Teaching Unscripted

By Heinemann PublishingEducation How To Courses

Teaching Unscripted episodes

August 19, 2016 Flip Your Writing Workshop with Sonja Cherry-Paul and Dana Johansen
How many times during a writing workshop have you thought, “If only I could clone myself!” Well, authors Dana Johansen and Sonja Cherry-Paul have a solution for more one-on-one teaching time during your writing workshop: flipped learning. In their new book, Flip Your Writing Workshop, they explain how a blended learning approach allows students access to instruction and support when they need it, as often as they need it.
Now, they’re not talking about replacing you, the teacher, rather flipped learning lets students access a variety of mini-lessons on their own, work at their own pace, or move ahead and review concepts, depending on a student’s needs. Dana and Sonja say this gives the teacher more time to maximize individual instruction and conferring. We started our conversation on their first book, Teaching Interpretation, and we asked them how the two books relate?
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13 min
August 19, 2016 The Heinemann Podcast: Katherine Bomer, The Journey is Everything

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?

Read more at Katherine's website here and be sure to follow her on Twitter.

Below is a transcript of our conversation:

We started our conversation around what essays look like in the real world.

Katherine:   Well, that is really kind of the basis of the argument of the book is that while essay is … I use the word alive on purpose because it does feel like this giant animal or something that's just breathing. Last night, on the airplane, I was reading essays in the latest New Yorker magazine. This morning, first thing, I'm of course on the internet, looking on at people's blogs and looking on the news, and there are essays about Orlando and gun control, and there was the idea of America right now kind of sitting in politics. Of course, essay doesn't need to be so serious. There also, I think of a lot of comedy monologues that are really essayistic. Some of my favorites, Louis C. K. He's one of my favorites who just seems to go on this little essayistic riff sometimes about an idea.

   I would say that in the world, right now, on the internet, the blog is probably the closest thing to the essay that I can find. There are thousands and thousands of them out there. People are writing this constantly and reading this constantly in the world, in their lives. In schools, we are unfortunately still locked into a system of a formulaic, usually five paragraph, famously, form that has been around for generations. My mother is going to be ninety-eight years old this year, and she remembers writing similar kind of formulaic essays in high school, and hating them. Hating them is pretty much what everyone says when you bring up the word. I often begin my workshops with, "What do you think of when you hear the word essay?" People's, "[inaudible 00:03:11]." They immediately groan, and teachers hate grading them, and students hate writing them. I just think we can do better. Why should we write those formulas when we know we can write better?

Brett:   You recommend that teachers have students read essays before they try and write them. Why is that?

Katherine:   Well, reading before you write is something that all writers do. Writers read voraciously, they widely and voraciously, because they're constantly feeding themselves with ideas and language, and even interesting ways to structure pieces of writing.
13 min
August 19, 2016 The Heinemann Podcast: Flip Your Writing Workshop

How many times during a writing workshop have you thought, “If only I could clone myself!” Well, authors Dana Johansen and Sonja Cherry-Paul have a solution for more one-on-one teaching time during your writing workshop: flipped learning. In their new book: Flip Your Writing Workshop, they explain how a blended learning approach allows students access to instruction and support when they need it, as often as they need it.

Now, they’re not talking about replacing you, the teacher, rather flipped learning lets students access a variety of mini-lessons on their own, work at their own pace, or move ahead and review concepts, depending on a student’s needs. Dana and Sonja say this gives the teacher more time to maximize individual instruction and conferring. We started our conversation on their first book, Teaching Interpretation, and we asked them how the two books relate?

Be sure to follow the authors on Twitter: @LitLearnAct, read their blog here: https://litlearnact.wordpress.com, or join their Facebook group.

See transcript below:

Dana:   Sonja and I are so lucky and thankful to be able to work together. We're both classroom teachers. I teach 5th Grade and Sonja teaches 6th. We actually work in different schools and we live about an hour from each other. I live in Connecticut, Sonja lives in New York and we meet on the weekends at a Panera Bread and we get together and we talk about what's going on in our language arts classrooms.

   Our first book as all about teaching reading, teaching interpretation using digital texts and teaching close reading skills. A thread in the first book was how to use a balanced blended learning approach in our classroom. It just made sense for us that our second book would be about using technology and writing workshop, and how to use a balanced blended learning approach in the writing workshop as well.

Brett:   Sometimes Flip Learning is assumed to be just for science and math classes but that's not so. Can you guys explain more about that?

Sonja:   I think that a lot of teachers associate Flip Learning with math and science and particularly with high school students and maybe college students. Dana and I read a lot of literature that certainly supported that, but we wanted to think about how could this look in a reading workshop, in a writing workshop and with students who are younger, students Grades 3 through 8.

   We played around with this for a couple of years just thinking this through and trying it out in our classrooms. We discovered that there were a lot of benefits. Engagement was increased in our classrooms. We were able to differentiate instruction. Students could access what they needed and move more independently through curriculum. We want people to know that Flip Learning is not just about math and science, and it's not just about high school students, that your students can do this in writing workshop and there are a lots of benefits to this work.

Dana:   We've also connected with a lot of teachers on Twitter which we love. Yay!! Join us on Twitter. It's been a real joy and a real privilege to connect with people across the country in elementary school and middle sc...
13 min
August 18, 2016 Jennifer Altieri on Reading Science
In her newest book, Reading Science, author Jennifer Altieri reminds us that literacy skills aren’t add-ons to the science class—they are critical parts of instruction. Since science requires specialized literacy demands, students should be prepared for, not only today’s science class, but for future science classes and the world beyond the classroom. Jennifer writes that a love of reading is just a start and that literacy in all areas keeps doors open.
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10 min
August 13, 2016 When Kids Can’t Read with Kylene Beers
In When Kids Can't Read, Kylene Beers offers teachers the comprehensive handbook they've needed to help readers improve their skills. Recently, Kylene hosted a Facebook Live Q&A on this book.
We've taken the audio of the conversation and made part of The Heinemann Podcast.
Copyright Heinemann Publishing 2016
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
44 min
November 17, 2010 Accelerating Response to Intervention (RTI)
Michael Optiz and Michael Ford discuss strategies and considerations for successfully implementing the Response to Intervention (RTI) framework and providing differentiated instruction to help...
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6 min
October 06, 2010 Secrets of a Master Writer: An Interview With Donald Graves
Donald Graves (1930-2010), a long-time University of New Hampshire literature professor and prolific educational author, is interviewed by Penny Kittle about his life and career as a writer. Learn...
Visit Heinemann.com for K-College professional development books and services, teaching systems, and innovative multimedia tools for educators.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
25 min