The Art of Writing

 As I briefly mentioned in my last post, I did not choose education as my first vocation. I took a somewhat meandering path to teaching--one that began with my life as an artist. Before deciding to pursue education, I graduated with a BFA from a well-respected, four-year fine arts university. My areas of focus were fiber arts  (knitting, weaving, etc) and illustration (children's books), and these also happen to be areas of focus within the Waldorf curriculum. Waldorf schools place a great deal of emphasis on the arts--one of the reasons I first gravitated to the method--and the term "arts-infused" is frequently used to describe Waldorf education. As both an artist and educator, I am very interested in ways that I can integrate the arts with the general classroom curriculum. This lead me to read Beth Olshansky's article, Artists/Writers Workshop: Focusing in on the ART of Writing, published in the July 2006 issue of Language Arts.

  In her article, Olshansky explores a modified version of the popular Writers Workshop model of literacy instruction. This modified version is called the Artists/Writers Workshop and includes art and visual literacy as a crucial step in the authoring process. Olshansky writes,

"Artists/Writers Workshop is designed to create a democratic classroom community in which words and pictures are treated as equal and complementary languages for learning." 

The steps of the workshop (literature share/mini-lesson, work session, group sharing) are not changed to accommodate the Artists Workshop, but the content of the workshop expands to include visual analysis of picture book illustrations and the crafting of images prior to writing. Writer's Workshop places emphasis on the importance of materials for children: students should be offered independent access to a wide variety of writing materials, including papers of different shapes, sizes, colors and textures, as well as choices of writing instruments (pens, pencils, markers, crayons...). This choice is meant both to honor students' decision-making in the authoring process, and also to inspire children in their writing. The Artists Workshop expands this idea to give students independent access to high-quality, "professional" art materials, like paints, pastels, and collage supplies.

  I am excited and inspired by the idea of the Artists/Writers Workshop. I feel that this modified model would be effective across the grade levels for a few different reasons. In the younger grades (K-2), children naturally turn to image making as their preferred means of communication. The Artists/Writers Workshop is attuned with this period of child development, offering students the opportunity to craft an image first, and then use that image as an entry point into writing. In the later grades (3-6), I feel that the Artists/Writers Workshop would be beneficial for students who struggle to move words from mind to paper. Creating an image prior to writing allows students to express their ideas visually, and then transmediate those thoughts from pictures into words.

  Olshansky includes several quotes from children engaged in the Artists/Writers Workshop in her article, and I think they speak for themselves:

"Writing used to be hard for me, but now it is easy. All I have to do is look at each picture and describe some things I see. I listen to my words to see if they match with my story and they always do. Now writing is my favorite part of school."   --David, grade 2

"While I was doing the pictures first, words just started to grow and I got more and more ideas to write and I just writ and writ and writ until it was a finished book."   --Kevin, grade 1

"The pictures paint the words on paper for you so your words are much better. The words are more descriptive. Sometimes you can't describe the pictures because they are so beautiful."  --Serena, grade 6 

(Of course, I think I would be remiss if I didn't share with you a piece of my own art--a recent illustration for Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, painted using watercolor and gouache.)

Lights, Camera, Dinosaur!

As a follow-up to my post about Literacy Playshop, I thought that I would write about my experience putting the playshop into action. I recently had the pleasure of conducting a literacy playshop with a colleague  (Catie) and two kindergarten students (Camden and Ella) at a local elementary school. Catie and I arrived with iPad and art box in hand, ready to get to work--or should I say play?

  Camden and Ella's teacher allowed us to use her office as our playshop space, so that we wouldn't disturb the rest of the class during their Daily Five time. We started out by reading a book together so that the students could settle in and feel comfortable working (playing!) with us. After the book, we explained that we were going to make our own movie together, and it could be about anything we wanted. Immediately, Camden chimed in that he had seen a movie recently. It was about dinosaurs, and he could recount every bit of the plot, starting from the beginning. I asked Ella if she thought we should make our movie about dinosaurs, and she agreed. Catie and I then asked what we should use to make our movie: should we use our bodies to act it out? Should we use toys? Should we make our own dinosaurs? Camden and Ella were excited to make their own dinosaurs, and fetched blank paper to get started.

