READING WORKSHOP Using Formative Assessments and Formulating Student Driven Lessons By: Carol Anne Talanges

“Turn and Talk”  Exit Slips/Socrative  Running Log/ Daily Journals  Charting/Venn Diagrams  Literacy Stations—accountability sheets  Personal Dry Erase Boards  Hand-held Clickers-Active Votes WHAT FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS DO YOU USE IN THE CLASSROOM?  Games  Green Light, Yellow Light, Red Light for posting sticky note reflections/reactions to the lesson  Bell Ringers  Annotations

MY ROADBLOCK  As a second year teacher of English Language Arts I have tried numerous methods of lesson formations within the Reading Workshop style of teaching.  I always find myself spending countless hours making elaborate lesson plans and being discourage every week, when I can not reach all of the activities or students do not do well on the final summative assessments.  The reason I do not finish my elaborate plans is because, even though I do think of my students needs, those highly structured plans do not leave the flexibility that all students need.

 SO WHAT CAN I DO TO ALWAYS FULLY MEET MY STUDENTS EVERYDAY NEEDS?

STUDENT DRIVEN LESSONS  The teacher needs to use student independent or group work time as assessment data to formulate what students need for further instructional needs.  The teacher must release the traditional weekly plan where every lesson and activity is planned weeks ahead of time and really focus on targeted goals and using students feedback to formulate how to assist them in reaching their targeted goal.  Use student pre-assessment and formative assessments to drive mini-lesson planning.

 Turn and Talk  Quick journal response  Board Graffiti/ Chalk Talk  Observations/ Verbal Discussions  Anticipation Guides/ Four Corner Debates—active involvement  Edmodo/ Poll Everywhere/ Socrative/ Clickers WHAT ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF PRE-ASSESSMENTS THAT TEACHERS CAN USE?  Interest/ Knowledge Inventory  KWL/ RAN Charts  List Making—competition  “I Wonder…” Charts  Immersion Tables

“Mini-lesson link to best practices in assessment: Should be based on students’ work the previous day— targeted specifically to patterns of student understanding—and what they need next to go deeper or to clarify misconceptions and clear up confusion.” ~Samantha Bennett and Cris Tovani

“Effective assessors are always asking themselves, How will students show me their thinking so I can better plan for their needs tomorrow?” ~Cris Tovani

Goal Setting Unit Goals: Standards driven goals broken down into targeted tasks. Begin mini-lessons on overall targeted task and allow student work, with difficulties and success, then drive the following days instruction. Individual Goals: Keeping and logging a running record of students overall reading growth. Mastery of content areas and individual goals, such as comprehension growth and increasing text complexity.

Formal and Informal Reading Records and Goal Tracking

So what will my Reading Workshop look like?

Targeted Goal: For students to be able to identify the narrator’s or speaker’s point of view and influence it has on the events Mini-Lesson: Teacher will open with a model of one story told from different points of view. Teacher will tell the same story of a bulling incident from the perspective of the victim, witness, and narrator. Students will then draw “noticings” about how the story was the same but totally influenced by the point of view. Read Aloud / Shared Reading: Narrative story telling by the teacher leading to discussion Whole Group Practice: Small groups will be given written text that is written about the same topic or an identical story that is told from multiple view points. Small groups will have to write down “noticings” and pull quotes from text that support the point of view and how it influences the writing. Individual Practice: Students will read their independent book choices and complete the Double-Entry Diary to illustrate their thinking as they are reading. Teacher: Use conversation chart to quickly assess students needs and assist with activity Group Share / Evaluation: Students will get with their groups and share their Double- Entry Diary and application of how the author's point of view is influencing the events in the story. Reader Workshop Plan Standard: Craft and Structure 6 – Describe how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described.

“Assessment has more to do with helping students grow than with cataloging their mistakes.” -Carol Ann Tomlinson

Making the Change….. Starts with our weekly plans and how we view student assessments. Student feedback from formative assessments should not simply show data results, but be our tool to base instruction on our students needs. We must give ourselves permission to change from the traditional “Lesson Plan”.

NOW YOU TRY!  Think about your assessment and weekly lesson planning.  How can you develop either assessments or daily plans to better fit students needs.

References: Tomlinson, Carol Ann. The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Print. Tovani, Cris. Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? Portland: Stenhouse Publishers, Print. Tovani, Cris. So What Do They Really Know? Assessment That Informs Teaching and Learning. Portland: Stenhouse Publishers; Markham: Pembroke Publishers, Print. Walker, April. The Idea Backpack. 10 March Web. 11 July reading-and.html