Writing Checklist and Peer Review

In my coaching with Michelle, I have focused on math writing.  Earlier in the year, I was focusing on conferring. Now, I feel like I have taken a step back to talk to her to decide on the purpose for my math writing.  I think about my next door neighbor, Ms. Schoneman, when I think about trying to figure out what the purpose is for math writing. If I can't figure that out for myself, how can I expect students to understand?  

A couple of weeks ago, my students and I came up with a list of elements that had to be in place in great math writing.  We realized that we had two lists: one about process, the other about the writing product.  We created an anchor chart and I transferred the list to a worksheet where students would be able to do all of their work on a story problem and have the checklist to refer to.  We worked with this worksheet as a guide for our writing and the students did pretty well with it, but at some point we lost steam, partly because I wasn't sure what the next logical step was.



Part of the routine we set in place includes time for peer review.  Students trade their papers and check off all the elements they see that are in place.  They give this feedback to their partner, then they have the chance to "call them out" to the whole group.  Then that person has the option to show us their work on the doc cam so we can identify everything they did well. The work then lives on the wall in the hall to display great math writing.

So, what's next?

--Communicate to students that this is something that we will do consistently every Tuesday and Thursday.  We can't spend this much time and energy on it and do it five days a week.  I think the predictability will help my students engage in this this process more quickly and meaningfully.
--Peer review routine.  Right now we do it in our meeting space with a partner, and it quickly became stale and lost its purpose.  Moving forward, I am going to come up with creative ways for them to find a new partner to share with eveyr time they write.  Without being purposeful about his part, students were pairing up with the same person day after day.
--Increase engagement.  I need to find opportunities to really highlight the great thinking that goes on.  In the past, they have given each other stickers, this sometimes devolved to students reviewing only the work of their friends.  Besides displaying the work in the hall, what else could I do?
--Integrate movement.  This group of kids need routine, but need to move!  I will integrate opportunities to get them off of the floor and moving while they review.  

March Post

The year just keeps Marching along!  Another month of school is in the past and I am here again to remind you that your next post is due.

Here are some choices for you this month:

• Michelle was here on Friday to talk about argumentative writing and building a claim with evidence.  React to that PD.  What resonated with you and why? How has that changed your instruction or your approach to writing?
• You should have had an opportunity at this point to receive some coaching from Michelle.  How has that helped you refine your writing instruction?  What has been your goal?  Where are you in meeting that goal?
• Our inquiry groups are in full swing and working on a question around writing, perhaps preparing to go public.  What successes have you had with that work?  Has there been one thing in particular that has really worked for you?
• Something else?  You could also look back on your posts from February and January and update the reader on your progress.  You could also react to any comments that you received from another participant.  

This is our last post for the year. In April, you will receive directions on pulling all of your thinking together for our final peer review on April 26th. 

Thanks so much!

Math Writing Priorities

In my January post, I wrote about conferring in math and my challenges in putting together a system for conferring regularly with my students.  Now, I think that I am trying too hard to try to create a routine that may work better for literacy than math.  Lately, my student teacher and I have agreed that we will have a set group that he meets with daily and I will have an invitation group that I meet with to meet with those kids who need a second look.  We have a very simple recording sheet where we keep track of who we have met with and which skills we are working on.  My thinking has stayed the same here, conferring is an important time of our workshop where we can hold kids accountable for their thinking and is a good time to evaluate kids' progression toward understanding. 

The other routine that I am really focused on is our reflection time.  I am carving out 10 minutes at the end of the lesson so that students can verbalize  and synthesize their thinking after the lesson.  I put a prompt on the board for students to write about. The prompt is usually related to their thinking and a thinking strategy.  An example is, "How did you determine which strategy was best when ordering fractions?"  They write and then we listen to several students share their thinking.   I have found this time to be a good one to check in with students' understanding.  It is also a good time to emphasize the focus on understanding, rather than on production.  I have found that student writing has improved with this routine, and I have also been impressed with student thinking during this time. 

My question at this point is: How do I translate this conferring time and reflection time to productive math writing time?  Should production be a priority? Is it important that we do formal math writing, or is it enough for students to do smaller math writing pieces that reveal their understanding as they explain thinking and strategies?

Math Conferring

This year, I am working on connecting math and writing.  I have struggled with how to best help students explain their mathematical thinking.  This is the big challenge I have asked Michelle Jones to help me with during our coaching sessions.  First, I identified areas where my students are currently writing during the math workshop.  Students begin nearly every day with a small, manageable story problem.  They have a routine where they identify what they know and what they need to find out and list those items before trying to find a solution.  The other time students are writing is at the end of the workshop.  We generally have a question where students reflect on their learning.  Often the question will include a reference to their thinking such as, "In what ways did you determine importance in order to decide how to divide?" or "How did you monitor for meaning as you tackled story problems today?"  We will usually reflect at the end verbally about content specifically, then I will have them write about their thinking.  My problem is that I don't feel that I am doing a good enough job of knowing what the mini lesson is to help students improve their math writing. We keep trucking along, with no real improvement.

What is extending my thinking is the idea that math writing is so different than other writing we ask students to do, but what about the systems that I need to put in place to confer with students?  Could I use the same systems and routines that a literacy teacher does to help individual students?  I am currently doing lots of writing in my class, but I am not in touch with where students are in the writing process.  What about my "high fliers?"  Math writing is a place where I can really push my quick learners, but I don't have a good pulse of where they are in math writing.  How do I record my conferences?  I have tried many different methods and am trying to settle on one that will work for me an all my students so I can have a track record of all of our ongoing writing goals.

My challenge moving forward is to put together this conferring routine with kids.  I have a conferring notebook that I am going to start utilizing.  It is a very simple sheet, where I will put students who I want to confer with daily, every other day and weekly.  The space if very open so I can put any kinds of notes I think are appropriate.  My thinking is that I will schedule specific kids on certain days and write those conferences in my plan book to hold myself accountable.  For my initial conferences, I will ask kids to share with me their writing from the beginning of workshop and ask them to share with me what they think they could do to make it better.  This will help me not only assess their writing, but also assess their knowledge of what makes good math writing.  I am hoping this will help me guide future mini lessons.  I also am currently running invitational groups, where I ask kids to join me if they are needing a second look at the mini lesson before they move on to independent practice.  I want to keep that in place, so I am going to split my time, 20 minutes or so to confer with my list of students, 20 minutes or so to continue my invitational groups.  I am thinking of doing invitational groups second to encourage kids to try independent work first before they rely on me or others to get the answers.  At that point, they can join me if they need it.  I think there are students who avoid any struggle whatsoever. 

My question moving forward is: How do I create a system for conferring that will be sustainable?  I am frustrated that this is something I am still trying to figure out and when I look back at previous years, I have tried so many different methods, none of which have worked.