scripted

Guided reading is scripted.

Miss Brave:

Before I actually became a first-year teacher, I was all about the workshop model. I thought it would be helpful, as a new teacher, to have a script of sorts to follow. After all, every mini lesson sounds a little something like this, but with all the blanks filled in:

"Boys and girls, we have been working hard on _____. Today I want to teach you that ____. Let me show you what I mean. ________. Boys and girls, did you see the way I ______? Now let's try it together. Turn and talk to your partner about _______. Boys and girls, today and every day I want you to remember that _______. Now off you go!"

A month and a half into the school year, the workshop model is pretty much the bane of my existence. Remembering the script and keeping the mini lesson to a scant 10 minutes is not as easy as it sounds. Neither is trying to shoehorn all the aspects of my lesson into the workshop model framework. I'm used to teaching in a style where I ask lots of questions of my students and invite lots of discussion. During the workshop model mini lesson, there are no questions allowed from the students and no discussion (except during the active engagement); it's all the teacher, all the time. I see my students raise their hands with these hopeful looks on their faces because they have something they want to share or something they have a question about, and it breaks my heart to keep saying, "Hands down, it's my turn now."

I think the workshop model probably does work for the population of students in the school where I teach. After all, taking advantage of those "teachable moments" that lead the lesson astray can be really confusing for students whose native language is not English, like the students at my school. But at the same time, the workshop model feels really one-sided. I can tell that there are kids who are confused, who aren't getting it, and I'm supposed to pull those kids for a 2-minute "re-teach" at the rug instead of changing tack and trying a different method?

This weekend, I took two New York State teaching certification exams (because my teaching license is from another state, I have to pass New York's exams to get my New York license). Mostly they were a joke, but they included lots of samples of class discussions -- and I realized that's something I miss. In my workshop model lessons, there's no back and forth, no "What do you think?", no "Who else has an idea about this?" I don't get to invite my students' opinions, their knowledge, their ideas. All I get to do is tell them how to punctuate their sentences and then eavesdrop on them while they try it. And even though I allegedly have more freedom as a cluster teacher, I've still been told by the powers that be that every class I teach should start with a mini lesson. It's hard enough being a first-year teacher as it is, but trying to shoehorn every lesson into a framework I'm not all that comfortable with is overwhelming.

Apparently the workshop model is mandated for use in schools throughout New York City, so...I should use it or lose it, I guess? Or I should, as someone suggested, plan two lessons: one to be taught the way I want to teach, and one workshop model to pull out when I'm being observed.

I don't think I'm ready to be that much of a renegade just yet.

Can we conclude from this that 'it's scripted' isn't the real objection the education establishment has to Direct Instruction?

more fun with balanced literacy

from Miss Brave:

On an unrelated note, I love field trip days, because they let me get to see the best of my class. (i.e., my students are surprisingly enjoyable when I am not forcing the workshop model down their throats!)

against strategies

A few years and -- oh -- maybe 3 or 4 Directors of Pupil Personnel ago,^* I noticed, while sitting in on another parent's CSE meeting, a liberal use of the word "strategies." As in: "We'll teach him some strategies for self-monitoring." Or: "We'll give him some strategies for managing his learning." It was strategies-this and strategies-that, all strategies all the time. Apparently our higher-functioning special needs students were being given strategies they could use to overcome their learning problems and work around their developmental disabilities. Check.

At the time, I took this as just another moderately annoying instance of edu-inanity.

But it's always worse than you think.

Reading Miss Brave, and I plan to read every last word Miss Brave has written and posted to her blog, I realize that "strategies" are yet another means of transferring responsibility from the school to the student, while also working your teachers into an early grave and providing employment for a cadre of Lucy-Calkins and/or Fountas-and-Pinnell-trained literacy specialists. Win-win.

Here is Miss Brave:

I've mentioned before that we're expected to make sure each of our students has three goals for each unit in reading, writing and math. While students are working independently after the mini lesson, we're supposed to meet with two small groups for strategy lessons to help them meet these goals.

And here she is again:

Each student is supposed to have three goals in every subject and be able to articulate those goals. That's five major subjects (reading, writing, math, science and social studies), which is fifteen goals for each student. To me, that sounds like a lot of goals. I mean, hello, I have students who don't even know their own last name, let alone the goal they're working towards in reading. I don't understand why we have to start with three goals. Can't we pilot it with one and see how it goes?

And again:

My reading goal is to read my books over to make sure I understand the story.
My reading goal is to stop and make a prediction about what will happen next and then read on to find out if I am right.
My reading goal is to listen to myself read the story to make sure all the words sound right.

My tentative plan is to print all these goals out on big labels that I can stick right on their book baggies. Of course, all the kids break their book baggies by swinging them around, so I was considering getting them all new, durable book baggies (and by "book baggie" I mean they cram all their books into a flimsy Ziploc bag, so I was going to buy durable Ziploc bags, and between those and the labels I am looking at spending a fortune of my own money, since the copier at school is still broken and I have been using my own paper and ink to print and make copies at home on my own time, thank you very much Department of Education).

Question: How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Answer: The answer is not 'strategies.'

Students need distributed practice in order to learn and progress, and it is the school's job to give them that practice, not tell them to remember 15 goals and 30 strategies when they are age seven.

Even if a child does manage to hold 3 reading goals in working memory, he's not going to have room for anything else.


^* Recently I figured out that my district has had 5 assistant superintendents for curriculum, instruction, and technology in 6 years. That's a lot.

60 lessons a week

Have I mentioned lately that I am not a fan of differentiated instruction?

I've just this moment discovered Miss Brave, by the way. She's wonderful, but her school is a dystopian futureworld of guided reading, "strategies," goals, literacy coaches, and "APs." And paperwork. And more, more paperwork. Your tax dollars at work.

Lucy Calkins has a lot to answer for.

The good news: at least they're using phonics.