Bev, I need to think out loud with you.
You captured beautifully the struggle of putting systems into place in a classroom. With each choice we make, there are consequences, both good and bad. Some classroom systems support and encourage student thinking, metacognition, student engagement; while other systems can get in the way of the very things we are trying to promote. It is like the book Choice Words, where you can become frozen trying to decide what to say once you recognize the magnitude of your influence with each choice you make. In my dissertation on changing math instruction, one of the main discoveries was the influence of a system on the classroom instruction. It is a integrated web of choices-designs-results that we weave in schools, and certainly an integrated web that we weave in classrooms. One part of the web influences the strength and response-mechanisms of the other parts of the web. That said, I think a good starting place is a system that helps teachers to implement the kinds of behaviors and thinking that they want to see in their students. Certainly Daily Five has the potential to help folks build a working environment, but you are right--it could also turn into a less thought-focused/ engagement-focused place and a more routine way to shift children through certain reading motions. Just as strategy instruction can become a "going-through-the-motions" activity and really, virtually all thinking instruction can become like that. I believe Ellin, through "To Understand" and her new term "literacy studio" may well be encouraging us to move toward something more like what you describe, something less rigid and involving more student choice. Having taught fifth grade in a school where such behaviors, responsibilities, choices, and focus on thought have not been deeply initiated through the years, I suspect that a more structured system probably needs to be in place to help children to transition (and even with a freer system, the years of structured, minute-by-minute assignments haunt the classroom throughout the year anyway). I guess my idea is that if I teach in an environment where the students may need more guidance and structure than I will have it. I just need to keep in the forefront of my mind the true target, student engagement, thought, and responsibility, instead of being seduced into thinking-complacency by the classroom structure. Still thinking... Bonita >but I have found as a literacy coach that some of these ideas have been sadly >altered in practice. I guess my greatest objection (and what makes me lean >more toward The Daily Five) is the "parts is parts" trap. What happens >sometimes is that there is a unconscious slide in practice from creating >places where children can read and write to places where the children do >"stuff" (often parts) to keep them away from the teacher. Or, in the case of >some rooms with ten "centers," keep them away from any more than one at a time >of their peers either. Basically, there is a shift from centers you'd want >children to learn from - to centers to fill time, which is exactly what the >worry was starting this discussion. _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
