Day 3: Jeanne

What a pleasure to welcome our two guests, Mary and Deirdre, both alumni of the Institute, to join us for the morning.

Andra presented the blog review, sharing our Tuesday activities in a fun, informal voice. Thank you! Thanks, also, for saying that you researched blogs and looked at models to help with the blog. It’s nice to know this all doesn’t just come naturally, as we all prepare to tackle the blog-write on our own, now. (Plus, the blog handout & schedule will help us, too!)

Thanks to Amy S. for encouraging Nancy to read her funny, alliterative “how I learned a skill” piece on kissing. Loved it!

"I remember the time..." Warm-up: Andra

* Write about something unusual, strange, wouldn’t normally happen, surprising…

* Brainstorm first (4 minutes)

* Choose 5 ideas and circle them. Then rewrite each in an explanatory sentence, not sharing with anyone until this afternoon. <Flashy thingy from MIB> We kept our topics under wraps for a few hours and continue with the air of secrecy!

“Rich and scrumptious” Demo Lesson: Mary  Palmer Nowland

Wow! Did we all enjoy this, or what? I know I was coming with a sense of writing poverty (a la quote from Natalie Goldberg), but was enriched by Mary’s ideas and teaching.

Her 3 pieces of the lesson:

1.     Collect words and phrases from rich, descriptive writing

2.     Look at pictures, notice and collect

3.     Private Eye Adventures (The Private Eye by Kerry Ruef)

My top 10 take-away ideas:

1. Reading and writing should go together. Writing notebooks are open during reading, and reading notebooks are open during writing.

2. Notice how authors put words/notions together that don’t normally belong. Mimic & practice. Jot these down; collect them! Underline in your book or make a list. “Grinning like summer.” “A prairie fire of pain.” See handout for samples from Mary’s authors of choice.

3.  Write like this yourself. Change nouns to verbs, put colors where they don’t belong, smell things that can’t be smelled.

4.  Joan Dunning, Secrets of the Nest … barn owl description. Teach kids to push the pause button and insert this much descriptive richness, then keep writing.       

5. Use all the senses to describe: taste blackberries (we still want the copy of that poem); touch & smell items from nature; look at pictures for detail (like the frog); hear dialogue from a photo.

6. Model writing for students, but don’t overdo. Make your samples accessible to your students, not toooo creative. Making a list is a non-threatening start for students of all abilities.

7. Collect photos: garden, nature, boots & shoes, dialogue…. Use them for a myriad of writing prompts. Figure out the best way for you to store and organize them.

8.  For youngers, label the photos with sticky-note words to get them started. (See photo below.)

9. Use Private Eye adventures with a magnifying device and items from nature. This promotes students’ writing in looking and questioning, relating and wondering, saying, “Holy Toledo, look at that!” Examine for color, texture, smell, sound. Teaches analogy, simile, metaphor, description. (Get magnifying devices at Harbor Freight on the cheap.)

10.  All kids need to contribute or deposit in their word bank so they have plenty to draw from when they write.

"Make Professional Goal Setting Work for You!" 
Demo Lesson: Deirdre Pearson 

Those SLGs and PPGs are part of being a teacher…so find ways of integrating them into your job as a writing teacher. Make them work for you instead of just being a hoop to jump through.

Deirdre’s PowerPoint presentation took us through the nuts and bolts of Common Core and goal setting, pointing out some benefits of being an English/Language Arts (ELA) teacher in this process:

            *We can support other content area teachers who have to include and assess writing as part of their standards. We can help them see “they’ve already been doing this” in lab reports and requiring sentences to start with capitals. We can encourage.

            * We have the advantage of the wave approach. Since ELA topics keep coming up and can be revisited throughout the year, students have multiple opportunities to show growth.

Deirdre and Andra shared their goal setting successes and misses, inspiring us to take 10 minutes of writing time to consider our personal goals for this year…getting those thoughts down now!

After lunch…

Andra: Continuation of “I Remember the Time” activity
We split into our response groups to choose a sentence to spark a story. An air of mystery surrounds this!

