The Art of Teaching Children, page 16
One boy spoke up. “Mr. Done,” he said hesitantly, “it’s not funny.”
“Not funny?” I said, ego bruised.
Heads shook.
And then a child shouted out, “You should start over and write about pirates! That will sell!”
“Yeah!” everyone agreed.
We started science.
Balance Your Writing Program
There are two main schools of thought regarding the teaching of writing. One focuses on the process of writing, emphasizing brainstorming, free writing, and journaling. The second is focused more on the basics, including sentence construction and the instruction of grammar and punctuation. Each has its place. I recommend a balanced combination of both. Children need to brainstorm and free write and journal. They also need to learn that verbs should agree with subjects and that not all sentences should start with I. Have you ever been at a restaurant and ordered the combination platter because a little of everything was better than having just one dish? Well, that’s how I feel about teaching children to write. Give them the combo plate.
Remember Your Audience
Sometimes we ask kids to write things that aren’t very fun for them. Take research reports, as an example. These days, many third and fourth graders are required to write research reports with evidence. But is this really necessary? Students will be writing research papers all the way through college. Do they really need to write them when they’re nine? In all my years of teaching, never once did a child ask to write an extra research report with evidence. Children want to write about dream houses and pet rocks, magic hats and bicycles, the superpowers they would like to have, and what they would hide on top of their heads if they were wearing Abe Lincoln’s hat (oftentimes a kitten). They like to write about funny things such as April Fool’s Day pranks, how to catch leprechauns, the costume they think their teacher should wear for Halloween, and what they would do if they got trapped inside a snow globe. These are the kinds of things that excite children about writing. I realize that many teachers are required to follow a writing program. I did too. And I understand you have to cover all your standards. But that doesn’t mean you can’t supplement from time to time with assignments your children are excited to write about. In education, we often talk about cultivating a love of reading in children. Aim to make your writing activities lovable too.
Support the Reluctant Writer
Some students do not like to write. Actually, some are afraid of it. Once, I had a third grader named Joel who would cry all through the writing block. For weeks, he would sit with me at my desk, wiping away tears as he wrote, and I’d try my best to help him through it. Poor kid. Following are three strategies that work for students like Joel. Actually, they can help all of your kids.
The first strategy is to teach children that writing is talking on paper. I have a good friend named Debbie who teaches tap dancing. She tells her students to say the steps aloud as they make them with their feet. “If you can say the steps,” Debbie claims, “you can tap ’em.” Well, the same is true for writing. Saying the words helps you write them. If children are having trouble getting words onto paper, have them first tell you what they’re thinking. “Joel,” I’d say, “tell me one sentence. Just one. Nothing more.” Through his sniffles, he’d give me a sentence. “Good,” I’d remark. “Now, let’s write that down.” After he wrote the sentence, I’d ask him to tell me a second one, and he’d write that. We’d go on like this till Joel had written a whole paragraph. “Look what you just wrote!” I’d point out, running my finger under his sentences. “All these words just came out of your mouth. Writing is just talking on paper. You see? Now go blow your nose.”
The second strategy to help reluctant writers is to give them some of the words. In teaching, we call this kind of support a scaffold. It’s just like the ones that builders use to construct a house, but in this case, we’re giving them to children to help construct sentences. When teaching students how to write a paragraph with transition words, for example, provide them with a scaffold that looks like this: “I love school for several reasons. First, __________. Second, __________. Next, __________. Also, __________. Finally, __________.” Let the kids fill in the blanks. It’s okay to start children off this way. As your students write more paragraphs and gain confidence, you will take away the scaffold. Think of scaffolds as training wheels. Eventually, children won’t need them anymore.
The third strategy is to “chunk” the writing. Asking kids to write a whole story or multiple paragraphs at one time can be overwhelming. So, separate assignments into sections and spread the writing out over a couple of days. It’s less daunting. When your students finish, they will be proud to see how much they have on their papers.
A footnote: Joel made it through third grade. He got through college too. Over the years, he kept in touch with me via Facebook. One day when he was in high school, he wrote to me and said: “Hey, Mr. Done! I’m working on a college essay this week and guess what… I’m not crying! Ha! Ha!” This was followed by a row of laughing emojis with tears pouring out of their eyes.
Provide Sentence Starters
Who doesn’t like an appetizer? When writing, children appreciate starters too. One of my favorite ways to get kids writing was to provide them with the first few words of a sentence and let them finish the rest. Sentence starters, like scaffolds, relax students and allow them to focus on what they want to say and not stress about how to begin their sentences. Examples include: “Happiness is __________,” “Every child should __________,” and “I love my mom because __________.” I’d ask the children to write a couple of sentences using the same starter.
Before your students write their sentences, teach them to use specific language: Mac and cheese is more specific than food; freeze tag is more specific than game. Also, to get kids writing longer sentences and to practice using commas, which all kids need, ask them to include three different examples in each sentence. When structured this way, the sentences are often rich and charming, as you will see from the following ones written by my third graders:
Happiness is pillow fights with my brother while jumping on the bed, smelling clothes when they come out of the washer, and my dog’s wet nose when I come home from school (Mark). Happiness is seeing raindrops drop on the car window, looking at all my Halloween candy after I went trick-or-treating, and beating my mom in Uno (Tiffany). Happiness is hearing my hamster run on the wheel, handing in my no homework pass, and looking at the ground when I’m in an airplane (Galilea).
