Reading First Action Seminar

Los Angeles Unified School District

April 2005

Objective & OutcomesParticipants will:1. Assess the quality of the

evidence.2. Develop our understanding of the

elements of the narrative genre. 3. Analyze selections to experience

explicitly reading with a writer’s eye.

Creating a Learning Environment

Better quality questions result in more challenge to the thought processes of the brain (Berliner, 1984).

The ability to ask questions allows individuals to be creative, to imagine beyond what is given, to search for missing information, physical rationales, and human purposes that will explain the given (Harpaz & Lefstien, 2000).

Follow-up Conversation

Let’s look at our evidence.

Let’s learn together.

Objective & OutcomesParticipants will:1. Assess the quality of the

evidence.2. Develop our understanding of the

elements of the narrative genre. 3. Analyze selections to experience

explicitly reading with a writer’s eye.

What adds up to good writing instruction?

Knowledgeof the

Standards

Quality Writing

Instruction+Writing ProcessGenre + = ( )Conceptual

Development

Let’s talkWhy do humans

communicate?

Narrative writing is… Add your ideas to your Inquiry

Journal

Handing-Off

Discussion

Magnifying a Genre: Narrative

Use your teacher’s edition to find multiple opportunities to learn about and observe either Storycrafting lessons or Grade 2 lessons that have students “read with a writer’s eye.”

Action Steps How much do your students

know about narrative genre? Talk with your school team and

decide on the evidence that you will need to collect in order answer this question.

There is no room for failure… As pioneers, it is impossible to get it right the first time. No one has yet

drawn accurate maps - explorers learn as they go. The maps that pioneers create will make it easy for large populations to migrate easily to the future, but their own explorations require great sacrifice and constant learning. Our present culture doesn't support this kind of experimentation. We want right answers quickly; we ask people to demonstrate success early in their ventures. We evaluate them based on short-term measures. We seldom give adequate time for the explorations and failures that are part of mapping a new territory. Instead of offering additional resources to their explorations and experiment, we abandon them in favor of safer projects that employ familiar, flawed means.

-From Supporting Pioneering Leaders as Communities of Practice: How to Rapidly Develop New Leaders in Great Numbers