illinois reading council review

Just came home from the Illinois Reading Council Conference. It was awesome. If I had to sum it up in three words, I'd go with volume, relevance, and giggles. Here's the story...

Reading and writing volume matters
I read Readicide years and years ago, but this was the first time hearing Kelly Gallagher speak. He talked about how we need to repurpose our middle and high school classrooms away from 4 big novels and 4 big papers to something different so that kids are reading and writing in crazy quantities.

His schedule looks like this:
2 min     Book talks
10 min   Reading and Conferring
10 min   Daily writing to launch units
8 min     Mentor Text Study
20 min   Writing Workshop and Conferring
3 min     Debrief and sharing of beautiful words

This was so reaffirming to me. I try and emulate the experts - Gallagher and Penny Kittle (they are co-authoring a book together due out next November!) and so now I have some ideas to tweak my schedule further. If he can do this with 53 minutes, I can definitely get down to biz in 88!

Our district is awesome and sends so many people to IRC, so we had to get a picture with the Selfie Stick:

And then I had him sign my book and I got to sit down and talk to him a bit.

He is seriously such a great teacher, I feel so blessed to have met him!

Authors Speak: Jordan Sonneblick & Laurie Halse Anderson
I had never heard of Jordan and am now super excited to read one of his books. His session was so great - about how your kids who drive you bananas need you to be there for them, and you might even turn them into writers! Jordan spoke these beautiful words, "Your writing feedback needs to be anointing and appointing - writing is a person's soul on paper." So so true, we can't rip our kids to shreds when we look at their writing or go nuts with a red pen. Read for ideas first, hear your writers!

And Laurie Halse Anderson has amazing books, my favorites to date are Speak and Twisted, but I saw a new side of her this time with her historical Thriller Series, Chains, Forge, and Ashes. I had always wondered how she writes books so different - realistic fiction with Speak and Twisted in Young Adult about sexual violence and then historical thrillers centered around slavery, so it was great to hear her stories. What really stuck out to me was when she said something along the lines of "keep pushing to learn about white privilege" if you have been thinking about that lately. (I have.) The current state of our country goes way back, back even further than slavery, back to when people took land from Native Americans. We have a long road ahead to fix the difficulties we face here in 2016, but it can start with books and conversations.

Enchanted, yet again, by Ralph Fletcher
Ralph Fletcher has easily been one of the most impactful researcher-teachers on my career. I would not be who I am as far as a workshop stance without him. So to have him reaffirm what I already know as a writer - that children need to play with writing to develop not only a love for it but also to be effective at it was so wonderful to hear.

We have to make time in our writing workshops for students to have choice and voice, and when our writing workhops work, we are like a hot air balloon flying away with energy. Our students' writer's notebooks should be a playground and hot house for ideas!

So with all the mandates we have from outside our buildings and our state departments, let's remember to keep writing joyful for our students!

Kyleen Beers and Bob Probst
These two are quite comical and super smart, sharing about their books Notice and Note. These books focus on close reading strategies in both fiction and nonfiction. What I am walking away with her is relevance. We have to make the work we do with kids relevant, and one way to do that is through an awesome strategy called Possible Sentences and then using Notice and Wonder.

Next time you're going to read an article with your students, pick out 15 - 20 words and phrases from the article and list them. Have kids, in pairs, write possible sentences that could be in the text. Then, kids share their sentences and teacher scribes them on the board. Next, teacher asks kids to look at one sentence and wonder about it - what questions do you have? what do you wonder? Kids turn and talk and then share out.

These wonderings create relevance for our readers, big time. When we did this exercise, we all wanted to read the article afterward! This pre-reading strategy is so powerful for our readers, highly recommend.

More learning experiences
I heard a lot of other great sessions, too: about dyslexia, about content-area writing tips, CRAFTS, the hot new lit for Young Adult, and an awesome presentation from a great friend and colleague about blogging with kids. I can't wait to get my students going on blogs!

