We managed pajama readathon.

We finished our narrative unit and will start opinon/argument on Monday.

We will resume our character unit in Reading Workshop on Monday.

A four-day weekend is a great, great thing.

‘Nuff said.

I’m glad you’re with me.

I’ve made it to the number eleven. Eleven is the first two-digit palindrome, you know. So is my room number in the new school, 212. So that’s exciting.

It was an odd week for Reading and Writing Workshop. Very modified, and then the early release conference schedule started, and things got even more messed up.

At the beginning of the week, I co-opted a large chunk of workshop to use for preparation for student led conferences, which started on Thursday. We had to make sure we had enough time to prepare, so I didn’t do Reading Workshop minilessons and didn’t do Writing Workshop at all. We had independent reading time, with me conferring, and then worked on our conference prep (which involved a lot of writing and thinking and planning and reflecting).

Once conferences started, I started up Writing Workshop again. I want to finish the first Unit of Study before Thanksgiving, so we can get right into the next thing during those three weeks before Winter Break. We’re on schedule to do so. This last section of Calkins is about independent writing projects, and how you can use your own writing, the books we read, and more, as “teachers” when you write independently. It fit right in with the reflecting we were doing for our conferences.

Though we weren’t doing reading workshop, I took advantage of the early release schedule to read The Real Boy for 30 minutes a day, instead of 10. Important not just because it is a wonderful book, but because the Calkins Reading unit we’ll dive into after Thanksgiving is about characters, and I wanted to get a little farther into the book, so the class can really know Callie, as well as Oscar.

I’ve been encouraged by my first 12 students’ conferences–they are thinking carefully about what they need to work on most. I told them, “If you don’t bring it up, I will,” and I think a lot of them decided that things were better coming from them. I was worried we wouldn’t be prepared enough, but things have gone smoothly so far. Some of the tough ones still to come, so we’ll see.

So smoothly, in fact, that I feel like I want to reward them with my annual day-before-Thanksgiving pajama readathon. I have never not done this, and I’ve talked a lot with the class about how on the edge we are. I cannot allow it if we can’t read independently for 20 minutes–how would we handle two hours? But our independent reading has been better, and the conferences have been such a pleasant surprise, that I want to do it. I’ll let them know on Monday, but I’ll also let them know that they can certainly change my mind with their choices during the first two days of the week.

It has been encouraging. Having them for only half a day makes for a generally easier time, though I do try to cram a lot in. I’m ready for four days off, and ready to dig into new writing, and ready to explore the characters we know so well (and learn new things about them!).

I’m glad you’re with me.

Well, it was a weird week.

No school Monday, substitute all day on Tuesday for an ESD thing, substitute in the afternoon on Wednesday for district literacy curriculum adoption “meeting,” I made it to school the whole day on Thursday, and then The Iza was sick so I stayed home for the morning on Friday. Lucky for me, and my students, I was able to have the same sub every day.

Throw in that we started preparing for student-led conferences, and it hasn’t been the normalest of weeks. Next week won’t be much better, since we will be continuing our conference prep on Monday and Tuesday, then have a half day on Wednesday for district things, and then conferences start. Whew.

Anyway. My students have been much better with independent reading, allowing me conference with a lot more students per day, allowing them to have a choice in their reading responses, in turn allowing me to spend less time responding to letters every night. It seems like a win all around. I’m happy about it. Happy enough that I am leaning toward our annual day-before-Thanksgiving-pajama-readathon, which I didn’t really think these students would ever be able to handle (I’m still not convinced, but I’m getting there). We’ll see how it goes moving forward.

So let’s talk about literacy curriculum adoption, instead. Though I don’t use it–I’ve been learning/working/reading/reading/reading Lucy Calkins–my district on its last year, hopefully, of Open Court. This curriculum is thirteen years old and needs to go. It’s taken us as far as it can. So, we are in the process of selecting something else. Our curriculum director brought three programs for us to look at: Journeys, Imagine It! (the new version of Open Court), and Wonders (brand new–not out until 2014–but maybe someone is piloting it?). Anyone use these? I have a biased and curmudgeonly view of them–I would really, truly love to hear people’s thoughts about them. Do you use them? What do you like or not like about them? Please let me know in the comments. My students depend on your honest assessments. To me, just my impression, is that they all seem like they run on the “worksheet” model, instead of the workshop model–just shinier, newer versions of Open Court (literally, in one case). Our reading scores have plateaued–I feel like we’ve gone as far as we can with these types of curriculums. Non-responsive reading programs, with writing slapped onto the side, are not a fix for what we really need in my district.

