Literacy

3 Reasons to Rethink Your Basal Reader

Currently in my district at the elementary level, we are in the process of strategically moving away from our basal reading program. We’ve already “cut out” its writing component, as next year we’ll be hitting the ground running with Writing Workshop and the Units of Study. Also, we’ve begun the process of designing our own reading comprehension instruction with the assistance of Reading with Meaning, Strategies That Work, and Notice & Note (both fiction and non-fiction).

Now, while it may be “cool” and trendy to hate on textbooks, for the benefit of all parties involved – students, parents, teachers, administrators, etc. – I believe it’s important to be able to articulate why we are choosing to deemphasize the program.

With these thoughts in mind, here are three reasons to rethink your basal reader.

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What comes first, the writing or the blogging?

By Ross Cooper 6 Comments

The Problem

In a previous district, I got my hand slapped for encouraging third graders to blog (using Kidblog, which was free at the time). The given rationale behind the hand slapping was something to the effect of, “These kids have trouble writing, and you want them to blog?!?”

So, what comes first, the writing or the blogging?…In other words, should students have to master the basics before they are allowed to blog? Or, can they learn to write through blogging?

Blogging: Teaching Students How to Quality Comment

By Ross Cooper 5 Comments

After co-presenting on blogging at EdcampNYC and then blogging about the significance of student work being made public, I have heard lots of conversation and questions regarding how to teach students to comment on each other’s blog posts.

In this area, one of the resources that has guided me is the work of Silvia Tolisano.

Nonetheless…The last thing we want to do is simply tell students, “Here’s what’s included in a quality comment.” We must model inquiry by having them “uncover” what is involved. Then, students will (1) have a deeper understanding of why these components are significant, and (2) be more likely to apply them.

Here’s what this process could look like:

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Why write for your teacher when you can publish for the world?

By Ross Cooper 10 Comments

Last weekend at EdcampNYC, Starr Sackstein (@mssackstein), Tony Sinanis (@TonySinanis), and I facilitated a conversation on blogging and branding. This was the first time I had run a session with either of them, and it was an absolute blast!

Making my work public is something about which I am passionate. Also, I strongly support students being provided opportunities to have their work reach an authentic audience.

Not convinced student work should be made public?

According to John Kotter, one of the biggest mistakes you can make when attempting to achieve buy-in “is to communicate with all ‘head’ and no ‘heart.'” In other words, the odds are not in favor of educators saying, “Well, if Robert Marzano says this is what’s best, then we should all be doing it in our classrooms!” So, rather than use facts/research/data to convince/tell you why students should be able to publish their work (as opposed to handing it in)…Here are two resources that will evoke emotions and “tug at the heart.”

The graphic featured above. Imagine, after countless hours of dedicated blogging, only one person is able to see or share your work on each social network. (By the way, my fourth graders blogged regularly with KidBlog, Blogger, and WordPress…It’s not a matter of if we can make it happen, but how.)
The Alan November TEDx Talk. Start at the 7m 30s mark, or just watch the whole thing. I always use this video when conducting workshops on student publishing. Rich Kiker (@rkiker) first introduced me to the resource a handful of years ago.

Seriously…Why write for your teacher when you can publish for the world?

Connect with Ross on Twitter.

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Literature Circles – Are Role Sheets a Necessary Evil?

By Ross Cooper 6 Comments

In a recent article for Edutopia – (Almost) Paperless Literature Circles – I wrote about how I facilitated this process as a fourth grade teacher.

The Problem

An earlier draft of this article focused primarily on the predetermined jobs/role sheets students completed on a weekly basis: connector, passage picker, wonderer, predictor, etc. Upon reviewing this version, one of my colleagues – Erin Murphy (@MurphysMusings5) – encouraged me to revise my writing to deemphasize teacher-specified roles, asserting that “ideal” literature circles do not include them. To substantiate her claim, she pointed me in the direction of Comprehension and Collaboration by Stephanie Harvey and Smokey Daniels, which at the time was an unread book sitting on my bookshelf.

