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Hey there. Fabulous teacher. Have you been wondering how to make writing time in your classroom more effective for your students? Do you want your students to love writing time? If so, I think it's time for you and I to start transforming your writing instruction. I'm Melissa Morrison and I have a passion for helping teachers to feel confident in teaching, writing, and help them grow successful writers. I've worked with numerous teachers to guide them through this transformation, and in this podcast I bring you the practical strategies you need to make writing the best time of your day. Let's get going. We've already talked about so much, and I haven't even picked up the book or anything. And so I wanna look. I, I would actually just love to read the, I, I might even read the whole first page that you have in here because I think it's so significant and I hope that people will listen to it and then go read the rest of your book if they haven't already, because I think Any educator, regardless of whether or not you teach reading or writing would benefit from so many of the ideas that you have in the book. So if you don't mind yeah, go ahead. Yeah. The time has come to shift how we think about writing in our schools. Writing has come to be synonymous with following strict outlines, responding to prompts, and awaiting irrefutable judgment from the teacher for a final verdict on the quality of a piece. Writing has been dehumanized for the most part, by a system that's overly obsessed with grades and with quantitative data over qualitative data, I propose we shift away from this limiting system and look at the writing our students are doing, and the writing we are doing with them as the act of bringing our inner lives and voices and our souls into the world around us. Writing is far more than just responding to stimuli or performing for a grade. It is intrinsically tied to the self, our hearts. Faults, feelings and desires. It is deeply personal, powerful, and transformative. I propose that our classrooms should be places that honor this deeper understanding of what it means to bring our inner lives into the world, concurrently honoring the lives of everyone in the writing workshop. That's good stuff right there, Mr. Chastain. Thank you. Yes, you're welcome. And I, I just wish that. There was more thought about what is happening with writing in our schools. And as you were saying that depending on the testing grades Mm-hmm. whether or not writing is more prevalent in that year's worth of schooling. But I think that it's also, and for who knows all the reasons because of reading Issues that have come to light. And so we're push on different parts of reading. But writing has, I have not noticed in any teacher that I've spoken with across the country, coaches in my own schools that it's been, it's almost never been, a priority or something that we're looking at, and teachers don't have the training on it. Their time isn't set for it in their schedule. And also just though all these struggles come up with, well, when I do writing, this happens, it's like, well, why can we think about why that's happening? And I think if we just spend enough time, With people doing that, really thinking like what is happening with our students and what is happening in our writing? And what would you, how would you enjoy that? You know, what would that be like for you? I Think there would just be a beginning of that change there. I wanna hit on something you just said because I think it's super important to talk about you. You mentioned the, the lack of focus Mm-Hmm. on writing in schools and it's 100% true. It's absolutely true. The, the, the ELA and literacy wars are almost predominantly focused on reading. It's, you know, the, right now for, you know, people that maybe not be in the minutia of everything. You know, it's the, the whole what is science of reading? Is it as valid as everyone's saying? Is it, as you know, is, is there a real science of reading or is that just a catchall term for certain things, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Writing though, there is no writing war, right? There's no writing conversation. There's a small group of educators who are all kind of trying to support what writing looks like, but increasingly, curriculums don't even really care about it. It's all writing in response to something. Mm-Hmm. it's writing to Perform. And this is, I think, really interesting 'cause when we look at our curriculum, there's different versions of, of writing that, that we can focus on. And so, for instance, when you read I've talked to teachers like, oh yeah, my kids write. I'm like, how do they write? Oh, yeah. You know, they, they write in their journals every day after they do independent reading. Mm-Hmm. Cool. That is one type of writing, but that is, that, that's writing in response to something that's a very specific kind of writing. How often are kids writing because they're exploring an idea. Or because they had a response to something that you did in your mini lesson or they had an idea at home, and this is really coming up here. How often do kids really get to choose the genre that they write in? Right? I know not every standard is as wide to hit every genre as possible. Mm-Hmm. I'm perfectly aware of that. Mm-Hmm. But a lot of standards are, and there's a lot of standards that fit in multi-gen. I'll give you an example. I was working when we did our standard reboot over here in Texas. There were, we had the new standards early, but they weren't really in curriculum. And so I, at the time, I was a literacy coach. I had one class of 20 while I went and coached other teachers at the other periods. And in this class of 20, I started experimenting, right. And I started just like really having fun and, and looking at the new standards. And I looked at arguments and I was like, okay, so. I, has anyone ever heard of Bob Marley? Bob Dylan, the Beatles rage Against the Machine, right? NWA. Like all of these things are persuasive arguments in music. Mm-Hmm. There's movies. Yes. There's, you have your, your Spider-Man, and you have the Avengers and stuff, but you also have movies that really Argue a specific point. Mm-Hmm. a deeper meaning. You have novels that do this, right? There's Harry Potter does this on, on a, on a very simple level, but 1984 does it on a whole different level. And so you have these, or the giver, right? The giver versus the outsiders is one that always used for middle school teachers. Mm-Hmm. And it's like the, the Outsiders is a good book, and it's good and it's great, but like the giver is, there's an argument being made about society, about what it means to be a human. And so when I was looking at teaching argument for kids, I said, Why do I have to limit this to writing an argumentative essay, right? So I said, we'll teach the essay. I'm gonna teach the argumentative essay 'cause it's in my curriculum. And then I turned around and said, all right, kids. Now we've looked at this argument, we looked at how poems can be arguments. We looked at how a short story can be an argument, and we looked at how an article can be an argument. You pick the next genre that we're gonna do a whole nother argument and or change your argument into that genre. Mm. And so it taught kids, okay, so what does it look like to advocate in an essay then, or argue in an essay? What does it look like to argue in a poem? Mm-Hmm, And then what that did is that started breaking their. Misconceptions about writing that this the things that we're talking about when kids, when teachers are like, all right, kids, we're in the argumentative unit. We're gonna be reading this. It's like, no, like argument can go into so many things. And what happens though when you break that typical mold and let kids explore, but you're showing them stuff. It's not just go explore. It's, I'm putting mini lessons, I'm putting thought into how I'm showing them to walk through these things, right? How to think through these things. But what it does is it empowers them because they're like, oh, I have so many choices. There's so many things I can do. anD it, and it really creates this freedom. But when we talk about the, the reasons why we should talk about writing is that transcends their understanding of genre as readers. Mm-Hmm. So the fact that writing isn't being. Paid attention to is affecting reading because to understand something as a reader is one thing to read like a reader, right? Right. I'm enjoying it. I'm thinking about characters. How does it relate to me? But then to look at it as a writer and go, okay, so how did the writer do that? Guess what happens when you know the skills of persuasion you can Realize that's happening. When you hear the news, when you read an argumentative article, right, a persuasive article, you notice you're not being persuaded by this argument in a tweet because you're like, oh, I understand. I understand the, the form that they're doing there. So teaching writing helps kids be better readers. Yet we don't focus on it at all. And I think it's just a huge misstep. It is, absolutely. It's, it's so, I sometimes I'm just, I don't get it. I don't get it. We gotta get it in there. What's going on? You know? And the way you were speaking about teaching that argument in that way. It, it does so many things. It, it provides them the. That choice. Right. And it empowers them, but it gives them so much more practice than just choosing one way to write it. Right. And sometimes I think we do either shorten, either shorten that little unit that we, if we wanna do it or we belabor it. Right. And, but you want them to practice it so many times and in so many different ways. So that's very helpful in that way too. It, I was listening and as you said, break the mold and we're so afraid to break the mold. We're so afraid to do something differently. We, and I hear it all the time, teachers say this whatever resource program part of our curriculum is not working for my kids. Which to me sounds like, okay, you wanna do something that meets the needs of this class right now and, you know, it's always different or for, you know, what have you. Mm-Hmm, But then when opportunity often is provided To break the mold to just, let's see what happens. It's so scary. Yeah. And so hard for them. I want to can we, like, I feel like it's important to also point out that. You know, a lot of the reasons why teachers are afraid to do it is because of the way principals and curriculum leads and districts control teachers. Right. Right. I mean, it's fidelity. People are afraid. Yeah. They're, yeah. We're gonna do this with fidelity, right? Mm-Hmm. this is our new program. We're gonna do your scores. We're down. So we're doing this. And guess what we're gonna do walks, and we're gonna be analyzing this very specific thing, and we're gonna send you to trainings about this and It beca it becomes this really combative stance. Right? One of the reasons I went into administration was because I had great principals that weren't like that, where they were very, they partnered with me and they listened to me as the educator and they trusted me. Sure. Did they see things from a bigger viewpoint? 