Celebrating Educators: Troy Hicks

This second installment of Celebrating Educators features Troy Hicks, who I first heard about through his book The Digital Writing Workshop. As I was just starting to explore with technology in education, the book instantly caught my attention. I was so glad to realize that Hicks also has a blog so that I could continue to learn from his insights. 

As a teacher educator, I am proud to work with and for my colleagues. Through workshops and conferences, classroom coaching and conversations over coffee, we have opportunities to collaborate and create, as well as to commiserate and celebrate. We write together, plan together, learn together. And, as I reflect on my journey as an educator at this, the beginning of my 15th year of teaching, I see that my work as a teacher educator has grown out of my continued desire to lead, grow, and change.

The simple story of how I came to be a teacher educator -- currently as an associate professor of English at Central Michigan University and Director of the Chippewa River Writing Project -- appears to be one of linearity: undergraduate English major working at a writing center, student teaching internship at a high school, teaching at a middle school, adjuncting at a community college, returning for graduate school in teacher education, and eventually earning a tenure-track position at a university. While this is accurate, telling the story in this manner does not describe the joys that I find in being an educator; new experiences are available to me as both a teacher and learner, so long as I'm willing to avail myself of them. And all of these experiences are a result of the relationships that I develop with dedicated colleagues. 

In particular, I would like to focus on the relationships that I've developed as a result of participating in the National Writing Project (NWP). When I was an undergraduate, I was aware of the Red Cedar Writing Project that was housed at the Michigan State University Writing Center. I knew the teachers came in each summer for an intensive workshop, and after that they were qualified to lead other professional development events and youth programs. I knew this even as I went out into my teaching, and began my masters degree, and yet I never took the opportunity to come back and participate in an Invitational Summer Institute. 

After a few years in the classroom, and participating in a variety of professional development activities, I was having a conversation with my mentor from the middle school. He knew that I wanted to move beyond my classroom walls and work towards broader goals in education. In the context of a conversation about my future, he winked and smiled while saying, "Troy, you just don't belong here anymore.” After a long mentorship, his witty insight gave me the push that I needed to call my former supervisor at the Writing Center and to reconnect with the Red Cedar Writing Project. I returned to Michigan State University that fall as a doctoral student. 

After participating in my first Summer Institute, I instantly became enamored with the NWP's twin goals of having us become better writers and better teachers of writing. I was able to focus my graduate study and full-time work around professional development opportunities for our local site, as well as the state and national network. I worked with teachers to develop presentations and workshops, shared ideas for integrating technology into their classrooms, and, eventually, in my dissertation study, collaborated with a group of teacher researchers to explore how they represented their work in digital portfolios. Through all these instances, we relied on the NWP model of “teachers teaching teachers” in which we valued and applauded our own knowledge and experiences while also seeking new resources and opportunities. 

As I finished my work at Michigan State and began the job search, one of the questions I was asked when interviewing at Central Michigan University (CMU) was whether or not I would be interested in starting a writing project. Of course, I was, as I had grown to know the teachers with whom I worked not only as colleagues, but as friends. I wanted to provide the same types of opportunities for teachers in the local contexts around CMU, and so I partnered with colleagues in the English department to establish a writing project. This was no small feat, as it required collaborations both inside and outside of the university, including local schools and intermediate school districts. We wrote the grant, were awarded a site, and then the real work began. 

After a great deal of planning, we were able to launch our first summer invitational Institute in 2009, and have, since then, continued to invite teachers to campus each summer to explore the intersections of writing and technology, all the while furthering themselves as writers and teachers of writing. Throughout the school year we meet in a variety of continuity and professional development events, many of which now are led by the teachers themselves with me acting only as an outside coach to help inform and motivate them. Also, I am able to take what I learned to work with writing project teachers and immediate we apply it in my preservice writing methods course, English 315.

At this moment, my professional career has come to a crossroads. Not because I feel it ready for a change necessarily, but because outside forces have acted to cut the funding for NWP and made me question many of the things that I took for granted because of that support I have relied upon for so long. This puts me in a precarious situation as an educator and as a leader in local, state, and national conversations about the teaching of writing. I want to continue doing the same types of good work that we've been doing for many years, and yet I find myself -- like so many other teachers have found themselves during the last year and a half -- feeling increasingly beleaguered and under pressure from a variety of sources inside and outside of school. 

