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CRCT

I wanted to write a blog post about CRCT because after being in a 3rd grade classroom these past few weeks I'm shocked at how intense the whole situation is. I remember taking standardized tests in elementary school, but it wasn't a big deal. About a week before they would remind us we have the test and tell us to get a good nights' sleep on those nights.

Now a month before the CRCT even started my teacher got every student a folder ready with tons and tons of worksheets. There were reading passages, math questions, and language arts questions. Everything resembled how it would look on the CRCT. She cut guided reading, and writing out of reading and writing time and it turned into reading passages and answering questions. We also taught test taking techniques like underlining key words, "taking out the trash" (cross out any multiple choice answers you know are "trash"), and "plug it in" (plug in the answer to the question to see if it makes sense)

All I have seen the last month is CRCT prep, even science and social studies has basically been cut off. There are test taking tips posted all around the school. I feel like there is so much pressure on these kids to pass and when a majority of them (especially in my class) are "on the bubble" (depending on the day could pass the test or fail it) it's really scary.

This past week one of my jobs was to cover every bulletin board, calendar, and alphabet in the classroom with butcher paper. No words can be on the wall, because this might help students find an answer on the test (I learned this from our teacher CRCT prep meeting) This meeting put pressure on the teachers too. Make sure they are bubbling correctly, but don't erase the stray marks without another teacher there or you can be accused of cheating. It's crazy.

Finally on Friday we had a "CRCT Pep Rally" Where there was a game show that students answered questions about test taking strategies. Then the 5th grade girls put on a "cheer show" with a CRCT cheer (Do your best to ace the test) After the cheer we had a fifth grade teacher do the CRCT rap and all the kids loved it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgSwRttJI6o&feature=related is they one he sang.

I'm just shocked at how much pressure is on this one test. It makes me sad that we are teaching kids how to take a test and many of them are worried they will fail and be in 3rd grade again.

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I know I'm a little late on it, but I wanted to write about how my teachers handled the Jamie Hood situation in class last week. On Friday the school was on a "soft lockdown" which means that we were supposed to stay in our locked classroom as much a possible, no outside recess, and students had to be escorted where ever they went (bathroom, water, other classes)

That morning during morning meeting after everyone had shared my teacher said "today all the flags are flying at half mast. Does anyone know what that means?" After some student guesses she explained it was a gesture of respect for Officer Buddy Christian because of what happened to him. Then she asked the kids what they knew about what happened this past week in Athens. A few of the commented "that someone had shot some police officers."

My teacher said that they were correct and "While our police officers were doing their job of keeping us safe that a man, Jamie Hood decided he was going to hurt them. Officer Christian was killed and another police officer was in the hospital." Then she asked the students if they had any questions or comments.

They went around the room sharing "I heard all those Hoods are crazy." to "my mom said we are going to go to the funeral on Sunday." Some questions they asked were "is him in jail yet?" My teachers was honest and said "No, the police are searching for him but they still haven't found him yet."

After each student had a chance to say something she said "My number one job at school is to keep you safe so lets not worry about this anymore..." After that discussion I didn't hear anymore talk about the situation.

I thought my teacher handled the tough situation very well. She gave them this basic facts without overwhelming them with information and listened to their thoughts and answered questions about Jamie Hood and the police officers.

Field Experience

Being at the school all week last week was really interesting. I am in a 3rd grade classroom and we have benchmark testing Monday and Tuesday. I had never been there before benchmark testing and I was shocked by how high pressure it was (and it wasn't even the CRCT) The students were talking about how nervous they were before the test. This was weird because in the days before the test my teacher had barely mentioned the benchmark so I was surprised by how much pressure these students felt to preform well on the test.

On Monday they took the math test. I thought it went pretty well. The students took around an hour and 1/2 to complete it and no one seemed bothered by the test. On Tuesday this changed. That was the day the kids were taking the reading benchmark. They were all a little nervous as the test was being passed out, but they seemed to calm down and get into a groove with the test after a few minutes. Except for one student Mike. I watched him roll through the first reading passage and I could see him thinking "this isn't so bad" but then he flipped the page and saw the next reading passage. Mike slumped a little lower in his seat. By the last reading passage he was all the way slumped down and so tired. I felt so bad for him.

I commented to my teacher about how intense I thought this testing was and she replied "this is nothing. wait until CRCT. They make us take everything off the walls, there is no recess. The school is basically on lockdown." I'm so sad that this is what teaching comes to at the end of the year.