'cause they're looking at a whole school. Mm-Hmm. And so they pushed back on some of my ideas or some of the things I'm wanna do. Absolutely. Did they have to reign me in sometimes because Mm-Hmm, I like to break rules, absolutely. But the ones I respected, honored that, and worked with me through what inspired me as an educator. And, but there's tons of people who don't do that. I, you know, doing the Teach Me Teacher podcast for so long and craft and draft. The one thing I've heard from teachers over and over and over again is like, I don't have freedom. My principals don't support me. Right. I'm the only one on my team who's even reading pd. Everyone else is, you know, they're just like showing up, doing what is everyth in the curriculum, doing the PowerPoint that was pre-made. Mm-Hmm. for a different class or that they bought on teachers, paid teachers, or whatever. They're going home. And so a lot of people get frustrated because they're like, I, I don't even know how to break the mold, because it's like, am I gonna get in trouble? Am I just gonna ostracize myself from my team? What if I do it and I fail? And then everyone goes, see, we told you not to break the mold There's, there's a million reasons why, but I wanna tell people after that. That honoring where the, the very truth of what a lot of teachers are. I think it's also important to tell them that there is bodies, and bodies and bodies of research that backs everything we've said on this podcast. Mm-Hmm. and everything that you teach about on, on your other episodes, there's. None of this is being just spoken about because it's our opinion. Mm-Hmm. This is stuff that we've put into practice, that we've worked through, that we've seen work, but it's also stuff that is backed by the giants that came before us. You know, Donald Graves, penny Kittle, Lucy Calkins. There's, there's so many people who have gone through. Done a lot of the, the, the research and a lot of the real world practices of this, that it's something, it's not just invented today. Mm-Hmm. this is workshop has been around since the eighties. Mm-Hmm. really since the late seventies. If you want to really count like the early studies. This isn't something that is the new catchall. Right. And I get it. It's not as flashy and it might be a little scary, but this is, I, I think that just like when it comes to like, oh my God, I know something's wrong. I wanna do something different. Have the confidence that this has, I. Research backed behind it, and maybe don't dive into that first, dive into the other things that are maybe a little bit more accessible, But go read the research. I always say like, don't, don't just take people's word for it. Go read the citations in, in these larger books that talk about workshop, they're there. It's not like this is just a choice. And so I think, you know, have, have comfort in that when it comes to breaking the mold. Oh yes. Thank you for sharing that. And I, and I certainly agree that it all the way teachers feel often is coming from what's above them and then those people from what's above them. Sure. It's this system. And you spoke before about the quick fix that, that's it right there. A hundred. You say the scores are coming down and so we need to quick fix this. So that next year, the scores are not worse, and so we're going to quick fix it by giving you this program or doing this instead of really looking at what is happening. Finding out what's working, what's not working, and all of that. So yes, it's, it's a part of a much larger issue. But that's why it's so important for us as teachers and, you know coaches and all of that, to really be aware and to still to just to try it and think about what's going on. 'cause it's still our kids in our classroom that we're responsible for And I think it's just important to remember that and then make decisions based on the students in our classroom. and what we feel is best for them. So what I wanted to talk about next is in. chapter five, the writing conference as a connection and I love that title, but in On page 52, you talk about there's no step-by-step approach. And the line that I had underlined here was, while there are programs packets and beautiful graphic organizers available to purchase online that promise to streamline conferences, there is no way those could ever come close to the effort you put into knowing each one of your students deeply with the goal of serving each in the ways that they need to be successful in the workshop. And we kind of hit on this a little bit about trying to find exactly what your writer is doing or what they need. Mm-Hmm. But I know that again, sometimes this, this worry of getting them to write, you know, and hitting our expectations and doing our curriculum. Sure. We feel that the time it takes to really talk to our writers is not. We can't spend time on that, right? Mm-Hmm. I don't wanna say that teachers don't think it's valuable, because I'm sure they do. Sure. But it's hard for them to feel as though they can really take the time to do that. And I talk a lot to them, and again, I, you know, I am a little bit more in the lower grades, although I, I have worked with the upper grades, but really for everybody, like I say to them, I want you to get in their head and try to let them show you what happens when they go to write. So what questions can you ask them to be able to get in their head? Because we really wanna know, when I see that student stop writing or what have you, I can guess why I could make a guess and an assumption, but I don't really know. And when you start to ask questions, you find out so much from them. So I, I really loved reading that my, you know, to that point, I, I dealt with a lot of. The, those questions. Right. Because it's not a by and large, you know, I, I, I really love educators because educators are problem solvers. Mm-Hmm. And I love, I love teaching teachers because I. They ask like the most pointed questions. Mm-Hmm. Because they've, they all see, we've all been in a classroom and we all know the exceptions to everything that can happen in a classroom. Right, right, right. And so it's, it's so fun to really dive for me, it's fun to dive into the nuances of someone's problems and that's why I love gonna trainings and then I end up in conversations with people afterwards all the time because I just like listening to kind of their, okay, you said this, but for conferences, I, here's the thing. I think that starting, if you feel like if, like if you're awkward about talking about writing or if you're a teacher that doesn't feel good in your own writing. One, you need to be writing so much or as often as you can that you learn how to talk about writing. Yes, because that's that, that's number one. It's if you're not writing yourself, and I'm talking like really writing. Writing what your kids do. Like Penny Kittle has a great quote where she says she didn't realize how bad her writing assignments was were until she did them. Yes. And she was like, oh, well this is why my kids aren't writing. Or, or, you know, maybe she did create a good assignment. And she's like, oh, but I see why they're. Like why this piece is a struggle? 