A BLOG MASH: A BLASH??

On several occasions, I have heard Alfred Tatum speak about textual lineage and the importance of offering young black men rich reading experiences that allow them to envision and learn about individuals who have made significant strides in their lives after overcoming difficult if not nearly impossible odds. He speaks about the texts that were important to him and explains the significance of those stories on his own life. Dr. Tatum spoke to me (literally and figuratively) causing me to think across the lineage of books that engendered thoughtfulness and persistence in the light of challenge and even despair. The books I remember were not stories of romance or juvenile comings-of-age but biographies of dedicated men and women who sacrificed personal comforts for sake of country, family, and God. Those texts anchored an appreciation for the power of language deep within my soul. As a young girl, I was a reader and a writer. As a grown woman, I continue to be both.

Dr. Tatum’s words also influenced me to reconsider my digital lineage–a lineage of shorter history than that of my general reading lineage but with a history. Today’s blog looks back over my digital lineage sharing my replies and comments to several selected blogs of the past six years–selected because though the dates have since passed the ideas continue to matter.

Wikispaces integration with Blogger and Typepad

Dea Conrad-Curry Posted August 3, 2007 at 12:34 pm | Permalink

I’m on WordPress…any chance of being able to integrate that blog account into my wiki?

Chris Lehmann: Blogging in Education

Dea Conrad-Curry | 2007-01-28 13:35

Though I would like to think that I, too, am aware of my audience whenever I write, I sometimes give my head too much freedom. Blogging allows me to share in sometimes heady exploration. Too many years ago, I took a school law class in which we discussed case law regarding limitations on first amendment rights for educators. However, I hadn’t thought about the modern take on those limitations given technologies’ limitless reach. Christian’s guidelines and the comments he makes causes me to revisit the importance of ethical and professional behavior in using blogs, both as a mirror and a lamp ….reflecting upon what we have done and shining the light of possibility on that yet to be accomplished. I am sure that the sense of unmitigated freedom blogging creates will be fodder for new allegations regarding professional behavior and rights, case law of the future. Though out-spoken and sometimes, too honest, I surely don’t want my name to be one studied by administrative students in the future.

Will Richardson: Smart Mobs: News in the classroom

Comment by Dea Conrad-Curry | 2007-02-02 13:53:49

A former journalist myself, I empathize with the situation facing today’s newspapers. However, the fact is that technology has made me impatient–I seek immediacy. As a teacher in an increasingly technoliterate district, I embrace the power of online news and the fashion in which it and the SmartBoard can bring global issues into the classroom with economy both in words and in dollar signs: no having to place orders in advance, or collecting money to cover costs, or writing paper trails of invoices. And no trash to dispose of when the day is done, the discussion finished, and what was new is old.

Will Richardson: On Being “Clickable”

Comment by Dea Conrad-Curry | 2007-02-02 17:43:16

Okay. I’m a new blogger and not having the best of luck today, and though no one probably cares, especially since I’m blogging to a dated entry, I am going to give myself credit for persistence, since self-credit seems to be the theme of Will’s blog.

Moving on…so I’m new and the reason I’m new is that blogging is a class requirement. I taught school for sixteen years and though I did communicate with students using IM and before that email, I don’t know if I would have thought of blogging.

However, I no longer teach. A life altering event (three years ago Sunday) forced me to leave the classroom for one year and at the end of that year, I chose to reinvent myself which took me back to school. Here’s my point. Over the last three years, I have had opportunities to second guess myself, separated from friends and colleagues, but recently I found myself on the web…I, too, am clickable and in that is a sense of validation, evidently holding true for more than just me.

Teachers don’t use blogging with students for two reasons: one, they don’t know how, but more importantly, they don’t understand why. They are already found and comfortable in their environment. They are safe and among colleagues with similar interests, educations, incomes, and the like.

On the other hand, many of our students feel uncomfortable in the school setting. They are unsettled–because of the nature of adolescence, or because of violence or bullying, or because they experience repeated failures, or come from home environments that compromise school achievement.

Most teachers simply do not need nor do they understand the voice, the presence, the empowerment and responsibility that blogging, podcasting, etc. offers to kids who otherwise go unheard.

David Warlick: Out of Context but In-Sync

Dea Conrad-Curry | March 12th, 2007 @ 10:41 pm

The really cool thing about English is its dynamic nature. Words that were meaningless only hours ago are now ubiquitous: skyping, googling, blogging. And used as not only nouns, but verbs as well!!

But I really wanted to comment on the definition of rigor, or more precisely, the problems inherent with using a dictionary….even an online dictionary. Using a dictionary is a lot like using Google….oftentimes, one must scroll down the page to find the search term used in the context being sought. Had you looked a bit further, you would have seen the second definition for rigorous or rigor, either one: “marked by extremes of temperature or climate, barrenness of comforts or necessities, or other strenuous challenging obstacles.” This, I believe, is the context in which educators and education sees the term being used. Even the third definition is much more precise for the context being sought.

Another point–I agree, we don’t want our students “powering down” because they are coming to school. But students aren’t the only ones who need to “power up”–so do teachers and administrators and parents. Our society just doesn’t know how to teach the 21st century learner. Part of the problem is a difference in vision–they’ve been drowning in a sea of trite images for so long, they cannot retrieve and sort important concepts for retention or analysis. They need relevance, but the funds of their teachers (parents and formal educators–money and skills) are limited and shallow. On the other hand, what generation hasn’t clamoured for the same–relevance in face of shifting realities. Dating myself, I remember the 70′s and wasn’t that far removed from the 60′s unrest or restlessness (however you see it).

My concern–if those who were students then cannot provide relevance for students now–where will the students of the future generations be? How can those who are “powering down” possibly hope to capture the attention of the post technology learners if techgen checks out before the learning starts?

Tracy Rosen: Stop talking about classrooms that don’t work

Dea Conrad-Curry said | August 21, 2010 at 10:43 am

Dear Tracy–
Your passion for teaching and learning evokes an image in my mind–of you at the keyboard, intense and focused on shaping feelings and intellect into words and phrases that convey with clarity the position you hold–I feel it and so must every other reader of your blog! Thank you for sharing in the “hope for the future”–the hope that learning can bring a new vision of potentiality to teachers and their students alike!!

Grant Wiggins: Standards, Part 1: Why a standard is really three standards in one

Dea Conrad-Curry said | November 2, 2011 at 11:29 pm

Your blog validates my advice to teachers and schools wondering about purchasing new texts purportedly aligned to the CCSS. I say don’t rush out–no publisher can offer an aligned textbook until exemplars of performance have been made public. You develop the argument for my thinking–but I should not be surprised! I was an early adopter of your backward by design approach to curriculum design. Unfortunately, many are looking for a quick fix to meet the newest educational challenge. However, I believe that once exemplars are selected, quality teachers can make curricular and instructional changes without breaking the educational bank.

