Identity

It’s so interesting to ask seven-year olds what they think of themselves.  Sometimes they are spot on with the image they portray and other times they say something totally unexpected.  Some kids are over-confident while others are really hard on themselves.  It’s pretty much like a tiny adult talking 🙂

I know that my words and actions can be very powerful in a child’s identity.  When trying to correct behaviors in the classroom I often say things like “we are respectful” or “we have kind hearts” to try to get kids to associate themselves with those attributes.  This week I have been struck by the idea of asking children questions about their behaviors and how they are associated with their identity.  When a child pushes another kid I might ask “Are you the kind of kid that pushes other kids?”  Or I might ask if they are the kind of kid that does things to hurt someone’s feelings.  Immediately they always say no.  More than once or twice kids have blushed when I have asked them a question about their behavior.

It’s all about giving kids the opportunity to make a choice.  To choose to be someone who hurts someone’s feeling or to choose to be kind.  I want children to own their actions and take them on as part of their identity.  I plan on sticking this out for the next couple of weeks to see the effects.  I’ve had to really train myself to stop and pose a question instead of just saying “stop pushing.”  I’ll be interested to see if this method changes or influences how some of my students think of themselves!

Putting It Just So

After reading the first two chapters from the book Choice Words, How Our Language Affects Children’s Learning, by Peter H. Johnston I had to stop and think for a long time about my word choice in the classroom.  I was overwhelmed with a flood of thoughts and reflections on my daily interactions with my students.

To start with the positive, I noticed a lot of things I already do.  In my class we talk a lot about what went well when we are done with a project or an activity.  We also reflect on what we would do differently next time.  Sometimes we record our thinking in a journal or chart it all together as a class.  I have noticed that students are often wanting to turn the focus onto the bad behaviors.  They want to talk about what kids were doing to bother them throughout the group experience.  By noticing this turn in classroom conversation I see a big flashing arrow pointing towards what I need to work on!

I also know that I am guilty of using the phrase “good readers.”  By using this, Johnston points out, “it leaves open the question of who the bad readers are and how can you tell.”  I point this out because I think it links back to our class reflection on projects or group work.  There is a lot of room to look for and talk about bad group members or bad classroom workers because we are focusing so much on what a good group member or a good worker looks like.  There is an obvious good-bad continuum at play in my classroom.  We are all group members.  By knowing that we are all workers, learners, readers, writers, and scientists, we can focus on how we treat each other and our environment instead of highlighting who is good and who is bad.

Another word choice goal I want to set for my self is my words used during behavior management during work time.  I am guilty of threatening punishment when a child isn’t doing their work.  “If I look over and see you talking again, you are going to get your clip moved down.”  I am forcing the child to read or write out of fear of punishment.  I want to tweak my language to get students to see themselves as people who respect and care about the other children in the room and see themselves as people who can solve problems in the classroom.  Which of course these are the ideals I want to instil in my students.  These are some of the reasons I became a teacher and I love what I get to do everyday.

Linking Texts Part One

In second grade, my team has been integrating social studies into our reading curriculum.  We originally discovered a text called Our Children Can Soar by Michelle Cook and thought it would make a great text for a paideia seminar during our history unit in social studies.  If you haven’t seen this book, you should check it out.  The pictures are amazing and it really creates an important image of how one’s actions can set up history for someone else to change the world!

The text links famous African Americans and in the end it points to the fact that their actions have changed history.  It starts with the lines “our ancestors faught” and continues to credit George Washington Carver, Jesse Owens, Ella Fitzgerald, Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, Marin Luther King Jr and ends with Barack Obama.  So we have set about learning the stories of all of these people.  We have read books, listened to songs, watched videos, and looked at websites about most of these people.

While doing this we have been working on many skills!  We’ve been making timelines, comparing multiple texts on the same topic, picking out and using nonfiction text features, and figuring out the meaning of new words in a text.  The boys and girls are starting to pick up on the fact that each of these people were the first African American to do something BIG!