  I ran into periodic snags during the playshop when attempting to engage Ella in the process. She is a sweet, but very shy child, and is usually hesitant to get involved. When I invited her to join Camden in drawing dinosaurs, she balked. Thinking for a moment, I drew upon a strategy we learned for teaching early literacy: shared writing. Except in this case, I suppose it would be shared drawing (and this is where my training as an artist comes in handy!). I let Ella choose a marker color for our dinosaur, and then started drawing the head. Occasionally I paused and asked, "What comes next?" When Ella supplied the answer, I would hand her the marker and let her fill in that part, and she would hand it back to me. In the end, I drew the head, arms, and body, and Ella draw the eye, tail, and legs. She then colored in the paper dinosaur puppet.

 With setting and characters drawn together, and the plot hashed and re-hashed by Camden, we were ready to get filming. Then we hit snag number two: Ella felt too shy to participate in the puppetry, and no amount of cajoling could convince her to play. I then filled in as the other dinosaur characters with Camden, and Catie filmed the movie with her iPad. Ella did finally agree to be the "button pusher" on the iPad, and we were happy that she accepted a role in our playshop.

  Our finished film shows the elements of movie/story literacy that our students are familiar with: characters, setting, plot, dialogue, sequencing of events, protagonists and antagonists, humor, rising conflict and resolution. When we asked our students if we should name our movie, like writers name books, Camden offered the tile "Eat the Dinosaurs," a play on the title "Meet the Dinosaurs" (he insists this is the movie he watched, though we can't find evidence of its existance).

 Camden and Ella seemed to enjoy engaging in the literacy playshop, as I imagine most children would. Catie and I agreed that we were concerned about the feasibility of having 25 kindergarteners successfully utilizing iPads to film their movies. I can see the literacy playshop model working especially well in late first grade and second grade, when students have longer attention spans and better fine motor skills.

 Finally, how does literacy playshop meet my trifold standards for education?

•  Head: check, showing all the literacy knowledge I listed above
•  Hands: check, lots of moving, touching, and making going on
•  Heart: check, the students enjoyed playing/storying, and were able to incorporate elements from their existing interests.

A triple threat, and something that I envision myself using in my future classroom.

Literacy Playshop

Within the last few weeks I have read an interesting text about integrating play, literacy, and new media in early childhood and primary grades classrooms.  Literacy Playshop is a curricular framework developed by Karen Wohlwend that empowers children to draw upon their existing knowledge of popular media and use that knowledge to create multimedia productions. With a vision of literacy that is becoming increasingly popular amongst education researchers, children are not simply "writing" or "reading" in literacy playshop. A better verb might be "storying"-- developing characters, settings, and plots through the use of drawing, writing, acting, filming, and more. Children in the literacy playshop often start with a narrative or character that they are familiar with from popular media franchises, but with time the story will evolve to include problems and solutions from the child's imagination.

 I will confess that I came to the literacy playshop with some hesitation. Those familiar with Waldorf will know that the philosophy takes a strong position against giving children early access to technology, such as television and computers, and encourages parents to distance their children from popular media franchises. With  characters that seem to be designed more for adults than children, how could I disagree? Take one glance at the cast of Winx Club, a television show popular enough to boast a recent series of Happy Meal toys, to see what I mean:

 Yikes. Pass me the wooden play food, stat.

 Not exactly something I would want my six-year-old daughter emulating. Dr. Wohlwend, though, asserts that banning children from partaking in popular media is a privileged perspective. To be able to offer children alternative toys, one must be able to afford them, and for many families this is not a possibility. She also believes that educators should allow children the opportunity to share their knowledge of popular media franchises within the classroom--children often have deep wells of knowledge about their particular interests (often cartoons, etc), but few chances to express that knowledge. I can't disagree with that, and I do believe that teachers should honor their students' experiences and interests. A child who is struggling in traditional academic areas may be able to speak about his passions with startling depth, if only given the chance.

 At the moment, I am straddling both sides of the popular media fence, but I suppose my stance is this: Parents should be encouraged to be knowledgeable about the content of the media their children engage with, but ultimately the decisions that they make for their children and families are theirs alone. As a teacher, my job is to make sure all of my students feel included and respected. Therefore, I cannot ban popular media items/discussion from my classroom, though I should educate myself about the franchises my students are exploring, as some may not be appropriate for classroom consumption.

