Upcoming October 11-13 Visit

Good Morning, Everyone,

I hope you are enjoying your holiday weekend. As I write, it is raining hard here on the mainland...just the kind of a day for a good read. 

I am writing to confirm my October 11-13 visit.  Following is my tentative schedule.

On Tuesday, I plan to spend the day with Cherie and Megan - continuing to work on the data and scheduling.  If we have any time, I would like to get some classroom visits in as well.*

On Wednesday, I would like to continue to make classroom visits - looking at guided reading.  This will require a schedule accompanied by lesson plans given to Cherie prior to my arrival.*

On Thursday, I will be working with the K-5 teachers during the time Bruce has given us.  It looks like we will have a few hours in the afternoon.  

We will be reviewing writing data and using it to plan mini lessons.

Please remember to bring:

•  the high, medium, and low narrative writing papers from your class,
• 8 copies of each paper to be distributed to the teachers, (Do not scores these copies.  We will do that when we are together.)
• your copy of Calkins' Writing Pathways,
• your laptop.

This is a tentative outline.   As always, I will be flexible based on teacher and student needs.

I am looking forward to visiting all of you and sharing all of the exciting teaching/learning that is happening in your classrooms.

See you soon,

Darlene

September 19-21, 2016 Visit. Following is a photographic journal of my first visit at Vinalhaven School. While there, I observed many of the responsive classroom practices in place as well as powerful literacy instruction. Bravo!

• Mr. Warren's 4/5 ELA

• Mr. Warren reviews the plot line graphic organizer students and teacher have used to analyze stories they are reading together as well as a story they have written as a class. 

• The terms they learned are used interchangeably in reading and writing.  The literary terms are academic language.

•  Each student has a copy of the graphic organizer on their desk.

• After reviewing the terms and modeling the writing process, students begin to work on writing craft - learning the difference between telling and showing.  Mr. Warren allows students to discuss their thoughts and then begin writing, circulating among the students and coaching them as needed. 

•  Teaching and modeling a writing strategy and then individualizing instruction based on one to one needs incorporates the best instructional strategies.

Mrs. Paquet's 4/5 Science

• Mrs. Paquet teaches close reading, according to CCSS guidelines, to a heterogeneously grouped 4/5 class.  Students read the same article.  Mrs. Paquet had students read the first part of the article on the computer as the computer read the article to the students. 

• Next Ms. Paquet, read the article to the class as they followed along.  She stopped at strategic points, allowing students to go back into the text in order to reread and infer the meaning of the two vocabulary words they were investigation.  Directions were given in order to instruct students in strategic thinking.

• Strategic teaching with appropriate scaffolding is key to students success.

 Ms. Reidy's 3rd Grade ELA

• Ms. Reidy's classroom is populated with anchor charts in many content areas.  These charts support students as they learn and implement new learning strategies.

• Ms. Reidy introduces a writing anchor chart.  She introduces the new chart as she scaffolds children applying new strategies to examples from their writing this afternoon.   

• Modeling, scaffolding, and applying strategies to their individual work, insures student success.

Mrs. Andrews' 2nd Grade ELA

•  During the literacy acquisition stage, many students need time to practice strategies teachers have modeled.  This period of literacy development is about learning the strategies and taking them to the level of automaticity.  Establishing this process at the beginning of the year is crucial.  Here, students work to practice new strategies learned based on their individual needs.

 

 

• Schedules and Anchor Charts are posted around the room to guide students' practice.

 

 

• Individualized instruction followed by practice assures student success!

First Visit September 19-21, 2016.

                                  Good Morning, Everyone,

1.  On the 19th, I will be arriving on the first boat.

Cherie, Megan, and I are planning to spend the day administering and scoring DRAs to those 6, 7, 8 students who qualify.

After school, Cherie has placed me on the agenda for the K-5 team meeting - where we will schedule visits to classrooms during the morning for the 20th and 21st. 

2.  On the 20th, I will be in classrooms coaching.  I am thinking the focus for the beginning of the year should be guided reading, but I am open to whatever teachers want me to observe and discuss.

In the afternoon, Cherie and I are meeting with Nate to clarify the goals for the year and the procedures we will follow.

Then we will finish the day with planning for the year.

I will also be available after school if teachers have any questions.

3.  On the 21st, I will be in classrooms coaching again.  

I am looking forward to seeing all of you.

Darlene

Here is a link to a great video on assessment. It was written by a principal at a Singapore school. From Fantastic things in this world. Thanks for sharing, Carol Ashton.

  

Letter from a Principal

A Note from Your Writing Committee - Starting Off!

Good Morning, Everyone,

Welcome back to the start of an exciting school year.  Your writing committee has been busy this summer preparing for the implementation of the Calkins Writing Workshop in the K-5 classrooms.

Today you will receive your materials for the upcoming year.  The district has purchased the Calkins Units of study for each grade level, as well as a copy of assessment text, Writing Pathways.  Together, these two texts will provide us a framework as we implement the writing workshops in our classrooms.  I understand several of the teachers on our team have worked with the program before and  we are all looking forward to having them share their experiences with us.

We will be meeting as a team on October 13 as a team.  Between now and then:

•  please administer the narrative prompts to your students and bring them to the meeting.  We will score them there.  Please use your your copy of Writing Pathways to administer the assessments.  Be sure to follow the directions carefully and take notes on writing behaviors as directed.  Please bring your copy of Writing Pathways to the meeting as well.