Hilarity
In addition to learning so much wonderful information that can be brought back to my classroom on Monday, it's just so fun to be around amazing friends from work. We laughed and had so much fun and geeked out taking selfies with our literacy celebrities. On the way home, we sang songs from Lion King and The Little Mermaid. Who does that? Which brings me to...

Gratitude
So many things to be thankful for:

• A district who gets that ongoing professional development is such a must for our teachers and kids; thank you for sending me to IRC and allowing me to continue my training so my students can continue theirs:

• Friendships built around selfie sticks and reading and writing workshop!

• Cute bags from the conference! (You guys: chevron!)

• "ELA Squad" t-shirts, that were the brainchild of a #D100chat one Tuesday evening. Thanks Cap!

• for teachers who teach with a firm, loving insistence so that our students become readers and writers who can powerfully interpret and interact in such world where news, advertisements, informatoin is usually skewed one way or another.

• for Twitter that allows us to stay connected and continue to learn from one another. Check out the #IRC2016 feed and my twitter feed for more! Let's grow our PLN!

Did you attend IRC? What did you take away?

a guiding light

Tuesdays this month, I'm participating in an #educoach blog challenge, where instructional coaches share posts about the work they are doing. Thank you to Kathy Perret for getting this challenge up and running!

I'm just getting back from the Illinois Reading Council Conference and slowly coming back to Earth, leaving my inspirational high over there in Peoria, Illinois. I always leave the IRC feeling so inspired, and as I thought about inspiration, I realized that sharing inspiration with others is a great quality for an instructional coach to have!

So...who has recently inspired me?

Dave Burgess
Dave is the author of Teach Like a Pirate and is very active on Twitter, just search up his #tlap hashtag! He's an magician and a teacher, so of course that definitely puts him in the difinitive entertainer category. (Aren't all teachers entertainers?) :-)

One of his quotes, in particular, is especially inspiring for me:

So true, right? When teachers create experiences for students, when students are living in your lessons because you have taken them beyond the lecture and homework, they respond differently. They like coming to school, coming to class. They put in more effort, because they have that internal drive to participate in the experience their teacher is creating.

In order to create these experiences for kids, we have to be creative and ask the right questions. Not, "Can I do this lesson outside of my classroom?" but, "How can I do this lesson outside of my classroom?" It's so easy to answer your questions with a no, so we must ask the right questions!

Penny Kittle
Penny Kittle was another teacher-author at the IRC. I heard of her a few years ago, but it was my first time going to a session with her. She teaches high school kids and is refining how teachers think about teaching high school English. The stories she shared with us about how she makes kids readers - amazing. Take a look at this kid - on the table beside him are stacks of books he read in each of his 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade years. Obviously, Penny was his teacher when he was a senior:

"Our daily practices show students what we believe." It's so true. The time we devote to the practices in our classroom reveals our values. If we value guided reading, and study it to make those most of those 20 minute sessions with students, it's very clear to students and observers that providing specific, differentiated instruction to each learner is of value. If we provide ample time for students to read and escape into their Just Right books, children and classroom observers see that time to do the work of reading is important.

How can instructional coaches inspire others?
I'm just scratching the surface with these two, but being inspired is an important part of the work we do as coaches. How do you inspire those you work with?

I believe part of this is evident in the content we coach. I am beyond passionate about Reading and Writing Workshop. To it's heart and core, I believe in the work around these practices, so it naturally exudes from me via conversations I have with colleagues.

Another way I (hope to) inspire others is through a weekly email I send - The Literacy Scoop. I send this message out on Friday afternoons right before I leave and it includes important announcements for the coming week, but it also includes appreciations to staff for the amazing work they do with students. As a coach, I have the luxury of getting into classrooms across the building on a regular basis, but because classroom teachers can't do so as often, I want to provide a window to classrooms via this email. In addition to sharing the great work our teachers are doing each day, it always feels good to get an appreciation, so that's what it's all about!

