Time to Write Every. Single. Day.

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

I.
A friend of mine provided some great writing therapy a little over a month ago (thanks, Mandy).  I knew I wanted to get back to this space, but I was honestly having a bit of difficulty making that happen.  When I was in the classroom the writing just found me.  I was telling the story of working though my challenges in my classroom.  The name of the blog after all is "Reflect and Refine."  As I moved into my current role as our district's elementary literacy leader, I began to wrestle with my writing in this space.  In talking to my friend, she helped coach me through some of the challenges I was facing.  She listened. She provided some thoughtful reflections about my writing.  Then she said, "Get busy."  Well, she didn't say it like that, but she did affirm what I know:  writing only happens if we put our fingers to the keyboard (or get our pen moving in a notebook...it's 2018,  you get to decide).

After some encouragement, I developed a plan and began to work toward the goal of posting three days each week.  It wasn't long until I found a rhythm.  I wasn't where I wanted to be, but I could feel it was getting easier.  The more I wrote, the easier it was to write.  I came up with a few overarching themes that I knew I wanted to write to and began writing to those.  The more I wrote, the more ideas that seemed to come my way.  


II.
For this school year, I am leading a deep dive into writing with a small group of teachers in our district.  I look forward to our time each month to dig a little into writing with our students.  Each time we meet, we begin our class with writing.  Usually I begin this writing with some kind of conversation, perhaps share a few mentor texts, or some structure I think everyone might find inspiring - to develop a "spark" (thanks, Kayley).  Before teachers write, I always remind them they can write about something they are thinking about as a result of our conversation or write about something else that is on their mind right now.

The first week we did this, I saw the discomfort on the faces of participants.  However, as we began our session this week, I noticed most teachers found their way into their writing with greater ease.  In a conversation after the class with one of the participants she commented about this ease now that she is writing more.  It seems the more we write, the quicker our words find us.


III.
In the beginning weeks of school, I spent a bit of time in a kindergarten classroom during writing workshop.  Honestly, I was spellbound.  It wasn't that far into the year, yet every student was busy writing.  Their writer's workshop was obviously a place where all could enter.  While some drew pictures, others added words, and some were writing across pages to give more detail.  There was a quiet hum to the room.  Every conversation I overheard was about the writing.  I was struck by the ease of work, but I was more caught by their sense of story.  Every student - yes, every student - was working to tell a story.  Each one seemed to understand they had an important story to tell.  Each writer was telling a very different story - their story.  They, of course, were happy to share it with me as I knelt beside them to learn more about their work.  There was also this sense of pride and ownership as they talked, as well as this unspoken understanding that their story mattered.

When I'm in a classroom, I always think about the work that has gone into the moment I'm watching. While I'm observing the learning in this place and time, the conversations that have happened before are often possible to note in the way the community works.  In this kindergarten room, it was obvious that students knew that writers have a story to tell.  It was obvious that they owned the story and that writing was something they did every day.


IV.
Recently, I was at NCTE, in a session where Chad Everett was speaking.  Chad was the fourth speaker in the session.  He began by asking everyone for 60 seconds.  He requested devices - and Moleskin notebooks (ELA jokes, bahahaha) - be put down.  He wanted everyone to just find their space in the room and get their mind readied for the conversation we were about to have.  Silence hung in the room as everyone complied with his request and settled their mind for the conversation.  At the end of sixty seconds, a long sixty seconds, Chad reminded that as educators we often say there isn't time, yet this activity reminded us that sixty seconds is a long time.

Finding time seems to be the eternal struggle of life in education.  However, I can't help but wonder if we sometimes don't create our own challenges.  I used to coach myself through these time panics by digging hard into my schedule.  Five minutes too long to transition at some part of my day was twenty-five minutes in a week.  Letting my workshop run 10 minutes over each day was fifty minutes in a week.  Yep, I could play this game for days --- and freak myself out, honestly.  What I came to realize was that there was more time in my day if I learned to think about it differently (and a bit critically).

On Ralph Fletcher's site he shares Guidelines for Growing Strong Writers.  Among his guidelines:

• #2 Establish a predictable routine.
• #4 Give kids sustained time to write.  

Having a predictable time to write every day is the first step to easing the challenges of writing.

