The Jump Start program afforded me the opportunity to teach literacy this summer to 18 nascent readers. My students struggle with reading. Most are heading into first grade next year, and come to the class as emergent readers. One of my struggling readers told me yesterday she "couldn't read", and that I'd have to "do it for" her. Big celebration today: she looked up at me after decoding more than a few words, and just a bit beyond her natural stamina threshold exclaiming, "All I have to do is blend the sounds!" And the light in her eyes shone brighter than the sun. Ahh confidence, that irreplaceable emotion that works miracles for all of us.
I want to share, or at least document, another miracle in today's class. This rag-tag bunch of young minds that'd rather misbehave than reveal their self-assessed "can't do it" identities was more than just on-task today. C.H.A.M.P.S. has supported my setting crystal-clear expectations, certainly, but shared learning targets did more for my learners than any worksheet could hope to accomplish.
Of the eight Reading, Writing, and Communicating standards I'm teaching in this four-week session, today we worked on two: Identifying author's purpose, and participating in a literary conversation. Author's purpose is pretty straight-forward. Did the author write to convince, entertain, or inform? Participation in a conversation sounds almost too easy, and yet requires a specific set of skills. A little task-analysis led me to identifying three levels of listening: Level 1 - voice off, ears on, eyes on speaker. (Some grown-ups, myself included, need reminding.) Level 2 - level 1 and mind on the discussion topic. Level 3 - levels 1 & 2, and new ideas or deeper thinking related to and/or inspired by the speaker occur to the listener, who can then share appropriately in the conversation.
So we read a poem called "Cat". It used adjectives that inspired my readers to stretch like a cat, stick their tongues out, flick their tails, and display their claws. And my learners quickly identified this as a poem to entertain, rather than inform or persuade. Our next step, identifying whether or not we were good listeners in the conversation played out like this:
Me: Who might like to share why the author may have wanted to write this poem?
Kash: Maybe he really liked cats.
Ashley: Maybe he has a lot of cats.
Brendon: Maybe he wants to help people who are thinking about buying cats, know what they're like.
Me: Well, it sounds like we have some new ideas in our group. Brendon, would you help us by letting us watch as you fill out your conversation rubric for today?
Brendon: (vigorous smile and nod, shy smile)
(He came to the front of the room and posted his rubric and pointed as we continued:
Me: Class, was Brendon using his ears during the poem and our discussion about why the author may have written this poem?
Anthony: Yes!
Me: How might we be sure?
Garrett: Because he was on topic, and his idea is a new one that's sort of like the others but a little bit new too. Nobody talked about buying cats. He said that by himself. He had to be listening to do that, so his ears must have been working!
Me: So, we see he was using his ears, thinking on-topic, and shared a new idea. Brendon, would you please place a tally-mark in the third box to show you used the highest level of listening in a conversation that we've talked about?
He gladly obliged, and then stood aside for everyone to take note. That one explicit example of what good conversation participation looks like had the rest of my students very quickly adding wonderfully original, yet completely relevant ideas to the conversation. A few I remember: Maybe he's writing poems about what it's like to be all kinds of different animals, and it was time to write about cats. Maybe he owns 25 cats and watches them all day, so he knows exactly how they move. Maybe he wishes he was a cat. Maybe he's studying cats to buy one for himself, and has watched them a lot and he wants to share his observations. For first and second graders, I think these are pretty on target, and connected to things other students were saying.
Every single learner, readers and non-readers alike, were able to do more than participate in this conversation at the highest targeted level, they were able to acknowledge it on their rubrics. Seven students separately, spontaneously, hugged me in the next 10 minutes. They were all smiles. It was popular to participate skillfully. My hunch is that a shared learning target accompanied by an exemplar boosted my students' confidence. A few groaned when it was time to say good-bye. Happy smiles all around. And this is summer school. I'll take it!
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