it is a natural fit: history reports, lab write ups, etc. And I think that is just fine. When a poor math teacher is asked to make surre the kids can calibrate a sine cosine equation or whatever it is they do over there as well as assign and grade a bunch of artificial writing assignments, it is overwhelming for the teacher and inauthentic for the kids. They smell a rat and rarely does the assignment help their math or writing skills.
ReplyDeleteStacey wrote:I don’t really feel like I am being mandated to do anything, nor have I ever felt forced to teach in a way I wasn’t comfortable with. I feel like the standards, at least in the way they are being used in my district, provide a lot of flexibility.
ReplyDeleteI have been lucky enough to have the same experience. I have been encouraged to teach certain cirriculum but never mandated as long as I was using the standards. My observations through teaching this class, however, are that more and more cirriculum is mandated--for better or worse. One teacher last year was told where she had to be at all times in the mandated text and administrators from the district were checking her. I am glad I had more flexibility to apply best practices and reteach when necessary for my students. It will be interesting to hear what others have to say on the topic. There are, as we know, good reasons for mandating outcomes. I do believe in some flexibility as to how we reach those outcomes and standards.
I have to say I am guilty of neglecting to follow the standards exactly. I am more of a holistic writing teacher, and i use the standards several times a year to share with the kids how their work is improving. Example: "Look how you are using MLA in citing your sources. That's exactly how a 10th grader should be doing this."
ReplyDeleteIt was good to have us check those things, though. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have visited them until next fall.
I agree with Sondra and Stacey that I've been LUCKY in the way that my principals have always trusted me (and others) to do our best to get our kids to mastery using authentic pieces of writing. I've never been held to the fire, as it were, regarding my curriculum. I may have gotten discouraged with teaching by now, had I been, because I think it would take some of the joy out of those spontaneous teaching moments. Example: "Oh, great idea about writing letters to Japanese earthquake survivors, but unfortunately, we need to write this literary analysis before Tuesday!"
From "BWM" chapter 5: awesome reminders of what the kids w/ higher writing scores do: planning, multiple drafts, teacher-student discussion, portfolios. Keep it simple, and keep doing what works.
In the elementary setting at my school I feel that writing is definitely set on the back burner. For example reading fluency is seen as the most important part of our students' achievement I have to say that our principal views fluency as one of the defining characteristics of a student who will pass the SBA's. The state GLE's are used on a daily/lesson basis. All of our GLE's are posted in our lesson plans, on the white boards in my classroom and are also slowly being implemented into a binder where we are to document evidence, per student, of successful completion and understanding of the specific GLE. I don't think I am really mandated to do specific things, I can chose how I want to meet each GLE. As a first year teacher I think that the GLE's have been helpful in meeting some of the needs that I might I looked over without the guidelines.
ReplyDeleteI have never had any problems, so far, in being forced to teach a specific way. I am given the free range to teach how I see fit and in accordance to my own philosophy. I believe that because of this "free range" mentality of my school I have been able to come up with a clearer goal for my students and my teaching of writing. One of the main focuses I have been struggling with throughout the year has been to get my students excited about writing. The enjoyment of it has been lost in my students past education experiences. I have made some gains. My students are now into the routine that we write or talk about writing everyday. This is something that they really struggled with until recently. I believe that when we try and make it fun and show how much we as teachers enjoy something it catches on more quickly. Another goal I have had this year is for my students to write in sequence. Still something I work toward continually.
Question #1 In my school writing is valued across the curriculum. Most teachers here engage their students in writing across the curriculum. We do possess different levels of compentency in writing instruction. We have targeted our professional development in the area of writing because of our varied instructional levels.
ReplyDeleteQuestion #2 I use the State Standards as well as our Districts Standards when I am planning my lessons; they are my road map of where I need to go with my students. What I found interesting in the beginning was that the State had a set of standards then the district came up with their own set for their curriculum. They are now redoing standards as each curriculum area comes up for adoption and using the State Standards. Makes more sense to me to work off of one set.