What do you think about popular media in the classroom? Have you ever conducted a literacy playshop in your class?

A Time to Celebrate

  As a pre-service elementary school teacher, I often find myself reflecting on my own elementary school experiences. What I have observed about my memories is that they aren't usually about a specific moment or conversation. They're more ambiguous--a feeling of what it was like to be seven or eight years old in a rural public school classroom. I find that most all of my fuzzy memories revolve around the seasonal activities that were taking place during various parts of the school year. The change from summer to autumn is especially strong in my memory. I remember clearly the feeling of a chilly, drizzly October day in second grade. The windows might be dark and covered with trailing droplets, but inside the classroom was warm and cozy. Autumn brought with it the smell of crunchy leaves on the playground, autumn poems and crafts in the classroom, and the always exciting change of the classroom bulletin board (in October, our names were written on die-cut leaves. In November, turkeys.). The essence of autumn culminated for us in the Oktoberfest festival, a yearly celebration that drew the entire town together for a parade and events that celebrated the harvest time and our German heritage. Soon after, we would begin to focus on Thanksgiving, and not long after that, Christmas and winter time.

 And so my childhood memories flow in a cycle from one year to the next, dotted with Valentine boxes and songs from winter concerts. It's not unusual for memory to be tied to seasonality and celebration. Festival life has been an anchor for humankind for thousands of years, providing a way to mark the passage of time and to form community bonds. In her article Community Celebrations as Ritual Signifiers, published in 2002 in Visual Arts Research, Deborah L. Smith-Shank outlines the important role that celebrations play in the lives of children. At their most basic level, celebrations provide a structure for our lives. Their ritual behaviors (such as blowing out birthday candles) and annual repetition give children a sense of expectation and safety. Additionally, the cyclical nature of celebrations allow us to simultaneously reflect on previous years' memories and anticipate future ones. Our shared experiences and anticipations bring us closer together as members of a community. Smith-Shank writes,

"Community celebrations are an important socializing force, not only for newcomers to a community but also for children. Through their participation in community celebrations, children learn to participate in the construction and the consumption of their cultures. They learn social expectations. They learn to delay gratification."

  Delayed gratification is quite often met with negative reaction in today's world of instant information and communication. It is, however, something to consider seriously. Delayed gratification gives us the opportunity to anticipate. It teaches children that the future holds things worth looking forward to--the special days that mark our shared existence.

Aside from their importance in providing children with a sense of time, place, and belonging, Smith-Shank writes that celebrations function as unique points of inquiry:

"[Community celebrations] can help us by answering significant questions about our histories, our communities, and ourselves. These rich storehouses of local legend and culture can provide us with information about history, art, family life, ecology, heritage, and ethics."

  When observed through this lens, celebrations are seen as an important form of literacy for children. They provide children with the opportunity to examine some of life's biggest questions: Who am I, where did I come from, and how am I connected? What does this ritual say about me? What does it say about us?

  Because celebrations are such crucial avenues of meaning-making for children, it troubles me how few opportunities for celebration I observe in schools today. I see almost no examples of celebrations that include the larger community, comprised of the entire student body, parents, siblings, and others. Slightly more often I observe celebrations that take place within an isolated classroom, such as a Valentine's Day party, but the type of celebration that I see taking place most often in elementary schools is one that is based on academic achievement, such as "Accelerated Reader (AR) Parties." These celebrations are part of a reward system for students who achieve a certain level of proficiency in an academic program. By their very nature, academic reward celebrations are conditional and exclusionary: children who do not meet the required level of proficiency are not permitted to attend. What are the implications of a childhood in which our participation in the celebrations that root us in time, place, and identity are not guaranteed? By excluding children from celebrations, what message are we sending them about their place in a community?

  Many educators have eliminated celebrations with cultural or religious origins from the classroom in an attempt to prevent children from other cultures from feeling unrepresented. Educators may also fear the reaction of parents who might disagree with having a child exposed to ideas and traditions from other cultures or religions. Although this elimination may be well-meaning, it has a negative effect on the classroom community: a group of students who possess a rich variety of experiences have fewer opportunities to share them. A formerly multicultural group is left cultureless. Instead of eliminating multicultural celebrations, teachers should make an attempt to include traditions from each student's culture, creating an atmosphere of safety and respect, where empathy and understanding is cultivated.

