Beginning a new journey'

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Beginning a new journey. Building a
writerly school.Believing all children are
authors.Being a community of writers.
Presented by Raisinville Elementary Staff,
Monroe, Michigan
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Good MorningandWelcome!!!
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• Raisinville Elementary School
• Monroe Public Schools
• 2300 N. Raisinville Rd.
• Monroe, MI 48162
• Phone [phone]
• Fax [phone]
• www.monroe.k12.mi.us/raisinville

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Beginning

• What picture does the data paint?
• State data
• District data
• Classroom data
• Individual student data

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Believing

• How do you and your colleagues communicate your
  beliefs to
• each other?
• How do you go about finding what beliefs unite
  you as a team?
• Where is your common ground????

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• ????????????????????????????
• Something needs to be done, but what, where, and
  how do you start?
• ????????????????????????????

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Our Team..

• Julie Everly, Principal
• Linda Ellis, Kindergarten Teacher
• Amy Pabin, Kindergarten Teacher
• Tina Breitner, First/Second Grade Looping Teacher
• Kelly Smith, Second /Third Grade Teacher
• Jan Vergiels, Second/Third Grade Looping Teacher
• Renee Bergman, Third Grade Teacher

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Our Team
Laura Gladieux, Third/Fourth Grade Looping
Teacher Kendra Sulfaro, Third /Fourth Grade
Looping Teacher Carolyne Lynch, Fifth Grade
Teacher Cheryl Huffman, Fifth/Sixth Grade
Teacher Lisa Scheich, Sixth Grade Teacher Laura
Lavender, Content Coach Terry Joseph, Math
Consultant
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What you are hearing about today

• is living, ongoing and
• rigorous!!
• It cannot be purchased.
• It is not a canned program.

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Building Our Solid Foundation

• What are the best practices in Professional
  Development?
• What are the best practices
• for teaching writing?

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The Steering Committee

• Where research, content knowledge, and good
  intentions were translated into
• SPECIFIC ACTIONS.

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Consistently and Continually

• Communicating Priorities
• Explicit Expectations
• Time
• Money
• Resources
• Celebrations
• Energy!!!

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The Non-Negotiables

• Writers Workshop
• Traits of Writing
• Mentorship

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Just passing by

• Establishing a Robust
• Calendar of Study
• .or here to stay????

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• MonitorAdjustPersist

The best change occurs slowly and comes from
teachers themselves. It takes longer but it
lasts. Donald H. Graves
Being a Community of Writers
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• Common Workshop Language
• Common Trait Language
• Common Materials

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Classroom Environment

• .

Classroom/Professional Libraries
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Classroom Environment
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Classroom Culture
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Displays of Student Writing Throughout the School
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Grade Level Content Expectations

• Guided decision-making process
• Common threads exist between Writing Initiative
  and GLCEs

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Rubrics

• empowered students and teachers.
• Assessment must promote learning, not just
  measure it. When learners are well served,
  assessment becomes a learning experience that
  supports and improves instruction. The learners
  are not just the students but also the teachers,
  who learn something about their students.
• Regie Routman

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Parent Communication
Learning
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On The Hunt For Mini-Lessons

• Staff Meeting Presentations
• Study Group
• Grade Level Discussions
• Mentor Conferences
• Mentor In-services
• Purchase of Additional Resources
• On-line Resources
• Student Work Samples

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Staff Meeting Presentations
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• Celebration of
• Authors Gatherings

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Whole School Author Study Eve Bunting
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Lunch Study Group

• The way a team plays as a whole determines
  its success. You may have the greatest bunch of
  individual stars in the world, but if they dont
  play together, the team isnt worth a dime.
• Babe Ruth

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• Organization
• Purpose
• Benefits

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Workshop Mentors

• LAP Coach
• District Consultants
• Independent Consultants

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Assessment Round Tables

• Used grade level meeting time
• Used Ruth Culham scoring guides assessed one
  trait a month
• Assessed same samples together as a grade level

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Word Choice Year 1
K
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
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• Building the Bridge to
• Future Learning
• Steering Committee

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Whole School Culture
Writers Workshop
Mentorship
Ongoing Assessment
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Whole School Culture
Writers Workshop
Mentorship
Ongoing Assessment
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Mini-Lessons
The Architecture
Of A Ten-Minute Mini-Lesson
? A
mini-lesson begins with a connection in which we
tell students what we will be teaching them, and
why.? Next, we teach students about a kind of
writing work, either by giving them information
or by helping them gather information about that
work.? After we teach, we often have students
have-a-go with the work weve taught them-that
is, they give the work a brief try.? Finally,
we end the mini-lesson by linking the lessons to
the students independent writing.
Carl
Anderson, Hows It Going
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Kindergarten
I went to the Monroe County Fair.
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Writing in Grades 1 through 6
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Whole School Author Studies
Mem Fox
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Gail Gibbons
Whole School Author Studies
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Patricia Polacco and Seymour Simon
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Themes to Promote Deeper Understanding and
Thinking
Problem Solving
Teamwork
Sacrifice
Respecting the Environment
Friendship
Diversity
Accomplishments
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Whole School Culture
Writers Workshop
Mentorship
Ongoing Assessment
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Workshop Mentors
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Peer Observations

• What are they?
• How do they work?