Richard Lee Colvin: Making the Common Core Standards Mean Something

Dea Conrad-Curry, EdD | December 14, 2011 at 8:05 am

The CCSS for literacy do not require major curricular overhaul. If schools have written curriculum in place–clear expectations of what kids need to know and be able to do–for each class the school offers, the school only needs to engage in a revision of that work. Such a job should empower teachers to have more control over what and how they teach. They already have the resources–the CCSS do NOT require the purchase of new textbooks even tho publishers make the ease of their “aligned” claims alluring. Unfortunately, too many people budge textbooks are curriculum. WRONG! They are teaching tools! A rely good teacher doesn’t even need a textbook if a strong curriculum exists. Not only do ELA curricula need revision, but so also do content areas outside of ELA need be revised. Teachers of all courses must take responsibility at all grade levels for TEACHING literacy skills. That may take some PD– but many schools have literacy coaches that can support those processes: curriculum revision and teacher PD.

Susan Ohanian: The Crocodile in the Common Core Standards | October 19, 2011

By: Dea Conrad-Curry | December 29, 2011 at 1:03 PM

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water

I personally heard David Coleman deliver the now infamous line: “…people really don’t give a shit about what you feel….” Perhaps the room fell quite because he said what many people already know. On the whole, people don’t give a shit how you feel about a text or piece of knowledge or a skill. However, teachers are smarter than David Coleman when it comes to doing the job they are trained and experienced at doing…one that Coleman has never held — teaching juveniles and adolescents. I agree with many that there are issues incumbent to the way the Common Core Standards were written, by whom they were written, and how that work was funded. However, what teachers need to do is deconstruct those standards to understand that even if David Coleman doesn’t give a shit about what young people think or feel, embedded in his own writing of the standards are opportunities to inquire about personal reflection and experience. Standard 1 at grade 2 reads: “Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.” The same standard at grade 5 reads: “Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.” The grade 2 standard allows for questions and reflections both about the reader’s personal feeling: What emotion does the text evoke in a reader and how does the author evoke emotion in the reader? The grade 5 standard based in inference requires that the reader think on their own, make a connection, and provide an inference that comes from how the mind puts literally stated or implied ideas together. Inferences are not made by the text. I’m not defending David Coleman. He is a big boy who chooses his own words. Perhaps he should be more thoughtful and consider the implications of his words. However, what I am proposing…or more strongly, what I am pleading with educators to do is to read the standards and determine what they mean for their instruction, their content, their students, and their schools. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Christina Hanks: “Tweet” is Not a Dirty Word

Dr. Dea says | February 2, 2012 at 2:56 am

Great post! Nice that you shared some of your “follows” and flattered to be among those in your list! I, like you, am finding my Twitter feed has become one of my major resources for news updates–and maybe my major source! I look for more educators to use Twitter as a resource for keeping up on educational and societal change and blogs to learn, share, and reflect on practice!

Dave: What do Demons have to do with the Common Core State Standards?

Dr. Dea Says | May 6, 2012 at 2:46 pm

Hi Dave–

Upon reading the tile of your entry, I was expecting a blogging (as opposed to a flogging, LOL), and in reading the opening paragraphs, I continued with expectancy wondering where this was going. However, the final paragraph rounded the turn and I thought, “Yes, he has it now!” So, I am grateful you have found my blog and more than happy to link to yours.

Educationally speaking,
Dea Conrad-Curry, EdD

Franki Sibberson: In the Classroom with Franki–Sharing my Life as a Writer

Dea Conrad-Curry | October 6th, 2012 at 8:59 am

Thank you for sharing that insight. I am working with a group of teachers new to writer’s workshop and I, too, had felt something missing. Like you, I am a writer of both print and digital text; like you, I placed the focus of my preparations in the old school of pen and paper. I am excited for the next meeting with my teachers. I plan to broaden their perspectives by sharing the many digital tools we all, as writers, use to express our thoughts, mentor our colleagues, and capture our memories.

Grant Wiggins: The break-things-into-bits mistake we have been making in education for centuries – happening today with standards

Dr. Dea said | April 22, 2013 at 2:34 pm

I am a bit concerned about the “way to go” backslapping attitude related to this post. Indeed, the big picture is important, but not all kids are going to get there. Sorry, but true. So, what are the steps along the way that must be mastered? And where do I know a student falls short if I don’t understand the steps to the final goal. Granted, one doesn’t need to be able to define words to carry out tasks, but the teacher does. Often, teachers look at a standard and say, “Yep, I do that.” When I hear that kind of response in a struggling school, I ask about the standard’s particulars (i.e. “what does analyze mean?” “what makes a sonnet different from any other poem?”); far too often, the room falls silent.

Microknowledge of disciplinary learning does not need to be the center of instructional attention, but must be incorporated as a focus for planning for instruction. Please, correct me if I’m wrong here…hasn’t your design always asked that Stage 1 of planning indicate “Desired Results” which not only delineates what students will know but also, what students will be able to do. These outcomes may naturally occur in varied orders–I may in fact be able to do something before I know why or how it works. For instance, I may be able to bake a cake from scratch without knowing what ingredients make that cake rise. However, if the among my learning plan is an outcome for knowing the leavening powers of soda, salt, buttermilk, eggs, and/or the incorporation of air during the beating process, then by the end of the learning, am I fragmenting instruction by expecting students to explain the process? On the other hand, will I have students that will be able to produce the product but never explain how it happens? That is a rhetorical question.

And so it goes…

Six or Seven Text Pairings Implied by Common Core ELA Standards?

Who’s counting? Evidently, PARCC !

What does “text pairing” mean?

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I posted a blog several days ago entitled Six Text Type Pairings for Critical Thinking & Common Core Success. However, among the documents published April 30, 2013 on the PARCC website is a PowerPoint entitled “PARCC ELA Passage Selection Guidelines” within which is a entitled “Standards Call for Seven Types of Paired Passages” (slide 14) that are demanded in adherence to the Common Core ELA/Literacy Standards. The seven types of pairings are detailed with corresponding standards:

1. Comparing literary elements, including theme (e.g., RL.3.9, RL.4.5, RL.6.9, RL.11-12.9)
2. Comparing central ideas, topics, including same event and point of view (e.g., RI.3.9, RI.4.6, RI.8.9, RI.9-10.9, RH.11-12.6)
3. Comparing and/or analyzing different versions of the same text (e.g., RL.4.7, RI. 7.7, RI.8.7, RL.11-12.7)
4. Analyzing how ideas are transformed from one text to another (RI.6.9, RL.7.9, RST.6-8.9, RL.9-10.9, RH.9-10.9)
5. Integrating information for a purpose (e.g., RI.4.9, RI.5.9, RH.11-12.9)
6. Comparing structure of texts (e.g., RI.5.5, RL.8.5)
7. Analyzing supplemental elements (e.g., RL.3.7, RI.3.7, RI.4.7, RI.5.7)

For clarification, text pairings one through six require that readers look at two separate texts meeting grade level criteria: I.e., two texts same author, two texts same time period, two texts different genres, etc. Pairing seven is unlike the previous pairings because it asks readers to attend to supplemental elements (often nonalphabetic) of a main or complete text to examine illustrations, maps, graphs, charts, diagrams, timelines, animations, and/or “interactive elements on Web pages.” The purposes for this close reading of supplemental textual aspects are to “explain” (RL.3.7), to “use” (RI.3.7), to “interpret” (RI.4.7) how supplemental, often graphic forms of communication enhance or clarify the primary alphabetic/print text. For me…that is not pairing–the graphics are part of the text. In the history of close reading, this was a significant argument laid out by literary theorists: what constituted the text. Among those arguments was whether footnotes are part of the text. In general, the footnotes accepted as part of the text were those included by the author at the time of text creation but not those footnotes added by editorialists of primary texts.

