Readers as Individuals

In Ms. Tyler’s reading workshop, students have complete freedom when selecting what they read. If they start a book and find it too difficult, or not to their liking, they are free to abandon it after a few pages and find something else. If Ms. Tyler feels that her students are overwhelmed by the prospect of reading a complete novel, she helps them set their sights on more personally manageable goals, perhaps offering them a selection of short stories from which to choose and then helping them expand their goals until they are ready to tackle longer works. Ms. Tyler has provided viewers with Picacho Picks, a list of favorite books chosen by her sixth graders, as a way to give viewers of this video a sense of their selections. You will note that many of the titles selected by her students are ones introduced in other videos in this series.

School: Picacho Middle School
Location: Las Cruces, New Mexico
No. of Students in School: 907
Teacher: Flora Tyler
No. of Years Teaching: 21
Grade: 6th
Subject: Language Arts
No. of Students in the Classroom: 20

Picacho Middle School in Las Cruces, New Mexico is founded on the principles of collaboration and interdisciplinary learning. Students in grades six through eight work with cross-curricular, thematic units that have bearing on children’s daily lives and decisions. The school hopes to help students learn to make smart choices based on facts, not myths and misperceptions. Classes are also designed to help students feel good about themselves through a sixth-grade team emphasis on multiple intelligences. As proof that this philosophy works, the school touts its high daily attendance and active programs in music, art, athletics, and community service.

The student body is predominantly Hispanic, with smaller populations of Anglo, African American, Native American, and Asian students. While some children come from affluent households, many are from migrant families or live in shelters and other temporary housing. Language barriers and a lack of staff to conduct home visits complicate the process of contacting parents. Although a few schools in the area have begun dual prep programs where all students are taught in two languages, Picacho continues to use an ESL approach in which students are mainstreamed with help. As required by the state, all sixth-graders take the New Mexico Writing Assessment, in which students have three hours to respond to a writing prompt. The state also mandates that students in grades six through eight take the TerraNova, which helps determine what rating a school receives.

Class size at Picacho ranges from 23 to 25 in 85-minute blocks. Teachers at each grade level are divided into two teams, each responsible for 120 to 150 children. They have one 45-minute common planning period. In Flora Tyler’s sixth-grade team, teachers collaborate to sketch out the highlights and themes for the year’s curriculum, including at least two weeklong interdisciplinary units per semester. The team’s emphasis is on challenging all students through individualized expectations and support. Ms. Tyler also works with the second language arts teacher to plan common objectives for each quarter, although their classes usually take different routes to arrive at these goals. Ms. Tyler’s classroom is a celebration of different learning styles. She frequently uses music, art, and imagery to set a mood or make a point — for instance, reinforcing the meaning of punctuation by having students click, clap, and snap the different rhythms each mark produces. Students are required to incorporate multiple ways of knowing into any presentation, and may ask their classmates for their help and expertise in completing a project. Ms. Tyler’s goal is to instill a sense of self-worth in each of her students by helping them to discover and develop their areas of strength.

Teacher: Flora Tyler, Picacho Middle School, Las Cruces, New Mexico

Flora Tyler’s lesson plan is also available as a PDF file. See Materials Needed, below, for links to student activity sheets related to the lesson.

Grade Level: Sixth

Topic: Conducting a reading workshop

Materials Needed:

• Self-selected reading books for each student (see Picacho Picks: Sixth-Grade Favorites at Picacho Middle School for a list of books Ms. Tyler’s students identified as “favorites.”)
• Creating a Literary Poster and Assessment Criteria (see Ms. Tyler’s handout for this assignment for suggestions.)
• Literary Presentations: Guidelines and Possibilities (you may wish to use this handout to offer students guidelines for this project)
• Writer’s notebook for each student
• Art materials
• Reading workshop binder. For suggestions about how to set up this binder, see our Reading Workshop Binder Teacher Tool.

Background Information:
By the time of year when this class was recorded, students are familiar with the classroom rules and procedures for readers’ workshop. They are working on their individual goals, preparing literature log entries in their writer’s notebooks and developing both a literary poster and a presentation based on a novel they have read during the school year.

In addition, students have been taught about Howard Gardner’s work with multiple intelligences. References to these intelligences are made and connections to ways students use their intelligences are reinforced regularly. Students are asked to consider ways they can use several of their intelligences when preparing their literature presentations.

Lesson Objectives:
Students will:

• increase their reading and writing skills.
• set and meet individual reading goals.
• choose individual literature to read.
• read and enjoy the literature they read.
• demonstrate knowledge of literary elements.
• share insights about their reading with their classmates.

Expected Products From Lesson:

• Progress on individual reading goals
• Response entries in writer’s notebook
• Literary poster: Creating a Literary Poster offers directions for students and assessment criteria for this project.
• Literary presentation: Literary Presentations: Guidelines and Possibilities is a handout for students that offers ideas they may wish to use for their literary presentation.

