Literacy Now

#Hashtags are everywhere! They are strategically placed within television programs, promoted in advertisements, and hyped at conferences and sporting events. Recently I have seen them used for weddings and the birth of a child. For those doubting any sustainability, Merriam-Webster added hashtag to the dictionary in 2014.

A hashtag adds context to a tweet of 140 characters or less. It can identify a post as part of a larger discussion, even if we weren’t invited to join. We find encouragement by aligning our words with others who are like-minded and find freedom in the creation of an original hashtag. Hashtags can support development of skills such as vocabulary, identification of main and supporting ideas, author purpose, and sourcing. (Some teachers may have a very hard time ignoring the missing spaces between words.)

Students may not admit it, but choosing a hashtag is a thoughtful process—or it should be. The properly chosen word or phrase makes an immediate impression, in case a reader simply doesn’t have time to read all 140 characters. Much like a title, author intent is revealed immediately after the pound sign, #. Most students have some level of understanding about the use of hashtags. They can explain why they select those that they use and offer insight into why they believe some are better than others. The selection of a hashtag (to post or follow) is a thoughtful process using vocabulary, prior knowledge, key ideas, and intent. (Sounds academic, but that’s our secret.)

Hashtags and key vocabulary, or #hashtagvocab

Based on an online search, I found the following key points to consider when choosing a hashtag. If this concept is still a bit foreign to you, try replacing the term “hashtag” with “search terms,” ”key words,” “primary sources,” “informational texts,” or a term that applies to your discipline and feels more familiar.

For my #hashtag guidelines, I will answer in 140 characters, not counting spaces or hashtags. Sorry Twitter, my rules here.

What #hashtags already exist? What’s already out there? Predictable hashtags may lead to tweets introducing facts, key players, places, and causes. Follow a tweet trail and think outside the box. #mainidea #characters #setting #vocabulary #multipletexts

What #hashtag should I use? Study hashtags with the 5Ws. Then, with audience and purpose in mind, consider how the hashtag impacts your message. Do you join a train of thought or go a new direction? #authorintent #bias #relationships #explicit/implicit

Should I create a new hashtag? Hashtags lead to info, but your message is unique. You combine content knowledge, expressive vocabulary, and unique components or purpose that makes it yours. Own it! #evidence #evaluate #authorpurpose

Cindy Rich, PhD, directs the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program and teaches Literacy in the Secondary Education Content Areas in the College of Education and Professional Studies at Eastern Illinois University (EIU). Prior to that she taught at the high school level and was director of the EIU Reading Center.

We know “writing anchors reading.” So how can we let the entire summer pass without supporting student writing? That was nagging primary-grade teachers at Hollin Meadows Science and Math Focus School in Alexandria, VA. The answer: Develop an innovative weekly literacy outreach program for summer vacation called “Writing Nights” to imitate the writers’ workshop students experience daily during the school year.

Coordinated by reading teacher Sally Chadbourn and first-grade teacher Kathy Boykin for a teachers-as-researchers project, kindergarten and grade 1 and 2 colleagues collected data from “writing on demand” samples during the school year, which gave students time to write independently during writers’ workshop. Data showed writing development correlated with reading progress.

As a result of that research, each week during the summer of 2014, staff held Writing Nights to provide equivalent time to students for writing and reading. Sessions were held for students ages 5–8 at Sherwood Regional Library in Alexandria, VA, Mondays 6:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m.

Fifteen teachers, preK–grade 3, volunteered in rotating teams of five members to provide writers’ workshops to children who had never experienced classroom instruction and their parents. For this Title I elementary school of 600 students, school principal Jon Gates (another Monday night stalwart) encouraged staff to use the school’s e-mail list and robo-call system each weekend reminding families in English and Spanish to attend Writing Nights.

“We had no idea what attendance would be last summer, yet felt we had a ‘hit’ on our hands and were meeting children’s needs when the library meeting room routinely topped maximum capacity,” recalls Ann Avila, Writing Nights’ coordinator and a first-grade teacher. “We averaged 45 students plus 45 parents every Writing Night. One of the librarians expressed concern that we might even be breaking fire code regulations with so many busy people in the meeting room!”

