Spotlight on Literacy
Winter Conference Countdown

by Rebecca Burdette McKay Director of Literacy and Professional Development

Coming Full Circle

Two years ago during the fall of 2007, I sat with a team of teachers after a lesson observation. These teachers from a first year Cornerstone cohort of schools watched students and teachers at work in an established Cornerstone School. This networking experience of exchanging ideas and watching colleagues teach is the essence of the Cornerstone philosophy of spreading good work and taking excellent instruction to the next level.

At the lesson’s end, Cornerstone Literacy Fellow Wendy Seger asked three teachers from Mary Lynch School,

“So what did you see in this lesson? What is different about these classrooms at Harris Elementary School and the Harris children?”

The answer came in one word: disposition. Wendy and I looked at each other thinking how lucky we were to be sitting at the table with Sue Chapell and teachers from Mary Lynch School who had just observed lessons in the Harris lab classrooms. Taken by the whole process and the determined look on the faces of the Lynch team, I saw first-hand what happens when teachers watch other dedicated instructional leaders. Wendy and I hoped and dreamed that the Lynch team could work this same magic back at their school. I wrote the December 2007 Spotlight on Literacy article using this experience.

Coming full circle in December 2009, the Mary Lynch team led by Principal Tara Clark and Instructional Leadership Specialist Sue Chapell opened their classrooms to a video crew directed by Wayne Gilreath. I was there and I saw the dream for Lynch realized as I watched the taping process! In January 2010, Cornerstone colleagues across the network will see and benefit from the work captured in the Lynch classroom and leadership videos. The learning cycle will open for others to see and believe what Springfield children can do and be.

On Friday morning, January 15, Lynch School opens the schoolroom door for live time observation. At this time the disposition of the Lynch school to build a culture of achievement and confidence debuts. The Lynch staff exemplifies how a school grows over time through leadership and networking.

With just thirty-eight days to go, the 2010 Springfield Cornerstone Winter Conference countdown begins and schools like Lynch will open their doors, classrooms, and hearts to visitors across the network! Examples of what you will see and how the schools prepared over the last years follow. A Culture of Achievement and Confidence

Mary Lynch School is into the third year of the Cornerstone journey. The school mission statement in part reads,

“The staff, and faculty of Mary M. Lynch School will create a culture of achievement that revolves around a challenging curriculum; where students are encouraged to take risks and further their understandings with confidence.”

The Lynch school leadership team sets the stage for achievement and confidence by using research from the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement or CIERA (Taylor, Pressley, & Pearson, 2002; Taylor, Pressley, Pearson, Peterson & Rodriguez, 2003; Taylor & Pearson, 2005). Support to keep the work in focus is led by external partners from the Springfield-Cornerstone Literacy Fellows, Andrea Frasier and Carole Leverock, and a school-based literacy specialist, Sue Chapell.

Working in collaboration, the Lynch staff, the school leadership team, and the principal Tara Clark offer opportunities for development of best instructional practices. By participating in study groups, school-wide and by grade level, teachers try out research based techniques such as the gradual release of responsibility explained in Wendy Seger’s article, Teaching in the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model.

Andrea Frasier and Carole Leverock in collaboration with Sue Chapell guide grade levels to study data particularly data on open response. Working with teachers in whole school professional development, in grade level teams, and one-on-one, they use the gradual release of responsibility from Learning Along The Way when coaching other adults in techniques to move the open response data forward (Sweeney, 2003).



A Case Study Using the CIERA Research

Stephanie Pouliot, fifth-grade teacher at Lynch who is teaching open response to her students, is midway in the gradual release model. She is developing student writing through the four phases of open response found in the Open Response Planning grid included as a resource with this article. To implement a powerful open-response writing program, Stephanie attends professional development sessions, reads professionally, and partners with others to build her understanding. This year Stephanie requested coaching and she built a classroom based on collaboration with Andrea, Carole, and Sue, colleagues prepared to coach and support her desire to grow professionally. Stephanie has buy-in with the Springfield-Cornerstone collaboration and it shows in the work her students produce, the way they express their thinking, and the way they feel about themselves. Stephanie and her students are living the Mary Lynch mission statement:

“The staff, and faculty of Mary M. Lynch School will create a culture of achievement that revolves around a challenging curriculum; where students are encouraged to take risks and further their understandings with confidence.”

In Cracking Open, Open Response, a recent Cornerstone newsletter article, Wendy Seger and Andrea Frasier detail four key areas identified to improve student answers to open response questions:

1. Improve and increase oral discussion that precedes written response
2. Open response instruction should be meaningful and connected to curriculum throughout the year
3. Open response instruction should be explicitly modeled and scaffolded before students respond independently
4. Use of an analytic rubric with clear criteria for scoring responses and providing feedback to students

Last week while taping in Stephanie’s classroom, the video team captured footage showing all four of these areas to improve open response. By making the work of this fifth-grade class permanent in a video case study, the Springfield-Cornerstone network benefits since we can now see into Stephanie’s classroom at any time we need to understand work that builds open response. The Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement research findings point out the need to see research based instructional practices either in real time or through video exemplars.

Stephanie Pouliet and her fifth-grade class offer a case study for our perusal. They provide a video exemplar of excellence and show what can happen when a school leadership team focuses learning, teachers buy in, and study groups practice inquiry into research. This video captures what it looks like when all elements work together for the good of children.

Old Thinking Into New

Borrowing Joe Mill’s title from his Cornerstone newsletter article seems a fitting way to summarize. At the 2010 Winter Conference, everyone will see the video case study of this remarkable fifth-grade class in Andrea Frasier and Cindy Mann’s session on open response. Our thinking will be changed and renewed and our dispositions challenged as we see and hear what students can do and accomplish when expectations are high and a school uses research to renew itself.

In the words of one of Stephanie Pouliet’s fifth-graders when asked about the impact of being a member of this class:

“I am changed. I am confident now.”

In the best of all possible conference experiences, we will all be changed and confident as we move our old thinking into new and face the 2010 year with the courage and disposition to make certain all children achieve.

References

Cornerstone Newsletter 9.3 (2008-2009). Cracking Open, Open Response. Retrieved Dec. 6, 2009 from: http://www.cornerstoneliteracy.org

Sweeney, D. (2003). Learning Along the Way: Professional Development for Teachers. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Taylor, B. Pressley, M. & Pearson, P. D. (2002). Research-supported characteristics of teachers and schools that promote reading achievement. In B. Taylor & P. D. Pearson (Eds.). Teaching Reading: Effective Schools, Accomplished Teachers, pp.361-375. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Taylor, B., Pearson, P. D., Peterson, D. S., and Rodriguez, M. C. (2003). Reading growth in high-poverty classrooms: The influence of teacher practices that encourage cognitive engagement in literacy learning. Elementary School Journal, 104(1), 3-28.

Taylor, B. & Pearson, P. D. (2005). Using study groups and reading assessment data to improve reading instruction within a school. In S. Paris & S. Stahl (Eds.). Children’s Reading Comprehension and Assessment, pp. 237-257. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.