Finally, many of our teachers Tweet what is happening in their classrooms under our school's hashtag: #tigerslearn. Be sure to check that out by searching on Twitter! It's a great way to share what you're doing each day with the teachers on your campus!

How do you inspire your colleagues?

irc in review, days 2-3

Hi all! Well, I'm sitting in the Starbucks in the Hilton, ready to write before my last session at 10:30. I'm still at the Illinois Reading Council (IRC) Conference. This morning I heard Jay Asher speak at breakfast. Yesterday I heard Lucy Calkins. Lots to share!

Lucy
Well Lucy never disappoints. I'm a warm-fuzzy kind of teacher, so I appreciate it when presentations tend to this side of my personality. Lucy does it flawlessly, while connecting it with our own teaching and the Common Core.

She began by saying, "We need to say no to say yes so we can take our profession back."

Our profession is under attack - make no mistake about that. Corporate profiteers and people who have never set foot in a classroom think they know what is best for our profession. Just yesterday on Twitter:

Campbell Brown was like a news anchor or something. Not an educator. Yet right now, she's leading a lawsuit in NY to do away with tenure. Did you see the two people who retweeted to her after? People who are outside of education don't understand that teachers fight for their kids every day - and tenure allows us to do so.

But I digress.

My point with Lucy is that you have to say no to things so you are freed up to say yes to others. I say no to Basal Readers and Worksheets and yes to Reading Workshop. I say yes to putting authentic literature in children's hands, giving them consistent blocks of time for reading, and then I do this with intensity. I track it. I study it.

I also say yes to guided reading. I've been studying Jan Richardson's model and then I plan for guided reading so that kids can get what they need.

I say no to 100's of things - so I can say yes to the things that matter the most. Lucy said that the degree of implementation is important - if you implement 10 things with low to a medium degree - none of them are going to make a difference. But, if you pick one or two, and do them with a high intensity, you're good to go!

Say no to say yes. I like that.

The other big idea she spoke to is that we need to listen to our 2 or 3 big truths in our lives and then bring them to our teaching. Lucy is not against the CCSS, because they have allowed teachers to do great work in literature. We now dive much more deeply into author's craft and structure, we go back to the text as we discuss and ground our conversations in them. While there are things about CCSS that I'm not fond of, I do agree that they have caused me to improve my teaching - take the standards deeper and think about the levels of work my students are producing.

That being said, Lucy suggested that 10% of the CCSS should be what we bring to the table. We should include our passions and bring our life themes to the work we do.

One of my big themes, when I taught in middle school, was the idea of social justice. I wanted kids to use literacy to change their communities - it was powerful and purposeful work that I took to them. We read about things that lots of people skip over as to not offend anyone, but they were important to do so. When I get to work around my life's themes, my work is better and the children's learning is deeper.

In these times when it's hard to be a teacher, Lucy says that what's inside spills out. So what are your big themes? How are you taking them to your classroom? What are you sharing with your students?

Jay Asher
Jay Asher is the author of 13 Reasons Why. It's a mystery novel about teen suicide. I appreciate this book because not many people are having conversations about this topic. Lots of times we want to shy away from things like this because they're hard. But his book addresses lots of reasons and can provide a "lived-through experience" (Peterson & Eeds) that can help adolescents who may have thoughts like this.

So this morning he talked all about he came to be a writer, how it was a long process from his first book, 12 years ago (Hey Easter Bunny, You Forgot Something!) to 13 Reasons Why and his newest novel, The Future of Us.

He shared his writing process, the waiting until he finally got a letter of acceptance, and then emails that he received from adolescents about how this book helped them - one boy wrote to say he was going to stop being a bully. Another girl noticed someone in her class who was demonstrating some of the warning signs of suicide. The girl called her and talked her through everything. She probably saved her life.

That's the thing with writing - words have power. Words can make cause people to change their behavior or thinking and help someone. It's so amazing that his book, which was a work in progress for 12 years now touches children's lives in 30+ countries!

Also: He was hilarious!

