Teaching Unscripted

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Teaching Unscripted episodes

October 28, 2016 The Heinemann Podcast: Bullying Hurts Part 1

Recent research shows that punishing students who bully is not enough and that we must begin every child’s education by establishing relationship skills and building empathy among students. October is National Bullying Prevention Month and all month long on the Heinemann blog we’ve been sharing blogs, resources and articles from Heinemann authors Lester Laminack and Reba Wadsworth. In 2012, Lester and Reba co-authored the book Bullying Hurts.

Bullying Hurts is not your same-old anti-bullying guide. Lester and Reba show how read alouds can be used as a powerful way to neutralize bullying behaviors and create community in the classroom. They also detail the Layers of Essential Understanding.

We’re breaking this podcast up in two parts, part one is with author Reba Wadsworth. We started our conversation on how to work towards a classroom of kindness, everyday.

For our blog series Bullying Hurts click here.

Their new book Writers ARE Readers: Flipping Reading Instruction Into Writing Opportunities is out now.

See below for the transcript of our conversation:

Reba:   That is 1 of the things that I think is missing so much in education today. Our teachers are just being driven toward testing data to prove that they're doing what they need to be doing.

   They launch into the academic part before they really start to build that community among the children. One of the ways that I think is the easiest thing is just the way we model and the way we, as the adults, treat each other as adults and treat the children. Do we treat them with kindness and respect?

   An easy way to do that, to model it, is to do it through our read alouds. There are wonderful books out there now. Since we wrote the book, there's just been numerous outstanding books that teachers can use as a launching pad for the discussion that follows.

   We don't have to label them and put them into 1 of the layers. Just to build that culture that children understand that bullying and trying to disrespect other people doesn't get us anywhere. We've got to build that culture from day 1 throughout the day as often as we can.

   One of the things that's so detrimental is this system that so many teachers are required to use now. You may not been in classrooms lately to see this, but when teachers are required to look at negative behavior and by looking at the negative, we're going to see the negative. When a principal demands that you do that, it really makes it even more difficult for a teacher to build that culture of kindness.

Speaker 2:   I want to go back a little bit. You mentioned read alouds. They are such an important part of your book, Bullying Hurts. Why are read alouds so vital to the process?

Reba:   First of all, a read aloud, Lucy Calkins said, "The single most important thing that you can do in a day is to read aloud to your children." By doing that, you are showing them fluent language. You're exposing them to rich vocabulary and to story. If you pick your read aloud carefully, it does that plus it gives kids the language to talk about and to notice bullying, the situational kind of thing.

   I was reading aloud last week to a group, a new book that had just come out about a little boy that was so envious...
19 min
October 21, 2016 From Inquiry to Action by Steve Zemelman
What really matters to your students? They might say the issues in front of them at school and in life. When students inquire into those issues and they’re given an opportunity for their arguments to be read by the city council or published in the local newspaper, they’re eager to research and find relevant information.
Copyright Heinemann Publishing 2016
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14 min
October 21, 2016 The Heinemann Podcast: From Inquiry to Action by Steve Zemelman

What really matters to your students? They might say the issues in front of them at school and in life. When students inquire into those issues and they’re given an opportunity for their arguments to be read by the city council or published in the local newspaper, they’re eager to research and find relevant information in nonfiction texts to bolster their claims. They become committed to writing, revising, editing and correcting their grammar. They want to think broadly about what reasoning will be effective with their audience. Whether you teach English, social studies, science, or math. From Inquiry to Action by Steve Zemelman’s helps students become, not only college and career ready, but citizen ready. From Inquiry to Action offers practical guidance that leads students to grow as engaged, thoughtful citizens in our communities. We started our conversation on what civic action in schools looks like?

Read Steve's blog here.

Below is the transcript from the podcast:

Steve Zemelman:   In one classroom, high school teacher's kids were thinking about what was important to them, what concerned them, and they decided that the big issue they wanted to address was student date violence. They discovered, doing some research, that there was curriculum about this for high school classes. They looked at it, and being teenagers, they didn't like any of it. You know how teenagers are, they roll their eyes, "Oh, this is dorky." They decided to design their own, and they did. Then they piloted it with some teachers right in their school, and refined it from there. Then they went to the school board, made a presentation about this, and the school board said, "You got to talk to our CEO of schools." They went and they did that, and he agreed to make it an accepted part of the social studies curriculum in the city.

Brett:   How can a student civic engagement lead to classroom engagement?