Every child should be the leader in follow-the-leader, play mini golf, and have a really special moment (Tim). Every child should count down till New Year’s, jump off a diving board, and make something you have never made before (Bailey). Every child should play in the rain (and the sun and the wind), decorate a Christmas tree, and have a cat wake them up (Zoey).
I love my mom because she lets me stay up until 9:30 on weekends, cooks me soft things to eat because of my braces, and lets me lick the spoon after we make vanilla cupcakes (Mitchell). I love my mom because she helps me with math like 3 x 7, lets me put my hand on the steering wheel when she is driving, and kisses me at night so I sleep really fast (Danielle).
Hold an Authors’ Tea
This is one of my favorite events of the school year. Long before the tea, ask your kids to write a story. I’d call their stories “manuscripts.” Children like this grown-up word. After taking your students through the writing process of editing, revising, and rewriting, have them write their final manuscripts in hardback blank books, or let them type their stories and then cut and paste them into the books. Blank books can be ordered online in different sizes. I recommend ones that are 8 ½" × 11". Children prefer the larger books, and they are easier to manage. In kids’ eyes, the hard covers are what make their books “real.” When writing in the books, have students leave space for illustrations. Also, ask them to reserve a few blank pages in the beginning of the book for the title page and dedication—which might be to a gold fish. If, after finishing the book, the children end up with extra pages, just take them out with an X-Acto knife.
After they’re done writing, let your kids illustrate their books, including the covers. Before they begin, discuss what makes a good cover design and share some examples. I suggest having students draw a mock cover first until they get it the way they want. On the back of the book, ask kids to write a short autobiography titled “About the Author.” Some of your junior authors will include make-believe websites and Facebook pages where readers can “visit” them. Once, a student of mine drew a large O in the corner of her cover. When I asked her what it meant, she happily informed me that Oprah had picked it for her book club. If you wish, you can also have children create dust jackets, including summaries on the inside flaps. If your students make dust jackets, some will include pretend bar codes, as well as the price of the book in both US and Canadian dollars.
When the books are complete, ask your kids to write invitations for the tea. Invite the parents, the principal, the librarian, and any support teachers who helped your students during the year. Hold the tea around noon so that parents can swing by on their lunch breaks. On the day of the tea, prop up all the books on the children’s desks, and set up a table or two for refreshments. Ask your room parents to bring in some cookies and punch, as well as tea and coffee for the adults. For the event, invite the kids to dress up. Dressing up, I’d explain to the children, makes any occasion more special. Some of my boys would bring in their dads’ ties and ask me to tie them. And some would have put on the ties themselves with the back part of the tie hanging longer than the front. I wouldn’t fix those. It was cute.
After you have welcomed your guests, let your students spread out around the classroom and read their books to them. All the kids will be reading at the same time. For a teacher, there is not much lovelier than seeing and hearing a room full of children read their writing to their proud moms and dads. When your kids are finished, direct them to serve the refreshments to the adults before having theirs. Practice this ahead of time. The parents will be charmed that their kids are serving them. Some will be speechless. A couple of them will look at their children and say, “Now you can do this at home.” I suggest holding your Authors’ Tea at the end of May or in early June. It’s a lovely way to celebrate your students’ writing and the end of the school year. Before the guests leave, have a grand book signing where all the kids sit at their desks and sign their books in their best handwriting while their parents hold up their phones to record the event.
Always Start Like This
No matter what the writing assignment, there is one very important thing that all teachers must do before asking children to write: Model exactly what you want your kids to do. If you ask students to write a story, compose one in front of them first. If you want them to draft a friendly letter, demonstrate how to write one. If you assign kids to pen a paragraph, show them how. When I speak of modeling, I don’t mean giving students an example that you copied out of the teacher’s manual. I’m talking about giving them your own example by standing at a blank board and composing a piece right in front of them. I’m talking about writing out loud.
We all know that one of the best ways to learn something is to watch someone else do it. Writing out loud is when you write something in front of children and verbalize your thoughts while you’re constructing it. Let’s say by way of illustration that you want your kids to write about those dream trips that I talked about at the beginning of this chapter. I’m suggesting that you stand at the whiteboard with your dry erase markers and describe your dream trip from start to finish. Let your students watch you struggle with that opening sentence. Talk out loud so they can hear your thoughts. Allow them to observe your scribbles and arrows. Let them see you scratch your head as you try to come up with the perfect word, then get excited when you think of it. By writing aloud, you demonstrate what real writers do. Kids don’t know what goes into a piece of writing until you show them. When writing this way, you’re pulling back the curtain to reveal what lies behind every piece of good writing.
