Living Life Twice

Sadly, a small, yet persistent group of kid blamers,  exist in our schools... They rationalize the events in their classrooms by informing everyone certain of their students are lazy, unmotivated, disengaged. While that may be the individual's perception, the critical question that begs answering is, ‘Why?’ If a student appears reluctant to write, to read, to participate in general classroom activities - that needs to be explored. It may be an issue external to the classroom, It may also be an issue related to the classroom or teaching style. Either way, to simply blame the student falls well short of professional responsibility. This issue of output failure is explored in 'The Myth of Laziness' by Mel Levine. Levine argues the desire to be productive is universal, but that drive can be frustrated by dysfunction that inhibits optimal output or productivity. Levine explains that difficulties associated with writing are far and away the most telling sign of output failure dur...

T eaching the craft of writing requires teachers to be explicit in their work with students. This explicitness occurs when we provide a progressive, sequential program of instruction, when we are clear about what it is we want children to learn, and when we provide a meaningful, focused instruction. Instruction informed by formative assessment of student writing.  When consideration is given to focused learning, student writers need to be provided with opportunities to make sense of the learning. This is achieved by creating purposeful connections between lesson purposes, lesson tasks, texts, and lesson reviews or conclusions. If these aspects of lessons align, the chances of success increase noticeably. When introducing a new craft strategy: Explain to students the purpose of the instruction and why you have chosen to involve them in such instruction; Explain the strategy explicitly, specifically saying what it is, and how and when it should be used; Model the strategy in authenti...