The final ELA Leadership Team meeting for the school year began with teachers sharing a meaningful photograph from their cell phone. In addition to finding out that one group of teachers was all from Nanuet, people shared pictures of children, grandchildren, pets, rescued animals, and plants given as gifts by former students.
The team reviewed feedback from last meeting’s K-5 Instructional Rounds and the beginning of the Next Generation ELA Standards crosswalk for grades 6-12. This also served as the transition to looking at K-12 grammar instruction, specifically related to what students will be expected to know according to the new standards. While we are currently raising awareness in Phase I of this process, the standards will be fully implemented in September 2020.
After reviewing research which shows that teaching grammar in isolation is ineffective, the team broke into groups by school to examine how the specific conventions of academic English grammar and usage are being covered in appropriate grade levels within each unit of study. We noted that grammar is embedded in parts of the Teachers College units, group work, mini-lessons, or explicitly taught after identifying a specific need. We looked for evidence of coverage and for gaps between what we teach and what students will be expected to know. This led to a great discussion of whether these skills transfer from assessment to assessment or grade to grade, possible reasons why skills may not always transfer, and what we can do to enhance learning. In addition to changing a few of our rubrics, the team agreed to look for more ways to raise awareness of the vocabulary associated with these conventions across all disciplines and grade levels. We agreed that knowing what was covered in previous grades would enhance instruction in subsequent years and discussed creating a shared document to include important pieces of the “toolkits” we provide to students along the way.
Finally, we discussed plans for summer literacy and identified goals and ideas for the team to focus on next year, including expanding classroom visits through Instructional Rounds.
Written by:
Mark Stanford and Joe Onativia, Instructional Literacy Coaches
