Why Do I Have to Learn This?

My teacher brain is hardwired to think in terms of units. I recognize the possibility this compulsion may come from leftover remnants of my decades-ago college education where I spent hours creating unit binders.  Seriously, that's no joke! Anyone who graduated college with a teaching degree from "back then" knows I speak the truth.  I left college with dozens of those things! I am not even sure where they are now; probably adding to the girth of some landfill in West Tennessee.  

Maybe creating all those units planted a seed in my teacher soul that has sprouted into what I am today. The units I create today are not the same as they were back then, but they still honor the notion of cohesiveness.  

Last week, my sassy seventh-grade daughter was complaining about having to learn some skill in one of her classes.  She complained, "Why do we have to learn this anyway?"  We've all heard this, right?  It's not an uncommon phrase uttered by students.  They want meaning given to what they are learning.

So, what can you as a teacher do to give meaning to your daily reading instruction?  Think in terms of units.  They are an ideal way to help students make connections between daily engaging, rigorous texts and tasks.  They give students, regardless of grade, an opportunity to apply what they learn to a well-chosen culminating task that gives meaning to the whole unit.  

Let me give you an example of what I mean by explaining the process I went through to develop my most recent unit. 

Eighth-grade students at my school will be reading the graphic novel March Book One by John Lewis in a few weeks.  After I read this amazing book that depicted the struggles of ordinary people during the Civil Rights Movement, I knew our students needed to acquire some basic background knowledge of the this time period.  Without that knowledge, they would miss the meaning of the book.  You can probably already predict where my brain went: a Civil Rights Movement unit.

I began, as I always do, by deciding what the essential question and culminating tasks for this unit would be.  How can my students take what they learn about the Civil Rights Movement and apply it to their own lives?  How can learning about these events have meaning for them? How can I answer the question they most assuredly will ask: why are we learning this?  

The essential question for this unit is "Do you have the power to change America?"  I settled on this unit task: The Civil Rights Movement was a time of great turmoil in America.  Many brave men and women put themselves at risk for what they believed.  Write an essay explaining what you can learn from these men and women.  

After I decided on the end-of-unit task, I searched for informational texts that would help my students get the full meaning of March Book One.  CommonLit is always my go-to site.  It is chocked full of rigorous texts on a variety of topics.  I found five text on this site that would meet my need: 

• The Sit-In Movement - lexile 1020
• Scottsboro Boys - lexile 1190
• Emmett Till - lexile 1070
• Showdown in Little Rock - lexile 1060
• Youngest of the Little Rock Nine Speaks Out - lexile 1150

Next, I searched YouTube for video clips that would help engage students in reading these texts, as well as March Book One.  There are so many to choose from, but I try to keep clips 2-4 minutes long because they are just a springboard to launch students into reading the texts.  I settled on these clip:

• Emmett Till - Legacy (2:16)
• Little Rock Nine (3:41)
• John Lewis Gets in the Way
• Scottsborro Boys   (1:46)
• Rep. John Lewis’ Civil Rights Story Comes to Life in Comics 4:33
• Congressman John Lewis on Civil Rights Movement 3:39

After I gathered all my materials, I reviewed them and decided which ELA standards would be most appropriate to teach these texts. Obviously, a successful ELA classroom incorporates numerous standards a day through discussion, but it's important to have a focus standard that drives your daily assignment. Our daily target for week one of this unit is I can analyze how the author makes connections between events in the Civil Rights Movement.

The next step takes some work. You have to develop daily tasks. It is important to make sure the artifacts of learning from that day show students have achieved the standard. If not, you don't have alignment between your text, task, and standard. I developed 5 different tasks, one for each day, that measured students mastery of the standard as they read the text.

Finally, I focused on one of the most important aspects of teaching: the questions. Questioning is how we push students thinking. Teachers need to put thought into the questions they will use and be intentional about who and when they ask those questions. I always include questions with every plan I create. They focus on helping students make meaning of the text, while giving them practice in applying the standards to the text they are reading. Here are some of the questions I created for this unit:

1. What can we learn about the Civil Rights Movement from this text/section?
2. What challenges do social movements, such as the Civil Rights Movement, face internally and externally?
3. What connections can you make between the events of the Sit-Ins and other things we’ve learned about this week?
4. What is the connection between all the details in the section about ____?
5. How is this text similar from the text we read yesterday?
6. How is this text different from this text we read yesterday?