Question #3 & 4 I am like Stacey in that I have never felt pressure or mandated to teach in a certain way. I have always had the flexibility to reach the expected goals in ways that best fit my students based on the standards. I have yet to work for a principal that has demanded a prescribed way to deliver curriculum. The expectation has been to follow the standards.
Question #5 My goal is to empower my students, including my struggling writers, to use writing to enhance their learning in and outside of school. Also to give them the tools and experiences in different types of writing that will help them in the "real world".
Question #6 At this point in time I think the standards are satisfactory and to the point on what we need to teach in the area of writing. I think the major focus needs to be in professional development for writing.
At the elementary level each teacher is responsible for teaching writing so I think it is more natural for every teacher to infuse writing into all content areas. In our district there is a mandated program for reading but it does contain writing as well. How strictly we are asked to follow the program depends on the principal (and definitely if you are a Title 1 school or not). My principal allows us to develop our own style within the framework of HM, she does not police the degree of fidelity each teacher uses but trusts us to use our professional skills to teach our students. With that in mind though, there has been a bit of a district push to better define writing expectations at each grade level although it seems to have stalled out a little bit at this time.
ReplyDeleteI do keep the standards and GLEs in mind when creating all my lessons. If you look at kindergarten standards you will see that they are pretty minimal so just about anything I come up with could easily teach to several standards. I definitely teach above the standard at kindergarten but I don't think that this necessarily means that the standards are too low. While I feel my students are capable of more and I challenge them to meet many first grade standards I don't think that all populations are ready for that challenge.
Because I am in such a small school (2 teachers), I really have free reign on how I teach, especially in writing. An additional challenge I have is that I am teaching 5th graders, 6th graders, and 8th graders all at the same time. I also have little curriculum to work with, which can be a good or bad thing. I like having the GLEs to help give me some guidance of what I need to get accomplished in writing, otherwise I would spend the whole year just writing personal narratives :-). (My students can write all day about things they have done, but branch away from that and I have a mutiny on my hands...)
ReplyDeleteMy challenge with the GLEs however, is that I have very reluctant writers. This makes it hard to meet those standards set forth. Half of my writing times ends up being spent on just getting them to write anything, let alone anything of quality. This really has improved throughout the year, as they have come to realize they do still have to write...they can't 'wait me out'. It is still a daily struggle.
Something that has helped me as of the last 2 weeks with my reluctant writers is actually having them do some of their writing on blogs rather than in notebooks. It has made a world of difference. I am trying to see how I can use this strategy with them more!
I don’t have an administrator on site and as long as we don’t ruffle too many feathers, no one really bothers us. However, I think it’s important that students can communicate effectively, orally and in writing. Standards give us guides and goals for our students to achieve. Standards define the preferred result, so that we’re not rolling bowling balls down an alley with the pins hidden behind a curtain. All of us want our students to be successful, not only in school, but more importantly, in life. State and national writing standards, as well as our own, give our students the coaching needed to improve as writers.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read Kelly Lock’s article, “Working With Mandated Curriculum,” I was reminded of an inspiring presentation I attended about five years ago at a school counselor’s conference. The presenter, a former counselor, principal, and school district administrator, gave a speech entitled, “ Pilots, Passengers, Hostages, and Hijackers.” She used the metaphor of a commercial jetliner to describe a typical school. Her talk could apply to any large organization. All of us are passengers and sometimes pilots. Hopefully, none of us will become hostages or hijackers.
Pilots are the people who want to be in front of policy changes or at the least, to be able to affect policy changes that come down the pike. Principals are obviously pilots. They invested in the classes and sought the position so that they could lead. Many teachers also become pilots by volunteering for steering committees, curriculum development groups, and other policy making organs. They may not want to lead the whole school, but they feel that certain issues are important or peak their interest.