It is difficult for me now to stand in front of a group of preservice teachers and, in good conscience, advise them that they are choosing the right career. I feel guilty about the pay, the status, the burdensome restrictions and supervision placed on teachers. There are times when, sadly, I can no longer try to fight against the monotony of standardized tests, the ever-increasing requirements to become certified, the demands for accountability. I want to tell them that, no, really teaching isn't all that we want to romanticize it to be. 

Yet, as my work with writing project teachers continues, my colleagues remind me that, yes, indeed, these young people are choosing the right career, the right calling. Writing has the power to change lives, and teaching writing offers us opportunities to reach our students in ways that no other content can. As a teacher educator, I know I would not be able to inspire or motivate or encourage my preservice teachers to do the kinds of work that we do inside and outside of class that helps prepare them to become better teachers of writing were not for my relationship with the writing project teachers with whom I collaborate. They remind me of the reasons we teach, and those reasons are the people who sit at the desks in our classrooms each day, not any set of standards or a meaningless test. We teach kids to become writers, and in doing so we teach them to become themselves. 

And so, in reflecting on my journey as a teacher -- and in thinking about the power of personal learning, professional networks, and the visions that I have for education, both broadly as well as in the classrooms that my own children attend -- it is only with continued collaboration and learning that I might move forward. It is possibly trite to say that I love my job, but it is not trite at all to say that I care deeply for the colleagues with whom I work, from rural to urban, K-16, near to far. This is what inspires and motivates me, and makes me want to learn so that I can share my learning with others. 

Recently, I was asked by other faculty members at my university to lead a presentation at a new faculty development workshop. Someone asked me how to become successful and how I collaborate with so many people. My simple advice was this: leadership invites collaboration. When I view myself as a leader, I can only see myself in relation to those colleagues that surround me. As I do what I can to teach them, to inspire them, and to help them become better teachers, I become a better teacher myself. 

I begin teaching next week for the 15th time. I will be proud to work with and for my colleagues each and every day of the coming year, and as they encourage me to keep learning, I will work with them for many years to come. 


*You can read last week's guest post by Penny Kittle here.

Shift in Gears

What's a teacher to do when the start of the school year comes but she doesn't have her own classroom? As I mentioned in earlier posts, this year is a transitional year for me as I take on a new position. Part of the sabbatical replacement that I will be doing that is starkly different from before, is that the university is on a trimester (or quarter counting summers) system and won't start classes until the end of September. That leaves me with about a month lapse between the time that my girls started school and when I will actually start classes. This is such a new experience, having both girls in school and some time to myself.

I have still been keeping busy though. Here's what I have been up to:

• During teacher work week I still went into the school quite a bit to help the teacher who will be filling in for me this school year. I enjoyed collaborating with her and by providing suggestions based on her questions, it was an excellent means for me to continually reflect on my own practice and experiences teaching.
• I interviewed students for the first phase of my dissertation. Again, this was another experience that prompted me to reflect. As I have been going through the process of writing memos about the data, it has been interesting to see areas that I expected, as well as some ahas. 
• Yesterday, I ended up taking a day around the house to catch up and organize.
• Today I will sit down to write, write, write, and write some more beginning a narrative about my journey as an educator that will form part of my dissertation. 

So while I still have plenty to do, there is a lot of flexibility - flexibility that I am enjoying for the moment. The weeks will fly and before long I will be on a more regular schedule. I will savor this time while it lasts but embrace the new as it comes.

Celebrating Educators: Penny Kittle

Ever since I read Write Beside Them, I was instantly hooked by Penny Kittle's voice as an educator. Being able to meet her at Heinemann's Boothbay Literacy Retreat and hear her read aloud from her Public Teaching was a powerful experience, and it was always a special treat to read her contributions to NCTE's Voices from the Middle. I am excited to have Penny Kittle as the first guest blog post in the Celebrating Educators series on my blog. Enjoy!

I completed an elementary education degree at Oregon State University in 1983. I started teaching in southern California just two weeks after graduation because it was a year-round school. I had third graders in a portable classroom behind the school in the desert above Los Angeles, and every day I played my guitar and we made books. I had always wanted to be an elementary teacher, so I was energized by the students and the opportunity. I was also in love, though, and my future husband finished his engineering degree and took a job in Oregon that spring. I decided to move back to Oregon to teach 5th grade in a rural elementary school near the paper mill where he worked. I taught 5th and then 7th and 8th the following year, where I was assigned everything from remedial math to physical science to woodcarving to creative writing. 