'cause it's a struggle for me. And a lot of teachers are like, well, I'm not a good writer. I haven't been writing that long. I, you know, I don't publish, I don't do any of those things. Mm-Hmm. you don't, you don't have to be the best writer. You are the most experienced writer in the classroom. Right. You're the most experienced thinker in the classroom. Mm-Hmm. And so bringing your knowledge of, Hey guys, I was writing this last night and I got stuck on this line, and I kind of wanted to just talk about that. And so for five minutes you walk around, or if you didn't want to do it as a, as part of your lesson, I would have my journal with me. 100%. Especially in my, the group that I did rightfully empowered with I was doing like slam poetry and I was trying to Mm-Hmm write with them and show them what I was doing. And I would sit down and be like, I was like, okay, so you first tell me where you're at. And like I would sit there and listen as a fellow writer and I would get them to talk with me. Just what are they thinking about? What are they, going through. And so we would do that, and then I would show them mine. And what ended up happening is I empowered them to help me. Mm-Hmm. And to look at my stuff. And that is a really advanced version of writing conferencing to me. Mm-Hmm. that is like, you're, you're firing on all cylinders. You have writers in your classroom. They see you as a fellow writer, not necessarily their, their boss. And so there's this really great relationship that's like ideal. They didn't start that way. Right. It started with me inviting them to write Mm-Hmm. And so we would have writing time and I set the precedent that we write during this time, and we went through all the phases, what I talked about earlier on the podcast that do we write all the time? Mm-Hmm. no. Is it okay to have music? Yes. Like this is the time for all of that stuff is in place. But you walk around and at first for sixth graders is what I realized. They would all write, but they would, it's all creative writing. It's stuff from, you know, fifth grade, fourth grade. It's the stuff they've been doing forever, but inevitably they'll stop. Right? Mm-Hmm. they'll run out of the Two ideas that they've been writing about for the last five years, right? Mm-Hmm. And so I would go sit down and I would go, so whatcha thinking about? And. It would be that. But it was also what I would do, especially in these early times when I was building those early relationships. I would just talk to 'em. I would literally not even talk about the writing, right. I would for a second, but if they're stuck, I'd be like, Hey. So, you know, and I would ask questions about, Hey, I met your mom at Meet the Teacher. Mm-Hmm. You know, she seems really cool. Like, do you, is dad around? You know, like just asking questions. Oh, I saw that you play sports or whatever. Just anything I could do to latch onto them. And then once I started really talking to them, I would eventually latch onto something that they cared about. Right. And it might take a few conferences, right? Not every kid is gonna open up immediately. Mm-Hmm. You might not have a connection with every kid. Every we, we've all felt that, right? No matter how grave an educator are, sometimes you're just like, I can't find the connection to this one person, but. Me having those conversations with no really ulterior motive, other than what I would do is I would jot notes about them. Mm-Hmm. And I'd be like, okay, parents are divorced, loves football. Really is crazy about this anime show. Mm-Hmm. Hasn't really read a book, but their favorite book is amulet. Right. And so I would kind of do that and, but eventually we would hit on something they cared about. And I would say, you know what? You sound really passionate about that. I would love to hear more about that. Could, how much do you think you could write about that? Mm-Hmm. And so it was almost talking with them long enough to where they realize they have things to write, right? It's that they're not used to finding out, they're not used to picking out the good ideas in their minds. Mm-Hmm. right? Like when an experienced writer sits down. We can sit down and we can hash out stuff, but we know when we're just kind of phoning it in or we know like, oh, I, I'm, I really got something here. Mm-Hmm. this is interesting. Mm-Hmm. something that I care about. Young people don't have that yet, especially if you're in the younger grades. They don't know what ideas are good or what ideas can be flushed out or what ideas are, you know, kind of half baked and may not go anywhere. Right. So we, we have to work with them to get them to go, you know what? I think that's a good idea. Let's try it. And then you come back the next day and you're like, Hey, I saw you stopped writing on that. Like. Yeah, it didn't work. Okay, so why didn't it work? And so you go through that process. So I would say start conferences there to where you just talk to your students. The expectation is that they're writing. Mm-Hmm. the expectations that they have a writing goal. Mm-Hmm. But when you're going around, have that conversation first and then I. The conversations about what they're writing will really start naturally. That's why I say like, you can have printed questions like, what are you writing about? Where do you see your writing going? Right. You can have all of those. I just feel like they're, it doesn't leave enough room for just listening to the kid and really hearing what they're telling you. Does that make sense? Yes. And it's, and it's building that relationship that not only is important for a teacher and student anyway, but when you want a writer to feel comfortable, that's necessary you to have that relationship. And so when you are sharing your writing, you're building that trust with them, right? And that relationship. Mm-Hmm, But then you're also just like, Hey, I just wanna talk to you. And, and that's important for any, I think that would be helpful for any writer at any level, for them to just feel comfortable and just stop with that feeling of expectation. Right. Or I'm supposed to do this right now. I'm supposed to be having this, I think, I think I even see that in the youngest writer. Like, what, what does, what, what does she want me to say? You know? Mm-Hmm. That right there. That right. That is what I wanna break. I don't care. Right? I don't want you, when my writers are in my space, I do not want them ever to go, oh my God, what does Chastain wanna see? Right? I don't want that at all. What I want them to see is I want them, what I want them to be like, oh, I wrote something. I want to show Chastain. What does he wanna see? But what do I wanna show him? Mm-Hmm. And so, because I, the kids don't have to know that we're focusing, like when I'm walking around, I'm focusing on the things that I need to do to get them to grow a hundred percent right. Right. But I'm doing that in a way that they understand. I'm talking to them relationally. I'm talking about their lives. We're talking, I'm teaching them how to talk as a writer very slowly, right? And, and so it breaks that mold and eventually. It stops going, okay, I need to write this. So Chastain approves, it's, oh my God, I wrote this Chastain, come look. And those are two vastly different conversations. Yeah. And when they start wanting to show versus they just want to perform. Yeah. That's like, that's like the name of the game. Yes, absolutely. And I think when teachers, and this is actually the other page I was gonna talk about in the book, about thinking about the outcome and wanting this equal outcome that you, you talk about for everyone. And I think that. We are so worried about that outcome, right. And what it's gonna look like. But even if we did that and we thought that even if we agreed that that's okay, we have an outcome, we want everybody to have that outcome. Okay, fine. How are you gonna get it? Mm-Hmm, how are you gonna get it if you don't build all of that that you were just talking about with your writers and you don't have a relationship and you don't build their confidence and you don't have them find meaning and, and wanting to write. How will you ever get that? Right? So, but we don't want that, right? We don't want the equal outcome. But that's the, the last thing I was gonna bring up was from page six, what to expect, and this is just in the beginning of the book, right? Let's see. You talk about. tHat the human spirit is not standardized and being empowered to use and hone their voices in the classroom should be a fundamental right for all students in their wonderful diversities, including but not limited to their neuro racial and gender diversities. This is not to be confused or conflated with a call for equity. Equality, sorry, of outcome or the idea that everyone ends up in the exact same place while an Empowered Writing workshop aims to have every student improve their command of language and writing, striving for a quality of outcome runs the risk of not honoring the diversity present in all our classrooms because people with vast differences will have vastly different outcomes. And you do go on, but I, you know, yes. We all, one of the first things teachers ask me. About writing instruction and writing is and especially if they don't have anything in place, you know, in their curriculum they'll say, but what do we want them to be doing? You know, what is the expectation? What should a third grader be doing right now? Mm-Hmm, And I wanna say, I don't know. I don't care. that's what I wanna say, because, but we do, we have, teachers have a mindset because principals have a mindset. Sure of, you know, we're trying to get to this place. But I always just feel it's, regardless of what that place is, I have to know where my writers are now anyway. Right. And I have to know Right. What they can do. The, you know, it's funny, I'm so glad you picked that line to talk about, I have wanted to talk about this on a podcast forever. Mm-Hmm. because it's, it, it's, to me that argument. Is present throughout the entire book, and it's, it's one of those things that I, I wrote as a writer in the sense that. I didn't want the whole book to drown in it, but I wanted the fundamental point to be made because it's a, it's also a political point, which is the, the equality of outcome, right, is different than equity of access. And so equity to access is, everyone has the right to, to have access to literacy, right? Everyone has the right to have access to books that they care about and to write about what they want, and we can set those parameters. We can control how we begin kids on their path of literacy, right? Or how we begin their journey of that in our classrooms. We have control over that. We don't have control over. Where they start, by the time they get there, we don't have control over the lives. They live at home. We don't have control over their, just their intellectual capacity. Right? Mm-Hmm. We live in a world where every, they wanna make everything kind of neutral and stuff, but I, I, I have a son with special needs. I don't want him treated like every other kid, right? Mm-Hmm. I want him to have the same access as to stuff, but there's also things that he just simply doesn't have access to because of his autism. Mm-Hmm. So there is. Like speaking from that