Category: Teaching

Writing Learning into Shape: Using Concrete Poetry to Explore & Reflect Content Knowledge

Post author By admin
Post date May 24, 2023
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This post is written by Brooke L. Hardin. To learn more about Brooke, please visit the bottom of this post.

What Is Concrete Poetry?

Concrete poetry, sometimes called shape poetry, is poetry whose visual appearance matches the subject of the poem. The words of the poem form a shape or shapes which illustrate the poem’s topic in visual form as well as through their literal meaning. This type of poetry has been used for thousands of years since the ancient Greeks began to enhance the meanings of their poetry by arranging their characters in visually pleasing ways back in the 3^rd and 2^nd Centuries BC (Nesbitt, 2023).

In the 1950s, a group of Brazilian poets known as the Noigandres developed a manifesto to define the work of concrete poetry and give us the name. The manifesto states that concrete poetry communicates its own structure: structure = content (Eppley, 2015).

How to Write Concrete Poetry

There are two main ways to create a concrete poem. The first is referred to as an “Outline Poem.” The writer creates an outline of the subject of the poem or of an object that relates to the subject and fills in the outline with words or phrases. The words or phrases used to fill in the outline usually describe the subject or how it makes the writer feel in some way, provide information connected to the subject, or possibly tell a story related to the subject. Some examples of this technique for concrete poetry are provided in Figures 1 and 2.

Figure 1: Black Hole

Note. From The Day the Universe Exploded My Head: Poems that Take You Into Space and Back Again, by Allan Wolf, 2019, Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press

Figure 2: Buried Treasure

Note. From Shaking Things Up: 14 Young Women Who Changed the World, by Susan Hood, 2018, New York, NY: HarperCollins.

My son and I recently spent an afternoon at a local bike park. Following the trip, he and I co-authored a concrete poem using the “Outline” technique. The video embedded below shows how I used questioning to help him come up with the words and phrases for the poem while I acted as a scribe. Image 3 shows the final poem we created.

Another technique for creating concrete poems is to use the lines of words to make the lines of a drawing. One thing to note about this technique is that the subject does not have to be an object, but it does need to be something that can be drawn with “stick” figures. Examples of these poems are below.

                                                Figure 4: Lightning

Note. From Wet Cement: A Mix of Concrete Poems, by Bob Raczka, 2016, New York, NY: Roaring Brook Press.

Figure 5: Robert’s Four At-Bats

Note. From Technically, It’s Not My Fault: Concrete Poems by John Grandits, 2004, New York, NY: Clarion Books.

Instructional Considerations for Concrete Poetry

When teaching students to write concrete poems, whether using the outline or drawing technique, consider these reminders.

Model, model, model! Planning instruction with the Gradual Release of Responsibility (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983) in mind will help students better understand the cognitive and physical aspects of composing concrete poems.
- Use inquiry to analyze some exemplars like the ones provided above or those found in books listed in the references to help students take notice of the elements of concrete poems.Select a topic as a class and write a concrete poem together, with students offering the words and their arrangement while the teacher acts as a scribe. Use questioning, such as the type seen in the video above, to help students think about their subject and form written ideas from those thoughts.Invite students to co-author a concrete poem as a pair or small group.
- Finally, provide opportunities for students to independently write concrete poems, get feedback from peers, and share their final drafts.
Concrete poems do not need to rhyme.
Concrete poems can be written on traditional paper or digitally. If using paper, suggest to students that they use a pencil when drafting the poems. This allows them to erase and move words around where needed.
Encourage students to play with the size, color, and shape of their letters to better capture the essence of the poem’s subject (e.g., I might write the word TTEEEETHH in different shapes and font sizes when writing about a shark). This helps to reinforce the reciprocal nature of reading and writing by providing students a chance to consider the purpose of their craft moves.

Writing Concrete Poetry to Reflect Content Area Learning

Writing to learn and writing about learning are necessary in content-area classrooms. While many argue and I can agree that these are different notions, writing concrete poems can accomplish the aim of both.

Writing, as discussed above, must involve a discussion of ideas, leveraging the social side of learning where knowledge is co-constructed, and misunderstandings can be clarified. Additionally, when and where questions arise to inform written ideas, further research may occur; thus, more learning takes place during the writing process. For example, a student in a 7th-grade science classroom is drafting a concrete poem about a cell as part of a Life Science unit. They may refer to class notes, talk with a partner, or watch a video about cells to (1) draw the outline of a cell and/or (2) write a line about the nucleus – possibly drawing it inside another shape that is made of letters spelling out “membrane,” given that the nucleus is enclosed in a membrane. The writing of the concrete poem has the potential to reinforce learning that has occurred, provide new content, and/or inspire ways to show learning.

Both the reading and writing of concrete poems present teachers in discipline-specific classrooms with innovative methods for motivating students to engage in the content. Given their interesting appearance and brief lines, concrete poems as supplementary texts in units of study to teach a specific topic (see Image 1 about the Black Hole and Image 2 about the female paleontologist Mary Anning, who, in the early 1800s, found complete fossils that laid the foundation for Darwin’s theory of evolution) may appeal to students who are reluctant to engage with textbooks and other longer documents. As an alternative to traditional analytical research papers and essays, writing concrete poems related to learning may motivate students to take a deeper interest in the content to present their learning in a creative way. I would also maintain that crafting a line of concrete poetry deepens comprehension and calls upon sophisticated critical thinking; taking a line from prose (e.g. an article or textbook) and rewriting it in one’s own words to fit a poetic style is rigorous cognitive work. With regards to standards related to research skills and speaking and listening, I would further suggest that students provide a reference list to accompany the poems and give presentations where they explain craft moves and inspiration for certain lines.

As a former middle grades ELA/Social Studies educator, I can attest that using concrete poetry in a content area classroom allows students to reimagine learned content creatively and critically while deepening and extending their understandings and knowledge. Give it a try and share your poems with me!

References

Eppley, C. (2015, January 21). Concrete Poetry of the Noigandres, 1958-1975. Retrieved from http://avant.org/event/noigandres/

Nesbitt, K. (2023). How to Write a Concrete Poem. Retrieved from https://poetry4kids.com/lessons/how-to-write-a-concrete-poem/

Pearson, P. D., & Gallagher, M. C. (1983). “The Instruction of Reading Comprehension,” Contemporary Educational Psychology, 8, pp. 317-344.

Children’s Literature References & More to Consider

Grandits, J. (2004). Technically it’s not my fault: Concrete poems. Clarion Books.

Grandits, J. (2007). Blue lipstick: Concrete poems. Clarion Books.

Hood, S. (2018). Shaking things up: 14 young women who changed the world. HarperCollins.

Raczka, B. (2016). Wet cement: A mix of concrete poems. Roaring Brook Press.

Wolf, A. (2019). The day the universe exploded my head: Poems to take you into space and back again. Candlewick Press.

Brooke Hardin is an Assistant Professor of Elementary Education at the University of South Carolina Upstate. Her research interests include writing development and instruction for intermediate and middle grades students, teaching and learning through technology and new literacies, literacy professional development and teacher education, and interdisciplinary approaches to reading, writing, and the utilization of Children’s Literature. Her years of experience as an elementary and middle grades classroom teacher and curriculum literacy specialist frame her research interests and commitment to teacher education.

Photo by Valentin Salja on Unsplash

Tags Literacy, poetry

Teaching

Discussion Grouping

This post is written by Shannon Bosley. You can learn more about Dr. Bosley at the bottom of this post.

Discussion is a critical part of developing literacy for all content areas in a secondary setting, but it takes practice and planning for those rich academic discussions to take place. Teachers have told me they have avoided classroom discussion for a variety of reasons: time constraints, fears that the discussion could spiral out of control or even lead to disruptive behavior, worries about not having all the answers if additional questions are surfaced, etc. These are all valid concerns. Along with having pre-established norms and expectations, those concerns can all be alleviated with planning, practice, and protocol use.