Steve Zemelman:   When teachers look at a project like this involving civic action, they might wonder how it connects with what they're trying to make happen in the classroom, and engagement is a big part of that. When students are doing these projects, they are doing all kinds of academic work. They're researching the issue, they're researching the governmental agencies that they may be trying to influence, they're writing speeches, they're writing letters, they're finding ways to collaborate with each other, they're disagreeing about issues and finding ways to settle those conflicts. Those are all academic skills, and classroom skills that students have to develop, but they're doing it with a passion because they're concerned about that issue. They are engaged in this work, and yet it's academic work. What I want to say is that engagement in civic action is classroom engagement.

Brett:   How have you seen this work benefit students?

Steve Zemelman:   When we think about benefits for students doing this kind of work, well, classroom engagement, which I just mentioned is one of the benefits, but there are a number of others that are really, really important that make me feel like this kind of classroom work should be going on at least some of the time in classrooms in all schools, because we really need it. What are some of these benefits? Well one is that students become much more involved in school. There is one scene where a visitor was asking a chi...
14 min
September 30, 2016 Ralph Fletcher on The Writing Workshop
Author Ralph Fletcher wrote the book on Writing Workshops, literately. Heinemann published Writing Workshop, the Essential Guide, from Ralph Fletcher and Co-author JoAnn Portalupi in 2001. In it they wrote: “Students who learn to write well truly have one of the most powerful tools imaginable."
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15 min
September 30, 2016 The Heinemann Podcast: Ralph Fletcher on The Writing Workshop

Author Ralph Fletcher wrote the book on Writing Workshop, literately. Heinemann published Writing Workshop, the Essential Guide, from Ralph Fletcher and Co-author JoAnn Portalupi in 2001. In it they wrote:

“Students who learn to write well truly have one of the most powerful tools imaginable."

We talked with Ralph about the early weeks of Writing Workshop. Ralph stressed the importance of a teacher showing interest in their student’s writing. He says when this happens, students become more open and it invites better teaching. He also talks about how important fostering student identity is and the student’s need to feel comfortable in their classroom, as if it were their home. We also got a preview of Ralph's newest book with Heinemann due out in the Spring of 2017.

For more information on Writing Workshop click here:

Below is a transcript of the podcast, scroll down to play the audio:

We started our conversation by asking Ralph what teachers should consider in the first few weeks of Writing Workshop?

Our goals I think change during the year. What we want to do at the beginning of the year is different than the middle, and probably different from the end. I think in the beginning of the year, you want to establish a sense of the right tone in the classroom. I always the quote by Peter Elbow who said that, "A good writing teacher is both a good host, and a good bouncer." In other words, a host is very inviting, and the bouncer has the high standards. I think that a writer teacher has to have both those aspects, but I think early in the year you really want to be a good host. You want to let those kids feel like they can write for you, and that you're receptive. How do you do that? Well the way you do that I think is that you really show interest in what they're writing. You have to let their writing affect you. To really be there as a human being before we're there as a teacher with skills we want to teach. If the student writes something that's funny, laugh.

Yeah, and if it's a sad thing, look that student in the eye and say, "I'm really sorry that this happened." Because I think that … One of the quotes that I always remember is that, "If you want to affect somebody, you've got to let them affect you first." At the beginning of the year when I'm moving around the classroom, talking to young writers, I really want to let them know that their writing's affecting me. The content of it, what it's about. I think that once you do that, those students will open up themselves, and then you've kind of created a space where you kind of earn the right to teach them some stuff.

How important is the classroom space, and how does that space enable a teacher to confer?

I think the space is very important in different ways. First of all, I think that the space has to reflect you. Well, you and the students, but its got to feel comfortable for you. I think that having, I mean in a very practical level, having the desks grouped in clumps allows you to confer more easily with students. I think that if you have a long row of let's say, 8 desks sort of stuck together, it's very hard to get between student number 2 and student number 3, there's no room for you in there. I think that you want it so that you can confer, and I think conferring at student's desks is important. Sometimes it's tempting to just want to pull them up to your desk, but then there's a kind of secondary conferring that takes place when...
15 min
September 21, 2016 A Mindset for Learning with Kristi Mraz and Christine Hertz
Authors Kristi Mraz and Christine Hertz want to change how we look at our classrooms. They say we need to think beyond the idea of "good in school" and ask; will our students be good in the world? Will these students have empathy, will they be resilient, can they face challenges with flexibility? These are just some of the traits Kristi and Christine explore in their book: A Mindset for Learning: Teaching the traits of Joyful, Independent Growth.
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28 min
September 21, 2016 The Heinemann Podcast: A Mindset for Learning

Authors Kristi Mraz and Christine Hertz want to change how we look at our classrooms. They say we need to think beyond the idea of "good in school" and ask; will our students be good in the world? Will these students have empathy, will they be resilient, can they face challenges with flexibility? These are just some of the traits Kristi and Christine explore in their book: A Mindset for Learning: Teaching the traits of Joyful, Independent Growth.