standpoint. Yeah, it sounds great. Okay. Let's make everything just on an even playing field and go, and we're going to end it this way. My son is gonna end up in a far different place than the GT kid who excels at abstract thought, right? Mm-Hmm. There's mm-Hmm. They're going to be different and that's okay. Mm-Hmm. We live in a world where that isn't necessarily kosher to say all the time. And it's this weird school paradigm because the standardization of what progress looks like misinterprets the growth of students. And so this is where I say like. We know standardized testing is a thing, right? I talk about it all the time. I would literally, at a school when I got hired, TEA was in the building. Mm-Hmm. basically about to take us over, right? Mm-Hmm. I had been in a failing school. Mm-Hmm. I understand what those conversations are like, but you know how we fixed it? We focused on literacy practices. The, the principal that finally came, we partnered, I partnered with her, and we created a writing It wasn't a writing program, but it was a focus on writing in every class. Mm-Hmm. And we studied it as. Teachers, we took all of their writing. I read literally 800 pieces every six weeks in order to not judge every piece. Mm-Hmm. But it was to go, okay, so this is where we're at on a literacy time, on a, on a literacy continuum on our campus. Mm-Hmm. And then we, I took it to trainings for the teachers and I said, look at this. Look at how this kid wrote in math. Mm-Hmm. And look at how they wrote in social studies. Why are they so vastly different? Mm. Is it because of the expectations that we're holding in the classroom about what. Using language is and math versus social studies. Mm-Hmm. And so we started tightening up that language, but we never said every kid has to be, at this point, by the end of the year, it's we're gonna do growth. Right. And so we tracked growth. We had growth that we had to do because we had to get the, the state test up to a certain point. Right? Yeah. That's a non-negotiable. But in order to fuel the soul of teachers, in order to fuel the soul of students, we kept portfolios. Mm-Hmm. And so kids. every time they published a piece, which in our, my term here when I say publish, is they did everything on paper in journals. And then when they finally typed it up and did kind of the last formatting of everything that was publishing Mm-Hmm. And so. Every piece that they published went into a portfolio. And so at the semester they go back and they go, oh my God, look at all the things I've written. Mm-Hmm. Look at all this. Okay. So we reflect on that. We talk about our growth as writers. What is, how much better are you doing? And at the end of the year, they're like, holy crap, what was I even doing? Yeah. This time? And it worked every time. And so. We kids saw their growth. We could look to parents and say, look at what your kid's doing right now. I know they made a 65 on this writing test, but look at the growth that we've seen here. And so I always talk about the preponderance of evidence that you have your standardized evidence that you have to have. Cool. Let's honor the other 75% that actually matters to get kids on a trajectory where they're gonna be successful years down the line, not just on this test for this year. Right. And. That to me is something that I'm deeply passionate about and it's why I also wanted to go into administration. 'cause I wanted to preach that to teachers and be like, look, let's handle The state piece because we have to. Mm-Hmm. But let's also not forget about the 75% of all this other stuff that really sets kids up on, on a path of success, on such a deeper level. And it works. It just works. And it, you see the growth in the kids. But it's all because we're honoring, Hey, look. You came to my classroom barely to write a sentence. By December, you're writing a freaking paragraph high five. We're putting it on the wall. Yeah. You're being praised for this. And you as a student should be gaining your grades, should represent your growth in that process, not. Whether you hit some arbitrary goal that was set by the state. Yes. We have to focus on that for the test. We don't have to focus on that in the classroom. The classroom is about growth, it's about authenticity. It's about honoring these young people so they care about their education. So eventually they do hit that standard, but if they're so far below standard. We can only work with which we have. And I think that that line that you read is really, that's the whole point of empowering young people, empowering young writers and empowering teachers, is we, we start where we start and we get to where we get. Yeah. And it's our goal to enjoy the journey. Yeah. And if we make it miserable, no one's ever gonna grow. Ever. No. No. We have to honor the progress and the process and not just the product. Right. And. anD I, and I think for me it's very, it's clear to talk about or to say to myself, okay, I'm going to use This, I'm gonna grade this and this is gonna be, this is, but for my report card, like I have a report card, I have to put a grade in it. And you know, sometimes I was able, and sometimes teachers are able to really vary what they use as a grade. So maybe it is a progress grade, what have you. But I know that these are gonna be the things that some, somehow I am going to get the grade that works for the report card because I have to maybe, but the rest of it that I'm doing. Is the way I wanna do it to show progress. And I'm not gonna worry about the expectation of you know, this mastery on a report card looks like this. I'm just gonna worry that this student is here and I wanna get him here. Yep. For writing specifically, the way I graded writing is they had a, and some of this is from, linda Reef, she talked about setting a a page goal. Mm-Hmm. For kids. And so I set a goal of, you know, three to five pages of rough draft a week that we checked every single Friday. And I say three to five pages of rough draft. That's not like page like top to bottom. That's I. You're showing me over the course of several days that you're clearly writing, you're thinking, and I have conference notes to say that even if you're not meeting the page goal, that we're thinking through it. That we're, we're working through stuff. We're, we're, we're documenting the whole step of the process. Mm-Hmm. And so there's that, that would go into the grade book, kind of the process piece. And then when kids published, they had a form that they filled out where they told me what standards that we studied in the last five weeks, Are present in this. How did you use them? What was your purpose of your piece? Did you achieve that? And I had kids advocate for themselves in writing and tell me what grade they should get. And there's, I had a kind of really simple rubric that I changed according to whatever unit that we were in. But the format stayed the same. And so kids filled it out. And then every kid in my class that I taught, I went and sat with them. They turned that piece in. Then I went, not the piece, but they turned in the paper and I went and sat with them and we had their journals open to look at what their, all their rough drafting was and all of their process, their final piece and then their piece. And I had them advocate and tell me all the things that they did from our mini lessons that are present in their pieces. Mm-Hmm. And if I had questions, I would ask. Or if I thought that maybe they were off base, then we would do that. And oftentimes people are like, well, kids are just gonna give themselves hundreds. Yeah. I had like two or three kids that would do that. The vast majority of kids rate themselves so low. They, they, they don't have the confidence. And so they're like, oh, you know, this is probably like a 60 or 75. And so this became this empowering practice where I sat with them and I was like, no. I was like, you did this. Like you, you use this, this standard here. I can clearly tell, like this is clearly modeled after something that we did here. And so. Having that became this non oppressive way to grade their writing because they were doing it, and then they were telling me about it. And then I, as the more experienced writer, and the teacher would go, okay, so I get why you say this. Here's why you missed the Mark A. Little bit. Mm-Hmm, So it wasn't, you turn it in, you get 10 red marks, I hand it back to you. It becomes this collaborative process that didn't feel rude and it didn't feel aggressive. And I also preface the entire activity by saying Hey, there's pieces that you write. For other people and there's pieces that you write for yourself. You might write a piece that's using these standards because you know that I'm gonna come to you and that's what we need to do for this unit. Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. But you might write three other pieces that are just for you. Right. That you don't want graded at all because they don't need a grade and they don't belong to have a grade. Mm-Hmm. So even as a teacher, I would be honest and be like, look, I have grades I have to do. Right? I have a certain amount of things I have to do. I have standards I have to teach. But I actively thought about how do I hide as much of that as possible. To keep it more engaging for them. And that was, that was one of my solutions. Right? Yeah, absolutely. I think that's such a great way to not only empower them, but have them look and, and pay attention to, and actually consider what they have done, reflect on it, it becomes even more meaningful next time Well, Mr. Chasteen. I hope you've had as much fun as I have. I really, yes. I can talk forever. Yes, me too. So I appreciate it. I'm sure I'll have to split this up into a couple episodes, but thank you so much for, for coming on for the listeners. We really appreciate it and I hope we'll talk again. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much.
