#SOL18: March 31
So long,
Farewell
It’s time to say goodbye.
Goodbye
To daily slicing
Not time to stop writing
But time
to plan for other longer writing projects!
Thanks for reading and writing this month!
And so I leave with this format borrowed from first year slicer, Dani Burtsfield, posted yesterday.
I would rather….. ….instead of
drink diet pepsi iced tea
get up early stay up late
make piles put everything away
own a dog own a cat
read a book watch a movie
count the deer live in a city
plant flowers in a pot have an acre of garden
play with kids be the the adults table
visit relatives go to a fancy resort
walk run
Thank you, Betsy, Beth, Deb, Kathleen, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for this daily forum each March. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here. 
What have you learned about yourself as a writer this month?
What will you continue to do?
#SOL18: March 30
Targeted Writing Instruction to Close the Gap
Checking back in with N before the month ends. ( The story began Here, here and here)
Our Plan:
Week 2
Scaffolded Checklist Paper – Narrative Story Writing (below) – Repeat 5 days
Week 3
Write Using “Regular” Writing Paper
Remember that the first few days had some focused one:one time that was productive and volume seemed to fly so I was concerned that without that one:one we would see the volume of writing decrease. It did go down some but not nearly as drastically as we had one teacher and one “me” short video designed specifically for him. Drastic, yes in terms of some time to create a video by each of us! Helpful that it did not take away from any class time with other students. But remember our ambitious goal – hit 3rd grade targets by the end of the year.
Week 2
N wrote 2 stories on the Narrative Paper with the checklists. He met the targets on the checklists and it really helped that he was a part of the checklist creation. He not only knew what it said. He knew what each item meant. He fancied one up and published it. We used cut-up labels to fix some of the spelling words, added in some neon revising strips, and a front cover and a back cover.
He was Jazzed! Normally fairly shy and reticent in many literacy activities, he read that book to EVERYONE that came into the room. We recorded it on SeeSaw!
Weekly Goal met! (Support from classroom teacher in person, via video, and me also via video)
Week 3
N identified two goals for himself this week. He did want to use regular paper (but he wanted the ones with checklists on his desk so he could look at them) and he wanted a writing partner in class. (I was toast and so VERY happy to not be a “required” part!)
He named two possible partners and one was available and willing. During the week they planned, wrote and worked together. Two teacher conferences. Two pieces written by the end of the week. Both had evidence of revision and editing. Solid meeting of the third grade checklist items.
Weekly Goal met!
Socially: New friends courtesy of his writing partner. New activities at recess courtesy of changing weather. Almost a “swagger” when walking in the hall. Whole new confidence . . . across the entire day!
We don’t have a post on-demand score YET.
Our plan took time to develop. Because he was a part of the classwork he had all the behaviors in the first column. We tried shared writing. We added in partner writing with his choice of a partner. We used the last two items on the volume column and reduced the items on the checklist to close the gap. We’ll be able to evaluate our plan soon. We did not “throw everything but the kitchen sink into this plan.” Reasonable. Repeatable. Sustainable. Doable. But now we do have some ideas and a framework; if and when the situation arises again.
How valuable is planning?
In this instance it’s not about THE plan, but it is about the conversations as we developed the plan.
We named a variety of possibilities.
We identified some choices for the teacher and student!
A win/win!
Remember that this student wanted to write as badly as we wanted to support his writing. There are no guarantees that this will work for the next student, but we have identified a process, as well as a way to develop and organize some possibilities. And we maximized our work by adding in some quick video responses without assigning the classroom teacher to be at his beck and call.
We believe the single most important factor:
Planning to remove the scaffolds before we began.
Thank you, Betsy, Beth, Deb, Kathleen, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for this daily forum each March. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here.
#SOL18: March 29
Serial Story: Scene 6
Okay before the month ends, here’s a return to Maria’s story.
(Continued from Scene 1, Scene 2 & 3, Scene 4, and Scene 5)
“Only 20 minutes left.” Face wrinkled. Can smell her fear . . . Staring at the clock again. 9:40 pm.
Maria paced, “What’s the deal with the ambulance?” she wondered. “The after-game crowd is always here by now.” She stopped, turned, and peered out the front window.
“What do you think, Juan? Did the game just go long?”
He came out of the kitchen, shuffling over to the door to check on traffic out in the street. “Nada,” he said.
Smile long forgotten, Maria paced again. “So close,” she thought. “Just $4.82 more tonight and I will have the rent money. Anything else i make tonight or tomorrow will be mine to spend.”
The minute hand continued to tick away. Headlights, and then a car pulled in and parked. Five minutes before ten. Maria raced to fill water glasses, still praying for a crowd . . . but willing to settle for just four or five tables of customers.
As the door opens, her expectant smile turns down. It’s Joe, the owner. “Where is everybody?” He looks around as if customers are hiding under the tables.
Maria shrugs her shoulders. “That’s what we were wondering. The ambulance went by 20 minutes ago. It’s quit snowing so at least if someone got hurt they won’t be lying in a pile of snow on the field . . . I hope.”
