I have been very happy so far with my class' attempts at "make writing".  As stated below, I attended a camp with Angela Stockman, who has been promoting the concept.

Students working with blocks

       While we use the Teachers College curriculum, make writing can fit within most any framework.  Largely, I have been experimenting with two components: challenges and graphic organizers.  Challenges are brief (5-7 minutes) attempts by the students to build certain aspects of their writing.  For example, I might ask the students to build their setting, the main event of their small moment, or the thesis of their persuasive speech.

A student's "build"

        I feel the value of these challenges lies in the opportunity for the students to play with the materials while they are playing with the ideas.  Usually this play would take place with a pencil and paper, but many students are not prepared to play with words in this way.  It allows for the students to create and rehearse their thinking in a physical way.

        I have collected a number of different materials to keep these challenges fresh and varied.  So far my students have utilized modeling clay, wooden blocks, paper and pencil sketches, Lego, and "build bags". The example above right was created from a "build bag": a collection of objects such as Popsicle sticks, twist ties, straws, index cards, clothes pins, erasers, tiny Playdoh, and clips.  We have tried these challenges on a daily basis, and the students have grown in their ability to use these materials to work with their ideas, even as the challenge questions become more abstract.

A Small Moment arc made with Post-it notes

       After the challenge, the students gather for the mini-lesson.  The workshop proceeds in a similar fashion from there, with one major difference.  Students now create their writing with Post-it notes.  Our first unit focused on personal narratives, or small moments.  Students made a rainbow arc in their notebooks and placed small Post-it notes along it:

• Setting
• Event #1
• Event #2 (the "star" event)
• Event #3
• Closing

They then were able to add different colored Post-it notes to each event to denote dialogue, thinking, and/or feelings.  I liked this format as it made it easier for students to add to the middle of their narrative.  Stretching out their moments is one of the main goals of the unit.  Past efforts at revising usually caused my students to extend their narrative from the beginning or the end. 

Using Post-it notes for persuasive speeches

      In our second unit, my class continued using Post-it notes to structure our persuasive speeches (see left).  We used a larger light blue note for the thesis (what the speech is trying to convince someone) and light yellow Post-it notes for the reasons (why someone should be convinced).
       We also used salmon colored notes for the evidence and examples to support each reason.  In addition, we used green Post-it notes for the beginning and ending, and dark blue for the audience.
        This process of using Post-it notes as organizers has several benefits.  It allows each part of the persuasive speech (or small moment) to be moved or revised.  Students begin to see writing as something with an understandable structure that can be built or made.  Several parts of the writing process become more concrete.  Revision can be as easy as adding, removing, or replacing a Post-it note.  Organization is visual and physical - each reason row (or each event) can become a paragraph.  Students who have difficulty with sentences can be taught that each note is its own sentence.
      Just a couple months into the year and I am sold about the educational value of make writing.  I would suggest to any teacher (or writer) to give it a try.  My students and I jumped in this year, and it has already changed how we all look at writing.

This summer, I have been looking at my teaching from a different perspective.  Specifically, how am I preparing my students for success in their lives and work after college?  This question was largely sparked by reading the book Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era (by Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith), but also by college searching for my oldest son, who is going to be a senior in high school this year.  The book mostly addressed the middle, high school, and college levels, but had definite implications for elementary school.  The main ideas that I distilled from it were that we need a decrease of fact-based, static learning, and an increase in learning that emphasizes problem solving, student empowerment, and authenticity.

I also read two books by John Spencer and A.J. Juliani, Launch and Empower, which addressed the same themes and applied it to younger students.  These books certainly connected to my work with elementary dispositions.  The COVER dispositions - Collaboration, Optimism, Visualization, Experimentation, Reflection - in tandem with the Chappaqua Design Process (see below) give a frame and common vocabulary to this work.  I am feeling more comfortable with this disposition format, and am looking forward to using it to support my efforts to move my classroom in a more innovative direction.

Chappaqua Design Process

One other element of my planning for next year comes from the Make Writing Camp I am currently participating in with Angela Stockman.  This experience has convinced me of the value of treating writing as part of the design process and utilizing building ("making") as a way to spark ideas and play with words, phrases, and concepts.


I now plan to make some significant changes to my 3rd grade classroom for the 2017-18 school year, and look forward to seeing how they transpire.  All of them link to exercising and developing the COVER dispositions.

1) More flexible classroom set-up

I will be experimenting with making multiple work spaces around the classroom, instead of individual desks.  My hope is that this will encourage greater collaboration and allow for more opportunities to experiment and problem solve, especially in math, writing, and social studies.

