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Honoring Others: Read Aloud Questions to Spark Reflection and Thought

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Honoring Others: Read Aloud Questions to Spark Reflection and Thought

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EKC | Laminack and Kelly

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A Gallery Walk of Learning and Teaching Tools

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A Gallery Walk of Learning and Teaching Tools

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The tools below are to help you brainstorm how you might make possibilities for progress visible to your students. Some examples are AtL-focused and others are literacy-focused...but all of them can spark ideas for what you might create next. :)

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from Reading to Make a Difference (Laminack and Kelly)

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Reading to Make a Difference (2019) - Honoring Others

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One Central Idea: Between, Across, and Beyond the Disciplines

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One Central Idea: Between, Across, and Beyond the Disciplines

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EKC

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EKC

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Polish a unit of inquiry together: Is our central idea conceptual? Is it transferable with opportunities for making connections beyond the disciplines and beyond the inquiry? How might we be intentional with our timing? Post your ideas, possibilities, and questions below for us to carry forward. 

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Polish a unit of inquiry together: Is our central idea conceptual? Is it transferable with opportunities for making connections beyond the disciplines and beyond the inquiry? How might we be intentional with our timing? Post your ideas, possibilities, and questions below for us to carry forward. 

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Connect with educators around the world!

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Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

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Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

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Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

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Peter H. Johnston

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In productive classrooms, teachers don't just teach children skills: they build emotionally and relationally healthy learning communities. Teachers create intellectual environments that produce not only technically competent students, but also caring, secure, actively literate human beings.

Choice Words shows how teachers accomplish this using their most powerful teaching tool: language. Throughout, Peter Johnston provides examples of apparently ordinary words, phrases, and uses of language that are pivotal in the orchestration of the classroom. Grounded in a study by accomplished literacy teachers, the book demonstrates how the things we say (and don't say) have surprising consequences for what children learn and for who they become as literate people. Through language, children learn how to become strategic thinkers, not merely learning the literacy strategies. In addition, Johnston examines the complex learning that teachers produce in classrooms that is hard to name and thus is not recognized by tests, by policy-makers, by the general public, and often by teachers themselves, yet is vitally important.

This book will be enlightening for any teacher who wishes to be more conscious of the many ways their language helps children acquire literacy skills and view the world, their peers, and themselves in new ways.
eBook Available Through Major Retailers
We offer ebook editions for most of our print titles so you can access on your computer, tablet, or e-reader from several major retailers including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, OverDrive, and ebooks.com. View the full list of retailers here. For eBook purchases of 10+ please email us for a quote. Purchases of 20+ qualify for a bulk discount.

If you previously purchased an ebook from Stenhouse.com, they will remain available in your digital library.

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In productive classrooms, teachers don't just teach children skills: they build emotionally and relationally healthy learning communities. Teachers create intellectual environments that produce not only technically competent students, but also caring, secure, actively literate human beings.Choice Words shows how teachers accomplish this using their most powerful teaching tool:

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PYP G3 Central Idea and Staggered Timing 

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One Central Idea Between, Across, and Beyond the Disciplines with Staggered Timing 

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One Central Idea Between, Across, and Beyond the Disciplines with Staggered Timing 

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EKC

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PYP G3 Central Idea and Staggered Timing

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tonya@erinkentconsulting.com

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

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Zaretta Hammond

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From math, literacy, equity, multilingual learners, and SEL, to assessment, school counseling, and education leadership, our books are research-based and authored by experts on topics most relevant to what educators are facing today.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain

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In this book, Zaretta Hammond draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to offer an innovative approach for designing and implementing brain-compatible culturally responsive instruction.

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Tweets by Mrs_Gilchrist

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Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Nancy Akhavan

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Students learn to read and write best when their teachers balance literacy instruction. But how do you strike the right balance of skills and knowledge, reading and writing, small and whole group instruction, and direct and dialogic instruction, so that all students can learn to their maximum potential?

The answer lies in the intentional design of learning activities, purposeful selection of instructional materials, evidence-based teaching methods, and in strategic groupings of students based on assessment data. Together, these create the perfect balance of high impact learning experiences that engage and excite learners. In this hands-on essential guide, best-selling authors Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Nancy Akhavan help you define that balance for your students, lighting the path to implementing balanced literacy in your classroom. Their plan empowers you to integrate evidence-based approaches that include:

* Instructional materials comprised of both informational and narrative texts.
*The best uses of instructional delivery modes, including direct and dialogic instruction.
*Grouping patterns that work best to accomplish learning aims for different learners at different stages.
* Instruction in foundational skills and meaning making, including oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency,
vocabulary, comprehension, and writing.
* Technology used as a tool for increasing learning of a specific literary process.

All the tips and tools you need to realize the goal of balanced literacy learning are included, with classroom videos that show strategies in action. Tap your intuition, collaborate with your peers, and put the research-based strategies embedded in this roadmap to work in your classroom to implement or deepen a strong, successful balanced literacy program. Grow as a reading and writing teacher while leading your students to grow as readers and writers.