There were some other sessions, but these were the highlights the last two days. I'm thankful for a district that values conferences and learning sends so many of us away to learn new things. Here are all of us with Lucy Calkins before she got to speaking:

Lucy Calkins, D100 Principals, Literacy Coaches, and Reading Specialists

Also, I really appreciate how my principal pushes Christine and I to grow in new ways - this was our first time presenting at the IRC and not my last! I've already got a bunch of ideas for next year!

Anyone else attend IRC? What did you think?

Have a great weekend!

irc day 1 in review

Well as you know if you've been keeping up with my blog, I'm at the Illinois Reading Council Conference in Springfield, Illinois with a bunch of teachers from my district. All of the Literacy Coaches are here, plus a handful of the Reading Specialists and half of our principals. We are representing well!

Yesterday my principal, Christine from Just Jantz, and I presented at 8am - the story of our school and our implementation of Reading Workshop. We had a small group join us and I had fun - we didn't really get nervous either! So, I think I'll have to be back to present again!

After our session, we attended some others. I went to one on Instructional Coaching, then saw Richard Allington talk about literacy in our communities, and then heard Rafe Esquith. He wrote Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire which I read a long time ago. So, here are the highlights from yesterday:

From the Instructional Coaching session:
"People aren't ready for coaching until they're ready for it."
This group talked a lot about their journey and how it takes time for teachers to see that coaches just want to collaborate and work together and that we have nothing to do with administration. So, they keep offering to collaborate, because teachers aren't ready for it until they're ready for it.

I think that's true - the summer before I was hired my principal told me to read Jan Richardson's The Next Steps in Guided Reading. I didn't get into it until just last month - I had to try out guided reading first (remember, I was in middle school prior?) Anyways, teachers have to be ready for their next steps when they're ready. So coaches, keep offering the things you do! And if you get grabbed in the hallway by a teacher who needs something, that's just as good as a teacher filling out a form for coaching. They called this "hall-jacking" and I thought it was pretty hilarious!

From Dick Allington's Session:
He talked a lot about literacy and communities - poor vs. middle communities and access to books and vocabulary that each of those communities have. It really is pretty crazy....here's just one quote about word exposure:

Children of the poor are exposed to 13 million words.
Children of working class families are exposed to 26 million words.
Children of professional families are exposed to 45 million words.
(Hart & Risely, 1995)

But it's not just that. Children of higher income families hear better *quality* of language - 100 times more positive statements (Honey, we are going to buy peas today. What kind of peas should we get? There are 4 different kinds. Which ones should we pick?) than children of lower income families, who hear 13 times more negative (Sit down. Be quiet. Don't touch that.) statements.

Dick said that WalMart is a perfect place for this kind of data collection! hahahhaaaaa :-)

What can we as teachers do? Obviously use the great language that we do, but also stock our rooms with books, and give kids *ample* time to read:

Knapp, 1995 said that meaning-oriented practices do not impede mastery of discreet skills, and may in fact, facilitate it.

So, if you want to "keep kids stupid, keep doing worksheets." (Allington's words!) If you want to help them grow, give them LOTS of time to read books!

Rafe Esquith
The last person I heard last night was Rafe Esquith. He was just alright for me - he definitely has a system of doing things that is pretty good - you should read his book for some great ideas!

As far as reading goes, he reads all the classics with his fifth graders: To Kill a Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye, Huck Finn - there were many more, but books like those. He reads all the books to kids as a shared text so they are definitely making meaning, but I'm just not sure how I feel about him reading that content with kids. That's my big gripe.

On a positive note about him, what he says about reading, "Every great book is about you." And that's true. The reader gets to know the characters, the problems, and considers life in a new way after reading those books. So I did like that.

Well, that's all for day one. Sorry there's no images or pictures - my Internet is ridiculously slow and the thought of having to load more tabs to spice this up doesn't sound fun. Tomorrow I'll share today's events - which began with Lucy Calkins at breakfast this morning and it was fabulous!

Be on the lookout for my next post about today's sessions!

Happy Friday!