Once you have decided the purpose of a discussion, created your guiding questions, and determined the protocol to use, you need to think about how you will group the students. (If you are unsure of which protocol to use, check out the School Reform Initiative’s listing of protocols.) These groupings can be affected by the content, the purpose, the protocol being used, the number of students in the class, or even the furniture or structure of the room. As a 25+ year educator, a piece of advice… don’t let secondary students select for themselves; be strategic. Some considerations to think about when planning for grouping are:

Heterogeneous groups or homogenous groups?
- Skill level – Do you want the groups to be students of similar skill levels or a variety? This could also be affected by the protocol you selected. For example, if you selected Socratic Seminar, did all students receive and read the same text prior to the session? If the readings were differentiated, then that may be a factor in determining the groups.
- Student interest – grouping students of similar interests could help with engagement.
- Student diversity – grouping students of different backgrounds or genders can allow for unique perspectives to be shared.
- Group size – Are there certain roles each person has within the protocol? Too many in a group can lead to some students being left out of the conversation.
Are there any students who need specific considerations due to an IEP, EL status, behavior plan, etc.? Does a particular student need to be or not be with another?
Are there any social dynamics currently happening that could affect the groups? A reasonable question to consider when working with adolescents.
How will the groups be communicated to the students? Will there be a list posted on the board or screen? Are students already sorted into named groups and you are utilizing those?
Do I need to consider furniture movement for the discussion? And if so, does my classroom management address movement in the classroom?
What supports will my students need? Graphic organizer, sentence stems, etc.

If this is the first time to attempt a certain protocol, remember to practice first. Students cannot be expected to be experts on the first try. A practice discussion session focused on a lighter issue such as pop culture topic not only helps the students learn the protocol but you as the teacher can access the interactions of the groupings and make needed adjustments while making sure your discussion norms and expectations are being followed. Take notes on how things went, have students reflect on the discussion, and make changes to the groups as needed.

Students need guidance and practice to engage in academic discussions. It takes time for students and teachers to learn what works and adhere to your norms and expectations. If the first time doesn’t go well, that’s ok! Try again. You could think about a different protocol, changing the groupings, adding a graphic organizer, or revising your guiding questions. Check out the planning checklist below for help in getting ready and reflecting so that your next classroom discussion is even more engaging and productive.

Planning for Academic Discussions Checklist

Planning:	Notes:	Reflections:
Do I have any IEP, behavior or social needs I need to consider? Does the topic have any impact on how the groups are determined?
I determined the protocol for the discussion…Have the students used/practiced this protocol?
How do the desks/tables need to be arranged for the protocol? Do the groups need to be able to see the board/screen?
How do the desks/tables need to be arranged for the protocol?Do the groups need to be able to see the board/screen?
What is the best grouping size for this protocol?
How will I communicate the groups to the class?
What resources do I need to have ready for use during the discussion? (graphic organizer, sentence stems, etc.)
Is there any follow-up, exit ticket, etc. required for students to submit?Is there an evaluative tool for me to use during the discussion or after?

Cover Photo by Kier in Sight on Unsplash

Shannon Bosley, Ed.D., is a 25-year K-12 educational veteran who has served as a middle language arts teacher, school librarian, instructional coach, district technology and curriculum coordinator, and educational consultant. She earned her doctorate in Leadership Studies at Xavier University where she studied reading engagement and leadership effectiveness for school principals. Currently, she is the Principal Investigator (PI) of a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the Institute of Educational Sciences. Her research project examines the Sustainable Coaching and Adaptive Learning for Education (SCALE) model that Reading Ways uses to bring research-based practices to classrooms nationally. Shannon is passionate about promoting adolescent literacy and continues to research reading engagement and motivation for both adolescents and adults.

Please connect with Shannon on Twitter (@shan_bosley) or via email: shannon@readingways.org

Tags discussions, Literacy

Teaching

Prisms, Pathways, and Portals: Disciplinary literacies as tools for possible futures

Post author By admin
Post date May 8, 2023
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This post is written by Michael Manderino. You can learn more about Michael at the bottom of this post.

“We cannot remake the world through schooling, but we can instantiate a vision through pedagogy that creates in microcosm a transformed set of relationships and possibilities for social futures, a vision that is lived in schools. This might involve activities such as simulating work relations of collaboration, commitment, and creative involvement; using the school as a site for mass media access and learning; reclaiming the public space of school citizenship for diverse communities and discourses; and creating communities of learners that are diverse and respectful of the autonomy of lifeworlds.”
New London Group, 1996

It often amazes me how prescient the text (quoted above), A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures (1996) was and what it argued for just before the dawn of the 21st century. Now in the year 2023, using terms like 21st-century learning doesn’t resonate much as we are nearly a quarter way into the 21st century. I often question how much we have really taken up from the ideas even extracted from the quote above. While disciplinary literacies have been at the forefront of theory and research around adolescent learning, I believe that we need a future vision of the possibilities of disciplinary literacy. We need more than practices that simply reproduce knowledge. We need an expansive theorizing of what disciplinary literacies can be or else we will continue to reinscribe old ways of knowing and doing for a future that is yet to be written.

Despite a need for a widening of thought, we collectively find ourselves presented with seemingly predefined choices for where we need to stand pedagogically. Dialogues have shifted to debates over everything from the “Science of Reading vs. Balanced literacy, Online reading vs. Offline reading, or the use of the canon vs contemporary fiction. The pitting of the pedagogical constructs against one another creates a reductionist view of the complexities of teaching and learning. Rather than reducing complex pedagogical constructs to binaries, perhaps we should be interrogating the possibilities for pedagogical expansion. While simple answers feel more reassuring, they do not account for the beautiful complexity of teaching and learning.

One reductionist view we might interrogate is the narrowing of what counts as disciplinary inquiry. Expert novice studies have provided invaluable insights into what are core disciplinary practices yet can often be taken up as the singular way to approach disciplinary literacy. Disciplinary literacy in its early conceptualization offered new ways to think about advancing knowledge building in content-area classrooms. What follows is a set of possibilities for consideration of what might be taken up in research and practice around disciplinary literacies. Using the metaphors of pathways, prisms, and portals, I argue for the use of multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches in disciplinary inquiry.

Pathways

Disciplinary literacies can be pathways to explore through multidisciplinary perspectives. Pathways can be paved, worn by repeated traffic; serve as shortcuts or trails that lead to hidden beauty. Pathways can diverge or converge. People use pathways to get somewhere or to meander. Sometimes along the path, new discoveries are made, or new paths are forged. Pathways can serve as a metaphor for multidisciplinary inquiry. One may choose to look at a problem or topic from the lens of different disciplines. Like choosing a path or multiple pathways, inquiry can be shaped by one, two, or more disciplines. While it is critical to understand the beliefs, practices, texts, and tools used in a discipline like science or history, it is also important to see that inquiry questions can be approached from multiple disciplines. For example, we can look at a problem such as food scarcity from the perspectives of geography, economics, agriculture, and mathematics, to name just a few. We need to engage with the world from multiple perspectives that are often shaped across disciplines. Food scarcity is not a simple problem that can be understood or tackled from singular perspectives. If we only hyperfocus on singular disciplines, we may lose the forest through the trees.

Prisms

Disciplinary literacies can also be prisms for seeing new possibilities. Using singular lenses to problem solve or problem pose does not account for the complexity of the problem. Prisms can reflect and refract light to illuminate the full spectrum of colors that are being absorbed. Prisms help us see things in a new light. We can think of interdisciplinary inquiry as a tool for seeing the full spectrum of perspectives around topics and problems. Interdisciplinary inquiry relies on the interconnected nature of disciplinary practices and perspectives. If we expand notions of disciplinary literacy to interdisciplinary, we add the nuances of the comparative and contrastive beliefs, tools, texts, and approaches to understanding phenomena. For example, the role of art, music, and literature provides indispensable insights into complex phenomena that cannot be fully explained through a historical or scientific analysis. By using interdisciplinary inquiry as a prism, students have access to new ways of seeing the world and their role in the world.

Portals

Disciplinary literacies can serve as portals to newly designed futures. During the Covid-19 pandemic, author Arunduti Roy (2020) argued that the pandemic could serve as a portal to new social possibilities. The notion of portals to new dimensions or time/space scales is one that is speculative and hopeful. To see disciplinary literacy as opening portals to solving wicked problems to create more just worlds is a goal that makes learning consequential. Portals also lead to the unknown. Much like disciplines themselves, portals are unsettled terrain and are absent critical voices who are often erased or silenced. To account for these silences and erasures, transdisciplinary research is conceptualized as a way to be inclusive of multiple perspectives not simply from the top down (academia) but also from the ground up (lived experiences). A transdisciplinary approach to inquiry opens opportunities for problem-posing and solving that values indigenous and local knowledge and its relation to disciplinary traditions. This expansion of disciplinary literacies offers opportunities for youth to engage in knowledge production and critique that affirms and sustains the rich tapestry of knowledge that shapes our worlds. For example, a former student and colleague, Diana Bonilla articulated the need for plant biology units to also incorporate the familial and indigenous use of plants for medicinal and culinary purposes in Latinx communities. To keep those practices obscured from disciplinary knowledge reduces our humanity and reason for understanding disciplinary perspectives. Transdisciplinary inquiry opens portals to a more inclusive and just learning environment.