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All the tools and tips you need to strike the right balance of high impact learning and realize the goal of balanced literacy instruction in your classroom.

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Debbie Miller

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Introduction: We Can Do This

Asking Beautiful Questions

Paying Attention to What Doesn't Feel Right

Asking, "What If?": Creating Space for Possibility

Chapter One: What If Each Day's Teaching Focused on Children's Agency?

Finding Our Way to a Beautiful Question: The Disengaged Child

What's the Best That Could Happen? Agency Fosters Engagement

Imagining New Possibilities for a Child

Conferring to Support Access and Choice

Paying Attention During Independent Work Time

Conferring to Inquire and to Offer Community

Postscript

Chapter Two: What If We Made What Children Make and Do Our Priority?

Finding Our Way to a Beautiful Question: Workshop Planning

What's the Best That Could Happen? Meaningful Work

Planning for What Children Will Do First

Planning for What Teachers Will Do During Work Time

Figuring Out What to Teach

Playing with the Sequence

Taking Ownership

Chapter Three: What If Our Classroom Environment and Routines Offered Choice?

Finding Our Way to a Beautiful Question: Frustration over Supplies

What's the Best That Could Happen? Managing Their Own Work

Being Intentional in Our Language

Cocreating Routines

Designing Agentive Environments

Chapter Four: What If We Owned the Units We Are Asked to Teach?

Finding Our Way to a Beautiful Question: The Units We're Given

Are These the Right Goals?

Which Texts Work Best?

How Will We Know When We're Done?

How Can This Happen Within Daily Workshop?

What's the Best That Could Happen? Perfection in Imperfection

Chapter Five: What If Read-Aloud Sustained Children's Independent Thinking?

Finding Our Way to a Beautiful Question: The Wisdom in Children's Thinking

Expecting Brilliance

Finding Time for Read-Aloud

Reading Aloud for Joy

Teachers and Children Thinking Aloud

What's the Best That Could Happen? Being Inspired to Act

Conclusion: In Pursuit of Beautiful Questions

We all have difficult moments in our teaching, and without a question to drive us forward, we can get stuck. But that difficult moment might be the question we need to ask ourselves. Questions can bring a positive attention, creating a presence in the moment. When I ask children, "Are you the kind of kid who...?", I'm inviting them to imagine a new possibility for themselves, one in which they have more power than they did before. I want those new possibilities for teachers, too. Are you the kind of teacher who is ready to try something new, something that will make your students stronger, more joyful readers and bring you greater joy in your work? I think you are.

Asking questions leads to opportunities-it's about growth, openness, and a willingness to change, which top-down models don't allow. It's a way for us to focus our thinking and be present in the lives we've chosen to live. Asking the question is the essential behavior of teaching. It's not a perfect call-and response but a messy business of wondering, stumbling, and figuring things out. It requires bravery and commitment, but that's what teaching is. It's a joyful, creative, purposeful profession. If you feel you've lost even some of your passion for teaching, I would love to help give it back to you. So, in this book, we'll talk about creating beautiful questions about the teaching of reading. To help you take on the process of asking beautiful questions, I'll share how I got to some beautiful questions about teaching reading and what I did with them as I worked with teachers in classrooms across the country.

This book is about owning our teaching and making decisions based on who we are and what's best for the children in our classroom today. That all sounds ambitious and brave... and the work is-teaching is-but it happens in so many small and simple ways. My wish is for you to think about what you do and ask your own beautiful questions, so that you and your children can thrive and view yourselves and each other as valuable, idea-filled, creative, and contributing humans who own your teaching and learning. Be open and receptive to possibilities! Think: "What if we did it this way?"

"A one-of-a-kind book, full of wisdom and heart. Debbie Miller inspires educators to step back and question everything-challenging us to rethink and reinvent the ways we teach. What's the best that could happen? Read this book and it will help you find your own answer to that beautiful question."

-Warren Berger, author of A More Beautiful Question and The Book of Beautiful Questions
"Debbie Miller is a magician with children, and in What's the Best That Could Happen? she hands us her magic wand. With honesty, humility, and optimism, she shares her thoughts and actions about teaching and learning. Run-don't walk-to conjure up this essential book!"
-Stephanie Harvey, coauthor of The Comprehension Toolkit series, From Striving to Thriving, and Strategies That Work
"Debbie Miller is suggesting something revolutionary. She is suggesting the way to ensure all students learn is to intentionally and persistently expect not just capability but brilliance from them."
-Gretchen Morgan, author of Innovative Educators: An Action Plan for Teachers

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"One of the great joys of teaching is anticipating children's brilliance." In What's the Best That Could Happen?, Debbie Miller confronts a challenge all

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From Readers'/Writers' Workshop to Reggio to UDL to IB, Tonya works with schools to tailor professional learning just for their specific contexts and their unique needs.

