Wednesday, January 11, 2017

The Workshop Model: Not Just for Elementary Classrooms

I'm back, blogging world! It's been awhile!
Here's what I've been up to . . .

When I last posted in this blog, I was SUPER pregnant. In fact, my last post was two days before I went into labor! Since then, I made the big decision to stay home with my son, a decision that surprised me but that led to one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life.

That first year of infancy was a blur. But since my son turned one, life started to normalize a bit and I began taking education consulting gigs and running workshops here, there, and everywhere. I'm really enjoying being able to delve deeply into the content of my workshops, focusing on the needs of my participants and trying my best to meet them.

Which brings me to my blog topic today. I'm in the middle of preparing a follow-up workshop on differentiated instruction (loyal readers know this is a passion of mine, so yippee!) for middle and high school ELA teachers and it's reigniting my belief in the following concept: THE WORKSHOP MODEL IS NOT JUST FOR ELEMENTARY CLASSROOMS, Y'ALL.

As a former high school ELA teacher, I can tell you that whenever I read or heard about the workshop model, I sort of labeled it as elementary and moved on. I know I wasn't alone in this way of thinking, because once I became an instructional coach and really studied the concept (and also observed its SUPREME effectiveness at the elementary level), I tried to convince several secondary ELA teachers of its merits, only to be met with what was once my own pre-conception regarding the workshop model.

So, hear me out. In secondary ELA classes, students are often assigned all or most of their reading for homework. This helps out with logistics as most teachers are trying to "get through" a certain number of lengthy texts in a semester. BUT, the result is -- we don't really know what our students' reading skills are like. Sure, we can give a reading check quiz the next day, but those don't usually tell us much and we can't even really swear that the student didn't just skim Sparknotes right before our class. Here's the issue: we are not seeing our students do the work of reading right in front of us. Arguably, reading takes up a huge percentage of what the core work of an ELA class is, and yet, we aren't observing our students in the act.

Go into a secondary science or math classroom. You'll see kids DOING the core work of that content area right in the classroom.

We need to start re-defining what class time is for in secondary ELA. With a workshop model, we can! Start off with a mini-lesson during which you introduce a reading strategy (or writing strategy, if that day will focus on writing). Using a gradual release of responsibility, model it for your students (I Do). Practice it together (We Do); here you can already start to formatively assess who's "got it" and who needs more support. Then, use workshop time (this should be the bulk of the class period) for students to independently practice the strategy while reading a given text. It's helpful to require a note-taking device so that their use of a reading strategy is recorded in some way. While students engage in this core work of the ELA class, you can circulate, continuing to formatively assess, working with individual students or small groups as needed. Pull everyone back together at the end for reflection and closure and further assessment of that day's objective.

This pumps me up! Workshops are exciting and effective and give us tons of chances to guide by the side of our students. Let's create these opportunities in secondary ELA classrooms so we can SEE our students reading and writing live and in person!