Taking unit planning step-by-step removes the difficulty and ensures you have standards-aligned instruction taking place everyday in your classroom.  It takes work, but it is time well spent because it give students the answer to "Why do I have to learn this?"

The two-week Civil Rights Movement Unit Plan can be found at my TPT store.  It doesn't have the cutesy clip art that many TPT items include because that's not me.  I believe my time is better spent creating rigorous materials, not cute materials.   It is a google doc that will link you to a plethora of materials in a google drive.

Writers' Workshop Improves Students' Writing

Funny story.  My daughter asked me to edit her literary analysis of Romeo and Juliet for her A.P. Freshman English class.  Noticing she put two spaces after every word, I asked her reasoning for doing this.  Her response: "My teacher told me to double space."   After I took a moment to laugh (okay, more than a moment), I informed her what double spacing meant.  Her response: "Well, my teacher should have told me that from the start."

This conversation got me to thinking, how many times do we assume our students know how to do something?  Take writing as an example.  As I travel around the state of Tennessee and speak with teachers, there is a common concern.  Educators do not feel comfortable teaching writing. Most indicate they hate teaching writing.  Why?  I would argue it's because they've never been taught how to do it.  Think about teacher prep programs or professional development on the subject.  Does any of it successfully prepare you for teaching writing in your classroom? 

Teaching writing is a skill teachers are expected to figure out on their own, without much support.  I know this was the case for me.  

Every year, I pick an area to study to improve my craft.  Six years ago, I chose writing. I researched best practices, implemented them in my classroom, and revised those implementations based on the needs of my classroom.  I involved my 5th grade ELA team in the process.  Together, it took us two years to perfect the routines we followed to teach writing.  

Now, that I am a literacy coach at a Jr. High, I am helping teachers implement those same routines in 7th and 8th grade classrooms.   The results are encouraging.  The majority of students are writing at or above our high expectations.  

Establishing a routine for teaching writing is important at every level.  If most teachers feel inadequate in their abilities to teach writing, we cannot take for granted students come to us knowing how to write.  As a matter of fact, we probably should assume they don't. Whether you teach 2nd grade, Jr. High, or High School, the workshop model provides teachers with a routine to help their students become successful writers. 

The Mentor Text

The mentor text, or interactive writing, is the process a teacher and student goes through to write a class essay.  It involves sharing the pen.  During this process, the teacher explicitly teaches mini-lessons on tearing apart a prompt, planning, organizing, and writing an essay.  Teacher and student write together, sharing in the thinking that is involved in creating an essay.  Writing is thinking on paper and that part cannot be overlooked.  Depending on the level and needs of your students, the mentor essay may be a complete essay or just pieces of an essay.  You can't expect your students to do something they've never been taught to do.  Time spent writing interactively provides explicit instruction in how to write.    

The Independent Project  

Practice is important.  So is choice.  If students are going to learn the lessons taught during the mentor essay, they must implement what they learn in their own writing.  Offer students 3-4 high-interest writing project choices that mimic your state assessment.  As you model appropriate writing with the mentor text, give students time to practice those lessons in their own writing.  During this writing time, conference with students.  Conferencing is where the growth takes place.  It can be one-on-one or in small groups.  Push students to improve their writing by questioning their choices and moving them towards improving their writing.  Do not grade the independent project, as a grade is not the purpose of this part of Writers' Workshop. The purpose is growth.  Offer feedback that moves students to improve their writing.  This is what makes the independent project an invaluable part of Writers' Workshop.

The Assessment

Assessment is a necessary part of determining if a student has mastered writing.  After writing has been taught through the mentor text and practiced during the independent writing project, students show their proficiency during the assessment.  In Tennessee, teachers should use the state writing rubrics to grade the assessment, as this is the measure that will be used for our state assessment.  Be careful when grading.  If you intend to allow students to redo essay assessments, don't correct every mistake.  Offer students feedback to help them improve and strengthen their essays, but don't do the work for them.  Writing is always an area I allow students to redo because writing is about revising. 

Teaching writing is not easy.  To become an expert teacher of writing, it takes study, practice, and reflection.  Our students deserve a process that will grow them as writers; a process that teaches them how, offers them practice, and determines if they've mastered the skill.  I encourage you to try Writers' Workshop.

Are you interested in Writers' Workshop training?  Contact me at christy.mcmanus@chestercountyschools.org.