Some may argue that each text within a text of multiple mediums is independent of the other. Granted, each could be seen as an independent text; but in most cases, supplemental elements do not stand alone–the verbal text and the visual texts are co-dependent. Although the written text can often stand independent of the visual representation the reverse is not true. As a matter of fact, in many technical representations, the visual supplement greatly enhances the reader’s ability to apprehend, visualize, and/or replicate the message of the print text.

The one standard questionable to the seventh category is that of RI.5.7: “Draw on information from multiple print or digital sources, demonstrating the ability to locate an answer to a question quickly or to solve a problem efficiently” (CCSS, 2010, p. 14). In my mind, that sounds more like “integrating information for a purpose” or Pairing Type 5. Gee…while I’m splitting hairs here, I am wondering why RI.6.7 isn’t listed among Pairing Type 5; in the initial assessment RFP, that standard does appear among those listed as a Type 5. Listen to the similarities y between Standard 5.9 in Reading for informational text and RI.6.7: “Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably” (RI.5.9, 14) and “Integrate information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue” (RI.6.7, p. 39). This may have been an oversight on the part of those who assembled the PowerPoint available on the PARCC website.

The important lesson within PARCC’s publication of the Assessment Blueprint and Testing Specifications is that of close reading. Teachers and administrators do not need to commit to memory the text pairing type within grade levels, but they do need to read the standards closely to understand what each standard expects students to do, what text genres they need be reading, and how many texts or aspects of texts are needed to show proficiency in meeting the standard.

Six Text Type Pairings for Critical Thinking & Common Core Success

Clips of the 2012 award winning film, Lincoln, could be paired with other genres as means of analyzing the transformation of ideas between primary texts, secondary texts, and multimedia performance.

Where are you with the Common Core Standards? Are all stakeholders on board or is there a civil war going on in your school or community? Is school leadership supporting instructional change in your building or your district? Are teachers working independently to keep up on change without focused systematic support by educational leadership? Are teachers fighting change, asserting “this too shall pass?”

Regardless of the position of the teachers in your school, the leadership of your institution, or even your personal adherence to the standards, you can do your students an intellectual favor by pairing texts for purposes of increased knowledge and critical questioning. As quality teachers, we may differ on our support of the standards, but we stand hand in hand when it comes to the ultimate objective of our work: to support the growth of thinking minds and build on our students’ current levels of performance in their quest of ever-expanding potential.

Passages from this biography could be compared to clips from the 2012 award winning Lincoln movie to meet some aspects of the pairing standards.

Lofty goals? Yep, but that is what education aspires to achieve. So, how are we going to get there? Good teachers already ask students to read multiple texts to glean information and measure influence and bias. Many of the Common Core State Standards ask that students continue to read critically in this fashion. Although standards 1-3 are primarily about a single text, many of the anchor reading standards beyond standard four expect students to go beyond analyzing individual texts by comparing texts as early as grade three. Throughout the grades and across standards, students are asked to look at multiple passages linked by theme, topic, structure, or presentation as means look beyond a single perspective and appreciate the multiplicity and diversity of human thought and creativity. The Common Core Standards are explicit on this and as a document guide teachers in six categories (PARCC RFP 13-29) by which texts can and should be compared.

Primary focus 1: comparison of literary elements.

This is primarily the heavy lifting of Reading Standard for Literature #9 in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, and 11-12. For standards RL.3.9, RL4.6, and RL.5.9 the texts must be fiction. For RL4.5 the texts must be poems, drama or prose. For RL.6.9 more than one literary genre must be used and for the high school band, texts must be chosen from the same period in American literature. Using an extension of the Lincoln examples shown as illustrations, one could compare elegies written by contemporaries on his assassination analyzing how “two or more texts from the same period treat similar topics and themes” by looking at poetic structure and device.

Primary focus 2: comparison of central ideas, topics, points of view.

This is primarily the heavy lifting of Reading for Informational Text Standard #9 and Standard 6 in grades 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and grade bands 9-10 for ELA and History/Social Science as well as grade band 11-12 in Reading in History/Social Sciences, and grade band 9-10 in Science & Technical Subjects. When addressing this standard, students (and teachers) should be asking questions that move beyond superficial observation and look at point-of-view, evaluate evidence, analyze emphasis. In grade 3, the texts must be on the same topic; in grade 4 the texts must be first and second-hand accounts; in grades 5, as well as in RH bands 9-10 and 11-12 the texts must be on the same topic with distinguishable points-of-view for comparison; in grade 8 the texts must provide conflicting evidence, and in grade 9 the texts must be among those from seminal U.S. historical documents w/literary significance.

Primary focus 3: comparing different versions of the same text.

With one exception (RI.7.7), this text pairing represents Standard #7 Reading for Literature at grades 4, 6, 7, 8, and grade band 11-12. In this pairing, readers compare an original text with a rendition of that text in an audio or video presentation. For example, students may be provided with the text of speech or a poem and listen to and/or view the original delivery of that speech or a professional rendering of a poem.

Primary focus 4: transformation of ideas.

This set of standards asks that readers analyze texts for the transformation of ideas from one text to another. Therefore, readers must be provided with both texts: the original and the derivative texts. The grade level standards range from the identical events portrayed in separate texts to primary source transformed into fictional texts, to presentation of through varietal mediums. In the disciplines of history, the texts must be primary and secondary sources, while in science and technical subjects, the texts must show transformation of words into visual formats and visual formats into words.This may be texts classified as primary and secondary in the history/social studies discipline or may be texts with ideas that are transformed through genre. This high level of analysis begins at grade 6 and continues through grade 12 in both literature and informational texts as well as within the disciplines of history/social studies and science/technical subjects.

Primary focus 5: integration of information.

This pairing category is directed at informational/disciplinary reading. The cognitive demands of these standards are less focused on direct comparison as seen in some of the previous pairing and more focused on how readers incorporate or draw on understanding gained through reading the multiple sources to synthesize, analyze and/or evaluate the information. This type of paring is found in the Reading for Information Standards: 4.9, 5.7, 5.9, 6.7, 11-12.7; Reading in History/Social Studies 6-8.7, 9-10.7, 11-12.7, 11-12.9; Reading in Science/Technical Subjects 11-12.7, 11-12.9.

