10 Tips to Brush-Up Your Workshops!

As we get ready to start a new school year, I thought I'd give a few workshop brush-up tips to get your workshops off the ground with success!

I've been doing a series on supporting your workshop through the balanced literacy components. If you haven't checked it out, you can find them below!

Post 1- Overveiw 

Post 2- Shared Reading & Interactive Read Alouds with Accountable Talk 

Post 3- Shared and Interactive Writing 

Now...onto to the Top Ten Tips! 

1. Know what workshop is and why you are doing it. 

Simply stated, workshop is a block of time that involves a mini-lesson, work time and a share time. The mini-lesson is usually no longer than 10-15 minutes, depending on the grade level. Work time is about thirty to forty-five minutes long and the share time is generally around five to seven minutes long. Challenge your students to work the whole time by setting goals and modeling the behaviors you want to see while they work for extended periods of time.

2. Keep your workshop routines simple and predictable. 

Student should know the cadence of your daily workshop and feel very comfortable with their learning time. When students feel safe and know what to expect, their brains are freed up to do more thinking!

3. Pull your kiddos close! 

Students are generally sitting on the floor right at your feet during your brief mini-lesson. They go off to work at their desk or a work spot around the room, and then they are called back to the front for share time.

4. Let the kids use the STUFF. 

Materials that students use during workshop should be labeled and accessible so that students can get what they need without bothering you. Don't keep the "good"  markers and the "good" paper in the closet all year. What is it there for?

5. Protect your 10 minute mini-lesson! 

Student-talk during your mini-lesson should be minimal if they even talk at all (with the exception of the active engagement portion). That is YOUR chance to deliver a tip for today’s learning that they should be practicing and not a chance for students to help with the learning. Your mini-lesson should be explicit and intentional.

6. Keep your read alouds OUTSIDE of the workshop. 

Read alouds are generally done OUTSIDE of the workshop. You don’t want to spend ten of your fifteen minutes on a story that could have been read that morning. Be intentional about the books you read aloud and use those as mentor texts that you refer to during a mini-lesson. Also, consider varying the book genres you use for read alouds! Hearing YOU read nonfiction texts might be the only time your students ever hear nonfiction being read out loud. Make them good ones!

7. Know the architecture of a mini-lesson. 

The mini-lesson has an actual architecture that is very important. Briefly, that includes a connection, stating the teaching point explicitly, giving a demonstration right there on the floor, having the students try the skill on the floor (active engagement) and a link to daily learning. More on the mini-lesson structure here.

8. Don't you dare skip the SHARE! 

The share time portion of the workshop can be used to do a variety of things! You can reinforce the teaching point or showcase really smart work that you saw during the work time. To keep this time short, during small group or conferring, select the student that you want to showcase and be ready to show the class what they did. Talk for the student and allow them to shine without going over the five to seven minutes!

9. Send your learners off and then...it's GAME TIME!

10. Use other parts of your day to support your workshops.

Getting Smarter this Summer: Reading List!

Even though I'm super pumped about my bad TV summer line up coming back soon, (True Blood? Pretty Little Liars? No? Ok, Shut it.) I thought I'd share my reading list. I really started to delve in today.


I feel like Lucy(Calkins- you know I think we are friends LOL) taught me how to really "do" a for real writer's workshop this year, because I followed her writing series very closely. That series is an EXCELLENT mentor to get you into the practice of a predictable workshop structure. It's in my soul now, and I feel ready to expand. After going through a whole year, I know that:
1. Workshops MUST be predicatable. The kids have to know what is coming.


2. Mini-lessons actually have an architecture! There are 5 parts that are critical to the execution of the lesson! (The Art of Teaching Reading by Lucy Caulkins is suuuuuuuper awesome)


3. Conferring is an ART. One that I currently SUCK at. I'm not coming down too hard on myself because I spent the year really instilling true workshop beliefs in my head- and you can't do it all in one year. This stuff takes T-I-M-E.


I went to see Carl Anderson aka the "Conferring Guy" this year (google him immediately. he is awesome), and I studied Katie Wood Ray's Study Driven with some teachers at school- and basically, I'm ready  to take writer's workshop to the next level.


Now. Reader's Workshop.


Did I do an actual workshop this year? Yep. Did I feel like it was as tight as my writer's workshop? Nope. SO....this summer, I'm jumping in to writing units of study with Candace- and I'm reading:

A lil Reggie Routman

Conferring With Readers 

Small Groups Help

 So if you haven't noticed, my next goal is to get REALLY good at figuring out the ONE thing the reader needs during our conference, and offering effective strategies to speak to that need. It's hard. I tried to get good this year, but I've got a lot of work to do with reading. 


I will still hit some more Katie Wood Ray this summer, I want to get into the whole inquiry part of workshop that she talks about in her book Study Driven. (you should check it out!)

I am working on some Back to School Balanced Literacy Units too but it's a lot tougher when I don't have to create something that my students need to do like....the next day! =)

Happy Weekend,

“Ah Ha’s,” and What I’ve Come to Believe

Hey Friends. This post pertains to my thoughts on literacy instruction.

So…I’ve become a “workshop teacher” to the core. I mean… last year, I had just moved schools, and like a lot of us do when we are in a new school, I frantically prodded my teammates’ brains and listened to hallway conversations to see what they were doing and then I went with the "buzz" that was going around our district…which was the Literacy Work Stations Model. I also said I did a reader’s workshop but…if I’m being honest…it was a hot mess. I knew “workshop” was one of those cool words that I should say to sound awesome.

