One Last Hurray!

I have spent the last few days in Winston Salem at the Education Resource Group's "Comprehension x3" with Stephanie Harvey, Debbie Miller, and Chris Tovani.  It was a fabulous experience!  Not only was I able to hear these gurus speak on literacy, but I had my three team mates with me! 

I have decided that this is the way to "do" a professional development.  I have gone to many professional developments where we take representatives from different areas of the faculty.  Although this idea is good in the theory that  the representatives will share,  realistically, it seldom happens as everyone is busy with the job at hand to learn something new.  We are all on the same page and have all heard the same message as we forge into our new school year.

Another wonderful part of this workshop was that we were with the lower school faculty!  Being that our middle school is on a different campus, we rarely have quality time to learn what exactly the lower school does.  Every afternoon we "debriefed" about the day's session and were able to hear the prospective of different grade levels. We were able to think about our student's thinking through different lenses...what a wonderful opportunity! Not only did we learn about their classrooms, we also made new friendships...the fun part of teaching!

(Next summer the speaker is Kelly Gallagher, one of my favorites!  Check out ERG.  This wonderful group, based in Winston Salem, put on a fantastic workshop.)

Summer Institute

It was apropos  that Christin had us draw the thinking that led to our inquiry.  The inquiry I decided upon  during the Summer Institute is Independent Reading and the 21st Century.  Below is the map of my thinking.
Inquiry

What About Silence?

As Renatta began her Demo on "Silence," I was reminded of this post a friend's post on Pinterest.


Renatta reminded us that from silence comes speech. 


Every child is an individual in his or her own way.  The color of their hair... their signature...their thinking.  Some are vocal and some are quiet.  Both are correct.  As I move into this next year, I want to be  mindful as to the different way children think.  So that they can do just that...THINK!

My Blueprint

What am I?  What make we tick?

I am a teacher, a mother, a sister, and a daughter.

I am "Debbie, Debbie, Debbie" to my niece.

I am a friend, a colleague, and a volunteer.

I am a writer, a painter, a gardener, a carpenter, and a designer.

What makes me tick?

My children.

My students.

Butterflies.

SEC Football.

especially the Gamecocks!

Independent Reading Meets the 21st Century

Last year, I read The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller.

This book reaffirmed my belief in the importance of independent reading.  It also empowered me to take a long look at the independent reading I was requesting of my 6th graders.  Mrs. Miller is also a 6th grade teacher who inspired her students to embrace academic rigor in their personal readings.  Her students were being required to read 50+ books during the school year.  Mine were being asked to read one a month.

I then read Kelly Gallagher's Reading Reasons (Stenhouse 2003) and saw this astounding statistic:

Students in the top five percent of the national reading scores read 144 times more than students in the bottom five percent.  The average time spent reading for all grades is 7.1 minutes a day in public schools and around the  nation.  There is a strong correlation between time spent reading and higher test scores. In a study of fifth graders by Anders, Wilson and Fielding, the following correlation was found:

Percentile rank	# of minutes reading text per day	Estimated number of words read per year
98	90.7	4,733,000
90	40.4	2,357,000
70	21.7	1,168,000
50	12.9	601,000
20	3.1	134,000
10	1.6	51,100

I began thinking....how can I as a reading teacher, compete against computers? Social networking? The internet? Computer games? And the list goes on...

Areas to Grow!

In Melissa's Demo today on poetry, I realize that I need to add more poetry to my classroom.  Actually, I don't do poetry.  I had a really hard time picking a poem for our Poetry Walk.  I found myself on The Poetry Foundation website wanting to read more and more poetry.  I finally settled on the following poem:




Do I need to add poetry to my teaching? Yes. 
Is it outside of my comfort zone?  Yes.
Would I like to grow in this area?  Yes

This is one thing I have loved about the Writing Project.  Learning... thinking...and writing through the process. Discovering me, not only as a teacher but, also, as a writer.

I'm Becoming One of My Students!

As we look ahead to documenting our summer in the UNCC Writing Project, we are looking at the Teacher as a Writer, a Leader, and an Inquirer.  We have divided into three groups and are instructed to brainstorm what we need to make this "documentary" happen.  What is the "stuff" we need?  Pictures?  Video?  Also, we need to discuss style ideas.

As we are instucted to do this, I wonder...
How many points?  What should it look like?  What font size? When is it due? Is this for a grade?