Primary focus 6: analysis of text structure.

This particular pairing is only required by Reading Anchor #5 in grade 5 and grade 8. In grade five, the standard asks readers to both compare and contrast elements of overall structure while the grade 8 standard asks readers to analyze how structure contributes to meaning and style.

Moving Deeper into the Standards: The Demand for Paired Texts

Pairing texts should be done with the same consideration one pairs food and drink: they complement one another. Through the union of the two, each one becomes richer on its own.

I posted my first blog on Common Core State Standards on July 7, 2011 (Who Wrote the Common Core State Standards). I had just returned from an annual leadership seminar hosted by Consortium on Reading Educational Excellence (CORE) in San Francisco where we were introduced to David Coleman. During our time with Coleman, he modeled how he would teach King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and flippantly quipped about the need for students to realize that “nobody really gives a shit how they feel”–his now infamous trademark quotation. Back then, my blogs didn’t seem to get the traffic they do today. In 2010 and 2011, most people didn’t know what the CCSS were much less care what I had to say about them.

That is with the exception of Sara Holbrook, who I first mentioned in my blog in 2008 (NCTE San Antonio: Shift Happens) when I attended one of her workshops while attending the National Council of Teachers annual convention. In September of 2011, she contacted me after reading my blog post, Critical Thinking, Political Demands, and the Common Core. In that post, I referenced the CCSS’s inclusion of William Blake (typically taught in high school Brit Lit) as a reading for 4^th and 5^th graders. I love Blake and I think there are a few Blake poems that could be worthy for teaching at an elementary or middle school level; perhaps “A Poison Tree” would be effective as text for close reading in a unit about bullying. However, Blake’s “The Echoing Green” a poem that references children but concludes on a metaphorically darker note does not seem to me to be developmentally appropriate for elementary children.

Appendix B cites the Blake poem as well as Sandburg’s “Fog” among poems listed within the 4-5 grade band listing and within the listing of associated Performance Tasks (this one for RL.5.4) asks that students “determine the meaning” of the cat metaphor in and then “contrast that figurative language to the meaning of the simile” in Blake’s “Echoing Green”RL.5.4. (Appendix B, p. 70). As a performance task for RL.5.4, paired texts are not required: Determine the meaning of words and phrases…including figurative language such as metaphors and similes” (CCSS, p.12). However, I have no argument with pairing here, just saying the standard does not require pairing although six other standards at 5th grade do require paired texts: RL.7, 9; RI.5, 6, 7, 9. In looking across the grade level standards, all require multiple opportunities for students to read and analyze paired texts, from four standards in the third grade to nine standards in grades 8-10.

My issue with this performance task is not actually based on the essential task or even the pairing in general; fourth and fifth graders should be able to identify and discuss figures of speech such as simile and metaphor in a poem or other text. My issue is associated with the appropriateness of this particular Blake poem and the worthiness of the task. Simply analyzing Sandburg’s well-known six-line extended metaphor comparing two elements of nature (fog and cat) would meet the standard’s expectation. On the other hand, contrasting it against a three-line simile that appears near the end of a thirty-line poem (the focus of the performance task) is not the goal of this standard. Moreover, to really understand the simile, one must first understand the figures of speech within the opening verse lines. The birds are  personified as singing with joy and later, through the simile will be likened to the children–tired and sleeping in the nest. To ask a fifth grader to do what I just did is…well…let me say, probably beyond even many of my readers here. No offense.

Getting to the Suggested Pairing: Kipling & Holbrook

Okay so rather than rant on any further (this is a blog, so I guess I can rant), I suggest a different pairing that is attainable to both 4^th and 5^th graders as well as their teachers. Moreover, this pairing and the associated performance task meets the first of seven types of Common Core pairing types: Standards Whose Primary Focus is Comparison of Literary Elements. The two poems I suggest pairing are Rudyard Kipling’s “We and They” and Sarah Holbrook’s “Labels” (Sarah Holbrook’s poem was used with the author’s permission). Pairing these poems, I suggest, not only allows the opportunities to teach the 5^th grade standard figures of speech (see above), but also allows a students to look closely at text structure: Explain major differences between poems and refer to the structural elements (e.g. verse, rhyme, & meter) when writing or speaking about a text^RL.4.5. and Explain how…stanzas fit together to provide overall structure….^RL5.5. These standards can be met by examining the poems independently while the Standard 9 at each grade can be met by “Compar[ing] and contrast[ing] the point of view; Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text^RL.4.1.

I suggest teachers begin with Holbrook’s “Labels.” It is shorter than the Kipling poem, contemporary and therefore more familiar, and it offers figures of speech to introduce. I always number poems or short pieces of text to make them easier to talk about later. If the numbers get in the way of the first reading, have the students number the lines after they have read. Now, read the poem as fourth grader or a fifth grader; circle any new words as you read. When you actually teach poetry reading, you decide whether you read the poem first-time through or whether you have the students read the first time through and then you follow-up with reading aloud. Regardless, the poem needs to be read several times: aloud by the teacher, independently to the self, aloud by the students to one another.

LABELS

1. People get tagged with these labels,
2. like African-American,
3. Native-American,
4. White.
5. Asian, Hispanic,
6. or Euro-Caucasian –
7. I just ask that you get my name right.
8. I’m part Willie,
9. part Ethel,
10. part Suzi and Scott.
11. Part assembly-line worker,
12. part barber, a lot of dancer
13. and salesman. Part grocer and mailman.
14. Part rural, part city, part cook
15. and part caveman.
16. I’m a chunk-style vegetable soup
17. of cultural little bits,
18. my recipe’s unique
19. and no one label fits.
20. Grouping folks together
21. is an individual waste.
22. You can’t know me by just a look,
23. you have to take a taste.

Once the students have read the poem to themselves, read the poem aloud…don’t stop. Give them the whole poem read fluently and with expression. That’s how poems are intended to be read. Then…ask your kids what words they didn’t know. List them on the board. No word is too small or too easy to be on the list. And now, talk about those words. You are working on Standard 4 at every grade. Have them talk in small groups about what the word means as it is “used in the text.” I can imagine these words being on the list: tagged, labels, Euro-Caucasion, assembly-line, grocer, rural, caveman, cultural, unique, individual. You may want to group your students and assign a word or two words to each group; ask them to write a friendly definition and be able to support their definition with text information and their own logical and academic knowledge. Once you are through defining the words, have the students write their definitions directly on the paper and then reread the poem. Have them read it to one another in pair reading.