Ch. 7, 8, and 19

Chapter 7 gave me some really great ideas on how to set up a classroom to try and avoid many of the typical writing workshop distractions. No classroom will be set up perfectly, but it's important to have a space where students come together to participate in the focus lesson. It's also important to have spaces where students can spread out and work comfortably on their writing. How the supplies are set up is also something to think about. I really liked the author's point about talking to students who use a lot of supplies about the "method of their madness." I often find my teacher limiting or reprimanding students who use a lot of paper, or tape, or whatever. But instead of jumping to "John, stop wasting all that paper" I need to ask students "john, will you explain to me what you are using this paper for?"

Chapter 8 is about the "slightly out of hand feeling" I know this feeling very well from my previous experience with writing workshop. It seemed as if each student was in a totally different place in the writing process, or there would be differences in how students write (quiet classroom vs. talking loudly or students would have papers, books, pencils spread out everywhere) and as someone who likes organization it would often overwhelm me. This chapter made me feel a little more comfortable with the idea of managing the out of hand feeling that happens during a writing workshop.

I really liked the idea of publishing deadlines. When I saw writing workshop the students knew their work would be published, but the teacher didn't really talk too much about it so it was hard for the students to see the goal of their writing (publishing and sharing their published writing with others)

Ch. 14, 15, and 17

These three chapters about conferring, sharing, and assessment were very interesting to read. I had seen what my mentor considered good conferencing, good sharing, and good assessment so I thought it would be interesting to see how it lined up with what the author considered good conferring, sharing, and assessment.

I like how the author broke a good conference down into four parts. The first part is research and I really liked how she not only read their writing to see where they were, but she also asked them questions about how they thought their writing was going. I had never heard of asking the student to describe how writing was going, so I thought that was a really cool way to hear what the students are thinking. I also liked her idea of keeping a record. When I saw writing workshop in the classroom my teacher always had trouble keeping up with where everyone was in the writing process. By keeping records about what happened at a conference then you help to eliminate this problem.

When I saw the title of the sharing chapter my first thought was great a whole chapter about sitting in a circle and having students share what they wrote. I had no idea how the author could write a whole chapter about sharing. But after reading it I was pleasantly surprised. She presented many ideas and different ways to have students share their work, besides the typical whole class share.

I liked the chapter on assessment because it presented an interesting way to assess that was unlike my experience with assessment in writing workshop. In the classroom I was in there was a grade wide rubric with different standards on it to assess the children's writing. I liked the author's ideas much better and hope to use them when I assess my future student's writing.

Chapters 9, 10, & 13

I was really excited/surprised to see a list of all the concrete, applicable ideas in chapter 9 that any teacher could incorporate into their writing workshop. I feel like a lot of our classes discuss theories, but never give real examples of how to put the theories into practice so this chapter was refreshing. This chapter gave me many real ideas that I could see myself incorporating into my future classroom.

I think chapter 10 really broke down writing curriculum easily in an easy to understand way. I feel like the Georgia Performance standards are a nit-picky, long checklist of things so this chapter was surprising because it covered the same curriculum but it painted the picture in broad strokes instead of small strokes.

Chapter 13 was interesting because it described the parts of a focus lesson. Last semester I saw my teacher's attempts at a focus lesson, but most of these lessons would fall flat. The students weren't interested in what she was reading and they were unable to make the connection from the lesson to their own writing so I'm glad this chapter gave me some ideas on how to create a good focus lesson.

The Writing Workshop Ch. 1-5

I was excited to start reading "The Writing Workshop" book, because last semester my mentor teacher used the writing workshop technique in her classroom. I didn't really like how she had set up her writing workshop so I was wondering if her use of the technique was typical or if there were other components that she left out.

I was surprised by one of the main goals in writing workshop is having teachers help students find good reasons to write. This idea is totally opposite of what I saw happening in my mentor teacher's classroom. There the students were given a topic orprompt by her that they had to write about. I think that when students pick their own topics they care more deeply about them and put forth their best effort.

I also enjoyed reading the pages where the author talked about what the tone of a classroom looks like and sounds like. I often think that tone only applies to talking so as long as you have the "right" tone when talking to your students then it should be fine, but after reading I realized that tone also applies to how the room is set up, what is on the walls, what materials are used, and many other things.