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Architecture of a Conference and Inquiry:Agency

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In productive classrooms, teachers don’t just teach children skills: they build emotionally and relationally healthy learning communities...

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TC Annotated Writing Progression Informative

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A Writing Conference: Teaching a Student to Write for Audience (3-5)

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kfhoke@gmail.com
Twitter: @kalleyhoke

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Literacy Consultants & Consulting Services | Erin Kent Consulting

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Literacy Consultants & Consulting Services | Erin Kent Consulting

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EKC provides literacy consultants, consulting services, and literacy professional learning for schools.

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Reading and Writing Workshop in International Schools

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Reading and Writing Workshop in International Schools

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Great group focused on literacy!

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Teaching Tools for Differentiation, Rigor, and Independence

What's DIY Literacy? It's making your own visual teaching tools instead of buying them. It's using your teaching smarts to get the most from those tools. And it's helping kids think strategically so they can be DIY learners.

Special Offer: Save 30% off our list price automatically when you buy 15 or more.

"We have never seen teachers work harder than we do now. These tools inspire kids to work as hard as we are."
-Kate Roberts and Maggie Beattie Roberts

What's DIY Literacy? It's making your own visual teaching tools instead of buying them. It's using your teaching smarts to get the most from those tools. And it's helping kids think strategically so they can be DIY learners.

"Teaching tools create an impact on students' learning," write Kate Roberts and Maggie Beattie Roberts. "They help students hold onto our teaching and become changed by the work in the classroom." Of course, you and your students need the right tools for the job, so first Kate and Maggie share four simple, visual tools that you can make. Then they show how to maximize your instructional know-how with suggestions for using the tools to:

make your reading and writing strategies stick

motivate students to reach for their next learning goal

differentiate instruction simply and quickly.

Kate and Maggie are like a friendly, handy neighbor. They offer experience-honed advice for using the four tools for assessment, small-group instruction, conferring, setting learning goals, and, most important, helping students learn to apply strategies and make progress without prompting from you. In other words, to do it themselves.

"It is our greatest hope," write Kate and Maggie, "that the tools we offer here will help your students to work hard, to hold onto what they know, and to see themselves in the curriculum you teach." Try DIY Literacy and help your readers and writers take learning into their own hands.

(click any section below to continue reading)

In Depth

As literacy consultants, we have never seen teachers work harder than we do now. And we have watched teaching tools help them feel as though all of their hard work is worth it. In part, the tools help get traction going with teaching and learning. In larger part, the tools inspire kids to work as hard as we are. These tangible, colorful, personalized offerings of our teaching are individual gifts to students. They communicate the message of I see you. I see your next steps. Let me help you. Here is this. These teaching tools invite kids in on the work of the class in a way that is tailored to them, allowing students to take control of their learning and do it themselves.

When we take on DIY projects, from remodeling a bathroom to making a new teaching chart, we know that part of the joy in this project is going to come from our own efforts. And while many times the hallmark of a DIY project is it's imperfections, these flaws often become marks of character, points of pride, and evidence of learning.

One key to experiencing joy is working hard and seeing that hard work pay off. When mathematicians solve a problem they've been grappling with for months, when a musician perfects a performance of a complicated piece, when a learner masters a difficult concept, joy arrives.

It is our greatest hope that the tools we offer here will help your students to work hard, to hold onto what they know, and to see themselves in the curriculum you teach.

Onward to joy!

- From Chapter 1

Companion Resources

Reviews

"After reading DIY Literacy, I felt like I had been given a superhero cape. I felt armed and ready to teach writing. I knew I could use my newly created demonstration notebook or a micro-progression or a chart to help me teach my students. Really, I felt empowered."
- Dana Murphy, at Two Writing Teachers
Read the entire review
" DIY Literacy is not only a "how-to" book on designing visual tools but a source of advice on implementation in the classroom. Students' learning is changed by concrete ideas that push them forward into independent problem solving."
-Sandy Wisneski, at MiddleWeb
Read the entire review

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DIY Literacy by Kate Roberts & Maggie Beattie Roberts.

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Make visual teaching tools instead of buying them. Use your teaching smarts to get the most from those tools. And help kids think strategically so they can be DIY learners. Get the traction going with teaching and learning to inspire kids to work as hard as we do.

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Relevant Workshop Conversations, Interviews and Content...

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Heinemann. A division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

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Heinemann Professional Books Published in 2023

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Videos, assessment and curricular resources

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Resources | Teachers College Reading and Writing Project

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That's a wrap on our first blog series of 2015-2016, Creating Classroom Environments to Launch the School Year. This was also our first blog series as a newly expanded team, and included first official posts from the brilliant Deb Frazier and Kathleen Sokolowski.

Here's a quick recap of the series, in case you missed a moment of it or would like a handy reference.

I kicked off the series with a post on ways to set up your classroom environment to launch writing partnerships right from the start. I suggested planning ahead so partners can quickly connect in the meeting area and making space for partner conferences during independent writing time.

Next, Betsy posted about classroom charts designed to launch a strong year of writing. She described charts that support independence right from the start, goal-setting, and crucial start-of-the-year skills, like stamina and choosing topics.