Now, start to talk about the poem. In poetry, every line is a verse and verse lines work independently and together to convey a complete thought (like a sentence). I teach my students to look at verse lines and identify complete thoughts—like sentences–especially in a poem like this that doesn’t have individual stanzas. For instance, verse lines 1-6 form a complete thought. I see that the poet put a period after “White” and I can examine that later, but for now, what sounds like a complete thought or a sentence? What about each of thought makes one set of lines them different from another set of lines? Lines 1-6 (about nationalities); line 7 (about people’s names); line 8-10 (about?); line 11-15 (about ?); lines 16-17(about ?); lines 18-19 (about ?); lines 20-21 (about ?); lines 22-23 (about ?). You can get your students started and then ask them to pair up… what they come up with, but always remember, they have to have a text based reasons for the sentence divisions they choose. This part of the lesson is worthy of discussion; it is by understanding what the poet’s words mean that readers come to understand what the message is all about.

Now I would turn to rhyme scheme. The standards reference rhyme in grade 2, but never actually reference rhyme scheme. However, the moment the standards reference stanzas taught in grade ^RL.3.5 and verse^RL.4.5 knowledge of rhyme scheme is implied. This poem is primarily free verse. You will notice there are some rhymes and those rhymes appear to connect two separate “sentence structures.” “Why,” you might ask students, “does the poet use rhyme to connect the thoughts?” If we can’t answer that question now, post it on the board, because after you move through the next section, this will be important.

Now to teach figures of speech! Ask the students to read line 16 through 19. Ask them what does the speaker say s/he is? But is the speaker a carrot or a green bean? No, of course not. How do we know that? Now you are asking the students to go back into the text to prove to you that we know the speaker is a person, not because the text is a poem, but because the speaker used human races and human names and human jobs to label him or herself earlier. A metaphor is a figure of speech that an author uses when comparing two very different things by saying or implying something is something else: like vegetable soup and a person’s background. Now you’ve explained the metaphor of vegetable soup, as students to explain the metaphor of the recipe. According to this poem, what is a person’s recipe? IF they are stumped, direct them to the previous lines. How can someone be part Willie and Ethel? Part Suzi and Scott? Yes, your students can solve the puzzle of the metaphor, the puzzle of the poem’s theme.

At this point, you may want to have your students work in pairs or groups of three to come up with a one sentence statement of theme for this poem. ^{RL.4.2 & RL.5.2} If you’re group struggles to accomplish this task, then you tell them the theme of the poem but have them find the evidence to prove you right.

Shifting to Kipling’s “We and They”

Now we move to the companion poem by Rudyard Kipling, “We and They.” Before reading this poem, you may want to background your students by sharing Jungle Book stories through a read aloud. Regardless, when you get to analyzing the poem, use the same reading process as practiced before: ask students to read silently, mark new words. Teacher reads the text aloud and guided by the students responses, generates a vocabulary list. Then, allow time for students to work in small groups and find textual support that assists in their own determination of word meaning. IF there is no textual support (the word is without context) just tell them what the word means. Don’t linger over it.

We and They

1. Father and Mother, and Me, (a)
2. Sister and Auntie say (b)
3. All the people like us are We, (a)
4. And every one else is They. (b)
5. And They live over the sea, (a)
6. While We live over the way, (b)
7. But-would you believe it? –They look upon We (a)
8. As only a sort of They! (b)

1. We eat pork and beef
2. With cow-horn-handled knives.
3. They who gobble Their rice off a leaf,
4. Are horrified out of Their lives;
5. While they who live up a tree,
6. And feast on grubs and clay,
7. (Isn’t it scandalous? ) look upon We
8. As a simply disgusting They!

1. We shoot birds with a gun.
2. They stick lions with spears.
3. Their full-dress is un-.
4. We dress up to Our ears.
5. They like Their friends for tea.
6. We like Our friends to stay;
7. And, after all that, They look upon We
8. As an utterly ignorant They!

1. We eat kitcheny food.
2. We have doors that latch.
3. They drink milk or blood,
4. Under an open thatch.
5. We have Doctors to fee.
6. They have Wizards to pay.
7. And (impudent heathen!) They look upon We
8. As a quite impossible They!

1. All good people agree,
2. And all good people say,
3. All nice people, like Us, are We
4. And every one else is They:
5. But if you cross over the sea,
6. Instead of over the way,
7. You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
8. As only a sort of They!

This poem depends heavily poetic structures, a great opportunity to introduce the poetic stanza. In this poem, there are four. Each stanza has “how many lines?” Students can clearly hear the rhyme between lines and within the poem, so next begin here by modeling how to “see” the rhyme pattern. At the end of each line, simply place a letter beginning with “a” to note the sound. When sounds rhyme, use the same letter again. I’ve done it for you above. This is an easy task and some of your students will enjoy it and find success. Moreover, it is important to the poem. Once students have identified the rhyming pattern, ask them to notice the repetition of “We” and “They at the end of each stanza. And you may point out here that when authors repeat themselves, they are trying to get the reader’s attention, a point that may be helpful in the following step.

The next step would be to pair verse lines for complete ideas. I would pair verse lines 1-4, lines 5 -6, and lines 7-8. Then I would model how to paraphrase these sets of lines. Although paraphrase is never specifically referenced within the reading standards, it is specifically noted as a fourth grade speaking standard and from fifth grade forward, referenced in the writing standards. This would be done using a think aloud. As you paraphrase, you specifically note the lines and explain why you choose your words. Line 1-4: My family (mom & dad & aunt) says that “we” means people who are like us and “they” are everyone else. Lines 5-6: “They” live far away across the ocean (sea) but “We” live here across the land (way). Lines 7-8: “They” think that we are like them a little bit, but not completely.

This is a great poem to use Fisher and Frey’s gradual release: Teacher models paraphrasing the first verse; teacher works with the class to paraphrase the second verse; students work in small groups to paraphrase the third and fourth verse (then review as a whole class); then ask students to paraphrase the fifth and final stanza independently (or you may do small groups for the third and fourth verse, pairs for the fourth and fifth). Be sure to have students notice the subtle changes in the final two lines of each stanza as they move through the poem.

Eventually you will need to lead a discussion of figures of speech. If you had taught simile prior to teaching either of these paired poems, a good question regarding figures of speech could examine the use of the word “like” as it is used in each of these poems. Both poems use the word (“Labels” line2; “We and They” line 3), but neither is figurative use; rather both use “like” as a term of literal comparison (practice with comparison begins in Kindergarten and thereafter is consistently referenced throughout the grades). Although the Holbrook poem makes use of metaphor, the Kipling poem does not (at least not at a fifth grade level). This absence of figures of speech may give students a significant area to explore when comparing and contrasting the two poems as a summative performance task.

The final stages of text pairing comes in preparing readers to do the complex thinking that constitutes the requirements of standard #9: Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes…in traditional literature from different cultures^RL.4.9. The standards from the substrand “Key Ideas and Details” clearly state that students (fourth and fifth graders) can determine a theme within a poem; standard nine asks that students compare and contrast how that theme is conveyed. Through instruction of this suggested multi-day lesson, readers will have looked at figures of speech and literal language, poetic structures, and paraphrasing of poetic text. What might the performance task to this type of work look like or sound like?