They say the ideas they’re presenting are tweaks not turns and the research is based on many authors, but most notably Carol Dweck who wrote Mindset. We started our conversation talking about those tweaks, in our thinking about the day, especially at the start of the school year.

Listen below now or click on the links below for iTunes or Google Play.
28 min
September 10, 2016 Heart Maps with Georgia Heard
How do we get students to “ache with caring” about their writing instead of mechanically stringing words together? This is the question author Georgia Heard asks in her new book Heart Maps: Helping Students Create and Craft Authentic Writing.
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10 min
September 10, 2016 Heinemann Podcast: Heart Maps by Georgia Heard

How do we get students to “ache with caring” about their writing instead of mechanically stringing words together? The the question author Georgia Heard asks in her new book: Heart Maps:Helping Students Create and Craft Authentic Writing. She says we spend a lot of time teaching the craft of writing but we also need to devote time to helping students write with purpose and meaning.

In today's podcast we speak with Georgia about what heart maps are and why they're so helpful for children as writers. Be sure to check out her website, www.georgiaheard.com.

Click here for more information on Heart Maps: Helping Students Create and Craft Authentic Writing by Georgia Heard

See transcript below:

Georgia :   Heart Maps are a concrete visual tool to help writers no matter what age discover and ultimately write about what they've stored in their hearts. People they love, memories, meaningful experiences. But it's not just a topic list where students make a list of topics that they then check off as they write. It's the experience and process of heart mapping that's really kind of magical and a little mysterious. When I first thought of heart maps years ago, I was amazed at what my students wrote. How open they were, how honest with their feelings and even the authentic conversations that happened around the heart maps. It's surprising that writing and drawing inside a little shape of a heart is such a powerful invitation for people to feel, to tell the truth, to write what they love.

   After my book, Awakening the Heart, was published where I first wrote about heart mapping, the idea went viral. There were over 8 million Google entries. They started appearing everywhere. Many classrooms around the country started their year with asking kids to heart map and that's because the process is so incredibly powerful. In this new book I introduce twenty different types of heart maps all with a different focus and I've also included writing ideas for digging deeper and mentor text ideas in multiple genres. I'm also so grateful that three of my wisest colleagues, Pam Allen, Nancy Atwell, and Penny Kittle, wrote essays in the book describing their incredible work with heart mapping. The main thing is that the book is filled with examples of the most breathtakingly beautiful heart maps created by kids all over the world.

Brett:   What do you feel are some of the barriers for children as writers or poets?

Georgia :   Well I think the way writing is sometimes taught is in a series of sequential steps. It's a formula, like the five paragraph essay. First you do this, then this, finally this, and poof you have a finished piece of writing. Mechanically stringing words, sentences, and paragraphs together doesn't necessarily make effective, powerful writing. My biggest question as a writing teacher is how to help kids ache with caring about their writing as Mem Fox says and I think heart mapping can help with this. One of the barriers for children's writing is engagement. How to help students care deeply about their words. If they don't care what they're writing about, why would they want to spend hours crafting, revising and editing which is really hard work? It's rewarding work if you truly care and know that your words matter.

Brett:   Who is heart mapping for and how is it most effectively used?

Georgia :   Heart mapping is for everyone from very young writers,
10 min
August 19, 2016 The Journey is Everything: Envisioning New Essays with Katherine Bomer
What comes to mind when you think about the traditional 5-paragraph essay? Do you cringe? Sadly, many students only know “essay” as a 5-paragraph, tightly structured writing assignment that must check all the boxes of a standardized formula. How did essays in school get so far away from essays in the world? In her newest book, The Journey is Everything, Katherine Bomer makes a case for the benefits of authentic essay writing that breaks free of the 5-paragraph formula used in most middle and high school English classes.
Katherine wants to restore essays in schools as writing to think; because the act of writing provides a visual tool, one of the most powerful tools humans have in aiding the process of thinking. Katherine wants students to be able to write the essays that they want to write and people want to read… She says if we give students the freedom to think, without forcing ideas into templates, they can actually produce better writing.
We started our conversation around what essay looks like in the real world?
Copyright Heinemann Publishing 2016
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12 min