We bought a house in Washington state across the river from the mill, so I moved to teach at an elementary school there. I was blessed with two years with grade 4 and those were happy times. I then moved to grade 5 for a year and finished my Master's of Arts in Teaching that spring. It was a double major: Educational Leadership and British Literature. I loved every minute of my time at Lewis and Clark College and read the writing of so many people who helped me understand this complex thing called teaching. I wasn't finished with school, though, and began considering work towards a Ph.D. 

Pat took a position at a paper mill near Cincinnati, Ohio, so I applied to the Ph.D program in Curriculum and Supervision at Miami University. I had two small children by then, so it was nice to stay home with our kids and go to school in the evening. Pat's work took him within a year to Michigan, so I left the program and went to work at Eastern Michigan University. For five years I supervised student teachers in districts as diverse as Detroit and Walled Lake, and also taught the methods courses for the College of Education. I learned so much because I was in classrooms from K-12 in all content areas and each school was its own community. I am forever grateful for those years observing dozens of enthusiastic new teachers.

We moved one last time for Pat's work in 1997. We had family on both coasts, so living in the middle of the country meant for a lot of traveling. Pat was offered a job managing a paper mill in New Hampshire. I was thrilled to interview with Jane Hansen at the University of New Hampshire as I considered entering their Ph.D program, walking the halls where many of my heroes had taught and written. We decided that it was just too far with our kids so young, though, so I applied to teach 8th grade in town and spent the next three years experimenting again with reading and writing workshop.

Eleven years ago now I was offered a job mentoring new teachers for our school district. It meant leaving full-time teaching, but I was excited to combine what I had learned at Eastern to our teacher turnover problem in the school district. I have since spent 1/3 of my day teaching high school, 1/3 mentoring new teachers K-12, and 1/3 as a K-12 literacy coach. It is all demanding, inspiring work. I am grateful.

I teach for the University of New Hampshire in the summer literacy institutes and work as a consultant in the Learning Through Teaching program during the school year, offering graduate courses for teachers in my school district each semester. 

I have also been writing. Since 2003 I've published four books and have a fifth due this fall. Don Graves and Don Murray were my mentors in moving from ideas to text, and they helped me believe that my voice mattered. Each time I wrote I learned something I could take into my classroom and it has enriched my work in more ways than I can tell you. The year Don Graves and I spent videotaping elementary classrooms and talking about what we saw was a year I continue to learn from. I also wrote a column for Voices from the Middle for six years, and that quarterly deadline kept me writing even when I didn't think I had anything to say. 

Today I keep a notebook and write in it most days, I read like a wolf eats, as Gary Paulson says, and I still love teaching. I've spent the last few years focused on what I'm learning about teaching reading and look forward to putting all that thinking together in my next book. I still get the most energy from writing stories of my students. 

For me, this career has been about risk taking and reflection. I have been given opportunities and I often didn't think I knew enough to take them, but I did. I learned along the way, challenging myself to read and think about this work in complex ways and never settle for less than reaching every student. Teachers are powerful. I work every day to use that power well.

Introducing Celebrating Educators

Friday morning as I neared the school, I smiled as I thought about how I would be able to pull into the prime center lot parking reserved for parents. Little did I know that the parking lot was jam packed and I would actually be parking off to the side of the building along with other parents who had to be creative about finding a spot before escorting their kids in for the first day.

First we went to my 2nd grader's room to get her settled, and then I headed up to kindergarten. Diana instantly found her name on the table. I sat with her as she ate her breakfast, we sat on the carpet and read a couple of books, and I watched her play a bit before heading off for my comprehensive exam proposal. All the while, snapping away documenting the big day.

I pulled out of the parking lot with a mixture of emotions. It felt weird that for the first time in six years I was not in my own classroom welcoming in students and establishing a sense of classroom community. Yet, I was able to savor the start of the first day with my daughters, rather than rushing them to class, snapping a picture, and zipping back to my own class.