The Solution

As a result of Erin’s contributions, I amended my article to contain two quotes from the book:

Writing Pathways Professional Development

By Ross Cooper 6 Comments

This past Monday I facilitated an introduction to Writing Pathways professional development with two of my district’s Reading Specialists.

Pigs Rock And Roll: Our Strategy for Multiple-Choice Reading Comprehension Questions

By Ross Cooper 2 Comments

As mentioned previously, “In my classroom we are all about explicit strategies… Reading and writing strategies are taught early on in the school year, and then we continuously spiral them throughout the year as students dive deeper and deeper into how to leverage them effectively. This approach to teaching and learning provides everyone with a common language, which helps in stimulating collaboration amongst students and a positive classroom culture. (This method is even more beneficial when the same strategies are utilized across multiple classrooms and grade levels.)”

While an earlier post details our strategy for open-ended responses to texts, here is a look at Pigs Rock And Roll, which is what my students use when they have to read texts and then answer multiple-choice questions.

iAsc: Our Approach to Open-Ended Reading Response

By Ross Cooper 5 Comments

In my classroom we are all about explicit strategies, not just for reading comprehension but also when it comes to writing. Reading and writing strategies are taught early on in the school year, and then we continuously spiral them throughout the year as students dive deeper and deeper into how to leverage them effectively. This approach to teaching and learning provides everyone with a common language, which helps in stimulating collaboration amongst students and a positive classroom culture. (This method is even more beneficial when the same strategies are utilized across multiple classrooms and grade levels.)

Awhile back I was looking for a strategy that could help my students with open-ended responses to texts, and I came up with iAsc (a play on iPod, iPhone, iPad, etc.):

Common Core Approved Cafeteria Milk

By Ross Cooper 3 Comments

With the Common Core State Standards staring everyone in the face, many districts are left scrambling to either (1) purchase “Common Core certified” materials or (2) adapt their old materials for the Common Core. In general, I prefer the latter. Simply purchasing a new series could most likely lead to teachers “doing the same thing” but with new materials, treating the series as if it is the curriculum when it is just a tool or resource. Furthermore, it is obvious that publishers have rushed their products to market in an effort to cash in on the new standards. (I’m surprised that our cafeteria milk has yet to be Common Core approved.)

When rolling out Common Core professional development in a subject such as Language Arts, it could be advantageous to focus on the current series, as this is where most teachers are comfortable. Then, discuss how to reinvent the series in order to meet the needs of the Common Core and higher-order thinking.

At a recent building-based professional development session, we took the following steps:

colAR Mix App and Visualizing

By Ross Cooper Leave a Comment

When I first started teaching about six years ago, one of the biggest mistakes I made was believing that reading comprehension did not consist of much more than reading texts and then answering follow-up questions. Then, everything changed when I read Mosaic of Thought by Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann, followed by Strategies That Work by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis. Now, all of my reading comprehension instruction is encompassed by the essential question, “How can I understand while I am reading?” In other words, it is what great readers do while they are reading that makes them great. This teaching relies heavily on student metacognition and the explicit strategies of monitoring comprehension, activating and connecting to background knowledge, questioning, visualizing, inferring, determining importance in text, and summarizing and synthesizing information. (It is also my firm belief that students should be consistently using these strategies from first grade through high school.)

I am always looking for unique ways to leverage different technologies in order to teach these explicit strategies, and to help in deepening student understanding of what they read. A few weeks ago, I decided to use the augmented reality iOS app, colAR Mix, to teach the strategy of visualizing through a writing workshop. ColAR Mix is an app that literally brings drawings to life! Through the app’s official website, the user can print out coloring pages. Then, when the app’s camera is focused on the printed page, the drawing pops out of the page and animates. It is really one of those things that has to be seen to be believed.