The majority of us are passengers. We just want to be left alone to do our jobs back in coach or first class while others steer the plane. As long as the plane remains on course, at altitude, and stays on schedule, we’re fine. There’s nothing wrong with being a passenger, but you can’t complain about change that you could have influenced if you let others direct it.
Hostages are those frustrated souls who have lost their spark and are in the long count toward retirement. We’ve all met teachers who feel that they can’t afford to start another career, who dread Mondays, and who try just get through every day as painlessly as possible. Job satisfied they’re not.
Hijackers are those teachers who are willing to take the plane down to achieve their goals or to “right” perceived wrongs. They don’t care about the consequences of their actions for others or for the organization. Their negative attitudes can affect a whole school or a whole department in an office.
As I read Kelly Lock’s article and how she dealt with change she didn’t seek, I thought that she is becoming a pilot. She was faced with making something work that was different from everything that she had ever done. She immersed herself in the topic, presented it to her students enthusiastically, and made it not only work, but achieve the goal of better writing for her students. Her experience can teach us all a lot about dealing with change.
I'm somewhat of a fan of mandated programs (please don't hate me!). To be clear, the schools I have taught in have a high teacher turnover rate. I feel like the mandated programs give some consistency to the teaching. All the schools I have been at have mandated reading programs. I have often wondered why there isn't a mandated writing program. Writing is often left to each teacher's discretion. Teachers come and go in rural Alaska. Some schools see 50% turnover each year. Teachers, even English teachers, have such different expectations for their students. As an English teacher who recently went through teacher prep, I was surprised at how many of my classes were in reading across content areas and how little on writing instruction. In my classes, I rely on NWREL for help in teaching writing. I have learned so much about instruction from their site. I really love teaching a student that his or her words matter. It's my favorite subject to teach...that's why I like schools that have separate reading and writing classes.
ReplyDeleteStandards are essential in providing goals and consistency for instruction. ESL teachers (as well as regular ones) should use standards as content objectives for their lessons, adapting the language to make the objectives student friendly: What we are going to do (content objective) and how we are going to do that (language objective).
ReplyDeleteStandards-based instruction is teaching students not just skills, but “enduring understandings” –big, overarching ideas- and “essential questions”-the in-depth knowledge. Rigorous standards ensure high quality education, and, if this is a “mandated” curriculum, I am all for it. All students, regardless of their English proficiency or economic status, are able to learn and deserve high quality teaching. I have no problem with “mandating” an effective, standards-based instructional approach, a tried and true program, or a professional development course that will positively impact student learning. It puzzles me why in the most diverse district in the State there is an annual mandatory training on blood-born pathogens, but there is no requirement for professional development related to English Language Proficiency Standards, methods and techniques focused on vocabulary development, or differentiated instruction strategies. From my personal experience, the trainings on Sheltered Instruction, the approach that emphasizes strategies helpful in working with Ells, are attended predominantly by elementary teachers, from the schools where principals encouraged or required their staff to do so. My other recent observation is that only the same few teachers show up for the Current Issues in Educational Technology class that is - in my humble opinion-is awesome and absolutely necessary for all the teachers who plan to maintain teaching current kids. I believe if we want to achieve high standards in education, the “mandates” are necessary for those teachers who do not want to change.
As I read the article, I was just scanning and then I began really reading it in depth. I used to reject a lot of things as a teacher... "Textbooks! Good Lord, you use textbooks?" I'd scoff at the teachers who followed "canned curriculum" while I focused on "deep learning" and "authentic experiences." Ha! When I changed schools and began working under a "canned curriculum" and used the oh-so-evil textbook, I realized --- textbooks are okay! In fact, they are downright handy. Why reinvent the wheel?
ReplyDeleteThis article by Kelly Lock was inspirational. Instead of beating her head against a wall, she accepted the mandate, and did the best she could with it. I like her comparison to a parent protecting children from "adult issues." This is an apt comparison, and a powerful one. As teachers, we should look at our role as one similar to a parent.