This year my personal career as an educator will be going a different route. Taking a year of absence from my regular position, I will be filling in as a sabbatical replacement teaching mainly undergraduate ESL and literacy courses. When trying to decide what I wanted to do, I emailed Penny Kittle, an educator that has always inspired me. She was kind enough to respond and had very wise advice, "I think it helps to consider what you still want to accomplish in teaching and how you can best do that. And then think about what you want to do beyond the classroom and how you can make that happen. All of the options have merit..." She also talked about the value of each position to provide avenues for growth as an educator.

Last year I thought often about what the future holds for me as an educator. As I read professional books, I noticed the background information about the authors - k-12 teachers, support staff, consultants, professors... As I was gearing up for the last year of my doctoral program, I was trying to decide what would be the most fulfilling as an educator - to continue being a classroom teacher or something else. Going back and forth frequently for many different reasons and hearing perspectives of various educators taught me one thing - there are so many ways to have a satisfying career as an educator, so many avenues to make an impact.

I am still fascinated with the stories behind the career choices educators make, hearing about their personal journeys. I thought others might be interested as well; thus, I decided to start Celebrating Educators. At different points throughout the year I will have guest posts from different educators sharing about their diverse backgrounds. The posts will typically be on Tuesdays, although, it might not necessarily be every Tuesday. It will be a way to celebrate that there is not one best career path, but rather various when it comes to positively impacting students.

The next three weeks will feature Penny Kittle, Troy Hicks, and Pat Johnson.

Reading and Writing Workshop Training: Other Possibilities

Earlier I mentioned a little bit about the schedule for my workshop training and how I decided which components to include. When it was complete, I reflected on how it all went. For future trainings I will definitely start with a getting to know you (or you as a reader and writer) activity, as well as background about the current context of literacy and workshop philosophy. I will also make sure to include time for teachers to collaborate and plan. However, I may organize it a little bit differently.

I am thinking that after the morning of the first day would be very much the same, but then I would shift to planning and collaborating for either reading or writing workshop (whichever one I focused on in the morning) for the afternoon. Then on the second day I would start by focusing on the whichever I did not highlight on the first day before shifting over to planning and collaboration.

I am weighing advantages and disadvantages of both the way the training was set up and this alternate idea, thinking about which would be most beneficial, which would provide a better blend of introducing concepts, reflecting, thinking, processing, and planning.

Another aspect that I would emphasize more would be encouraging teachers to set up a plan for focusing on themselves as writers or providing a scaffold for a long term teachers as writers community. Many of us already participate in a book club (and here), which has been so fulfilling and a great learning experience for me. It would be nice to also have a writing component.

There's always so many possibilities with teaching and growing as professionals...

Reading and Writing Workshop Training: Collaboration

For the past three years I have taught in a small, rural charter school, being the only teacher of certain subjects at my grade level. I loved the close-knit environment that reminded me of the community where I grew up; yet, at times I also missed having other teachers at my same grade level teaching the same content that I was used to in the larger school districts where I had previously worked. In addition, workshop teaching is fairly rare in my community. Instead, I was thankful to have the blogosphere, as well as conversational style books written by teachers for teachers as I navigated my way with workshop teaching. 

Nonetheless, there is always something special about being able to collaborate with other teachers face-to-face. I was thrilled when it worked out that another teacher from a nearby K-8 rural charter school was able to attend the reading and writing workshop training. It provided the teacher who will be teaching in my position next year with an opportunity to collaborate with another local teacher who also integrates workshop teaching into her classroom. While both teachers have unique contexts, one who will juggle two languages in a dual immersion setting and another who will be teaching all subjects in a 6th-8th grade blend, they will be able to learn so much from each other. 

I saw other collaborations with teachers within my school, such as primary teachers watching more of the Calkins' clips and talking about how their literacy instruction would work, determining what already aligned with workshop, as well as aspects they would like to change or fine-tune. They also created anecdotal records forms together and talked about organization. 

All participants know that they can check in with me for further clarification or support, but they also know that they have a valuable resource in each other. They will be able to have conversations about what is working well and areas where they would still like to grow. Whether it is on-line, through professional development books, face-to-face (or a combination of all three), I am learning that fostering collaboration and relationships for long-term mutual support are so beneficial.

Reading and Writing Workshop Training: Resources - Where to Start?