00:00:05
Hey there. Fabulous teacher. Have you been wondering how to make writing time in your classroom more effective for your students? Do you want your students to love writing time? If so, I think it's time for you and I to start transforming your writing instruction. I'm Melissa Morrison and I have a passion for helping teachers to feel confident in teaching, writing, and help them grow successful writers. I've worked with numerous teachers to guide them through this transformation, and in this podcast I bring you the practical strategies you need to make writing the best time of your day. Let's get going. We've already talked about so much, and I haven't even picked up the book or anything. And so I wanna look. I, I would actually just love to read the, I, I might even read the whole first page that you have in here because I think it's so significant and I hope that people will listen to it and then go read the rest of your book if they haven't already, because I think Any educator, regardless of whether or not you teach reading or writing would benefit from so many of the ideas that you have in the book. So if you don't mind yeah, go ahead. Yeah. The time has come to shift how we think about writing in our schools. Writing has come to be synonymous with following strict outlines, responding to prompts, and awaiting irrefutable judgment from the teacher for a final verdict on the quality of a piece. Writing has been dehumanized for the most part, by a system that's overly obsessed with grades and with quantitative data over qualitative data, I propose we shift away from this limiting system and look at the writing our students are doing, and the writing we are doing with them as the act of bringing our inner lives and voices and our souls into the world around us. Writing is far more than just responding to stimuli or performing for a grade. It is intrinsically tied to the self, our hearts. Faults, feelings and desires. It is deeply personal, powerful, and transformative. I propose that our classrooms should be places that honor this deeper understanding of what it means to bring our inner lives into the world, concurrently honoring the lives of everyone in the writing workshop. That's good stuff right there, Mr. Chastain. Thank you. Yes, you're welcome. And I, I just wish that. There was more thought about what is happening with writing in our schools. And as you were saying that depending on the testing grades Mm-hmm. whether or not writing is more prevalent in that year's worth of schooling. But I think that it's also, and for who knows all the reasons because of reading Issues that have come to light. And so we're push on different parts of reading. But writing has, I have not noticed in any teacher that I've spoken with across the country, coaches in my own schools that it's been, it's almost never been, a priority or something that we're looking at, and teachers don't have the training on it. Their time isn't set for it in their schedule. And also just though all these struggles come up with, well, when I do writing, this happens, it's like, well, why can we think about why that's happening? And I think if we just spend enough time, With people doing that, really thinking like what is happening with our students and what is happening in our writing? And what would you, how would you enjoy that? You know, what would that be like for you? I Think there would just be a beginning of that change there. I wanna hit on something you just said because I think it's super important to talk about you. You mentioned the, the lack of focus Mm-Hmm. on writing in schools and it's 100% true. It's absolutely true. The, the, the ELA and literacy wars are almost predominantly focused on reading. It's, you know, the, right now for, you know, people that maybe not be in the minutia of everything. You know, it's the, the whole what is science of reading? Is it as valid as everyone's saying? Is it, as you know, is, is there a real science of reading or is that just a catchall term for certain things, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Writing though, there is no writing war, right? There's no writing conversation. There's a small group of educators who are all kind of trying to support what writing looks like, but increasingly, curriculums don't even really care about it. It's all writing in response to something. Mm-Hmm. it's writing to Perform. And this is, I think, really interesting 'cause when we look at our curriculum, there's different versions of, of writing that, that we can focus on. And so, for instance, when you read I've talked to teachers like, oh yeah, my kids write. I'm like, how do they write? Oh, yeah. You know, they, they write in their journals every day after they do independent reading. Mm-Hmm. Cool. That is one type of writing, but that is, that, that's writing in response to something that's a very specific kind of writing. How often are kids writing because they're exploring an idea. Or because they had a response to something that you did in your mini lesson or they had an idea at home, and this is really coming up here. How often do kids really get to choose the genre that they write in? Right? I know not every standard is as wide to hit every genre as possible. Mm-Hmm. I'm perfectly aware of that. Mm-Hmm. But a lot of standards are, and there's a lot of standards that fit in multi-gen. I'll give you an example. I was working when we did our standard reboot over here in Texas. There were, we had the new standards early, but they weren't really in curriculum. And so I, at the time, I was a literacy coach. I had one class of 20 while I went and coached other teachers at the other periods. And in this class of 20, I started experimenting, right. And I started just like really having fun and, and looking at the new standards. And I looked at arguments and I was like, okay, so. I, has anyone ever heard of Bob Marley? Bob Dylan, the Beatles rage Against the Machine, right? NWA. Like all of these things are persuasive arguments in music. Mm-Hmm. There's movies. Yes. There's, you have your, your Spider-Man, and you have the Avengers and stuff, but you also have movies that really Argue a specific point. Mm-Hmm. a deeper meaning. You have novels that do this, right? There's Harry Potter does this on, on a, on a very simple level, but 1984 does it on a whole different level. And so you have these, or the giver, right? The giver versus the outsiders is one that always used for middle school teachers. Mm-Hmm. And it's like the, the Outsiders is a good book, and it's good and it's great, but like the giver is, there's an argument being made about society, about what it means to be a human. And so when I was looking at teaching argument for kids, I said, Why do I have to limit this to writing an argumentative essay, right? So I said, we'll teach the essay. I'm gonna teach the argumentative essay 'cause it's in my curriculum. And then I turned around and said, all right, kids. Now we've looked at this argument, we looked at how poems can be arguments. We looked at how a short story can be an argument, and we looked at how an article can be an argument. You pick the next genre that we're gonna do a whole nother argument and or change your argument into that genre. Mm. And so it taught kids, okay, so what does it look like to advocate in an essay then, or argue in an essay? What does it look like to argue in a poem? Mm-Hmm, And then what that did is that started breaking their. Misconceptions about writing that this the things that we're talking about when kids, when teachers are like, all right, kids, we're in the argumentative unit. We're gonna be reading this. It's like, no, like argument can go into so many things. And what happens though when you break that typical mold and let kids explore, but you're showing them stuff. It's not just go explore. It's, I'm putting mini lessons, I'm putting thought into how I'm showing them to walk through these things, right? How to think through these things. But what it does is it empowers them because they're like, oh, I have so many choices. There's so many things I can do. anD it, and it really creates this freedom. But when we talk about the, the reasons why we should talk about writing is that transcends their understanding of genre as readers. Mm-Hmm. So the fact that writing isn't being. Paid attention to is affecting reading because to understand something as a reader is one thing to read like a reader, right? Right. I'm enjoying it. I'm thinking about characters. How does it relate to me? But then to look at it as a writer and go, okay, so how did the writer do that? Guess what happens when you know the skills of persuasion you can Realize that's happening. When you hear the news, when you read an argumentative article, right, a persuasive article, you notice you're not being persuaded by this argument in a tweet because you're like, oh, I understand. I understand the, the form that they're doing there. So teaching writing helps kids be better readers. Yet we don't focus on it at all. And I think it's just a huge misstep. It is, absolutely. It's, it's so, I sometimes I'm just, I don't get it. I don't get it. We gotta get it in there. What's going on? You know? And the way you were speaking about teaching that argument in that way. It, it does so many things. It, it provides them the. That choice. Right. And it empowers them, but it gives them so much more practice than just choosing one way to write it. Right. And sometimes I think we do either shorten, either shorten that little unit that we, if we wanna do it or we belabor it. Right. And, but you want them to practice it so many times and in so many different ways. So that's very helpful in that way too. It, I was listening and as you said, break the mold and we're so afraid to break the mold. We're so afraid to do something differently. We, and I hear it all the time, teachers say this whatever resource program part of our curriculum is not working for my kids. Which to me sounds like, okay, you wanna do something that meets the needs of this class right now and, you know, it's always different or for, you know, what have you. Mm-Hmm, But then when opportunity often is provided To break the mold to just, let's see what happens. It's so scary. Yeah. And so hard for them. I want to can we, like, I feel like it's important to also point out that. You know, a lot of the reasons why teachers are afraid to do it is because of the way principals and curriculum leads and districts control teachers. Right. Right. I mean, it's fidelity. People are afraid. Yeah. They're, yeah. We're gonna do this with fidelity, right? Mm-Hmm. this is our new program. We're gonna do your scores. We're down. So we're doing this. And guess what we're gonna do walks, and we're gonna be analyzing this very specific thing, and we're gonna send you to trainings about this and It beca it becomes this really combative stance. Right? One of the reasons I went into administration was because I had great principals that weren't like that, where they were very, they partnered with me and they listened to me as the educator and they trusted me. Sure. Did they see things from a bigger viewpoint? 