Chapters 2 & 3: Getting to Know Our Students & Planning for a Successful Year

A few years ago, I remember sitting in the bleachers at opening session listening to our superintendent deliver his yearly “welcome back” speech.  In his talk that day he shared with us an encounter he had had with some students over the summer.  During the town’s Fourth of July celebration, he had asked these students, “What is one piece of advice you wish you could share with your new teachers?”  He told us that the students wanted their teachers to take the time to get to know them. To get know who they really were, not just as students, put as people too.  To find out what they’re interested in, their hobbies, what’s easy for them, and what’s hard.  In a nutshell, the students wanted their new teachers to build relationships with them.  They wanted their new teachers to see them as more than just students. They wanted their new teachers to care about them.  As I thought about these ideas, I thought about my own three boys.  The teachers they liked the best, the classes they were the most successful in, were usually the classes where the teachers had taken the time to build relationships with them.  As a parent, I deeply appreciated this.  I wanted my children to not only be successful, but to like school and enjoy learning.  Teachers that take the time to build relationships with students honor that request.

In chapter two of Read, Write, Teach, Linda shares with us not only her beliefs on the importance of relationship building, but also several strategies, classroom routines, and even team challenges that help to facilitate this process.  Even the covers of the Reader’s/Writer’s notebooks become an opportunity for getting to know students. Linda has her students create collages of things they care deeply about on the covers.  Following her reflective style, Linda gathers evidence and takes careful anecdotal notes on the students as they participate in each activity.  She learns valuable information about her students, how they learn, their interests, what they care about, and how they work with others.  She is well on her way to building lasting relationships with each and every student within the first few weeks of school!

In chapter three, Linda allows us a peek inside her planning process for reading-writing workshop. Actually it’s more than a “peek”.  Linda generously shares her curriculum overview, the expectations she has for workshop and the writer’s-reader’s notebook, a pamphlet of information for parents (perfect for open house night!), and other forms and strategies she utilizes to help workshop run smoothly.  Again, I felt as if I had found a mentor. This is exactly the type of information I was searching for when I first starting teaching workshop.  Linda offers us ready-to-go ideas that she developed through years of research, working with students and constantly asking for their feedback.  In fact, asking for feedback and allowing for student choice, are reoccurring themes throughout her planning process.  What this chapter gives us is a framework.  This framework, combined with feedback from our own students and the power of choice built into the structure, will provide for a powerful readers/writers workshop.

Chapter One: Grounding Our Choices in Beliefs

Reading chapter one of Read Write Teach, I felt as if I had finally found a mentor.  Someone who not only shares my beliefs about reading, writing, teaching and how children learn, but also is able to nudge me forward on my journey as a teacher with her thoughtful and reflective questioning.  So often I found myself writing in the margins, “yes!” or “love this!”.  Linda sets goals to not only help her students grow as readers and writers but to help them actually enjoy both reading and writing.  She wants them to read and write with their hearts as well as their heads.  She shows them the value in being literate, how it allows a person to be in control of their own destiny, to have more choices and opportunities in life.  Linda is a reflective educator who clarifies her thinking by questioning herself, and her students, in order to continue to grow and improve as a teacher.

Throughout the chapter, Linda stresses the importance of getting to know your students as people.  She stresses the importance of forming trusting relationships with students and forming classroom communities in which students feel safe. Linda learns about her students’ interests, strengths and weaknesses through their writing.  She earns their trust by modeling and demonstrating her own processes as a reader and writer.  She shares her readers/writers notebook with her students.  Her students come to understand that she does not expect them to do something she doesn’t do herself.

Linda’s beliefs about writing remind us that student writing needs to be authentic and for real audiences.  Students need to be reading and writing on a continual basis.  Writing is reading and stronger readers become stronger writers.  Writing is social.  Writers need to share their writing and receive feedback that moves them forward in the writing process. Students need to write for real reasons and care about the topics they write about.  Students need choice, time and models in order to grow as writers.

“We want our efforts to mean something by knowing our words affect someone or something.  The writer may be writing to clarifying her own thinking - thus, the writing is for self first, but then, often, when done well, speaks to a larger audience, whether it is intentional or unintentional.”(p.17)

Just reading this chapter inspires me to write, and isn’t that what good writing is supposed to do?