Celebrations are incredibly important to the life of a child: as structure, history, community-builder, and point of inquiry, celebration should play an active and vital role in curriculum. Educators should allow students the opportunity to experience celebrations that involve the classroom community, the school community, and the greater community around them.

A Look at the Numbers

It's an inescapable fact that education is currently driven by data: numbers, scores, graphs, and charts are our main (only?) means of determining whether the ways and means by which our children are educated have value. Progress is key, and it is measured by an endless trail of formal assessments--buttons clicked, letters circled, and bubbles filled in. I see this again and again in the schools where I am working, from the time students enter kindergarten to the time they graduate high school. I think many people are interested in the alternative methods of education that I blog about (Waldorf, Reggio Emilia, etc), but are hesitant to embrace them because of their lack of emphasis on data. "Without the information gathered through assessment programs, how will we know that students are hitting their benchmarks?" they wonder. It's a very different frame of mind than the one I possess, but it is undeniably here to stay for the time being. And so I wonder: how do we convince those that are so very focused on assessment data that alternative models of education are effective?

Well, we can attempt to play the game and compare the numbers.

In October 2012, Larrison, Daily, and VanVooren published a study in Current Issues in Education titled "Twenty Years and Counting: A Look at Waldorf in the Public Sector Using Online Sources." This study aims to examine the effectiveness of Waldorf Education in public charter schools by comparing standardized test score data and parent comments with those from non-Waldorf public schools that teach using traditional educational methods. Waldorf charter schools (sometimes called "Waldorf-Methods" or "Waldorf-Inspired" charters) are one of the fastest-growing options for alternative education in the country. Waldorf-methods charter schools combine a Waldorf curriculum and environment with the standards of a public school. Their adherence to public school standards necessitates some adjustments, such as beginning formal reading instruction in kindergarten instead of in first grade, but the values and ethos of a Waldorf school remain. Literacy is imaginative and hands-on, stemming from poems, songs and verses, and stories are retold by students through dramatic play. The curriculum is arts-infused, and kindergartners learn their letters through pictures that gradually morph into the familiar symbols we know. Learning comes at a slow and steady pace, with students allowed to develop and flourish at a more individual rate than the hurried one that is pushed in many public school classrooms. Because Waldorf charters are funded publicly, though, students are required to take yearly standardized tests, just as they would in a traditional public school. Larrison et al use this scoring data to establish the efficacy of the Waldorf method as compared to traditional educational methods in their study.

The table above compares standardized testing scores between public Waldorf charters and district averages in the year 2008. In both reading and math, notice the trend that Waldorf students begin with lower test scores in the primary grades, but by eighth grade their scores have significantly surpassed students in schools with traditional methods.

The second set of graphs compares students in public Waldorf charters in California with students in non-Waldorf schools in the same or neighboring districts that share similar demographics. Again, the trend shows Waldorf students with lower test scores in earlier grades, but a jump to surpass their non-Waldorf peers by the later grades.

What does this study suggest? Larrison et al write, "The question this data presents is whether there
is any value at all of using test scores in determining the quality of education particularly in the early grades...Given that early test scores appear not to hold any predictive value for a student’s ultimate academic success, at least for Waldorf, and there is no reason to suspect these children are biologically unique, it is important that we reconsider the utility of early grade testing at all." They conclude that "[the] lack of correspondence of test scores to qualitative measures of schools performance should be a considerable concern for policy makers who support testing in the early grades. If we are to gauge schools based on test scores then these tests should at least be reliable measures of student outcomes in later grades. If not, then we must question the expense, time and stress of testing at all. Until reliable measures of school quality are available, the impact of testing should be minimized, especially in the lower grades."

In addition to bringing into question the effectiveness and rationale for standardized testing in the early grades, this study shows that a slower, more developmentally-appropriate approach to reading instruction in early childhood and the primary grades does not mean poor proficiency in the later grades. In fact, it shows the opposite: that the Waldorf approach to early literacy builds a foundation for future proficiency.

With this information in hand, perhaps we can move forward with providing young children with holistic, child-centered education in public schools.

