Members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List and other interested
teachers are joining together to explore the Writing Workshop
and other ideas about supporting young adolescent writers and
readers. Juli Kendall, a reading-writing teacher/coach in Long
Beach, California, is helping moderate the discussion. Last year,
Juli kept a weekly journal from her Reading Workshop.
This year, Juli is continuing her journals, but this time she's
focusing on her Writing Workshop. Find out more about our project
at our Reading/Writing 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.
If you'd like to join the daily discussion that parallels Juli's
Journals, find out how here.
Assigned summer reading lists--a thing of the past?
Writing assignments to do over vacation--last year's good idea.
Teachers have plenty of requirements to take the fun out of summer
for kids. Although many of us have happy memories of hot afternoons
spent reading in cool libraries, that's not everyone's idea of
a good time.
For now, we're using our last unit of study in Writing Workshop
to plan our summer reading and writing projects. It's all about
keeping the "sun" in summer and developing independence
as lifelong readers and writers.
Moving literacy into our students' lives
"As teachers, many of us say that our goal is lifelong literacy
for our children. It's a convenient goal because we cannot hold
ourselves to it. We cannot know today whether our students will
love reading and writing throughout their lives," writes
Lucy Calkins in The Art of Teaching Writing, page 505.
So we're using "summer" projects as a way to move reading
and writing out into the lives of our students as they build their
independence as readers and writers.
Following the curricular
calendar we adapted for this unit of study, our kids begin
to focus their interests by working in small groups. Using chart
paper, they brainstorm and contribute to a class list of project
ideas. So many great ideas, so little time.
|
|
|
|
| California missions | Making shapes with sticks | Building boats with sticks |
| History of missions | Making boxes out of tongue depressors | Building houses, engineering |
| Dissecting animals | To be a better artist | How to build an igloo |
| Building a mission | Drawing and painting | Making animal puzzles |
| Studying animals - lions | Painting cartoon characters | How to be a good cook |
| Medicine | Football | To be an author |
| Soccer | How to be a movie star | |
| Girl's basketball & baseball | How to work at Disneyland | |
| Cooking spaghetti | How to be a police officer | |
| How to make a TV show | ||
| Taking care of an egg 'baby' |
Inquiries (things you want to find our more about)
Passions (things that you love)
Real-life purposes (things you are going to do)
As I try to dissuade students from choosing certain summer projects
(to no avail), I realize that this is what "choice"
is all about. It's the kids' choices, not mine, that matter. And
so they pick their projects. "How to Build an Igloo"
and "Dissecting a Frog on the Internet" are two of my
favorites. "Taking Care of an Egg Baby" really takes
me by surprise, but their plans include caring for the "egg
baby," as if it were an infant, and keeping a weeklong journal
of what happens. Like Daishanae says, "If your egg 'baby'
cracks, or someone eats it, that means you failed."
Whenever I think about "projects," I'm reminded of my
brother-in-law. The first time I met him, at sixteen, he was keeping
a large ball made entirely of small pieces of aluminum foil. Every
time he came across a foil candy wrapper or some such thing, he
carefully smoothed it out and added it to his ball of foil. As
an adjunct to this, he was compiling a list of "100 Things
You Can Do With a Piece of Aluminum Foil." Now that's a summer
project!
Planning for summer
To plan out the reading and writing work they will do during the
summer, kids complete the Reading and Writing Project Planning
Sheet. I intended that the questions would help them "visualize"
what it will take to actually do their project (you can download
a PDF version here).
1. What project are you planning?
2. When do you plan to do your project?
3. Where will you be doing your project?
4. How will you do your project? Write down the steps you will follow.
5. Why are you doing this?
6. What will you need to do your project? Do not spend money!
--Materials
--Research
--Help
7. How many days or weeks will your project take?
8. What reading will you be doing?
9. What writing will you be doing?
It's so interesting to hear about why they want to do their projects.