Provocations for future practice

I hope the metaphors of pathways (multidisciplinary inquiry), prisms (interdisciplinary inquiry), and portals (transdisciplinary inquiry) provide provocations for future practice. Are there spaces in your curriculum that warrant a multidisciplinary or transdisciplinary approach? How might we redesign our inquiry questions to open possibilities for interdisciplinary braiding of knowledge and knowledge-building practices? How might we use this space to share ideas and iterate collectively? To me, this is an inflection point in education that we can see as filled with possibilities for drawing on the passions and inquisitive dispositions of youth to expand learning activities rather than reducing learning to a series of disconnected tasks. Youth deserve opportunities to remake our world and to design social futures in spaces that are lived in and out of school.

Michael Manderino is an associate professor of literacy education at Northern Illinois University. He taught high school social studies for 14 years and served as a literacy coach, literacy coordinator, and Director of Curriculum of a two-high school district for 5 years.

Follow on Twitter at @mmanderino

Email: mmanderino@niu.edu

Cover Image Photo by Robynne Hu on Unsplash

Tags Disciplinary Literacy, futures

Teaching

Where I’m From

This post will discuss how “Where I’m From” poetry helped provide a scaffold to better understand multilingual students and their evolving identities. This post is written by Emily Graham. Read more about Emily at the bottom of this post.

The question “Where are you from” is one often heard by multilingual learners (MLs). Although all the MLs at my school could answer this question simply by naming their birth country as either the US, Mexico, or Guatemala, this answer gives little information about each student’s identity. Through her poem, “Where I’m From”, George Ella Lyon shows us how we can tap into the more complex answer to this question. Lyon links together memories of special places, people, sayings, and stories from her past to tell us who she is, and this can serve as a powerful model for reflection and exploration of the rich and diverse identities among students.

In a poetry unit built from Lyon’s ideas, structure, and themes, my MLs explored and shared their own identities. Students’ poems and thoughts gave me a small window into my students’ past and present lives and their critical and creative thinking abilities. The “Where I’m From” Poetry Project allowed me to build a deeper, more complex understanding of who my students are and “where they are from” beyond just a geographic place.

There are countless get-to-know-you activities that require students to answer categorical questions such as: “What are your favorite foods?”; “What are your favorite songs?”; “Who is in your family?”; or “What do you like to do when you are not at school?” While I believe these questions are important, their answers do not always provide great insight into our students’ lives. Often these questions are asked and answered without much thought or reflection. Students may say: “My favorite foods are tamales”; “I don’t know my favorite song”; “I live with my dad, aunt, uncle, and sister”; and “I watch T.V.”, but there is little depth or passion to these responses.

When we use poetry to elicit these responses, we can reframe these questions in a way that requires reflection and deep thinking. When the questions are reframed to: “What are the family, foods, thoughts, and stories that make you who you are?” a teacher can gain a much deeper understanding of students and their unique identities. “Where I’m From” Poems provide a frame and an artistic lens for students to respond to those questions about identity.

Here is an example of how one student’s poem provided me with a glimpse into his rich and unfolding identity. Looking at his identity from a more reflective perspective helped me build an understanding of the student’s home life, language, family, and interests that I had not slowed down to see before.

Jimmy, a 3rd-grade multilingual student, was born in the United States and struggled with academic language and literacy. Although he was born in the US, he did not begin learning English until he started school in kindergarten. The first language, the language used most often, and the language that he used with the people he loved, was Spanish. Jimmy was considered a student who “struggled” in school. He often put his head down in class, he refused to work independently, and said things like, “I’m not smart” or “I can’t read.” Sometimes he participated in whole group discussions but more often seemed disengaged. Jimmy’s class was starting a unit on poetry, and I anticipated resistance from Jimmy. I decided to teach a unit to build background knowledge and confidence in poetry.

Jimmy initially seemed disinterested in the idea of studying and writing poetry. But that slowly started to change through the process of a close read of Lyon’s “Where I’m From.” At first, we looked at the literal meaning of Lyon’s words through translations, pictures, and discussion. Jimmy was able to confidently define big words from Lyon’s poem such as “carbon tetrachloride” and “forsythia bush”. He was able to explain how someone might lose a finger to an “auger”. He also was able to discuss big ideas like nostalgia and memories. In later readings, Jimmy stated Lyon’s voice reading her poem sounded like a ghost. He said Lyon talked about the past and memories like a ghost would. Jimmy seemed to enjoy building on the ideas of his group members. He was not afraid to share his opinion on the meaning of certain phrases and his thoughts about word choice. I was surprised by Jimmy’s desire to build an argument and support a claim in the discussion. He said, “I think the author likes to play in the dirt under her porch. Maybe she liked to hide there because that is what I do. My dogs also like to hide under the porch because it is cool, and they feel safe.” I was also impressed by Jimmy’s critical thinking and questions. He said, “I wonder why she said the ‘it tasted like beets.’ Maybe she is talking about when she was a little kid because little kids always put stuff in their mouths. They are curious and that is how they explore.”

Jimmy was not initially thrilled about the task of writing his own poem. He needed some support organizing his ideas. With the support of graphic organizers, help in spelling, and some motivation from a YouTube student example, Jimmy wrote. Here is his poem:

I am from fish tanks and from dirt

and my dog DJ

I am from broken glass in my backyard

I am from my broken T.V.

From Roblox and road trips

I am from sunflowers and bamboo

I am from tag with my brother and helping my mom

from Joseph and Marissa

I am from the sad puppies and Llama the puppies mama

from swings and broken pinatas

I am from my dad’s Honda

with a big engine

I am from my mom’s Hyundai

it has a push button to start

from riding my bike and making my own adventures

I am from digging holes and making traps

I am from inventions

Jimmy’s poem was a powerful representation of his identity, and his word choice was beautifully poetic. He was able to infuse his poem with alliteration and repetition, imagery, and emotion. He juxtaposed happy and sad memories, and purposefully ended his poem with positive attributes about himself. He talked about both joyful and upsetting times with his family. Times where they celebrated together — “broken pinatas” — and times of trouble — “broken T.V.” From reading and talking about Jimmy’s poem, I learned about ways Jimmy interacted with his family, some challenges in his life, and personal characteristics that he was proud of. Jimmy was proud to explain how he helped his mom with daily chores and sometimes would go to work with his dad. He talked about his dog Llama having puppies and the irresistible sad look on the puppies’ faces. He found joy in playing with the puppies. He talked about being devastated when some of the puppies got sick and died. He said he felt so bad for Llama, the puppy’s mama. Jimmy sometimes showed insecurities in the classroom but spoke with complete confidence when discussing his adventures and inventions outside of the classroom. He talked about his positive attributes like creativity, curiosity, and bravery. Jimmy took pride in his poem, so much so that he wanted a copy to take home and read to his family

Jimmy’s poem and the conversations that resulted from discussing poetry helped me shift from focusing on Jimmy’s struggles to identifying and sharing his strengths Before, I might have shared my frustrations on Jimmy’s lack of motivation or refusal to do work in my class. Now I had something so much more powerful and beneficial to share with other teachers — Look what Jimmy wrote, look what Jimmy can read, but most importantly look at some of the things that make Jimmy who he is! Through poetry I learned more about his academic abilities — Jimmy could craft meaning from metaphor and explain his theories about themes and lessons hidden in poems. I also learned about his interests and motivators. I discovered Jimmy’s empathy for others, passion for inequalities in his community, and desire to help others. Jimmy’s poem allowed me to understand his uniqueness and make connections to my own childhood curiosities and adventures. I felt the same empathy for animals and dreams of a more peaceful and equitable world.

I had the same kind of revelations and connections with my other students. I learned Alexander had a job caring for sheep in Mexico through his lines: “I am from a big river where the sheep used to cross” and “from a scary ram who chased me all day.” I learned Veronica’s older brother always said to her “sup bro and dap me up, bro.” I learned about Marta’s memories of Guatemalan cuisine: “tortilla’s (sic), tortas, tamales, and tacos.” Each poem was beautiful and unique and a window into my students’ lives. These poems provided voice for my students and a platform to share the individual identities that they were proud of. This background was both unique and unifying. The poems gave students an opportunity to be more clearly seen and heard.