When I was preparing the resources that I would have available for the second day that was set aside for collaborating and planning, I was unsure of how many to include. I did not want to overwhelm teachers by having too many, yet I also wanted to have whatever was most helpful at the time. I observed during that day and noticed that not surprisingly, there was not one or two resources that everyone wanted. Instead, different teachers were drawn to different resources as their initial starting points, making me realize that I was glad I had various options available.

For writing workshop the Calkins and Atwell curriculum was a definite given as being highly useful for teachers. The Daily Five, The CAFE Book, Aimee Buckner resources, Conferring, and The Continuum of Literacy Learning were also among the top choices.

In combination with the resources I was also available to answer questions. It was ideal that the training was at my school because I was able to pull up documents that I used with my students to share as examples. Teachers were able to move flexibly around the room with different resources or to lean in on others' conversations when they overheard something that seemed to be relevant to them.

Workshop teaching is about flexibility and drawing on multiple resources to continually build capacity about reading, writing, thinking, and teaching, so it was only appropriate that having various resources ended up being the right fit. However, I did talk to teachers about trying to set goals and layer in different aspects. I mentioned that some of the resources would be helpful but they would decide that they were not ready for them yet. We discussed how they could utilize the resources most aligned with where they are right now and what they would like to implement in the fall. Then as they start to feel that they are ready to further explore a specific aspect they can seek out resources that fit those needs.

Reading and Writing Workshop Training: The Power of Seeing

By and far one of the most powerful aspects of the training was sharing video clips of workshop teaching.  I think that and being able to experience workshop first hand were the most helpful and influential for teachers. One teachers even commented that she loved the writing style for the Calkins' units of study resource, which really paints the picture of what is happening, but that she would much rather prefer to just watch it. She talked about how she is a visual learner. Even though I don't necessarily consider myself a visual learner, I can relate to the power of being able to actually see it. I loved the DVD component of Penny Kittle's Write Beside Them and was thrilled to see the Atwell resources after reading so many of her ideas.

I could tell every time I showed a video clip that it really helped to solidify the concepts we were talking about or to open up a whole other avenue of possibilities. I shared clips from Atwell's resources for reading and writing workshop, and clips from Calkins' videos for writing workshop. It really helped to have the Calkins' resources to show how it looks k-5, while having the Atwell resources to show what it looks like at the middle school level. Teachers could get ideas that they could adapt to their grade level from every video clip, yet there was also the added value of seeing how workshop teaching can progress and the foundation that the younger years can provide for the older years being even more powerful.

I will be watching for more video resources. I was excited to see that Stenhouse has a new Patrick Allen resource coming out focusing on reading conferring. I'm sure that would be an amazing one to add to any workshop resource library!

Reading and Writing Workshop Training: Launching the Workshop

I gave the teachers in my Reading and Writing Workshop a taste of what workshop is like similar to the way that I launch workshop each year - with a narrative genre study. Because of the compact nature of the time allotted, I did have to explain what I would do in a regular classroom in some stages, while having them try it out in other portions.

Influenced by Aimee Buckner, I explained that I start the year with stories, reading books that I think have universal themes or experiences with which my students can connect in order to prompt their own thinking about stories they have to share. I showed them one of my favorite start of the year texts, Marianthe's Story: Painted Words and Spoken Memories. I shared with teachers how it is a perfect fit for our community of dual immersion students since all students have stories of learning a new language.

I often talked to students about my own list of possible experiences, such as the first time riding alone in a taxi cab in Mexico when I paid the driver a 50 cent piece (thinking they only had pesos) and being confused when the driver was waiting for more money, rather than getting me my change. I talk about trying to express my confusion and the driver eventually having to take another 50 cent piece out of my hand, holding the two together to say "un peso" and my embarrassment of realizing that I had only given him half of a peso. As such, my students and I would laugh together about experiences learning languages - the joys, the challenges, the laughter...

I mentioned to teachers that I would not necessarily use this book as a start of the year writing workshop launch if I was teaching in my hometown community where most students have not yet experienced learning another language. In that context I would choose another book that would closely connect to my rural community's experience. I shared with teachers how depending on the age and stories students have to tell, it might be that students start writing on the first day or it is just fine to have successive days reading and orally sharing stories, as oral rehearsing is a vital portion of the process, waiting as Buckner says until the day when it seems that everyone in the class has a story to tell.