This reminds me of a favorite story of mine. When film star Debbie Reynolds was still a teenager, she was cast in the classic movie musical Singin’ in the Rain. It was one of her first films. In the picture, Reynolds would be required to dance, but the problem was that she wasn’t a dancer. To get up to speed, she had to practice the dance routines sometimes up to fifteen hours a day. The young actress would cry every day in rehearsal. She thought she’d never be good enough. One day when she was whimpering under a grand piano, a man poked his head under it and asked what she was doing down there. The man was cinema’s greatest dancer, Fred Astaire. Reynolds told him what was going on and said she wasn’t going to make it. Then Astaire did something he never did. He invited Reynolds to his rehearsal. Astaire’s rehearsals were always closed. And there, with just the two of them and a piano player in the room, Reynolds watched Astaire practice his steps over and over and over again. She saw the work and sweat that went into making a dance perfect, even for the great Astaire. Finally, after about an hour, he walked over to her and said, “Okay, kid, you’ve seen what it takes. Now go out there and do it.” And she did.
Writing out loud is like that rehearsal. You’re taking your students behind the scenes of writing. Something special happens when children see their teacher writing aloud in front of them. It gives them the courage to try it themselves. It shows them that mistakes really are okay. For kids like Joel, all of a sudden writing isn’t so scary anymore. So whenever you write with children, invite them to your rehearsal. And always, always, always model it first.
A Word About Math
“What’s that?” Russell asked, pointing to the thick spiral-bound book that lay open on my desk, where I sat with a student. It was math time.
“The teacher’s edition,” I replied.
Russell leaned over it and looked more closely. “It has all the answers!” Immediately he grabbed the book and held it tightly to his chest. “I’ll give you a million dollars for it!”
I laughed.
Then he shouted to his classmates, “Hey, look! This book has all the answers!” Instantly a half dozen kids sprang from their chairs and ran toward us. I yanked the book out of Russell’s hands before things escalated into a full-blown game of hot potato, teacher’s edition.
* * *
Math time: the period in every school day when children work with numbers and teachers cling to their coffee mugs. In fact, of all the “times” in a school day—math time, reading time, writing time—I wouldn’t be surprised if researchers discover that math time is the one when teachers consume the most coffee. Why is this? For grade school teachers, the math period is almost always in the morning. Experts claim that children’s minds are freshest then. Well, kids’ brains might be fresh in the morning, but teachers’ brains surely aren’t. While many people begin their workdays at their desks with a coffee and a computer, teachers start their days with a coffee and a room full of children. During this time, we are expected to solve math problems on whiteboards without calculators when we still have sleep sand in our eyes.
I’m not complaining. I actually enjoyed teaching math. After all the years I taught it, I wouldn’t even venture to guess how many math problems I’ve written on the board or papers I have corrected or flash cards I’ve held up while waiting for children with cringed faces to try to remember the answer. In fact, sometimes I felt like a McDonald’s marquee. Years ago, McDonald’s restaurants used to post the number of hamburgers they had sold under the golden arches. As the years went by, the numbers would keep growing: “Over 5 Billion Sold.” “Over 10 Billion Sold.” “Over 20 Billion Sold!” Well, just change a few words, and you describe a grade school teacher to a T: “Over 20 Billion Math Problems Solved Here!”
After decades of playing Addition Fact Bingo (and fraction and decimal and multiplication fact bingo too), singing times tables, making stupid math jokes, and sucking in my stomach while wrapping a measuring tape around my waist so that my kids would understand circumference, I will share my thinking about math time. I won’t offer specific strategies here—just some general thoughts on what works and what doesn’t when teaching math to children.
Concrete Objects
When teaching kids any math skill or concept, begin your instruction using concrete objects. If you’re a teacher, I understand that I’m preaching to the choir here and saying something that you already know, but it never hurts to be reminded of this point every now and then. Take the problem 3 + 5 as an example. When children have three beans and add five beans to them, we call it “concrete” because they’re manipulating tangible objects. When students solve 3 + 5 on a piece of paper without anything to manipulate, we call this “abstract.” When teaching math, it is always best to move from the concrete to the abstract. C to A. It’s in the touching and holding and manipulating that the deepest understanding of math takes place. This is the reason elementary school teachers have closets packed with base ten blocks, Unifix cubes, geometric shapes, tangrams, number tiles, play money, geoboards, and pattern blocks. This is why we store plastic pizzas cut into slices that kids will pretend to eat while practicing fractions.
When introducing children to multiplication—an abstract concept for kids that requires a lot of work with real objects—have them build multiplication problems with all sorts of things before giving them a piece of paper with problems to solve. When teaching graphing, hand students a cup of different-colored Smarties or gummy bears or conversation hearts—heck, even the marshmallow shapes in Lucky Charms—and let them make their graphs before ever picking up their pencils and markers. When teaching area, another concept that can be hard for children to comprehend without the concrete, have your kids put together different-sized rectangles with Cheez-Its, then figure out the area of each one. Of course, when they’re finished, let them eat their math. When beginning your fraction unit, give children long strips of construction paper and ask them to fold the strips to make halves, a second time to create fourths, once again to get eighths, and finally, though it takes a lot of muscle, one last time to make sixteenths. No matter how hard it is for little hands to fold a paper into sixteenths, all kids will press, push, pound, hammer, and wrestle that paper to the ground till they’ve made them.
