Transcript for Pace and Structure in Lesson Planning with Aisha Moderator/Santos/Knight

Santos: [00:00:14] I’m wondering why there’s side conversations? Agenda L, Alexis. [00:00:18]

Moderator: [00:00:19] Instructional expert, Jim Knight, is observing Aisha Santos, a first year middle school teacher who previously worked as an elementary teacher in a neighboring district. Ms. Santos now teaches seventh grade language arts. She wants Jim to assist her in better structuring and pacing her lessons. Today her students are going to be editing their evaluative essays on each other’s work, but first there’s a warm-up activity in which they spot errors in a piece of prepared text. [00:00:43]

Santos: [00:00:43] Okay for those of you who are wondering what are we supposed to do, it says the paragraph below tells about a special date in April history. Can you find and mark ten errors or mistakes in the paragraph. You might look for mistakes like capitalization, punctuation, spelling or grammar. All right, I’m going to give you guys about ten minutes to work on that. [00:01:05]

Knight: [00:01:06] What I want us to do today is I want us to have a conversation where you say, you know what, this is what I want to work on, and I want to fix this, and I want you to leave here with something you’re going to use the rest of your life. It’s not a waste of time where you say, this was really a worthwhile use of time. [00:01:21]

Santos: [00:01:21] I wanted to talk about my warm up. [00:01:23]

Knight: [00:01:23] What are your thoughts? [00:01:24]

Santos: [00:01:24] I don’t know why warm-ups are supposed to be quick. You know five-ten minutes. If my warm ups seem to go on a little longer than it should [00:01:32]

Knight: [00:01:32] I timed it. [00:01:33]

Santos: [00:01:35] Please don’t tell me. [00:01:35]

Knight: [00:01:36] 8:27 to 8:54, 27 minutes. [00:01:39]

Santos: [00:01:39] Oh that’s not good, and I think it’s because they struggle with—I thought it was something that was so simple in my mind. You know oh this is going to take them a couple of minutes. [00:01:50]

Knight: [00:01:50] Right. [00:01:51]

Santos: [00:01:52] I didn’t happen. I flopped. [Laughter] [00:01:54]

Knight: [00:01:56] No you didn’t flop, but it was a lot of time. [00:01:58]

Santos: [00:01:59] I have about two and a half minutes wrap up. Okay who wants to be brave enough to come up and try to correct these? No one? Okay. So I have to bravely choose somebody. I’m going to choose Kendra. Can you come up? What I want you to do is read each line and tell us what the mistakes are, circle it and then correct it. [00:02:29]

Child: [00:02:31] And correct it? [00:02:33]

Santos: [00:02:33] Actually all you had to do was circle the letters. Do you see anything else wrong with that sentence? [00:02:38]

[00:02:38] So what do you do after ten minutes of warm ups. It’s supposed to be something quick, and they’re not getting it. [00:02:43]

Knight: [00:02:44] Well there’s at least two things that come to mind. [00:02:46]

Santos: [00:02:46] Okay. [00:02:47]

Knight: [00:02:47] One of them is to rethink the warm up, you know and keep it short and keep it—you want it to be something they can succeed on. [00:02:53]

Santos: [00:02:53] Exactly. [00:02:54]

Knight: [00:02:55] The case here was it was just too much stuff. But I think you keep it quick, and you’re always thinking what can I do to keep that elastic band tight? [00:03:05]

Santos: [00:03:06] It’s a time when kids can enjoy the fun of verse. There’s something else wrong with it. [00:03:10]

Knight: [00:03:10] Like for example, was it Kendra who came up and was it at the projector? [00:03:14]

Santos: [00:03:15] Kendra yeah. [00:03:16]

Knight: [00:03:16] Yeah so you know maybe what you have her do next time is you say, maybe Kendra you job is, you’re going to be the editor, but I’m going to be the one who tells you what to write down. So I’m going to ask the questions of the kids, so then we’re going to do it—you’re going to write it down for me. [00:03:29]

Child: [00:03:29] April is National Poetry Month. It’s a time when kids can enjoy the fun of the verse. [00:03:35]