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Dr. Jan Burkins & Kim Yaris

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Following up on Reading Wellness, Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris explore how some traditional scaffolding practices may actually rob students of important learning opportunities and independence. Who's Doing the Work? suggests ways to make small but powerful adjustments to instruction that hold students accountable for their own learning.

Educators everywhere are concerned about students whose reading development inexplicably plateaus, as well as those who face challenging texts without applying the strategies they've been taught. When such problems arise, our instinct is to do more. But when we summarize text before reading or guide students when they encounter difficult words, are we leading them to depend on our support? If we want students to use strategies independently, Jan and Kim believe that we must question the ways our scaffolding is getting in the way.

Next generation reading instruction is responsive to students' needs, and it develops readers who can integrate reading strategies without prompting from instructors. In Who's Doing The Work?, Jan and Kim examine how instructional mainstays such as read-aloud, shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading look in classrooms where students do more of the work. Classroom snapshots at the end of each chapter help translate the ideas in the book into practice.

Who's Doing the Work? offers a vision for adjusting reading instruction to better align with the goal of creating independent, proficient, and joyful readers.

Learn more about Who's Doing the Work? Lesson Sets.

Learn more about Who's Doing the Work? Independent Library Collections.
eBook Available Through Major Retailers
We offer ebook editions for most of our print titles so you can access on your computer, tablet, or e-reader from several major retailers including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, OverDrive, and ebooks.com. View the full list of retailers here. For eBook purchases of 10+ please email us for a quote. Purchases of 20+ qualify for a bulk discount.

If you previously purchased an ebook from Stenhouse.com, they will remain available in your digital library.

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Following up on Reading Wellness, Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris explore how some traditional scaffolding practices may actually rob students of important learning opportunities and independence. Who's Doing the Work? suggests ways to make small but powerful adjustments to instruction that hold students accountable for their own learning.

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Dr. Katie Egan Cunningham

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Children come to school to become better readers, writers, and thinkers, but they also walk into classrooms hoping to be happy. Katie Cunningham argues that happiness must be as much of a priority in teaching as proficiency or achievement. When teachers intentionally design curriculum with joy at it…

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Lester Laminack & Katie Kelly

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Books as bridges enable readers to speak freely, think deeply, and take action. In Reading to Make a Difference, Lester and Katie build on the work of

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What do you notice? What characteristics might make for a strong, substantial central idea?       

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What do you notice? What characteristics might make for a strong, substantial central idea?       

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Jot your ideas below.

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We liked: People find and solve problems through innovating thinking.  This is broad and it lends itself to different disciplines.  We can inquire through different lenses fairly easily. This central idea stays away from too many subject specific words.  

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We liked: People find and solve problems through innovating thinking.  This is broad and it lends itself to different disciplines.  We can inquire through different lenses fairly easily. This central idea stays away from too many subject specific words.  

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I've been looking through the mathematics lens. How would maths fit authentically with this unit?

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Now I am thinking that, it is important for the central idea generic for transdisciplinary workshops.
For example: People find and solve problems through innovative thinking.

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This was a timely reminder of the importance of developing a strong central idea to drive the inquiry. 

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This was a timely reminder of the importance of developing a strong central idea to drive the inquiry. 

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It was really helpful for me to learn and think about transdisciplinary learning and surface, deep, and transfer learning. It clarified how we might approach our upcoming units.

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This will help us create central ideas that are broad but still be student friendly especially when it is reiterated in the different workshops.

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I got a great reminder of what it is to be transdiciplinary, but also it's okay to focus on subject-specific inquiry too.  It's not all or nothing.  

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I got a great reminder of what it is to be transdiciplinary, but also it's okay to focus on subject-specific inquiry too.  It's not all or nothing.  

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Wondering: Can any central idea be modified so that mathematics can be authentically taught within the CI?

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Here is the previous central idea for our next unit: "Where We Are in Place and Time: Innovative thinking changes our community, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse."	T & J				

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Here is the previous central idea for our next unit: "Where We Are in Place and Time: Innovative thinking changes our community, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse."	T & J				

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We have an immediate need to address tolerance in our class. We'd like to incorporate this theme into our next UOI if possible.               T & J

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We have an immediate need to address tolerance in our class. We'd like to incorporate this theme into our next UOI if possible.               T & J

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We're thinking:  Writing--focus on opinion writing and If/Then curriculum.                                Reading--argument and advocacy.  Thoughts?                                            *How/where do we fit in STEAM and     math?                                                        What exactly will be the big conceptual thinking?  How can we take a NEED and work it through the curriculum?                  T & J

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We're thinking:  Writing--focus on opinion writing and If/Then curriculum.                                Reading--argument and advocacy.  Thoughts?                                            *How/where do we fit in STEAM and     math?                                                        What exactly will be the big conceptual thinking?  How can we take a NEED and work it through the curriculum?                  T & J

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Lester Laminack & Katie Kelly

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Books as bridges enable readers to speak freely, think deeply, and take action. In Reading to Make a Difference, Lester and Katie build on the work of

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Is our central idea conceptual? Is it transferable with opportunities for making connections beyond the disciplines and beyond the inquiry? How might we be intentional with our timing? Post your ideas, possibilities, and questions below for us to carry forward.