Each Monday night, two teachers launched a carefully designed focus lesson with a read-aloud to introduce writers’ crafts to the diverse young audience: informational text about local critters, squirrels, rabbits, and raccoons; poetry with onomatopoeia; alphabet books; maps; how-to procedures for gardening. With one teacher soliciting students’ ideas and another teacher recording their thinking through shared or interactive writing, children co-constructed a mentor text to serve as an example of the featured genre and writer’s craft. During independent writing, parents imitated teacher teams and conferred with their own young author-illustrators. Finally, everyone gathered in sharing circles as children reluctantly quit drawing and writing to become peer-partners and display their work to friends and families.

“Yes, the goal for both Writing Nights and the summer book mailing program was to make sure children’s writing and reading didn’t suffer what’s known as ‘summer slide,’” stated Avila. “But we’ve also achieved another goal: developing a sense of community centered on the public library. It provides a wonderful atmosphere for families to come together on Writing Nights, talk and get to know each other, and learn.” Parents of kindergarten students praised the program for introducing them to school curriculum, instruction, and a network of friends before the school year began through the program.

The result was W Is for Writing Nights,similar to alphabet books read aloud as mentor texts. During Writing Nights, rising K–3 students wrote and illustrated their own record of the program. Students took home copies of the pages they wrote as mementos of their participation. In addition, these same students and all other rising Grade K–3 pupils receive books mailed to them four times during the summer as part of Hollin Meadows’ decade-old summer book mailing program to help families establish home libraries.

Writing Nights are now a summer tradition. The 8-week program will start June 29 with—by popular demand—an added 15 minutes each week!

Sally Chadbourn is a reading teacher and Ann Avila teaches grades 1–3 at Hollin Meadows Science and Math Focus School in Alexandria, VA.

When I was a high school English teacher, I would drive to the local bookstore on Friday nights, refusing to leave until the stack of junior research papers were marked up with red, purple, green, orange, or blue pens. The colorful pens were about the only thing that got me through. The relief I felt when I finished the tome was dampened on Monday after I passed out papers and students threw their papers in the trash can on the way to lunch. Needless to say, I have found grading students’ writing assignments to be one of the most challenging and time-consuming aspects of teaching.

Initially, I was angry because my students did not seem to care about my feedback. After having time to reflect on these practices, I realized what the real problem was—My assessment practices were not helping students become better writers. And that was my fault, not theirs.

After some time (years) to reflect on my practice in addition to some advanced coursework on composition theory, I have made a lot of progress in terms of how I think about writing feedback and assessment.

So when one of my student teachers asked how she was going to grade 120 essays in one night, I thought I would offer some feedback and assessment strategies to her and to you with the intention of helping you become more efficient and your students become better writers, which is, of course, our ultimate goal.

These tips may not replace assessing and providing grades for all of your students’ essays at certain points in the year but they might help you think of ways to vary your feedback and assessment practices.

Look for trends in representative sample drafts. Read a few pieces from a selection of students across the class or periods. Create a list of strengths and areas of improvement, supporting your findings with evidence from these student examples. Present your list (student anonymity is best here) to each class. Discuss strengths and areas of improvement and ask students to consider their own work. Have them make writing goals for their own final drafts based upon the student samples. Not only does this tip keep you from assessing each student’s draft but it also helps students engage in metacognition as they reflect on their work and make writing goals for their final drafts.

Ask students to identify two elements on which they want feedback. I have found that limited, focused feedback works best. Pointing out too many areas of improvement to students runs the risk of overwhelming students and decreasing their confidence as writers. By targeting two areas only, we can offer focused feedback for students. After you have offered specific revision advice on these particular areas and students have had time to revise their work, ask students to highlight the changes they made based on your feedback and to write howtheir second draft is better than the first. This student-centered tip facilitates a way for you to cater feedback to areas that are important to the writer—without feeling the pressure of making suggestions based on every error you see. I have already anticipated your question, “What if a student has a particular area of writing in which he or she needs to improve but the student never mentions this area?” In this case, you could have the student select one area of feedback and you create the other one.

Share your experience as a reader during conferences instead of on students’ papers. This helps students consider how their piece is received by a reader and they can understand what you’re thinking and any praises or recommendations you may have as you read along. You can also help your students do this with each other during writer’s workshop. It’s a great way to help student writers gain experience in something that is difficult for many writers to do: anticipating an audience. This also prevents you from taking hundreds of papers home for a weekend! Students are not learning how to write while you are grading papers at home, in the local coffee shop, or in the car while your kid is at soccer practice!