I enjoyed this article and respected Lock's outlook.
In reading over all the writing by various teachers, I had to agree with Joyce G. in many ways. Teaching in Alaska, especially in the bush, has a high turnover. Teachers quit for many reasons some of which are drinking, drugs, violence, isolation, depression either in the community or for the individual teacher. The reasons are many and varied. In 1976 I was an emergency hire for Kaltag in January. Three teachers just didn’t return after Christmas so State Operated Schools hired live bodies, myself being one of them. I was only certified 7-12 PE at the time and my new job was unknown and to be decided by the teachers at the school when I got there. I packed up a box of food, camping gear and flew into the village at 50 below zero and became the new 5th and 6th grade teacher of 14 boys and 2 girls.
ReplyDeleteI had nothing. The books were all glued together from water the summers before when the roof leaked. I had grabbed some math puzzles before I left and ended up building a math program on those addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division papers. I had no guidance for reading or writing. It would have been wonderful to have some form of standards and curriculum required by the state or the district that I could have followed. Even today, having some form of guidance to help teachers that often are teaching subjects out of their certification would be valuable. Not all of us know what we are doing all to the time, even though we try our best.
Today as an intensive needs special education reading and writing teacher, I write all goals and objectives starting first with the standards. I find them useful as a directive.
“Improving writing is now seen as important for learning subjects other than English.” Do I feel this statement is embraced at my site?
ReplyDeleteSadly, no. Writing is consider “my job,” and I hear others complaining when a student is struggling in writing a response to a science or social studies question. We are a small K-12 school, where the JH/HS are housed in three portable buildings: one for Language (English and Russian), one for Math, and one for Science/Social Studies. Due to increasing demands and decreasing staff in the upper grades, we JH/HS teachers work in isolation----causing a segmented rather than integrated approach to instruction. We used to collaborate on cross-curricular projects, team-teach, etc., but the pressures to raise students’ standardized test scores seems to have created more of a narrow-my-focus-to-my-subject without considering how crucial the integration of subjects is for student success overall. We keep talking about applying instruction to “real life” (a phrase my students and I have both come to detest as this is real life right now!), but, in the world outside of school, subjects are not so segmented. I try to encourage students to apply their writing skills to all classes, as writing is a representation of who they are and what they know… “and what we write is written to be read.” To me, the stress of The Test, seems to have driven instruction, at least at our secondary level, away from inclusion and integration.
I am hopeful that next year, we can reevaluate our needs as a school and, with new staff, embrace the fact that “For ELL students, the mix of reading, writing, speaking, and listening adds up to better learning”… in all subject areas. Writing Matters will be a good basis for discussion and implementation, keying in on pages 51-59.
I can’t say I’ve ever thought to revise any of the standards or GLEs, as I know that someone much wiser than I wrote them. Besides, I’m fully aware that just because I think something is so, doesn’t change the standards to which our students are compared. In the midst of these standards, I feel that more education regarding instruction and professional development would be most beneficial. As I’ve said before, the more comfortable and confident the teacher feels instructing in regards to the subject area, the more likely that teacher will be better at relaying the concepts in a way that best relates to the student.
ReplyDeleteWriting is important at my school, I feel that it is a "core" subject and regarded as meaningful within the community as well. The state standards are not something I post daily or refer to daily. That said, I do use them to guide the broad outlines of larger projects and to reassure myself that I'm on the right track. I also really love to pull them out and justify classroom learning activities to students who whine about "why do we have to do . . ." I don't feel that I am particularly "mandated" at my school. In fact, it might be nice to have a bit more consistency between the different sections and classes. I have never been forced to teach in any certain way, and have been fortunate to have master teachers willing to share their ideas, observations, ways-that-work with me. One of the most difficult things for me is to come up with lessons from scratch, and I do a lot of research online and with colleagues to put units together.