If I go back to what started me on this instructional journey, the contrasting of literary elements between two unrelated poems as stated in Appendix B page 70. What I am suggesting is introducing poems with contemporary themes that are developmentally appropriate and engaging. I would also shift the direction of the performance task by  drawing on instruction (but not providing the answer in class) and asking students to explain how Holbrook’s metaphor of labels can be seen in Kipling’s “We and They.” This would require close analysis and still demand that students stay within the four corners of the text. I’m not suggesting these two poems be read independently and assessed by that question (at least not now!). I know that in order to scaffold fourth or fifth graders to such a level they could read and respond independently to my suggest performance task will take time and practice. And I know that such a suggested performance task has greater real-literary merit than the current Performance Task that bears the Seal of CCSS Approval.

Common Core & Close Reading: An Outcome not a Reading Strategy

Seems like everywhere I go, educators are asking “What is this ‘close reading’ thing and how do I teach it?” The buzz on close reading has become so great that many think close reading is simply another strategy to be taught. If so, there must be a graphic organizer or rubric to employ allowing the close reading box to be ✓ed off the instructional pacing chart. In the haste of the buzz, many do not understand that close reading is not a simple one-step technique to be taught but the outcome of applying knowledge of language structures and conventions in the analysis of a text in order to discern a subtle message, or understand a complex concept, or to evaluate text efficacy. If you can accept that as a fallible working definition, then you may begin to see that not all texts have the depth to demand close reading nor can it be possible to develop a checklist of practice in conducting a close reading.

What Guides Close Reading Practice?

The practice of close reading is guided not only by purpose but also by content discipline. Several prominent literacy researchers (Tim and Cyndie Shanahan, Roni Jo Draper) have successfully made the argument that close reading of disciplinary documents (those documents of science, social studies, math, music, etc.) by conventional literacy and literary standards do not serve the conventional or theoretical purpose of those documents. In other words, close reading will not look the same in science class as it may in history as it may in English. Rather, if we are to teach readers how to think like content-area specialists, we must aid them in reading disciplinary texts like content-area writers. Literacy coaches and teachers of close reading must acknowledge that close reading is guided by the purpose for which the analysis is being conducted and also from the perspective of the discipline from which the document is being analyzed. Taking both criteria into consideration (purpose and discipline) empowers not only the reader but also the text to lead and sometimes attempt to mislead (i.e., the unreliable narrator) the meaning making process.

Can there be a Common Starting Place?

The first step for teachers who are new to the concept of close reading is text selection. The text must be complex enough to demand exploration, rereading and conversation. It must be worthy of time spent. High quality texts, complex texts engage our brain because they impart ideas by implicit means. Knowing that, a good starting place for close reading is in the analysis of the implied ideas. Having identified a text, the first questions to ask may simply be, “What is/are the author’s main point/s? What is/are the key idea/s of this text?” Or, working from an opposite direction, you may suggest to the students, “The key idea/s of this text is/are __________. How can you prove or disprove my assertion?” Regardless, working deductively or inductively, beginning with a determination and justification of the author’s key idea or in literature–the theme–pushes the practice of close reading. Without the ability to verbalize and justify key ideas or themes of a text any further close reading is impossible.

However, implied in this investigation is a set of strategies or tools to use in the work of close reading. In the course of my work with CCSS, I model concrete means by which readers may garner the gist of informational text–Key Ideas & Details–in order to use that instruction as a foundation and springboard (oohh, seems a paradox) to close reading and analyses. In the area of literature, it may be necessary to look for the development of motifs or the recurrence of allusions to determine theme. For success, a reader must be empowered with the cognitive tools that allow the selection and application of appropriate strategies that assist in teasing out the key idea/s when that meaning is implied invites a reader to employ multiple strategies searching the weave warp of language.

For Close Reading, Must the Reader Be Solely in the Document?

Coming to understand the document’s main idea/s is a recursive process. In the search for text clues, evidence accumulates and the reading detective uses powers of logic balanced with experience and knowledge to make generalizations about the current document. Explicit to close reading is attention to the text; implied in close reading is the use of intellect. Although the reader searches the text for many clues, the reader does so with the background of some solid knowledge on which to make inferences alluded to by the author. Unlike novels which create a microcosm of a fictional world, academic texts build on one another. Although readers do not need full knowledge of all that was written before the piece under scrutiny, they do need some context for what they are reading. “Decades of cognitive science research boil down to this: For understanding a text, strategies help a little, and knowledge helps a lot” (E.D. Hirsch, 2013).

Once the reader has determined the message of the text, the process of close reading can move deeper into the text. In history, for example, close reading requires not only attention to the document itself, but also attention to context: sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization (Draper, 2010; Wineburg, 1991). Without a more global, “eyes wide open” reading of significant historical and scientific documents, one may become nothing more than un somnambule hypnotized by the language and structure without a sense of their immediacy and /or effect. The beauty of language and the message conveyed are aspects of import; more valued across time, I daresay, is the outcome of that language on the people now and then.

Where does literary analysis (close reading) end and disciplinary analysis (close reading) begin?

Which brings me to a precipice. The texts that live in cultures and become worthy of rereading are texts conveying significant ideas delivered through enticing, sophisticated language structures. Even when those texts seem simply put, the structures and conventions of language, the connotations and precision of word choice are the rhetorical crafts of speech writers and orators, biographers and historians, and scientists and philosophers. To ignore or diminish a close reading of scrupulously written text is also to do it a disservice. Therefore, I suggest two types of close reading for such documents: one that values the rhetorical or literary nature of the text–art and a second that explores the relationship of the art within the frame–the disciplinary context.

To illustrate my point, let me ask you to draw on your tacit knowledge of a few significant historical documents: The Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, or Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” Each of these documents could be appreciated as an autonomous text as well as one piece of art framed by the context of time or the context of theme. But what of science? Do the titles of documents worthy of close literary reading come to mind? Perhaps not as readily. But consider these passages taken from several texts listed among those in the Common Core Appendix B:

Most people think they know what mass is, but they understand only part of the story. For instance, an elephant is clearly bulkier and weighs more than an ant. Even in the absence of gravity, the elephant would have greater mass—it would be harder to push and set in motion. Obviously the elephant is more massive because it is made of many more atoms than the ant is, but what determines the masses of the individual atoms? What about the elementary particles that make up the atoms—what determines their masses? Indeed, why do they even have mass? (Kane, Gordon. 2005. “The Mysteries of Mass.” Scientific American Special Edition.)