Getting Started with Reader's Workshop

Shaping a Reading Community

The calendar turned to August and in a snap my mind began racing with thinking about school.  I’ve started making lists of things to do, items to purchase, arrangements to consider, ideas for learning, books to request, and ways to grow our learning community.  This part of the year always finds me a bit uneasy.  Though I am excited, I always worry a bit too.  Will our classroom become a place where students feel safe, are willing to take risks, and are interested in the learning taking place.  Will my new students be eager to be at school every day?  Will this group of first graders be able to grow a community that supports one another in learning?  Will I be able to help them to grow as readers and learners?

Last year, as March and April rolled around, I remember moments of looking at our learning community during Reader’s Workshop and smiling with pride.  I could have walked out of the classroom and students wouldn’t have noticed.  There were students engaged in a variety of types of learning.  I noticed a small group working together on a study of pets.  They had books collected on their tables, notebooks out, and were reading to discover the answers to questions they had asked.  There was a group circled on the floor with a collection of planet books talking about discoveries.  There were students blogging about book favorites on the computer.  There were pairs reading together, individuals snuggled in spots with a good book, and a variety of books being read in the classroom.  They had come to rely on one another.  The quiet hum of thinking, learning, reading, and collaborating could be heard around the room.  

Now it is August.  Uneasiness settles in as I wonder, how do I get back there?  Will we be able to accomplish this as a new community?  How will we determine the way we organize our library, the way we use our time, the volume we are comfortable with during the workshop?  How will we create a common language to use to talk about books and share our thinking?  Will we be able to learn to listen to one another, consider the ideas being shared, and add to them or even disagree politely with them?   

Getting Started

When making decisions about setting up our workshop and planning our first days together I try to step back to think about my beliefs about reading instruction.  What do we need to thrive as reading community?  What do young readers need to own their learning?  I want to start our workshop on the very first day of school.  I want students to know Reader’s Workshop is a place where we read books and my hope is they will look forward to this time each and every day.  As I get the room ready I try to think about:

• Time:  Readers will need plenty of time to enjoy books independently.  I try to be especially mindful of students receiving support in reading as often they end up with the least amount of time to enjoy books, yet they need the most.  Time reading provides authentic opportunities to use new strategies and come to greater understanding.  
• Choice:  The choice of books, reading goals, and ways to share thinking should belong to my readers.  Introducing possibilities, keeping an eye on new discoveries made by students, focus lessons and community conversations about developing our reading lives will help to grow the choices readers make during our workshop.  
• Space:  The classroom should have a variety of types of spaces for readers.  As I look around my room, I hope to create spaces for whole group conversations, small groups working together, pairs reading together, as well as individuals who prefer a little nook to quietly curl into as they read.  I also want to consider the location of books, tools, and technology for readers.  
• Strong Library:  Across the year our library will grow and change as it is shaped by the reading lives of the students in our classroom.  I like our library to surround us as we work together across the day.  I consider the placement of books, wanting to have books within reach no matter where students choose to sit during Reader’s Workshop.  Books will rest across the main shelves of our library, but they will also sit on our math tool shelves, near the reading nook created, on tables, in the center of the classroom, near our wonder area, and anywhere I think I can squeeze a few baskets.  
• Conversation:  Each year, our community seems to have readers who like the room quiet, readers who love to laugh over books with friends, and readers who like to think in small groups about topics of study.  This can be tricky to balance in small spaces and will be shaped in conversations across our first days.  However, I know I want to provide time, space, and opportunity for readers to talk about books.  For many, conversation and social interaction will be what brings them into books.  

First Steps

What will the first days of our workshop look like?  During the first days I will try to be mindful of the choices readers are making, notice the smart decisions they are making, consider the books they seem to revisit, and have conversations to discover who they are as readers.  In the first weeks I’ll try to consider where we are, but also keep an eye toward where we are going.  