At that time, the schedule roughly looked like this:

8:00-8:40          Morning Work/Review/Community Circle

8:40-9:30          Literacy Work Stations

9:30-10:15        Phonics/Word Study

10:15-10:45      Recess

10:50-11:20      Lunch

11:20-12:10     Author Study/Writing

12:20-1:08       Specials

1:08-2:08         Math

2:08-2:45         Science/Social Studies Integrated with Language Arts

Ok. I tried. I had some good things going…but still needed work.  

After some intense guidance from my literacy coach (and resident hero) Candace, I spent all summer with my nose in professional literature.

The goal was simple: Figure out what I really believe about what is best for kids, and how they learn.


I didn’t want to go with the “buzz” anymore. I wanted to be grounded in something that works. 
Back to the summer reading list:

Daily 5- check.

Reading With Meaning- check.  

Making the Most of Small Group Instruction- check.  

Phonics They Use- check.

7 Keys to Comprehension- Can I get an AMEN? –check.

And a few others were skimmed. I quickly realized that these greats in the educational field were starting to say similar things.

Enter Workshop Specialists:

Lucy and Kathy. I shouldn’t call Lucy-Lucy, but Kathy I can call Kathy because I’ve met her (name dropping) and she even taught a lesson in my room when my literacy coach got her to do our PD at school- boo-yeah!!!

Coach Candace, Kathy Collins, and Me :)

More formally,I mean Lucy Caulkins and Kathy Collins…I just love their practices...and really most people from that little hub of New York awesomeness (Teacher's College Readers and Writers Project @ Columbia University)

These are my school bibles. I draw from the aforementioned texts in my room ALL the time- but man, I felt the deepest connection with these ladies. What have I taken from these great ladies? Now this is just me …synthesizing my learning. (We are studying non-fiction right now- so this skill is fresh.)

1.    Students need lots of time to read. You get better at reading by reading just right books. A lot.

2.    Students need to see themselves as honest- to- goodness readers and writers.

3.    Students need scaffolding through one- on- one conferring.

4.    Balanced literacy should ultimately support the work of your students as independent readers and writers (more on that below).

5.    Students should be able to THINK and TALK deeply about books.

6.    Inquiry based learning…yes please. Students should be able to study mentor authors and writers and wonder why they did what they did-in order to improve their craft.

7.    Learning should be ORGANIC. Applicable. Real Life. When was the last time you did a diorama of your favorite scene in YOUR last book club discussion? Ah, but when was the last time you had a book discussion about a really meaningful passage with a friend that lasted a lifetime?

8.    Most of all, my students can grow. GROW. I can meet them where they are and take them to the next level.

Again, this is just me using my synthesizing comprehension strategy- not me preaching to anyone!! =)

*Quickly, I mentioned the balanced literacy thing. Over the summer, I kept reading how important it was to have all of the balanced literacy componets in the schedule. Fine. I did that. But then I was reading Growing Readers by Kathy, and she had a little paragraph that mentioned how the components of balanced literacy should all work in service of our reader’s and writer’s workshop.

This was PARAMOUNT for me. I had all the components in place, but they were all isolated- and not being planned by me with the notion that these things should all be working towards the goals of the workshops!

It was my biggest “AH-HA” of the school year. I realized that not only did I need to include all the components of balanced literacy in my day, but I should plan them with the intention of teaching something that will improve their work as independent readers and writers.  Confused? Classic example:

I was in the middle of a Non-Fiction unit in my Reader’s Workshop. I noticed that my students’ word-solving strategies were slipping. I didn’t want to halt the non-fiction awesomeness that was happening to do a mini-lesson on word solving again….so Kathy helped me realize that I can take care of those types of things during other parts of my day. In this example, I decided that the next day, I would incorporate word-solving strategies in my Shared Reading. It took a load off and helped me to focus on the unit that we were studying.

My overview of Balanced Literacy: Making the "Heart" of Your Literacy Instruction Beat!

(click to enlarge)

After my "ah ha" moment, I had to change that schedule ...so now the schedule is looking like this:

8:00-8:15       Announcements/Breakfast/Stamina Reading of Just Right Books

8:15-8:20       Community Circle

8:25-9:20       Writer’s Workshop (conferring, small groups, independent writing)

9:20-9:40       Word Study

9:40-9:55       Shared Writing OR Interactive Writing 

9:55-10:15     Shared Reading OR Interactive Reading with Accountable Talk

10:15-10:45    Recess

10:50-11:20    Lunch

11:20-12:20    Reader’s Workshop (conferring, small groups, independent reading)

12:20-1:08     Specials

1:08-1:50        Thematic Studies (Science and Social Studies)

1:50-2:50       Envision Math

How do I get all the components in? Notice that I don’t do everything-everyday.

Side note: All of my forthcoming units that I’ll be posting will have each component of balanced literacy included! =)

SO.

Do I think I’m a know- it- all with all the best practices and most effective methods?  Am I speaking to haughtily about what I’ve learned?  In all honesty, and in an effort to "keeps it real" that’s not really the point.

The point is: I’ve found something that I BELIEVE in. I’ve seen it work.  I’ve seen the LOVE of reading and writing grow in my first-graders’ lives. I’ve seen my kids experiment safely with quotation marks, comeback lines, and non-fiction writing fearlessly because they’ve studied an author who does the same thing. I’ve seen my students stay focused on one task for 30 minutes straight. I’ve heard them whine and moan when I say, “Time to put workshop materials away!”

 ...and I like that.