“Well, what do you two want to do? Stay open a bit longer or go ahead and close up?” Joe steps behind the counter. “Juan, are you ready to go home?”
Juan starts to nod his head and then sees the expression on Maria’s face. He remains mute, waiting for Maria to speak.
Maria says, “I think people will be cold and hungry. If we only knew whether the game was over, then it would be easier to decide.” And in unison, they turn towards the lights and sounds behind them on Main Street. Cars pulling up out front, doors slamming, voices, the door opening and a steady stream of people. All talking at once. Loud voices. Cold air. Red noses and cheeks. Coats tightly fastened to keep out the cold.
“Three coffees over here, Maria.”
“Hot chocolate here, Maria.”
It looks like every seat is filled. Maria’s face is consumed by a grin stretching from ear to ear. “The tips don’t even have to be good and I’ll be able to make some extra money,” she thought. Busy at Joe’s Diner on a Friday night after the football game was often good for $20.00 or more in tips. But with the excitement of the ambulance, there was a story here that just might cause the diners to linger a little longer to tell their own stories about what delayed the game. After all, her homework was done and she had no place to go until 11 am when she had to be back at the diner for her Saturday shift.
Disaster averted. Rent paid. “Wait til I tell Mama when I talk to her tomorrow. Maybe she’ll have good news about Grandma and she will tell me when she’ll be back. I miss my family. I don’t really like living alone.” She picked up her order pad and started through the crowd taking orders and turning them in to Juan, bouncing from table to table.
Thank you, Betsy, Beth, Deb, Kathleen, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for this daily forum each March. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here.
Did the story end as you predicted?
What details did you expect to have wrapped up?
How might you construct your own version of a serial story?
#SOL18: March 28
Drip! Drip! Drip! Drip!
Gently, slowly,
Each drop distinctly different.
Read, comment, read, comment,
Catch up, catch up, catch up,
A slicer’s work is never done!
Booming thunder
Loud and rhythmic
Not just white noise.
Write, read, write, revise
Let it rest, let it brew
A writer’s work is never done!
Pounding, roaring, louder and louder
Mya crouching and hiding
Lightning has arrived.
No time to nap, relax
Or read for fun today
A PD presenter’s work is never done!
Thank you, Betsy, Beth, Deb, Kathleen, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for this daily forum each March. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here.
#SOL18: March 27 Spring
Spring?
Temps rise
Green tendrils peek out
Rain showers
Signs of Spring.
A snowstorm
Blankets the ground
Melting rapidly
Signs of Winter.
Back and forth
White and green
Rain and snow
A bit of Spring – a bit of Winter.
Never easy
Seasons overlap
Winter is leaving –
Spring is arriving!
Thank you, Betsy, Beth, Deb, Kathleen, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for this daily forum each March. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here.
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#SOL18: March 26 A March March
Not the first
Probably not the last
But a march for the books
Created by students
Enacted by students
Led by students
Encompassing the world
And demanding change.
What about the “Naysayers”?
They should have stayed in school March 14.
They walked OUT for 17 minutes of silence to honor the 17 dead.
They should “walk up” and make friends with the disenfranchised.
Respect for their peers, who are alone, should occur every day.
They should arm the teachers.
Teachers already provide instruction and in many cases, act as:
social workers, nurses, truant officers, coaches, curriculum writers,
test monitors, behavior management specialists,
cooks, transportation provider, time manager, hall monitor,
and every other role legislated/mandated in your state.
They should have spent the money from the march on education and services for the mentally ill.
When the President signed the Executive Order that allowed
easier access to guns for the mentally ill?
When Congress has reduced the funding for mentally ill individuals,
the students should supplant it with their funding?
The students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were organized, articulate, and such exemplar products of our public schools.
Speaking (and publicly puking from fear) from the heart to explain that this has become the “new normal” with active shooter drills, in between test prep, and wondering about college acceptance letters, prom and graduation. Those events their 14 classmates cannot participate in because they are dead. Those seventeen lives lost in six minutes and twenty seconds.
They are fighting for their lives.
They are fighting for the lives of all the children that come after them.
They are fighting for the lives of ALL folks lost to gun violence.
They deserve to be heard.
They deserve our respect.
They deserve our praise.
They deserve our support.
They are our future.
Thank you, Betsy, Beth, Deb, Kathleen, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for this daily forum each March. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here.
And special thanks to Margaret Simon for the helpful advice on this post. Check out her post, “Marching”, here. Other slices can be found here, here and here.
#SOL18: March 25
My most popular blog post is “Lexile Level is NOT Text Complexity CCSS.R.10” and it looks like this. It’s almost five years old so it’s time to revisit and reflect on what we now know about “Text Complexity”.
It’s not surprising that these three very different texts could have similar lexile levels. Lexiles are all about the quantitative features of text complexity.
Here’s what a google search for “lexiles” turns up.
Retrieved from google.com 3.24.18
1.7 million results
And the first one says ” matching readers with texts” . . .
Is that really the goal?
