Ruth Culham's Blog, page 2

UPDATE THAT LINK!

Hi Folks! We have simplified the search name for our FACEBOOK page to make it easier for all. If you have linked to it [on your mobile device, or your website, or your bookmarks, for example]  you should UPDATE THAT LINK to the new URL: 

www.facebook.com/TraitsWriting

You can also always find us by just searching terms TRAITS WRITING.  

 

XO Ruth

Common Core, Modes, Traits and Everyday Texts

Your school is probably in full-blown Common Core State Standards mania. Or, if your state didn’t adopt the Common Core, the pressure is likely building to meet and exceed your state standards. Either way, teaching writing and helping students make great gains will be a big part of your school year. It’s a good thing, right?

Over the summer, I spent time falling in love with new picture books. I gathered everyday texts like brochures and posters. I am always reading, looking, and taking pictures to find examples that exemplify one or more of the traits and their key qualities.

Last month, I went to the Hoopla in Salem, Oregon to watch a friend’s son play in the city-wide tournament that filled the streets. As I was watching, I looked down and found mentor texts under my feet and embedded in the sidewalks: opinion, informative, and narrative. Seriously!

Which are which? Narrative, informative, or opinion? I know you know this, but the first is opinion, the second narrative, and the third is informational. Right under my footsteps!

It’s interesting isn’t it? Our world is filled with fascinating examples of good writing. We just have to reach out with our cameras and capture it or tuck a paper copy into our pockets to bring back and share. What could be a more delightful way to show students how each purpose for writing shows itself in the world: everyday texts.

As I’ve discovered new resources, I’ve been pushing my thinking about how the traits and modes fit together in light of the renewed emphasis on both in the Common Core. What I’m thinking is simple: the traits are “how” we write: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions and presentation. And the modes are the “what” we write: narrative, informative, or opinion/argument. (Or for those of us stubbornly clinging to traditional terms: narrative, expository, and persuasive.) To write in any mode, you have to know the traits, so students need good, solid instruction in both modes and traits to be the best writers they can be.

Look for examples of the traits: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, and presentation, right along with the modes/purposes as you are reading and living this year. I bet you’ll be just as lucky as I am to find local examples of what good writing looks like that will take students a long way toward excellent writing to meet and exceed Standards.

XO

- Ruth

Join the Conversation

Did you know that Traits Writing has its own Facebook Page?

It’s a great way to connect with other teachers and professionals, get the latest news, and to weigh in with your own thoughts and suggestions.

Join the conversation at Traits Writing: A Complete K-8 Program facebook page.

Hope to see you there!  

XO – Ruth

A New Traits Writing Website launched….

I’m thrilled to announce the relaunch of the Traits Writing website: www.Scholastic.com/traitswriting. Completely updated with tons of new information and success stories, you’ll love seeing what teachers and administrators have to say about how they’ve revolutionized their writing program by adopting Traits Writing, K-8. Check it out!

Speaking Back to the Common Core by Thomas Newkirk

This elegant, brilliant article found its way to me today and I have read it several times, nodding, then cheering at each clear point.  I share it with you, hoping it will provide just what you need to bring back to your colleagues and schools to initiate a discussion about CCSS, point by point.

Perhaps we should be asking ourselves how it happens, in American education, that holes are filled with initiatives like NCLB and CCSS.  We simply must ask these bigger questions right along with doing the very, very difficult work of teaching children to read and write.  Perhaps it wouldn’t be so darned hard if students were steeped in language and learning while reading with fascination and writing fiercely about what matters to them.  I challenge whether marching to the tune of CCSS without keeping in mind what we know genuinely motivates, encourages, and challenges learners is the best we can do.

Here’s the article:  read and think hard about every single point.  Please.

http://heinemann.com/shared/onlineresources%5CE02123%5CNewkirk_Speaking_Back_to_the_Common_Core.pdf?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

Reality Check….?

I’ve been looking at a Traits Writing Teaching Guide. What is a Reality Check? How does that work?

I don’t know any teacher who doesn’t constantly feel behind. Especially when it comes toteaching writing. So, in Traits Writing, instead of pretending that there is all the time in the world to write and teach writing, we built in a week after every unit to catch up: Reality Check.

During that week many options are available, depending on where students are with their unit projects and how many still need to finish. There are two things that must be done during the Reality Check week: 1) finish the unit project if needed, and 2) introduce and provide instruction on the next mode of writing (narrative, expository, or persuasive–opinion/argument). The rest of the materials provided for the week are publishing options, both digital and print. Students should publish their unit projects in one form or another as time allows so we’ve built in lots of options and possibilities that maybe teachers haven’t considered before. And during the Reality Check, we’ve provided Test Prep practice–for those folks who want students to do a little work in this area as well.

It’s a week for the teacher to wrap up and set a new direction for what comes next, and a week to celebrate the wonderful unit projects students just completed. Most of all, it’s a week for everyone to take a deep breath before plunging into the next big piece of writing instruction. I hope it gives teachers catch up time so the next unit begins on a high note for students and the teacher as well.

Three good choices for right now….

Here’s what I’ve been reading:

Reached, by Ally Condie

The third book in the trilogy does not disappoint.  If you have fallen hopelessly into Dystopia as I have, the day this book arrived from Amazon (bless them!) I turned the pages quickly to find out how Cassie, Xander, and Ky fare by the end of the series.  No spoilers from me⎯you’ll want to read it yourself, but I did enjoy how each chapter was told from one of the character’s point of view while advancing the story for all.  Okay, one little hint:  If you fell for Grandfather in Matched, you’ll like how much he is part of the ending of the entire story.

Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhha Lai

Do not miss this book.  It’s a quick read but oh, so powerful.  The story is told in free verse so the language is exquisite and rich.  Hà is a ten-year-old living in South Vietnam at the time of the fall of Saigon.  Forced to flee on a ship and eventually rescued by Americans, she finds herself living in Alabama where she is bullied right along with changing everything about her day-to-day existence. The horrors of war, separation, and loss permeate this finely crafted text, but even more haunting is the story of this gentle young girl who shares the truth of immigration.

The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides

Lest you think I only read children’s books or YA literature (which I mostly do, it’s true) I grabbed this elegant book at the airport a month or so ago.  Admittedly, it took me a while to finish it⎯it’s a rich read, filled with language and images worth savoring, even when I had to dash to the dictionary to reveal meanings of many I didn’t know.  Ah, but the characters.  They are so finely drawn, so real, so layered that I persevered to the end⎯then slowed down, regretting the inevitable separation.  I adored this book.  It’s the story of youth and love and romance.  Perhaps Eugenides is a modern-day Jane Austin in the making.

Our thoughts are with you….

Friends and colleagues in Sandy’s path—

My best wishes to you all as you begin to put the pieces back together after this devastating hurricane.  I can’t begin to imagine the hardships many of you face right now.  The news is nonstop out here on the west coast about the damage and power outages.  It’s almost more than we can wrap our heads around.


Please know that our thoughts are with you. Donations to the Red Cross are needed to provide immediate help, so anyone reading this, please give generously in support of our friends who have lost so much.
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Ruth
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How you can help RIGHT NOW

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Thank You for Your Service

I am just in from the first of two trips to Oklahoma this month.  Lots of good trait work happening in the middle of the country!  Exciting.  While flying home today I got to thinking about something you hear pretty often on the airlines–Delta in particular.

When men and women in uniform are on the plane, one of the flight attendants will stop and announce their presence, then add, “Thank you for your service,” followed by a round of applause by all the passengers, including me, of course.

Why, though, don’t we stop and thank teachers for their service, too?  And principals?  And secretaries and custodians at schools?  Why don’t people who spend their whole lives making it possible for children to succeed and move forward in life, get the same kind of public appreciation we give our servicemen and women?  Who deserve it–don’t get me wrong.  I think what they do is courageous, valiant, and flat-out awesome every single day.  But I also think what educators in schools do on a daily basis is heroic and often goes unheralded.

I’m old enough to remember how badly our soldiers were treated when they returned from the Vietnam War.  It was unconscionable how they were demonized for doing their patriotic duty.  Shame on anyone who didn’t stand up for them then but good for all of us for learning from that dark time and making sure that no matter what side of the political spectrum we might be on November 6, our military personnel get the respect they deserve.

So how do we begin a campaign to thank the nation’s teachers for showing up every morning and digging in to do the incredibly difficult and complex work required to educate today’s young people?  I’d like to begin by suggesting every faculty room create a big sign, “Thank you for your service.”  Because make no mistake about it, it IS service.  A normal day is at least 12 hours and at the end, when you finally fall into bed, it begins again the next day and then the next….

I challenge every local newspaper to sponsor a full page advertisement that reads “Thank you for your service,” followed by a list of names of every educator from local school districts.  Not the names of schools, but the names of individuals.  Education is individual and it’s teachers and fellow educators who take the job on, one at a time. As days like “National Writing Day” roll around on November 20th, there should be is a concerted effort on the part of businesses across the community to thank teachers for what they do and note how much it contributes to our society, not to mention our economy.  Maybe they would post signs that say “Teachers, thank you for your service” outside their businesses.  It would mean a lot to every teacher I know. It would help morale–and teaching morale could use a boost.

I’m just saying, teachers matter.  They give so all of us can benefit.  I really, really do thank you for your service.

My Summer Vacation, by Ruth Culham

Welcome to Villa Ardene, outside Multepulciano in Tuscany, Italy.  Yes, I was here and it was heavenly.  Having let too many years go by without a vacation, this summer I blew the budget and went to Tuscany for two weeks and two days.  I flew to Rome with my friends Janet and Larry from Montana and we explored the Eternal City together first.  Then it was off to Tuscany for an extended stay at the Villa with other friends who flew in from all over the states–what fun!  We ate, drank, swam, hiked, and shopped.  Each day we had a Tuscany adventure to another city or town–each one more wonderful than the last. The Villa was the perfect place for an escape and the company was simply the best.  

If you’ve ever traveled this way–staying at a villa instead of a hotel–you know what I’m talking about.  The experience is rich and local, allowing you to unpack and settle while creating an endless list of possibilities of how to fill your days.  My day began with a swim in the pool

  and it ended there, too.  In between was non stop sightseeing and savoring of the local cuisine.  Cell phones off, computers stashed, Scholastic conversations tabled–it was simply the best two weeks of my life with friends I adore.  Even Christian Grey made a splash at the Villa as all three books of 50 Shades of Grey were passed around like candy.  Oh my!  I’m sure he’d be happy to know he was such a hit in Tuscany.  

May your summer have created magical memories of your own this year and may this message find you as rested and tan as I feel right now.   

Ruth