Lisa Sealy's 4th Grade

On Friday, November 21, I observed Lisa Sealy's 4th grade Humanities class. Lisa told me that she hadn't planned anything special, that it was just a regular day of class. The class began with some "business": turning in DOL and revision sheets, and a spelling quiz. Pretty ho hum stuff.
But my interest grew with the spelling test, which the students took in pairs. Lisa has them do this because the lists of words are heavily individualized. They begin with a rule on Monday, and some of the words must refer to the rule. However, many of the words come from other resources and are selected by the students; as Lisa puts it, this gives the some "ownership of language." Furthermore, the kids who are really great spellers use the spelling lists as an opportunity to work on their vocabulary. This explains why one boy had on his list expository.
After this, some really great writing instruction--and writing with quick feedback--took place. The class has been working in description and revision, and you'll see how this lesson scaffolded perfectly with their writing process.
The day before, Lisa had read the class a little bit from the start of The Hobbit. Friday, she gave each student a legal-size sheet of paper with the opening paragraph from the novel on one side. The paragraph is a very rich description of a hobbit house. The students were to draw a picture in the blank part of the sheet. Lisa encouraged them to consider "which words bring an image to mind" and the words "which are most helpful." The drew away for a few minutes. Lisa stopped them and instructed them to "mark words in the piece which helped you get a good visual in your head." They then marked some of these on the board. While I won't provide a transcript here of examples, the discussion was quite sophisticated for fourth grade. Students focused on implications of words and the effects they could have on a reader. Lisa kept extending their thinking with basic questions, most often simply "Why?" She also used proper grammatical terms for words, such as adverb and adjective.
Then Lisa turned the tables on the students. She put a majestic scene of Greenland on the boards. Her challenge: "How are you going to put words together so someone would put this picture together?" The kids jumped right to the task. Watching them work, I saw plenty of thoughtful stares into space, flashing eyes right before pencils starting flying, and quick smiles of satisfaction. After writing for just about five minutes, Lisa stopped them so they could share--which they all wanted to do. The pieces were full of vivid, clever, and figurative language. Consider some of these words and phrases: frothy, colossal, "mountains playing with each other," "snow like make-up and powder," and "as if someone took the ocean and sky and mixed them up." Remember, they wrote for just a few minutes. Even within this short time, the students revealed a high level of self-awareness about their writing. One boy prefaced his reading by saying, "This is not really a good starting sentence because it begins with 'it was.'" Lisa provided positive feedback for each piece. After this, Lisa simply told the students to get out their stories and "apply this to it." I'm sure they did.

Because of another appointment, I'd almost left before hearing the drafts. Lisa asked me to stay for a few minutes, and I'm very glad I did. Hearing the pieces and Lisa's final instruction brought the entire experience together for me. It was a very well thought out class, in many ways an exemplar of writing instruction for any level. It also shone because of how certain activities were lower school appropriate while also opening doors to more sophisticated concepts. At the risk of sounding hokey and cliched, it also was a very "whole brain" activity that drove home the essential concepts in multiple engaging ways.

From Second Grade to Eleventh, from Drafting to Performing

I had the pleasure of visiting two very different classrooms back-to-back, for two very different lessons. On October 27, I saw Carla Kinney’s first graders draft a “1-2-3 story.” On October 28, I saw Andy Mercurio’s eleventh graders perform interpretations of scenes they had written to complement Death of a Salesman. As a sixth grade teacher, I get to see Greenhill students right in the middle of these two extremes (first and eleventh grades). During the observations, I was reminded of how steep students’ learning curves are in their short time here at school and how radically they change from first to sixth to eleventh grades.