Sometimes we want to get to know our students, but we don’t know the right questions to ask. The question “Where are you from?” seems simple on the surface but does not have a simple answer. Studying George Ella Lyon’s poem with my elementary multilingual learners helped me slow down and deepen my understanding of Lyon’s words and, more importantly, my students’ words. Although my initial purpose of the poetry unit was to provide academic background knowledge for my students, a more beautiful and poetic thing happened — poetry provided background knowledge for my students for me. The poems provided a space for me to do the learning and for my students to do the teaching. The format provided a space to merge home life and home language with school life and language. “Where I’m from Poems” allowed us to celebrate each student’s beautiful and unique identity.

Lyon, G. E. Where I’m from, a poem by George Ella Lyon: Writer and teacher Subtitle. http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html

Emily Graham is from Johns Island, South Carolina. She currently teaches grades K-5 as a Multilingual Learner Specialist in Charleston County Schools. She is a certified elementary educator and has served in several different teacher roles including as a Multilingual Learner Program Specialist, a second grade teacher, an English teacher abroad, a substitute teacher, and a teacher’s assistant. She speaks Spanish and enjoys traveling, creating, and being in nature. She lives with her husband, 8-month-old girl, and two rowdy rescue dogs.

Cover Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

Tags connection, Literacy, multilingual, poetry

Teaching

Overcoming writer’s block with free-verse poetry

Post author By admin
Post date April 7, 2023
No Comments on Overcoming writer’s block with free-verse poetry

All writers are familiar with the brain-freezing sensation of staring at a blank page or screen without the slightest clue of how to start a daunting writing task. This writer’s block symptom is intensified for struggling writers such as multilingual learners, students with un/diagnosed reading/writing disorders, or speakers of dialects who experience Standard English as a foreign language. When they consider themselves writing failures, free-verse poetry writing opportunities in any subject area are one effective way to remediate the problem and release debilitating emotional stress (Bullock, 2021). Most striving writers battle: (1) what to write about; (2) how to structure ideas for longer, multi-paragraph texts; and/or (3) how to use academic language structures in full sentences with grammatically and linguistically correct word use, grammar, and punctuation.

What is free-verse poetry?

Free-verse poetry writing does not present these challenges. It allows for associative writing with spoken language characteristics of words, phrases, or sentences without specific rhyme schemes or metric systems. There are no rules for line breaks, stanza divisions, or paragraph structures. Some free verse poetry looks like narrative writing without having to follow syntactic rules or to require punctuation. Free-verse poetry often creates images and focuses on sensory detail with figurative speech like similes (i.e., water as soft as coconut oil), metaphors (i.e., rain comes down in spaghetti strings), or idioms (i.e., fluttering butterflies in my stomach) (Craven 2021).

The following is a free-verse poem to remember that Natrium Chloride is salt:

Nate and Claire and NaCl

Nate Natrium wants a girlfriend

Through his binoculars from his Natrium castle

He spots Claire Chloride

In a hammock

Reading a romance novel

Humming a song

Nate’s heart bursts

His feet fly down the hill with a drumming heart

To Claire

And the rest is history

They have children

All with salty lips and skin

This family helps us spice our food

And give minerals to animals, humans and plants

Their license plate says NaCl-Salt

What makes free-verse poetry beneficial for striving writers?

The features of free-verse poetry described above allow writer’s block moments to gradually diminish because students can concentrate on what they have to say without grammatical and syntactical confinements of text passages. Students engage in short, creative writing tasks that provide them with growing confidence to express knowledge or feelings without being judged for writing conformity errors, especially when spelling errors are not considered. Consequently, students can creatively and meaningfully play with language and enjoy the process while engaging with content in a pressure-free, reinforcing way (Bullock, 2021).

When to implement free-style poetry writing?

At any time in any content area, teachers can implement 5-15 minute free-verse poetry writing opportunities: (1) prior to a topic to activate pre-knowledge and motivate for a topic; (2) during a unit/lesson; (3) after a unit/lesson to assess gained knowledge; or (4) as a general writing task with prompts such as a title (i.e. mountain bikes, my favorite singer), pictures, or music to engage students in free-verse writing to express their feelings and thoughts stimulated by the prompt.

What are some ideas for grades 6-12?

Providing routine writing opportunities with appropriate support while integrating students’ interests, strengths, and knowledge is crucial in breaking down writing barriers. When first introducing free-verse poetry writing, teachers use ‘think aloud’ techniques to model how to write such a poem. Then, students work in pairs to create a free verse poem before creating them individually. Students can compare each other’s poems and discuss what they learned from different poems. This reinforces the purpose and versatility of free-verse poetry writing in content areas. Students collect their free-verse poems in a writing journal or keep them with their content topic to help them study.

Additionally, a cloze text with open spaces to insert an association or sentence frames along with vocabulary banks can assist striving writers in focusing on writing free-verse poetry.

The following concrete suggestions for different content areas can be supported by thought-provoking pictures, video or film clips, or music to foster paired-up or individual free-verse poetry writing.

English Language Arts:

Relate to/ describe a character in a book.
Reflect on characteristics of a literary feature or term (i.e., idiom, climax), or jobs/functions of punctuations, capitalizations commonly mis/used.
Characterize features of standard English, dialect, or code-switching along with when each is beneficial.

Science:

Summarize characteristics of chemical procedures or elements such as H2O (water) or NaCl (salt); or components/purposes of cells or body parts.
Describe/reflect on the importance of the processes of the water cycle, polarity, electricity, or planetary systems

Mathematics:

Summarize the sequence of steps to take for a certain operation.
Describe the characteristics, roles, or properties of concepts or terminologies such as common denominators, geometric structures, or negative/positive numbers.

Music education:

Characterize/compare famous musical periods, instruments, musicians, or songs of certain periods.
Describe strategies to play certain instruments or to be successful in a choir or band.

Physical/health education:

Reflect on the benefits of particular nutrition items (i.e., protein, carbohydrates, water, food pyramid).
Describe the interaction of certain nutritional components in the human body or the benefits of exercise and the dangers of sedentary life.

Social Studies:

Reflect on/describe the roles of historical characters or their emotions and feelings during a time period (i.e., Anne Frank, Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X).
Reflect on/describe the roles of government branches or features of democratic, authoritarian, fascist, or socialist government structures
Present a timeline of events that lead to a certain historical event

Conclusion

In sum, brief, free-verse poetry writing is one creative, student-engaging approach to help promote a sense of growing confidence and creativity among striving writers at a low-risk level in grades 6-12. Nobody can go wrong. Every creative contribution counts and matters. Success at that level encourages students to tackle longer writing tasks while also reinforcing the disciplinary content they need.

References

For some examples of free-verse poetry by established authors, see:

Bullock, O. (2021). Poetry and trauma: Exercises for creating metaphors and using sensory detail, New Writing, 18(4), 409-420, DOI: 10.1080/14790726.2021.1876094.

Craven, J. (2021, February 15). An Introduction to Free Verse Poetry. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-free-verse-poem-4171539.

Bullock, O. (2021). Poetry and trauma: Exercises for creating metaphors and using sensory detail, New Writing, 18(4), 409-420, DOI: 10.1080/14790726.2021.1876094.

Craven, J. (2021, February 15). An Introduction to Free Verse Poetry. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-free-verse-poem-4171539.

Macintosh HD:WINTHROP:FALL 2022_classes & tasks:IDA proposals for F22:BIO PIC Elke.png

For the past 20 years, Dr. Elke Schneider has been a professor of literacy, special
education and multilingual learner education at Winthrop University, Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Tags poetry, Writing

Teaching

The Power of the Pen: Poetry as the Bridge to Liberation

Post author By admin
Post date April 2, 2023
No Comments on The Power of the Pen: Poetry as the Bridge to Liberation

This post is written by Darius Phelps. You can read more about Darius at the bottom of this post.

As bell hooks argued, some forms of writing create “a space where we are able to confront reality in such a way that we live more fully.” Having been an educator for thirteen years, I believe that teaching students to write should be a practice that comes from the soul, especially if we want to foster a true connection between ourselves, our students, and the intimacy of writing. For me, growing up, poetry had been a sanctuary, the space in which words were the only thing that brought me comfort. As a young man of color, I found solace in the work of Korean rapper, and author, TABLO of the Korean hip-hop group Epik High who spoke out on issues such as struggling with mental health, depression, assimilation, and even struggling to experience joy as a young man. Inspired and enamored by his work, I began to write poetry myself, letting the words and emotions flow as they came, without restriction.