Instructional Strategies Implemented:

• Collaborative learning
• Students sharing books and writing pieces with each other
• Teacher conferences
• Students modeling finished reading projects

Collaborative Structure of Class:
Students are grouped heterogeneously. During the class period, some may be seated alone working on a project or completing a written response. Some may be in the reading area, choosing books, or reading independently. Some may be in designated areas for peer conferencing, or a group may be gathered in the presentation area with the teacher.

Lesson Procedures/Activities:

• Mini-lesson
• Status-of-the-class
• Reading workshop
• Group sharing

Follow-Up Activities or Culminating Activities:
Students will complete a literary poster and a literary presentation on a novel they have completed during the year. These will be shared and videotaped by other students.

Assessment:
Students may be assessed holistically on a daily basis through:

• preparation and participation (successful meeting of self-determined goals) and
• writer’s notebook entries.

The following activities might receive scaled (or graded) evaluation:

• literary poster and
• literature presentation.

See Assessment and Evaluation: Some Useful Principles for a detailed explanation of holistic and scaled evaluation.

Take a step back from your classroom and examine the video clip in relation to your own instructional practices. Use the questions below to spark discussion about instructional practices in department meetings, team meetings, or as a writing prompt in your own professional journal.

Consider:

• What are the benefits of asking students to set their own performance goals as readers? What are the drawbacks? How might a teacher maximize the benefits and minimize the drawbacks?
• What are the benefits of asking students to select all their own reading texts? What are the drawbacks? How might a teacher maximize the benefits and minimize the drawbacks?
• What do students need to know and be able to do in order to make literature selections wisely?
• What kinds of preparation do students need in order to set their own reading and learning goals?
• Is a workshop approach such as the one presented here personally comfortable for you? Why or why not?

Whether you are a classroom or preservice teacher, teacher educator, content leader, department chair, or administrator, the materials below can assist you in implementing the practices presented in the video clip.

Assessment and Evaluation: Some Useful Principles
The terms assessment and evaluation are often used as synonyms. Distinguishing between them can be helpful as you plan instruction. Assessment means looking at what students can do in order to determine what they need to learn to do next. That is, assessment, whether of individual students or an entire group, is done in order to inform instruction. Typically assessment is holistic, often recorded simply as “credit” or “no credit.”

Evaluation occurs after a concept or skill has been taught and practiced and is typically scaled, indicating the level of achievement or degree of competence a student has attained.

Mini-Lesson Teacher Planning Tips

• A mini-lesson can be short or might take up 15 to 20 minutes of class time.
• Typically, mini-lessons are singular topics of whole-class instruction, meant to give students a brief overview of a concept, explore the author’s craft, ponder a question, or hone a skill. Often the mini-lesson provides a segue into the application of new learning.
• Mini-lessons can also be student-directed, in which students are given a guide, following the teacher’s predetermined path of learning. Here, students are asked to define concepts and synthesize the information. Then students apply the information in a meaningful way.
• Students should be given many opportunities to apply the new learning beyond their initial introduction.
• Consider providing a mini-lesson in which students construct their own understanding of a concept, instead of directly defining terms for students. For instance, when teaching the concept of mood, provide several sample passages with distinct moods. Ask students to describe the difference in the passages and how the authors crafted their meaning. They may arrive at the term “mood” on their own or you may suggest the term to them after they have identified the concept in their own terms.

For suggested mini-lesson topics, see Suggested Mini-Lessons for Reading Workshop.

Reading Workshop Binder
In preparation for a reading workshop, teachers need to plan careful management strategies that will enable them to keep track of the goals set by each student and the daily progress toward meeting those goals. Keeping a loose-leaf binder just for reading workshop ensures that all records will be easily filed and located in one place. If you choose to follow the suggestions offered by Nanci Atwell in both editions of In the Middle, your binder will include the following forms: A Reading Survey for each student, a Student Reading Record, and a Status-of-the-Class sheet to record each student’s daily reading progress. The Reading Survey is given at the beginning of the year to give the teacher an overview of the students’ experiences as readers; the Student Reading Record provides a list of all the books begun and abandoned by a particular student during the year. The Status-of-the-Class, annotated daily, charts student names next to dates and allows space to note the title of the current reading and the page number. The second edition (1998) of In the Middle includes clear samples of these record sheets.

Text Pairings
As you begin to plan literature experiences for your students, consider offering text pairings, so that students have a rich palette of text background and reading experiences to draw upon in their literary conversations. When students have discovered a book they particularly enjoy, offer them other titles by the same author. Alternately, help them find titles in a similar genre (adventure, fantasy, science fiction) or that deal with a similar topic (WWII, animals, dealing with siblings). Thematic connections (coming of age, death, fitting in) can also enrich literary experiences.