OR

There is a fundamental property of numbers named after the Greek mathematician Archimedes which states that any number, no matter how huge, can be exceeded by adding together sufficiently many of any smaller number, no matter how tiny. Though obvious in principle, the consequences are sometimes resisted, as they were by the student of mine who maintained that human hair just didn’t grow in miles per hour. Unfortunately, the nanoseconds used up in simple computer operation do add up to lengthy bottlenecks on intractable problems, many of which would require millennia to solve in general. It takes some getting accustomed to the fact that the minuscule times and distances of microphysics as well as the vastness of astronomical phenomena share the dimensions of our human world. (Paulos, John Allen. 1988. Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences. New York: Vintage. From Chapter 1: “Examples and Principles” Archimedes and Practically Infinite Numbers)

To ignore author’s craft in either of these texts is to potentially diminish the reader’s understanding of the author’s intent: the essential comparisons between the abstract scientific principles and the concrete connections of the empirical world. The analogies were carefully chosen; the words were carefully crafted. Without doubt, a close reading of these documents results in outcomes of greater scientific and mathematical understanding…I know because after reading them in their entirety, I had so much more understanding of concepts that in the past I may have thought beyond my grasp. However, it was not intellectual caliber that allowed me to come away somehow elucidated, it was rather, the high-caliber of the writing that allowed my brain to image or visualize abstract concepts through precise and well-chosen language. My appreciation of the word bolstered my persistence in reading and rewarded me with understanding.

Close Reading and the classroom: where are you headed?

If you are wondering where to begin with the Common Core, I suggest you begin with the first substrand set in reading: Key Ideas and Details. Read the grade level standards carefully; know what it means and then find text that is provocative and worthy of time. Use that text to model for your students as you consider how to make meaning of text. Point out a difficult passage and then show them multiple ways to identify clues that allow you to ponder and reflect, connect and reconsider. Think aloud as you connect those clues to your tacit knowledge. Don’t digress, but briefly explain to them where your knowledge came from–and hopefully it wasn’t from a lecture in high school but a book you read or experiment you conducted or a program you watched or an article you stumbled over surfing the internet. And then….let them work the text–let them practice the techniques. Don’t do the work for them. Rather, motivate your students to read and learn, to persevere and stumble, to pick up and move ahead, to find success because you have put it in their reach.

References

Draper, R.J. (2010). (Re)imaging Content Area Literacy Instruction. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Draper, R.J. (2008). Redefining content-area literacy teacher education: Finding my voice through collaboration. Harvard Review (78)1. p. 60-83.

Hirsch, E. D. (2013, March 29). How two poems helped launch a school reform movement. The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/03/how-two-poems-helped-launch-a-school-reform-movement/274467/

Shanahan, T. & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content area literacy. Harvard Review (78)1. p. 40-59.

Common Core Literacy Standards: Portrait of College & Career Readiness or Habits of Mind?

I am an idealist. I am an optimist. I credit my optimism for carrying me in times of trial and grief. I look for the best in people and in situations. I believe positivism generates enthusiasm and strengthens the will to persevere. That mindset has served me well. How I came to be this type of thinker, I am sure, is a mix of nature and nurture. Although I have always preferred laughter over tears, I know that my attitude and belief system were fortified through a series of teenage experiences influenced by the work of powerful voices and books–among them, Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive Thinking.

In this time of Common Core, I am reflecting on my personal perspective in trying to understand why I value and support the standards while other stronger voices fight them (Diane Ravitch and Susan Ohanian). I conclude that in part, my faith in these standards is not solely contained within the enumerated anchor standards, but is grounded in the document’s “portrait of students who meet the standards” (Common Core State Standards, 2010, p. 7). I list the descriptors of the portrait with my paraphrased interpretation of their meaning:

1. They demonstrate independence:individuals willingly seek opportunities to work on their own, problem solve on their own, grow on their own.
2. They build strong content knowledge:individuals seek to be learners of the world.
3. They respond to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline: in communicating, individuals are sensitive to diversity.
4. They comprehend as well as critique: individuals understand and don’t just criticize.
5. They value evidence: individuals look for the truth in empirical ways.
6. They use technology and digital media strategically and capably: individuals are active consumers in a mechanical and digital world.
7. They come to understand other perspectives and cultures: individuals have respect and sensitivity for others point-of-view and histories.

I support the Common Core Standards initiative because I believe this “portrait” along with the standards themselves can do something for education that has been lost for many involved in education–administrators, teachers, parents, students, and entire communities–the standards in their entirety can help education reinstate the meaningfulness of individual learning to human connections and responsibilities as citizens. The standards, when taken as a whole, are about how an individual positions the self in a wider context that includes bodies of knowledge, other people, and changing technologies. In that context, the standards are about the criteria we associate with becoming a mature and responsible world citizen. Responsible citizens practice perseverance in a world where knowledge is changing. Responsible citizens are sensitive to the diverse nature of citizens around them. Responsible citizens work to understand other views and situations and don’t blindly judge. Yes, these are pretty lofty expectations, but indeed the very essence of human capacity in a civil world. The Common Core portrait is not about the knowledge but the ways in which civil people conduct themselves: “The critical attribute of intelligent human beings is not only having information, but also knowing how to act on it” (The Art Costa Center for Thinking). I appreciate the work of Art Costa and suggest that the CCSS portrait can better understood in light of what Costa’s work offers. Below, I offer my interpretation of the correspondence of Art Costa’s well-known Habits of Mind to the Common Core as a source that helps readers flush out the nuances of the Common Core language.

Suggested correspondence between Art Costa’s sixteen habits of mind and the Common Core Standards portrait of a college and career ready student.

I position my argument that the Common Core Standards document is about more than the individual and rather, is about the place of the individual in a larger system on more than the portrait descriptors. Here, I also offer actual standards as evidence. Unlike previous standards that were primarily lists of valuing literary canons or discrete process skills for reading and writing, the Common Core Standards build on the value of communications calling on varied mediums as sources for reading, writing, speaking, and listening. But the use of these mediums is not just to build strong content knowledge; the selected sources become the basis for creations of communications–for moving beyond the receptive stage of reader or listener into the generative stage of speaker and writer. As early as second grade, the standards expect learners to “Create audio recordings of stories or poems….” The creation of a recording directly implies a hearing audience and invokes the “portrait” descriptor: “respond to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline.” By third grade, students “Create engaging [italics added by author] audio recordings of stories or poems that demonstrate fluid reading at an understandable pace….” Of course, in the process of creation comes practice, but the result of practice is a recording intended to please (engage) listening ears of an audience that they might enjoy the cadence of speech, the inflection of pitch and tone, the growing sophistication of speech from grade to grade.

The Common Core grade level standards should not operate separate from the document’s front matter. Instead, they must work as a unified whole to develop deep conceptual understandings within teachers and learners alike (more like the math standards that repeatedly remind teachers of the mathematical practices). If viewed as discrete skills measured by discrete assessments, the standards weaken. But if approached as a synergistic whole, the standards have strength in what they bring to teaching and learning, to helping us all become responsible citizens of the world.

Spouting Off about Professional Development: Don’t Revist PD–Revision PD!

I’m spouting off here…clear the path!

