Cris Tovani Thoughts

About a month ago, All-Write hosted Cris Tovani.  I probably should have blogged about the workshop the next day, but I didn’t.  Instead, I’m blogging about it today after I’ve had some time to digest the information.

First, if you ever have the chance to hear Cris speak, you should jump at the opportunity.  She is a great presenter (and makes a lot of sense too).  The way I’m going to structure this post is a quote from Cris followed by my thoughts.

“What if we viewed being smart as a goal that students could work toward rather than something they either are or are not?” — Ron Rittchardt

Okay, so this isn’t something Cris said, but something she quoted.  I wrote this on a sticky note and put it with the notebook I use to plan lessons.  It’s an important state of mind to adapt as it influences many decisions in the minute by minute play of a workshop. 

“We are strongest when our beliefs about education match our instruction.”

This makes me consider each move I make in workshop.  Are the experiences I’m pushing for my students to have reflective of my belief about education?  For example, one of my students is reluctant with everything.  Students sit anywhere they want during work time and in the past I’ve moved students back to their seats if they aren’t working.  Today I watched this reluctant student avoid reading his book.  Instead of moving him back to his seat, I had a conference with him.  By getting to the heart of who he is as a reader and writer, I will be able to help him become less reluctant in English class.  This makes much more sense than sending him back to his seat, where he will continue to avoid reading, just in a different location.

“The way in which one defines the ‘act of reading’ affects how one delivers instruction and assigns homework.”

This inspires me to learn how experts in different fields go about reading.  My husband reads the sports page in the newspaper in a very different manner than I do.  He’ll spend most of his time staring at the charts — I usually blow right past them.  He reads the articles and connects them to what he has seen on ESPN.  I look for the local teams and barely ever read to the end.  This makes me realize if I’m going to teach students to read well in all content areas, then I need to figure out how experts in these areas read.  I need to talk to the history teacher and math teacher and health teacher in order to teach students how to read in different situations.

“Nobody is a bad reader at everything, just as nobody is a good reader at everything!”

This makes a lot of sense to me and allows me to approach instruction from a positive standpoint.  It’s good for our students to know some things are difficult for us to read.  It’s also good for them to know they are strong at reading some texts.  At the end of the year, I expect students to know the kinds of texts they are strong at reading and the kinds of texts which are more difficult for them to read.