Instructional Facilitators for Literacy
Eric Bush- Jackson
x7012
Patricia Burke-Evergreen
x5763
Pat Collins-North
x4907
Loretta Comfort-Center
x4064
Cindy Foster-Eisenhower
x7518
Tasha Lewis-Center
x4071
Tessa O’Connor-Everett
x4437
Deb Ritchhart-Heatherwood x6483
Monte Schultz-Cascade
x6039
Barbara Tibbits-Gateway
x6712
•
Volume 1—Issue 2
Dec. 2008
IMPORTANT DATES
Review of Evidence
1-22: 7th - EVG, EIS, GWY
8th - HWD
1-23: 8th- EIS, GWY,
7th—Nor
1-29: Argumentative Paper PLC
1-30: MS Challenge Alignment
2-24: Review of Evidence 9th
CE Cadre
2-26: Review of Evidence 10th
Spotlight on Literacy
by Judy Baker
The 12
th
grade English instruc-
tors at JHS take the concept of
teaming for learning to a whole
new level. Dan Geary, Nick
Nicoletta, and Judy Baker have
not just worked together for
years; they’ve co-conceived, co-
designed and even co-delivered
their courses. Starting in 01-02,
they and their fourth musketeer,
Kathy Seltzer (now at Sequoia),
decided to try to combat the
Senior Slump and lack of stu-
dent engagement in core cur-
riculum by creating a challeng-
ing, capstone English experience
meaningful for
all
students. Us-
ing Nicoletta’s UW Freshman
Composition course as their
model, they created one cohe-
sive curriculum integrating argu-
mentative writing with reading
complex, multidisciplinary es-
says. Then, they set up a differ-
entiated assessment system so
that students with skills at any
level and interests in, beyond,
and outside of college could be
served within it, no matter their
specific class or teacher.
Volume 1—Issue 2
Dec. 2008
Jackson High School 12th Grade
English Team –Teaming For Learning
Instructional Literacy Facilitators
Eric Bush- Jackson HS
x7195
Patricia Burke-Evergreen MS x5763
Pat Collins-North MS
x4907
Cindy Foster-Eisenhower MS x7518
Tasha Lewis-Center
x4071
Tessa O’Connor-Everett HS
x4437
Deb Ritchhart-HWD MS
x6483
Monte Scholz-Cascade HS
x6107
Barbara Tibbits-Gateway MS x6712
Curriculum Specialists
Loretta Comfort-Center
x4064
Jeanne Willard
X4053
Curious about the picture above? Read
Loss of the Creature
by Walker Percy for Grand Canyon
reference. (Get it on the web at udel.edu/anthro/ackerman/loss-creature.pdf)
(Percy, Walker. “The Loss of the Creature.” Ways of Reading. Eds. David Bartholomae and Anthony
Petrosky. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1999.)
Off the beaten path and reclaiming sovereignty.
Collection of Evidence
COE started last year (well, two years ago but
really last year in earnest). In this time, it went
from being overseen by Peter Hendrickson to
JoAnne Fabian, with Loretta participating by
lending her wisdom and IFL’s. Math does a COE
as well but we are not a part of this process
Page 2
Spotlight on Literacy
(Jackson High School continued)
Simply put, this system is: all students—
including students in modified English
(thanks to the fifth musketeer, Michaelle
Frank)—tackle at least some of the same
essays and some of the same writing as-
signments in every English class; they are
graded, however, on a sliding scale of per-
formance level for the overall curriculum
outcomes, ranging from college-level expec-
tations to post-WASL GLEs to IEP-goal
benchmarks. Teachers differentiate instruc-
tion to meet the needs of their individual
classes, but the entire graduating class as a
whole tackles—and tests itself against—real,
college work in diverse settings and through
diverse pathways.
