Dear colleague,
The other day, I received a text message from the ever-enthusiastic and always-growing educator Mr. David T. Reese. (He wrote a guest blog several years ago that you can read right here.)
David said,
I'm not the boss of you; however, I think it'd be pretty cool if you did an ‘all call' for what people want to Woodenize at the start of this school year. And maybe people can even share documents if they want.
Me? I'm trying to get kids to master what we do with the titles of texts in various genres. What do we put in quotes vs italics/underline?
I love this idea. Let me set it up.
What is Woodenization?
I've written about Woodenization at length elsewhere (Strategy #7 in The Will to Learn; this blog guide), but let me sum it up as follows.
Woodenization is first and foremost an attitude that says, “I assume that if I want my students to do something well, it's my job to be clear about how to do it.” The name comes from Coach John Wooden, who famously taught his collegiate athletes how to put on their socks and tie their shoes on the first day of practice each season.
When Woodenizing, teachers are wise to think in terms of two categories:
- Smallies — stuff that can be taught once, with total clarity, and then reinforced thereafter. Smallies are matters of habit. These are things you can reasonably expect students to have encountered in school before; nonetheless, you teach them clearly and then you reinforce them calmly and religiously.
- E.g., how to enter the classroom, how to complete the lesson warm-up, how to find assignments on Canvas, how to use the cell phone garage
- Biggies — stuff that needs to be taught multiple times over a time period in order for students to better understand how to do it well. Biggies are matters of skill. These are things where it makes sense that the students you teach would need time, repetition, and modeling in order to improve.
- E.g., how to take notes for learning, how to increase your writing stamina, how to study
The key question of the Woodenizer is this: what learning-conducive behaviors would I like all of my students to master? From there, pick a few smallies and one biggie that you most want your students to master, and start breaking them down with as much clarity and simplicity and power as you can.
So, what do you want to Woodenize to start this school year?
- Up above, David said he wants to Woodenize how to handle the names of texts in writing. I love this and would guess he'll probably approach it as a smallie: he can teach it once, and then the transformation in his students will come from how well he reinforces it.
- For me right now, I'm Woodenizing notes that facilitate learning (here's that link again for how I do that) and how to bring the power of retrieval practice into both classroom work and homework.
So how about you? Leave your answer in the comments.
Woodenizing right beside you,
DSJR
Kelly Garinger says
I’m currently Woodenizing the MLA heading and style for submitting work in an ELA class. Soon, we’ll include how citations should look according to MLA. I use the first few weeks of school to imprint expectations about what should happen during certain points of each class period, also. A lot of small things that add up to a big thing: a class that runs smoothly all year long.
Jennifer Radtke says
I actually printed the word “Woodenize” to hang on my wall to remind me when I get frustrated that I need to rewind and Woodenize it. I’m going to start with note taking for all of middle school because it’s a good to be an expert at before they get to high school. The small thing will be call and response. My class is all first borns or onlys this year, 3/4 boys, and did a personality test with them and they’re mostly bulldozers. They don’t always like to take correction or redirection.
Beth Jarosch says
Our district is Woodenizing Multiple Response Strategies. We are trying to shift away from hands raised…..one student responses. Learning to incorporate Think-Pair-Shares, Ink-Pair-Shares, Whiteboard Responses, Whip Arounds, Short Constructed Response Cards, and Table Talks takes explicit teaching into the how.
David Reese says
This looks amazing. If you have any explanatory documents, I’d love to see them–otherwise I look online. (I’m not familiar with all these strategies.)
-david reese
David Reese says
Yikes. Guess I better post. In an effort to “woodenize” titles we:
1) used the doc cam to record a t-chart of when we underline/italicize (left side) and use quotation marks (right side). That T-chart will stay in our notebook all year.
2) I provided a sample writing with a number of errors that we corrected in a think-pair-share (I wrote a short piece about movies, songs, and books from my childhood), and
3) tonight/tomorrow’s assignment asks the kids to do what I did.
Oh. I created a “standards based assessment” rubric to document/post their progress (meets standard, approaches, struggling, did not complete/submit).
If anyone wants a pdf/google doc of these items, send me an email. 🙂
Thanks for the opportunity DSJ!
Julia Semsick says
Last year, I Woodenized quick writes with my 7th grade ELA students. Some biggies/some smallies.
I used a whole-class novel as the focus and provided opportunities to write two-three times/week. Students entered the room, looked at the board to find the prompts (I provided three choices), retrieved notebooks and pencils, and began thinking. Well, ideally:)
After briefly talking through the prompts and answering any questions, I set a timer for five minutes and watched the students write. Sometimes I wrote with my classes; sometimes I walked around the room providing encouragement, etc.
After writing, students tallied their words, always aiming for 100 or more, and tracked their progress in notebooks. Then, I asked for volunteers to share. (Pair/Share would work beautifully here.) Students were encouraged to share a summary of their writing rather than simply reading their writing.
Biggies: Students practiced crystalizing their thinking which helped them identify as writers. They improved in their ability to summarize. And, they built a healthy community of people who listen to one another.
Smallies: Checking the board, getting writing supplies, and gathering thoughts are helpful procedural habits learned fairly quickly.