Here’s what I want: I want us to not pay for Accelerated Reader, and use that money for books. Why is our picture book collection so lacking? Why is our nonfiction collection boring and outdated? Because we’ve spent thousands of dollars on something that doesn’t give us anything. I want us to not pay $50-60,000 for a curriculum, and instead spend that money on quality professional development around literacy. Invest in teachers and books, not scripted programs. Who is AR really for? It’s for teachers and librarians who want to (a) not read the books their students are reading, (b) not talk with kids about what they are reading, (c) not help students find the perfect book for them, or (d) all of the above. Who are these scripted programs for? They’re for (a) districts who don’t want to spend money on authentic literacy PD, and would rather give teachers a book that tells them what to do, (b) teachers who just want someone to tell them what to do, (c) publishing companies happy to make a buck, or (d) all of the above.

Neither AR nor scripted programs are for students. You know what are for the kids? Harry Potter, Elephant & Piggie, Captain Underpants, Sisters Grimm, One for the Murphys, The One and Only Ivan, Bink & Gollie, Wonder, Bigger than a Bread Box, Babymouse, poetry, nonfiction picture books, The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, Marty McGuire, biographies, Smile, Amulet, Bone, Squish, Percy Jackson, Dork Diaries, Popularity Papers, Origami Yoda, book clubs, reading aloud, reading with a friend, reading and reading and reading every day, writing and writing and writing every day, Counting by 7s, The Real Boy, A Crooked Kind of Perfect, Tuck Everlasting, Hugo Cabret, celebrating writing and writers, Hatchet, #teambear, #teamrabbit, wordless picture books, The Year of Billy Miller, teachers who read, teachers who write, principals who read, principals who write, librarians who read, librarians who write, Jerry Spinelli, Christopher Paul Curtis, Sharon Creech, and gosh I could go on forever.

Let’s invest in that.

I understand that is harder. I understand that it is more work. I understand that it might be more money up front. I understand that it is scary and change and uncertain and new and different. I understand. I just don’t care about that.

I care about kids. I care about my students. So let’s get started.

[/rant]

I’m glad you’re with me.

Maybe, it was one of the best weeks of the year. Maybe, we are getting somewhere. Maybe, I won’t completely lose my mind this year. Maybe.

Any week when I give myself a break from Lucy Calkins is like adding an hour of free time to every evening. Of course, that hour quickly gets filled up with everything else. I like the Units of Study, but I don’t mind at all taking days off from all the reading required to prepare for those lessons.

This week, we made anchor charts for responding to reading with a sketch/drawing, book review, and story mountain. My students held up their end of the bargain–I was able to confer with 18 students, three more than our goal. So next week 2/3 of them will get to choose how they respond to their reading for the week. I’m glad the class was able to do it. I’m looking forward to seeing how students use their new choices. I’m nervous about the weeks that we don’t meet my minimum conference requirements.

In writing, we finally had a sharing day. Six students turned in a published story for inclusion in our Volume 1 anthology. The stories weren’t the best–one was entirely dialogue, the rest had essentially no dialogue–but the class loved them and the writers enjoyed the attention. I think it will motivate students to work harder and more quickly on their writing–a lot of them will want to share next time. Hopefully, students will also be motivated to revise and improve their own writing after hearing what their classmates are trying.

The dialogue-heavy story is a good example. The author wrote some really wonderful dialogue–very natural, very funny–and read with wonderful expression. I think it will lead more students to try to imagine natural dialogue and put it into their stories. I need to meet with the author separately to talk about including setting, action, etc., but it was great for him to share and for students to hear.

Next week, we will commandeer Reading and Writing Workshop to work and prepare for student-led conferences, which start on November 21.  I’m busy grading on-demand writing so that students can have time to reflect and set goals and think about what they want to talk about with their parents. I’m curious what they will say. We’ll be spending some time learning about having a growth-mindset.

I’m glad you’re with me.