• please review your copy of A Guide to the Writing Workshop, appropriate for your grade level, and come prepared to discuss the highlights of the book as it relates to your class.  If you have any questions you would like to discuss as a team, please bring them to the meeting.

•  please review the framework below.  It is a quick outline of Calkins' workshop in general.  I will also post it on the Writing 2016-2017 on the Vinalhaven Blog.  You can leave any comments or suggestions you have there.

Finally,  please take a minute and go to the Vinalhaven Blog and familiarize yourself with it.  Please sign up to follow the blog by e-mail.  This way, you will receive notices of when something is posted.  You will find the gadget to do this on the right hand side of the blog.  It looks like this:

Thank you for your time.

Wishing you a great year.

Please don't hesitate to call me if you have a question on need assistance.

See you soon,      Darlene   

Vinalhaven Writing Workshop

Mini-lesson Format

Topic : _____________________   Session:  #____           Date:_______ 

Getting Ready:
Connection:
*Name the Teaching Point:
Teaching:
Active Engagement:
Link:

                  

Conferring and Small Group:
Conferring - Students:	Small Groups – Students:
Mid-Workshop Teaching:
Share:

Welcome Back!

Good Morning,

If you are viewing this photo of your writing committee, you have accepted the invitation to join our blog!  Congratulations!  We know that you will enjoy reviewing the materials we have saved as well as keeping up on the latest happenings in writing at the Vinalhaven School.

Your writing committee worked on June 20-22 in order to map out plans for the writing program K-5 for the upcoming year.

We are eager to share our plans with you and hear your feedback.  Over the next few weeks, I will be posting information here. 

Please feel free to leave comments!

Please stay tuned!

See you soon, Darlene

Some good ideas on conferencing, courtesy of Choice Literacy.

February 20, 2016 - Issue #490 If you are having trouble reading this newsletter, click here for a Web-based version.     Act the Way You Want to Feel   We won’t make ourselves more creative and productive by copying other people’s habits, even the habits of geniuses; we must know our own nature, and what habits serve us best.                                                                          Gretchen Rubin   When I got married, my mom gave me a piece of advice that I have never forgotten: Act the way you want to feel. She explained, if you want to feel loving toward your husband, act loving toward him. As I was happily preparing for my wedding, I couldn’t imagine a time that I would ever not feel loving toward my husband, but I stored the advice away. I soon discovered that as much as I love my husband, I don’t always feel that way 24 hours a day. The small irritations--a task left undone, a toilet seat left up--as well as the big annoyances--a disagreement over a bathroom remodeling project--can sometimes put a damper on my affection. Whenever I find myself hanging on to those negative feelings, I always return to my mom’s advice: Act the way you want to feel. And it really does work; your behavior changes your attitude. It’s really hard to feel annoyed with my husband when I’m giving him a warm hug. I was recently reading Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin when I came across this sentence: “It’s easy to assume that we act because of the way we feel, but to a great degree, we feel because of the way we act.” Here was my mom’s old advice in a different context. I had always applied it to my marriage, but it got me thinking about how it could apply to my habits at work. At the beginning of the school year, I had made a goal to make a regular habit of conferring with my high school students about their reading. I scheduled conference days into my plan book as a way to ensure that I made the time to talk with my students and it worked great! I felt so empowered by this new habit--conferring was making me more connected to my students and more in tune with their reading successes and struggles. Then other things started getting in the way--projects that needed more time, unexpected schedule changes, and snow days. By midterm, I had fallen off the wagon with conferring. It had happened gradually, but finally one of my students asked, “When are you going to have time to talk to us about our books again?” I knew something had to be done. I was feeling defeated and, worst of all, disconnected from my students. That’s when I applied my mom’s advice. If I want to feel more connected to students, I need to act connected to students--it’s nearly impossible to feel disconnected from a student when I am talking with him one-on-one. This small, simple shift in perspective gave me the push I needed to make time for conferring once again. What I’ve come to realize is that “act the way you want to feel” is a way of preventing negative feelings from robbing you of the positive experiences in life, whatever the context may be. This week we look at notetaking in writing conferences. Plus more as always -- enjoy! Gretchen Schroeder Contributor, Choice Literacy Free for All   [For sneak peeks at our upcoming features, quotes and extra links,  follow Choice Literacy on Twitter: @ChoiceLiteracy or Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ChoiceLiteracy or Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/choiceliteracy/]      Mandy Robek shares how she has revised the records she keeps during writing conferences: http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=1339 With more than 75% of students receiving extra support in a high-need district, Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan struggled to find tools to help teachers collaborate around student needs. Enter the personal conferring notebook, a terrific vehicle for teachers to record insights about students working with multiple teachers and specialists: http://leadliteracy.com/articles/82 Ruth Ayres asks, Is Writing Essential? Her answer might surprise you: http://www.ruthayreswrites.com/2016/01/is-writing-essential.html Ruth explores the basics of writing workshops in her latest online course, beginning on March 2. The course includes three webcasts, a DVD, a book, videos, print resources, and personal responses from Ruth. For details and registration information, click on the link below: http://www.choiceliteracy.com/workshops-detail.php?id=66