Lit Coach Notes Dec/jan 2010

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M O N T H LY N E W S L E T T E R

LIT COACH NOTES

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December 2009- January 2010

Meetings/Collaboration

n Dec/Ja Thursday, Dec. 10 Regie Routman Session #6: (1:30-3:00 PM) Checking Students’ Understandings Through Informal Reading Conferences Tuesday, Dec. 15 RT ESLAR Mtng (12:20-12:50) Review listening and speaking benchmarks. Thursday, Jan. 14 Regie Routman Session #7: (1:30-3:00) Using An Informal Reading Conference to Change a Child’s Reading Life Tuesday, Jan. 19 Grades KG2-3 Reading Team Meeting (Time TBD) Thursday, Jan. 21

G OA L S E T T I N G : BECOMING P R O F I CI ENT AT USING PRO TOCOLS TO ANALYZE DATA t our leadership team retreat on November 18, we worked through Deb Welch’s powerpoint presentation to confirm our direction for goal setting this year. Realizing that a move to data-driven goal setting required proficiency both in collaboration and in using protocols, our focus this year will be on working together as vertical groups to find the best protocols for analyzing our data points.

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This work will be conducted through various meetings and discussions throughout the year. In May, we will celebrate meeting our goals, by sharing our selected protocols for each data source.

Regie Routman Session 8: (1:30-3:00) Thinking Aloud With a Nonfiction Text Thursday, Jan. 26 Grades 3-5 Writing Team Meeting (Time TBD) Wednesday, Jan. 27 3-5 MAP Testing Data Results Meeting A protocol will be used to facilitate this MAP data discussion Wednesday, Jan. 27 KG2- G3 + Jen Host Parent Coffee on READING

WRITER’S WORKSHOP UPDATE

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e have successfully completed the first two units in the Lucy Calkins Units of Study series. Both Launching the Writer’s Workshop and Raising the Quality of Writing gave teachers a chance to work through a series of lessons on personal narratives. Assessment and writing prompts will be a focus in December. Teachers have decided to give students the open-ended prompt “Write about a person, place, or object that matters to you,” to see how students are applying their learning to on demand writing. (Which is the term

Regie uses instead of “prompted” writing to describe the writing kids are asked to do in test taking situations and as they get older.) In January teachers will begin the third unit: Breathing Life Into Essays. This unit takes students through very concrete steps to create a persuasive essay. Not only do students learn new skills for this new genre, they are taught how to apply the solid writing techniques learned from the first 2 units to this work. In my experience, the results of the work accomplished in the essay unit is truly amazing.

SUMMER PD IN NYC! WE HAVE 5 TEACHERS APPLYING FOR THE SUMMER WRITING INSTITUTE IN NYC THIS SUMMER WITH LUCY CALKINS! OUR PAPERWORK IS NOW WITH FRED AWAITING ADMIN APPROVAL. FIRM DATES FOR THE INSTITUTE WILL BE AVAILABLE IN JANUARY.

Big Books! We have agreed as a KG1-2 group to move the big books into the Literacy Library so they are easier to share. As you are ready, please send your big books (and carts to store them) to me in December. A%er the Winter Break, the Reading Team wi& meet to determine the best way to organize and check out the books and how TAs can help Jen get them sorted. PA REN T ED U CATIO N Notes from the Lit Coach...

LC LINK ARTICLES Each week I will be writing a “Notes from the Lit Coach” column for parents in the ACS Link. These short articles will be sent to reading/ writing teams to read prior to their addition to the Link. If you have topics you think have a whole-school focus and would be of interest to parents please let me know.

READER’S WORKSHOP UPDATE Our lower elementary school teachers have been working to refine reading instruction. The inclusion of units of study for reading has provided a much-needed framework for our teaching which spirals through the grades. That said, we are now trying to make sense of how the "parts" fit into our 90-minute reading block: * Conferencing/Conferring * Guided Reading/Strategy Groups * Read Aloud * Shared Reading * Centers * Word Study * Independent Reading Time We determined as a group that we needed to "see" reading workshop in action with all of the components listed above. The result- I am going to work with Betsy, (who I’m quickly learning is a wonderful, brave, and fantastic grade 1 teacher!) from start to finish on her unit titled: Making Meaning: Using Prediction to Further Our Thinking. To communicate with teachers here and for others who are interested, I am going to chronicle our journey by posting daily blog write-ups. My hope is that we will make this process seem "doable", while also modeling our thinking (which will change and improve) as we go. Interested? You can follow our work on my blog December 6-20. I’m also going to try and offer some after school chats about this work on December 13 and 14th.

“... But Mr. Plumbean’s house was like a rainbow. It was like a jungle. It was like an explosion. “My house is me and I am it. My house is where I like to be and it looks like all my dreams,” said the man...Then, one by one, they went to see Mr. Plumbean, late at night. They would sit under the palm trees and drink lemonade and talk about their dreams--and whenever anybody visited Mr. Plumbean’s house, the very next day that person would set about changing his own house to fit his dreams.”

H al lw a y s as Le ar ni ng en vi r o nme nt s

A book to inspire us... The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater