1. Reflecting & Collectiveness: Year 2 ELA
August 2012 Pro Sat
2nd Year ELA
August 26, 2012

2. Re-introductions! Find 2 people who you don’t know well yet.
2. Share your name, what you teach, where you teach.
3. Tell a story… How has this year felt different than the 1st 9 weeks last year?
Warm up conversation 10 minutes
Find 2 people who you don’t know as well yet and share the following:
Name, what you teacher, where you teach
Tell one story to these two new ELA-friends about how this year has felt different than the 1st 9 weeks last year.

3. Agenda & Goals for this Time
15 min
Re-introductions & Purpose
Goals:
Discuss why problem-solving in ELA was complex last year, and make some group-decisions about what will need to be different this year.
(2) Build collective-vision by listening to what others want for ELA-students this year.
(3) Refine “the how” components of our visions.
20 min
Summer reflections 2
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25 min
What will we spend our time talking about this year? 3
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40 min
PARTNER WORK TIME: Discuss own visions & investigate the “less clear how” 4
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Welcome back! We’re together, again!
While everyone had quite different summers, I’m sure they were similar in two key ways: (1) your summers were probably wildly more relaxing than this past week has been (2) your summers were filled with lots of reflecting on this past school year.
During this session, we want to give you a chance to share some of your reflections with people in this room who you’ll be working with all year so that we can all start benefiting from the thinking of others this early in the school year. We also want to protect time for you to be able to talk with others about aspects of your ELA-vision that you aren’t yet satisfied[s1] .
Here’s our agenda for this time:
Opening, 25 min
What we spend our time talking about, 15 min
Feedback and work time, 50 min
Individual revision, 20 min
Closing, 5 min
 [s1]We need to operate to ensure that we’re all on the same page, so we wanted to facilitate a group vision setting conversation…
20 min
Individual reflections & closing 5
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4. Oh, Summer…
This summer, when you thought back on last year, what stood (or still stands) out to you as one of the injustices/ burtal facts tha tmakes you want to do this work this year?
What does this reflection make you want to accomplish differently this year?
To get us started, I want you to think back to this past summer. Consider one of the moments when you first started reflecting on your 1st year teaching. In a moment, I’d like you to jot down a moment from last year that makes you want something different for you students this year.
For example: (I have a couple that I think fit in here…)
--I found out what my youngest students’ scores were on the state test this past year— as 8th graders, they achieved an 83 QDI which means that they had some of the lowest reading/ writing scores in the state. Their scores dropped 40% from the 7th grade TFA English teacher they had after me. I also realized that my students will be the last students in the state of Mississippi who will have to pass the SATP in order to graduate from HS (because the next group of students will be held to the Common Core test). If my students get a straight test-prep-curriculum this year, their literary analysis/ critical thinking & reading levels will continue to plummet. Last weekend, I ran into Shumeka & her mom. Her mom said that all her other kids were bored all summer long and driving her crazy, but not Shumeka who always had her head in a book. Shumeka proudly told me that she’s already reading her 2nd IR book during the weekend before the 3rd week of school. My reflections & interactions with Shumeka & her mom have led me to want to make sure that we build relationships with administrators & parents better this year to get results with kids reading, writing, & doing test-prep all together. [s1] 
FRAME: In the spirit of building more ELA-friendships & learning from each others’ reflections, let’s take a moment to jot down our own reflections from this summer. We’ll get to talk to one person who we don’t get know as well at our tables to share our reflections afterwards.
ELA CMs reflect in writing on the following questions for 8 minutes:
This summer, when you thought back on last year, what stood/stands out to you as one of the injustices/ brutal facts that makes you want to do this work this year? Individual student or group of students…
What does this fact make you want to accomplish differently this year?
ELA CMs introduce selves & share reflections with each other in pairs. 10 minutes. (5 minutes, each person)
To build out our shared knowledge here, could we have 2 people share their thinking at this point?
2 CMs share.

5. What should we spend our time talking about this year?
CONSIDER OUR RECOMMENDED QUANTITATIVE GOALS FOR THIS YEAR:
Ss grow 2 years in INDEPENDENT READING (as measured by any reading level test & a number-of-books-read-goal)
Ss achieve a level 3 in TEXTUAL ANALYSIS WRITING (on the response-to-literature rubric) & students have opportunities to write creatively & to do researched writing.
When appropriate, Ss achieve in a meaningful way on the state-test (closing the gap by 40%, achieving the school’s goal).
dELtA REFLECTIONS & GROWTH.
Perhaps too complex last year?
Perhaps we didn’t spend our time together talking about the right stuff…
What do you think about our shift in what we’re measuring and talking about? How does this relate to what you want for your students?
What from these measures do you want to learn more about? Why?
If you’re already driving after some/ all of these measures, how is it going? What’s been harder/ easier?
What do your kids think about these quantitative goals & how they relate to their happiness/ opportunities?
We’re going to come back to your own vision & visions of change in a moment.
Reading all of your feedback in the End of Year survey & reflecting on what we actually spent the most of our time doing during Pro Sat led ELA staff members to realize that- while ELA is always going to be complex- last year we might have made it too complex for ourselves to even draw conclusions about student work.
--I read the reflections from a rising 2nd year teacher who said that he doubted a lot of his rubric ratings of his students’ essays from last year because he never once reviewed his students’ essays with another adult
Last year, we valiantly tried to measure reading (IR level growth), writing (essays- across all rows), thinking (arguments in response to literature), and test-taking (growth on the ACTAAP, MCT2, & SATP). In trying to measure all of these aspects of ELA, we segmented our work out too much and spent more time just trying to track everything instead of reading student writing and drawing conclusions.
This year, ELA will be no less complex. In fact, with schools figuring out their individual approaches to Common Core, ELA is likely to get even more complex this year. But, we can operate in simpler ways to ensure that we always know where students are as readers & writers and to ensure that we’re adjusting our approach based upon what’s holding our students back.
This year, we want to measure AND TALK ABOUT ALL THE TIME the following measures (access them on the ELA website) because we think that they will help us make sure that students are leveraging reading, writing, & speaking to build towards lives rich with options & happiness AND own their learning through problem-solving:
Independent Reading (measured by Gates or a district-chosen reading level test + a number of books/pages read goal so that students can problem-solve on-going) 2 years + a # of books read goal
Writing (measure largely through responding to literature/ students should know how they’re doing as readers more holistically 2-4 times a year)—using a response to literature rubric that asks more from students than the ACTAAP open-response rubric 3 on RtL RESPONSE TO LITERATURE WRITING RUBRIC PRINTED.
When necessary: test-taking (measured by MCT2, SATP, ACTAAP-aligned tests)
When necessary for 11-12: AP & ACT goals
We want to give you some time to discuss these measures and how they fit with what you were already thinking you wanted for your students (plus how they aren’t all you want to measure or push you to think of something more).
Spend 10 minutes discussing the following within small-groups:
What do you think about our shift in what we’re measuring and talking about? How does this relate to what you want for your students?
What from these measures do you want to learn more about? Why?
If you’re already driving after some/ all of these measures, how is it going? What do your kids think about these quantitative goals & how they relate to their happiness/opportunities?
Definitely will want to debrief this whole group.