First Days	Moving Toward
Reader’s Workshop is a place where we read books.	Reader’s Workshop is a place where we read books, share our thinking, and discover new learning.
Discover who we are as readers.	Grow our reading lives.
We talk about books.	We grow our thinking by talking, writing, and creating new understandings with books.
Books to begin our workshop.	Growing our library to support our reading lives and topics of study.   Discovering new genres, authors, and topics of interest.
My responsibility as a reader.	Student responsibility for the other readers in our classroom.
Reading with partners.	Talking and growing our thinking with learning partnerships.
Having a plan for Reader’s Workshop.	Setting goals for growing as a reader.

Getting Ready

Somehow the gathering of a few baskets of popular book collections to place around the room starts to put me at ease.  I try to think of collections I think students may have enjoyed in kindergarten, as well as books to help us with beginning community conversations.  Baskets of picture books about vehicles, pets, friends, reading, numbers, as well as song books are some of the collections I have started.  I only want enough books to get us started.  There are many empty baskets filling the shelves too.  This new community will decide what we need to add to the shelves that surround us.  I’ve requested many new titles from the library, created Evernote folders to document the reading journeys of these new young learners, and started to plan the structures to support our learning as the year begins.  I’m feeling a little better now.  I remind myself to trust the process and the new students who will soon share this space with me.  I’m looking forward to beginning a new journey.  

The Habit of Writing

"We simply carry on as writers knowing that if we do, what we need to teach about writing will become clear along the way, if we develop the eyes to see it."   Katie Wood Ray, What You Know by Heart

As many of you know I've been participating in the Slice of Life Challenge hosted by Two Writing Teachers.  The idea is to post writing for the entire month of March.  Writing for 31 days seemed like a bit of a crazy commitment to me, but I decided I was going to join.  It was that or begin to exercise.  Besides, I needed to build my writing habit again. I'd gotten away from the habit of spending time writing, collecting ideas, or just playing with words.  So on March 1st I began posting to my daily (I use that term loosely) blog, Merely Day by Day.  The challenge seemed to fit better with the premise of that blog which was to capture little snippets of life.

During the challenge, I've been reminded of the significance of time, audience, and process as I've tried to post each day.  It's made me think a lot about the writing community in our classroom.  Honestly, it has given me an admiration for how hard my students work each day and created a bit of jealously of the ease in which they settle into writing each day.  Most of all, it's reminded me of the importance of my role in providing opportunities to build the habit of writing.

To Develop a Habit of Writing Young Writers Need:

• Time to Write:  In our classroom students have time to write about self-selected topics everyday.  Our workshop typically allows about forty minutes for writing.  Students need time to develop a process as writers - time to practice all kinds of writing, time to think, time to learn, time to talk together as writers, time to grow ideas.  For me, and I think I can safely say for my young writers, this time is nonnegotiable.  
• A Place to Write:  I typically sit on my couch with my laptop to write, but students also need a place to write.  I try to create spaces for writers to move in the classroom.  I have a small table in which students love to gather to write.  This year the places have become little collaborative writing groups.  I've noticed students move into particular groups of friends who support them as writers.  They need their tools close enough that finding them doesn't interrupt their work.  
• Community Conversations:  This is a big one for me.  I think writers need to be able to talk together as they work.  We spend time figuring out what our room should sound like so everyone can work within it.  We also spend time learning about the conversations writers have as they work.   At the end of each writer's workshop we take time to share, learn from, and celebrate a few pieces of writing.  
• A Writer's Notebook:  My first graders have a writer's notebook in which they learn to keep ideas.  Sometimes after reading a book or having a conversation I'll note students have a lot of connections to it.  When this happens I'll say, "If this book has given you an idea for your writing get your writer's notebook so you can ave the idea."  Our notebooks also give us a place to play with our writing.  In our notebooks students draw, write, list, web, use post-its, and find ways to think about their stories.  
• Mentor Text:  As I've been writing everyday, I've been reminded how important reading is for placing words in my head and my heart.  I realize how helpful reading the slices of others has been in helping me think about topics, structures, and craft.  As I read I realize sentences catch my attention, words jump off the page, and crafting techniques begin to tuck themselves into my mind.  As I've been writing more, I've realized I need to read more.  I've been pushing to find the time for both.  My young writers need this same opportunity to read and notice the way authors craft their stories.  

As I walk into my classroom each day during this challenge I have a renewed appreciation of the work these young writers do everyday.  The more I write the more I find my myself talking to my students writer to writer once again.