Then I transitioned into a narrative just for them, Penny Kittle's "of frog legs, crickets, and Superman's cape", one that I first heard when she read it out loud at the Boothbay Literacy Retreat. Just as I imagined I saw teachers smiling and laughing as I read it aloud, and after they were able to think of their own memorable moments with teaching. I guided them through listing, partner sharing, and then writing quick writes, again highlighting the importance of oral rehearsing with the sharing portion in between listing and quick writes. Then they did a whip-around share, each sharing a small portion of their quick write in order to model a different way of sharing.

Next teachers "sat in" on a mini-lesson with Lucy Calkins in her Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grades 3-5, and I had teachers go back and experiment with their quick write with Calkins' lesson in mind. Then teachers shared with partners again. I heard them respond naturally to each other's writing, as well as noting what stood out to them. They were getting a sense of what it is like to be a part of a community of writers, of what they could foster in their own classrooms.

Reading and Workshop Training: Teachers as Writers

One aspect of workshop philosophy that I wanted to make sure and highlight was the importance of focusing on teachers as writers, a subtle difference from writing teachers, emphasizing that teachers should be exploring, experimenting, and developing as writers right alongside their students. Based on our team builder, most teachers were more comfortable with teaching reading or read more in their personal lives vs. writing. Other teachers mentioned that they know they are more passionate about other subjects and know it is apparent for their students and would like to develop a stronger passion for writing, which will spill over into their classrooms. This seemed to be consistent with many of the teachers when I experienced this activity as a student in a writing course for educators.

Inspired by Penny Kittle, I shared with teachers about how they can serve as powerful mentors of process, while also reading like writers as a class with mentors of product (published texts). I also talked to them about supports to grow as a writer, such as Two Writing Teachers, Ruth Ayres Writes, and Laurie Halse Anderson's Write Fifteen Minutes a Day. I mentioned Donald Murray's philosophy that when it comes to writing, it is not limited to those who naturally have talent, a message that is important for both teachers and students to know.

Thus, teachers had chances to write, share, and celebrate. I would love to have something more sustained to have teachers continue to write and share their writing with peers. In this specific context where many did not have established routines of writing regularly, it would be a nice scaffold to build routines in a community.

Reading and Writing Workshop Training: Setting the Tone

The workshop training had five participants, so it was a small group, working out well for discussions. To start the training, I decided to use a team builder that one of my professors at Boise State University used for a writing course. I started out with a ball of yarn and talked about myself as a reader and writer - sharing glimpses into my journey, areas in which I am confident, areas in which I want to grow. Then I tossed the ball of yarn to a colleague while still holding on to my piece. After each person shares, the yarn has made a web, which can be linked to the classroom community and sense of supporting each other that is vital in classrooms. Participants pull back on the yarn until it is taut to show that there needs to be a strong undergirding of support, both teacher to student and student to student.

I enjoyed starting the training with this activity. Though I knew each of the participants and already knew some of what they said, I also learned a lot. I bet they learned something new about me as well. Hearing them talk energized me as well as provided insights into what they might need to feel successful during the training.

Next we switched over to a discussion about current issues in literacy education, prompted by quotes excerpted from Richard Allington's third edition of What Really Matters for Struggling Readers. This opened up a lot of comments, prompted reflection, and gave us a chance to consider the big picture before zooming in to workshop teaching. While Allington does not specifically advocate for workshop teaching, I transitioned into a overview of workshop teaching by explaining that while reading the book, I noticed how many of his suggestions are apparent in workshop teaching, such as time to read, choice, focusing on building teacher capacity, and differentiated instruction. It helped create a stronger sense of the why behind workshop teaching.

I created a presentation about workshop teaching that had brief statements related to workshop philosophy. An adapted version of the presentation is below (the words are all the same, but I swapped out pictures of students because of permissions). I noticed that it sometimes takes a while to load up the full slide. If you click pause on the player until the present slide is fully loaded and then click play, it seems to run through all slides fully loaded.



The combination of a quick introduction of ourselves as readers and writers, followed by Allington's quotes that prompt thinking about the purpose of education, and an overview of workshop teaching seemed to work out well. At that point, I had participants pause to do a written reflection and have a chance to gather their thoughts before transitioning into thinking about themselves as writers.