2) Beginning math and writing with "challenges"

One aspect I felt my math teaching lacked last year was consistent opportunities for the students to problem solve in a way that developed collaboration, visualization, and experimentation.  I decided to begin my math lessons this year with a chance for the class to address an open-ended math problem in partners.  An "open-ended" problem would be more like: how many pizzas should we order if we had a class pizza party?  And less like: if a pizza has eight pieces, how many pieces would nine pizzas have?  My district currently uses Math in Focus, but I decided to go through some "math minute" materials I had saved from a number of older programs (like Math Land and Investigations).  I was able to find a number of "challenges" that met my criteria.  I plan to record and evaluate these as we go along.

Possible build materials

My work with Angela Stockman and "Make Writing" this week has convinced of the value of extending this thinking to my writing lessons.  An important aspect of this approach is to conceptualize writing as making (using the building blocks of words, phrases, and ideas).  Another aspect is to provide students a variety of avenues to tinker with writing concepts.  One way to do this is through "challenges" - opportunities for the students to build or draw based upon a prompt connected to a writing outcome.  For example, students could build their character in a way that shows a trait, or they could examine an object and draw a specific detail.  I plan to add these kind of challenges (also called "firestarters") to the beginning of my writing lessons.  I expect that this will develop the dispositions of Visualization and Experimentation.  It may also increase the Optimism that the students feel towards writing.

3) Move towards greater Authenticity

An area I continue to struggle with is finding authentic tasks and audiences for my third graders, especially audiences beyond the students' peers and parents.  I am inspired by Launch to renew my commitment to this aspect of the design process.  This will affect all areas of my classroom.  For example, I will attempt to choose authentic problem solving challenges in math; point towards more extended authentic audiences in writing; create authentic coding exercises and outcomes; and encourage authentic research, observation, and application in social studies.

4) Strive for increased student Empowerment

Page from Empower

The book Empower (see top) is interesting in that it is a call to give students more ownership and choice in their learning.  Part of this connects to their previous book, Launch, in that they encourage us to help students pursue their own interests and projects (and launch them).  However, they also extend this concept to all aspects of learning - including assessments, lessons, learning standards, etc.  While they recommend starting with a single project or Genius Hour format, they also encourage teachers to do a "choice-audit" of their classroom day to determine which elements allow for more student input.  It is this aspect that I intend to pursue this year - to look for ways to better
 include my students in the process of learning.

          My district has been implementing a coding project with our third graders this year utilizing Scratch.  It involves an educational fellow working with the district from LHRIC (Lower Hudson Regional Information Center).  She will come into our classrooms for ten sessions.
           The first five sessions focused either upon specifics of using Scratch (sprites, backgrounds, etc.) or upon elements of block coding (functions, loops, conditionals, etc.).  The remaining sessions will be used to allow the students to create a Scratch game.
           We decided to direct the students to make their games illustrate an aspect of our current Social Studies unit - which is the Arctic.  We hoped that they could connect an understanding of the adaptations involved in Arctic survival to their game.
          Most of the games that the students are creating center around chase games - such as a polar bear going after a seal, or an Inuit hunting a caribou - so the Arctic connection is rather loose.  However, the students are definitely learning to code.
         And what I see are the COVER dispositions in action! The students Visualize the way that they want their games to work.  They then need to Experiment with different ways to code their vision.  I feel they will better internalize the strategies they learn while coding their games, since they are in the service of their own goals.  The students Collaborate with each other to share ideas and strategies.  They have also shown Optimism in their pursuits.  The students feel that coding their game is within reach, although some parts of their plans may have to be revised.
       After the ten sessions are completed, we will see in the students' Reflections how they felt about the Arctic Scratch Project.

This month I have been focusing on presenting my class with Ozobot Challenges.  Each challenge so far has been organized around a simple rectangle.  Using color code stickers, the students attempted to get the Ozobot around the rectangle in either the fastest time (Challenge #1) or the slowest time (Challenge #2).

Collaboration Crab

Afterwards, I had them fill in the COVER reflection questions on Google Form.  I updated the form to include our two new mascots: Collaboration Crab and Experimentation Elephant (my class enjoys alliteration).

My goal now is to adjust the challenges in two ways.  First, I want to try to laminate the Ozobot mats.  I think the students will experiment more with their solutions, if they are able to remove and reapply their color code stickers.  On paper, the stickers were more permanent and harder to move.

Experimentation Elephant

Secondly, I would like to move away from -est type challenges (like fastest or slowest).  This tended to make the students competitive against other groups rather than focusing on their processing during the task.  My next task will focus more upon a challenge that the students either accomplish or don't accomplish.  One example is putting a plastic bowling pin in the middle of the rectangle and have them attempt to knock it over (using the line jump codes).  I think those type of challenges will offer better opportunities for the students to practice and reflect upon their COVER skills.

I have seen greater collaboration and willingness to experiment in the students work with Code Monkey challenges, which offer that opportunity to avoid -est and learn from failure.