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Lesson Study Cycle
Reflective Professional Conversations
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Staff Meetings as Study Groups
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Summer Study Groups
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Whole School Culture
Writers Workshop
Mentorship
Ongoing Assessment
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• Building and sustaining a high
• performing school requires
• much more than maintenance
• it requires ongoing review,
• collaboration, and adaptation
• of practice as a result of
• examining data.

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Why take the assessment stance?

• Get to know students strengths and needs as
  writers
• Facilitates individual learning plans through
  conferencing
• Crafts units of study that focus on the
  collective needs of writers
• Promotes reflective practice for teachers and
  students

Anderson, 2005
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Ed Yes Performance Indicators

• Exemplary
• All staff members are involved in collaborative
  teams that analyze state, district, school and
  classroom assessment information to plan
  instruction, priorities directed at assuring that
  all students meet high standards, and work toward
  achievement of the criteria for adequate yearly
  progress and analyze the effectiveness of
  programs over time. 
• On-going support is provided for all staff
  members and teams to refine their skills in the
  use of data to make decisions that affect
  individual students and school programs.

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Think Tanks

• Staff members, in groups of 4 or 5, with the
  purpose of designing the guiding questions to
  extract what mini lessons the writing emulates,
  what would be the focus of a conference, how
  could a mentor author guide the writer and who
  might the mentor author be and refer to the six
  trait rubrics and language.

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Conferencing
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Classroom Records
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Rubrics

• District
• School
• Classroom

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Rubrics in the District/School
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Rubrics in the Classroom
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What are digital portfolios?

• Focused compilations of work, captured by
  electronic means that provide displays of
  individual efforts, progress and achievements in
  one or more areas.
• Weidmer, 1998

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Advantages of Digital Portfolios

• Provides authentic and permanent displays of
  individual and group efforts
• Promotes reflective practice- metacognition
• Integrates spoken, written, and visual language
  across the curriculum with digital literacies
• Enhances motivation and encourages student
  ownership of learning
• Accommodates multiple intelligences
• Differentiates instruction

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Whole School Culture
Writers Workshop
Mentorship
Ongoing Assessment
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• Whole School Culture
• School culture is an inner reality. This inner
  reality reflects what the organizational members
  care about, what they are willing to spend time
  doing, what and how they celebrate, and what they
  talk about.
• Robbins and Alvy

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Celebrating Learning

• One of the most important and effective
  strategies for shaping the culture of a school is
  celebration. Celebration reinforces shared
  values, signals what is important, and recognizes
  accomplishments.
• Bolman and Deal

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• Celebration of Authors Gatherings
• Celebration of Thinking
• Publishing student work in hard covered books

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Supporting Learning

• The learning environment is the backbone of
  school culture, and is created by asking and
  analyzing, What works best for ALL of our
  students?
• Gary Phillips

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• Common Language
• Common Resources
• Classroom Libraries
• Parent Education and Communication

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• Building the Bridge

This year in our learning . . .
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Bridging Literacies

• Workshop teaching throughout the day
• Integration of curriculum areas
• Writing in all curriculum areas
• Constructivism Theory

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Data Leading to the Path of Inquiry
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Memoirs of a Learner

• Metacognition
• Start Up Money

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Making the Connection
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Tying It All Together!

• Study Groups
• Celebration of Authors Assembly
• Staff Meetings
• School Improvement Meetings
• Sharing with principal

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Professional Study Nurturing and Empowering
Teachers
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ORAL STORYTELLING AN INTRODUCTION

• Inviting children to talk about themselves and
  about what they know honors them for who they
  are. M. Horn, M. Giacobbe, 2007, Talking,
  Drawing, and Writing, Stenhouse
• .

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Writing and Drawing Notebooks
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Book Making
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Cyclical Units Overview

• Mentor Texts/Touchstone Books
• Immersion deconstructing story
• GLCES

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Aligning Units Through GLCEs

• Genres Personal Narrative, Realistic Fiction,
  Fantasy
• Story Structure BME, HAH, Five Story Elements
• First and Third Person
• Single and Multiple Events
• Character Development
• Craft
• Revision

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Cyclical Writing Chart
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• Community begins with a shared vision. It is
  sustained by teachers who, as school leaders,
  bring inspiration and direction to the
  institution.
• Who after all, knows more about the classroom?
• Who is better able to inspire children? Who can
  evaluate, more sensitively, the educational
  progress of each student? And who, but teachers,
  create a true community for learning?
• Teachers are, without question, the heartbeat of
  a successful school.
• Ernest Boyer