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Previous CI:   Both governments and citizens have responsibilities to each other."					

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Previous CI:   Both governments and citizens have responsibilities to each other."					

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Systems
Justice/Injustice
Responsibility
Perspective
Equity
Inclusion
Community

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systems define our lived experiences

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Citizens (classmates) build community through equity and inclusion.

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Citizens (classmates) build community through equity and inclusion.

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Citizens -- power to create community, be inclusive -- leading to justice and equity...

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Citizens have the responsibility to view perspectives with inclusion and equity.

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Citizens have the responsibility to view perspectives with inclusion and equity.

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Equitable and inclusive systems build peaceful societies

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Inspiration, ideas, and a direction for our new unit.

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I got a vision into how we will build this unit, and a time saver in getting the basics already there to build our C.I.  Time well spent! Thank you!  

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I got a vision into how we will build this unit, and a time saver in getting the basics already there to build our C.I.  Time well spent! Thank you!  

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Got - Thinking about our focus for the next unit.
Want - Time to continue developing the unit.

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Got: An understanding of how to address ATLs during the unit and also to look at Assessment as Learning.

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Got: An understanding of how to address ATLs during the unit and also to look at Assessment as Learning.

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Firm up the central idea, lines of inquiry, and concepts for the HWOO unit. As it stands the concepts for this unit are: function and responsibility. We may consider adding perspective. And related concepts we can always adapt and change as need be.

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Got: Assessment--the search for evidence of learning.  Brilliant!  

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Got: Assessment--the search for evidence of learning.  Brilliant!  

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I got insights on assessment (for and as learning ) as most important in the teaching and learning.

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I got insights on assessment (for and as learning ) as most important in the teaching and learning.

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Try it out with self-management.

Select one strand/bullet point from the chart below.

Create (or co-create with students) a transdisciplinary learning tool that shows students how to grow in and/or utilize this skill.

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PYP

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3 things I learned
2 things I want to try
1 wondering I still have

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EKC

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EKC

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EKC

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A two-minute overview of pedagogical translanguaging from
Eowyn Crisfield

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Using Translanguaging to Grow Multilingual Readers and Writers

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Using Translanguaging to Grow Multilingual Readers and Writers

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EKC Connections: Interview with

Dr. Cecilia M. Espinosa & Dr. Laura Ascenzi-Moreno

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Supporting Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners

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Supporting Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners

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EKC Connections: Interview with Dr. Andrea Honigsfeld

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Honoring All Languages in Literacy Instruction

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Honoring All Languages in Literacy Instruction

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DisruptED TV

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#31DaysIBPOC - "How can we move past allowing for students to translanguage, but actually encourage it?"

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#31DaysIBPOC - "How can we move past allowing for students to translanguage, but actually encourage it?"

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Nawal Qarooni Casiano

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The Persian kilim rug where I sit cross-legged with my toddler each morning is handwoven and colored with vegetable dyes in Shiraz, where my mother is from, where the dusty Zagros mountains tower above her childhood memories. Years ago, this kilim was folded thrice and smashed into a battered suitcase, lugged across three continents from plane to plane amid pouches of spice mix my great-aunt blends in her sweltering Bahraini kitchen.

The artifacts we keep tell a story.

My mother says the shapes depicted in the kilim'spattern come to the weavers' minds during the process, explaining why there's a small cow's outline on one side but not the other, the inspired asymmetry more beautiful to me than the calculated symmetry cherished in Western design.

Agar gov az panjareh didan, gov mizashtan to kilim, my mother would tell me, falling into a melodic lilt of storytelling. If there was a cow outside the window, they'd weave a cow into the tapestry. Anything they'd see would appear in the art, you see? I imagined a dozen weavers around a single loom, together creating a large scale masterpiece.

This rug, and the dozens like it that lend warmth to the cold tile and austere wood of our homes away from Home, is a talisman that steels me and my family against the American exaltation of the individual, the ruthless mentality that we wake each day to win on our own for our own. For this rug and my life's refrain, it is the collective effort of individual ideas that renders the final piece gorgeous.

I believe in the collective.