6. Considering a new ELA-friend’s ELA-vision…
1st read your partner’s vision or ELA systems or 1st unit plan.
AS YOU READ, CONSIDER: What are this person’s non-negotiables? What do they care about the most? What can you really visualize?
Next, share your thoughts.
As you listen back about your own plan, what does it make you think you need to change, get clearer about?
What are you confident within this piece of planning?
What are you less confident within this piece of planning?
What questions about your vision, what you want for students, this piece of planning do you have at this point?
Talk with your person to investigate your PERSONAL AREA OF GROWTH:
The what & how of IR Systems & investment
The what & how of sharing ELA-progress with your students cyclically
The what & how of integrating state-test-aligned practice into your daily & text-level schedules
All that we’ve talked about today relates to your vision: WHAT you want for your students & HOW you will get there. And while we’ve already shared a room full of reflections about how we want next year to be concretely different, we’ve GOT to also push ourselves to constantly get clearer about what we want for students.
These are all big questions, and it’s important to think and talk about them. So we want to give you a structured way to do that. We’re going to ask you to find someone who teaches a similar grade level to you, and then to share one of your documents—most likely your vision, but you can also share your plan for independent reading or unit plan—with your partner for feedback.[s1] 
Your goal should be to actually spend some of your time investigating an aspect of what you want to accomplish this year that you aren’t as clear about. Based upon the struggles we had last year at this time and what we’ve heard from you, we’ve prioritized 3 areas of solutions: IR systems & investment, Progress-Sharing & Investment in IR & Writing/ Textual Analysis, state-test-alignment
You will have 25 minutes to answer the questions on the PPT, share your document, and get feedback from your partner. After 25 minutes, I will announce time, and then you will switch and give feedback to your partner.
Example: For example, during ,my 2nd year I taught ELA… when I talked anout and shared my vision with my principal. He noticed that I had a lot of systems for feedback & celebration around independent reading but not around text analysis & writing. SOMETIMES IT REALLY DOES TAKE ONE OTHER PERSON TO HELP YOU REALIZE WHERE YOU NEED TO GROW.
Provide guiding questions on the PPT for CMs:
1st read your partner’s vision or ELA systems or 1st unit plan.
READ TO CONSIDER: What are this person’s non-negotiables?
Share your thoughts.
When you hear back, what does it make you think you need to change?
What are you confident within this piece of planning?
What are you less confident within this piece of planning? What questions about your vision, what you want for students, this piece of planning do you have at this point?
Consult the following websites to find solutions to your questions with your partner (facilitator should pull up each page to preview them for teachers):
IR systems & investment link—WHAT? HOW?
Progress-sharing & investment link-- WHAT? HOW?
State-test-alignment & investment link—WHAT? HOW?
BOTTOM LINE FOR WORK TIME: You have considered your ELA-vision with another person. You’ve prioritized one area to grow your own vision. You’ve identified one solution to help you get your students closer to ultimate happiness & opportunities.
BOTTOMLINE: By the end of 40 minutes, you’ve considered your ELA-vision with another person, you’ve prioritized one area to grow your vision, & you’ve identified one solution that helps you grow your vision.

7. Work Time Progression Read someone else’s plans & have a conversation.
Prioritize one area of your vision to deepen through researching on the ELA-Website or through discussion.
GOAL FOR THIS WORK TIME: you’ve identified one solution that helps you grow your vision.

8. Final Reflection You can use the next 15 minutes to do the following:
Pull out your unit calendar for the coming weeks & modify it to accommodate the changes you just discussed/ investigated.
EITHER:
Revise what you want for your students as readers, writers, or problem-solvers.
If your vision is already more of an on-going conversation than a document, send an to your MTLD with what you want for your students as problem-solvers and who you need to be as an analyzer of their progress within your written-vision
“Because we believe that our visions should and MUST evolve over time if we want our students to leverage reading & writing to achieve all that they want in life, we wanted to give you a little bit of space and time right now to reflect on how these discussions have affected what you want for your students and how you’ll get there over time this year.”
You can use the next 20 minutes to do the following:
pull out your unit calendar for the coming weeks and modify it to account for your shifted vision for example… if I found a way to share response to literature progress with my students more regularly, then I would want to ensure that I actually follow up with this by protecting time in my unit calendar to introduce this problem-solving/ progress-sharing with my students and then also make sure that it continues to happen.
revise what you want for your students as readers & writers
if your vision is already more of an on-going conversation than a document, send an to your MTLD with what you want for your students as readers & writers

9. cELebrAtions!
Bye-bye!
cELebrAtions: Let’s celebrate each other! Let’s hear from 3-4 people about how this conversation & work time helped you get clearer on what you want for students and how you will get there.
Beginning at the September Pro Sat, we’re going to be problem-solving about student writing & student-evidence of growth as independent readers, so we’re all spending our time talking about the most important stuff for kids.