On page 57, "We must do what is hardest of all--rethink what we believe is already working" really resonated with me. I am so fortunate to be in a district that embraces best practices and allows teachers to implement exactly what Ellin speaks of in this book. But, and here is the sad part, teachers are very unwilling to take a critical look at what they already do. The students score quite well on state tests, yet our board of education has challenged us by saying to the junior high teachers that our curriculum is not rigorous enough. When I have given teachers some reflection time, they become very defensive because for so long they have been told they are excellent teachers. And they are VERY GOOD teachers. But I was also a very good teacher, and I never stopped searching for how to improve my teaching to help my students understand. Have any of the rest of you solved this problem? If so how?
> * On page 68, Ellin writes: "To think aloud is to show how > readers, > writers and learners think, but to model is to show and describe > how readers, > writers and learners live." What is your reaction to this > thought? I am > personally struggling to understand this idea and would love some > feedback from > the list. I'm intrigued by two things here. First, how do we push our students by thinking aloud with more intellectual conversation? I continue to search for lesson plans beyond the Comprehension Toolkit that helps our teachers push the students' thinking. At the beginning of the year, teachers reviewed the lesson using The Three Questions from the second edition of MOT. They were very surprised at the level of thinking aloud, yet I certainly wasn't bombarded with requests to model or find lessons that would push that level of thinking. For me it is so frustrating to know that our students can do more, but teachers don't want to look at "what can I do better". And the modeling is a big piece of that getting better. I'm hoping we'll get some concrete information of what this modeling looks like? I can't quite figure out from this chapter if I did a think aloud or if I did the modeling. I love the elements of an effective classroom. Who defines rigor in a classroom? How will we (or I) know if my teaching is rigorous enough? I'm also intrigued by the reflection section. I left the classroom and this would be an area that I would need to focus on. I felt the thinking aloud, crafting, composing and invitational groups were working. I do think my conferencing skills could use some improvement--again to help students move to the next intellectual level. In the district I was then in, I was happy that students read at all!!! Working on asking questions that propel students forward would be another improvement I would make. Actually, I'm hoping to work in classrooms next year on conferencing only. I'm enjoying the conversation. Carol _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list [email protected] http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