For some, it's all about what they like. "I want to learn
to cook spaghetti because I like to eat spaghetti," says
Carmen. For others it's a noble goal. "In 7th grade you have
to do a project where you carry an egg "baby" around
for a week. We need to try to see how it works," Susan remarks.
Lorena decides to learn how to build an igloo because she thinks
it will be fun. "It just sounds like fun," she giggles.
But Blanca, who wants a career in medicine, is very practical.
"I think it will just be easier to cut-up animals like a
frog on the Internet," she says wisely. ("The Virtual
Frog Dissection Kit" is online.)
Everyone gets to design a folder for his or her Reading and Writing
Project. Plain manila ones are transformed into colorful containers
for notes, Internet research, and project plans. The Reading and
Writing Project Planning Sheet is stapled to the inside of the
front cover. Hopefully, this will help the kids stay organized.
The idea behind this unit of study is that writers start their
projects before the beginning of summer. In doing it this way,
rather than just assigning a project for over the summer, I'm
thinking that they'll have a better chance of actually getting
to work on it. It's clear that they have lots of questions and
need to be able to talk about their projects in pairs, in small
groups, and in conferences with me before they can get started.
As the Internet research pours out of the printers and students
move back and forth from the library, I sense that we are underway.
Another summer strategy
But this isn't the only system for planning summer reading and
writing. In a recent conversation on the MiddleWeb listserv, Alexis
wrote in to share how her school organizes their summer projects.
We have had required summer reading for the last four years in the middle school. Over the years, it has evolved tremendously.
Last year, our assignment was quite intensive. It required students to read one book and respond in written format to several probing questions. The assignments were more involved as students moved up in grade level. For instance, the eighth grade students were required to write an essay, which ended up being quite labor intensive. The district heard from students and parents that the assignment was too intense; hence, our reason for revamping the assignment.
This year, our focus centers on an Enduring Understanding -- that novels have connections to our thinking, our lives and the way we view the world. Our Essential Question is: How has this book changed your thinking, your understanding of life, and your view of the world?
Our students will have a choice of books to read in all grade levels. They need to read one novel and respond by keeping a journal where they are recording their reactions to their reading, making connections such as: finding connections to the text with other media, thinking about how their friends would react to someone or something like what took place in the novel, what would they do in that situation, what would have made this book more interesting, etc? Sixth grade students are required to respond six times in the novel and upon returning to school will be asked to show the teacher three responses that show their thinking as a reader (we hope that teachers will have read a novel, filled it with Post-It notes, responded in a journal and model journal responses -- one can hope!).
Our committee ( a group of Language Arts teachers in our three middle schools - one at each level representing the schools) met a few times to work on the assignment. We first thought of Literature Circles but that work evolved into this assignment. We also believed that it was important not to grade this journal, but to use it as a formative assessment toward a written piece where the journal entries proved evidence to their points. The written response, the summative assessment, will answer their Essential Question.
We are very happy with this assignment and wanted our students to enjoy the summer while being fully invested in reading.
The next day, after more conversation on the listserv, Alexis
sent a follow-up email dealing with the issue of participation.
One of the reasons our program does work for many students (probably at least 95%) is that it is now the norm for middle school students -- an expectation that they will read over the summer and this is a requirement.
Although this assignment will not be graded, I intend to word it so that parents/students know that this work will form the basis for their written summative assessment. I also hope that students who need supports will be able to receive this support from their teachers. For new students moving in, we give them time to complete the assignment and differentiate and modify as needed.
We are also looking for strong focus on student learning. This will be one measurement as we see how students engage in a novel.
That's it, really. It seems that all of us are looking for
ways to help our students become lifelong readers and writers.
As Lucy Calkins writes in The Art of Teaching Writing (page
503):
"What could be more important than finding ways to help children weave reading and writing into the fabric of their lives?"
Read next week's journal
Read last week's journal
Read Juli's backgrounder about her work
Back to Juli's journal index
Back to the Writing/Reading Workshop Index
Page