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Thursday, May 05, 2016
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
May
The school year is winding up here in South Carolina as it is in many parts of the country. As we dash to field days, end of school musical performances, plan our final author celebrations, and attend the last faculty meetings of the school year, it feels like we may not get everything done. Yet, we remind ourselves and one another that May often feels like our busiest month of the year and that indeed we will get everything done.
While there is a certain finality to May when we pack up our rooms and wish we had one more day to work with our students, I’m always struck by the anticipation of the next school year. For educators, May is our January, full of New Year’s resolutions. However, unlike the promises to slim down that we make each year, the May resolutions seem to carry us forward and energize us. They guide our summer reading and shape our professional conversations. For example, this year the teacher study group I belong to worked to better understand reading workshop as a curricular structure. The 2nd grade teachers that I collaborate with, Page Rogers, Nancy Boggs, and Loraine Lambert, implemented reading workshop, conducted writing conferences, and shared mini-lessons based on their observations of their students for the first time this year. The teachers also modeled mini-lessons for my USC preservice teachers and coached these students when they worked one on one with their second grade students. Throughout the school year, we planned, read, and shared our observations with one another. However, in the hurry of our daily teaching lives, we often felt rushed, had to cancel a meeting or two, or used email to rapidly plan.
Then comes May, and as we wind up our school year, we are already planning for next year. We want to know how to better prepare the undergraduate students to work effectively with their 2nd grade reading buddies. We want to build our knowledge base about assessing young readers in the moment and over time, and we want to slow down and catch up with one another as human beings. Because we know it is in the pauses that we breathe more deeply and gain new insights into our teaching and learning and life. We look forward to the Whole Language Umbrella’s Literacy for All Conference where we will pause with others, engage in thoughtful conversations, and plan for a new school year full of promise. We look forward to seeing you in July.
While there is a certain finality to May when we pack up our rooms and wish we had one more day to work with our students, I’m always struck by the anticipation of the next school year. For educators, May is our January, full of New Year’s resolutions. However, unlike the promises to slim down that we make each year, the May resolutions seem to carry us forward and energize us. They guide our summer reading and shape our professional conversations. For example, this year the teacher study group I belong to worked to better understand reading workshop as a curricular structure. The 2nd grade teachers that I collaborate with, Page Rogers, Nancy Boggs, and Loraine Lambert, implemented reading workshop, conducted writing conferences, and shared mini-lessons based on their observations of their students for the first time this year. The teachers also modeled mini-lessons for my USC preservice teachers and coached these students when they worked one on one with their second grade students. Throughout the school year, we planned, read, and shared our observations with one another. However, in the hurry of our daily teaching lives, we often felt rushed, had to cancel a meeting or two, or used email to rapidly plan.
Then comes May, and as we wind up our school year, we are already planning for next year. We want to know how to better prepare the undergraduate students to work effectively with their 2nd grade reading buddies. We want to build our knowledge base about assessing young readers in the moment and over time, and we want to slow down and catch up with one another as human beings. Because we know it is in the pauses that we breathe more deeply and gain new insights into our teaching and learning and life. We look forward to the Whole Language Umbrella’s Literacy for All Conference where we will pause with others, engage in thoughtful conversations, and plan for a new school year full of promise. We look forward to seeing you in July.
Monday, December 03, 2007
WLU and NCTE in NYC
I honked and braked and slid my way right on up to the Marriot Marquis located in New York City’s Time Square on Thursday November 15, 2007 just in time to join the more than 8,000 members who came out for NCTE’s Annual Convention to hear Jonathan Kozol, Amy Tan, and Ishmael Beah along with other authors, activists, and teachers working together for the change THEY will make happen.
And as I boarded the plane that Sunday afternoon and started to “write off the page” in my spiral notebook my reflections took this form …
Slide down … scoot left … then right …. and make yourself comfortable in the contradiction or the belief that it is just fine to NOT have a linear, pounded out, absolute understanding of who you are and what your students are suppose to know RIGHT NOW and how this next 20 minutes with these 22 kindergarteners is going to unfold, unravel, and shake to life. Instead take solace in your understandings of yourself as a learner, a teacher, and summit negotiator, knowing all along that your district’s “scope and sequence,” though useful as a generic roadmap, can’t chart the course for your class and your children in your town on this day, for that path is currently being drawn in the trenches with finger-paint.
Relieved—that is exactly how I felt as I sat in the session entitled “Why Don Murray Matters” and listened to Tom Romano (in the company of Nancie Atwell, Ralph Fletcher, and Tom Newkirk) talk about how Murray was “suspect of rules and even his own pronouncements” and that there was actually great sense and congruency in the statements “say one #%^* in your draft” and “get it all down” because in our symbiotic identities as writers and writing teachers we align our writing and our teaching with our notions of the world that minute with that student—and that alignment is alive and in motion. So… the writing simply can’t follow a prescribed path, because before you know it that pre-drawn, straight line is reflective of a world you simply are no longer part of.