I visited Carla’s classroom at the end of the school day. As a culminating activity which tied in holiday themes as well as their morning work, the students were to write a “1-2-3 story.” Carla gathered the students on the carpet to explain the assignment, which was also written out on the flipchart. That morning, they had reviewed the important parts of a story. They were now to write a story with the following elements: 1) Characters and setting (who and where), 2) Action (what happened), 3) Conclusion (how did it end?). Carla assigned the character: their pumpkin. (These pumpkins were individually decorated and on display on the windowsill; students had previously told stories about them and were encouraged to call upon those ideas.) Carla took suggestions from students and gave them options of four settings to choose from: inside a house, a swimming pool, downtown, or a pumpkin patch. The students were to come up with their own action and ending. Students eagerly moved to their tables to begin writing. Carla circulated, offering help and suggestions. She reminded the students of several strategies already under their belts, including sounding out the spellings of words, using proofreading marks, and using problem/solution to tell the story. Students used Carla as a resource, but they also used the rich environment of the classroom to help them with their writing. Around the room, I saw a word wall, a list of weekly spelling words, the five stages of the writing process, and many more helpful items. When one student ran into a spelling problem, he had the following conversation with Carla: “I don’t know how to spell the word pumpkin.” When Carla asked what he could do, the student said, “Look over there,” and then walked to the spot in the room where he could find the correct spelling. At the end of the lesson, Carla shared some student examples. One girl wrote about her pumpkin, Fufu, who was hurt in a pumpkin patch. Fortunately, a nice person took Fufu home and made her all better. Carla and the students identified the 1-2-3 parts of the story which made it a success.

In Andy’s classroom, I saw three groups of students perform interpretations of scenes from Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. The students had written the scenes in groups and were performing them in front of their classmates as a culmination of their exploration of Miller’s work. After each group’s presentation, the group was to offer a verbal analysis of the scene. The first group performed “missing scene” – a scene at Willy’s funeral, featuring a long soliloquy by the deceased Willy. Willy’s soliloquy, according to the students, offered their group analysis through the medium of the character. In the following discussion, Andy noted how Willy had no moment of realization in the play, nor did he in the scene. The second group portrayed the scene between Willy and Howard where Willy is eventually fired. The group played a PowerPoint of the students’ voices, played in conjunction with a series of animations featuring expressive and humorous thought bubbles. In their analysis the students explained that the choices they made in the presentation illustrated Willy’s distorted perception of Dave Singleman. The third group featured a DVD of still photographs of students acting, timed with voice-overs of the dialogue the group had written. The scene was of an argument between Willy and his son Biff. In the analysis, the students explained that, since the scene was based on emotions, the still camera shots emphasized these moments. The students also deliberately modernized the scene to make it easier to relate to. At the end of the presentations, Andy reflected with the class on how pleased he was with the performances. This was a new assignment, Andy explained, with wide parameters and few guidelines. The assignment replaced a “big quiz” that used to culminate the study of Miller’s play. Students were in agreement that they enjoyed creating and analyzing their own scenes; they felt they got more out of this process than they would have gotten from a quiz.

Seeing a first grade class and an eleventh grade class back-to-back gave me a broad view of how students engage in writing at Greenhill. I saw students reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing, and performing. I saw engaging teachers leading students in these processes in age-appropriate ways. Students were encouraged to be creative, and each assignment incorporated the class reading or other class activities. As a sixth grade teacher, this process gave me much to think about. What role do I play as a teacher who sees them in the middle of these two snapshots? In what ways am I filling that role, and in what ways can I improve?

Lines and Curves in Pre-k

In the beginning, pre-k had the big line, the little line, the big curve, and the little curve, and it was good.

Isn’t this where writing begins--in pre-school, with the formation of letters, with the realization that the word is tangible? They held the big and little line and discovered one was half of the other. They traced the smooth sweep of the curve, and it was a boat or a smile. Then whether by accident or not, the little line and the big line slid into an “L” and then with the quick mixing of lines and curves turned into a “D” and then a “k”—or the sound at the beginning of Lily’s name, the middle of Aidala, and end of Uziek. These letters could form words, and the written word had a shelf life. These stuck around longer than the ones shouted or whispered. The pre-k could revisit their words, share them, or even change them.

Then there was a song about Mat Man, and as the music played, the pre-k outlined his form on the rug using the curves and lines. So on a day two weeks from now when a child in Mrs. Beazley’s class wonders how long she should make the lines in an “E,” she can think of Mat Man’s legs, the long line, and his feet, the short line.

Much of this fifteen minute lesson focused on creating comfort with letters--their curves and lines. Does this then transfer to comfort with words, sentences, paragraphs, and stories? Is this how we teach our students to write and write confidently?

