Weekend of Learning

From March 13-16, I was busy learning at both VSRA and TCRWP Saturday Institute. Today I have a little extra time. I plan to review my notes and process them here in writing.

Things to remember from VSRA:

1. Pernille Ripp – if you don’t know of her, start following her. She is an amazing teacher in Wisconsin and started the Global Read-AloudAnnual Event. She was the VSRA Opening Keynote Speaker. But she also spoke at 8am for 90 minutes about writing. BIG TAKE-AWAY – In Writing Workshop, provide CHOICE!!

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She is concerned that we tell kids about the Writing Process and show the the stages – brainstorm, draft, revise, edit, publish. However, now that she is a published author, she realizes her writing process is messy. She suggests we let kids know this. She highlighted this in her classroom by skyping wih authors (suggested using this list created by Kate Messner). She asks the authors to talk about their process. After multiple skype sessions, her students felt liberated knowing that all writers have a different writing process.

Slide highlights from Pernille’s KEYNOTE SPEECH:

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2. Highlights from Kylene Beers and Bob Probst Conference Talk

• Increase student volume of reading
  • reading a series – studies show such readers become lifelong readers
  • providing classroom libraries with characters that match students.
    Check out: We Need Diverse Books Website
  • becoming comfortable with an author/character allows the reader to feel fluent.
• Increase STUDENT TALK in the classroom –
  3 BIG Questions:
  • What surprised me?
  • What did the author think I already knew?
  • What changed/confirmed what I knew?

Things to remember from TCRWP:

1. Keynote by Jason Reynolds. He is the coolest! And he signed my Reading Notebook. I wrote about it here.

2. Workshop by Katy Wischow – Co-author of Investigating Characterization Unit of Study for MS I was excited to learn of this new unit. It arrived yesterday from Heinemann and I plan to try teaching it in April/May.

3. Closing Keynote – Marc Brackett. Ever since hearing Marc and about his Ruler, I’ve been assessing my color zones. Am I feeling yellow, green, blue, red? Why? Maybe it’s time to get more sleep, to eat, to breathe. Time to get back to yellow! Read more about it HERE

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NOTE:
Thank you, Cindy for teaching me how to add a slideshow to my blog!!
#SlicersTeachingSlicers

Double Numbers

I’ve always liked double numbers.

Probably because my birthday is on the 11th of a month. Seeing a double number calms me. I think of repeated numbers as thumbs-up encouragement to me from a greater being. As I type this now, I know it may sound silly. You may be laughing at me. It may seem completely irrational. But it is something you now know about me. Double numbers calm me.

Yesterday, I was equally excited and nervous. I was at a State Reading Conference, slotted to present with another colleague from my district at 2:45pm (not a calming number).

However:
The night before, as we checked in, we were given the hotel room number 2020.  Calming.

As we checked out and checked our bags during the conference morning break, I glanced at my phone. It showed 10:10am. Calming.

As we sat and reviewed our presentation over lunch, I glanced at my phone again. It showed 12:12. Calming.

I’ve always been the kind of person who shares. If I learn something that works, I naturally want others to know. This attribute served me well as a Reading Coach. Yesterday, it gave me the opportunity to share with other Reading teachers in my state. But I won’t deny it. I do get nervous before presenting. I rehearse it over and over in my head. I want it to go well. But I am nervous.

Yesterday, when I glanced and saw double numbers around me, I was able to breathe. I was able to feel a calmness from above. I was able to smile and confidently start the presentation: by saying, “Welcome! Thanks for coming to hear about how we use Reading Notebooks with our students. I am excited to share some tips with you that I hope you can take back home to help when working with your students.”

NOTE: All the resources for our presentation are on this Padlet:

If you scroll over to the LAST column, you can view the powerpoint that Katlyn and I followed during our presentation. All the other columns on the padlet are resources we use with our students as we helped them make their invisible thinking they have while they read and make it VISIBLE in their reading notebook.

Not in Kansas Anymore

I handed my car key to the hotel valet driver and entered the three-story high hotel atrium space.  The escalator to the 2nd-floor registration desk seemed to float in front of me. As I ascended, I had that Dorothy-not-in-Kansas-anymore-feeling, as my eyes spanned up and around.

After checking in and settling into my room for the night,  I shared this with my virtual world:

After registering, I settled into a comfy seat at the wine bar, sipped a glass of red and found my name in print:

Before retiring for a good night sleep before it became Thursday, my co-presentor and I found the presentation room and snapped this selfie in front of the room’s agenda board:

If you are in VA Beach for the 2019 VSRA Conference, come find me in the Fusion Room today at 2:45pm. If not, check back here tomorrow and I’ll tell you how my presentation went. I’m excited to share how I help my students use their Reading Notebooks to make their invisible thinking visible. I’m excited to be in another part of the world.

 

Positive Peer Pressure!

As I scrolled through my twitter feed this morning, I read this:

I feel like a superstar after spending because teacher Tammy Stoker bravely presented with me at the VSRA conference on Thursday.

