the PaperWings

This I believe: If we are to have a hand in a future peace, we must not teach to only transform children’s way of being right now when they are under our care, but we must always teach towards Forever- when they have long since passed for the last time through our classroom doors and into the world. Plan for Forever? Affect what children do, not only on the weekends, but how they handle themselves at a corporate meeting? That’s a tall bill. We’re used to planning for next week, next month. Some of us plan on a yearly scale. But how do we plan for Forever, so that what we teach isn’t just a teeny blip on a child’s life radar? Here are some key words I test against my teaching points and lessons: · Transparency- do children easily see why we are doing this? · Relevance- how will this help children outside the walls of this classroom? · Applicability- is how I’m teaching this idea going to apply to later life in a meaningful, useful way? Teaching children to talk well...

“And so.” “And so what?” said Abilene. “What happened then?” No matter the personality of my class on a given year, the bittersweet story of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane always weaves itself tightly into the fabric of our literate community. The book has this absolutely magical ability to transform a group of children who begin with an “every child for himself” stance to one who is ever so slightly more thoughtful about the position of another. It's the one book all year that I never want to end (and neither do the kids!). We read and reread. One year, I lost count of how many times we reread Chapter 4. When the music of the words surrounds us, all arguments and off-task behaviors are suspended. (Can you blame me, then, for wanting it to never end?) Wisely, even 2nd graders can see past the simple journey motif that works as a container for the deeper story, or inside story, as we refer to it. They realize that with each change Edward undergoes...

After 3 years of teaching reading and writing workshop in my classroom and after finally starting to get a handle on what I was doing, I started to feel a pull between reading and writing. I didn't like that even though there were so many similarities and so many connections to be made, the units were sometimes so far apart that those connections were not immediately visible to the students. So, on my fourth year, I drafted my own units of study by teaching all the same skills as before but reordering them a bit (and sometimes just rephrasing them) so that reading and writing could be one. In this way, I was able to make the innate connections between reading and writing immediately visible to my students and I believe they flourished. Mainly, they gained a strong sense of genre and purpose. They could think much more flexibly about reading from the point of view of the writer and writing from the point of view of the reader. Because the connections between reading and writing wer...

Regardless of your political or religious affiliation, cultural background, gender, or moral views, you cannot dispute that we live in volatile times. Across the globe, humans struggle with hunger, war, and disease on a daily basis. Some of it will touch us in America and some of it is only a quiet, unread newspaper headline. While all of this happens, each new generation of children is educated, graduates, and takes their place among the leaders of our country, while their teachers either capitalize upon or neglect opportunities to affect the future of this earth. Although teachers cannot teach their students everything there is to know about the economic reasons for food shortage, the underlying tensions that begin modern day wars, and the insidious disparities that leave some countries ravaged by disease, they can do something exponentially more important. They can teach children how to care, to listen, and to act. More powerful than teaching an impossibly infinite list of...

"Excuse me! Please save your chatting for the playground." "Is there something you'd like to share with the class?" "Shhhhhh!" "I'm waiting."   Memories. When I was in elementary school, it seemed like the sole role of the teacher was to keep the class industriously working in silence. I was your typical teacher-pleaser type, so I hardly ever spoke out of turn, and if I did, I did with fear in my heart. For if I uttered a word, I knew the teacher would shine a spotlight on me-- "Is there something you'd like to share with the class?"-- making me an example to everyone else: here is a student doing something that is not a school behavior. Talking-- bad. Quiet obedience-- good. End of story? Well, not quite. Then came college... In college, professors prodded the students- most of whom went through a talk-less, opinion-less schooling, like me. They posed intriguing questions, they pushed their unwilling le...

"Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens ..." ~  Carlos Ruiz Zafon WARNING: This blog contains my strong opinion concerning reading good, challenging literature to young children. If you are stuck on only reading aloud #1-20 of Junie B. Jones and Horrible Harry, you should stop reading here. When I taught first grade, I routinely read aloud Charlotte's Web. Every year, as I began the book anew, I would at first forget what a cumbersome beginning that book is for young children. If you haven't read it in a while, I'll remind you that Charlotte doesn't even write for the first time in her web ("Some Pig") until the middle of the book! The whole first half is descriptions, character development, and anecdotes. On the year the movie ...

One of our classroom rituals is to change the leaves on the trees with the seasons. The kids know that the new season is "official" when we switch our library decorations! A common quote about reader’s workshop comes from Lucy Calkins, where she basically says that the places in life where the most creativity can happen are the most predictable of environments (the artist’s studio, the scientist’s lab). Those of us who use reader’s and writer’s workshops know that within that predictable structure, what we once may have thought impossible, is possible. I often tell teachers who are just starting workshop that simply by providing the minilesson, independent work, share structure every day without fail, they will be giving their students a gift. Even though there is so much more to workshop, the structure and predictability of the workshop environment is the first and most important place to start. If children know they will write and read for extended periods every da...