If you are on this page, you may notice that I tweet–see the link to your right? I use Twitter (@doctordea) to keep up on educational trends and cutting edge thinking. I participate in some chats–a group of tweeters who have a particular interest meet at a regular weekly or monthly time and share their ideas via Twitter–and sometimes I just lurk (that means I read the tweets as they fly by but don’t share my 2¢). A cool thing about chats is their archive; a responsible person in the chat group captures all of the tweets and saves them in a place like Storify then notifies all the chatters of the link through a mass tweet. This makes available the entire chat for those who were indisposed or those who got were distracted by tweeting with someone else or watching The Voice on TV and therefore missed some tweets of others. Ensures as a member of the chat group, you indeed have “rest of the story.”

But to my point. In several recent twitter chats (#edchat and #mdedchat, and even #mschat), the topic of professional development has taken center stage. For those of us active in educator Twitter PLCs, Twitter is one form of professional development. But Twitter can’t do it all–144 characters! And based on the vast number of links some Tweeters post, I highly doubt that they are following up on their own reading suggestions. However, since becoming part of the Twitter community I have been experimenting with my professional development delivery, now making time for the #educamp PD paradigm and incorporating other Twitter-like features in the PD. Digresson.

Fact is, most teachers are not building professional learning communities on Twitter and many are not building professional learning communities outside of what the school or district offers. So, the Twitter chat discussions of the last week have been more centered on conventional PD and its conventional presentation with which many professions are familiar. These are valuable discussions. PD is an important topic in any line of work, but especially now in education during an era of mass educational shift–dare I say, upheaval: The Danielson Model–Common Core State Standards–Positive Behavioral Interventions–NCLB Waivers–ESEA Reauthorization [sic]. Yet professional development and facilitators of PD often get a bad wrap. I once had a superintendent friend (⚠) tell me that NCLB stood for “no consultant left behind!” And though I understand his emotional exasperation, he provided little or no PD for the staff and they continued to be a less than successful school with morale problems to boot. The teachers wanted help. As one who has spent most of my professional life in the classroom, comments like his or the one by Reed Gillespie (above or at right) do not come as an affront. Like every teacher, I have suffered through overpriced PD delivered as a sit and get training deserves such criticism. As a matter of fact, I sat through plenty of these…in the 1990s. But I have also experienced high quality, ongoing professional development that made a difference–before the era of BYOD! Two of the most significant PD providers in my educational history were Roger Taylor and Talents Unlimited, a program that has probably undergone several reifications since my inculcation twenty years ago.

Perhaps it was for this very reason that as I began to lead PD in my building and around the state (related to a Carl Perkins grant we had received), I reflected on my feelings as a teacher forced to sit through condescending presentations and time-wasting deliveries of statutory requirements. In designing my workshops and seminars, I put great effort in appealing to the diversity that comprises the school. I would like to say they were and continue to be intellectually interactive spiced with technology and reality. But here is part of the reality. Although I’m working to meet the needs of the audience (intellectually and affectively), there are some teachers who refuse to even give the PD topic a try. They can see no worth in the PD because they are going to close their door and do what they want to do regardless or the PD doesn’t serve their needs or they are retiring next month or the school has already released them from their contract or they just had a bad day. You know the circumstances.

In my experience, Todd Whitaker’s tweet (at left) could be retrofitted to include not only the “ongoing” success of PD, but first baby steps toward “ongoing.” The biggest determinant of whether PD is going to be successful is the principal. The, instructional leader in the building. It’s easy to pass off failed PD on teachers, but the fact is, I presented many workshops where the principal is nowhere to be found and yet, some of these workshops are on topics that affect teacher evaluation. Is the principal absent because sh/e knows all there is to know about the topic? Nadda. Anecdotally, I would add that these PD efforts are likely to be the very ones that are met with less success because those who are motivated to follow through belong to the percentage of teachers who are teacher leaders. Now, I’m not saying these efforts fail. I have seen schools be successful in the implementation but that is because they used high doses of PD. I can’t say the principals in those cases were the instructional leaders: frankly, I was because I was in those buildings multiple days each week demonstrating, coaching, presenting, modeling, co-teaching, and building relationships. And I’m not complaining. But I was not evaluating, nor should I have been. But the impression the principal had of teachers’ performances and the reality of the quality of that performance may have been on near opposite ends of the spectrum. Just sayin’.

Paul Dunford made an interesting comment that can be supported by the research of Linda Darling-Hammond, et al who released a 2009 highlighting correlation between number of PD contact hours and implementation. They found teachers who receiving professional development of roughly 49 contact hours spread over six to 12 months were able to boost their students’ achievement scores an average of 21 percentage points. Sporadic or low dose PD (5 to 14 hours total) correlated to no statistically significant effects on student achievement. And, teachers who received 80 or more hours of PD we more likely to implement teaching strategies and methods than the teachers who participated in sporadic or low dose PD. This report, and others, suggest that it is both number of contact hours and duration of PD support (whether it is ongoing in nature) that impact level of implementation. A second study, published in Reading Today, indicates 49 – 100 hours of PD is needed to impact student achievement (p. 29).

P.J. Caposey and Todd Whitaker have it right here (to the left). Professional development is a process and not a one time “sit and get.” On any PD day, there are the “gifted” in the group who were probably doing much of what the PD suggested before the facilitator even arrived (who may be the principal; note I did not say presenter or leader) and those people will take the proverbial ball and run with it. Then there are those who want to do something but need coaching to start. And there are those who want to do something but are aligned with Mr/s. Ido A.S. IPlease and allow that relationship to undermine their potential. These are most likely insecure teachers who in the absence of a positive relationship with the instructional leaders have found a surrogate leader in the Mr/s. Ido A.S. IPlease.

In today’s tight budgets, schools do not hire external facilitators because there is money is sitting around waiting to be spent. Schools hire external facilitators because teachers and/or administration may have a sense of what needs to be done, but the demands of their full-time job leave no time to become expert in changing standards, effective classroom management approaches, and/or mandated evaluation procedures much less support high quality implementation among a diverse staff.

High quality professional development facilitators (note the italics) make these areas of educational concern their full-time work not because they sought an easy way out of the classroom but because they have a passion and the wherewithal to support schools….and if they don’t: get rid of them. Professional development facilitators should customize their work for the needs of the school, the district, the teachers and administration. Without that ability I question their role in professional development. Presenters, trainers, and professional development facilitators are not one in the same. I have made presentations to groups on subjects I know little about (not my favorite task); I have trained kids, dogs, and even my husband (but he has trained me too!); but professional development demands a depth of knowledge and rich experience that takes the complex and renders that valuable to fellow professionals. This is the job I love.

References: Darling-Hammond, L., Wei, R.C., Andree, A., Richardson, N., Orphanos, S. (2009). Professional Learning in the Learning Profession: A Status Report on Teacher Development in the United States and Abroad. Palo Alto, CA: School Redesign Network at Stanford University.

Long, R. (2011). Professional Development and Education Policy: Understanding the Current Disconnect. Reading Today, 29(3), 29 – 30.