They haven’t seen the book Our Children Can Soar yet and next week we are going to use it as a seminar text.  I think the kids are going to FLIP!  I can hear them now saying “we know about him/her!”  During the seminar we are going to explore the idea of other people creating opportunities for us to succeed and what it means to be a person that changes history.  After the seminar I will post to let ya’ll know how it went!

Top 5 Things To Look Forward To

Top 5 Things That I’m Implementing This Quarter During Second Grade Literacy

1.  . Using Biography Texts of African American Figures that Lead to a Paidea Seminar on Our Children Can Soar!

We will be reading about all kinds of historical figures including George Washington Carver, Jesse Owens, Ella Fitzgerald, Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, Rubie Bridges, and Barack Obama.  While reading these we will be working on creating timelines, seeing how people affect histroy, figuring out unknown words in a text, using text features, and comparing and contrasting texts on the same topic.  As the culminating event we will read the book Our Children Can Soar and have a seminar discussing how all of the people we have read about has made a historical impact that leads to other events in history.

2.  Doing a Famous Artists Integration Unit

We will be reading about a famous artist from each continent.  We will make a timeline including all of the artists and their major accomplishments, we will make replicas of some of the art while learning the importance and impact the artists’ art has had on their cultures.

3.  Sharing Our Research With Local Historians

Students will choose their own historical figure to research.  We will share our reports with local historians at the NC History Museum.  Hopefully they can give us a few pointers on being real historians!

4.  We Will Use List Writing To Write About Solids and Liquids

We have to spice up our unit on solids and liquids and “writing like a scientist.”  So maybe we will make top 5 lists about the best solids and liquids.  Or the top 5 things you have to know about solids and liquids.  We’ll see about this one…

5.  Integrating Some Critical Literacy in a Paidea Seminar on The Sandwich Swap

We will read the book The Sandwich Shop and learn a little about compassion and culture through the sharing of hummus and pb&j in the lunch room.  We will talk about the way we view the world and what we think of people that are different than ourselves.  We may even eat a little hummus ourselves…

It makes me excited to have exciting things planned on the horizon!  It’s always challenging to try new things but worth the work.

Authentic Writing in Second Grade

I’ve still been reflecting on my time at the Paideia Conference. It has made me think a lot about my teaching and how I am engaging my students in our curriculum. Most recently I’ve been thinking about our writing curriculum and what we are writing throughout the year. Let me start by saying that writing is not my favorite subject to teach, so it’s sort of ironic that I am on this writing kick.

In second grade, the basic run down of our year in writing is realistic story writing, small moment narrative writing, paragraph research papers, and opinion reviews…. So then I am faced with the task of making this authentic, engaging, and connected to the rest of our curriculum with an audience to share our writing with.

Starting off, from one of my Paideia sessions, we looked at entire list of writing tasks with potential audiences. Some ideas include but are not limited to diary entries, newspaper articles, brochures, classified ads, obituaries, memoirs, petitions, constitutions and declarations, speeches and there were about a zillion more. Then we can also add in digital literacy with tweets, emails, and blog posts.   After you write these things, it is also important for kids to have someone to share this with that has actual experience with this kind of writing or someone who could use the information from the children’s writing. Audiences could include local government, journalists, historians, museum curators or docents, store owners, park rangers, scientists, obviously this list could continue for forever.

This has all gotten me thinking about how limited our writing instruction really is in the classroom and how we only share it with our parents at conferences or hang it in the hall for other kids to read as they walk by. Quite frankly, I couldn’t tell you the last time I wrote a story, yet fifty percent of the school year we work on story writing. Not that this writing isn’t valuable, but we place so much value on it that we are ignoring a lot of real writing that is all around us.

 

So now that there is all of this floating out there…I have to start small and apply it when and where I can. Here are a few suggestions that myself and a coworker have already come up with:

Next quarter we do a whole unit on research, time lines, and historical figures. Instead of the same old three paragraph report that we have always done, we want to do something different. Maybe the kids will write obituaries for their historical figures or diary entries pretending to be those people. Then we could share our writing with historians from the NC History Museum and local librarians.