ReplyDeleteI think that I expect students to learn how to effectively communicate, and writing is a key component of that. If anything, I would change the state standards to make them more specific. I feel they are broad and can be applied to almost any learning activity.
Week Five Response to Reading
ReplyDeleteIn response to question #1:
At my building we are undergoing a fairly major change as far as teaching writing goes. Five years ago or so, we still used an English Skills textbook, but most expository writing was done in the other content areas. We’d have monthly writing prompts, but the main writing was done in Social Studies. Where students were required to answer chapter questions in complete sentences rephrasing the question etc. So I find it interesting that now, the thinking is that students need to do more writing in the other content areas, now that we have implemented an actual writing program.
Question #2
I don’t obsess about the standards. Although I am quite aware of them. I feel fortunate that our administrator doesn’t require us to submit lesson plans weekly with the state standards addressed indicated. But I feel that our district has adopted curriculum that if followed reasonably will address all the state standards. I do have writing portfolios for each student that I put quarterly contributions into. Each time I put a piece in , I review the standards and GLE’s to see what we’ve covered and what we still need to get to as well as how each individual student seems to have mastered those skills.
Week five response part two
ReplyDeleteQuestion #3
Our school was one of the first in the district to adopt the newly revise Houghton Mifflin Language Arts curriculum. A lot of feathers were bristled by this. It really can look and feel like the old basal reading texts. It can also be quite scripted and confining. It incorporates reading ,writing, and spelling into the same curriculum. It didn’t take long for a common theme of complaint to emerge from all school s using it. The writing component was very lacking. I am very fortunate to be at a school where not only students’ but teachers’ individual differences are respected and encouraged. Our administrator from the start, presented the whole thing as a “work in progress” encouraging us to do what we could and make it work for us in whatever way we could. There were schools in the district that had what were called “Houghton-Mifflin police” that would stop into classrooms uninvited to make sure the program was being followed “with integrity”. Luckily I don’t teach at one of those. So the last couple of years we have been working on improving our writing scores and implementing a common school-wide approach to teaching writing. We had a class offering at our school in the six-traits which just about every student attended. We have established a system of portfolios, also creating electronic portfolios for each student, and certain typed of writing to be focused on each quarter. Our goal is to get 1-2 pieces of different types of writing per quarter that have been taken through the entire process. These are stored in portfolios, a copy is sent home to parents with scoring rubrics attached, and a copy is placed on the school server available for future teachers. I am quite pleased with our schools progress towards outlining and implementing a consistent school wide approach to writing instruction and assessment.
This has only come about through much thoughtful collegial discussion spearheaded by our wonderful administrator who does truly listen to us as professionals and takes out ideas and opinions very seriously. The six traits class we all took, focused on us as writers as well as the students writing. We had weekly writing assignments ourselves. I truly believe that unless a teacher writes, they cannot teach writing. That’s one of the reasons I am in this class right now.
As a teacher of writing my goals are to get better at individual conferencing with students, and to make peer editing work better in my classroom. Also to model much more of my own writing process for the students. And to figure out how to manage my very limited time to allow time to work on these goals.
I am fairly happy with the state standards and GLE”s. I like that they are specific, and show a continuum of development across the grade levels. They are written in understandable language, and are not too lofty or complicated to prove impossible for students to achieve.
Two of you have had problems posting here, so I am just trying again to make sure it is working.
ReplyDeleteFor both text books and standards, I agree that they give concrete frameworks for what students are expected to learn, which we are bound to teach. That is huge, because it would be painful to start from scratch!! I had worked at a small private school at the beginning of teaching career and as much as I loved the freedom of teaching skills and lessons that went along with a central philosophy, there was a gap in understanding what each teacher expected as the mastery of the skills by students. My challenge is to incorporate as many of the GLE's in one unit/lesson, so that we will have more time to deepen the knowledge or to strengthen the areas of needing attention, but this hasn't happened yet....
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