'cause they're looking at a whole school. Mm-Hmm. And so they pushed back on some of my ideas or some of the things I'm wanna do. Absolutely. Did they have to reign me in sometimes because Mm-Hmm, I like to break rules, absolutely. But the ones I respected, honored that, and worked with me through what inspired me as an educator. And, but there's tons of people who don't do that. I, you know, doing the Teach Me Teacher podcast for so long and craft and draft. The one thing I've heard from teachers over and over and over again is like, I don't have freedom. My principals don't support me. Right. I'm the only one on my team who's even reading pd. Everyone else is, you know, they're just like showing up, doing what is everyth in the curriculum, doing the PowerPoint that was pre-made. Mm-Hmm. for a different class or that they bought on teachers, paid teachers, or whatever. They're going home. And so a lot of people get frustrated because they're like, I, I don't even know how to break the mold, because it's like, am I gonna get in trouble? Am I just gonna ostracize myself from my team? What if I do it and I fail? And then everyone goes, see, we told you not to break the mold There's, there's a million reasons why, but I wanna tell people after that. That honoring where the, the very truth of what a lot of teachers are. I think it's also important to tell them that there is bodies, and bodies and bodies of research that backs everything we've said on this podcast. Mm-Hmm. and everything that you teach about on, on your other episodes, there's. None of this is being just spoken about because it's our opinion. Mm-Hmm. This is stuff that we've put into practice, that we've worked through, that we've seen work, but it's also stuff that is backed by the giants that came before us. You know, Donald Graves, penny Kittle, Lucy Calkins. There's, there's so many people who have gone through. Done a lot of the, the, the research and a lot of the real world practices of this, that it's something, it's not just invented today. Mm-Hmm. this is workshop has been around since the eighties. Mm-Hmm. really since the late seventies. If you want to really count like the early studies. This isn't something that is the new catchall. Right. And I get it. It's not as flashy and it might be a little scary, but this is, I, I think that just like when it comes to like, oh my God, I know something's wrong. I wanna do something different. Have the confidence that this has, I. Research backed behind it, and maybe don't dive into that first, dive into the other things that are maybe a little bit more accessible, But go read the research. I always say like, don't, don't just take people's word for it. Go read the citations in, in these larger books that talk about workshop, they're there. It's not like this is just a choice. And so I think, you know, have, have comfort in that when it comes to breaking the mold. Oh yes. Thank you for sharing that. And I, and I certainly agree that it all the way teachers feel often is coming from what's above them and then those people from what's above them. Sure. It's this system. And you spoke before about the quick fix that, that's it right there. A hundred. You say the scores are coming down and so we need to quick fix this. So that next year, the scores are not worse, and so we're going to quick fix it by giving you this program or doing this instead of really looking at what is happening. Finding out what's working, what's not working, and all of that. So yes, it's, it's a part of a much larger issue. But that's why it's so important for us as teachers and, you know coaches and all of that, to really be aware and to still to just to try it and think about what's going on. 'cause it's still our kids in our classroom that we're responsible for And I think it's just important to remember that and then make decisions based on the students in our classroom. and what we feel is best for them. So what I wanted to talk about next is in. chapter five, the writing conference as a connection and I love that title, but in On page 52, you talk about there's no step-by-step approach. And the line that I had underlined here was, while there are programs packets and beautiful graphic organizers available to purchase online that promise to streamline conferences, there is no way those could ever come close to the effort you put into knowing each one of your students deeply with the goal of serving each in the ways that they need to be successful in the workshop. And we kind of hit on this a little bit about trying to find exactly what your writer is doing or what they need. Mm-Hmm. But I know that again, sometimes this, this worry of getting them to write, you know, and hitting our expectations and doing our curriculum. Sure. We feel that the time it takes to really talk to our writers is not. We can't spend time on that, right? Mm-Hmm. I don't wanna say that teachers don't think it's valuable, because I'm sure they do. Sure. But it's hard for them to feel as though they can really take the time to do that. And I talk a lot to them, and again, I, you know, I am a little bit more in the lower grades, although I, I have worked with the upper grades, but really for everybody, like I say to them, I want you to get in their head and try to let them show you what happens when they go to write. So what questions can you ask them to be able to get in their head? Because we really wanna know, when I see that student stop writing or what have you, I can guess why I could make a guess and an assumption, but I don't really know. And when you start to ask questions, you find out so much from them. So I, I really loved reading that my, you know, to that point, I, I dealt with a lot of. The, those questions. Right. Because it's not a by and large, you know, I, I, I really love educators because educators are problem solvers. Mm-Hmm. And I love, I love teaching teachers because I. They ask like the most pointed questions. Mm-Hmm. Because they've, they all see, we've all been in a classroom and we all know the exceptions to everything that can happen in a classroom. Right, right, right. And so it's, it's so fun to really dive for me, it's fun to dive into the nuances of someone's problems and that's why I love gonna trainings and then I end up in conversations with people afterwards all the time because I just like listening to kind of their, okay, you said this, but for conferences, I, here's the thing. I think that starting, if you feel like if, like if you're awkward about talking about writing or if you're a teacher that doesn't feel good in your own writing. One, you need to be writing so much or as often as you can that you learn how to talk about writing. Yes, because that's that, that's number one. It's if you're not writing yourself, and I'm talking like really writing. Writing what your kids do. Like Penny Kittle has a great quote where she says she didn't realize how bad her writing assignments was were until she did them. Yes. And she was like, oh, well this is why my kids aren't writing. Or, or, you know, maybe she did create a good assignment. And she's like, oh, but I see why they're. Like why this piece is a struggle? 