In the spring, we learn about insect life cycles and visit a local nature park. At the park the kids get to hunt for insects, wade in the ponds, and collect insects. Afterwards the kids always research insects and write reports. Instead, what if the children create brochures about local insects that we found at the nature park and we actually copy them and place them at the nature park. How powerful would that be for the kids to take family members and friends to the park and have their writing be there as a resource?!?!

Making a change in the way we teach something is a process and a shift in the way we think. The classroom is always changing and it should continue to change to do what is best for kids. Reading and writing is powerful. It is how we communicate, learn about the world around us, and share our voice with the world. Please leave comments and suggestions with more ideas on authentic writing tasks or authentic audiences!

Paideia Seminars and Literacy

This past week I was lucky enough to attend the National Paideia Conference in Charlotte, NC. I learned a lot and it was really inspiring meeting such a diverse group of educators. There were teachers, administrators, professors, people working for DPI and many others. As after any conference, I have come back with a ton of new ideas and I want to take everything I do and tweak it! We all get a little over ambitious sometimes.

For those of you that don’t know what Paideia is, it is a form of active learning. The three columns of instruction in the classroom is didactic instruction, Paideia seminar, and intellectual coaching. You should really check out the website below:

http://www.paideia.org/

This year’s conference was focused on the use of seminars in the classroom and centered around the concept of time. Throughout the two days I really was thinking about how I use seminars to facilitate conversations around literacy and social justice, since that seems to be my theme these days… I was also thinking about my use of seminars to connect reading, writing, and speaking and listening into a meaningful and authentic experience for students.

In one of the breakout sessions that I attended, I got a whole slew of new titles that I thought I would share with you to help launch some great conversations in your classrooms.

First one principal talked about how during the first 3 week of school kids are introduced to tons of pictorial biographies. These biographies are chosen for the purpose of showing students famous people that started as children readers and were curious about something. Students need to see literate kids that become amazing adults. I thought this was brilliant! Biographies like Me Jane by Patrick McDonald or Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet were given as examples. I found this blog post with a great list of 30 biographies:

http://delightfulchildrensbooks.com/2012/10/21/30-picture-book-biographies/

 

It’s Back to School We Go! By Ellen Jackson gives kids a context for what it is like for kids around the globe to go back to school. I love the idea that when we read about another place in the world, we can look at this book to make a connection to kids that live there and see what going back to school is like for them.

I heard about this great book, What do you do with an idea? By Kobi Yamada. It’s getting kids exciting about science and how science works. Great to connect across subject areas.

 

I have many more that I will keep sharing with you. I would love to build a network of readers and teachers to share these resources for teaching big ideas through picture books. Do you all have anywhere you go to find great books? Any resources? Does your media specialist share ideas with teachers? How does this work in your school and at your space? Where do you go when you want to find exciting new books to challenge students with in your classroom? I’d love any and all ideas!

Motivation, Reflection, and Self Esteem Through Student Led Conferences

This week our school district had a teacher workday and my entire staff spent the whole day in a collaborative arts integration and magnet planning session. As a staff we discussed our student led conferences and the use of Paidea seminars in the classroom.

We began using student led conferences a few years back to replace the traditional teacher led conference. It promotes student ownership over their work and communication between the parents and students. Each child has a binder that houses work from all subject areas that they then present to their parents. The problem is that the conferences have basically turned into each student showing their parents their tests. Our magnet theme is rich with arts integration and project based learning and many members on my staff feel like this binder is the polar opposite picture of what we are going for at our school. Plus, by showing a test are kids really telling their parents what they know and what they have learned? Not to mention, what does it do to a child’s self esteem to keep showing their parents a bunch of tests that they did poorly on?

My small group that I worked with during this session came up with a more interactive plan where the students would have tasks based on objectives across the curriculum to complete and share with their parents during the conference. For example, the students would have to solve a word problem and explain how they got their answer instead of just showing their parents a test on word problems. They would also show their parents a mini science experiment and explain the results and show any projects completed during the semester.