This ASCD publication, excerpted from A Close Look at Close Reading, asks you to rank these six elementary texts to determine their order. What do you think? How would that ranking look?
- —The Very Hungry Caterpillar
- —Volcanoes: Nature’s Incredible Fireworks
- —Because of Winn-Dixie
- —Martin’s Big Words
- —Diary of a Wimpy Kid
- —Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
What are you thinking?
How would you rank these?
Which is #1? Which is #6?
- —The Very Hungry Caterpillar
- —Volcanoes: Nature’s Incredible Fireworks
- —Because of Winn-Dixie
- —Martin’s Big Words
- —Diary of a Wimpy Kid
- —Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
A favorite source that I like to use to evaluate text complexity is TeachingBooks.net Do you know it? Have you used it? There is no cost. Not all titles are always found but they also accept teacher ratings in order to complete their data sets.
According to TeachingBooks.net, Diary of a Wimpy Kid has the highest lexile level. (Volanoes: Nature’s Incredible Fireworks does not have a lexile level available.) The actual rating from the site looks like this and places it between third and fifth grade.
Would you say that Diary of a Wimpy Kid was the most complex text of the six listed?
Lexiles are only the quantitative measure – one of three measures of text complexity. The other two are Qualitative Measures and the Reader and Task and all three are EQUAL by the definition.
What resources are you using for text complexity?
How are all three parts included?
When does text complexity REALLY matter?
Thank you, Betsy, Beth, Deb, Kathleen, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for this daily forum each March. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here.
It’s really not about always working with HARD texts. When we want to plan a series for instruction, we want a range of texts that students can work with that increases in complexity so that we know they can do that work. We need to have our “best guesses” confirmed. And sometimes, we need to know that the emotional and content load of the passage is appropriate for the age/grade. There’s no one single factor that makes text selection easy. It’s a combination of many factors, including student choice, that needs to be part of the consideration when applying “text complexity” tools!
The results according to TeachingBooks.net
Lexile.com suggests these grade levels . . .
It’s complicated!
#SOL18: March 24
The FAQS: Day of Guide, Map
When? Saturday, March 24th at 12:00 PM
DC Entrances:
- Pennsylvania Avenue and 12th Street, NW
- Constitution Avenue and 7th Street, NW
- Indiana Avenue and 7th Street, NW
How can I volunteer? Answer
Twitter: @amarch4ourlives
In May of 1970, the youth of our country united after Kent State. There is an historical precedent for our youngsters to rise up. (Link) Activists come in all ages! Peace, prayers and hope that everyone is safe on March 24, 2018.
Where will you be on March 24th?
What will be your role during the “March for our Lives”?
Thank you, Betsy, Beth, Deb, Kathleen, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for this daily forum each March. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here.
#SOL18: March 23
Do they? Do they not?
Yesterday’s post was a poem about drivers using their turn signals (here).
Data time. Do note that this was raw data collected while driving. Not verified. Perhaps not 100% accurate. Tally marks on the back of an envelope.
Who was the best/worst at using their turn signals when driving?
Truck drivers?
Other car drivers?
Me – who was complaining?
Your predictions before reading further . . .
And the envelope of data that has been kept on Funk and Wagnall’s front porch . . . hermetically sealed . . .
Truck Drivers Changing Lanes
Car Drivers Changing Lanes
Me – Driving and Changing Lanes
21 / 23 times = 91.3%
Who was the best on Friday at using turn signals during this two hour sample?
Not I, but the truck drivers. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that it was a smaller sample. And I was surprised as I was expecting other car drivers to be at 2% or less due to recent driving experiences when I know that no one used turn signals. Are tally marks the best recording device? Perhaps not, but they can verify or eliminate an initial hypothesis . . . and lead one to a different question or data collection method!
What data are you collecting today?
How will you collect it?
How will you display it?
Thank you, Betsy, Beth, Deb, Kathleen, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for this daily forum each March. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here.
#SOL18: March 22
My mentor/inspiration text today comes from a middle school student in Virginia and you can read her work here.
Take a minute and check out the link, please!
I wish I wrote this well many days!
Today I couldn’t tell where you were going.
Today I was supposed to just travel from here to there.
Today I was supposed to just take a simple trip that I’ve made before.
I can tell you what, it isn’t easy and not my usual fare.
So, all I can say is,
“Ummm, what’s going on with turn signals?”
Today I watched you slow down, speed up and slow down again.
Today I was supposed to just travel from here to there.
Today I was supposed to catch up on listening to my Voxer posts.
I can tell you what, it isn’t easy and not my usual fare.
So, all I can say is,
“Ummm, what’s going on with turn signals?”
Weaving in,
Slowing there,
I’m supposed to be in my lane cruising,
I can tell you what,
it isn’t easy and not my usual fare.
So, all I can say is,
“Ummm, what’s going on with turn signals?”
How do you respond to situations you cannot change?
With dignity? With grace?
In this case, with road rage?
So many choices I can make when I decide HOW to respond!
Thank you, Betsy, Beth, Deb, Kathleen, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for this daily forum each March. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here.