Knight: [00:03:35] When she started to do the reading and everything, you could sort of feel—did you feel that on the tape? Did you see that? [00:03:41]

Santos: [00:03:40] I did. [00:03:42]

Knight: [00:03:42] Yeah. [00:03:42]

Santos: [00:03:42] Do you see anything else wrong with that sentence? No? Where’s it supposed to be at? Between the t and the s. [00:03:58]

[00:03:59] I’ve had kids that just need that wait time, and when they’re able to give me the answer. [00:04:02]

Knight: [00:04:02] Oh yeah absolutely. Some kids it’s going to take them a few seconds to process. Then you want to watch the kids, and you want to ask the questions, and you want to call on all the kids and you don’t let them off the hook. [00:04:12]

Santos: [00:04:11] Okay. [00:04:11]

Knight: [00:04:12] Cause we’re all learning here. [00:04:13]

Santos: [00:04:14] Too many ands, crazy right? [00:04:16]

Moderator: [00:04:17] Next Aisha goes through some guidance for students on how to edit. [00:04:20]

Santos: [00:04:21] Okay here we go. Each sentence ends with a proper punctuation. So if you have a statement, period. If you have a question, question mark. If you’re saying something that has a whole lot of expression in it, like what a glorious day, exclamation mark. Okay? You with me? Okay adjectives and adverbs are used. Is somebody going to tell me what an adjective is? Hmm. Things that make you go hmm. Right? Well then look at its opponent. What’s an adverb? [00:04:59]

Knight: [00:05:00] What you can do is you just look at okay what do they need to learn here? Now the trouble is, this takes time; but if you list out here are the things we’re going to learn. How can I make it simple? I’ll teach them one. I’ll make sure they’ve got it. So if you took your editing—list of editing things, you could do one or two a day and make sure we got it. Then keep adding them and keep it boom, boom, boom. [00:05:19]

Santos: [00:05:19] Good. Was this easy to do? It took you a while didn’t it? I wanted to give you a taste of what we’ve already been doing in class. [00:05:29]

Moderator: [00:05:30] Finally Aisha gets to her main activity; showing students how to edit their evaluative essays on each other’s work. [00:05:35]

Santos: [00:05:35] Today I’m going to show you how to take your evaluative essays and edit them. Our central question is why is it important to revise and edit? Well it’s important because it is going to allow you to make changes and corrections to enhance the writing. What does it mean to enhance it, Erin? [00:05:53]

Child: [00:05:53] Make it better. [00:05:54]

Santos: [00:05:54] Make it better, to improve your writing. [00:05:55]

[00:05:56] My colleagues and I always talking about how we need to do more modeling for the students. My concern sometimes is am I over modeling? Am I going overboard with it because I think it comes to a point where we do have to have that gradual release? [00:06:11]

Knight: [00:06:10] Right. [00:06:10]

Santos: [00:06:11] So if you catch anything, you let me know, and I’m sure you’re going to be really good at that. Right? Catching my mistakes. All right. Here we go. Although Shantay’s poem was a concrete poem, it lacked descriptive details, figurative language and had some conventional errors. [00:06:27]

Child: [00:06:30] You misspelled her name. [00:06:30]

Santos: [00:06:30] I misspelled her name. I’m going to circle her whole name and write sp in the top. [00:06:41]

[00:06:42] For me, it’s a struggle and it’s a balance of trying to—at what point are they ready for me to let them go. [00:06:49]

Knight: [00:06:50] I have a whole bunch of ideas about that. [00:06:52]

Santos: [00:06:52] I really would—[00:06:52]

Knight: [00:06:52] Are you okay for that? [00:06:52]

Santos: [00:06:52] I knew you would. I knew you would. [00:06:53]

Knight: [00:06:53] Okay good, well I—cause I really love the idea of modeling. Can I show you what I would do? And then you tell me if it would work for you. [00:07:01]

Santos: [00:07:01] Sure. Sure. [00:07:02]