'cause it's a struggle for me. And a lot of teachers are like, well, I'm not a good writer. I haven't been writing that long. I, you know, I don't publish, I don't do any of those things. Mm-Hmm. you don't, you don't have to be the best writer. You are the most experienced writer in the classroom. Right. You're the most experienced thinker in the classroom. Mm-Hmm. And so bringing your knowledge of, Hey guys, I was writing this last night and I got stuck on this line, and I kind of wanted to just talk about that. And so for five minutes you walk around, or if you didn't want to do it as a, as part of your lesson, I would have my journal with me. 100%. Especially in my, the group that I did rightfully empowered with I was doing like slam poetry and I was trying to Mm-Hmm write with them and show them what I was doing. And I would sit down and be like, I was like, okay, so you first tell me where you're at. And like I would sit there and listen as a fellow writer and I would get them to talk with me. Just what are they thinking about? What are they, going through. And so we would do that, and then I would show them mine. And what ended up happening is I empowered them to help me. Mm-Hmm. And to look at my stuff. And that is a really advanced version of writing conferencing to me. Mm-Hmm. that is like, you're, you're firing on all cylinders. You have writers in your classroom. They see you as a fellow writer, not necessarily their, their boss. And so there's this really great relationship that's like ideal. They didn't start that way. Right. It started with me inviting them to write Mm-Hmm. And so we would have writing time and I set the precedent that we write during this time, and we went through all the phases, what I talked about earlier on the podcast that do we write all the time? Mm-Hmm. no. Is it okay to have music? Yes. Like this is the time for all of that stuff is in place. But you walk around and at first for sixth graders is what I realized. They would all write, but they would, it's all creative writing. It's stuff from, you know, fifth grade, fourth grade. It's the stuff they've been doing forever, but inevitably they'll stop. Right? Mm-Hmm. they'll run out of the Two ideas that they've been writing about for the last five years, right? Mm-Hmm. And so I would go sit down and I would go, so whatcha thinking about? And. It would be that. But it was also what I would do, especially in these early times when I was building those early relationships. I would just talk to 'em. I would literally not even talk about the writing, right. I would for a second, but if they're stuck, I'd be like, Hey. So, you know, and I would ask questions about, Hey, I met your mom at Meet the Teacher. Mm-Hmm. You know, she seems really cool. Like, do you, is dad around? You know, like just asking questions. Oh, I saw that you play sports or whatever. Just anything I could do to latch onto them. And then once I started really talking to them, I would eventually latch onto something that they cared about. Right. And it might take a few conferences, right? Not every kid is gonna open up immediately. Mm-Hmm. You might not have a connection with every kid. Every we, we've all felt that, right? No matter how grave an educator are, sometimes you're just like, I can't find the connection to this one person, but. Me having those conversations with no really ulterior motive, other than what I would do is I would jot notes about them. Mm-Hmm. And I'd be like, okay, parents are divorced, loves football. Really is crazy about this anime show. Mm-Hmm. Hasn't really read a book, but their favorite book is amulet. Right. And so I would kind of do that and, but eventually we would hit on something they cared about. And I would say, you know what? You sound really passionate about that. I would love to hear more about that. Could, how much do you think you could write about that? Mm-Hmm. And so it was almost talking with them long enough to where they realize they have things to write, right? It's that they're not used to finding out, they're not used to picking out the good ideas in their minds. Mm-Hmm. right? Like when an experienced writer sits down. We can sit down and we can hash out stuff, but we know when we're just kind of phoning it in or we know like, oh, I, I'm, I really got something here. Mm-Hmm. this is interesting. Mm-Hmm. something that I care about. Young people don't have that yet, especially if you're in the younger grades. They don't know what ideas are good or what ideas can be flushed out or what ideas are, you know, kind of half baked and may not go anywhere. Right. So we, we have to work with them to get them to go, you know what? I think that's a good idea. Let's try it. And then you come back the next day and you're like, Hey, I saw you stopped writing on that. Like. Yeah, it didn't work. Okay, so why didn't it work? And so you go through that process. So I would say start conferences there to where you just talk to your students. The expectation is that they're writing. Mm-Hmm. the expectations that they have a writing goal. Mm-Hmm. But when you're going around, have that conversation first and then I. The conversations about what they're writing will really start naturally. That's why I say like, you can have printed questions like, what are you writing about? Where do you see your writing going? Right. You can have all of those. I just feel like they're, it doesn't leave enough room for just listening to the kid and really hearing what they're telling you. Does that make sense? Yes. And it's, and it's building that relationship that not only is important for a teacher and student anyway, but when you want a writer to feel comfortable, that's necessary you to have that relationship. And so when you are sharing your writing, you're building that trust with them, right? And that relationship. Mm-Hmm, But then you're also just like, Hey, I just wanna talk to you. And, and that's important for any, I think that would be helpful for any writer at any level, for them to just feel comfortable and just stop with that feeling of expectation. Right. Or I'm supposed to do this right now. I'm supposed to be having this, I think, I think I even see that in the youngest writer. Like, what, what does, what, what does she want me to say? You know? Mm-Hmm. That right there. That right. That is what I wanna break. I don't care. Right? I don't want you, when my writers are in my space, I do not want them ever to go, oh my God, what does Chastain wanna see? Right? I don't want that at all. What I want them to see is I want them, what I want them to be like, oh, I wrote something. I want to show Chastain. What does he wanna see? But what do I wanna show him? Mm-Hmm. And so, because I, the kids don't have to know that we're focusing, like when I'm walking around, I'm focusing on the things that I need to do to get them to grow a hundred percent right. Right. But I'm doing that in a way that they understand. I'm talking to them relationally. I'm talking about their lives. We're talking, I'm teaching them how to talk as a writer very slowly, right? And, and so it breaks that mold and eventually. It stops going, okay, I need to write this. So Chastain approves, it's, oh my God, I wrote this Chastain, come look. And those are two vastly different conversations. Yeah. And when they start wanting to show versus they just want to perform. Yeah. That's like, that's like the name of the game. Yes, absolutely. And I think when teachers, and this is actually the other page I was gonna talk about in the book, about thinking about the outcome and wanting this equal outcome that you, you talk about for everyone. And I think that. We are so worried about that outcome, right. And what it's gonna look like. But even if we did that and we thought that even if we agreed that that's okay, we have an outcome, we want everybody to have that outcome. Okay, fine. How are you gonna get it? Mm-Hmm, how are you gonna get it if you don't build all of that that you were just talking about with your writers and you don't have a relationship and you don't build their confidence and you don't have them find meaning and, and wanting to write. How will you ever get that? Right? So, but we don't want that, right? We don't want the equal outcome. But that's the, the last thing I was gonna bring up was from page six, what to expect, and this is just in the beginning of the book, right? Let's see. You talk about. tHat the human spirit is not standardized and being empowered to use and hone their voices in the classroom should be a fundamental right for all students in their wonderful diversities, including but not limited to their neuro racial and gender diversities. This is not to be confused or conflated with a call for equity. Equality, sorry, of outcome or the idea that everyone ends up in the exact same place while an Empowered Writing workshop aims to have every student improve their command of language and writing, striving for a quality of outcome runs the risk of not honoring the diversity present in all our classrooms because people with vast differences will have vastly different outcomes. And you do go on, but I, you know, yes. We all, one of the first things teachers ask me. About writing instruction and writing is and especially if they don't have anything in place, you know, in their curriculum they'll say, but what do we want them to be doing? You know, what is the expectation? What should a third grader be doing right now? Mm-Hmm, And I wanna say, I don't know. I don't care. that's what I wanna say, because, but we do, we have, teachers have a mindset because principals have a mindset. Sure of, you know, we're trying to get to this place. But I always just feel it's, regardless of what that place is, I have to know where my writers are now anyway. Right. And I have to know Right. What they can do. The, you know, it's funny, I'm so glad you picked that line to talk about, I have wanted to talk about this on a podcast forever. Mm-Hmm. because it's, it, it's, to me that argument. Is present throughout the entire book, and it's, it's one of those things that I, I wrote as a writer in the sense that. I didn't want the whole book to drown in it, but I wanted the fundamental point to be made because it's a, it's also a political point, which is the, the equality of outcome, right, is different than equity of access. And so equity to access is, everyone has the right to, to have access to literacy, right? Everyone has the right to have access to books that they care about and to write about what they want, and we can set those parameters. We can control how we begin kids on their path of literacy, right? Or how we begin their journey of that in our classrooms. We have control over that. We don't have control over. Where they start, by the time they get there, we don't have control over the lives. They live at home. We don't have control over their, just their intellectual capacity. Right? Mm-Hmm. We live in a world where every, they wanna make everything kind of neutral and stuff, but I, I, I have a son with special needs. I don't want him treated like every other kid, right? Mm-Hmm. I want him to have the same access as to stuff, but there's also things that he just simply doesn't have access to because of his autism. Mm-Hmm. So there is. Like speaking from that standpoint. Yeah, it