Building A Reading Life with Lucy Calkins

To grow as a reader we need to look at our reading habits. Although we tracked the books we read last year in second grade, in third grade our Reading Log is much more sophisticated. This year not only do we write the book title and author, but we are keeping track of the level, starting - ending pages, starting - ending times, and minutes read. After a few days we will look for patterns and self-assess ourselves as readers. What genres do we choose? How long does it take us to read a page (or ten)? Do we read fiction books quicker than nonfiction books? Are we reading so fast that we are choosing books that may be too easy for us? Is the opposite true - are we reading books that are so difficult that it is taking us a long, long time and perhaps, interfering with comprehension?

One student's reading log.

Reading with our logs ready to fill out.

Third graders read and enjoy chapter books.

.  Our goal is to read three quarters of a page a minute for at least an hour a day between school and home. We will work to achieve this goal in third grade. We know we can do it because as Lucy says... "You are in charge of your reading life." 

Fairy Tale Characters

We are in the middle of unit seven of Lucy Calkins e-book for the Reading Workshop Grade 2.

In our classroom, we are reading classic and fractured fairy tales - paying close attention to the cast of characters we meet!

We've noticed some character traits that seem to fit into most of our stories.

We chose some words that describe our character traits.  

 The boys and girls chose a book and worked in a small reading group to determine what part the characters played.  They looked for text evidence to support their opinions.

Just for fun, we self assessed our own character traits and wrote them on post-it notes for our Jot Lot. 

This Teacher Attends a Writing Conference!

On February 27th I had the opportunity to travel to Orlando with nine of my colleagues to attend the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project's day long writing workshop.  The K-2 teachers heard Shanna Schwartz present ideas, strategies, and tips to use along with Lucy Calkin's Writing Units of Study.  I spent the day taking notes, turning and talking, snapping pictures, and internalizing some valuable information.

I took pages and pages of notes.  Thank goodness I had the weekend to process everything I learned. Here are just a few of the highlights:

The Units of Study were written for us to teach authentic writing.  Writing that exists in a library or a book store – writing that is written for an audience.  This is public, published writing – not personal journal writing.

Students will gradually develop their knowledge of conventions.  First accept their approximations and then correct them. 

Teach students skills and multiple strategies to do them.  We need multiple strategies.  For example, writing with a strong lead is the skill (what to do).  Strategies to do this (how to do) include setting the scene with weather, starting with a moment of action, starting with the character’s dialogue, etc. 

Writing is a process.  The less sophisticated the writer is… the more stories he/she will need to produce.  Students will go through the process independently.  Kindegarteners will produce a lot more stories than second graders.  Students need to go through the process many times and will learn something new each time.  As the children have more ideas and develop an understanding on conventions, etc. they will take longer on their writing.  (Gather ideasà Draft à Revise à Edit à Gather ideas à Draft à Revise, etc.)  Start new writing, instead of making “this” piece better, teach them to make the “next” piece better. 

Students need many pieces of writing, not one long story.  They need practice generating lots of ideas.  Ask them, “Where do you go all the time?  What do you see all the time? What do you do all the time?”

Children need to write independently and be able to work through the process.  Have a writing center in your classroom.  Release your control and allow children access to what they need.  Your just right paper should have a few more lines than you can fill up in your first go around.  Children will need paper choices.  Even second graders should be writing across many pages.  Each thought belongs on a page.  This is to give them a sense of writing in paragraphs. 

Celebrate the work not just the finished product. For every flap, re-write, edit, cross out, etc.  that is a place where you've grown as a writer.  You've made your work better. 

Mid-workshop editing break.  As adults, we write and edit as we go.  It’s a habit of mind.  To help teach this to children, stop during the writing time and tell them you are going to have a 1 minute editing break.  Set the timer for 1 minute while everyone reads their work looking for a specific thing to edit – could be capital I, could be punctuation.  Make the necessary edits then and there and move on after a minute passes. 

Strategies to Habits:  put a piece of computer paper in a page protector and divide it into four squares.  Each section should have a post it note with an individual writing goal in it.  Check these goals during writing conferences.  When the strategy has become a habit move to a poster/chart/pocket.  No more than four at a time.  Look What We've Accomplished! 

During a teacher meeting this week, I presented what I learned to my second grade ELA team.  We all left the meeting with renewed writing and teaching energy!  

If you ever have the chance to learn from these trail blazing professionals at TCRWP, I highly suggest you take it! 

Have I Got A Book For You!

We are finishing up Bend II in Lucy Calkin's Second Grade Unit of Study: Writing About Reading - Opinions.  In this unit, we have been writing letters which persuade our classmates, friends, and family members to read our favorite books.