Knight: [00:07:02] Okay, I use the phrases I do it, we do it, you do it. So it’s I’m going to do it. We’re going to do it. You’re going to do it. When I do it, I’m going to think out loud. I don’t do this at home and talk like this when I’m thinking, but right now I’m going to think out loud, and you need to watch me and listen to me because when you do it, you’re going to do it just like me. Okay. So then I say, okay, the first sentence, and I’d go through the first sentence, and I’d say now what am I looking for? What do I need to look for? Which is the second thing about this I wanted to talk about, but I’d have a specific thing I’m looking for and a way to go at it. [00:07:35]

Santos: [00:07:36] Right. [00:07:36]

Knight: [00:07:36] But for me that simple phrase I do it, we do it, you do it. Then I would do one or two sentences with the kids, and then I’d turn it to the kids. Okay now it’s your turn to do it. What I would say is, “First thing I want to know is are there any capitalization problems here? Get ready, I’m going to ask you a question.” I wouldn’t tell them who I’m asking. What I’m doing is I’m calling on the kids in the we-do-it part, until I’m confident that they can answer the questions. But then I have them practice with a partner. That’s the all-do-it part, and then you do it. You do it on your own, and then we take it up together, you know. When I do the I-do-it part, I want to teach them some way of doing task that’s going to stick with them; they’re going to remember. Sometimes you use those phrases, mnemonic phrases, right? [00:08:21]

Santos: [00:08:21] Right. Right. [00:08:21]

Knight: [00:08:22] So for example with editing, a friend of mine, Jean Shoemaker, she created a thing called COPS. [00:08:28]

Santos: [00:08:29] I think I’ve heard of that. [00:08:31]

Knight: [00:08:31] COPS and so COPS stands for capitalization, overall presentation, punctuation and spelling. Then I say, “Okay what’s the first thing we look for? You’re going to do this one with me.” Well the first thing we look for is well what’s the phrase, it’s COPS. That’s right. What’s COPS? Capitalization. What do we look for? Capital letters. We look for the start of the sentence, and we look for proper nouns, and then I go through it with the kids. Boom, boom, baboom, baboom. We do a couple until I feel they’re right with me, and I don’t say, “Allison what’s a C?” I say, “Okay everybody, what is it?” [00:09:03]

Santos: [00:09:04] So everybody. [00:09:05]

Knight: [00:09:05] They’re with me. You should feel like there’s an elastic band between you and every kid. If they’re not engaged with you, something is slacking off, and you got to pull them in. That’s when you say okay now boom—get them onboard, and if they can’t answer the question, you keep at it. You keep asking, but you don’t let them off the hook. That band is keeping them engaged. [00:09:26]

Santos: [00:09:26] Sometimes I do that, and I call it popcorn. [00:09:27]

Knight: [00:09:28] Well that would be good. [00:09:28]

Santos: [00:09:28] Popcorn somebody. [00:09:29]

Knight: [00:09:29] Right, right. Or you can just—I would stick with that phrase, popcorn somebody. You’re on the bubble. If you keep trying to keep that elastic band, and you keep experimenting with keeping the kids connected, you’re going to be an absolutely fantastic teacher. You already are a fantastic teacher, but you’re going to get way better, and you’re going to be the kind of teacher who transforms your kids’ lives. Kids, who weren’t going to go to college, go to college. It just means you have to say I’m going to relentlessly pursue engagement. I’m going to make sure these kids are always engage. [00:10:00]

Santos: [00:10:00] Exactly. [00:10:01]

Knight: [00:10:01] I’m going to look at things like my pacing, like the way I ask questions, all those things. [00:10:06]

Santos: [00:10:06] And I put that in here too. Interesting you mentioned that. [00:10:08]

Knight: [00:10:08] Right. [00:10:09]

Santos: [00:10:09] What to do if the student is not getting it. How do I maintain student engagement; that was my question? [00:10:13]

Knight: [00:10:13] Well see I think the thing here is you want to make it easier for them to be successful. If they don’t understand what’s going on. Like you said you didn’t think they all got it. I can tell you it seemed to me, sitting at the table because I sat with some of the kids, some of the kids weren’t there, and I don’t think it’s because they were bored. I think it’s cause they didn’t get it. [00:10:31]

Santos: [00:10:31] They didn’t understand. [00:10:31]

