I must help my students remember that "...meaning doesn't arrive. It has to be constructed" (p.38). I have "given" my students meaning so much that they have stopped thinking for themselves. I have been guilty of doing all the work in my classroom. How about you? Don't you hate it when a student says, "Just give me the answer" and aren't willing to do the hard work of thinking?
Are you giving "students the bulk of the class period to work, practice, or apply what has been taught during your mini-lesson" (p. 39)? "Instead of planning what you will do during that time, plan what you want students to do" (p. 45) is a quote that makes so much sense. This is a great way to help us think about gradual release.
Sigh. I love the metaphor of game time and think it is very instructive. I also love football so it is particularly helpful to me. It did make me think of competition and maybe I should bring up Lexile levels and challenge them to raise theirs. Heaven knows how competitive Honors levels students are. Maybe I can have them bragging that they read and comprehended The Scarlet Letter instead of bragging that they didn't.
ReplyDeleteI do give them time to work. Right now, I've assigned them a 3 fold project about a subject I know a lot about in a vehicle I know very little about. So they have much time to work. Still, some are and some aren't. You must do formative assessment because if you don't, then some are working and some are playing on the ipads.Ok. Not feeling very optimistic these days, I'm afraid. But I love the workshop model. Always have. I've worked with Candance, picking her brain on her classroom workshop model and I've decided that I'm the one who has to change not the kids. Learning is noisy and I think I just need to realize that those who goof off will goof off anyway. And I felt relieved when I read on page 39 that her conferences don't last more than four minutes. I would need to take notes as I conference or record it because I would forget what I learned at those conferences.
Her workshop model is instructive. I love the minilesson or focus lesson part and the debriefing which I call reflection. They must reflect each day after working. They do but they are for the most part one-liners. I suppose I need a minilesson to show what I expect on my reflections.
They do want a correct answer, all the time, and it's always a struggle to convince them to read and analyze the work and trust their own responses. I tell them there is no right answer; literature is to be interpreted; that everyone interprets it differently, that if they believe it's right then it is and they must be able to support it with textual evidence. I tell them (I read this somewhere and I don't remember where, sorry) that they should be WRITING the sparknotes.
And I did give them something to respond to in their journals as I sais I would do last week. And it led to some good discussion. They journaled electronically which I find so much easier to respond to.
I have been working with a workshop model for a few years. It's not perfect, never will be. I think the part that I struggle with the most is the reflective part or debriefing. Tovani writes, "debriefing occurs at tthe end of the workshop and gives students an opportunity to be metacognitive as they synthesize, reflect on, and name what they have learned for the day" (p. 41). I think they have the hardest time doing that and think it's just something else to "get done" and don't put any effort into it. For me, I feel like if they are able to truly reflect on their learning, they will grow more. How to do this is my question.
ReplyDeleteCandace,at the end of class I like to ask students, "What do you know now that you didn't know before the start of class today?" Or "Are you thinking differently now than you were at the beginning of class?" All kids don't or won't answer this, but it helps them focus on the fact that I expect thinking and change.
ReplyDeleteAnyone else?
When I was reading this chapter I was struck by how much what she was describing sounded like gradual release. She really described the I do, we do, you do in a small group, then you do alone throughout the chapter.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing that I realized that she advocates is the idea of reflection. It is something that I learned to do when I went through the National Board process and it is a habit that I have kept up with. I think learning to reflect is an important part of learning.
I also like the idea of choice. Students need to be able to have some choice in the texts that they read. I think that it is a valuable skill to be able to choose what appeals to you as a learner.
I agree with Rachel, as I was reading I noticed that it is complete the gradual release process. I love the workshop model, and used it in 7th grade accelerated ELA, 7th grade inclusion ELA, and 8th grade ELA. It wasn’t until I heard Candace speak at the Instructional Fair on using workshop in the high school that I really started integrating workshop into my English I Honors classes at the middle school. It is certainly something I have carried with me to my Part 1 and Seminar classes here at the high school. I think this model is great and very effective for the student.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Candace on the reflection part. Like Rachel, I have always reflected on my own teaching practices, but I don’t always build in time for the students to synthesize learning or reflect on the learning at the end of the class period. When I logically think about it, this is an important piece, and one that I HAVE to make a more concerted effort to include.
I was really challenged by the section “Addressing a Cornerstone of Workshop: Choice.” I certainly try to incorporate choice into my classroom, but it seems the only place I really have it is during Independent Reading. I would love to really figure out how to set things up around an anchor text and provide choice in the supplemental reading. I am open to this, but I always feel bogged down in the front-loading of work that goes into these types of units. Any suggestions?
At first when they started talking about the gradual release model I got that feeling in my stomach...like how is this going to work if they always do just ask for the answer, but I think it if happens school-wide or even department wide then it becomes the expectation and students step up to the plate and perform. It doesn't get rid of the teaching, it just makes sure that the lessons are very well crafted and very well modeled. As for the choice that Jamie mentions, I have not done that with texts yet, but I am planning on doing it with HOW they present their knowledge next semester...
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