Descending the Page in Second Grade--Observation

In a recent US department meeting, the conversation turned to “How do we teach students to write?” Trey Colvin remarked, “We certainly teach the students to gather ideas, draft, and edit.” My initial response was Of course, we do. And then came the doubt and questions: Do we? If so, how? When? And most importantly, does this make a good writer?

So on Tuesday, September 02, 2008, I visited Yun Tansil’s second grade class. She was in the middle of reviewing the steps of the writing process: prewriting, writing, revision, editing, and publishing. The previous Friday each student had put these steps on a chart along with a class-generated explanation of what the steps meant to a second grader. As Yun pulled up the chart on the SMART board, I heard comments from students such as, “You start over when you get stuck,” “Just put it into words,” “Sometimes my story doesn’t go anywhere,” and “What does revision mean again?”

Under Yun’s skillful guidance, the conversation that followed was a blend of something like we are all writers, writers write, we make mistakes, we can begin again, we revise, and in the end, we publish. Be comfortable with false starts, taking risks, and going back and changing things. This discussion went a long way in removing the fears we have all seen paralyze students when they face a writing assignment. On the other hand, this class was not going to be a place where a student could plead “writing is a process” to keep starting over and over to avoid the final steps. Yun had set expectations and established rules. By the end, the students and I all knew this was going to be a challenge, but there were strategies for dealing with the tough stuff. While Yun did not do away with the prickling apprehension that “What shall I write?” creates in all of us (because isn't this where adrenaline and creativity launch us into our stories), she did begin to create an environment that was safe for an eight-year-old to tackle it.

To close the class, Yun had the students do “invisible writing”--writing on carbon paper and they can’t see what they have written until they pull up the carbon. I wasn’t there to hear the students’ responses to the activity, so Yun sent me this follow up e-mail.

“I don’t know if everyone got the point of the exercise, but when the teachable moments arise, I will refer back to this activity- diving into writing or getting the ideas down without spending too much time erasing/correcting.

“The kids had fun with the activity. Most said that they felt excited when they were writing. One said, ‘The point of the activity was to express your feelings and not always turning out the way you want it to.’ I like this reflection because writing is about taking chances, making mistakes, and having the opportunity to make ‘adjustment’ as June [a student] noted.”

So back to “Does knowing (and applying) the steps of the writing process create good writers?” I strongly believe so. These are necessary skills to have, but as shown in Yun’s class it is also about the attitude a student has toward writing. Perhaps it is a little like mountian climbing. One must have the skills and the equipment but also the courage to begin the climb or descend the page.

How does one nurture such courage?

Writing Excellence at Greenhill

Hearsay from Greenhill Graduate '02

After the English Dept. meeting last week, I asked my son who was home for two days, to try to tell me his story of learning how to write at Greenhill. Dorian is an incredible writer and is off to the Iowa Writers' Workshop for an MFA in creative writing. I wish I could use his words, but in essence this is what he said.

First of all, he said the main thing was having two classes -- Reading/literature and Comp/writing -- each year in middle school. The next was having "baller" teachers -- perhaps you've heard this term? It means outstanding. He mentioned Janet Cashen and Perry Degner as two huge, early influences. Ms. Cashen taught him about journal writing, actually looking at the world as possible journal entries. She gave creative writing prompts to get the kids started. He still remembers some of his favorite entries -- one had something to do with a teenaged banana. I think 5th grade was his first real connection with seeing himself as a writer. He went to St. Alcuin Montessori before Greenhill where they had "silent writing." He never knew what to write about, and often described his chair. (Yikes!) He saw himself as a math/science student at St. Alcuin.

Although Dorian enjoyed math and science at Greenhill, he became a passionate English/History student here. He definitely saw himself as a writer: Nature and Uses and Poetry were two of his favorites.

At Berkeley he worked as a writing tutor at the Student Writing Center for the last two years of undergrad. He loved working with other students and helping them to see the process that Greenhill had instilled in him. He even taught a seminar on writing -- titled something like “Five Easy Steps to Write a Better Paper" -- the seminar was full!

It wasn't long into his freshman year at Berkeley that Dorian thanked me for his Greenhill experience. He knew that the money for tuition was a huge consideration and a constant battle between his father and me. He finally understood what all the fuss was about -- why Greenhill was worth it. He saw himself not only as well prepared for college, he also saw the difference between his school experience and those of his friends and was grateful.