This idea was met with some debate when presented to the rest of our staff. We were told that kids need to show their parents what they don’t know for their parents to understand their learning. I sat through the endless debate wondering, to what purpose does it serve to have a seven year old tell their parents that they can’t read what they are supposed to be reading or solve the problems that they should be solving? Don’t we want our kids to show growth? Don’t we want our kids to be excited to come to school and learn, not defeated because they can’t keep up or perform?

Reading levels are big in elementary school. Each grade level has certain benchmarks that the students are supposed to meet. Many staff members wanted to be sure that this information was included in the binders. Entering second grade, children are supposed to be reading a level J and their goal at the end of the year is a level M. If a child is reading a D at the beginning of second grade, realistically their goal is not going to be a level M by the end of the year. Should a child have to tell their parent in a chart that they are supposed to grow nine reading levels in a school year? I think a child should tell their parents this is where I started and this is how much I have grown!

This whole thing has gotten me thinking, what are our expectations for students and why are those our expectations? Is it about how hard the words are on the page or is it about what students do with those words after they have read them? I want my students to be proud of themselves, to be kind and caring citizens, and to want to contribute to the world in a positive way. That’s why I became a teacher, not to get kids reading a level M by the end of second grade. As teachers we have to stand up for their students and do what is best for the whole child.

Trying to use Literacy to promote Social Justice in the classroom

It is always fun and exciting to start a school year with a fresh group of students.  You never have any idea what is going to happen, where the year will take you, or what successes and failures you will meet in the next 180 days. One of the reasons that I became a teacher is because I wanted to teach for a more socially just society. I truly believe that the classroom is where young children can encounter and overcome social stereotypes and develop their own voice for social change in the world. Young children are by nature already obsessed with justice. They want everything to be fair and immediately report out when something is unjust. I frequently hear students reporting unkind words said by their classmates or a collective gasp is let out when a child puts their hands on someone else out of anger.

I love the purity of kid’s hearts. They don’t understand why the world can’t get along or why somebody would hate someone else based on the color of their skin. It is shocking to them that anyone would criticize someone else based on what they look like, where they live, or the religion that they practice.

After recently taking a grad school class on social justice in the classroom, I have been reinvigorated to create a safe classroom where we can have conversations about injustices in the world and empower each other to overcome these injustices even at the age of seven.

I began the year reading the book The Colors of Us by Karen Katz.  We read the book to bring awareness to the fact that we are not all the same but we are all wonderful. The kids really took to the idea of the unique names for the colors of skin that Katz uses and we immediately created self-portraits. In the past, I had seen everyone reaching for the same skin color markers, and this year, after reading this book, I saw a lot more careful consideration of skin color. We used the Crayola multicultural markers to help us select our skin tones.

Our first comprehension standard for the year in English Language Arts is asking and answering questions while reading literature. We were focusing on asking “right there questions” that could be easily answered in the text and deeper how, why, and what if questions that go beyond the text. To start the unit we read the book 10,000 Dresses by Marcus Ewert. In this book, the little boy wants to wear dresses and everyone in his family kept telling him that he couldn’t because he was a boy. I could tell right away that my kids were confused and wrestling with this concept in their head. They were appalled that his brother told him he would hurt him if he wore dresses. There was also a conversation about why the parents wouldn’t let him wear dresses and why the kept calling the boy he if he in fact was calling himself she. This prompted a wonderful conversation about what we think of ourselves and that each person should be allowed to act in whatever way made him or her happy. The kids all agreed that the little boy should be allowed to wear whatever he would like.

We also read the book Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting. This is a story of a little boy and his dad that are homeless and are living in the airport. Most importantly the students had a lot of questions about the fact that the dad had a job and they still could not afford a home. They had a million questions and I could really see their minds working about the way our world works and if it is fair.

 

I am hoping to continue using and seeking books that challenge the way my students view our world. I want them to see ways to make the world a better place and fight for that as they grow up. If you have any suggestions of texts to use, please leave a comment. We need more resources to jumpstart conversations in the elementary classroom!

~Ms. Dunning