Benefits of this activity in our classrooms:

* Helping students write narratives without over-facilitating

* Opportunities for mini-lessons: detail, plot development, show vs. tell, believability in fiction

* Hands off to let response groups do their work: the collaborative nature of real, authentic response

We all benefitted from extended writing time and response group feedback, both for the "I Remember" piece or other projects.

Wrap-up:

Due Monday:

            1) Narrative. No need to post to Moodle, but bring a hard copy to read.

            2) A completed & readable copy of the “I remember the time...” writing.

What are you thinking about for a possible Demo Lesson? A Script… (with apologies for misquotations…)

[Hand back initial ideas from the orientation meeting in June]

ANDRA: What problem or issue are you grappling with that will make a good demo lesson for yourself and the rest of us? Do we need peer-coaching tomorrow?

CARRIE: Can we brainstorm so we don’t overlap topics?

CINDY: Should I do the 6-word essay idea because it’s comfortable for me? Or should I do engaging reluctant writers or revising for conventions because those are areas I’m concerned about?

MARGARET: What were the things in the 6-word essay that you were teaching?

ANDRA: Check Common Core, how can the lesson be buffed up?

CARRIE: The “If I Were in Charge of the World” poem is tried and true, but I feel the need to work on argumentative, since it’s out of my comfort zone.

ANDRA: How could you take “If I Were in Charge…” and give it the argument angle? Buff it up.

HEATHER: I want to do something with song and poetry circles…emotion cards… picture/song connecting writing…writing about a character based on song lyrics or a poem...

ANDRA: I hear reading/literacy connections, some grammar standards. Sift through and see what percolates.

SASHA: I would like to do activities for building community and a sense of environment in the classroom, so students feel safe before they even begin writing, so they will take risks. I like the idea of collecting as part of the process.

ANDRA: So one overall theme with several strategies that will build community, like Mary’s lesson.

JOHN: I felt successful in writing today and getting to know myself as a writer again. Maybe I will make a model lesson that’s creative, like ballad poetry, instead of argumentative or research writing.

AMY S.: [TO JOHN] What about primary vs. secondary sources, even in poetry? I want to hear that lesson!

[Fade out to general announcements]

Poetry presenters are coming!!!

Pre-Assessment homework. Oops! Pretend this is you on Monday and bring it tomorrow.

Day 2: Andra

Second Day:  Summer Literacy Leadership Institute.

I can’t say this is my favorite kind of writing and maybe I’m just not practiced at it, but “blogs” have always seemed a bit self-indulgent to me.  However, a favorite maxim of Writing Projects around the country is “Don’t apologize, just read the #@#% (insert your own idea of garbage). So product must be produced.  Here it goes.

First Day Jitters Over: Will Follow-up Deliver?

The first fantastic day followed with a fantastic blog and I can even hope meet that mark (I’m tired and looking forward to my book and bed. Is this being myself??)  Though both Margaret and I anticipated a good day, I wasn’t sure it’d be as good as the first.  Same engagement? Same energy?  Not to worry.  Though a bit “sloggy,” participant found great snacks, good coffee and partner support to a find focus. (Thank you Carrie and Jeanne for nurturing snacks. The homemade muffins -- particularly delicious.)

Writing Warm Up: Surprise Learning Experience

We dove into contemplative silence, dipping into our memories to write about a skill and how we learned it.  We soon realized that inviting others to recall how we learned “something” helps us find ways into learning to write for us and our students.
What we noticed about learning something…

            Interest is sparked and an idea planted.

            Mentor/teacher/person with…

                        Accepting, tolerant, believing-in attitude.

            Given tools/ techniques to use and something to cultivate.

            Immediate and unambiguous feedback to find out right away if a technique works or not.

            Observe other person at work.

            Build on what one already knows and can do.

            Feel good about taking risks and making mistakes.

             (I’m curious about Amy Woods’ good hillbilly accent!)

Amazing how a simple writing warm up can help us realize the power of passion, leadership, modeling, and guiding in a safe, nurturing environment. Hmmmmm.  Implications?

In reflection, Amy W reminded us of the quote of the day: “Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass, ” by Anton Chekhov.   Be a model, show don’t tell seems to go for teaching as well as writing.