Their original desired outcome was
achieved through hours spent on team-
scoring, group lesson planning, team-
teaching, and calibrating with the UW and
EvCC. Indeed, even with the many changes
to curriculum, credit requirements, and
personnel that have occurred since, it con-
tinues to be successful. Today, JHS seniors
collectively and individually engage with a
career- and college-preparatory challenge
as a culmination of their education, no
matter what English class they take, with
more than half of the graduating class each
year electing to take the course at the col-
lege-level (despite the risk to their GPA
and the additional credit load it repre-
sents). The shared learning that this has
engendered has spawned a running joke in
every department and office at JHS that “it
must be that time of year…the seniors are
reading Percy [a philosophical essay, fa-
mous for its discussion of ‘the sovereignty
of knowing’], and it’s coming up in every
conversation, in every class, at lunch, in
their senior quotes…aargh!!”
What does the team hope that others will
learn from its example? They defer to Percy,
who says:
[…] the student should know
what a fight he has on his
hands to rescue the specimen
from the educational package.
The educator is only partly to
blame. For there is nothing
the educator can do to pro-
vide for this need of the stu-
dent. Everything the educator
does only succeeds in becom-
ing, for the student, part of
the educational package. The
highest role of the educator is
(engaging students in logical
reasoning): to help the stu-
dent come to himself not as a
consumer of experience but
as a sovereign individual. [….]
Our final reflection of what has been
achieved by teachers and students is best
described by Mounier … the person is not
something one can study and provide for;
he is something one struggles for. But
unless he also struggles for himself, unless
he knows that there is a struggle, he is go-
ing to be just what the planners think he is.
Walker Percy 1916-90, American novelist, b. Birmingham, Ala.
“You can get all A’s and still flunk life.”
Page 3
Spotlight on Literacy
6th grade teachers at
North Middle School
; Mary
Quinlan, Nancy Kilgore,
Cathy Westenberger, and
Trish Corey are working to
create a culture of independ-
ent readers with a passion
for reading.
First Steps
—Beginning the
year with lessons in the li-
brary and in class, teachers
worked with librarian,
Kenleigh Kelly, guiding stu-
dents in choosing books that
facilitate getting to “Reading In The Zone.” The
key component to “Reading In The Zone,” is that
every student has a
just-right
book. Helping stu-
dents choose books that they will enjoy and that
they can read was the first order of business for
“Reading In The Zone.”
Practice, Practice, Prac-
tice—
Students then prac-
ticed and practiced exactly
what “Reading In The Zone”
should look like. The room
is quiet except for turning
pages and the quiet conver-
sations of the teacher with selected students. Every-
one has to be totally focused on their reading, eve-
ryone stays in their seats, no bathroom breaks, no
drinks, and above all else, NO FAKE READING!
Many students found these rules to be a real chal-
lenge. Teachers practiced “Reading In The Zone”
with their students. The whole class stopped read-
ing when one person was OUT of the zone. First
attempts of “Reading In The Zone” were only 30
seconds for some classes! Teachers and students
did not give up and students are now “Reading In
The Zone” for 20-30 minutes.
What Does The Teacher Do?
The 6th grade
teachers now use this time to monitor students to
make sure they are actually reading, to quietly con-
ference with students, to check books, reading logs,
and to encourage students as they read.
It’s Working!
Mary Quinlan is
finding that it is really working
in her class. One day her cell
phone went off and no one
looked up or snickered. She also
noted that after having prac-
ticed “Reading In the Zone,”
many more kids will choose to
continue reading even after 20
minutes if given the choice.
Mary and the teacher librarian
have marveled at the number of
kids actually voluntarily reading
during library time rather than
wandering around among the book shelves.”
How Are Students
Held Account-
able?
—What about
comprehension and
holding students
accountable for their
independent read-
ing? According to
Nancy Atwell, stu-
dents who engage with self-selected, “just-right”
books do comprehend. In her book,
The Reading
Zone—How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate,
Habitual, Critical Readers,
Atwell states that, “only
readers who are bored, confused, or frustrated by a
text will ‘need strategies’ in order to comprehend it,
and even then, there are limits to what the strate-
gies can fix or supply.” She strongly suggests that
a good time for teachers to implement instruction of
comprehension strategies is
during guided reading of
informational texts, antholo-
gies, short literary texts,
and poetry.