The Waldorf Experience: A Remarkable Education

Here we have another video about Waldorf education--this time from the Waldorf School of Bend, Oregon. I feel that this is a fairly accurate look at life in a private Waldorf school.

The Third Teacher

     Last week I wrote an overview of the Reggio Emilia approach and how it relates to literacy in early childhood and the primary grades. I touched briefly on Reggio's idea of the learning environment, but I think it's so interesting and inspiring that I'm going to devote this week's entry solely to the Reggio classroom.

     The Reggio Emilia approach refers to environment as the "third teacher," after parents and teachers. This means that the learning environment should be constructed in such a way that it is not just a container in which learning occurs, but is a space that inspires and facilitates learning in all students. Teresa Strong-Wilson and Julia Ellis collaborated on Children and Place: Reggio Emilia's Environment as Third Teacher (Theory Into Practice, 2007), a wonderfully written article that explores the concept and effectiveness of the Reggio learning environment.

     Strong-Wilson and Ellis identify eight principles that guide the construction of a Reggio Emilia classroom: aesthetics, transparency, active learning, flexibility, collaboration, reciprocity, bringing the outdoors in, and relationships. The Reggio Emilia approach looks at the learning environment from the child's perspective. Strong-Wilson and Ellis contrast the environments of a typical kindergarten classroom (visually busy, and full of commercially-produced, stereotyped images that may "silence the actual lived experiences of those individuals learning together") with an environment that inspires inquiry by utilizing natural light:

"Because it was located where the undergrowth was thickest, the classroom was often enveloped in a greenish light. Topics rich in local anecdote and story, like the sasquatch, could come alive. The filtered greenish light also reminded her of her "deep down" image of the child and those "secret spaces of childhood" where she used to play hide-and-seek with other children in the neighborhood."

      Reggio Emilia encourages teachers to look closely at their classrooms to envision ways that it could "speak" to the children and invite investigation and inquiry. Examples provided by Strong-Wilson and Ellis include placing small mirrors around the classroom, positioning easels in naturally lit areas, and introducing provocations--carefully selected items in the environment that may spark discussion and imagination, such as a pencil and paper in the block corner or a pizza box in the kitchen center. Other strategies for enlivening the learning environment include introducing realistic objects for play (real pasta in the play kitchen) and storing materials in transparent containers so that children are inspired to sort, organize, and recognize patterns of color and texture. Such changes, assert the authors, "animate the environment" for children, foster care for their surroundings, and encourage them to think inventively about materials.

     Following the eight principles identified in the article, Reggio Emilia classrooms have many common elements, including flexible, open arrangements that promote social interaction, neutral spaces with limited visual distractions, use of natural and authentic materials (baskets made of wicker instead of plastic), natural light, plants, and other "outdoor" elements, easy access to materials, and documentary displays of student work. Have a look at some truly inspiring Reggio Emilia classrooms:

     I can hear you saying, "Wow! Those are really amazing spaces. If only we could all work in a dedicated Reggio environment with custom-built furniture!" But don't dismay. For those of us who work in traditional classrooms but would like to integrate Reggio methods, there are plenty of resources out there to make a space more Reggio-friendly. One blog I especially like is The Third Teacher, an educator from Canada who works to integrate Reggio Emilia methods in her classrooms. In one of her posts, she gets some feedback from an experienced Reggio educator who makes the following suggestions:

• move the group carpet out of the corner to the center of the room. This created a welcome focus and allowed for centers to branch of from the carpet and make use of the walls.

• hang all the poems written on chart paper in one low and accessible place (the side of the filing cabinet). The poems were previously spread out in all areas of the classroom and added to the visual distraction. The children actually used them more by reading them and lifting them like a hanging book for reference.

• remove the alphabetized word wall off the display boards and replace with a usable clear pocket chart. The children then found the word they needed and could take the word (on card stock) to any centre in the room, then return it.

• cover busy patterns or unappealing surfaces with felt – to soften the dividers used for a reading area.

• add a sheer curtain over a reading area to define the space and filter the light from the window. This change enhanced the reading center and made it more inviting to the children.

• remove a shelf that blocked a view of the carpet area when entering the classroom to the side of the room as a divider between two learning centers.

• remove the yellow and red bins.

You can see the difference before and after makes in this space!