Help your students learn to grade peers’ papers holistically. I have not tried this method personally, but some of my colleagues have found this to be quite successful. Based upon what I have heard, here’s how I see this process working in the secondary literacy classroom: You select three anchor texts that exemplify what an “A” paper looks like, what a “B” paper looks like, and what a “C” paper looks like. (What particular papers at certain grades look like should be established on the basis of a predetermined holistic rubric.) After helping students understand why these anchor texts earned the grades they did, allow students to assess each other’s papers. Each paper should be read by two students (who do not know who the author is) and given scores should not be discussed by students during or after the grading process. Calculate the average of these grades to determine the student’s final grade. Of course, you need to spend time helping students learn how to assess peers’ pieces, but this process in and of itself helps students engage in metacognition about the writing and assessment processes, which can, in turn, have a positive impact on their own writing. If you feel uncomfortable about how this might work, try it with drafts versus final drafts first.

Plan mini-units during your grading time if you need to grade each writing assignment. By allotting one or two weeks to grading, you don’t feel pressured to return papers the next class period and your students get some time away from their writing (which is what real writers do). If you take this route, give students class time to consider feedback they receive.

Have students consider their feedback and write reflections to hand in with final drafts. In these reflections, students should address the feedback provided by both you and their peers on earlier drafts. If they adjusted according to feedback, have them write about how and why. If they chose not to incorporate feedback, have them write about why. You are not only helping students consider carefully the feedback they receive but you are also providing an opportunity for student writers to build autonomy as writers.

To my student teacher who asked about grading 120 essays in one night, I answered: Don’t!

Obviously these tips are not aimed to fix every writing feedback and assessment woe, but hopefully they have provided some food for thought and will encourage dialogue about offering feedback and assessing in today’s writing classrooms.

Kathryn Caprino is a doctoral candidate in English education at the University of North Carolina’s School of Education. She is also earning a minor in English, focusing specifically on rhetoric and composition. She teaches the middle grades methods course and supervises English student teachers. Before returning to graduate school, she taught middle and high school English.

Sharing a single poem movie is one-minute activity that allows you to engage reluctant learners in an entertaining way. You can show a single poem movie—a brief clip with video or images featuring the poem read aloud—for a language arts “snack,” or show several science-themed poem movies during a five-minute break to provide an integrated lesson in science and language arts.

The following is our annotated list of some of our favorite poem movies, which we feature in our Poetry Friday Anthology series (Pomelo Books). It is a supplement to our article “Nourishing the Mind All Day Long,” which appeared in the May/June Children’s Literature issue of Reading Today.

For Younger Students:

“Old Water” by April Halprin Wayland
from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science (Kindergarten, Week 16: The Water Cycle)
Water: a billion years old?! This fun video will get kids hooked on science.

“Kindergarten Kid” by Stephanie Calmenson
from The Poetry Friday Anthology (Kindergarten, Week 2: More School)
Poet Stephanie Calmenson reads four poems here. The first poem, “Kindergarten Kid,” invites you to talk to children about features of your classroom and the different subject areas they will be covering during the year.

For Intermediate Students:

“Which Ones Will Float” by Eric Ode
from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science (Third Grade, Week 1: Scientific Practices)
Students are seen doing “sink or float” observations in a classroom, testing a variety of items including cans of diet Coke and regular Coke. Perhaps the most valuable part of this movie (and poem) is that it raises the question: What if we disagree about data?

“Centipede” by Michael J. Rosen
from The Poetry Friday Anthology (Fourth Grade, Week 36: Looking Forward)
Poet Michael J. Rosen reads three poems in this video. In the first poem, “Centipede,” a long line of children, crouching in centipede segments, form a fun visual backdrop. Your students will enjoy moving like a centipede in a reenactment of this video.

“Scientific Inquiry” by Susan Blackaby
from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science (Fifth Grade, Week 1: Scientific Practices)
Paper puppets of Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Neil deGrasse Tyson are the stars of this clever stop-motion animated short that explains the scientific inquiry terms hypothesis, observations, data, and results.