I feel like a superstar after listening to an inspiring Keynote and a second session presentation by Jen Serravallo. She helped me remember how reading is so many skills and how as teachers, we can assess and prioritize what skill to strengthen next, using a her hierarchy chart:

Plus, at a later session in the day about using technology in the classroom, Jen sat down right next to me!! We supported each other as the presenter nudged us to share our thinking about a book using two technologies: chatterpix and flipgrid. I love how Jen spent time being a participant in the conference as well as a presenter! She models being a life-long learner well.

I feel like a superstar after the session presentation by Harvey “Smokey” Daniels . This was my first time hearing him speak and I loved his positivity and sense of humor. He also generously shares his presentations here. He got me to closely read Social Studies and Science images and participate in a discussion. He used simple guiding questions:
What do you notice?
What do you want to talk about?
If you could talk to person in image, what might you ask?
What might you hear or smell if you were in the image?
Describe….  Use an SAT word!
Can you suggest a title?
And he reminded us:  “When images are vividly attached, learning happens.”

I feel like a superstar after my Saturday morning Teacher Research Club meeting. Sitting from 7:30-9:30am on a Saturday at a Starbucks and sharing our research question and the data we are collecting, I left feeling energized. My colleagues care so much about learning that their inquiry is pushing me in a positive way to work even harder with my students. Love POSITIVE PEER PRESSURE!!

Who makes YOU feel like a superstar?
Where do YOU go to feel the power of positive peer pressure?

I believe in Proficient Reader Research

I heard Jen Serravallo speak yesterday at the 2018 VSRA conference and she shared a slide to show the conference audience what she believes in. I realized it is what I strongly believe in, too. So I sent out this tweet this morning:

Back in 2002, I read Mosaic of Thought by Ellin Keene (Heinemann, 1997) for the first time and it changed me. It taught me to spy on myself as a reader and notice all that I do. For the first time through this lens, I realized I did lots of things well, then a 39-year old reader.

For the first time, I celebrated that I read words and visualize the images created by the words in my mind. I celebrated that at the end of a paragraph, I have wonderings. I celebrated that I could understand the words more clearly using all my own background knowledge.

And I stopped focusing on or being embarrassed for all I didn’t do well as a reader. Like seeing a new, multi-syllabic word and mispronouncing it at first. Like not sounding fluent on my first read-aloud of a text. I still fight anxiety when I read-aloud due to the forced participation and bad memories associated with round-robin reading in elementary school.  I still need to work hard to overcome my negative feelings related to poetry due to the many poems I didn’t “get” in 11th grade AP English class.

Attending the 2018 Virginia State Reading Association Conference helped me to realize that believing in Proficient Reader Research is a thing, as opposed to focusing on what isn’t being done as a reader, a deficient model.  Being a Proficient Reader is my mindset as a reading teacher. I notice ALL that my 6th grade readers do. And as Jen recommends, I start there, with what readers do and then coach them to do the next thing on the learning progression related to the skill.

Thank you, Ellin and Jen for helping me renew what I believe in at the 2018 VSRA Conference!

What do YOU believe in?

VSRA Presentation

Yesterday, instead of teaching my 6th graders, I went to Richmond, VA and made a presentation with my friend and colleague, Tammy. Because of all the support we got, the day was a success.

Thanks to Tammy driving us the two hours down 95, we easily arrived.

Thanks to the helpful Marriot staff, the car was parked, our bags were checked and we had a few hours to grab lunch and rehearse before our 4pm showtime.

Thanks to Evi, our one friend also attending the conference, whose serendipitous encounter just 10 minutes after arriving amongst the 100s of teachers scattered around the lobby, helped calm our nerves. (At least one person was planning to come hear us!)

Thanks to the conference volunteers who registered us and helped us find where we were presenting when confusingly the “Learning Lab” wasn’t listed on the conference map.

Thanks to the tech supports. One man ensured we had the cords and dongle and a working mic and another shared the wifi password with us. (And for Tammy who tracked down these supports while we both envisioned the worst case scenario – our tech not working for a presentation called  Using Technology During Reading and Writing Workshop).

Thanks to Sarah, a conference attendee who volunteered to introduce us to our audience. She arrived early and helped pass out our handout and shared the wifi password and now is a new teacher friend. Afterwards we exchanged emails after we discovered she lives in the next town over from us back home.

Thanks to the 30 or so teachers who came to learn with us! They listened, asked questions and smiled as we both nervously shared examples of our students using padlet, google slides and kidblog in Reading and Writing Workshop all shared from    this padlet.

Finally, thanks also to our school, system who supported us by covering the cost of the conference and are family and friends, who sent text messages of encouragement.

As I sent out a tweet after the presentation, I was reminded that it was International Women’s Day. I’m thankful, as a women, I had the opportunity today to empower more women in their teaching work.

Now today, I get to spend another day here. But this time, I’ll be sitting in the audience to learn from Jen Serravillo and Smokie Daniels! And I’m wearing jeans and my VA sweatshirt (because happily, my team, the UVA Mens Basketball team won their first game yesterday in the ACC tournament – Go Hoos!).