So what do we do?
We “write off the page” as Nancy Atwell suggested to a packed audience and find our “so what” and it is that “so what” not the “scope and sequence” that will forge innovation. Then, as Peter Johnston, in his joint session with Ralph Fletcher and Katie Wood Ray, reminded us, we “give a damn” as we look out into our world and say “something is wrong here and someone needs to do something about it and I think it will be me.” And we take up what Johnston described as Agency and promote choice—first in our students when we say, “I see that you have decided to focus in on your parents’ divorce in this piece—that is what good writers do—they make a conscious decision about what is important” and second in ourselves when we say to our principal, “Yes, I have decided to use my classroom’s PTA funds along with my own money to purchase this set of novels, because I have made the choice that my first obligation is not to develop surface-level decoders but to grow critical readers.”And when our students begin to “read like writers” (as Jane Hansen has whispered in their ears to do) and take ownership of the rich words of the authors, their new colleagues, that we have introduced them to and they go back to their desks and write something amazing, as we know that they will, we resist the urge to get into what Katherine Bomer referred to in the WLU opening session with Carl Anderson and Teresa Caccavale, the “linguistic sparring ring.” Instead we take the lead of literature critics and say, as Publishers Weekly said of Amy Tan’s novel the Joy Luck Club, “Your piece is intensely poetic, startlingly imaginative and moving” and resist the rubric language of, “Your details are placed in a logical order and the way they are presented effectively keeps the interest of the reader.” Because—as writers and as humans we know that it is often the illogical and the quirky that makes us stand up and say “YES … Amy Tan is indeed talking to me.” Because there is not one of us who nostalgically recalls, “Wow, I really liked that manuscript I wrote or that lesson plan I taught or that Thanksgiving dinner I prepared that was linear and orderly and everything came out just as it was suppose to with no surprises” —because the learning takes place in the rub, the surprise, the contradiction.
So—as Johnston reminded us “lets give a damn” about what we know about teaching and learning and celebrate the daily chaos, the unexpected, that lets us discover something new and pushes us far beyond the demands of our textbooks, and basal readers, and senators and into authentic, holistic discussions with students and other educators about what we will do TODAY because as the upcoming 2008 Annual Convention theme reminds us, “Shift Happens.”
And I invite you to continue this conversation at WLU’s Literacies for All Summer Institute (July 17-20 in Tucson, Arizona) and help to start new discussions by submitting a conference proposal (Deadline December 18, 2007).
Until then…
You colleague and friend … Dorothy Suskind
And as I boarded the plane that Sunday afternoon and started to “write off the page” in my spiral notebook my reflections took this form …
Slide down … scoot left … then right …. and make yourself comfortable in the contradiction or the belief that it is just fine to NOT have a linear, pounded out, absolute understanding of who you are and what your students are suppose to know RIGHT NOW and how this next 20 minutes with these 22 kindergarteners is going to unfold, unravel, and shake to life. Instead take solace in your understandings of yourself as a learner, a teacher, and summit negotiator, knowing all along that your district’s “scope and sequence,” though useful as a generic roadmap, can’t chart the course for your class and your children in your town on this day, for that path is currently being drawn in the trenches with finger-paint.
Relieved—that is exactly how I felt as I sat in the session entitled “Why Don Murray Matters” and listened to Tom Romano (in the company of Nancie Atwell, Ralph Fletcher, and Tom Newkirk) talk about how Murray was “suspect of rules and even his own pronouncements” and that there was actually great sense and congruency in the statements “say one #%^* in your draft” and “get it all down” because in our symbiotic identities as writers and writing teachers we align our writing and our teaching with our notions of the world that minute with that student—and that alignment is alive and in motion. So… the writing simply can’t follow a prescribed path, because before you know it that pre-drawn, straight line is reflective of a world you simply are no longer part of.
So what do we do?