Booktalks
—What needs to
come out of “Reading In The
Zone” are the students
voices about their reading.
Atwell is an avid proponent
of
booktalks.
Her classroom
of 7th and 8th graders conduct over 300 booktalks
in a given year. What these are and how they work
in the classroom will appear in our next issue of
Spotlight On Literacy.
NORTH MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS FIND THEMSELVES
“READING IN THE ZONE”
Collection of Evidence
COE started last year (well, two years ago but
really last year in earnest). In this time, it went
from being overseen by Peter Hendrickson to
JoAnne Fabian, with Loretta participating by
lending her wisdom and IFL’s. Math does a COE
as well but we are not a part of this process
Page 4
Spotlight on Literacy
Updates on Committees and PLCs
Teaching Adolescent Writers is a delightful,
easy read mainly because Kelly Gallagher
practices his craft with a clear purposeful
flow. He can actually write very well!
Kelly implements his recommendations in his
high school English classes. His voice puts
you right beside him as he describes and
implements his writing strategies. The book
is built around the six “Pillars of Writing Suc-
cess,” and offers a number of classroom
tested strategies that enable teachers to
cover a range of topics from motivating
young writers to helping students recognize
the importance of purpose and audience.
His motivational strategies actually work
with today’s generation.
Teaching Adolescent Writers Class
Jan. 13, 27; Feb. 3, 24; March 10
(10 clock hours)
Eisenhower MS Library
3:30—5:30
Sign up through the district online system.
Collection of Evidence
Collections of Evidence binders are due to the District Office January 9. Suc-
cess coordinators or IFLs at each high school will take the finished binders to
the Center for sufficiency review. To facilitate the completion of the binders
to a proficient level this year, the Collection of Evidence PLC met three times
and focused on both instructional skills and COE logistics. The last meeting
of the PLC, for example, had members go to the OSPI website and electroni-
cally fill out the new forms so everyone knows what and how to do them.
The team also helped create a sufficiency review form that will supplant the
woefully deficient one the State suggests districts use. There are three more
COE PLCs slated for the school year: January 12, March 9, and June1. Janu-
ary 12 will focus on binders that need revision and the final submission proc-
ess, and the other two PLCs will focus on reading instruction and ramping up
for the next year (also a summer COE class for ELL students if funded).
High School Literacy Review
A representative group of teachers from all high schools, grades 9 – 11, is in
the process of reviewing the novels and non-fiction texts taught at each grade
level throughout the district. The overall purpose of this review includes the
following:
•
Provide high quality and highly engaging texts for students
•
Provide adequate numbers of books so that students can read outside of
class time, allowing teachers to use class time for more instructional pur-
poses
•
Provide common core texts for grade levels district wide
•
Align texts 6 – 11 to delete any overlap in titles at different grade levels
•
Provide enough texts so that more than one teacher can teach a book at
the same time, thus providing opportunities for teachers to collaborate on
lesson planning
After spending one day together investigating best practices for teaching
reading and literature, the team will meet again on January 6 to make deci-
sions about focus for each grade level and possible titles of books. We expect
to make recommendations for purchase by February.
Argumentative Paper
Participation in afterschool Argumentative Paper Professional Learning Communi-
ties (PLCs) is strong. At both the October 30 and December 9 PLCs, teachers
shared powerful lessons, instructional strategies and student work focusing on
developing argumentative skills, synthesis, deeper reading, organizing and “talking
out” an argument. On December 11, a cadre of Grade 11 English teachers met for
a full day of Range-Finding using the revised Argumentative Paper Rubric.
Teacher participants scored student papers using the new rubric, wrestled with
coming to consensus on student samples that demonstrated “at standard” work.
Throughout the day, teachers discussed how the rubric helped or hindered their
process and suggested possible modifications to make the rubric more useful to
teachers and students. Additionally, participants selected possible student work
samples for future calibration trainings. The next Argumentative Paper PLC will
meet at Sequoia High School on Thursday, January 29, from 3:00 – 5:00 PM.
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