TCRWP Home Grown Writing Institute (Grades 3-5) Recap Day 4

Early Morning Session with Gary

Day 4, the final day of the institute, began with learning about small groups, partnerships, and opinion writing with Gary. 

Small Groups

The purpose of a small group is to provide guided practice to help students get better at a certain skill or strategy. These groups are not created randomly, they are formed based upon your observations from independent work, conferences, and assessments. Every small group will follow the same predictable structure starting with teaching, then coaching, and finally linking the skill to their daily work. 

Teach:

• Be crystal clear with your teaching point and give them the why, "You're here today to get better at..."
• Consider the method that you will use to teach (demonstration, explanation, inquiry, guided practice)
• This portion of the group should last 2-4 minutes

Coach:

• Consider what practice will look like for your students (oral rehearsal, verbal then written, written, with a partner, a combination of these, etc) 
• Go to the most struggling student last- each time you coach a peer in their group they will get a better sense of how it will go for them, saving you time and giving them a boost in their learning
• This portion of the group should last 7-9 minutes

Link:

• Remind students of the teaching point and perhaps leave them with a tool to boost independence
• Let them know how you will follow up with their progress,  "Tomorrow I will meet with you to see how you have done..."
• This portion is very quick and will propel them into this work independently

The Opinion Essay

Gary then moved us onto thinking about how writers share their opinions with their audiences. They might write speeches, petitions, editorials, personal essays, persuasive essays, argumentative essays, etc. The power, the why, behind opinion writing is that these pieces of writing can "get you stuff" (Gary's quote 😆). Opinion essays can help change a life and even the world.

He cautioned us that graphic organizers are often used to get students to structure their opinion essays in a certain way, however, graphic organizers should not be a mandatory part of the writing process. That doesn't mean that they can't be taught or used, but they should be a choice and a scaffold when needed. As an alternative to solely relying on graphic organizers, Gary took us through a highly engaging and effective strategy, the writing boot camp. The power in a writing boot camp is that it immerses kids in the genre before they ever go off and try to write in that genre independently. This increases students' understanding, independence, and curbs some predictable problems (like lack of structure) when they begin their own pieces. 

Here are the steps he took us through:

• Select a topic that everyone can speak to. For us he chose the Saint Louis Blues because they had just won the Stanley Cup.
• Create a thesis and begin brainstorming reasons to support your thesis. Our thesis was about how the St. Louis Blues are the best hockey team in the NHL. He then turned it out to the (very passionate) audience to share reasons that support the thesis.
• Orally rehearse the paper by "talking in essay". He called on volunteers throughout the room to start telling the essay out loud starting with the thesis, then the reasons along with evidence to support the reasons. He clarified reasons and evidence by telling us, you can say a reason (abstract), you can see evidence (tangible). 
• Have a variety of participants orally rehearse their version of the essay aloud to the group. This allows all participants to hear a few different versions of the essay. 
• Form partnerships and have all participants orally rehearse their version of the essay.
• Invite all participants write the essays that were just rehearsed. 

The shared topic, repetition, teacher support, and partnership work is what makes writing boot camp so effective. After we went through this simulation, we all agreed it is something that we have to bring into our classrooms with our students. 

Partnerships

Gary briefly touched on the power of partnerships. When starting partnership work in our classrooms we have to give students the reason this is a practice we all value: partnerships help make the work we do better. Partnerships should be embraced and valued. They provide another source of feedback in the room and build a community of collaboration. 

The ways partners work together might include:

• giving compliments
• making suggestions
• problem solving
• studying mentor texts 
• orally rehearsing writing
• sitting together during the minilesson

Partnerships and talk in the writing workshop need to be valued. When thinking about establishing partnerships in your classroom, consider how you will communicate the purpose behind this strategy and foster powerful collaboration among peers. 

Late Morning Session with Cynthia

As with all of our work with Cynthia throughout the week, she simulated a workshop where we toggled between being the student and being the teacher. We started by generating ideas for our opinion pieces. This work not only allowed us to reflect on the process that we are asking our students to engage in, it also pushed us into creating mentor texts that we could use when teaching our students about this genre. 

We then moved onto observing and practicing small groups. We watched as two participants played the student role while Cynthia coached in. She reminded us that when we are leading small groups, we will pull students together that may not be on the same level, but they need the same skill. Looking at writing through lenses (structure, elaboration, conventions, etc) will help to effectively form these groups. Her tips on small groups:

• The role of the teacher is to talk less and coach more
• Students should be doing the majority of the work
• Be sure that the language you use is transferable to all pieces, not solely the one they are working on
• At the end of each group, restate your teaching point and leave them with a tip
• Keep a balance of small groups and one-on-one conferences

Next we dove into the Units of Study and looked specifically at the Conferring and Small-Group Work sections of each session. We quickly read over that portion and verbalized the big idea of the conferring session as if it were an "If...Then..." scenario. For example, if the suggestion is to help kids be more effective note takers, based on what the text says, we could write on a sticky note, "If students are copying sentences directly from the resource, then you can teach them how to quote a source or put the information into their own words."

The power in this practice is that once you write the big idea on a sticky note, you can quickly glance at the suggested small group and conferring work and see if it is a good fit for your students that day. This saves time because you won't have to reread the whole section. You can also be more responsive to the needs of your students by seeing if there is another suggestion earlier or later in the Unit that would better fit your group. 

Celebration and Closing

To wrap up our Institute, all of the k-5 participants gathered back together, just as we had started the week. We celebrated our peers as we listened to them share their writing they had created. This brought our learning full circle because we ended it in the same way we should end every unit with our students, with a celebration.

The staff developers also gave a reflection of their time with us (they were just as smitten with us as we were with them). We learned that our institute was the last one Gary would be a part of because he was moving forward in his career. This brought much sadness from the staff developers and our group because he was such an funny and engaging presenter (we wish we could have him back again!).

Gary gave the final goodbye with sharing this video which embodies the essence of this journey that we have started. Teaching is a job that no one can do alone. Embrace your colleagues, lean on each other for support, and trust that you will be able to achieve your goals.

Thank you TCRWP and Rockwood for allowing us to be a part of this incredible learning experience!

My Big Takeaways:

- Small groups and conferring are the heart of the writing workshop. They are the place you really move your writers forward. Make this work a priority by keeping the minilesson mini.

-Immersing kids in the genre you are about to teach through a boot camp, mentor text study, inquiry, etc. will set your students (and yourself) up for success with a unit of study.

-A true PLC is the key to being successful as a teacher. We need others to help us in this very challenging (yet rewarding) job. Don't isolate yourself. Talk with your peers and build upon each other's strengths. Having a four day PLC with my Rockwood and TCRWP colleagues has truly been a gift!