Dr. Maxine Greene (2000) argues that we must advocate for the inclusion of arts in the classroom in order to help foster a deep understanding and foundation for imagination. She stresses that there are multiple voices and multiple realities for, “We must now allow the enthusiasm for publicity about changed methods of reading instruction to obscure the facts of exclusion and neglect.” (p 36) Writing is part of the conversation, and through these crucial conversations, we foster dialogue. In Chapter 9 of Releasing the Imagination, titled “Writing to Learn”, Greene (2000) reinforces this idea When teaching writing, more specifically narrative writing, I use my own personal narrative as a guide/model for my students, showing them that there is power in being vulnerable and sharing what lies on their hearts. I remember the days when I was a student, especially in elementary school; I didn’t have a connection with writing inside of school because I didn’t see myself reflected in the prompts or discussions we would regularly have.

Once I became a classroom teacher, I discovered that diving into writing and teaching as a way to express ourselves via social-emotional learning helps us become better teachers for our students, even challenging us to face our own struggles head-on. With it, we learn to speak well and with emotion, to emulate that emotion, and to be more attentive to words and the emotions that they convey. (Storey, 2019) The power of the pen is one that is truly immaculate, and I feel that can be combined with the implementation of SEL. Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is a lifelong process for both the teacher and the student. In order to develop self-awareness, self-control, interpersonal skills, and all the intangibles that are paramount of work, school, and life, both adult and child must be willing to do the inner work that is necessary to allow these areas to manifest into something that they can apply to real-life, everyday situations. I believe that the process of doing that inner work requires honest self-examination, painful self-excavation, and restorative healing.

Effective educators use various strategies to improve their pedagogy and to reach their students. It is crucial for teachers to not only understand where their students come from culturally but also truly see them as individuals. Anyone can be/become a culturally relevant teacher no matter what age group, area, or subject you are teaching. Ladson Billings (2009) stresses that the key is to go in with an open mindset and see your students for who they are and what they are capable of doing; don’t focus on the negative. As we instruct them in both literature and writing, we must truly believe each and every one of our students can and will succeed. In order to transform them as students, we must be willing to instill this in them and show that we care, and I believe that poetry can be that bridge to vulnerability.

“In My Shoes”

by Darius Phelps

If you only knew

what it was like

to walk in my shoes

You’d know my steps

marched to the beat

of different tunes

Music, art, and poetry

all different clues

Pieces of the puzzle

to my past

The weight of the world

heavy like a stack

of cement bricks

But nothing

and no one

would hold me back

from overcoming life’s tricks and turns

Bruised.

Broken.

but never… burned

In my shoes,

You wouldn’t last a day

Surviving Hell’s fire

Like a blistering summer in May

No matter the trauma, the heartache, or the pain

I’ve come out stronger, better, and wiser with much more to gain

For even flowers bloom, after April’s rain

If you only knew

what it was like

to walk in my shoes

When we share our emotions, we foster meaningful discussions that are applicable in students’ day to day lives. I encourage teachers to challenge their students to think critically and outside the box, encouraging them to tackle emotions such as depression, grief, perfectionism, and even abandonment with various forms of discussion. Each person comes with a unique understanding of life, love, freedom, and emotions. Emotions equal freedom because you can’t control when a certain emotion washes over you or rises up, within you. If schools are built on deep relationships, and consent is embedded in the framework of relationship-building, we truly learn how to be self-aware, to recognize how others want to engage with us, and to face our own demons. (Hooks, 2021)

“Where I Am from”

By Darius Phelps

I am from the pages of battered book

From fiery passion and grit

I am from the daily prayers of my grandmother

Loved endlessly, protected, and cared for

I am from the falling petals of a sunflower

radiant, yellow, and soft like the sun

I am from dinner on Sunday’s and hard work

From Mattie and Eddie, raised by my grandparents

I am from their loving and selfless hearts, the purest love I’ve ever know

From playing outside and using my imagination to dream endlessly

I am from the early Sunday mornings at church and praying before bed

I am from Riverdale, Georgia

From chocolate cake and sweet potato pie

From the endless nights watching grandma bake

The early mornings watching mom leave for work

photograph by photograph

Snapshots of my childhood memories

That slowly fade as time passes by

These are the memories that I hold closest

Where I am from, appreciating what is now gone, remembering that place I used to call home

Where I am from, will never compare to where I am headed

I am Darius Phelps

In the classroom, teachers can utilize poetry prompts such as Georga Ella Lyons “I Am” or “Where I am From” or even ask students to write about their experiences with a day in their life of being in “In Their Shoes.” In doing so, we both create and provide a safe space for students to come openly with their trauma, pain, and grief and freely express their significant losses in their writing while paying homage to where they come from and light the path to where they are here.

The world of poetry opens our minds to explore our own voice and even find a new one in the process, especially when using it to discuss a wide variety of topics. Poetry can teach us about ourselves and others in a deep and meaningful way. Instead of writing or reading a generic story about us or someone else, poetry provides the freedom for the writer to not only feel but to fully experience exactly what the writer went through, in a way that honors both their voice and experience. During that journey, the reader’s experience becomes enhanced with the use of similes, metaphors, alliterations, imagery, foreshadowing, and other literary devices. These factors that poetry can offer are what makes our writing that much more personal, and what’s personal for us can end up being a universal message for our readers and our students, allowing them to give their ancestors’ stories a voice, a reason, and a platform to be shared, heard, and acknowledged by all.

We must prioritize freedom of expression through writing opportunities moving forward both in the home and school settings so that children can begin to form relationships, especially the ones with themselves. Dr. Rudine Sims-Bishop’s significant framing of multicultural literature as providing windows and mirrors into lived experiences and Morrell’s (2005) call for critical English education open opportunities for excavation in the classroom. I believe that with vulnerability comes authenticity for “Understanding and identifying trauma among students should be grounded in the context, while also considering the range of experiences for diverse individuals within the context.” (Alvarez, 2017)

To do so, we must lead by example, meaning, we as educators must be open and honest about our trauma, struggles, and grief for students to write and formulate their own personal narratives through whatever method speaks to them. It is through our vulnerability that they will lead towards the liberation of their own respective experiences. If there is anything I want my students to know, it is that writing is about freedom of expression. Be you, regardless of anyone else’s opinion. You are destined to change the world, don’t ever forget that, and let your let shine.

Darius Phelps is a doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia University. He is an adjunct professor at CUNY Queens, Hunter College, Teachers College, and intern at Brooklyn Poets. An educator, poet, spoken word artist, and activist, Darius writes poems about grief, liberation, emancipation, reflection through the lens of a teacher of color and experiencing Black boy joy. His poems have appeared in the NY English Record, NCTE English Journal, Pearl Press Magazine, and ëëN Magazine’s The 2023 Valentine Issue. Recently, he was featured on WCBS and highlighted the importance of Black male educators in the classroom. Darius can be contacted via email at: dmp2219@tc.columbia.edu.

Tags poetry

Teaching

The Leadership Needed to Support Disciplinary Literacy Initiatives Webinar

Post author By admin
Post date April 1, 2023
No Comments on The Leadership Needed to Support Disciplinary Literacy Initiatives Webinar

In this webinar, Dr. Ippolito will present multiple evidence-based ways for both formal and informal literacy leaders—principals, instructional coaches, and teacher leaders—to support disciplinary literacy initiatives across grade levels and content areas. This session is intended to support both teachers and leaders, as we collaboratively navigate disciplinary literacy work in a post-pandemic world.

When: March 30, 2023 6-7PM EST

Cost: Free

The following resources were shared during the webinar.

Link to PPT Slides (please do not copy/share without permission)

Link to Related Blog Post: “How Can School Leaders Support Disciplinary Literacy?”

Ippolito, J., Dobbs, C. L., & Charner-Laird, M. (2019). Disciplinary literacy inquiry and instruction. Learning Sciences International.
- Related free downloadable resources from this book!

Bryk, A. S. (2016). Fidelity of Implementation: Is It the Right Concept?

Drago-Severson, E., & Blum-DeStefano, J. (2017). Tell me so I can hear you: A developmental approach to feedback for educators. Harvard Education Press.

Ippolito, J., & Fisher, D. (2019). Instructional leadership in disciplinary literacy. Educational Leadership, 76(6), 50-56.

Dobbs, C. L., Ippolito, J., & Charner-Laird, M. (2017). Investigating disciplinary literacy: A framework for collaborative professional learning. Harvard Education Press.

Charner-Laird, M., Ippolito, J., & Dobbs, C. L. (2016). The roles of teacher leaders in guiding PLCs focused on disciplinary literacy. Journal of School Leadership, 26(6), 975-1001.

