#SOL18 Day 9 Thinking about Writers and Writing

Late afternoon light filtered in through the large windows. Teams of teachers sat, gathered around tables meant for smaller bodies. But, for the most part, they leaned in with rapt attention.

“Once you’ve established priorities, you’ll communicate the goals to students and support students in thinking about and making a plan for how to get there. For example, 2nd grade just wrapped up goal clubs in reading. You’ll do the same kind of thing for their writing. Ask: ‘If this is your goal, what are your steps?'”

A teacher raised her hand and called out the question that was floating through several heads at that moment. “Should kids pick their goals? Sometimes they don’t pick appropriate ones. Do we just let them pick anything?”

From where she stood, the consultant replied, “Ideally, yes, but in reality sometimes we need to teach into that. At the beginning we might recommend a goal to the student. We could say something like, ‘I’ve been reading your writing and I think you’re ready to have xyz as your goal’, or you could offer two reasonable goals for them to choose from. ‘I’ve noticed that x or y would both be good goals for you. Which one would you like to choose to work on next?’ That way we give students as much ownership and agency as possible.”

Around the room, heads nodded.

………………………….

Today we had the good fortune to host an outside literacy consultant who has worked with the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project and even co-authored units of study. It’s not her first time with us, which meant that nearly all of us in the library today anticipated good things from the session. We weren’t disappointed.

I have several pages of notes from Lauren. Here are some of the highlights based on teacher reactions during the active engagements:

• Top 10 conferences for narrative writing
• Goal priorities for writing (adapted from Serravallo’s The Writing Strategies Book)
• Using a pen vs. a pencil 
• What’s in a conferring toolkit for writing
• What conferring (and small groups) in writing should look and sound like

*I’ll add links for these once I clean up the notes from today.

Almost everyone in the room walked out with some new or refined ideas about conferring and small groups in the writing workshop. I had some Aha moments of my own!

I’m grateful for opportunities like this where the reading consultants can learn alongside our teachers and improve both our classroom practices, and our strategies for leading professional learning.