On countless occasions, for as long as I can remember, my father reminded me that each of my actions affected the family. I feared a misstep because I couldn't afford to represent my culture and my parents poorly; I knew my younger siblings looked to me as a model. But it was more than that. In my family, there was never 'mine,' but rather 'ours.' There were relatives and friends of relatives in and out of our house, sometimes living on the couch for months. I'd come home from school to find a new Khaleh in our small kitchen, washing parsley and cilantro for ghormeh sabzi . Without a community in the States, clear across the globe from his birthplace in the always-hot border town of Khorramshahr, the salty air of the Persian Gulf traded for the gray sky flurries of Pittsburgh, my father ensured we understood our responsibility to first look out for each other, to provide for others, to join in efforts to breed collective success.
I bring these beliefs every day to my work as an educator. I ask myself and teachers I support, how can we rethink classroom design to exalt community? How can we encourage students to share artifacts of their learning, emphasizing collective contributions above individual competition?
Growing up in a predominantly white school, I placed scant value on these textured family intricacies. I was the story you've heard over and over again, the heart-breaking one, where the girl tries hard to assimilate until she's stripped completely of her history and reduced to the normative same. Straightened hair, curls smoking after each heated round-brush pull. Deep embarrassment in the back seat of a friend's car, V-neck reeking of fried onions. Family who spoke too loud, grandparents who'd visit too long, overseas cousins who'd fax letters asking questions about Amrica. At each new introduction, a panicked moment as the new friend or teacher inevitably butchered my name: would I let it go? Sometimes I'd want to be called Nina. When we were asked in class to write childhood vignettes, I wanted to share that I learned the lyrics to Googoosh's oonja kia kia before I formed memories in English. But I didn't. I wrote about a trip to the zoo.

College undid me. I found all kinds of brown people with different experiences and suddenly, I wanted N-A-W-A-L, an Arabic name pronounced Persian style with a 'v', spelled out on a necklace. I took a Persian class to empower my writing abilities in a language I had grown up speaking. I was flushed with gratitude for the years my grandparents lived with us; how special that time was together, the satellite Persian television playing on like the soundtrack to our lives. When I visited family in Iran as a young adult, I learned that the same turmeric onions whose odor embarrassed me as a teen were the crucial base of every meal I adored. I learned that the ancient poet Hafez was among the long line of storytellers in my rich lineage, his 700-year-old tomb in the Musalla Gardens of Shiraz becoming my destination for meditation and reflection.

I realized asymmetry is perfection.

And yet, this experience of alarming assimilation then metamorphosis into love of one's own culture is not necessarily what we want for our young people. How can we ensure that each child's cultural capital and unique histories are woven into the fabric of our classrooms? How can we move past allowing for students to translanguage, but actually encourage it? How can we ensure children have the opportunity to learn about their history as part of the scope, not as an emergence they might accidentally stumble upon at some point later in their lives- maybe, if they're lucky enough, fingers crossed? Our children are the curriculum, custodians of their unique, specific journeys. It is our job as leaders of learning to instill in them a supportive stance of amplifying each other's strengths. We must teach about beauty in collectivity, uniqueness and asymmetry.

This morning, Eloisa Nasim, the youngest of our four kids, played on the kilim at my feet. Like each of her siblings, she carries from both sides of her heritage: her father's Puerto Rican side and my Middle Eastern, names I hope she owns each day of her existence with extreme pride. As she pretend-walked her doll across the rug, she pointed to a shape I had never noticed before. She cocked her head and smiled at me.

"Bird," she cooed, more confident than I was about the depiction. Goodness, I hadn't seen that. It could've been a bird- one that came to the weaver's imagination back in Iran.

"Yes baby girl, dorost migi," I told her. "It's a parandeh."

It reminded me of the ancient Persian story my uncle used to tell, about a flock of thirty birds in search of the famed Simorgh, a benevolent mythical creature roughly analogous to the Western Phoenix. But when the group of birds arrived at what they believed to be the Simorgh's lakeside, what they saw was their collective reflection in the crystal water. You see, Si, in Farsi, means thirty; the Simorgh was not an all-powerful mystical being, but a manifestation of the awesome power inherent in the flock.

And that is exactly it. Our power resides in our collective strength. We are what we are seeking.

This blog post is part of the #31DaysIBPOC Blog Series, a month-long movement to feature the voices of indigenous and teachers of color as writers and scholars. Please to read yesterday's blog post by Edith Campbell (and be sure to check out the link at the end of each post to catch up on the rest of the blog series).

Nawal is an educator, literacy consultant and writer based out of Chicago, IL. Forever passionate about growing readers, writers and thinkers, Nawal worked as a classroom teacher, literacy coach and curriculum developer in Brooklyn and Chicago before launching NQC Literacy in 2014. She and her team support schools and districts by facilitating professional development and coaching around a holistic, balanced approach to literacy instruction: always looking through lenses of cultural-sustainability, inclusion and equity. She is the proud daughter of immigrants and her role as a mother to four multiethnic, multilingual kids shapes her approach as an educator. You can find Nawal in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood or on Twitter at @NQCLiteracy . She can be contacted directly at nawal.qcasiano@nqcliteracy.com.

The Persian kilim rug where I sit cross-legged with my toddler each morning is handwoven and colored with vegetable dyes in Shiraz, where my mother is from, where the dusty Zagros mountains tower above her childhood memories. Years ago, this kilim was folded thrice and smashed into a battered suitcase, lugged across three continents from plane to plane amid pouches of spice mix my great-aunt blends in her sweltering Bahraini kitchen.