Jacy is a professor in literacy and leadership at the McKeown School of Education at Salem State University (Salem, MA), where he currently codirects graduate programs in Educational Leadership and the Center for Educational Leadership at SSU (CEL@SSU). Jacy’s work focuses on the intersection of literacy coaching, educational leadership, adolescent/disciplinary literacy, and school reform, and his most recent books include Disciplinary Literacy Inquiry & Instruction (2019), An UnCommon Theory of School Change (2019), Investigating Disciplinary Literacy (2017), and Cultivating Coaching Mindsets (2016).

For more about Jacy and his work, please visit:
www.visualcv.com/jacyippolito or
www.twitter.com/Jippolito

Cover Photo by Natalie Pedigo on Unsplash

Tags administration, Content Area Literacy, Disciplinary Literacy, Literacy

Teaching

Literacy Leadership Lessons Learned: Post-Pandemic Professional Learning

Post author By admin
Post date March 30, 2023
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This post is written by Jenelle Williams. You can read more about Jenelle at the bottom of this post.

I have served in public education since 1999, and I can attest to the fact that this school year has been a doozy. I have served as a middle school and elementary teacher, an instructional coach/coordinator, and now I am serving as a consultant. Working both regionally and across the state of Michigan with secondary teachers, building principals, and central office administrators, it’s easy for me to get lost in all of the challenges. Despite this reality, I have been lucky enough to witness positive momentum in the schools and districts I serve across Oakland County, Michigan. Working as a secondary literacy consultant for the 28 individual school districts in my county provides me with endless variety–though my area of focus is adolescent literacy, each district within my service area represents a wide array of contexts, sizes, strengths, and needs.

Working with other content-area colleagues, we developed a plan of support around disciplinary literacy in our region for this school year. As is the case with most educational contexts, we began planning while still in the midst of the previous school year, so there were many unknowns. Would we experience another surge of COVID? How would districts navigate large teacher turnover? Would educators even be ready to re-engage with a shared professional learning focus? Despite the unknowns, we built a service plan based on the following beliefs:

Care for the System: If districts are committed to taking up disciplinary literacy as a continuous improvement goal, they must engage in self-reflection and goal-setting around district systems–not just focus on a few professional learning days. The Essential School-Wide Practices in Disciplinary Literacy (2020) provide a basis for our learning.
Break Down Silos: It is essential to have a variety of roles represented on a disciplinary literacy leadership team. At its core, disciplinary literacy is about simultaneously breaking down silos while honoring the unique elements of each discipline. Our plan would need to also break down hierarchical silos that often exist within the continuous improvement, i.e. central office leaders name the area of focus, building principals then try to interpret what that means for their building, and teachers receive the message later in the communication cycle. In order to avoid a continuous improvement “telephone game”, we wanted to bring representatives from a variety of roles to navigate the “messy middle” of implementing disciplinary literacy together.
Center the Learners: Disciplinary literacy also requires that we center our learners and are willing to step back from an expert stance. If we are asking educators to make this shift, we (as the facilitation team) would also need to make this shift. One way to accomplish this is to ask each of our participating districts to host our monthly, half-day network meetings at one of their buildings. Another way is to regularly make space for participating districts to highlight their work in our monthly District Spotlight. As much as we might want additional time for shared learning around research, we know that our participating districts often learn best from each other.
Plan for Tight and Loose Construction: As we know from Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation model, we can anticipate people’s reactions to innovation–whether it is disciplinary literacy or something else–to fall along a predictable bell curve (Hubbard, 2007). As much as we wish we could somehow convince all educators that our innovation is THE thing they should focus on, we know that is not possible. For this reason, our service plan was built around a “cohort of the willing”–nine districts that expressed interest in bringing a team together for a yearlong network. As part of our network series, we also encouraged districts to take this “cohort of the willing” approach to heart, supporting educators who were ready and interested in stretching their instructional practice, while gently encouraging others forward. For participating districts, this meant they were navigating a “tight and loose” construction for their implementation of disciplinary literacy: tight, in that there was clear messaging around the district’s goal; and loose, in that individual educators and departments could articulate specific areas for learning within that goal.

What can this look like? In one district, the “tight and loose” construction has looked like having multiple professional learning sessions for all educators throughout the year–use of district professional learning days and staff meetings has provided opportunities to bring middle- and high-school teachers together, both in disciplinary and interdisciplinary groupings. The Essential Instructional Practices in Disciplinary Literacy (2019), originally drafted by Dr. Elizabeth Moje at the University of Michigan and refined over the years by statewide experts, is a foundational document that has provided this district (and all districts in our network) with possible areas for professional learning. After gathering teacher perception data and engaging in data dialogue conversation, leaders in this district decided to begin professional learning with a focus on Essential Instructional Practice 2, which calls for the development of abundant, diverse disciplinary texts and reading opportunities.

The loose part in this district’s implementation involved optional Study Group sessions on other Essential Instructional Practices in Disciplinary Literacy, with an opportunity for participating educators to share their learning with staff later this Spring. For a more in-depth discussion of how professional learning can allow for a shared focus AND teacher autonomy, we recommend Investigating Disciplinary Literacy: A Framework for Collaborative Professional Learning by Christina Dobbs, Jacy Ippolito, and Megin Charner-Laird (2017).

Keeping our core beliefs at the forefront of our thinking, my colleagues and I created a predictable structure for network meetings. We asked participating districts to select a month when they would like to host the meeting. One of us acted as a point of contact, gathering necessary information about the location and communicating with the network. Each network meeting would last for three hours, and hosting districts could select whether to hold the meeting in the morning or afternoon. This structure made it more possible for all participants to attend due to time constraints and a lack of substitute teachers. Each district could select its team–some started with just a few central office administrators, some came with representatives from all levels, and some consisted of one instructional coach. All were welcome. Meetings always began with introductions and agendas, norms, and a connector. Especially at the beginning, we used the connectors as a way to build relationships across districts. As we moved through the year, one of the most popular portions at the start of the meeting was our District Spotlight–the planning team would intentionally reach out to one of the districts with a specific ask, such as, “Can you tell the network about how you’ve been engaging in instructional rounds?” Next, consultants would lead the group in shared learning around portions of the School-Wide Practices for Disciplinary Literacy. Areas of focus were selected based on the time of year and the types of decisions that districts make at those times. For example, as we moved into Spring, it made sense to focus on School-Wide Practice 7, which outlines systemic approaches to evaluating instructional materials. Perfect timing as central office leaders begin making budget decisions! Finally, each meeting ended with at least one hour of team time. Each district was assigned two consultants who would serve as points of contact for any necessary support. Finally, though the planning team had absolutely no expectations in this area, we started to find that each hosting district was excited to outdo the others–specifically as it related to food! In one district, food service employees created a magnificent spread of snacks. The next month, the hosting district asked their Foods teacher (and his students) to create an array of tasty treats. What a way to highlight teacher (and student) excellence!

As I think back, I am sure there were many more beliefs guiding our plan for supporting these participating districts, but the ones described above have been a driving force throughout the year. So what have we learned after engaging with this network since September 2022? And why am I so encouraged? First, we have learned that you don’t have to be a “perfect” district or school in order to get started with this work. What is necessary is a shared vision, passion, and commitment to the work. In one district, nearly all central office administrators are new this year. They have certainly had quite the learning curve as they become familiar with the strengths and needs of their district. However, they have committed to attending network meetings, along with individual consulting sessions with me, to craft a multi-year plan that fits their context. More importantly, we are seeing positive changes: teachers are talking with department colleagues about instruction, staff are using common terminology around disciplinary literacy, and building leaders are seeing the value in having a shared goal across multiple buildings.

We have also learned that despite everything they have experienced over the past few years, educators are just as interested in honing their craft as they have always been. In fact, some are even more concerned than ever before–they want to shake up their approaches in order to engage all learners. Even more heartening is that when provided the chance to invite colleagues and leaders into their classrooms to observe and debrief their practice, middle- and high-school teachers have been willing to open their doors. Debrief sessions from these observations highlight just how reflective and growth-minded classroom teachers continue to be.

The future is bright as we begin service planning for the upcoming school year. Participating districts are overwhelmingly positive about continuing with this work in year two, and several additional districts have expressed interest in joining in the work. We have an incredible array of resources to offer–most importantly, we will continue to make space for the most important resource–each other.

References

Hubbard, W. G., & Sandmann, L. R. (2007). Using diffusion of innovation concepts for improved program evaluation. Journal of Extension, 45(5), 1-7.

Dobbs, C. L., Ippolito, J., & Charner-Laird, M. (2017). Investigating disciplinary literacy: A framework for collaborative professional learning. Harvard Education Press.

Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators General Education Leadership Network Disciplinary Literacy Task Force. (2019). Essential instructional practices for disciplinary literacy: grades 6 to 12. Authors

Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators General Education Leadership Network Disciplinary Literacy Task Force. (2020). Essential school-wide practices In disciplinary literacy: Grades 6 to 12. Authors

Jenelle Williams is a Literacy Consultant within the Leadership and Continuous Improvement unit at Oakland Schools, an intermediate school district supporting the 28 districts in Oakland County, Michigan. She joined the organization in 2017 following 18 years of experience in public schools at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. She has served as a classroom teacher, IB Middle Years Programme Coordinator, teacher leader, and educational technology coach. An IB Educator and Examiner since 2013, Jenelle leads professional learning workshops and marks e-assessments for the International Baccalaureate Organization. She holds an Education Specialist in Leadership degree and a Master’s degree in Reading and Language Arts through Oakland University. In addition, Jenelle serves as an Adjunct Professor in Grand Valley State University’s Graduate Program and a co-editor of The Michigan Reading Journal, a publication from the Michigan Reading Association. Jenelle is passionate about supporting teachers, building leaders, and central office administrators in the area of secondary literacy, and she is especially excited to be able to support Michigan’s work around disciplinary literacy through her role as Co-Chair of the statewide Disciplinary Literacy Task Force. She can be reached at jenelle.williams@oakland.k12.mi.us, and on Twitter at @JenelleWilliam6 and @GELN612Literacy.

Photo by Felicia Buitenwerf on Unsplash

Tags Covid-19, Teaching and Learning

Teaching

How Can School Leaders Support Disciplinary Literacy?

Post author By admin
Post date March 26, 2023
No Comments on How Can School Leaders Support Disciplinary Literacy?

This post is written by Jacy Ippolito, Christina Dobbs, Megin Charner-Laird. You can read more about these authors at the bottom of this post.

When talking with school leaders interested in supporting disciplinary literacy (DL), one question we often ask is: “What kind of holding environment are you able and willing to establish for your teachers as they learn about and pilot disciplinary literacy practices?” Note that this question touches on three critical components: 1) the notion of a holding environment for teachers; 2) a focus on professional learning and piloting of DL practices; and 3) what leaders are able and willing to do to support these efforts. In our experience, we have found that all three components are necessary to foster rich disciplinary literacy work within and across content area classrooms. Let’s take a moment to explore each component in turn.

Holding Environments for Adult Learning

First, it is important for school leaders to understand that just as we establish and maintain holding environments for students to learn within classrooms, adult educators also need holding environments to support their professional learning. A holding environment is “a nurturing context in and out of which we grow, and can be a relationship, a series of relationships, carefully designed collaborative practices, or a complex organization like a school” (Drago-Severson & Blum-DeStefano, 2017, p. 52).

An effective holding environment meets learners where they are, and it also nudges them to grow and shift at a rate they can handle. In the words of school change researcher Michael Fullan (2016), an effective holding environment applies pressure and support. School leaders are well-positioned to provide both support and pressure within the larger context of a disciplinary literacy professional learning initiative. In terms of support, leaders can provide time, stipends, and resources (e.g., books, workshops, consultants, etc.) to jumpstart DL professional learning efforts. Regarding (gentle) pressure, leaders can incorporate DL questions and frameworks into their informal and formal evaluation efforts (e.g., “In your classroom, what does it mean to read/write/communicate like a historian, literary critic, mathematician, scientist? How have you made this explicit to students?” [Ippolito & Fisher, 2019, p. 54]). For more on how leaders can craft/incorporate DL-related questions into their informal and formal classroom observations and conversations, see “Instructional Leadership for Disciplinary Literacy” (Ippolito & Fisher, 2019).

Supporting Collaborative DL Professional Learning & Piloting of Practices

Second, school leaders need to be cognizant of helping to establish an effective holding environment (i.e., relationships and collaborations among teachers) that supports invention, adaptation, and risk-free piloting of new practices. Given that disciplinary literacy is still a young field of research and practice, very few codified ways of working have been established and backed by research. Thus, school leaders can set the tone for the work by encouraging teachers to form content-specific or cross-content area professional learning communities (PLCs). These PLCs can be led and facilitated by teacher leaders who have deep expertise in the content area standards and traditional practices. These teacher leaders can take on the role of lead learners (Charner-Laird et al., 2016). They can use discussion-based protocols to support looking at student work, tuning new DL lesson plans, and making sense of emerging student data. Furthermore, these teacher leaders can support colleagues, within PLCs, to engage in collaborative inquiry around new DL practices (Ippolito et al., 2019).

By encouraging the adaptation of existing practices, and the invention and piloting of new practices, school leaders can signal to teachers that they don’t expect perfection or mastery immediately. Instead, the leadership expectation is focused on teachers delving deeply into the reading, writing, and communication habits of minds and norms of practices within their disciplinary areas of expertise (e.g., biology, chemistry, world history, etc.). The essential question becomes: “How can we apprentice students into these discipline-specific ways of reading, writing, and communicating?” Teachers can also be encouraged to delve into their own students’ cultures, languages, and out-of-school ways of reading, writing, and communicating, in service of both bridging towards discipline-specific practices and perhaps at times reinventing those practices to more fully include students’ own funds of knowledge (Moje, 2015; Moll, 2015).

What Are Leaders Able and Willing to Do to Support?

Third, leaders need to consider a larger arc of professional learning than simply purchasing a book, setting up a one-time workshop, or encouraging PLCs to form and then stepping away. Wise leaders will consider establishing a cross-role committee of teachers, leaders, coaches, and specialists to design a DL professional learning initiative that might unfold over a period of a year or more (Dobbs et al., 2017). The initiative might include some initial shared learning experience (e.g., a summer institute or series of workshops led by an outside expert or district-based literacy leader). Following initial learning experiences about DL research and practice, teams of teachers might collaboratively inquire into new instructional practices as part of PLCs led by teacher leaders (Charner-Laird et al., 2016). Finally, new practices might be piloted, assessed, refined, and then shared more widely across teacher teams within and across content areas in a school or even across a district (Ippolito et al., 2019).

Leaders who are invested in this work will participate in all stages of this professional learning arc—from dipping into initial workshop learning experiences, to observing and participating in a few PLCs, to observing new classroom practices, to supporting the wider sharing of work across the school and district. Leadership participation signals the importance of the work and aligns informal and formal observations and evaluations with professional learning efforts.

Understandably, this work takes time and resources. Yet the results are worth it. As one middle school principal who led DL professional learning and teaching efforts across the pandemic recently noted: Disciplinary literacy work is meant to “activate and engage students as doers” as opposed to being “passive receivers of content.” His essential question to teachers became: “How do we begin to use disciplinary literacy as a way to strengthen students as doers in our disciplines?” By providing summer professional learning time with outside consultants, and then devoting whole-school and departmental faculty meeting time to collaborative DL professional learning, teachers made strides in adopting, adapting, and piloting DL practices. In this way, leaders can work alongside teachers to make disciplinary literacy a reality in K-12 classrooms.

References

Charner-Laird, M., Ippolito, J., & Dobbs, C. L. (2016). The roles of teacher leaders in guiding PLCs focused on disciplinary literacy. Journal of School Leadership, 26(6), 975-1001.

Dobbs, C. L., Ippolito, J., & Charner-Laird, M. (2017). Investigating disciplinary literacy: A framework for collaborative professional learning. Harvard Education Press.

Drago-Severson, E., & Blum-DeStefano, J. (2017). Tell me so I can hear you: A developmental approach to feedback for educators. Harvard Education Press.

Fullan, M. (2016). The new meaning of instructional change (5^th ed.). Teachers College Press.

Ippolito, J., Dobbs, C. L., & Charner-Laird, M. (2019). Disciplinary literacy inquiry and instruction. Learning Sciences International.

Ippolito, J., & Fisher, D. (2019). Instructional leadership in disciplinary literacy. Educational Leadership, 76(6), 50-56.

Moje, E. B. (2015). Doing and teaching disciplinary literacy with adolescent learners: A social and cultural enterprise. Harvard Educational Review, 85(2), 254-278.

Moll, L. C. (2015). Tapping into the “hidden” home and community resources of students. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 51(3), 114-117.

Cover photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

Jacy Ippolito is a professor of literacy and leadership in the McKeown School of Education at Salem State University (Salem, MA), where he currently co-directs the graduate programs in Educational Leadership and is the co-founder and co-leader of the Center for Educational Leadership at the University (CEL@SSU). Jacy has worked as a reading specialist and literacy coach, and his research, teaching, and consulting focus on the intersection of coaching, leadership, adolescent/disciplinary literacy, and school reform. For more about Jacy’s books and articles, or to connect with him, visit www.visualcv.com/jacyippolito or www.twitter.com/Jippolito.