“Words are sacred.  They deserve respect.  If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” (p.5)

Just a Little Perspective From a Stranger......

Sometimes we just need a little perspective from a stranger…

I love summer.  I love the heat, the sun, the laziness of it.  I love being able to spend time with my family, see friends, garden, and just sit outside and read as the birds sing. Yes, summer can be paradise.  But as many teachers can attest to, the end of the school year is always bittersweet.  While I’m looking forward to the laid back days of sunshine, I’m also feeling a bit sad about missing my students, kids I’ve spent the last nine months with, five days a week.  I’ve come to think of these students not just as students, but as “my kids”.   And then suddenly, our time is done.   We all move on.  Still, when I run into former students at the public library, or receive an email telling me about a great book someone just finished reading and had to share with me, I get that familiar rush of excitement knowing that my students, “my kids”, are still thinking about me too.

Fridays in summer frequently mean long walks through the neighborhood with my husband, visiting rummage sales looking for treasures.  Today I happened upon a pair of high-back bar stools and a high, narrow table that would be perfect to use as a desk with the bar stools.  Immediately my teacher radar clicked on. This would be wonderful in my classroom.  I could picture two students sitting on the stools at the desk, working on a project.  I even had the perfect corner of my classroom in mind. Excitedly, I started talking about my possible plans for the furniture (to no one in particular, that’s what happens when teachers have a lot of alone time), the man in charge of the rummage sale asked me what I taught.  When I shared with him that I taught 6^th grade reading and writing his eyes lit up, although another customer at the rummage chimed in, “Oh, you wouldn’t want my boys, they’re terrors in the classroom!”  Which of course, led to another discussion of how I’m the mother of three boys, and how much I love boys, and how I’m sure I would enjoy having her sons as students.  Sometimes I just can’t help myself; I love talking about kids and education.

I decided I really needed to have the stools and table for school.  I asked the owner if he would be willing to make a deal for the set, as I wanted them for my classroom.  He smiled at me and said, "Since you’re a teacher, I’d be happy to help you out.  I loved my sixth grade teacher. She made me feel excited about going to school and learning. When she got excited about something her eyes sparkled. I saw that same sparkle just now in your eyes.”  He had the biggest smile on his face when he told me this. I laughed and thanked him, but as my husband and I walked home I couldn’t help but think about his words.  I do get excited when I talk about school and my students.  I guess I never realized it was so easy to see my excitement.  But I’m glad it shows, because if it makes others remember happy days in school, then definitely it’s a good thing!

Read, Write, Teach - Introduction

As I read the introduction to Read, Write, Teach by Linda Rief, I felt myself just itching to pick up a pen and start writing my own stories.  I love Linda’s idea:

“Story shows that we are thinking, feeling human beings with connections and relationships to each other.”

Our students are so much more than numbers.  They are so much more than the data spewed out by the endless tests and assessments we are required to administer each year.  Writing allows our students to give voice to who they are, to share their ideas, feelings and thoughts.  Writing allows students to build relationships while awakening new possibilities, not only with others, but within themselves as well.

Reading and writing have always been my passion.  I love being able to teach both subjects everyday to my students. I am someone who could easily get lost in the discussion of a favorite book, or the writing of a story. When teaching writing, I do try and write along with my students, and frequently do get lost in the flow of the words and have to pull myself away. I share Linda’s beliefs:

“I want my students to know me.  I want them to know my stories.  I read them my drafts of writing because I also want them to know I value what I ask them to do enough to do it myself.”

It’s hard to describe to someone who’s never taught writing this way, but some kind of magic happens when teachers write alongside their students and then share their drafts aloud.  By no means do I considered myself a “writer”, but many times I’ve witnessed students glued to their seats, completely engaged, as I’ve read my drafts to them.  Their encouragement means the world to me. But what is even more important is the relationship building forged by our sharing.  The students learn about things that matter to me.  I learn about what matters to them. They learn that I care about their opinions and ideas.

I have a feeling this book, Read, Write, Teach, will open a whole new world of possibilities for us!