Knight: [00:10:31] they didn’t know what to do. [00:10:32]

Santos: [00:10:33] When you are editing each other’s work, I want you to go through their work, and I’m going to model for you how to do that. You’re going to use the editing marks. When you’re done doing all of that, you’re going to go back and reread their work and look at their writing and then you’re going to fill out this checklist. [00:10:49]

Knight: [00:10:49] So you want to make it really, really easy. We’re just going to look for capital letters. I’ll do it first. We do it, you do it. Okay we’ve done capital letters—the you make it COPS or some other thing so they can remember what the pieces are and then they do it. [00:11:02]

Santos: [00:11:02] I’m glad you’re telling me that because I’m used to teaching that way in smaller steps. I think one of the things I’ve struggled with is coming from third grade, where I’m used to doing that to seventh grade. I didn’t want to make it almost like I’m still teaching elementary, but I still feel like they need those baby steps. The way that you’re explaining it to me, is making more sense in being able to adapt that to middle school. [00:11:27]

Knight: [00:11:28] I think what you’re striving for is you want the kids to feel they succeed. Where they really lost engagement was where they felt like they couldn’t do it. There was too much information, they couldn’t get there. You know when you had them shout out their answers, they were a little more with you, and I could see you trying to get them energized. [00:11:45]

Santos: [00:11:46] I was. [00:11:46]

Knight: [00:11:46] Yeah. [00:11:47]

Santos: [00:11:48] My rule is, if you start with quotations, you—[00:11:51]

Child: [00:11:51] End. [00:11:51]

Santos: [00:11:51] Repeat me. You start with quotations—[00:11:55]

Child: [00:11:55] You start with quotations—[00:11:56]

Santos: [00:11:57] You start with quotations—[00:11:57]

Child: [00:11:57] You start with quotations—[00:12:00]

Santos: [00:11:59] You start with quotations, you end with quotations. [00:12:02]

Child: [00:12:02] You end with—[00:12:03]

Knight: [00:12:04] Kids have to know that you’re in control. You’re the boss. But also you have to give them lots of freedom to do their activities and have lots of fun. [00:12:12]

Santos: [00:12:12] Right. [00:12:12]

Knight: [00:12:13] So for me, I think there are lots of things you can do to be in control without being a control freak. So one thing I think is the way your carry yourself. How fast you talk. You want to keep it pretty energetic. [00:12:28]

Santos: [00:12:28] Adverbs are verbs that describe the—adverbs are words that describe the—verbs. Adjectives are words that describe the—[00:12:45]

Child: [00:12:46] Noun. [00:12:46]

Santos: [00:12:47] Noun. Okay? [00:12:48]

Knight: [00:12:48] Whenever you do something it should involve every student. If you ask a question, every student knows they might get asked. I usually tell the kids, if you look bored, you’re my guy. So you better be looking interested, because if you look bored—and then I call on whoever looks like they’re not with me. I call—[snaps fingers] during something like this, I’d have a lot of questions. [00:13:07]

Santos: [00:13:08] I try to do a lot of scaffolding as I’m teaching. For example, we were talking about the made and the maid. M A I D and M A D E. I told them what is that an example of? And we were just talking about homophones last week. I wanted to see if they understood. What kind of word is that? [00:13:26]

[00:13:26] When you have two words that sound the same, but they’re completely different words cause they’re spelled differently and they have different meanings. What is that called? It begins with an H. [00:13:38]

Child: [00:13:39] Home—homophones. [00:13:40]

Santos: [00:13:40] Homophones. [00:13:42]

[00:13:43] It took them a while, but I think Alexis was like homophones. I say yes. [00:13:46]

Knight: [00:13:46] Yes I heard that. Right. I think the thing is that you want to just be—it can’t be acceptable for them not to learn it. So you just keep working at what’s it going to take. [00:13:58]

Santos: [00:13:58] And that’s it. Questions? No? I think you’re ready to work on your stuff now. [00:14:06]

Knight: [00:14:06] So that means you can’t let them off the hook. They can’t not learn. And that makes it hard work. You have to say what am I going to do to make sure that they can get it? How can I make sure they’ve mastered it? [00:14:16]