Juli Kendall's Weekly
Reading Workshop Journal
A MiddleWeb Listserv Project
Self-selected members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List are joining
together to explore the Reading Workshop and other ideas about supporting
young adolescent readers. Juli Kendall, a reading teacher/coach in Long
Beach, California, is helping moderate the discussion. Juli is also keeping
a weekly journal of her own Reading Workshop initiative. Find out more about
our project at our Reading Workshop homepage.
You'll find Juli's background article here.
Links to many of the tools created by Juli and her colleagues are embedded
in these journals. Most often, when you click on them, a PDF file will begin
to download. You'll find a list of the downloads here.
Week #4
What Does It Mean
to Examine Student Work in Reading?
Let me begin by saying that I am a teacher who teaches Reading, not a staff
development professional. But I do agree with Dr. Judith Warren Little,
professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California,
Berkeley. Here's what she wrote in a publication of the DeWallace-Reader's
Digest Fund.
"Early evidence from successful programs demonstrates that
teachers benefit when they get together with colleagues to examine student
work, discuss methods that support student learning, and design appropriate
solutions for the problems of the classroom. Second, professional development
tends to be effective when its content focuses not on isolated skills, practices
-- or 'tricks of the trade' -- but on helping teachers understand the connections
between what they do in the classroom and what children learn."
I spent 6 years in middle school puzzling out the examination of student
work in Reading. I worked with a group of teachers in my department to identify
what student work "looks like" for Reading and then to use that
student work to develop scoring guides and use them in classrooms. After
we collected more student work, we would continue the process. This was
our professional development. It was on-going, designed by us, based on
student work, and of great benefit to our instruction and our students'
achievement.
Where I currently work, teachers and others are beginning to determine what
student work in Reading looks like and how to use it. Will it be running
records? Are these just assessments or are they actual pieces of student
work? What kind of information do they give us about our students? What
does Reading Comprehension mean? Is it answering questions correctly or
can it be conversations about books between students?
And the questions go on: Are students who are simply reading actually engaged
in student work? Does an Independent Reading Rubric really give teachers
information about their students' work in Reading? Do Reading Logs constitute
student work for Reading even though it is writing that is evaluated? How
can students show what they know and are learning about Reading in their
Reading Logs?
These are big picture questions. For our "whole school" staff
development, our need to focus led us to running records, not just as assessments
but as on-going evidence of students' work in Reading. We developed a Reading
Assessment Flowchart -- Part 1 ("flow-map") to help others
see what this process/cycle can look like. This is the first step in helping
teachers determine book levels and book leveling for students (the most
requested topic on our beginning-of-the-year teacher survey). We're sharing
this flowchart with staff and getting their critical feedback. Part 2 of
the Reading Assessment Flowchart is going to be about assessing Reading
Comprehension. It's still in the works.
Next time -- an overview of other professional development opportunities
in Reading Workshop at our school
See Juli's October curriculum map.
Read Juli's next journal entry
Read Juli's previous journal entry
Read Juli's backgrounder about her work
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Back to the Reader Workshop Index Page