Painting Pictures with Words

When students understand why they are writing (purpose) and whom they are writing for (audience) they become more thoughtful in their practice. Painting pictures with words begins with painting a clear purpose of the project we ask kids to embark upon. When they freely choose a topic of their own design they become vested in the lesson, and intrinsically motivated.

I wish you could have seen the students’ faces when I introduced a recent poetry lesson. They were a combination of comical entertainment, curiosity, bewilderment and confusion. I could see their wheels turning, balancing on the brink of the unknown. "Hold up your pencils, look at them what do you see?
I see ... a little brother and sister in a block of wood trying to get out. I smell ... a turkey in the oven and hot apple pie. I see a paint brush. I see a roomful of poets, who will paint pictures with their words. And that's what we're going to do right now."

Encouraging kids to write stories about their personal lives can be the hook to jump into the drafting process. I shared many stories with a fifth grade class this day and we created new ones together. I enjoyed watching kids write feverishly with their first chance. Stories are how human beings relate to one another in the greater world. I am happy I had this opportunity to share mine with them. I love how Lamott, A., (1994). Bird by Bird, sums up the early drafting stage of the writing process, “You need to trust yourself, especially on a first draft, where amid the anxiety and self-doubt, there should be a real sense of your imagination and your memories walking and woolgathering, tramping the hills, romping all over the place. Trust them. Don’t look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.”  While time is always pressing, I was able to squeeze in a ten-minute demonstration.

Guided writing is one way for teachers to model expectations and to include students in the ebb and flow of our follies. They see our human struggle to get our ideas down on the page, to make decisions on the fly that impact, word choice, voice, how a poem looks, how it sounds and how it feels. Does that make sense? What should I say next? I need to be more specific, adding detail will help. According to Routman, R. (2005) asking questions along the way may prove valuable. “Let’s reread and see if we want to change anything? Is it clear and interesting for the reader? Do we need to move anything around to make it easier to follow?”  Including kids in guided writing scaffolds learning and engages them in the process. A the end of a lesson, I celebrate student success and I validate students in the language which I choose to use “Poets, Writers, Scientists, Mathematicians.” Students grow to see themselves as competent and capable writers. Read-a-louds empower kids to believe in themselves, full to the brim with self-confidence.

Make Momma Happy

This week, I add another special river stone into my bag of teaching gems. When teaching two and three digit traditional multiplication, I am learning to “clean house and then to “make Momma happy.” The cleaning house refers to erasing the carry-overs from the 1s column to make way for the 10s carry overs in multiplicative factors. With a smiley face filling Momma’s “0” in the ten’s place value, I imagine a happy household as students add their sums. Yet, not everyone is getting along, as one student I work with, keeps repeating the same mistakes. She was forgetting to add what was carried over into the clean house. Perhaps I could remind her, “Did you eat your cookies?” A choral response engages the whole class, “What am I dropping? What am I carrying?” What I enjoy about this vignette is that it makes the math fun. Much like playing a game, a puzzle or a manipulative, it breaks up the routine.

A second realization I am making, is that students may learn more from each other than they will ever learn from their teachers. Effective teaching strategies employ kids learning from kids. Just because a teacher can elaborate to explain the answer to a student’s question in many different ways, doesn’t mean that they should. As teachers, we ask “Who can explain it to Zoë in another way?” Inevitably, a classmate's response is profound, deep, and understood. We engage dialogue between students, we support understanding in their own words, and we validate individual voice as we open opportunity for each student to shine. Leadership is learned. I am happy to be learning from my students just as much as they are learning from each other.

This week, I am also learning to set expectations that encourage participation.  “I am going to call on random students. Be prepared to teach the class.”  “Discuss it with your neighbor and be ready to share.” Not knowing who will be called upon encourages all students to do the work and to be ready with an answer. Another attention getting strategy to be used after small group sharing, is the warm and inviting phrase, “Come back to me 5th graders.” Not surprisingly, it is greeted with a desire to please. Is it any wonder these students love their master teacher? Once she has their attention, she keeps it by saying, “Put your finger on the problem so I know you are following along.” And more often than not, in a well-managed classroom, the kids do. When they pay attention, they discover more on their own. When they scaffold and share, they discover more from each other. And that, truly makes Momma happy.