sounds great. Okay. Let's make everything just on an even playing field and go, and we're going to end it this way. My son is gonna end up in a far different place than the GT kid who excels at abstract thought, right? Mm-Hmm. There's mm-Hmm. They're going to be different and that's okay. Mm-Hmm. We live in a world where that isn't necessarily kosher to say all the time. And it's this weird school paradigm because the standardization of what progress looks like misinterprets the growth of students. And so this is where I say like. We know standardized testing is a thing, right? I talk about it all the time. I would literally, at a school when I got hired, TEA was in the building. Mm-Hmm. basically about to take us over, right? Mm-Hmm. I had been in a failing school. Mm-Hmm. I understand what those conversations are like, but you know how we fixed it? We focused on literacy practices. The, the principal that finally came, we partnered, I partnered with her, and we created a writing It wasn't a writing program, but it was a focus on writing in every class. Mm-Hmm. And we studied it as. Teachers, we took all of their writing. I read literally 800 pieces every six weeks in order to not judge every piece. Mm-Hmm. But it was to go, okay, so this is where we're at on a literacy time, on a, on a literacy continuum on our campus. Mm-Hmm. And then we, I took it to trainings for the teachers and I said, look at this. Look at how this kid wrote in math. Mm-Hmm. And look at how they wrote in social studies. Why are they so vastly different? Mm. Is it because of the expectations that we're holding in the classroom about what. Using language is and math versus social studies. Mm-Hmm. And so we started tightening up that language, but we never said every kid has to be, at this point, by the end of the year, it's we're gonna do growth. Right. And so we tracked growth. We had growth that we had to do because we had to get the, the state test up to a certain point. Right? Yeah. That's a non-negotiable. But in order to fuel the soul of teachers, in order to fuel the soul of students, we kept portfolios. Mm-Hmm. And so kids. every time they published a piece, which in our, my term here when I say publish, is they did everything on paper in journals. And then when they finally typed it up and did kind of the last formatting of everything that was publishing Mm-Hmm. And so. Every piece that they published went into a portfolio. And so at the semester they go back and they go, oh my God, look at all the things I've written. Mm-Hmm. Look at all this. Okay. So we reflect on that. We talk about our growth as writers. What is, how much better are you doing? And at the end of the year, they're like, holy crap, what was I even doing? Yeah. This time? And it worked every time. And so. We kids saw their growth. We could look to parents and say, look at what your kid's doing right now. I know they made a 65 on this writing test, but look at the growth that we've seen here. And so I always talk about the preponderance of evidence that you have your standardized evidence that you have to have. Cool. Let's honor the other 75% that actually matters to get kids on a trajectory where they're gonna be successful years down the line, not just on this test for this year. Right. And. That to me is something that I'm deeply passionate about and it's why I also wanted to go into administration. 'cause I wanted to preach that to teachers and be like, look, let's handle The state piece because we have to. Mm-Hmm. But let's also not forget about the 75% of all this other stuff that really sets kids up on, on a path of success, on such a deeper level. And it works. It just works. And it, you see the growth in the kids. But it's all because we're honoring, Hey, look. You came to my classroom barely to write a sentence. By December, you're writing a freaking paragraph high five. We're putting it on the wall. Yeah. You're being praised for this. And you as a student should be gaining your grades, should represent your growth in that process, not. Whether you hit some arbitrary goal that was set by the state. Yes. We have to focus on that for the test. We don't have to focus on that in the classroom. The classroom is about growth, it's about authenticity. It's about honoring these young people so they care about their education. So eventually they do hit that standard, but if they're so far below standard. We can only work with which we have. And I think that that line that you read is really, that's the whole point of empowering young people, empowering young writers and empowering teachers, is we, we start where we start and we get to where we get. Yeah. And it's our goal to enjoy the journey. Yeah. And if we make it miserable, no one's ever gonna grow. Ever. No. No. We have to honor the progress and the process and not just the product. Right. And. anD I, and I think for me it's very, it's clear to talk about or to say to myself, okay, I'm going to use This, I'm gonna grade this and this is gonna be, this is, but for my report card, like I have a report card, I have to put a grade in it. And you know, sometimes I was able, and sometimes teachers are able to really vary what they use as a grade. So maybe it is a progress grade, what have you. But I know that these are gonna be the things that some, somehow I am going to get the grade that works for the report card because I have to maybe, but the rest of it that I'm doing. Is the way I wanna do it to show progress. And I'm not gonna worry about the expectation of you know, this mastery on a report card looks like this. I'm just gonna worry that this student is here and I wanna get him here. Yep. For writing specifically, the way I graded writing is they had a, and some of this is from, linda Reef, she talked about setting a a page goal. Mm-Hmm. For kids. And so I set a goal of, you know, three to five pages of rough draft a week that we checked every single Friday. And I say three to five pages of rough draft. That's not like page like top to bottom. That's I. You're showing me over the course of several days that you're clearly writing, you're thinking, and I have conference notes to say that even if you're not meeting the page goal, that we're thinking through it. That we're, we're working through stuff. We're, we're, we're documenting the whole step of the process. Mm-Hmm. And so there's that, that would go into the grade book, kind of the process piece. And then when kids published, they had a form that they filled out where they told me what standards that we studied in the last five weeks, Are present in this. How did you use them? What was your purpose of your piece? Did you achieve that? And I had kids advocate for themselves in writing and tell me what grade they should get. And there's, I had a kind of really simple rubric that I changed according to whatever unit that we were in. But the format stayed the same. And so kids filled it out. And then every kid in my class that I taught, I went and sat with them. They turned that piece in. Then I went, not the piece, but they turned in the paper and I went and sat with them and we had their journals open to look at what their, all their rough drafting was and all of their process, their final piece and then their piece. And I had them advocate and tell me all the things that they did from our mini lessons that are present in their pieces. Mm-Hmm. And if I had questions, I would ask. Or if I thought that maybe they were off base, then we would do that. And oftentimes people are like, well, kids are just gonna give themselves hundreds. Yeah. I had like two or three kids that would do that. The vast majority of kids rate themselves so low. They, they, they don't have the confidence. And so they're like, oh, you know, this is probably like a 60 or 75. And so this became this empowering practice where I sat with them and I was like, no. I was like, you did this. Like you, you use this, this standard here. I can clearly tell, like this is clearly modeled after something that we did here. And so. Having that became this non oppressive way to grade their writing because they were doing it, and then they were telling me about it. And then I, as the more experienced writer, and the teacher would go, okay, so I get why you say this. Here's why you missed the Mark A. Little bit. Mm-Hmm, So it wasn't, you turn it in, you get 10 red marks, I hand it back to you. It becomes this collaborative process that didn't feel rude and it didn't feel aggressive. And I also preface the entire activity by saying Hey, there's pieces that you write. For other people and there's pieces that you write for yourself. You might write a piece that's using these standards because you know that I'm gonna come to you and that's what we need to do for this unit. Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. But you might write three other pieces that are just for you. Right. That you don't want graded at all because they don't need a grade and they don't belong to have a grade. Mm-Hmm. So even as a teacher, I would be honest and be like, look, I have grades I have to do. Right? I have a certain amount of things I have to do. I have standards I have to teach. But I actively thought about how do I hide as much of that as possible. To keep it more engaging for them. And that was, that was one of my solutions. Right? Yeah, absolutely. I think that's such a great way to not only empower them, but have them look and, and pay attention to, and actually consider what they have done, reflect on it, it becomes even more meaningful next time Well, Mr. Chasteen. I hope you've had as much fun as I have. I really, yes. I can talk forever. Yes, me too. So I appreciate it. I'm sure I'll have to split this up into a couple episodes, but thank you so much for, for coming on for the listeners. We really appreciate it and I hope we'll talk again. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much.