Christina L. Dobbs is an assistant professor and director of the English Education for Equity and Justice program at Boston University. Her research interests include language diversity and the language of schools and disciplinary communities, the argumentative writing of students, teachers’ beliefs about language, and professional learning for secondary teachers. Additionally, she writes about being a woman of color in the academy. She is a former high school English language arts teacher, as well as a literacy coach, reading specialist, creative writer, and native Texan. To connect with Christina, please find her at https://twitter.com/drcdobbs.

Megin Charner-Laird is a professor of elementary education and educational leadership in the McKeown School of Education at Salem State University (Salem, MA). She currently co-directs the graduate programs in Educational Leadership and is the co-founder and co-leader of the Center for Educational Leadership at the University (CEL@SSU). Megin worked primarily as a fifth-grade teacher, and she carries those experiences into her teaching, which focuses on teachers’ professional learning, teacher leadership, formal school leadership, and school change. To connect with Megin, please find her at www.twitter.com/drcharnerlaird.

Tags Disciplinary Literacy

Teaching

Using the Four States of Competence as a Framework for Unpacking our Literacy Practices

Post author By admin
Post date March 13, 2023
1 Comment on Using the Four States of Competence as a Framework for Unpacking our Literacy Practices

This post is written by Jennifer D. Morrison. Read more about Jennifer at the bottom of this post.

Over the past twenty years that I have served as an instructional coach, staff development specialist, teacher educator, and National Board candidate mentor, it has been clear to me how important it is to engage in being not only a reflective practitioner but also a professional capable of clearly unpacking my practice. Zeichner and Liston (2014) point out that excellent teachers, and by extrapolation excellent educational leaders, are often not aware of what they have learned and how they enact their practices. They have “tacit knowledge” that is known but not articulated; enacted but not explained. While it may be acceptable for teachers and educational leaders to operate in day-to-day spaces with this tacit knowledge, it does not foster growth of the self or others. If leaders cannot clearly understand and articulate the curricular, instructional, pedagogical, and relational decisions they are making as well as provide the rationale for those decisions, they cannot effectively serve in the leadership capacity needed to facilitate change within a school environment.

Burch (1974) developed a model of the Four States of Competence to help explain the processes in which an individual engages as s/he learns new skills.

As preservice teachers, we are unconsciously incompetent — we don’t know what we don’t know. We stumble through our teaching, not knowing what we should be doing, if we are doing it right, or even what questions to ask. As we begin to acknowledge our lack of knowing, we move into being consciously incompetent; we now know exactly how little we understand about the subject. It then becomes our mission to learn more, try more, figure out what works and what doesn’t in our attempts to improve. As we seek answers and help, practice, make adjustments, and are acutely aware of our growth, we shift to conscious competence. We know what we are doing and why we are doing it. We have grown; we now know things, and it shows. When these practices gain a level of automaticity — where we no longer have to think about every little action we take and why — we become unconsciously competent. “Right” is now a feeling, a sense that has developed with thought and practice. Any time we move into a new learning space, such as being a literacy coach or administrator, we begin the process again.

This is usually where discussion of Burch’s model ends. However, I advocate for another step. In all my leadership roles, it has been necessary for me to step back into the conscious competence space. Why? Because when I am coaching a teacher in how to differentiate a lesson or teaching adult students about implementing a literacy strategy, it is not enough for me to say: “Yeah, I just do it, and it’s right. Here, watch me.” That does not encourage growth in those with whom I am working. I have to unpack what I am able to do automatically and make it transparent. I have to show that what I am doing is not by accident but the result of many years of experience, lots of reading and reflecting, and lots of corrected mistakes. I have to be able to say: “This is how you do it, and this is why it works.” If I am unconsciously competent, I am not able to provide that form of instruction; and afterall, effective leaders are ultimately teachers. My ability to consciously understand my competence assists others in their moving from incompetence to competence. In order to be reflective teachers and effective literacy leaders, it is important for us to deconstruct the places where we are unconsciously competent. We must be able to understand what we are doing, why we are doing it, how we can improve it, and what might happen if we did it differently. We need to look at what we do automatically with the eyes of an outsider, “making the familiar strange” (Mills, 1959).

What might this look like? This means first, reflecting on our processes and how we engage with literacy learning ourselves. Early in my teaching career, I was assigned an SAT/ACT prep class. My students overall did not do well on the reading comprehension sections of tests. At the same time, I was preparing for the GRE exam to apply for graduate school, and I regularly rolled out near perfect scores on the reading comprehension. For me to better help my students, I had to step back into conscious competence and metacognitively consider what exactly I was doing in my reading of these passages and in my answering of comprehension questions that led me to a successful outcome. How was I engaging with the text? What was I thinking as I read? What kinds of predictions was I making? How did I process the questions? What did I do with vocabulary I didn’t know? Where was I rereading, where was I paraphrasing, and why? Once I unpacked my own process, I could then effectively convey to my students what I did and why through think alouds and walking through examples.

The same can be said when working with preservice and inservice teachers. In workshops or professional learning sessions, it is not enough to provide the formula of how to do a particular technique or strategy; it is imperative to also provide the theoretical reasons and reflective process that undergird the strategy. For example, I often begin my courses by having students complete a literacy autobiography, an activity they can easily enact in their own classrooms. While we do the activity, however, I also parallel the steps with rationales and explanations for what we are doing and why. I walk them through the assignment by modeling my own autobiography first. I show not only what my literacy experiences have been but also how they have shaped me as an individual now. This includes delineating my resultant strengths, challenges, and biases. As we work through their autobiographies, I model for them the unpacking process. What was it like for them to read and write in different subjects when they were younger? Who influenced their literacy habits and preferences? What life experiences influenced their literacy habits and preferences? How have these experiences impacted their views of literacy now? How do these preferences, or reticences, impact the way they interact with literacy now? How can they move beyond the fear, shame, or negative feelings that might have accompanied literacy experiences? How might their experiences impact interactions with students who do or don’t view literacy in the same way they do? For individuals with literacy affinities, the questions help them to see why they have positive dispositions toward reading and writing and to unpack the tacit literacy knowledge that has become automatic. This is important because not only can they better recreate some of the experiences for their students, they are also better able to see the correlation between their experiences and how they view reading and writing, and why other people, including many of their students, may not have the same perspectives. I share with them that Bourdieu (2013) argues our habitus shapes our understanding of the world, our ways of knowing (epistemologies), and the attitudes/beliefs/biases we carry into relationships with others and our teaching spaces. In order to be able to teach children, we have to know where we come from, why we believe what we believe, and consider how we can interrupt the transmission of our unconscious biases, which can be done through engaging in conscious competence and reflexivity. Otherwise, we can inadvertently create environments filled with microaggressions toward particular students, which can deeply impact student learning.

Stepping back into conscious competence and engaging in reflection is, in many ways, emancipating (Zeichner & Liston, 2014). By engaging in thoughtful, conscious teaching and leadership, we free ourselves, our teachers, and our students from the blind following of established routines, policies, and plans. It gives us the freedom — and responsibility — to question, to wonder, to consider, to criticize, to advocate, and to defend. Thinking is a political action, and “teaching is a subversive activity” (Postman & Weingartner, 1971). Reflective teaching and conscious competence empower us to be change agents within our own educational spheres, whether that is in our classrooms, schools, districts, or at home with our own children. We learn to be critical consumers of curricula and policy, and we find our voices to change the status quo. This is how we change the currently negative national narrative for our profession — one child, one classroom, one teacher at a time.

References

Bourdieu, P. (2013). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511812507

Burch, N. (1974). The learning stages model. Solana Beach, CA: Gordon Training International.

Mills, C.W. (1959). The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. (40th anniversary edition, 2000).

Postman, N. & Weingartner, C. (1971). Teaching as a Subversive Activity. Delta Publishing.

Zeichner, K. & Liston, D. (2014). Reflective teaching: An introduction. Second edition. Erlbaum.

Dr. Jennifer D. Morrison is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina and a National Board Certified Teacher in AYA/ELA. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Nevada, Reno, in Language, Literacy, and Culture. She worked as a middle and high school English teacher and instructional coach for 19 years. Her research agenda focuses on teacher induction, literacy attainment (particularly digital and multimodal), and teacher inquiry processes. She has been published in such journals as English Journal, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Talking Points, Principal Leadership, and Educational Leadership.

Cover Photo by Lindsay Henwood on Unsplash

Tags Literacy, Reading, Teaching and Learning