Reading and Writing Workshop Training: Schedule and Posts to Come

Last week I taught a K-8 Reading and Writing Workshop course to some of my colleagues. While planning I thought back and forth about how to organize it and utilize the time available since workshop teaching encompasses a lot. I considered the time allotted (2 days) and the timing of the year (almost 2 weeks before teacher work days begin) and tried to decide what would be most helpful. I knew that it was essential to share the rationale behind workshop teaching, allow teachers to experience workshop, encourage them to focus on themselves as writers, and be able to differentiate to different grade levels. There were many ways that I could have organized the training, but this is what I decided:

Day 1:
Literacy Team Builder
Discussion of Current Issues in Literacy
Overview of Workshop Teaching
Writer's Workshop Focus (Experiencing as Learners)
Lunch
Writer's Workshop Conclusion
Reading Workshop Focus

Day 2:
Overview of Available Resources
Time to Plan/Collaborate with Grade-Level Teams

I debated back and forth about whether to have two "instructional" days or whether to have the second day be for planning and collaborating. I am glad that I decided to allow a portion of time, knowing how it feels to love ideas in a training but then feeling overwhelmed trying to plan to integrate the ideas while also juggling other aspects. While a day is not enough time to completely plan out the year or even the fall, it provided an opportunity to reflect, set up goals, and begin planning, as well as collaborating with peers. We will have follow up meetings in the fall to continue to check in and discuss successes and challenges as they implement their ideas.

I will be doing a series of posts reflecting on the workshop training. It was a valuable experience for me thinking about what is important when thinking about growing into a role of being a literacy leader beyond my own classroom. It was also important in thinking about my own journey as reader, writer, and workshop teacher.

Upcoming Posts:

• Wednesday: Setting the Tone
• Thursday: Teachers as Writers
• Friday: Launching the Workshop: Narrative Genre Study
• Saturday: Power of Seeing
• Sunday: Resources - Where to Start?
• Monday: Teacher Collaboration
• Tuesday: Other Possibilities

Writing as a Gift - Parents to Children Possibilities

The last three years I have talked to my students numerous times about writing as a gift. They have written letters and poems to their parents, notes of appreciation, and a letter to invite someone to apply to a position at our school. I wrote the 8th graders a letter for their graduation present.

Earlier this summer a mom of one of my students shared a birthday poem that she wrote for her daughter - a powerful poem about growing and emerging into who she is becoming. I commented to her that it hit me that I have talked so often about writing as a gift and students have had experience writing it but that many probably do not get to experience writing as a gift from their parents.

I thought back to a retreat that I went to in either junior high or high school and unbeknownst to us, our parents had gathered letters from family and friends to us that they bundled into pillows with a pouch. My mom made my pillow, and it was one of those gifts that is still so meaningful today.

The parent and I started talking about the potential for weaving in a parent project to create writing as a gift for their children as graduation gifts. So many possibilities...

Reading and Writing Workshop Resources

Yesterday was the first part of the class that I am teaching on reading and writing workshop this week. I will post more on that later, but for now, I wanted to share the list of resources that I will be emailing to the teachers attending the class. They are some of my favorite resources related to literacy and workshop teaching (or that align with workshop teaching if not directly marketed as workshop resources).

There are so many valuable resources available, and more created all of the time, so this will in no way be a comprehensive list. I mentioned to the group and will reiterate tomorrow that with workshop teaching (and literacy teaching in general) that building capacity is an on-going process. I shared my journey of first reading and exploring as much as I could about workshop teaching and then moving into on-going areas that I wanted to understand more, such as writer's notebooks and conferring. The intent of this list is to have ideas for future areas of support since they will not be able to familiarize themselves with all resources at once.

The grade levels are where resources most naturally fits, but I have learned a lot from resources not targeted at my age group. If I have already talked about a listed resource on my blog, then I linked it here. I will be talking about the resources in our face-to-face meeting.

Primary Grades
Units of Study for Primary Writing: A Yearlong Curriculum (from Heinemann)
Catching Readers Before They Fall, as well as the blog by the same name
A Place for Wonder
***I have not had a chance to read any of Katie Wood Ray's books, but I frequently hear her referenced when hearing about primary workshop teaching. I bet all of her resources are great.