We “write off the page” as Nancy Atwell suggested to a packed audience and find our “so what” and it is that “so what” not the “scope and sequence” that will forge innovation. Then, as Peter Johnston, in his joint session with Ralph Fletcher and Katie Wood Ray, reminded us, we “give a damn” as we look out into our world and say “something is wrong here and someone needs to do something about it and I think it will be me.” And we take up what Johnston described as Agency and promote choice—first in our students when we say, “I see that you have decided to focus in on your parents’ divorce in this piece—that is what good writers do—they make a conscious decision about what is important” and second in ourselves when we say to our principal, “Yes, I have decided to use my classroom’s PTA funds along with my own money to purchase this set of novels, because I have made the choice that my first obligation is not to develop surface-level decoders but to grow critical readers.”And when our students begin to “read like writers” (as Jane Hansen has whispered in their ears to do) and take ownership of the rich words of the authors, their new colleagues, that we have introduced them to and they go back to their desks and write something amazing, as we know that they will, we resist the urge to get into what Katherine Bomer referred to in the WLU opening session with Carl Anderson and Teresa Caccavale, the “linguistic sparring ring.” Instead we take the lead of literature critics and say, as Publishers Weekly said of Amy Tan’s novel the Joy Luck Club, “Your piece is intensely poetic, startlingly imaginative and moving” and resist the rubric language of, “Your details are placed in a logical order and the way they are presented effectively keeps the interest of the reader.” Because—as writers and as humans we know that it is often the illogical and the quirky that makes us stand up and say “YES … Amy Tan is indeed talking to me.” Because there is not one of us who nostalgically recalls, “Wow, I really liked that manuscript I wrote or that lesson plan I taught or that Thanksgiving dinner I prepared that was linear and orderly and everything came out just as it was suppose to with no surprises” —because the learning takes place in the rub, the surprise, the contradiction.
So—as Johnston reminded us “lets give a damn” about what we know about teaching and learning and celebrate the daily chaos, the unexpected, that lets us discover something new and pushes us far beyond the demands of our textbooks, and basal readers, and senators and into authentic, holistic discussions with students and other educators about what we will do TODAY because as the upcoming 2008 Annual Convention theme reminds us, “Shift Happens.”
And I invite you to continue this conversation at WLU’s Literacies for All Summer Institute (July 17-20 in Tucson, Arizona) and help to start new discussions by submitting a conference proposal (Deadline December 18, 2007).
Until then…
You colleague and friend … Dorothy Suskind
Friday, October 12, 2007
Collegiality, Collaboration, Community
Collegiality, Collaboration, Community. These three words, I believe, are fundamental to holistic educators. They impact our relationships with all learners—fellow teachers, instructors, professors, and, most importantly, students. Through collaboration with colleagues at the WLU Literacies for All Summer Institute we are able to reaffirm our beliefs that what we do is in the best interests of learners of all ages. And frequently we are able to discover, or only just be reminded, of ways to excite those learners to greater achievements.
While each of us has our individual techniques for establishing community in our classes, reflecting on and discussing with colleagues George Ella Lyon’s wonderful presentation caused me to change my original plans in an elective Creative Writing class in my high school. One of the first activities is to begin to establish our community. Creative Writing is open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors, so even though we are all from the same school, we need to come together. We began our writing this semester with our own “I Am From . . . “ poems. Once written, poems were shared and discussed in small groups. Then each group wrote a collaborative “We Come From . . . “ poem. The results were interesting, to say the least, and I would like to share two of the poems with you.
Once published, our poems were displayed around the room and became the source of discussion. Collegiality, Collaboration, Community.
While each of us has our individual techniques for establishing community in our classes, reflecting on and discussing with colleagues George Ella Lyon’s wonderful presentation caused me to change my original plans in an elective Creative Writing class in my high school. One of the first activities is to begin to establish our community. Creative Writing is open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors, so even though we are all from the same school, we need to come together. We began our writing this semester with our own “I Am From . . . “ poems. Once written, poems were shared and discussed in small groups. Then each group wrote a collaborative “We Come From . . . “ poem. The results were interesting, to say the least, and I would like to share two of the poems with you.
We come from a lifetime of living in Mundelein.And
Lives filled with mundane details.
Filling our minds with provincial ideas.
We come from diverse backgrounds:
German, Italian, Austrian, French Canadian, Native American,
Irish, Scottish, and Welsh.
We come from being our daddys’ little girls.
Enjoying every moment of our time together.
We come from households stressing the
importance of education.
Encouraging our collegiate dreams.
We come from . . .
Second period,
History, Anatomy, Spanish, Math
We walk down the halls
Always the same path
We all meet up in A114
Where Mr. Szymkowiak
Keeps it so fresh and so clean.
Once published, our poems were displayed around the room and became the source of discussion. Collegiality, Collaboration, Community.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Reflections
During a post-WLU Literacies for All Summer Institute TAWL meeting, a second year WLU participant commented that she was beginning to feel more and more a part of the larger WLU learning community and characterized her experiences as energizing. These conference reflections initiated a larger conversation about the sources of energy teachers turn to in order to continue their engagement as active, dedicated learners and educators—mentioning the importance of being part of common experiences & conversations, opportunities to creatively infuse their passions into teaching, and the need for holistic educational practices that connect with what we know about students, literacy, and learning in the 21st century.
These comments punctuate the importance of furthering our visions for schools and students as more than individuals committed to the profession but as a WLU community that thinks together during conferences and beyond. We’ve set a goal for ourselves as a board to share our thinking, reading, learning, questions, wonderings with you throughout the year by posting monthly blogs. It is our hope by sharing our current thinking that we spark connections, critiques, and conversations that generate the energy for our work throughout the year.