Dana posted about introducing writer's notebooks. She suggested creating excitement and fanfare around the distribution of the notebooks, perhaps by refraining from giving them out immediately and holding an appropriate ceremony for distribution. She reminded us to provide plenty of great notebook mentors, with the teacher's own being the most important of all.

Beth taught us all about paper choice in her post. She included brilliant visuals and descriptions of the ideal paper to offer to writers at a huge range of levels, from the emergent to the fluent. She included tips for organizing paper choices in the writing center, and teaching points that will help kids to choose their paper with increasing independence.

Stacey posted about displaying student work and encouraged us to begin the year with empty walls. Spend more time planning units of study or organizing your classroom library than creating wall art, was her sage advice. Instead of going for cuteness, go for openness and an invitation for students to create the kind of classroom in which they'll feel proud living.

Kathleen shared her post on creating spaces in the classroom for writing and writing inspiration. She shared tips for the set-up of spaces that encourage independent writing and for spaces where students can access the tools they need to do their best work, like materials and technology. She also shared ways to create spaces for students to study beautiful published writing and for students to share their work.

Deb posted about setting up for technology use. She shared lovely visuals and gave insightful tips on creating spaces for students to benefit from technology as a group and as individuals. Learn how to integrate technology in your classroom as seamlessly as you integrate pencils and writing paper in this post.

Tara posted about setting up for the middle school writing workshop. Because students often come from different writing workshop experiences in elementary school and because the schedule and expectations are so different in middle school, Tara's post is a must-read if you are a middle school writing teacher. Learn how to organize tools and space to encourage consistency, independence, and maximum efficiency.

We hope you join us tomorrow on Twitter to think about all things classroom environments at 8:30pm EDT. #TWTBlog. Click the image below for a preview of the questions. We'd love to hear about ways you've set up your classroom. Photos are always more than welcome! Looking forward to chatting with you tomorrow.

Anna is a staff developer, literacy coach, and writer, based in New York City. She taught internationally in places such as Sydney, Australia; San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and Auckland, New Zealand in addition to New York before becoming a staff developer for the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University (TCRWP). She has been an adjunct instructor in the Literacy Specialist Program at Teachers College, and teaches at TCRWP where she helps participants bring strong literacy instruction into their classrooms. Anna recently co-wrote Bringing History to Life with Lucy Calkins, part of the 2013 series Units of Study in Opinion, Information, and Narrative Writing (Heinemann). She has been a researcher for Lucy Calkins, contributing especially to Pathways to the Common Core (Heinemann, 2012) and Navigating Nonfiction (Heinemann, 2010).

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ICYMI: Creating Classroom Environments to Launch the School Year Blog Series Recap

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That's a wrap on our first blog series of 2015-2016, Creating Classroom Environments to Launch the School Year. This was also our first blog series as a newly expanded team, and included first official posts from the brilliant Deb Frazier and Kathleen Sokolowski.

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This is a resource from a school district in the US. Some of it is not appropriate but if you look at the teaching points starting on page 7, it can give you an idea of some habits and behaviors types of mini-lessons.

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GSIS Next Steps in Writers Workshop G4-5- S1

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GSIS Grade 4-5 Reflections - Google Jamboard

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Teaching Minilessons with Brevity & Clarity

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Teaching Minilessons with Brevity & Clarity

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Make a copy of this document and use a guide for planning mini-lessons

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Writing Conferences - Essay Writing - Liz Confers with Henry

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GSIS Next Steps in Writers Workshop G4-5- S1

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GSIS Next Steps in Writer's Workshop G45- Session 2 (60 minutes)

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TC Annotated Opinion Writing Progression

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TC Annotated Narrative Writing Progression

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TC Annotated Narrative Writing Progression

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TC Annotated Writing Progression Narrative

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Conferring Observation Guide (make a copy for each video)

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Conferring Observation Guide (make a copy for each video)

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Architecture of a Writing Conference Observation Guide

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A Writing Conference: Teaching a Student to Write for Audience (3-5)

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Writing Conferences - Essay Writing - Liz Confers with Henry

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Writing Conferences - Narrative Writing - Viri Confers with Victoria

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Assessment-Based Conferring to Raise the Level of Narrative Writing so the Writer can Convey Events Precisely (3-5)

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Add your possible compliments and teaching points to a writing sample (any genre) below.

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Add your possible compliments and teaching points to a writing sample (any genre) below.

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GSIS S3 Next Steps in Writer's Workshop G45 (60 minutes)

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GSIS G4/5 Now What

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GSIS S4 Next Steps in Writers Workshop G45

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Writing Conferring Notes - Weekly Overview

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Writing Conferring Notes - Weekly Overview

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Writing Conferring Notes- Learner over time

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Writing Conferring Notes- Learner over time

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Micro-progressions video- Kate and Maggie Roberts

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Micro-progressions video- Kate and Maggie Roberts

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Kalley,

Thank you so much for the time you have given us over the last few weeks. Your knowledge of the workshop model has given me more clarity and more confidence moving forward into the next school year. I appreciated the examples you showed us on how to give student feedback and your advice on handling student conferencing.