The artifacts we keep tell a story.

My mother says the shapes depicted in the kilim'spattern come to the weavers' minds during the process, explaining why there's a small cow's outline on one side but not the other, the inspired asymmetry more beautiful to me than the calculated symmetry cherished in Western design.

Agar gov az panjareh didan, gov mizashtan to kilim, my mother would tell me, falling into a melodic lilt of storytelling. If there was a cow outside the window, they'd weave a cow into the tapestry. Anything they'd see would appear in the art, you see? I imagined a dozen weavers around a single loom, together creating a large scale masterpiece.

This rug, and the dozens like it that lend warmth to the cold tile and austere wood of our homes away from Home, is a talisman that steels me and my family against the American exaltation of the individual, the ruthless mentality that we wake each day to win on our own for our own. For this rug and my life's refrain, it is the collective effort of individual ideas that renders the final piece gorgeous.

I believe in the collective.

On countless occasions, for as long as I can remember, my father reminded me that each of my actions affected the family. I feared a misstep because I couldn't afford to represent my culture and my parents poorly; I knew my younger siblings looked to me as a model. But it was more than that. In my family, there was never 'mine,' but rather 'ours.' There were relatives and friends of relatives in and out of our house, sometimes living on the couch for months. I'd come home from school to find a new Khaleh in our small kitchen, washing parsley and cilantro for ghormeh sabzi . Without a community in the States, clear across the globe from his birthplace in the always-hot border town of Khorramshahr, the salty air of the Persian Gulf traded for the gray sky flurries of Pittsburgh, my father ensured we understood our responsibility to first look out for each other, to provide for others, to join in efforts to breed collective success.
I bring these beliefs every day to my work as an educator. I ask myself and teachers I support, how can we rethink classroom design to exalt community? How can we encourage students to share artifacts of their learning, emphasizing collective contributions above individual competition?
Growing up in a predominantly white school, I placed scant value on these textured family intricacies. I was the story you've heard over and over again, the heart-breaking one, where the girl tries hard to assimilate until she's stripped completely of her history and reduced to the normative same. Straightened hair, curls smoking after each heated round-brush pull. Deep embarrassment in the back seat of a friend's car, V-neck reeking of fried onions. Family who spoke too loud, grandparents who'd visit too long, overseas cousins who'd fax letters asking questions about Amrica. At each new introduction, a panicked moment as the new friend or teacher inevitably butchered my name: would I let it go? Sometimes I'd want to be called Nina. When we were asked in class to write childhood vignettes, I wanted to share that I learned the lyrics to Googoosh's oonja kia kia before I formed memories in English. But I didn't. I wrote about a trip to the zoo.

College undid me. I found all kinds of brown people with different experiences and suddenly, I wanted N-A-W-A-L, an Arabic name pronounced Persian style with a 'v', spelled out on a necklace. I took a Persian class to empower my writing abilities in a language I had grown up speaking. I was flushed with gratitude for the years my grandparents lived with us; how special that time was together, the satellite Persian television playing on like the soundtrack to our lives. When I visited family in Iran as a young adult, I learned that the same turmeric onions whose odor embarrassed me as a teen were the crucial base of every meal I adored. I learned that the ancient poet Hafez was among the long line of storytellers in my rich lineage, his 700-year-old tomb in the Musalla Gardens of Shiraz becoming my destination for meditation and reflection.

I realized asymmetry is perfection.

And yet, this experience of alarming assimilation then metamorphosis into love of one's own culture is not necessarily what we want for our young people. How can we ensure that each child's cultural capital and unique histories are woven into the fabric of our classrooms? How can we move past allowing for students to translanguage, but actually encourage it? How can we ensure children have the opportunity to learn about their history as part of the scope, not as an emergence they might accidentally stumble upon at some point later in their lives- maybe, if they're lucky enough, fingers crossed? Our children are the curriculum, custodians of their unique, specific journeys. It is our job as leaders of learning to instill in them a supportive stance of amplifying each other's strengths. We must teach about beauty in collectivity, uniqueness and asymmetry.

This morning, Eloisa Nasim, the youngest of our four kids, played on the kilim at my feet. Like each of her siblings, she carries from both sides of her heritage: her father's Puerto Rican side and my Middle Eastern, names I hope she owns each day of her existence with extreme pride. As she pretend-walked her doll across the rug, she pointed to a shape I had never noticed before. She cocked her head and smiled at me.

"Bird," she cooed, more confident than I was about the depiction. Goodness, I hadn't seen that. It could've been a bird- one that came to the weaver's imagination back in Iran.

"Yes baby girl, dorost migi," I told her. "It's a parandeh."