“Thirsty Measures” by Heidi Bee Roemer
from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science (Fifth Grade, Week 26: Kitchen Science)
This poem movie uses visuals to show a cup of juice, a pint of lemonade, a quart of chocolate milk, and a gallon of iced tea. And what happens when you drink all of that? Students will enjoy the toilet-flush ending and won’t even realize that they’ve just had a science and math lesson.

For Older Students:

“Names” by Julie Larios
from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School (Sixth Grade, Week 10: Food)
This poem movie is a great way to get students talking about their names and provides a writing prompt with a simple diversity theme. The setting of this video is a panaderia where the speaker talks about Mexican pastries and muses over the meanings of names.

“Gear” by Michael Salinger
from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School (Seventh Grade, Week 24: Science & Technology)
Performance poet Michael Salinger channels Bill Nye and explains the function and properties of gears (complete with bike grease on his face).

“According to Bread” by Lesléa Newman
from The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School (Eighth Grade, Week 32: Metaphor & Simile)
Students learn not only metaphors and similes, but also idioms (“I’m in a jam”; “butter me up”).

Sylvia Vardell is a professor at Texas Woman’s University. She has published extensively and maintains the Poetry for Children blog. Janet Wong, an ILA member since 2012, is the author of 30 children’s books. Vardell and Wong are the creative forces behind The Poetry Friday Anthology series (Pomelo Books).

There is a time to slide and there is a time not to slide. With the boys of summer, America’s national pastime heroes (i.e., baseball players), it is perfectly acceptable to run the bases and slide when needed. However, with America’s national educational heroes (i.e., teachers and students), it is not acceptable to run a successful course of the school year and then experience a summer slide academically.

How can we prepare our students to have stamina to finish the school year strong? How can we empower them to continue hitting home runs during the final “innings” and into summer? The answer might be found in the power of I³ (influential, intentional, instructional). Just like running around all the bases in a game of baseball will allow a “run” to be added to the score, focusing on the three-cord strength of I³ potentially allows for a home-run factor to occur into summer without any sliding!

Influential

Avoiding the summer slide begins with educators realizing the influence they hold in the lives of their students. It is vital in these final months for teachers to use the power of their influence, as they have built their students’ trust and are able to “coach” and guide them to a victory. Teachers everywhere have spent this entire year building a rapport; therefore, this is the time in the game (school year) in which they have the greatest influence with their students. The days leading up to summer are a perfect time for educators to “power up” and use this influence to strengthen students’ learning stamina.

As educators, let’s step up to the mound and pitch a winning game with our words (i.e., higher order teacher talk) and our ways (motivating and engaging instruction), increasing a chance of a win on the scoreboard. Let’s believe in ourselves as influential powers in the lives of our students. Let’s believe in our students as strong potential players, for they need to know we believe in them to the end!

Intentional

Another factor in I³ is being intentional. Many classrooms are entering into what could be called the seventh-inning stretch. In baseball, the seventh-inning stretch is an intentional period when everyone takes a moment away from the actual game for a well-deserved break.

In the classroom, this is a time when, after many months of rigorous instruction and assessment, there should be a momentary pause for reflection and celebration. In baseball, coaches and players take this time to maintain momentum, talk strategies going into the final innings, and change up the game plan if needed to pull off a win. Let’s take this season of the school year to be intentional as we pause, celebrate successes, and make alterations as needed during this seventh-inning stretch period going into the final days towards a successful summer.

Instructional

The final factor in I³ focuses on purposeful instruction. During the seventh-inning stretch, educators are encouraged to make changes to continue keeping their students engaged and motivated. When the students are engaged in the final innings of the school year, they have a far better chance for long-term retention of the necessary content needed to achieve and maintain academic success during the summer months.

The “Instructional Change-Ups” chart features examples to support motivation and engagement when scaffolding the summarizing strategy using this baseball metaphor.        
Using baseball bases (manufactured or hand-crafted), place the bases around the room to create a diamond. Above each “base” area, display chart paper and use the baseball environment for sequencing story elements and for asking and answering questions.

Valerie Ellery has served the field of education for more than 25 years in literacy roles as a National Board Certified Teacher, curriculum specialist, mentor, staff developer, reading coach, international educational consultant, and award-winning author. Her book Creating Strategic Readers is currently in its third edition and has been one of ILA’s best sellers for 10 years. Visit valerieellery.com to learn more about her work internationally.