Read. Analyze. Emulate.
From the desk of Alice…
In case you missed it, Kelly Gallagher was in town this week and did a workshop related to reading and writing. I love it when we are able to bring high quality educators and authors to the area so I can learn from them. Kelly had many useful tips for us when it comes to reading and writing, but one thing really stood out across the day and that was his simple directive for adults and students: Read. Analyze. Emulate.
As we move through these dog days of summer, I am reflecting on how many of us can do what Kelly suggested in the coming year. I am wondering how many of us will read, analyze and emulate in our classrooms this year. At the core of this idea is the teacher is still learning and MUST model in order for students to continue to grow.
Let’s start with read.
What are you reading? What authors are you interested in? What types of genres have you been hooked on this summer? How did you select your reading materials? What’s on your list to read next? If you are like many people, you haven’t really read anything. Or, you don’t “count” the newspaper or People Magazine or any of the posts on Facebook. Regardless of what you have or have not read, take time now to make this a priority within the next school year. How can we grow readers (and writers) if we aren’t really reading ourselves?
On to analyze.
Kelly showed us a simple way to analyze text by reading it once for the content and then jotting down our thinking about what the writer did. For example, we practiced reading a poem and on the right hand side of the paper (beside the poem in the white space), we jotted what we noticed about how the writer put the piece together, the word choice, as well as the power of punctuation. This is analyzing. We need to do this so we can SHOW our students how to do it. We need to do this regularly so our students can see it and practice it and become better at it. Make time to analyze this year. The more comfortable you are with analyzing texts, the easier it is to teach students to do it.
Emulate.
Kelly really stressed the importance of using writing to guide our writing. By using the poem that we analyzed, we were able to write our own poems in a copycat format. Was it genius writing? No. Was it a great way to get started? Yes. And this neat little way to thread the writing needle will work for your students, too. Start small- pick a poem or a children’s book and move on to the big things. By emulating some of the greatest pieces of writing, you are setting your writers up with a support system. A scaffold. A way to succeed.
So, as I have one eye on the first day of school, I want to start practicing these three things and I hope you will give it a try, too.
Read. Analyze. Emulate. Before you know it, your students will not only be reading like writers, but writing like readers. It starts with you.