It reminded me of the ancient Persian story my uncle used to tell, about a flock of thirty birds in search of the famed Simorgh, a benevolent mythical creature roughly analogous to the Western Phoenix. But when the group of birds arrived at what they believed to be the Simorgh's lakeside, what they saw was their collective reflection in the crystal water. You see, Si, in Farsi, means thirty; the Simorgh was not an all-powerful mystical being, but a manifestation of the awesome power inherent in the flock.

And that is exactly it. Our power resides in our collective strength. We are what we are seeking.

This blog post is part of the #31DaysIBPOC Blog Series, a month-long movement to feature the voices of indigenous and teachers of color as writers and scholars. Please to read yesterday's blog post by Edith Campbell (and be sure to check out the link at the end of each post to catch up on the rest of the blog series).

Nawal is an educator, literacy consultant and writer based out of Chicago, IL. Forever passionate about growing readers, writers and thinkers, Nawal worked as a classroom teacher, literacy coach and curriculum developer in Brooklyn and Chicago before launching NQC Literacy in 2014. She and her team support schools and districts by facilitating professional development and coaching around a holistic, balanced approach to literacy instruction: always looking through lenses of cultural-sustainability, inclusion and equity. She is the proud daughter of immigrants and her role as a mother to four multiethnic, multilingual kids shapes her approach as an educator. You can find Nawal in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood or on Twitter at @NQCLiteracy . She can be contacted directly at nawal.qcasiano@nqcliteracy.com.

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The Persian kilim rug where I sit cross-legged with my toddler each morning is handwoven and colored with vegetable dyes in Shiraz, where my mother is from, where the dusty Zagros mountains tower above her childhood memories. Years ago, this kilim was folded thrice and smashed into a battered suitca

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Recording, Revision and Repetition: Empowering Multilingual Writers

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Recording, Revision and Repetition: Empowering Multilingual Writers

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Nawal Qarooni Casiano

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I shut the door to my closet and sat on the big green Rubbermaid tub, the one filled with hand-me-downs for the next kid. In the quietest place I could think of, hiding from my four children, I pressed record and started reading.

Stumbling once or twice, I went back into the Word document and adjusted the writing accordingly, then tried to record again.

So it went for each piece of writing for the Slice of Life Story Challenge in March, where I created an audio recording of my voice to accompany the alphabetic, where I learned a ton about myself as a multilingual writer. I realized that sometimes,we do our best teaching when we think, brainstorm and write alongside students. Writing every day helped me rethink the writing process, so in the classrooms where I coach, we are sharing new ideas with students.

Here, I offer three suggestions for how to support writers in the classroom with recording, revision and repetition.

RECORDING AS A REVISION TOOL

Because I grew up speaking both Farsi and English, with a lot of Arabic peppered in from my father's Bahraini side, my brain is a melange of words that don't always come out the way I initially intend. In my experiences as a newspaper writer and as a writing teacher, I have learned that recording my voice before getting to the end of the writing process supports my composition.

Oral rehearsal - the practice of saying aloud what we want to write - is a useful strategy for all students, since what we think we can say and what we say, we can write. And it is typically thought of as a planning tool. Before putting pen to paper, teachers might ask students to say aloud what they want to write, thinking across their fingers as they add details.

But for multilingual students particularly, recording an audio track as part of composing writing, before its final iteration, enhances alphabetic writing changes as a revision tool. Students are often better equipped to hear where they meant for writing to sound differently, and thus, able to adjust the writing on paper before preparing the piece for an audience.

I had to hide in my closet to find space for recording. In the classroom, teachers can prompt students to record themselves using headphones and apps like Mote or Google Voice Recorder, both easy extensions available for free downloading.

Often, the writing process in classrooms includes the recording and presentation of a 'final' piece. But as a multilingual writer, I value recording and auditory composition throughout the process far more than its inclusion at the end alone. Revision looks different for each and every writer, particularly for our multilingual students. Teaching students that audio recordings can be used as a revision tool is a helpful way for students to recognize that composition is personal and nuanced.

Recording and listening back to my writing helps support the cadence of sentences and various sentence lengths. I know, for example, where I want to isolate a sentence, and I know when I prefer a staccato list. Through recording and listening back to my words, I am able to more fluidly compose.

Implications for the classroom:

1. Explore a few options for audio recording, and determine which app feels easiest for you and your students.

2. Offer audio recording as a writing tool earlier in the writing process, introducing the strategy of revising writing after recording to ensure it sounds the way the author intended.

3. Show more than one writing process image, so students know that the process looks different for each writer.

Writing process with recording as an oral rehearsal and revision tool.

Traditional writing process, visual by Maureen Murray, a Chicago teacher.

AUTHENTICITY IN TRANSLANGUAGING

When I write about my families or memories, more often than not, my writing includes a line or two of Farsi. It is the language I grew up speaking and it's the language of my ancestors, as my parents were both born and raised in Iran. Including the English translation for readers felt empowering on its own - this idea that I could toggle between English and the other language that makes up the rest of my mind. But I quickly realized that I wanted for readers to hear the lyricism and poetry of the words in Farsi, not just the translation.

