ATTENDEES

Fairhaven: Joel Gillman, Stephanie Strow, Susan Chase-Foster, Nathan Cornelson Kulshan: Shuksan: Carolynn O'Donnell, Katie Brown, Ariel Everhart, Molly Johnson, John Sage Whatcom: Michael Owens, Nadine Gfroerer

OUTCOMES

To provide consistent, powerful instruction in all classrooms across our district by learning from each other and refining our individual practice

OBJECTIVES

New/Shared – By sharing experiences with implementing the 6 traits, teachers will refine their practices, the structures, and the management of their own writing program

Alignment - Through a protocol for problem solving issues schools will share strategy for implementation and identify implications for district programs, curriculum and instruction.

NEW LEARNING

The sixth grade District Writing scores were shared with the group. Teachers discussed current instructional practices for 6 Traits Writing to begin thinking about what are the critical elements of a successful writing program.

SHARED

Teachers told about an instructional strategy that they used to support the teaching and learning of the 6 traits, talked about the key instructional elements of the strategy that make it successful with students and shared evidence of success (how do you know this strategy works?). They described how this strategy aligns with the writing process and they answered the question, ‘Are there any special management/conditions that are needed when implementing this strategy'.

ALIGNMENT

Teachers used a protocol to guide a discussion of a current challenge. In school table groups, teachers decided on a question and shared it with the other schools. Next staff asked clarifying questions and discussed possible answers or solutions.

How do you create life-long readers?
How do you encourage student responsibility for learning?

7 TH GRADE SUGGESTIONS & KEY LEARNINGS

SUGGESTIONS

• It was very helpful to have time to speak to others in my grade level. This was by far the best meeting ever!

• This was way better than the last one. I appreciated the time we had for authentic questions. I don't think the 6 Trait stuff was as useful.

• Let us share.

• Have topic ideas brainstormed before the meeting and communicate before we meet so we can come with ideas/questions.

• Use the open forum where people can bring up any topic they want like we did today.

• I appreciated letting us share questions that we had. It was helpful to address issues pressing for us as classroom teachers instead of administrators. Nice meeting!

• If we are going to explore feedback, can we explore the impact of feedback that is as much creative as it is corrective?

• I think we should explore, engage and synthesize, discuss lesson ideas and maybe we could each bring one we have not yet tried on our class and we could do them – pick and choose one you want to do. Come back together after 2 hours and discuss.

KEY LEARNINGS

• It was powerful sharing whole group and I can truly say I learned more today relevant to 7 th Grade reading, writing and SS than in past meetings.

• Six Trait Ideas