Online resources related to the texts used in Flora Tyler’s classroom:

• Reading Workshop
  • Making the Difference with Reading Instruction: Reading Workshop
    http://www.ascd.org/publications/classroom-leadership/sept2000/Making-the-Difference-with-Reading-Instruction.aspx
    0009/2sep00.html
• Multiple Intelligences Sites
  • The Center for Accelerated Learning
    http://www.alcenter.com/links.php
  • I think…therefore M.I.
    http://surfaquarium.com/MI/
  • Multiple Intelligence Trainer David Lazear’s Web Site
    http://www.davidlazeargroup.com/
  • The New Horizons for Learning
    http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/
  • Multiple Intelligences: Theory and Practice in the K-12 Classroom
    http://www.ithaca.edu/wise/multiple/

Professional and Research Organizations:

• American Library Association
  http://www.ALA.org
• Center on English Learning and Achievement
  http://cela.albany.edu
• Envisionment-building articles and related research
  http://www.albany.edu/cela/publication/envisionment.htm
• Articles related to classroom discussion and student collaboration from the National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement:
  • “Discussion as Exploration: Literature and the Horizon of Possibilities”, Report 6.3, by Langer, Judith
    http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/langer/langerdiscussion.pdf
  • “How Classroom Conversation Can Support Student Achievement”
    http://www.csun.edu/~krowlands/Content/Academic_Resources/Best_Practices/Discussion/English%20Update%20Fall%202001.pdf
  • “Engaging Students in Meaningful Conversation Leads to Higher Achievement” by Arthur Applebee http://www.csun.edu/~krowlands/Content/Academic_Resources/Best_Practices/Discussion/Applebee-Engaging%20Students%20in%20Conversation.htm
  • “How English Is Taught and Learned in Four Exemplary Middle and High School Classrooms” by Steven Ostrowski
    http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/ostrowskienglish13002.pdf
  • “Taking Risks, Negotiating Relationships: One Teacher’s Transition Towards a Dialogic Classroom” by Julie Nelson Christoph and Martin Nystrand
    http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/christophrisks14003.pdf
  • English Teacher Candidates Developing Dialogically Organized Instructional Practices
    http://juzwik.wiki.educ.msu.edu/file/view/Caughlan_etal_2013_RTE.pdf
  • “Supporting the Process of Literary Understanding: Analysis of a Classroom Discussion” by Doralyn R. Roberts and Judith A. Langer http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/robertssupporting.pdf
• Children’s Book Council
  http://www.cbcbooks.org
• National Council of Teachers of English
  www.ncte.org
• National Writing Project
  http://writingproject.org/
• Reading Online
  http://www.readingonline.org/
  This Web site is an online journal of K-12 practice and research published by the International Reading Association. It includes helpful links to book reviews, peer-reviewed articles, discussions about literacy, and ideas and information about applying technology in literacy instruction.

Resources related to the tenets of this lesson:

• Conversations in Literature Web site
• Literature Circles

Young Adult Literature sites:

• ALAN Review: Dedicated to teaching and discussing Young Adult Literature
  http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/alan-review.html
• Assembly on Literature for Adolescents
  http://www.alan-ya.org/
  http://www.alan-ya.org/projects/book-rap/index.html
• Carol Hurst’s Children’s Literature Site
  http://www.carolhurst.com/
• Children’s and Young Adult Literature
  http://libguides.webster.edu/childrenslit
• Internet Public Library: Youth Division
  http://www.ipl.org/youth/
• Kathy Schrock’s Guide for Everything
  http://www.schrockguide.net/
• Kay E. Vandergrift’s Special Interest Page
  http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/
• The Literary Link for Researching Children’s/Young Adult Literature
  http://www.theliterarylink.com/
• University of Tennessee’s Center for Children’s & Young Adult Literature
  http://ccyal.cci.utk.edu/
• Young Adult Library Services Association
  http://www.ala.org/yalsa/
• Young Adult Literature Library from the University of Iowa
  http://guides.lib.uiowa.edu/c.php?g=132103&p=863501
  http://guides.lib.uiowa.edu/blandon/tlucht/lit-yalib.html

Instructional Resources:

• MiddleWeb
  http://www.middleweb.com/
  MiddleWeb is a Web site devoted to middle school education and includes resources for middle school teachers and parents. A comprehensive index allows teachers and parents to search for useful documents and resources by topic.
• The Doucette Index
  http://languagelessonplans.blogspot.com/2008/07/doucette-index-to-k-12-teaching-ideas.html
  The Doucette Index provides access to books and Web sites that contain useful teaching suggestions related to books for children and young adults, and the creators of those books. The searchable database enables teachers to search by author and/or title of the book, leading to lesson plans and curriculum ideas.
• Children’s Literature Web Guide
  http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dkbrown/
  This Web site categorizes the growing number of Internet resources related to books for children and young adults. Much of the information found on this Web site is provided by schools, libraries, teachers, parents, and book professionals (such as authors, editors, and booksellers). It includes quick references to lists of award-winning and bestseller children’s books, teaching resources, links to parent resources, and journal and book reviews.
• Traci’s Lists of Ten
  http://www.tengrrl.com/tens/
  This Web site offers teachers useful tips including ways to have students explore literature.