Demo Lesson Bugaboo Debunked

Margaret explained that our “good” demo lessons in this context ought to speak to a broader teaching audience.  (More later)

Sneaky Re-Reading Techniques Fools Writer’s into Revising

Re-read This? But I’m done! Though writers are often too critical, too attached, or too ambivalent to get the distance they need to revise, Margaret showed three revising strategies to help writers find the heart of a piece or “What is this piece is this really about?”  This whole class lesson got to the “heart” of the kind of self-revising I want students to accomplish on their own when in the past I’ve only been able to do this in conference time with them. Underlining sentences we like or are the heart of our piece, circling words we love or that are precise, bracketing surprises helped us find “dynamic,”  “magical,” “transformative” ways to “re-look” at our writing.  When Margaret modeled circulating and individually conferencing, I realized an added management bonus to these exercises.

John threw up his hand and whispered, “I’m done.”

Amy will share what she experienced her ninth graders.

Heather liked breaking re-reading into parts.

Kim will use with a shared writing experience for her first graders.

Carrie saw something magical happened – a change in dynamics with this process.

Identifying specific kinds of words would add a component of language instruction that matches those “L” standards, Margaret concluded.

Our time spent revising enriched our response group collaboration and the revising work we’d already done.

What we have to have a narrative written by when??  Friday!?  Should we post it?  Hmmmm….

Read The Essentials Chapter 3 over lunch. Later heard that it spoke to Sasha and her need for mulling and how each person’s prewriting process is unique and ought to be honored.  I concur.

Attention to Detail: A Challenge to Describe

The “shell game” after lunch was a stretch for me.  Can’t tell you how I agonized about what objects to use for this exercise… Shells? Buttons? Pictures?  Bet you didn’t know that, but it fit wonderfully and after reading your responses, I see that each of you took something different but valuable. I’m so glad.  Helping students attend to creating details, adding details and then making a decision about where and when to add details and the kinds of details we choose seems a rich and valuable place to go.  Did we mention that teaching writing is a complex process??  The discussion at the end actually traveled down the road a bit farther than I would with younger students and that was fun for me …to discuss with colleagues the nuances of writing craft. .. a delicious luxury in our Summer Writing Camp for Teachers.

Visit from the Moodle Fairy

Had a visit from the Moodle fairy and hopefully all issues have been sprinkled with fairy dust and all is working perfectly.

Book Groups Noodle

Book groups convened to plan the reading so the book would be finished in time to write a group review on the last Thursday.   

Demo Lesson Bugaboo Debunked

Consider this first week the prewriting for your demon… gather bits and pieces, let some ideas rattle around, free write about it, create a brainstorm list…  If anyone needs it, Margaret and/or Andra are available to listen and coach you on your ideas.

So coming to the end you can see that my energy wanes… summarize:

We love the chance to write, we love the chance to revise, we love learning about new things, and we love re-learning old things.  The second day seemed to “deliever.”Ah, if only all my classes were so wonderful.

Institute Log Day 1: Margaret

After a three-year hiatus, the Oregon Writing Project summer institute jumped to life again today. First-time and returning Summer Fellows breathed new energy and inspiration into the 40-year history of the National Writing Project's credo that teachers of writing must write, and teachers are the best teachers of other teachers.

"Great day!" "Excited to write!"

Comments at the end of the day attested to the power and potential of this group's development as writers, teachers, and leaders. There was a general consensus that the group feels supportive, and that people are already willing to take risks with their writing. Nancy noted that it's good to be reminded of the importance of writing with our students; Jeanne commented that the process of "re-focusing" on things we may have known were important, leads to improvement in our understanding and practice. I agree! Re-reading Donald Murray's writings, for instance, is forever a treat. John appreciated the opportunity to write "beyond reflecting on my teaching practice" -- a nice reminder of how important it is to provide our students with a wide variety of authentic writing opportunities.

"Invite the editor to take a nap."

We started the day with a freewriting "looping" writing warm-up. Invoking Peter Elbow, we invited our internal editor to "take a nap" (Andra's words). Freeing ourselves from the censorship of language, grammar, ideas and emotions proved to be an interesting experience for many of us. Andra reminded us of the importance of "practice writing" -- writing that is not assessed or evaluated, but serves the important purpose of rehearsal. Some people noted a movement from specific to broad in their "looped" freewriting; others noted a movement from general to specific, from concrete to abstract, or from negative to positive. Cindy noticed that looping allowed her to make a connection she might not otherwise have made. Whatever movement we experienced, it's the noticing itself that is key: the awareness of our process, and the recognition that the experience can take multiple forms. What an honorable challenge this makes the teaching of writing!