Upper Grades
Units of Study for Teaching Writing, Grades 3-5 (from Heinemann)
When Writing Workshop Isn't Working
Intermediate CAFE in the Classroom DVD

Middle School

Reading Ladders

Middle School Readers

Nancie Atwell resources:
In the Middle (from Heinemann)
 The Reading Zone
Lessons that Change Writers
Reading in the Middle 
Writing in the Middle

Multi-Grade Resources

Comprehension Going Forward

Igniting a Passion for Reading

Conferring

The Book Whisperer

What Student Writing Teaches Us

The Common Core Reading & Writing Workshop Series

This new series created by Lucy Calkins and others at Columbia University's Teacher College Reading and Writing Project has an individual eDoc for kindergarten through 8th grade in reading and writing that is aligned to the new Common Core Standards. 

Day by Day *This book is an excellent resource for writing workshop once you already have a foundation and are looking to reflect and continually grow. The authors, Stacey Shubitz and Ruth Ayres created the Two Writing Teachers blog noted below, as well as Ayres' blog focusing on writing. I will be watching for Ayres' forthcoming book Celebrating Writers that will come out in 2012 from Stenhouse.

Fountas and Pinnell resources:
The Fountas & Pinnell Prompting Guide (and the Spanish version)
The Continuum of Literacy Learning Grades PreK-8 (and the PreK-2 Spanish version)


Aimee Buckner Resources:
Notebook Know-How: Strategies for the Writer's Notebook
Notebook Connections: Strategies for the Reader's Notebook


Jeff Anderson Resources:
Mechanically Inclined
Everyday Editing


"The Sisters" Resources:
The Daily Five
The CAFE Book

Resources to Focus on Yourself as a Writer (as well as a Teacher of Writing)
Two Writing Teachers blog
Ruth Ayres Writes blog
The Stenhouse Blog
Laurie Halse Anderson's blog (as well as other author sites and blogs)
The Essential Don Murray: Lessons from America's Greatest Writing Teacher (from Heinemann)
On Writing by Stephen King


Penny Kittle resources:
Write Beside Them
Public Teaching One Kid at a Time and The Greatest Catch

What are some of your favorite literacy or workshop resources? Please comment to share some of your favorites.

Your Child's Writing Life

Lately I have been thinking a lot about education from a parenting and teaching lens. It has been fascinating to watch my daughters grow and develop, gradually approaching my comfort zone of tweens and teens. I have been paying attention to what is consistent among age groups, as well as unique differences. Pam Allyn's Your Child's Writing Life: How to Inspire Confidence, Creativity, and Skill at Every Age fit in perfectly with these wonderings.

Throughout the book what stood out the most was the sense of a patient, nurturing environment embedded in her advice and ideas. She also emphasizes that aside from all the academic benefits, active writing lives serve as an avenue to strengthen parent-child bonds, as well as preserving memories. There was a close match to my writing philosophy.

Allyn starts the book establishing why it is essential to dedicate time to write with our children and foster a love of writing. Then she talks about suggestions for different ages. Other chapters included helping kids work through challenges and stress with writing, mentor texts, and writing prompts. She weaves in experiences with her own daughters, as well as interactions with students through her experiences being a literacy advocate.

I especially loved her suggestions for setting up places to write and supply areas, seeing how it evolved and emerged with the growing ages. Though she often references books throughout all of her chapters, the chapter specifically highlighting twenty mentor texts does a great job of sharing about the books, as well as assets and how they can serve as springboards to writing. Her knowledge about books and skill of connecting them to kids was just as apparent as it was in her Pam Allyn's Best Books for Boys.

I would love for every parent to read this book and implement ideas into their lives. Yet, while reading, I kept on thinking about parents who would buy the book, and it seems like it could potentially be a fairly narrow range, depending on the community, considering that it would be parents who are literate in English and who seek parenting books.

Yet, I also like the potential the book has for teachers to share with parents, whether it is through book talking it to raise awareness or sharing ideas at parent meetings. For example, at our dual immersion school, teachers have bilingual parent meetings. This year I loved a writer's workshop evening hosted by my daughters first grade teachers. Any of Allen's ideas would be beneficial to layer in for the different age groups. It could also be a resource for other community organizations, such as Healthy Start and Head Start that focus on raising awareness for helping develop literate environments and family literacy, which seems appropriate given Allyn's own organizations, LitLife and LitWorld.