Using this chart, we wrote about the characters, best part, lesson learned, and illustrations (among other things).

Andrew wrote about Janell Cannon's Stellaluna.  The main reason he likes this book is because of the lesson it teaches.  Andrew writes a short summary but doesn't give away the ending - which entices others to read the book.  Here is the checklist he used to self-assess his work.

Our class wrote about a variety of favorite children's books: Bad Kitty, Zoomer, Wolf, Three Hens and a Peacock, Mr. Peabody's Apples,and Snow Day just to name a few.

What a wonderful way to encourage each other to read - read - read!

Improving Narrative Writing by Setting Goals

Today we taught Session 7 from the Second Grade Narrative Writing Unit of Study by Lucy Calkins.  This comes at the end of Bend I and is the perfect time to reflect on what we put in our writing and think about what we can do better.  This lesson, in fact, is about setting goals for your writing.  We passed out the narrative writing checklist and the pre-assessment on demand writing piece that students produced at the beginning of this unit.  They could already see where their writing has improved.

Here are some examples of student work along with the rubrics that the teachers used to evaluate the pieces.

Next, we talked about setting goals.  How could we use the rubric (and narrative checklist for 2nd and 3rd grade) to make our writing better?  Students wrote their goals for themselves on sticky notes and placed them on our Jot Lot.  

Some of the goals were right on target.

My goal is to develop my story.
My goal is to work on transition words.
Write less jumbled together.
My goal is to work on my ending.
My goal is to work on my lead.

My goal... to add more pages.
My goal is that I want to get more on the second grade track.
My goal is to work on my ending.
My goal is to bring characters to life.
I need to write more excitement.

We're looking forward to Bend II and improving our stamina.  Like an athlete, we will be exercising our writing every day to develop our skills and I'm sure, achieve our goals!

Titanic Report of Information

Our second graders are publishing their Information Reports as we wrap up Lucy Calkins Unit of Study for Lab Reports and Science Books.  Connor wrote his report about the Titanic, a subject he is PASSIONATE about.

 Because his report is so interesting, I e-mailed Robert Ballard.  What a wonderful surprise to get the mail today and find a letter and autographed picture addressed to Connor!

 

If you'd like to see Connor's entire 14 page report, please click the link below.

Titanic Report of Information

We couldn't be more proud of the work our students are doing as we implement the new Units of Study in second grade this year!

The Beginning of Our Own Information Reports

We are entering Bend 3 in our Information Unit of Study and our students have chosen their own topic to write about.  Some topics bouncing around are: gymnastics, rollerblading, skateboarding, swimming, playing basketball - soccer - baseball, biking, and playing the piano.  We have drafted a Table of Contents and are working on chapters of our books.

Here are some pages which we found particularly helpful and engaging...

This page from Will's book explains the importance of having your bike examined regularly to stay safe.

Briella dedicated a page to appropriate gymnastics attire.  

Courtney made sure to bold the words she will add to her glossary.  She also encouraged her reader by saying don't give up.  Soccer wasn't easy for her when she was little.  

Logan's introduction tells the reader to get healthy and strong by using pedal power and riding a bike instead of taking the car.  

As we study nonfiction mentor texts we expect to see labeled diagrams and 'how to' instructions pop up in our reports.  Students can't wait for writers' workshop each day!

Catapult!!!

For our second scientific experiment, we designed a catapult to launch a ping pong ball and cotton ball.  

As scientists, we asked the question - Which would travel farther?  

Again, we wrote up our materials and procedure page, make a hypothesis, and conduct the experiment 

three times - recording our results each time. 

   After our conclusions were published and discussed, we asked the question...

                                                                 Time to get to work!

Informational Writing via Lucy Calkins

We began our new unit of study by Lucy Calkins, Grade 2 Information: Lab Reports and Science Books.  Our students designed and conducted a force and motion experiment using ramps.  

Each child gets a 5 page packet and a writing partner.  They create a hypothesis by asking a question starting with, "I wonder what would happen if..." Then they list the materials they will need and the steps (procedures) they will follow.  On the next two pages they write their predictions (hypothesis) of what will happen.  The classroom is filled with energy and excitement during the writers' workshop where the children conduct their experiments.  Some of our students wondered if the height of the ramp would matter - 6 inches vs. 12 inches.  Others predicted that a small car would roll farther than a linker cube.  To gather accurate results, they tested each experiment three times and recorded their data.  Finally, the last page in the report documents the results and if the student's prediction was correct (conclusion).  

In our classroom, we only had one plastic toy ramp and several small toy cars, but our clever kids created ramps using big books, white boards, clipboards. and paper towel rolls.  

Stay tuned for the next bend in the unit when we will be creating catapults to launch cotton balls!