"Where do our ideas for stories come from?"

Andra got us started with generating some ideas for stories, in a "neighborhood map" activity. Well, my own neighborhood map generated a story about a neighborhood nap: my elderly neighbor who took over the babysitting job from his wife, and installed a kitchen swing so he could put my son in it and they could both fall happily asleep. This mapping activity is a terrific example of designing "opportunities for our students to practice orally" (as Carrie put it) the kinds of thinking they need to do while writing. As Amy W. noted, "other people's ideas sparked mine." This is an important reminder that structured pre-writing opportunities are a high-leverage practice, yielding more confident, engaged responses from students. Nancy observed that sometimes a bit of distance helps: she found that recent experiences were harder to share than ones in the past.

"We make up our stories out ourselves anyway. Don't begrudge other people their stories."

Tim Cate honored us with a demonstration lesson  on "Multi-genre autobiography." Tim participated in an OWP summer institute in 1992, which he called a "game-changer for me as a teacher." (As a 1994 Summer Fellow in the Bay Area Writing Project summer institute myself, I appreciate and share his experience.) Tim's lesson first helped us define "piece" (piece of life, piece of writing), and then led us through a lesson that emphasized giving students choices of genre to tell the story of their lives. Tim brilliantly modeled the process of a demonstration lesson, especially running the lesson on multiple levels (teaching students and teachers simultaneously), and switching voices/hats fluidly. Perhaps most key to Tim's lesson was the idea that transitions (what he called "connections") contribute substantially to student voice in the multi-genre autobiography, as these connections are the student's opportunity to speak directly to the audience and link parts of the writing. Tim's debrief at the end gave us a chance to think about adapting the lesson to different grade levels and teaching contexts, and some exciting ideas emerged -- from first grade to college.

"Write with your students."

Tim Cate modeled and explicitly stated the power of writing with our students, of doing the assignments we ask them to do -- both in advance and in real time.  Our readings (Murray and Elbow) both harkened back to 1972, and both reinforced the idea that teaching writing means teaching process, not just product. I find it interesting that the context in which Elbow and Murray wrote necessitated a "revolution" in how writing instruction was conceptualized. In subsequent years, both were criticized for their 'soft,' 'touchy-feely' approach. But at the time, nothing short of a revolution in writing instruction would have had an impact. Now that we 'breathe' the language of writing process, I think we are called on to find a balance: of course process matters, and of course product matters too. Often, product motivates process. Often, product rewards process. I'm not sure it's realistic to say process motivates process; in fact, I'm quite sure it's not. But that doesn't detract from the critical importance of understanding: although we may assess product, when we teach writing, we fundamentally teach and support process.

"Learning curve..."

Heather mentioned it. We're all in it, somewhere. Whether it's finding ways to get students excited about expository writing (John), learning to use short time-frames in ways that don't make our students hyperventilate (Amy S.), learning to teach an extended  lesson (Heather), learning to "start from scratch" (Sasha), or learning how to develop a demonstration lesson (Kim)... slightly accelerating around the learning curve is what we want to do. Maybe you learned in in Driver's Ed, or in physics class, on a ski slope, or a bike path: braking or excessively accelerating around a curve throws you off balance. Slight acceleration provides stability. Let's go!

(Photo: http://thelearningcurvephotography.blogspot.com)

Getting Ready

Greetings!

I'm honored to be a part of the Leadership Institute. Margaret is amazing and I am so glad to be working with her. Her thorough look at all we do feels strong and supportive.  My hopes are high that this Leadership Institute will grow a thriving community of writer/educators. 

Welcome to our summer 2014 institute!

Welcome to our summer 2014 institute! We'll post daily logs from our institute here... You can include photos, video, hyperlinks, etc. in your log post. To add your log, click on "new post" above, and don't forget to click both "save" and "publish" when you're done. Have fun!