Translanguaging is when a person's full linguistic capabilities are used, honored and exalted; when one peppers in various languages when it makes sense to the speaker and writer. Listen to a piece with Farsi translanguaging here.

Recording my voice provided that opportunity, adding the authenticity of my voice as the author; adding the personalization of my translanguaging.

When multilingual student writers are able to use all parts of their language repertoires, they are able to access all parts of themselves (España and Herrera, 2020). As writing teachers, if we encourage these practices, we exalt the whole child. Forcing multilingual students to compartmentalize their languages, like checking baggage at the door, as Dr. Sonja Cherry-Paul once lamented, serves no one.

Implications for the classroom:

1. Use multimodal writing mentors in minilessons and for small group examples that include translanguaging, so that multilingual students see the array of possibilities when composing. It is important for all teachers and students to make space for these textured pieces of writing, and seek opportunities to celebrate this work too, multilingual or not.

2. Encourage the fluid inclusion of various languages when students speak, draw, and create.

3. Ensure students are exposed to multiple languages in your classroom - whether in read alouds, short video clips, music tracks or classroom (virtual!) visitors.

Book recommendations: Octopus Stew (Velasquez 2021); Fry Bread (Maillard 2019), and Drawn Together (Minh Le 2018)

REPETITION

When I look back at my month of slice of life writing, I quickly realized that at least half of the entries include a repeated line or phrase.
My heart became whole in Iran. Life was less complicated then.
I found myself reflecting. Was it a stylistic choice, rendering my writing more poetic, or was it necessary for me, to ensure my writing stayed on topic? The truth is, it's likely a combination, but I found that the through-line supported my writing organization. It felt like a life-line that kept my writing and voice steady throughout. There were times when I had written a repeated phrase across the text but removed it once the whole piece was completely composed; it didn't stay each and every time. And yet, I felt I needed it.

For personal and narrative writing of multilingual writers especially, the use of repetition throughout a piece of writing feels supportive and useful as a strategy to keep the writing cohesive.

Implications for the classroom:

1. Explicitly teach students how to craft a line or phrase that could provide glue throughout the piece to tie all the parts together by asking, "What do you want readers to take away?"

2. Once the piece is composed, ask students to cross out the line to determine if it stylistically sounds better kept in, or removed. The purpose is to keep the piece beautifully woven together.

3. Include mentor texts with repetition used throughout, calling attention to the author's purposeful craft move.

Book recommendations: What Color Is My Hijab? (Ibrahim 2020); Watch Me (Richards, 2021); Magnificent Homespun Brown (Doyon, 2020); You Matter (Robinson, 2020); Big Papa and the Time Machine (Bernstrom, 2020).

Recording for revision, encouraging translanguaging, and repetition are useful strategies to exalt and empower multilingual writers. As teachers of multilingual students, encouraging translanguaging and recording as revision is akin to telling students: every aspect of you is valued. Every aspect of you is important.

Learn more:

Published by Nawal Qarooni

Nawal is an educator, literacy consultant and writer based out of Chicago, IL. Nawal worked as a classroom teacher, literacy coach and curriculum developer in Brooklyn and Chicago before launching NQC Literacy in 2014. She and her team support schools and districts by facilitating professional development and coaching around a holistic, balanced approach to literacy instruction: always looking through lenses of cultural-sustainability, inclusion and equity. Nawal earned a Bachelor of English from the University of Michigan, a Master of Teaching from Brooklyn College, and a Master of Journalism from Syracuse University's Newhouse School. She won a New Jersey Press Association Award for her international reporting and transitioned into education as a New York City Teaching Fellow. She is the proud daughter of immigrants and her role as a mother to four multiethnic, multilingual kids shapes her approach as an educator. You can find Nawal in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood or on Twitter at @NQCLiteracy. View all posts by Nawal Qarooni

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Recording, Revision and Repetition: Empowering Multilingual Writers

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Recording for revision, encouraging translanguaging, and repetition are useful strategies to exalt and empower multilingual writers. As teachers of multilingual students, encouraging translanguaging and recording as revision is akin to telling students: every aspect of you is valued. Every aspect of you is important.

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Dr. Cecilia M. Espinosa & Dr. Laura Ascenzi-Moreno

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Rooted in Strength: Using Translanguaging to Grow Multilingual Readers and Writers

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Espinosa and Ascenzi-Moreno demonstrate how our emergent bilingual students who speak two or more languages in their daily lives― thrive when they are able to use "translanguaging" to tap the power of their entire linguistic and sociocultural repertoires. Additionally, the authors present rich an...

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Utilize this resource to consider your school's language ecology.

So what?...Now what? Discuss your findings and develop an action plan for next steps.

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Utilize this resource to consider your ideal classroom's language ecology. Share your map and discuss your thoughts with a group of colleagues. How might you incorporate these ideas into your classroom space?

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Explore Your Classroom Ecology & Environmental Print