As another school year begins, we invite you to reflect back on this Summer’s Literacies for All Summer Institute and consider how your experiences will inform the moves and decisions you make in the year to come. We encourage you to connect with a TAWL group, find one or two or three like-minded colleagues (in your school, city, town, or via electronic communication) to talk about the issues that matter to you most and the possible actions. Our small Chicago TAWL community has opted to reconnect with young adult literature and consider how our literacy practices and engagement with such texts speak to the changing nature of literacies and literacy learning in schools. We hope that it provides us with the energy that we need to do our best work with students. We invite you to take up an inquiry for the coming year, think and learn with others, and see where our collective work can take us.
Best wishes for an engaging year of learning,
Katie Van Sluys
These comments punctuate the importance of furthering our visions for schools and students as more than individuals committed to the profession but as a WLU community that thinks together during conferences and beyond. We’ve set a goal for ourselves as a board to share our thinking, reading, learning, questions, wonderings with you throughout the year by posting monthly blogs. It is our hope by sharing our current thinking that we spark connections, critiques, and conversations that generate the energy for our work throughout the year.
As another school year begins, we invite you to reflect back on this Summer’s Literacies for All Summer Institute and consider how your experiences will inform the moves and decisions you make in the year to come. We encourage you to connect with a TAWL group, find one or two or three like-minded colleagues (in your school, city, town, or via electronic communication) to talk about the issues that matter to you most and the possible actions. Our small Chicago TAWL community has opted to reconnect with young adult literature and consider how our literacy practices and engagement with such texts speak to the changing nature of literacies and literacy learning in schools. We hope that it provides us with the energy that we need to do our best work with students. We invite you to take up an inquiry for the coming year, think and learn with others, and see where our collective work can take us.
Best wishes for an engaging year of learning,
Katie Van Sluys
Friday, September 22, 2006
WLU Membership
Whole Language Umbrella (WLU) provides a network for individuals and support groups to come together to discuss issues related to whole language theory, research, and pedagogy. Membership is open to any individual or group interested in Whole Language.
WLU is a conference of the National Council of Teachers of English, and individual membership in WLU requires joining NCTE. Members elect the WLU Executive Board as well as the NCTE Executive Commitee. Responding to the expressed concerns of the membership, the elected representatives develop a working agenda that supports WLU/NCTE activities.
We invite you to take advantage of the synergy between these two organizations and join an important network of teachers helping teachers.
Individual Membership
What are the unique advantages for individual members?- Membership within the National Council of Teachers of English
(membership in NCTE is a prerequisite to membership in the Whole Language Umbrella) - An online subscription to the WLU journal, Talking Points, a forum for parents, classroom teachers, and researchers to reflect about literacy and learning. Published electronically in October and May
- Access to and discounts on WLU/NCTE books, journals, and meetings
- Voting rights in NCTE and at the Delegates Assembly meeting during the WLU Literacies for All Summer Institute
- Discounted registration fee to attend the WLU Literacies for All Summer Institute and the NCTE Annual Convention
- Opportunities to join WLU/NCTE communities and listservs
- Access to a variety of professional development activities
Join WLU/NCTE
Individual WLU/NCTE membership is $70.00 per year (WLU membership only is $30.00 per year if already an NCTE member)
- BY MAIL: Print out the WLU/NCTE Membership Form
(PDF) and mail to NCTE - BY PHONE: Call NCTE toll-free at 877-369-6283
Group Membership
TAWL Groups (Teachers Applying Whole Language) provide individual members, usually from the same geographical area, a local network for their interest in whole language.
What are the unique advantages for TAWL group members?
- An online subscription to the WLU journal, Talking Points
(one subscription per group through the group's contact person) - Voting privileges at the Delegates Assembly meeting at the WLU Literacies for All Summer Institute (each TAWL group member, as evidenced by the membership roster of a current TAWL group, is entitled to one vote)
- Ability to obtain tax-exempt status for the group through the NCTE Group Exemption Letter
- Use of the WLU logo on TAWL publications and Conference materials
- Invitation to attend the WLU Executive Board meetings at the WLU Literacies for All Summer Institute and at the NCTE Annual Convention
- Opportunities to join WLU/NCTE communities and listservs
- Access to a variety of professional development activities
Join/Start a TAWL Group
A minimum of five members is required to form a TAWL group. One member, usually the group contact person, must be an individual member of WLU/NCTE. TAWL Group membership in WLU is $25.00 per group.
- BY MAIL: Print out the TAWL Group Enrollment Form (PDF) and mail to NCTE
- BY PHONE: Contact Debbie Zagorski at 800-369-6283 ext. 3612.
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